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The Trump administration's plan to break up Bureau of Land Management headquarters would also split up the team that looks at the environmental impacts of major projects on American public lands. Documents reviewed by The Hill show BLM intends to scatter the 20-person team that performs analysis under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) across seven states.
Steve Ellis, BLM's former top career official, told The Hill, “It’s more apparent than ever to me what the goal is for this proposal, and it’s not to make things more efficient and to get things on the ground.”
The news comes days after acting BLM director William Perry Pendley told a conference of environmental journalists that “NEPA is essentially where projects go to die.”
Other interdisciplinary teams are also being broken up under the BLM plan, including the Fish and Wildlife Conservation and Environmental Protection division, which would see its staff split between Denver and Salt Lake City.
“Staff is being scattered so they can’t work together efficiently and effectively,” Ellis said.
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There is no question that NEPA would require preparation of an environmental impact statement, with significant input from the public, from affected communities, tribal governments, land owners, and land managers throughout the process. And it is outrageous that a project of this magnitude is getting a complete exemption from NEPA and all the other laws."
