Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke dismissed the notion that he's giving away public lands to oil and gas companies.
The secretary made the assertion during a Monday visit to Zion National Park.
He was at the park to draw attention to the maintenance backlog at national parks.
The St. George Spectrum reports that Zinke said, "nothing could be further from the truth" when asked about his department letting oil and gas take over public lands.
Zinke spoke recently in favor of a bill in Congress that would establish a fund to reduce the maintenance backlog using money the government gets from energy development.
The proposal would send half of all energy development royalties from oil, gas, coal and renewable energy on federal lands to pay for maintenance projects at national parks, instead of to the general fund.
The bipartisan bill has dozens of co-sponsors but is in the infancy stages having only been approved by the U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources last week.
The National Park Service estimates its total bill for overdue projects across the country at nearly $12 billion. Zinke visited the Grand Canyon in Arizona earlier this month to highlight the same issue.
