James Watt Resigns After Racist Remarks: Interior Department Corruption Ends

Interior Secretary James Watt announces his resignation after describing a department panel as having “a black, a woman, two Jews and a cripple,” mocking affirmative action. Watt resigns within three weeks of the September comments amid bipartisan condemnation. His controversial 33-month tenure exemplified industry capture of public lands management: accelerating oil, gas, and coal leasing on federal lands while opposing wilderness protection and weakening environmental regulations. The resignation follows months of escalating scandals including banning the Beach Boys from the National Mall for attracting “the wrong element” of young people he associated with drugs and alcohol.

Watt’s Interior Department systematically prioritized resource extraction over conservation, opening millions of acres of public lands to drilling and mining while attempting to sell off national parks and wilderness areas. He faced congressional investigations for conflicts of interest, including steering contracts to political allies and manipulating leasing procedures to benefit oil and gas companies. Environmental groups called Watt the most destructive Interior Secretary in American history, noting his open hostility to the department’s conservation mission and his apocalyptic religious views that the Earth would end soon, making environmental protection pointless.

The Beach Boys controversy in April 1983 showcased Watt’s ideological rigidity and political ineptitude: he banned rock music from July 4th celebrations on the National Mall, claiming it encouraged drug use, only to face immediate rebukes from President Reagan and First Lady Nancy Reagan, who were Beach Boys fans. White House staff gave Watt a plaster foot with a hole in it for “shooting himself in the foot.” His final racist remarks about the diversity panel merely provided the politically convenient excuse for removing an Interior Secretary whose extreme anti-environmental agenda had become a liability even for the Reagan administration.