Industry First: The Attack on Conservation by Trump's Interior Department

A detailed study of the destructive impact that Trump's Interior Department has had on conservation. The Interior Department controls hundreds of millions of acres of public lands including National Parks and Monuments and also oceans since it decides whether drilling can occur there and what protective measures must be employed to prevent disasters. The Interior Department is supposed to protect endangered species such as migratory birds, grizzlies, wolves, polar bears, and innumerable other species. In short, it is a hugely important organization that has been neglected by previous research. This work covers every aspect of the Interior Department's policies and activities including mining and drilling on public lands, cutback of National Monuments, leasing, policies aimed to weaken the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) and Endangered Species Act (ESA) and many others. It has a detailed chapter on the many unethical activities of the Department including its Ethics Department and its IG's refusal to take action against unethical and illegal acts. It details how Trump's Interior manipulated and abused the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and misused public comments most of which opposed their policies. Its major thesis is that Trump's Interior sacrificed its conservation mission every single time they faced a choice between that mission and the industries they patronized: The Industry First Principle. It demonstrates how all of the usual safeguards and protections against misdeeds on the part of Federal agencies were subverted and overcome including FOIA rules, Congressional Committee oversight, Inspector Generals, Ethics Staff, and the U.S. Governmental Accountability Office. It shows that Trump's Administrators were poor administrators on every measure possible except delivering to their industry pals. It documents how a small group of public range ranchers dominate public land policies thus making the move West by Interior's Bureau of Land Management a ridiculous and expensive mistake. It details how all major appointees to Trump's Interior represented industries and that these officials actively intervened for their former lobby partners in an unethical and illegal manner. It shows how when Trump Interior employees left, they joined companies that had projects with Interior and committed unethical deeds. It shows how Trump's Interior illegally employed its resources (e.g., National Park Service funds) to support Trump's campaign. It has details how Trump's Interior took action after action to weaken protections for wildlife and that these harmful actions were boosted by officials from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) who are supposed to prioritize conservation. USFWS and other units of Interior were totally devoted to trophy hunters and allowed "slob hunting" in National Wildlife Refuges as well as numerous other abuses such as lead bullets in them, treating them as "game farms." The book details how funding for conservation has deteriorated due to Trump's Interior's total emphasis on trophy hunting and outlines how future conservation efforts have to find new revenue sources. It proposes a new direction for the Department in the book's Conclusion such as committing to "half-earth" idea by experts such as Edward O. Wilson. The book shows that it is necessary for these wrongs perpetrated by Trump's Interior to be studied and investigated to prevent similar abuses from happening in the future. Thus this book will itself act as a form of accountability for these Trump Interior officials who so far got away unscathed during their term in office. The book is documented with supporting references and facts for all of its assertions.