EC--

Yep, given how much the travel ceilings get in the way of getting the job done (I'm not talking about attending scientific meetings), and how much Fran Mainella's (I'll try to fix the spelling above in a minute) travel hurt and continues to hurt NPS, I am going to judge him on that.  It's probably in the top 3 issues for NPS.  It isn't the $12K or even a couple of $100K in a multi-billion budget, it's that travel while retaining rules that inhibit NPS getting the most mission done for the fixed dollars.

 I'm also going to judge him on not just the SES stuff, but how far down his board of political appointees tries to interfere with scientific and professional staff.

If he pulls off a reorganization of federal land management agencies that makes sense and increases effectiveness, I'll judge him on that, too.

I'm not going to judge him on the total DOI budget; he has limnited control over that.

What will you judge him on?

I don't particularly care about Zinke's poll numbers, and I don't at all think that high or low poll numbers are a valid measure of how good or bad a Secretary of the Interior Zinke is.  I suspect that he might have the highest "never heard of him" numbers of any cabinet secretary (I take EC's 90% as slight editorial exaggeration to make the point).  What publicity Zinke' has received was for things like proposing reductions to National Monuments, which have very high unfavorable ratings among folks specifically interested in that issue, but not particularly large & strong bases of supporters.  Other secretaries have blocks of folks in strong support of their publicized actions, even if they might have even larger groups in opposition.

I _do_ care about Zinke's travel.  NPS is _still_ feeling the effects of Fran Mainella's(edited to fix spelling) travel binge 15 years ago in terms travel caps lower and travel rules more rigid than even other DOI bureaus.  [Somebody should explain that history to him.]  Time in backcountry in parks counts as travel (including any time out on the Channel Islands), as does fieldwork in parks by staff shared among parks.  Private chartered flights so he could give a closed to the public motivational speech to a political donor's ice hockey team are exactly the things that trigger more rigid rules and blunt-force congressional limits on travel.  [The DOI spokeswoman even claimed that the professional hockey players were "a key audience of people we are trying to target to use our public lands", which doesn't pass my laugh test.] 

I don't think that who owns the chartered aircraft is relevant.  Reading between the lines of the first E&E News article, it appears they may have used an existing IDIQ or similar blanket contract with Choice Aviation that is usually used for fire and wildlife surveys, not for point to point transportation.  IDIQs allow quick purchases from a few qualified vendors without competitive bidding on each instance.  That's crucial for getting out on fires and for some wildlife work.  If Zinke & the other cabinet members' charter flights trigger new more rigid rules on such charter flights in the future, that will be another long term hit to NPS actual field operations.  

Even if there's no subsequent tightening of travel & contracting rules, Zinke's example & priorities are detrimental to the mission & morale.  They certainly contradict his stated goal of moving personnel & resources out of DC and WASO and into the field.  Yes he has to travel a lot to do his job, and his annual travel is going to cost more than a professional FTE.  But that 2 hour flight for only $12K more wipes out the annual cost savings efforts of dozens of us who fly Southwest when its cheaper than the GSA city pair fare, and stay at hotels well below the GSA lodging rate, simply in order to accomplish our jobs in the face of travel ceilings.  Heck, that $12K is the combined annual travel budget for 6-8 of us who support parks.  At a couple of times per month, he can negate the cost-saving efforts of entire programs.  I'm still going to adjust the paperwork to _not_ receive per diem when I take an extra day on a trip to get out and see more of the park, because that's the right thing to do, but I'm more likely to curse than salute Zinke's command flag when I do it.  And the next time colleagues can't collect their data because they don't have enough travel ceiling to pay mileage on an NPS vehicle to drive out in a park, I may scream.

Meanwhile, Zinke's "Executive Resources Board", composed of exclusively political appointees, turns out to oversee & have final approval for not just the SES managers, but also senior level career staff and "Scientific and Professional" staff with no explicit cutoff for how far down the organization chart that extends.  The Western Values Project had their FOIA request ignored, so they've had to sue to get the emails & memos for that board.  I gues that's one way to keep the jury out for a while longer.

Al, _those_ are what I'll judge Zinke by, not his poll numbers.

Does Zinke really think that people have forgotten his offenses with abusing travel to his advantage when he was a SEAL? Kinda glosses over his upward career with the Navy petering out there. Could he poissibly be so dumb that he thinks THAT history is not germane with travel abuse now?

Already told you Tomp2, "his management of the resources and his department."

fair enough, EC.  From my perspective management of the resources is the fundamental goal, but it isn't a useful metric for adaptive management because it is trailing not leading: we can't judge for years.  I look for more concrete metrics that might indicate how things are going in time to make adjustments.  So, whenever Zinke's time is over, let's exchange our assessments of how the resources and the department are doing.  If they're better then because of Zinke, I will say so.

Also, sorry my edt to fix the spelling of Mainella's name put my first (longest) post out of order.

Zinke's history of government travel fraud

Glad could you detail that history?  What do you have other than a $211 plane ticket he paid back?