The Teddy Roosevelt Legacy At Ryan Zinke’s Interior Department

The Department of the Interior is outlining steps aimed at increasing energy production on federal lands. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke says boosting production of resources like oil and gas creates jobs and enhances the nation’s energy security. It’s another pro-industry headline for a secretary touting himself as not only an avid outdoorsman, but a follower of the conservation ideals of the 26th President of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt. If the manager of most of our federal lands is going find inspiration from someone, it would be hard to find a more appropriate muse. “Roosevelt is generally regarded as the father of the modern conservation movement,” said Whit Fosburgh, President and CEO of the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership. “When he was President, he set aside somewhere around like 230 million acres of public lands for the future of people forever.”

That land area is larger than the states of Texas and Wyoming combined.

West Virginia Wants Coal Hard Cash

Both Donald Trump and West Virginia Governor Jim Justice campaigned on promises to bring coal mining jobs back to the region. Now Justice wants the president to prop up the flagging coal industry with federally-funded incentives for power companies to purchase coal from Appalachia. That’s not an idea that goes over well in Wyoming, where the majority of U.S. coal is mined.

Coal Under Trump: One Miner’s Perspective

President Trump idealizes a traditional view of American life, an America based on industry and lifting up the image of the blue collar working man. And no working man has been more lauded under this administration than the American coal miner. The economics for coal aren’t looking good, between regulations and low prices for natural gas and renewables. Still, Trump has been trying to fulfill his campaign promise to bring back mining jobs. We recently spent a weekend with a Colorado coal miner, for a perspective on the ground.