Interior Dept WRONGLY Tapped Wildfire Preparedness Funds for Ryan Zinke Helicopter Tour

This is a week old, but with the Holiday and Trump book out, some may have missed it.




Interior Department Tapped Wildfire Preparedness Funds for Ryan Zinke Helicopter Tour

http://www.newsweek.com/ryan-zinke-interior-department-helicopters-wildfires-757857
By Celeste Katz On 12/29/17 at 6:00 AM


The Department of the Interior (DOI) says it made a mistake by trying to use wildfire preparedness funds to pay for an unrelated helicopter tour of Nevada taken by Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke this summer.

Officials initially said Zinke’s July 30 helicopter trip could be covered by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the National Interagency Fire Center, a hub for the organization of response to wildfires—even though the secretary did not visit any fire zones that day, according to internal emails obtained by Newsweek.

But after Newsweek questioned the line item, an Interior Department spokeswoman said this week that the chopper—listed in an accounting of Zinke’s travel as costing $39,295—“was charged to the account in error.” She added that the BLM would pay for the helicopter from “a more appropriate account.”

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Asked why the original billing was in error, the spokeswoman, Heather Swift, replied, “There are different accounts for different functions, and it’s the department’s position that there are more appropriate accounts to fit this particular expenditure.”

She declined to comment further.......................

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