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BE SMART ABOUT: Dan Smith - Ignored Environmental Rules; Now Deputy Director of Interior Department
BE SMART ABOUT is our unfortunate series highlighting examples of those in power who you need to stay informed about so you can share this knowledge and together we can Be Smart and Actively Dissent.
Today we discuss P. Daniel Smith, assumed the Interior Department's deputy director position on January 8, 2018. Dan has a pretty incredible past -- being pushed out of his prior position at the National Park Service for a violation written up by the Inspector General. You'd think that should disqualify him but under Trump he's a perfect fit.
A former National Park Service official who improperly helped Washington Redskins owner Daniel Snyder cut down more than 130 trees to improve a river view at his Potomac, Md., estate has been chosen by the Trump administration to be one of the agency’s highest-ranking leaders.
[Dan Smith] most recently served as Superintendent of Colonial National Historical Park. Before that superintendent’s role, Smith was a special assistant to the Park Service director. And it was in that position that he intervened in 2004 to help Snyder remove the trees from a hillside between his estate and the C&O Canal and plant saplings to improve Snyder’s view of the Potomac River. Smith pressured lower-level officials to approve a deal that disregarded federal environmental laws, harmed the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal National Historical Park and left the agency vulnerable to charges of favoritism, according to an Inspector General report.
The Park Service’s horticulturist told investigators that clearing the area made it more likely that nonnative, invasive species would eventually flourish on the hillside and cause erosion. After the report revealed his work on Snyder’s behalf, Smith transferred.... He retired in 2014.
It's quite fitting for a Trump White House that already boasts a head of the Department of Energy who wants to do away with the department and a secretary of education who favors homeschooling over public schools. Now, Dan Smith who is renowned for desecrating park lands will be running the National Park Service.
“It’s crazy. His reputation will never recover from the Snyder experience, because he basically sold out the primary mission of the agency,” says Rob Danno, a ranger with the National Park Service whose career at the agency was temporarily derailed for bringing Snyder’s illicit clear-cutting escapades to the attention of federal investigators. “This was nothing to do with something that would be good for the land. This was always about the view for this billionaire.”
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