|
A federal judge on Wednesday blocked the Trump administration's attempt to remove protections for the sage-grouse on millions of acres of public land across the West. Judge B. Lynn Winmill issued an injunction reinstating the Obama-era plan that banned or limited oil and gas drilling on 10.7 million acres of key sage-grouse habitat.
The ruling is temporary, but Judge Winmill found that the conservation groups that brought the lawsuit are likely to prevail. He added that the injunction was necessary because the Trump administration's actions were “designed to open up more land to oil, gas, and mineral extraction as soon as possible. That was the expressed intent of the Trump Administration and then-Secretary Ryan Zinke. There is no indication that current Secretary David Bernhardt is proceeding at any slower pace.”
Pendley says the quiet part out loud
William Perry Pendley, the acting head of the Bureau of Land Management, admitted to Bloomberg Environment that decisions under the National Environmental Policy Act should be made in Washington, DC, not locally. That undermines the administration's previous rationale for dismantling BLM's Washington headquarters, so employees could be closer to the lands they manage. Pendley now says any updates to local BLM management plans are “not a local decision.”
Pendley's interview confirms suspicions among BLM retirees that the purpose of the BLM headquarters move is to consolidate authority with political appointees in Washington, while cutting career civil servants out of the decision-making process.
|
What’s the point of moving the BLM people to Grand Junction so that decision making is closer to the West if the decisions are going to be made at the department? It makes no sense.”
