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Zinke’s energy export plan knocked as 'harebrained'

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke drew immediate flak Monday for proposing to use military bases on the West Coast to export coal and natural gas despite the opposition of environmentally minded state governments — with critics saying it just won’t work. “It’s really impressive how this administration churns out harebrained schemes for their Department of Cock-Eyed Ideas,” Gov. Jay Inslee of Washington state, a Democrat, told POLITICO. “The president must be getting really bad advice. It’s not going to work. Our clean water and clean air laws are still on the books and will still be enforced.“In an interview with The Associated Press, Zinke cast the idea of using the sites like a former Navy base on a remote Alaskan island as a national security matter because it would ensure that the U.S. can supply allies with cheap energy. And it would circumvent opposition to new fossil fuel exports in Democratic-dominated states like Washington and California.“It doesn’t sound logical or fully baked,” Tom Hicks, a former undersecretary of the Navy and now a principal at Mabus Group, an energy consulting firm, said on Zinke’s plan. “It sounds a little half-cocked.”

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