Let's say Washington is a swamp, as Trump calls it. Then lobbyists are the gators, and strong ethics rules are the fence that keeps Americans from getting bit. In President Donald Trump's swamp, the gators keep getting bigger and the fence is in tatters.
On Saturday, Ryan Zinke submitted his resignation as secretary of the Interior Department, the seventh-largest agency responsible for most of the nation's natural resources and public lands. Zinke will be replaced—at least temporarily—by David Bernhardt, a former high-profile lobbyist for the fossil fuel industry and the Interior's current second-in-command. As a lobbyist, Bernhardt worked on behalf of several oil companies that he'll soon be in charge of regulating. He's been called “a walking conflict of interest” by his critics.
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