Trump’s interior secretary Ryan Zinke quits, 9th to leave

U.S. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, who has aggressively rolled back Obama-era environmental protections, will be leaving his post at the end of the year, President Donald Trump tweeted on Saturday.

Zinke’s departure makes him the ninth Cabinet-level official to leave since Trump took office two years ago. Other departures have included Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt.

Trump did not give a reason for Zinke’s departure. However, the former Navy Seal and ex-congressman from Montana has faced scrutiny of his use of security details, chartered flights and a real estate deal.

“Ryan has accomplished much during his tenure and I want to thank him for his service to our Nation,” Trump said on Twitter. “The Trump administration will be announcing the new secretary of the Interior next week.”

Zinke has run the Interior Department, which oversees America’s vast public lands, since early 2017. He has aggressively pursued Trump’s agenda to promote oil drilling and coal mining by expanding federal leasing, cutting royalty rates, and easing land protections despite environmental protests.

Zinke, 51, was among Trump’s most active Cabinet members, cutting huge wilderness national monuments in Utah to a fraction of their size and proposing offshore oil drilling in the Arctic, Pacific and Atlantic. He became a darling of the U.S. energy and mining industries and a prime target for conservationists and environmental groups.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer welcomed Zinke’s departure in a tweet: “Ryan Zinke was one of the most toxic members of the cabinet in the way he treated our environment, our precious public lands, and the way he treated the govt like it was his personal honey pot.”

“The swamp cabinet will be a little less foul without him,” Schumer said.

Jamie Williams, president of the non-profit Wilderness Society, said he expects Zinke’s deputy and likely successor, David Bernhardt, to continue with the “drill everywhere” agenda.

“Deputy Secretary Bernhardt has made it his mission to stifle climate science and silence the public so polluters can profit,” said Williams. “Unfortunately, even with Secretary Zinke out, the Interior Department remains disturbingly biased in favour of special interests over the health of American communities and the public lands that they love.”