Whistleblower Speaks Out: Morale At Interior Department Is In The Toilet

[mfcorey1]

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has good reason to worry about loyalty and respect among his staff, says a scientist-turned-whistleblower who resigned from his agency post Wednesday citing Zinke’s “poor leadership” and “resume of failure.”

During a speech to an oil industry group last week, Zinke said: “I got 30 percent of the crew that’s not loyal to the flag.” The former Montana congressman’s comment was met with outrage, including from a trio of groups representing retired Interior employees, which called the remarks “ludicrous” and “deeply insulting.”

Joel Clement — who blew the whistle on the Trump administration in July, alleging that he was reassigned for warning about the dangers of climate change to Alaska natives — told HuffPost late Wednesday, hours after submitting a fiery resignation letter, that morale at the agency is “in the toilet.”

Under Zinke and and President Donald Trump, he said, Interior employees are constantly “looking over their shoulder,” and those in management positions are “walking around miffed that they are not part of” key agency decisions.

“The secretary has lost the respect of far more than 30 percent of the staff,” Clement said.

Zinke’s approach to running the agency was on display during a hearing of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources last month. Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) took the opportunity to question John Ruhs, acting deputy director of operations at Interior’s Bureau of Land Management, about a number of inaccuracies he identified in a leaked copy of Zinke’s national monuments report, in which the interior secretary recommended Trump shrink or otherwise modify at least 10 protected sites. Heinrich asked Ruhs if local BLM staff who manage a pair of New Mexico monuments on the administration’s chopping block were consulted as part of the administration’s review.

Ruhs said BLM “did answer questions and provide data as necessary,” but that it was not involved in writing the report or asked to fact-check it for accuracy before it was sent to the White House.

Clement called Zinke’s monuments report “par for the course.”

“When he gets briefed for a meeting, he receives briefing documents from career staff and he never reads them,” Clement said of Zinke. “When he delivers a product, like the review of the national monuments, it’s sloppy and it’s full of errors. And you can tell that the career staff’s never had a look at that. He’s trying to do this with his team of political temps.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/joel-clement-ryan-zinke-interior_us_59d57657e4b0cde45872d610?ncid=inblnkushpmg00000009

[MontanaMama]

1. Outrageous.

Sounds like Zinke's team is just the rest of the Dotard administration "sloppy and full of errors". Tragic.

[dixiegrrrrl]

3. There is, however, a dangerous [pattern they are following.

This what dictators do when they take over a government, leave everything in the hands of the ideologists, where decisions are based on party values, not on competence or even Dept. policy.
So he has seeded the Cabinet posts with obedient henchmen, who can do a lot of damage.

Interesting that this is happening with all the important departments, almost as if somebody gave them all the same script.
We know Trump is not smart enough for that.......

[MontanaMama]

4. Oh I agree with everything in your post.

They're each doing their level best at running their respective agencies into the ground. In my more paranoid moments, I wonder if there isn't some larger plan in the works...like maybe weakening us to the point where we cannot resist an actual physical takeover of our country. Indeed, they all seem to be following the same script. It is difficult for me to believe this is an accident. As you state, Dotard isn't smart enough to be the mastermind of this, I wonder who the actual chess players are and will we ever find out before it is too late?

[elehhhhna]

2. Well welcome to America - everybody's morale in the toilet