Public Lands & Waters Defense

Friends of the Earth’s Public Lands Defense campaign seeks to expose and rout out corruption and conflicts of interest at Trump and Zinke’s Department of Interior (DOI). In doing so we will prevent agency leadership from carrying out actions, rollbacks, and land and ocean giveaways that benefit their friends in the fossil fuel industry.

This work seeks to replicate our successful efforts during the George W. Bush Administration to expose ethics violations involving Deputy Secretary of the Interior J. Steven Griles, who eventually resigned from DOI and in 2007 was sentenced to ten months in prison.

Through opposition research, media work, and advocacy we are calling for Congress and the Inspector General's office to engage in oversight and hold Zinke and DOI accountable. This grassroots pressure is already yielding results. Three of Trump’s DOI nominees were sent back at the end of 2017 and had to be renominated. The Bundy family lawyer Karen Budd-Falen has yet to be nominated as Director of the Bureau of Land Management, and it is increasingly unlikely that she will be. DOI was forced to back away from plans to triple some entrance fees at national parks, and near universal opposition by coastal states to DOI's offshore drilling plan as well as missteps by Interior have led to questions about Zinke’s competency.

Trump and Zinke want to sell off our lands and waters to Big Oil. We need your help to fight for our health and environment at every step.