Secretary of the Interior and self-proclaimed “Teddy Roosevelt conservationist” Ryan Zinke has just named another bona fide member of the Washington DC special interests swamp to a top position at the Department of the Interior — the latest in a long line of Washington insiders to join the Trump administration.  

Kate MacGregor, a former lobbyist, is a long-time supporter of expanding oil and gas production on national public lands.  She will be the deputy assistant secretary for land and minerals management — a post that is vital to determining how much and where energy is developed on American lands.

In May 2015 MacGregor said that she was “really excited about” the National Energy Security Corridors Act, praising it for making it easier to put pipelines in national parks.  The bill was also supported by then-Congressman Zinke.

Teddy Roosevelt invented the parks system.  Ryan Zinke is putting together a team that would ruin these iconic places with pipelines, and damage the communities across the West that need national parks to drive their economies. It’s long past time that Secretary Zinke stopped calling himself a Teddy Roosevelt conservationist.

More on the Pipelines in Parks Bill: 

• The Next Infrastructure Challenge: Conversation with Kate MacGregor and Brandon Mooney, YouTube, 05/14/15, 18:10; 
• Jasmin Melvin, “House panel moves pipeline rights-of-way bill ahead,” Platts Gas Daily, 06/12/15;
• John Hamlin, “Four Oaks mayor testifies in Washington on natural gas bill,” The News & Observer, 06/01/15;
• The bill passed out of House Natural Resources Committee, of which Zinke is a member, on 6/11/15.