In August 2017, Mr. Zinke wrote to his chief of staff expressing interest in his agency’s plans for drone use. “I want to see the drone contract before the award,” he wrote, according to emails released in response to public records requests and highlighted by Center for Western Priorities, a conservation organization.
Richard W. Painter, a White house ethics lawyer under George W. Bush who has been critical of the Trump administration, said it struck him as unusual that such a contract would be significant enough to reach Mr. Zinke. “It better be a really important contract to rise to the level of a cabinet secretary,” he said.
From the partly redacted email, it is unclear which contract Mr. Zinke had sought.
Heather Swift, a spokeswoman for the Interior Department, said Mr. Zinke “asked to see the requirements of the request to ensure the description of services and capabilities met the highly-specialized needs of the Department.” She said that use of the technology “is supported by both parties in Congress” and that Mr. Zinke “had no role in awarding contracts.”
In May 2018, Mr. Zinke announced a round of contracts for drone services to assist in fighting wildfires. One of the contracts was awarded to a company called Insitu, a Boeing subsidiary with past ties to Mr. Zinke’s efforts on behalf of the industry.
Six years earlier, Mr. Zinke, then director of the Center for Remote Integration, the drone nonprofit he co-directed, wrote a letter to the Department of Transportation in which he noted that his organization had coordinated with a number of drone makers including Insitu. The letter, written on Montana State Senate letterhead, provided input to the federal agency on its selection of testing sites for unmanned aircraft systems.
Aaron Weiss, the spokesman for the Center for Western Priorities, the conservation organization, said Mr. Zinke’s interest in drones is an example where “he has not drawn a bright line with his career prior to Interior.”
