** Acting BLM chief Pendley runs from his past in front of skeptical reporters
------------------------------------------------------------
Monday, October 14 2019
Protesters gather outside William Perry Pendley's appearance at the Society of Environmental Journalists conference in Fort Collins, Colorado. Sierra Club Colorado ([link removed])

William Perry Pendley, the longtime public lands opponent who is now the acting head of the Bureau of Land Management, told a skeptical crowd of environmental journalists ([link removed]) on Thursday that his past actions and words are now "irrelevant," ([link removed]) that he has yet to be briefed on climate science
([link removed]) despite having been on the job since July, and that wild horses, not climate change ([link removed]) , are the biggest threat public lands face today.

Pendley was the marquee name on the opening panel at the Society of Environmental Journalists conference in Fort Collins, Colorado. Pendley insisted that forcing most of his agency's DC-based staff out of Washington will make BLM more responsive to the public ([link removed]) , despite warnings from former BLM state leaders that Pendley and Interior Secretary David Bernhardt are on a mission to simply gut the agency ([link removed]) .

Another member of the SEJ panel, Boise State University professor John Freemuth, sat down with CWP's Go West, Young Podcast ([link removed]) afterwards to talk about Pendley and the proposed BLM move.

"These are national lands, and there will be decisions where BLM needs to interact with other agencies and various specialists and go up and down the hall to have conversations," Freemuth said. "If they're in Grand Junction and there's that kind of question, they're not going to be in the conversation."
Quick hits


** Growing number of cities and states recognize Indigenous Peoples' Day as Columbus Day fades
------------------------------------------------------------

NPR ([link removed]) | NBC News ([link removed]) | Mother Jones ([link removed]) | New York Times ([link removed]) | The Conversation ([link removed])


** Pendley dodges his past, defends shrinking BLM headquarters to just 27 employees
------------------------------------------------------------

HuffPost ([link removed]) | Denver Post ([link removed]) | Westword ([link removed]) | Bloomberg ([link removed]) | Colorado Sun ([link removed]) | Aspen Times
([link removed]) | Colorado Times Recorder ([link removed])


** Opinions: Here's what Pendley gets wrong about public lands and BLM relocation
------------------------------------------------------------

Go West, Young Podcast ([link removed]) | The Hill ([link removed]) | Arizona Mirror ([link removed])


** Interior advisory panel, stuffed with industry reps, wants to privatize national park campgrounds
------------------------------------------------------------

Yahoo News ([link removed]) | National Parks Traveler ([link removed]) | The Hill ([link removed])


** California won't issue oil and gas drilling permits on protected national public lands
------------------------------------------------------------

Bloomberg ([link removed])


** Bison at Badlands National Park get an additional 22,000 acres to roam
------------------------------------------------------------

National Parks Traveler ([link removed]) | Rapid City Journal ([link removed])


** Coal bankruptcies pile up as utilities embrace renewables and natural gas
------------------------------------------------------------

Wall Street Journal ([link removed]) | Bozeman Daily Chronicle ([link removed]) | CNN ([link removed])


** How highway retrofits are protecting wildlife across the West
------------------------------------------------------------

Washington Post ([link removed])
Quote of the day
Nope. Not going to clarify. Those are my personal opinions.”
—Acting BLM director William Perry Pendley, in response to a request from New York Times reporter Lisa Friedman ([link removed]) to clarify “What don’t you think exists? Is it that you don't think greenhouse gases are warming the Earth? Is it something else?”
Picture this


** @native_newsnet ([link removed])
------------------------------------------------------------

The San Francisco Bay American Indian community celebrated the 27th Annual Berkeley Indigenous Peoples’ Day Powwow at the Martin Luther King Civic Center Park in Berkeley, California on Saturday, October 12, 2019.

Berkeley, California was the first city in the United States to recognize Indigenous Peoples’ Day in 1992.

============================================================
** Twitter ([link removed])
** Facebook ([link removed])
** Medium ([link removed])
Copyright © 2019 Center for Western Priorities, All rights reserved.
You've signed up to receive Look West updates.

Center for Western Priorities
820 16th Street
Suite 450
Denver, CO 80202
USA
** View this on the web ([link removed])

Want to change how you receive these emails?
You can ** update your preferences ([link removed])
or ** unsubscribe from this list ([link removed])