Interior Department Secretary Ryan Zinke Visits Montana

Interior Department Secretary Ryan Zinke will be in Montana this week. But it may not be the homecoming he was expecting. Zinke, who was our congressman, was picked by President Trump to serve as the new interior secretary. It is because of that we had a special election and now Greg Gianforte is our congressman.

The problem is environmental groups are trying crash Zinke's homecoming. The "tree huggers," oh I'm sorry I meant to say, the Montana environmental groups, are upset that Zinke is reviewing and possibly scaling back or even eliminating funding for certain national monuments.

Dozens of monuments are under the new Interior secretary control. The groups are also worried about how he will deal with the Upper Missouri River Breaks. Zinke, who is in town to speak at Western Governors Association, will be met with protests. Billboards demanding he not touch the Upper Missouri River Breaks are going up.

“Don't touch the national monuments!” is the chant he may be hearing instead of the “Welcome Home Ryan Zinke” chant he may have been expecting.

The problem is the United States is too fat, it needs to go on a diet. Lose some weight. Everyone agrees our national budget is much to high. The debt is in the trillions we have to make some cuts, but not us. Make Nevada, Utah, or New York lose funding for their interior projects...not Montana.

Everyone from the environmental groups will give you good, no, a great reason, why we must not make cuts here. And I agree they are 100% right...but so are Nevada, Utah and the other 47 states.

It's the environment that's the most important thing, but wait, so is Meals On Wheels, after school activates, the department of defense, medical research, new bridges and it goes on and on. Someone has to make the hard calls, and Zinke is the man who has to do it. No matter what he does someone or group will be upset. But that's what they all say. "No, but, you don't understand, our project is really important. Really, really important why can't he see that??

Zinke will be met with anger and protests when he comes home. The environmental groups may be right but someone has to make the call. I am glad I am not the Interior Department secretary. It's more fun to just be a talk show host and complain about everything.

Dominick

(The Associated Press contributed to this story)