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Interior Secretary David Bernhardt signed an order yesterday to extend the temporary appointments of several Interior Department officials. The list includes William Perry Pendley, the litigious anti-public lands figure who is currently in charge of the Bureau of Land Management, and David Vela, as "exercising the authority of director" of the National Park Service. Both temporary appointments are extended through June 5.
The BLM has not had a Senate confirmed director for the last three years, the entirety of the first term of the Trump administration. Secretary Bernhardt has extended Mr. Pendley's tenure overseeing the BLM for the fourth time, a fact that has not gone unnoticed by watchdog groups that have threatened to sue the administration over the long succession of temporary appointments.
The Western Watersheds Project and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) filed a notice of intent to sue Secretary Bernhardt last week if he extended both appointments for violating the Federal Vacancies Reform Act and the appointments clause of the U.S. Constitution. Peter Jenkins, PEER's senior counsel said, "We warned Secretary Bernhardt not to keep tempting fate with these repeated, illegal re-delegations, but he wouldn't listen. The solution to stay out of federal court was easy: get President Trump to just appoint proper 'acting' directors. Since they didn't do that, litigation is the next step, to be filed ASAP."
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Shale wells have a particularly steep decline curve, meaning that after that first surge of oil – call it the first-month buzz – its production decreases by as much as 10% per month. So in order to keep the oil and money flowing, companies have to drill more and more wells, which requires them to go deeper into debt, which requires them to sell more oil, and so on, until, at last, the whole scheme collapses under its own weight."
