VIDEO: Acting Interior #2 admits regulatory review was over before it started

Top official concedes 2/3rds of rules were slated to be axed months before review was announced

Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke announced a sweeping review of the department’s rules that could have serious impacts on public lands users and local economies throughout the West.

But Acting Deputy Secretary James Cason admitted to an industry group that the decision was made early on in the Trump administration to cut the vast majority of rules currently being developed at the Interior Department:

One of the first things we did is we held, I’ll call it a regulatory party with some of my colleagues. We ended up cutting about two-thirds of the rules that were in promulgation in the department. And we basically we got to a point where we said, ‘We don’t need this one, and we really don’t need this one, and this one looks problematic.’ So we cut a bunch out of the regulatory process, and figure we will start from a much diminished, smaller base.

See the video here: https://youtu.be/1uOuWAHiFdE?t=23m45s

Acting Deputy Secretary of Interior

Chris Saeger, Executive Director of the Western Values Project, had this to say about the sham review:

Secretary Zinke is trying to rig the system in favor of the oil and gas companies that have long bankrolled his political career, and public lands users throughout the West will pay the price if he succeeds. From sage-grouse plans to the BLM methane rule, Secretary Zinke’s Interior is dismantling reasonable standards to reward special interests at the expense of our public lands and taxpayers. We will not let him auction off our outdoor heritage and economy to appease powerful elites in Washington.

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