Earlier this year, Ryan Zinke arrived at his new job on horseback. Dressed in boots, jeans, and a cowboy hat, and seated somewhat awkwardly on an English saddle, Zinke rode a 17-year-old Irish sport horse through the streets of Washington, D.C., to Interior Department headquarters, where he would begin his first day as President Trump’s interior secretary. Zinke, a fifth-generation Montanan who had previously held the state’s at-large seat in the House of Representatives, wanted to make a point: Things are going to change in Washington, D.C.
“The rough riders have arrived in Interior,” Zinke later told me. “There’s a lot of anger and resentment out west that our voice isn’t being heard.” His tone marks a stark shift away from the Obama administration’s brand of coastal environmentalism, which often sought strict public-land protections, and toward a rough-and-tumble management style that is more accepting of traditional land uses. As Zinke would later tell a crowd of western ranchers: “The war on the West is over.”
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