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BLM’s draft environmental impact statement tees up a 45-day public comment period and final rule that should launch lease sales for ANWR as early as 2019. Opponents say the process is rushed, but federal and state agencies have been planning for this since Congress set aside 1.6 million acres of ANWR’s 19.3 million acres for development in 1980. Congress finally authorized drilling as part of last year’s tax reform, and Interior envisions lease sales in 2019 of “not fewer than 400,000 acres”—or less than 3% of ANWR acreage.

That production will have widespread benefits, as the U.S. Geological Survey estimates ANWR’s coastal plain holds 10.4 billion barrels of oil. The region could pump 1.45 million barrels a day at peak production—a quarter of what the U.S. now imports from OPEC countries. The drilling will create thousands of jobs and tens of billions in federal revenue.

Mr. Zinke, a Navy SEAL before entering Congress from Montana, made a notable reform difference in two years. He made progress on a $12 billion infrastructure backlog in national parks, prioritized active forest management to mitigate wildfires, started to move some offices to the West from Washington, and gave front-line managers more authority. He also scaled back Barack Obama’s too-expansive monument designations, streamlined permitting for resource development, and ramped up leases for onshore and offshore oil drilling.

All of this made Mr. Zinke a political target of green activists who want to stop any economic development on public land. He has been besieged by complaints about his travel and other practices that would become fodder for House Democrats no matter how trivial. He concluded this would complicate his ability to make further changes, and he’s probably right. He has the consolation of departing as one of the Trump Administration’s more consequential cabinet officials.