Editorial: Budd-Falen top choice for Interior job

...Judging by the knee-jerk reaction of some environmentalists, the Trump administration has chosen well in Karen Budd-Falen, its new deputy solicitor for fish, wildlife and parks within the Department of the Interior. “Her appointment to this position is abysmal for the protection of wildlife, respect for sacred tribal lands and conservation of wild places that Interior is supposed to safeguard,” the Wilderness Society’s lawyer, Nada Culver, said in a press release. Culver tries to paint Budd-Falen with a broad brush that includes the Bundy family, whom she represented along with other ranchers in 1989 in a case involving the Mojave desert tortoise, an endangered species. The fact that 27 years later the Bundys participated in the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge debacle is laid at Budd-Falen’s feet. It “calls into serious question whether she can be trusted to apply the law on behalf of the Department of the Interior,” Culver said. Let’s clarify what Budd-Falen has done for a living for the past three decades. She is a lawyer. It is her job to represent her clients to the best of her ability, no matter what side of an issue they are on. The fact that the Wilderness Society doesn’t like that she has represented ranchers in disputes with environmental groups and the federal government apparently is enough to give them a massive case of heartburn. We infer from the Wilderness Society’s statements that if Budd-Falen had represented environmental groups instead of ranchers she would get both a medal and a ringing endorsement...As an a private attorney, an attorney with the Mountain States Legal Foundation and as a special assistant within the Interior Department during the Reagan administration, Budd-Falen has developed an encyclopedic knowledge of land and water management issues in the West. As deputy solicitor for fish, wildlife and parks within the Department of the Interior, she will be uniquely able to apply that knowledge to high-level decisions that will impact nearly every farmer and rancher in the West...MORE