In 2017, Zinke gave a speech to the National Petroleum Council in which said that one-third of Interior Department employees were disloyal to Trump and that "I got 30 percent of the crew that’s not loyal to the flag." Zinke's remarks prompted objections from the Coalition to Protect America's National Parks, Public Lands Foundation and Association of Retired Fish and Wildlife Service Employees (which called the comments "simply ludicrous, and deeply insulting") and Democratic Senator Maria Cantwell, the ranking member of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources (who said that Zinke had a "fundamental misunderstanding of the role" of the federal civil service).[99]