STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
This next story involves 250 million acres of land. That's how much public land is overseen by the Bureau of Land Management. One way to think of 250 million acres is, that's roughly equal to the entire land area of Texas, plus California. This week, the Trump administration installed an acting director to supervise all that land. He is a man who has called for transferring public lands to states or selling them to private industry. NPR's Kirk Siegler has more.
KIRK SIEGLER, BYLINE: William Perry Pendley served under President Reagan's controversial Interior Secretary James Watt. He then built his career as an attorney at the conservative Mountain States Legal Foundation in Colorado, where he challenged the validity of the Endangered Species Act and represented oil and gas interests in public lands disputes. His Twitter handle is Sagebrush Rebel, a nod to what President Reagan once called himself. But the Sagebrush Rebellion is also associated with extremists like Cliven Bundy, whose family led armed occupations over control of federal public land. Pendley has written articles sympathetic to that movement, and he's argued that federal government shouldn't own most public land.
JEFF RUCH: We've likened it to putting an arsonist in charge of the city fire department.
SIEGLER: Jeff Ruch is with Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, a group that represents whistleblowers inside federal agencies.
RUCH: The whole mission of the BLM is to manage these lands. And he's trying to basically get them out of this business, which seems to be quite a departure, even under Trump.
What on earth are they going to sue over? His qualification? Advise and consent? That is what it appears. PEER says:
This next story involves 250 million acres of land. That's how much public land is overseen by the Bureau of Land Management. One way to think of 250 million acres is, that's roughly equal to the entire land area of Texas, plus California. This week, the Trump administration installed an acting director to supervise all that land. He is a man who has called for transferring public lands to states or selling them to private industry. NPR's Kirk Siegler has more.
KIRK SIEGLER, BYLINE: William Perry Pendley served under President Reagan's controversial Interior Secretary James Watt. He then built his career as an attorney at the conservative Mountain States Legal Foundation in Colorado, where he challenged the validity of the Endangered Species Act and represented oil and gas interests in public lands disputes. His Twitter handle is Sagebrush Rebel, a nod to what President Reagan once called himself. But the Sagebrush Rebellion is also associated with extremists like Cliven Bundy, whose family led armed occupations over control of federal public land. Pendley has written articles sympathetic to that movement, and he's argued that federal government shouldn't own most public land.
JEFF RUCH: We've likened it to putting an arsonist in charge of the city fire department.
SIEGLER: Jeff Ruch is with Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, a group that represents whistleblowers inside federal agencies.
RUCH: The whole mission of the BLM is to manage these lands. And he's trying to basically get them out of this business, which seems to be quite a departure, even under Trump.
SIEGLER: And San Juan County, he notes, is one of the poorest in Utah. Meanwhile, environmentalists are planning legal action over the Pendley appointment. Kirk Siegler, NPR News.
What on earth are they going to sue over? His qualification? Advise and consent? That is what it appears. PEER says:
...The Federal law that created BLM requires the Director to “have a broad background and substantial experience in public land and natural resource management.” Not only does lawyer Pendley lack those qualities, he is on record as advocating on behalf of MSLF that BLM should waste away by downsizing its land holdings through massive sell-offs...Here is what the law says (FLPMA, Sec. 301):
...Further, the BLM Director position is one that requires the “advice and consent” of the Senate, under Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution. However, President Trump and Secretary Bernhardt have diligently detoured around that requirement, denying all of the U.S. Senate the ability to review and confirm or deny a nominee for the position.
Sec. 301. [43 U.S.C. 1731] (a) The Bureau of Land Management established by Reorganization Plan Numbered 3, of 1946 (5 U.S.C. App. 519) shall have as its head a Director. Appointments to the position of Director shall hereafter be made by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate. The Director of the Bureau shall have a broad background and substantial experience in public land and natural resource management. He shall carry out such functions and shall perform such duties as the Secretary may prescribe with respect to the management of lands and resources under his jurisdiction according to the applicable provisions of this Act and any other applicable law.
1 comment:
Business as usual for the wackos.............find a leftist judge and sue.
As long as they are allowed to drain taxpayer money this way........they will not stop doing it.
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