Tag: United States Department of the Interior

Good Wednesday morning. Here are some of the stories making news in Washington and politics today. _____________________ • A new fight over the Affordable Care Act broke out on Tuesday, as Democrats denounced the Trump administration for asking a federal appeals court to invalidate it. The surprise decision, which could leave 21 million people without health insurance if the court agrees, gave Democrats a chance to move past impeachment and discuss kitchen-table issues like health care. • The most enduring legacy of Robert S. Mueller’s investigation may be his decision not to take action on President Trump’s norm-shattering interventions in the law enforcement system. • As the Trump administration celebrates Mr. Mueller’s finding that the president did not conspire with Russia, a darker theme is emerging: a message that Mr. Trump’s perceived enemies will pay. • Scientists at the Interior Department spent years examining the threat that pesticides present to hundreds of endangered species. “We’re not focused on impeachment,” said one. • Joseph R. Biden Jr. said Tuesday that he regretted his role in the 1991 hearings over Anita Hill’s sexual harassment allegations against Clarence Thomas, who became a Supreme Court justice. That episode could be a vulnerability if Mr. Biden runs for president.

The report portrayed such information as crucial to holding appointees to high standards. “Strong ethics programs are critical to ensuring public trust in government and the integrity of actions taken on the public’s behalf,” it states. “Political appointees, in particular agency heads, have a personal responsibility to exercise leadership in ethics. … [M]embers of the public need access to information on who is serving in political appointee positions. Otherwise, they are limited in their ability to discern whether appointees are performing their duties free of conflict.” Neither federal agencies nor the White House are required to publicly post full, up-to-date listings of political appointees or senior government officials, many of whom don’t face confirmation or public hearings by the Senate. “In the absence of comprehensive and timely data on political appointees serving in the executive branch, two nongovernmental organizations — the Partnership for Public Service and ProPublica — stated that they collect and report some data themselves,” the report notes. The report states that ProPublica’s Trump Town tracks all types of federal political appointees but “one limitation is that they rely on agency responses to FOIA requests and therefore the data may not be comprehensive or timely.” ProPublica staffers (including the author of this article) were interviewed by the GAO in 2018. The GAO recommended Congress consider legislation that would require the “comprehensive and timely information on political appointees serving in the Executive Branch to be collected and made publicly accessible.” The Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs is now considering the GAO recommendation. Launched in March 2018, Trump Town is a searchable database of 3,232 current and former Trump administration political appointees, including their jobs and offices, employment history, lobbying records, government ethics documents, financial disclosures and, in some cases, resumes. In 2012, a group of former federal officials in law enforcement, diplomatic and national security positions wrote to congressional leaders, saying a searchable list would “create significant threats to the national security and to the personal safety and financial security of the executive branch officials and their families, especially career employees.” The letter also called complete personal financial information of all senior officials on the internet a “jackpot for enemies of the United States intent on finding security vulnerabilities they can exploit.” The GAO report did not address this assertion, but it implied such circumstances are a long way off: “Until the names of political appointees and their position, position type, agency or department name, start and end dates are publicly available at least quarterly, it will be difficult for the public to access comprehensive and reliable information.” Filed under: The Trump Administration

Sixteen senior employees at the U.S. Department of Interior reassigned to new duties under President Donald Trump's administration viewed their moves as political retribution or punishment for their work on climate change, energy or conservation, according to the results of an internal investigation released Wednesday. However, investigators said they were unable to determine if anything illegal occurred because the agency leaders did not document their rationale for the reassignments. The findings by the Office of Inspector General follow a backlash over new jobs assigned to almost three dozen senior employees in the months after Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke took office last year. The inspector general's report concluded the moves were made without any clear criteria and without consulting the affected employees or their supervisors. Zinke spokeswoman Heather Swift said agency officials acted within their legal authority when making reassignments. She added the department already has adopted some of the inspector general's recommendations aimed at increasing transparency and shielding the process from political interference. Swift did not directly address the contention that many of the reassignments were politically motivated. Twenty-seven of the 35 who received reassignment notifications last year were actually reassigned. Three others resigned, three had their reassignments rescinded and two stayed in their positions pending retirement, the report said. Guidelines for the government's Executive Resources Boards had been developed in 2009, during the administration of President Barack Obama, but were never acted upon until Trump took office, Bernhardt wrote.

Getty Images Sixteen senior employees at the U.S. Department of Interior reassigned to new duties under President Donald Trump's administration viewed their moves as political retribution or punishment for their work on climate change, energy or conservation, according to the results of an internal investigation released Wednesday. However, investigators said they were unable to determine if anything illegal occurred because the agency leaders did not document their rationale for the reassignments. The findings by the Office of Inspector General follow a backlash over new jobs assigned to almost three dozen senior employees in the months after Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke took office last year. Zinke spokeswoman Heather Swift said agency officials acted within their legal authority when making reassignments. She added the department already has adopted some of the inspector general's recommendations aimed at increasing transparency and shielding the process from political interference. Approximately 225 Interior personnel are considered senior employees, known formally as the Senior Executive Service. Climate scientist Joel Clement, who resigned and filed a whistleblower complaint following his reassignment to an accounting office, said the report "sends up a red flag" that Congress should investigate. Clement's attorney, Katherine Atkinson, said his case and that of a second Interior employee she represents are under investigation by the government' Office of Special Counsel, which protects federal employees from reprisal for whistleblowing. The inspector general's investigation included interviews with 31 senior employees who faced reassignment under Zinke. Eight of those employees viewed their moves positively.

More than 80 Democrats have asked the Interior Department not to delay or repeal a rule updating limits on methane leaks from oil and natural drilling sites on federal land. The Interior Department last month proposed delaying implementation of an Obama administration rule to cut down on pollution of methane, a potent greenhouse gas. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is seeking to hold off on instating the rule until January 2019, and it is reassessing whether the rule should be fully “rescinded or significantly revised” in the meantime. But in a letter to Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, 81 House and Senate Democrats said the rule should stay on the books. The group cited methane’s impact on public health and the amount of wasted natural gas producers burn off each year, which leads to the pollution. “We support the BLM’s rule because it prevents the unnecessary waste of a public resource, and makes sure that American taxpayers get fair value in return for commercial use of that public resource,” the group, led by Sens. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) and Tom Udall (D-N.M.) and Reps. Jared Polis (D-Colo.) and Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.) wrote. "Protecting the health and safety of the American people is inarguably a core function of government and the rule’s requirements are based on well-reasoned science. Capturing and preventing methane emissions will reduce exposure of hazardous pollutants in our local communities and will provide economic benefits to industry." The oil industry and its supporters have urged the Interior Department to scale back the methane rule, saying it's burdensome, duplicative and could cost jobs throughout the sector.

The Interior Department has begun the process of reconsidering and potentially revising a 2015 plan to protect the greater sage grouse, a Western bird that has seen its habitat dwindle. The decision earned immediate criticism by those who charge that revisiting the plan means "pandering to a few large energy interests." In a notice published Thursday, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) said it would review land use provisions in the federal sage grouse conservation plan, which limits new development on some of the sage grouse’s range in 10 western states and defines ways to expand its habitat there. Conservationists and environmentalists have urged federal and state governments to take action to protect the grouse, which has seen its population fluctuate throughout the west. Researchers say the bird’s population has declined from millions decades ago to between 200,000 and 5000,000 today, largely due to habitat loss. The sage grouse lives in the threatened sagebrush ecosystem. The plan, which came after several states had launched sage grouse conservation efforts of their own, limits development — including that of the oil and gas industries — on federally-owned sage grouse territory in 10 states. Drillers, ranchers and conservatives raised concerns with the plan, saying it was too expansive. “I am particularly interested in assisting the states in setting sage-grouse population objectives to improve management of the species,” Zinke wrote in a letter then. “There’s no other explanation for violating states’ rights and core GOP principles," he continued.