TRUMP TO REVIEW ALLEGATIONS AGAINST ZINKE: President Trump said Monday he would “take a look” at the allegations that Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke violated ethics rules, but added he has not yet seen the claims, which have been referred to the Justice Department.
“I think he’s done a very good job. I do think he’s done a very good job,” Trump told reporters shortly before boarding Air Force One for a series of campaign rallies on the eve of Tuesday’s midterm elections.
“I haven’t seen it yet, but I’ll take a look. I’m going to look at any reports, I’ll take a look. Certainly, I would not be happy with that at all,” Trump said of the allegations, adding again that Zinke has “done a very good job as secretary.”
{mosads}Interior’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) investigators have at least seven ongoing investigations involving Zinke.
The Justice Department is now investigating whether Zinke improperly entered a business deal regarding land in his hometown of Whitefish, Mont., with David Lesar, the chairman of oilfield services company Halliburton.
The deal, first reported by Politico, involved a nonprofit that Zinke used to lead, but that he exited before becoming Interior secretary — and which his wife now leads. Halliburton stands to benefit from numerous policies at Interior, which oversees oil and gas drilling on federal land, among other responsibilities.
Flashback: While Trump said Monday that he hadn’t read the allegations against Zinke, the Washington Post reported last week that he was concerned Zinke may have done something wrong.
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TRUMP DISPUTES KEY FINDINGS OF CLIMATE REPORT: Trump disputed a recent federal government report’s conclusion that human activity is the dominant cause of climate change, but also said he has not seen the report.
In an interview released Sunday, Jim VandeHei and Jonathan Swan of Axios asked Trump to respond to the Climate Science Special Report, a multi-agency report released last year that concluded there is “no convincing alternative explanation” for global warming of recent decades other than that the “dominant” cause is human activity, mainly via greenhouse gas emissions.
Trump said humans contribute to warming, but not to the degree described in the report, whose authors come from agencies like NASA and the Energy Department.
“I want everybody to report whatever they want. But ultimately, I’m the one that makes that final decision,” he told VandeHei and Swan. “I can also give you reports where people very much dispute that. You know, you do have scientists that very much dispute it.”
EPA OFFICIAL DECLARES ‘NO TOLERANCE’ AFTER RACIST MESSAGES: Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Chief of Staff Ryan Jackson on Monday told employees that the EPA “has no tolerance for racism” and will investigate recent incidents of offensive words scrawled on whiteboards at the agency’s headquarters in Washington.
Jackson vowed in an email obtained by The Hill that the EPA will “hold the individuals who are spreading these messages responsible.” He said the EPA is taking “every measure” available to find the person or persons who wrote the messages, and to protect employees.
“If you have experienced these actions or have information you believe could be helpful to hold individuals accountable for these actions, please let your supervisors know,” he wrote in the email to staff. “We need to solve problems like these together because it affects all of us and is a problem no one at EPA should experience.”
Jackson also asked the inspector general’s office to investigate the racist messages, which include the n-word and were first reported by Politico last week.
The all-staff email comes after reports that EPA headquarters has been battling a number of anonymously written racist messages on the whiteboard of the agency’s Office of Public Affairs since the summer. Politico reported that last week’s message was one of at least six since August.
Jackson indicated in the email that the agency still has no leads on who is responsible for the messages.
JUDGE REJECTS PLAN FOR ENDANGERED RED WOLF: A federal judge ruled Sunday that the government violated the Endangered Species Act with its plan to shrink the territory of the only wild red wolves in the country.
Judge Terrence Boyle, a federal judge in North Carolina, also said the Fish and Wildlife Service cannot allow landowners to hurt the wolves absent a threat to humans, livestock or pets.
About 35 red wolves remain in the wild, and environmentalists had argued that the habitat plan would imperil the species even further.
“It is undisputed that the reintroduction of the red wolf into the Red Wolf Recovery Area is not without its challenges, but absent a change in Congress’ mandate or a decision to delist or reclassify the red wolf” officials are obligated to sufficiently protect it, Boyle said.
Sierra Weaver, an attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center who helped bring the litigation, cheered the order.
“The service knows how to protect and recover the red wolf in the wild, but it stopped listening to its scientists and started listening to bureaucrats instead,” she said. “The law doesn’t allow the agency to just walk away from species conservation, like it did here.”
ON TAP TUESDAY:
Tuesday is Election Day! Go vote. Looking for some inspiration? Read here about what’s at stake in the election for energy and environment issues.
OUTSIDE THE BELTWAY:
Total and Sempra Energy have agreed to work together to expand a liquefied natural gas export facility in Louisiana and one on Mexico’s west coast, the Houston Chronicle reports.
Facebook is planning to back a pair of solar farms in Alabama and Tennessee to power data centers, Bloomberg reports.
Officials in the United Kingdom’s environmental agency told staff that they have to urgently plan for a potential “no-deal” Brexit scenario, the Guardian reports.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:
Check out stories from Monday and the weekend …
– CoverGirl becomes largest makeup brand to go cruelty free
– EPA official says agency has ‘no tolerance for racism’ after offensive messages found at headquarters
– Trump to ‘take a look’ at Zinke ethics allegations
– High stakes for Dems’ green agenda in midterms
– Trump disputes federal climate report’s findings, says he hasn’t seen it
– Schwarzenegger to CNN’s Axelrod: Environmentalists doing a terrible job selling climate change concerns