The position puts Mr. Zinke in control of 500 million acres of United States land — roughly a fifth of the nation —
and charged with balancing the department’s contradictory duties of conserving land and mining it for resources at a time of intense pressure from energy producers, environmental activists, state lawmakers and his own boss, who made fossil fuel jobs a crucial part of his campaign platform.
“I could not be more thrilled that Donald Trump selected him,” said Representative Jason Chaffetz, Republican
of Utah, who has tried to transfer millions of acres of public lands out of federal control.
In office, Mr. Zinke has repeatedly said he is against the transfer of federal lands to state
hands, bucking Republican colleagues who say Washington controls too many Western acres.
President Barack Obama blocked new coal leases, imposed moratoriums on uranium drilling near the Grand Canyon
and set aside 553 million acres for national monuments, more than any other president.
“The project,” he wrote in his 2016 book, “promoted a lifetime of conservation values.”
President Trump has tapped Mr. Zinke, 55, a House member
and fifth-generation Montanan who grew up in this timber-and-tourism community, to be secretary of the interior.
“I am an unapologetic admirer of Teddy Roosevelt,” Mr. Zinke said at a January nomination hearing before the Senate Energy
and Natural Resources Committee, where he evoked Roosevelt on 10 occasions.