#BLM = BUREAU of Land management

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from Rolling Stone:

The iconic palomino stallion died on the same open lands he had roamed for years, but they looked unfamiliar to him in his last desperate moments. The dust from the helicopter kicking up behind him, the roar of the blades ceaselessly bearing down — it was enough to make him flee as fast as he could despite the leg he had snapped in half while trying to regain his freedom. His pursuers eventually tired of the chase, and a wrangler felled him with a rifle shot.

Sunshine Man was one of 21 wild horses killed at the behest of the Bureau of Land Management during a 2023 roundup in Nevada. And 2024 is looking to be even bloodier as the agency seeks to capture 20,000 horses by September. At least 11 horses died in a single northern Nevada roundup as of June 29. Few people know that wild horses are being driven to near extinction by inhumane roundups perpetrated by the federal government and funded by taxpayers. Unless we do something to end this antiquated, barbaric practice, wild horses will disappear forever.

A few years ago, my film crew and I set out on what would become a five-year journey across the American West to capture footage of wild horses for a film I was directing — an adaptation of Anna Sewell’s classic, Black Beauty. I have been a horse person since my youth; but it was on this trip, in the heart of the wild, that I first encountered the enduring magic and astounding beauty of these sacred symbols of American freedom.

I also experienced the chilling conspiracy that was threatening to permanently eradicate them in the cruelest way imaginable. 

Under the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971 — which established federal protections for wild horses — the Bureau of Land Management is authorized to remove “excess” animals to protect the health of the range.

For decades, the BLM has captured thousands of wild horses and burros, claiming that an overpopulation of wild horses is causing land degradation or that the horses are in danger of starvation. But a landmark 2013 study conducted by the independent National Academy of Sciences found that the Bureau’s own justifications for removing wild horses and burros are not supported by science. 

The sinister truth is that wild horses are being used as a scapegoat for the multibillion-dollar livestock industry.

Numerous independent studies and experts agree that livestock grazing, not wild horses, is the major cause of degrading public lands. A 2022 analysis of the Bureau’s own data found that livestock outnumber wild horses and burros on public lands by more than 125:1. Livestock grazing is identified as a “significant cause” of land degradation in 72 percent of the areas that fail to meet rangeland health standards. 

Yet thousands of wild horses are still subject to violent roundups. In 2023, more than 5,000 wild horses and burros were removed from public lands, costing taxpayers about $160 million.

I witnessed these horrific roundups firsthand while filming my documentary, Wild Beauty: Mustang Spirit of the West. 

The BLM uses helicopters to chase wild horses — including pregnant mares, elderly horses, and foals no more than a day old — for miles, sometimes in extreme heat, on grueling and dangerous terrain to the point of injury, exhaustion, and death. More horrific injuries occur as the terrified horses are forced into “trap sites” — narrowly fenced-in areas on the range where the horses collide in the melee, sometimes breaking their legs or necks as they try to escape.

The BLM repeatedly refused my film crew and journalists from the Associated Press access to the trap sites where deaths and injuries often occur. When we were eventually allowed access, we documented the horrendous conditions. We saw pain and terror in the horses’ eyes as blood streamed down their faces. I’ll never forget the sound of their cries as they were separated from their families.

The BLM insists helicopter roundups are humane — but there is nothing humane about using a helicopter to chase a highly intelligent, federally protected animal to its death. This is abuse. 

[whywishesarehorses]

This weekend I got to take Thea out riding in a BLM timber preserve - almost nine miles with lots of uphill gallops, several log jumps, and one slide on her butt down a very steep muddy hill. She worked hard enough to sweat on her face, and loved every second of it. She kept pace with the Arab better this time

[xtruss]

This New Park Gives Different Views of the Grand Canyon—with No Crowds

These sacred Indigenous lands in Arizona just got government protection. Here’s how to explore their hikes, wildlife, and impressive vistas.

— By Joe Yogerst | September 1, 2023

Red Butte, which the Havasupai people call Wii'i Gdwiisa (“Clenched Fist Mountain”), is one of many sacred Indigenous sites within Arizona’s new Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni Grand Canyon National Monument. Named a national monument by President Joseph Biden in August 2023, the one-million-acre wilderness offers hiking, backcountry camping, and views of the Grand Canyon without the crowds. Photograph By Taylor McKinnon, Center For Biological Diversity

Grand Canyon National Park draws 4.7 million visitors a year to the northwest corner of Arizona to hike, camp, or watch wildlife. But most of them don’t realize that the lands within and surrounding the park are sacred to the region’s 12 Indigenous tribes, which include the Havasupai, Hopi, Navajo, and several bands of Paiute.

That changed on August 8 when President Joseph Biden signed a decree creating the Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni—Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument. Sprawling across more than 960,000 acres directly north and south of the national park, the new monument offers more rugged, less crowded recreation than its neighbor. It also provides a view of the landscape through Indigenous eyes.

“Baaj nwaavjo in Havasupai means ‘where the ancient people roamed,’” says Carletta Tilousi, coordinator of the Grand Canyon Tribal Coalition. “I’tah kukveni is the Hopi translation of ‘ancestral footsteps’. This reaffirms their creation stories.”

Here’s how the monument came to be, and how to explore it.

Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni yields views of the Colorado River and Grand Canyon from a different perspective. Photograph By Amy S. Martin

How to Make a National Monument

It took two million years for the Grand Canyon itself to form and around 40 years for Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni to become reality. “The protection for these lands is something the tribes have focused on since as far back as the 1980s,” says Amber Reimondo of the Grand Canyon Trust, a nonprofit devoted to preserving the region.

Many of these Indigenous people were expelled from their territory when Grand Canyon National Park was established in 1919. They campaigned for decades to receive stronger protection for their lands around the park, overcoming entities that wanted fewer legal obstacles to development and mining. After President Biden’s election in 2020, the 12 tribes formed a coalition which led to the lands receiving federal status.

Though the National Park Service oversees Grand Canyon National Park, monuments such as Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni are run by the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). Monuments generally have fewer restrictions regarding their use (e.g., sometimes hunting or logging is allowed), as well as fewer facilities for visitors.

Fewer Amenities, Fewer Crowds

Like many national monuments, Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni exudes raw nature. It has no bathrooms or visitor center; access is primarily via dirt roads or rough trails; you’ll need a four-wheel-drive to reach many sections of the park.

What it offers is solitude and peace amid the forests and grasslands of northern Arizona. You can gaze at the Grand Canyon without thousands of other people jostling for the same space, hike trails where yours are the only footsteps, and make camp at secluded spots. Plus you might encounter wildlife such as elk, black bear, mule deer, birds, or bison.

That solitude is also important to the Indigenous people. Tilousi says that when she visits the busy South Rim inside Grand Canyon National Park, “It’s very difficult for me to find a spot where I can offer prayers and offerings in a quiet way.” She feels that won’t be an issue in the off-the-beaten-track lands of the new monument.

Native plants including yucca flourish within Baaj Nwaavjo I'teh Kukveni National Monument. Photograph By Amy S. Martin

Exploring the Monument

The vast wilderness of Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni is divided into three distinct sections or parcels, each with its own appeal.

The southernmost section, the Tusayan Ranger District/South Parcel, is the easiest to explore. Comprising 330,000 acres within the Kaibab National Forest, its pine woodlands and sagebrush prairie are accessible via Forest Service roads or Sections 35 through 37 of the Arizona Trail, an 800-mile hiking route stretching across the entire state.

The South Parcel also shows signs of human life, including the rusty hangar of the 1920s Red Butte Airfield and the 80-foot-tall Grandview Lookout Tower, which you can climb for views of the Colorado Plateau and the Grand Canyon.

The other sections of the monument, Kanab Plateau/Northwest Parcel and Rock House Valley/Northeast Parcel, are located beyond the North Rim section of Grand Canyon National Park.

“It's a big, remote wilderness,” says Michael Cravens, advocacy and conservation director of the Arizona Wildlife Federation. “I’ve never in my life been somewhere with night skies that spectacular.” But he cautions visitors “to be careful and prepared” for the extreme weather and topography. You can reach the northern parcels on BLM roads south of U.S. Highway 89A.

The vast House Rock Valley stretches through a portion of the new national monument. Photograph By Taylor McKinnon, Center For Biological Diversity

Stretched across the Kanab Plateau and Antelope Valley, the Kanab Plateau section has hiking routes through spectacular side canyons and to panoramic views such as Gunsight Point.

The Hack Trail drops down into the Kanab Creek Wilderness with its enormous red-rock canyons, a landscape almost as impressive as the Grand Canyon itself. Experienced hikers can continue down Kanab Creek to the Colorado River or along other trails to vertiginous overlooks along the North Rim.

Set beneath the Vermilion Cliffs National Monument, the Rock House Valley section of Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni tumbles across sagebrush flats to the edge of Marble Canyon. Rugged hiking trails here include the Soap Creek Trail, which winds down from the Rapids/Badger Camp Overlook to a primitive campsite near the river.

Rough roads lead south to viewpoints for Rider Canyon, South Canyon, and other offshoots of the Grand Canyon. Here, you might even spot the North Rim’s resident bison herd, brought to the Arizona Strip in 1906 by Charles “Buffalo” Jones as part of efforts to save the species.

Ancient rock art can be spotted in the Kanab Creek Wilderness portion of Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni National Monument. Photograph By Natpar Collection, Alamy Stock Photo

The Havasupai Indian Reservation in Arizona, which includes the Havasu Waterfall—part of the Havasupai Falls—is the current home of the Havasupai people. After the Grand Canyon became a national park, they were forcibly removed from their traditional homelands in the canyon and in nearby lands that will be part of the new national monument. Photograph By Mike Theiss National Geographic Image Collection

1 Million Acres of ‘Sacred’ Land Near Grand Canyon are Receiving New Protections! The designation of the land as a national monument, confirmed to National Geographic this week by the White House, will prevent new uranium mines and protect historically significant tribal lands.

[diablo1776]

Golden Valley, NV on BLM Land behind my house

[psychotrope777]

ive been watching this girls horse videos and she has pretty good takes from what i can tell but she has a republican aura

[jenniferrobingallery]

Public response to: Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Control Number 1004–0042

The BLM keeps trying to change the rules, at every opportunity, to eradicate the federally protected wild horse and burros, and to dispose of the evidence of their crimes. For over 50 years, WHB advocates keep fighting the government agencies to expose...

The BLM keeps trying to change the rules, at every opportunity, to eradicate the federally protected wild horse and burros, and to dispose of the evidence of their crimes. For over 50 years, WHB advocates keep fighting the government agencies to expose their dishonesty, internal corruption, and mis-management of the WHB program and out public lands to appease the livestock and mining industries…

[typhlonectes]

Western Tiger Salamander

The western tiger salamander, also known as the barred tiger salamander, is one of the few native amphibian species in Idaho, and the only salamander found in Yellowstone National Park. They are one of the largest species of salamander in North America - reaching up to nine inches long from nose to tail.

Mostly found in the eastern counties, there are other Idaho zones where they are also found. Primarily nocturnal, barred tiger salamanders are opportunistic feeders, and will often eat anything they can catch, including various insects, slugs, and earthworms. They are primarily terrestrial as adults, but their juvenile, larval stage is entirely aquatic, having external gills. Breeding takes place during most months of the year.

The eggs are laid in water and the developing larvae are exclusively aquatic.Increasingly, scientists are looking to this species as a candidate for aquatic ecosystem health monitoring. Other amphibians have been found to be bioaccumulators of mercury and other contaminants, and these Idaho ‘manders might also prove helpful in that regard.

Photo of larval salamander by Bruce Hallman, Idaho Falls District BLM

via: Bureau of Land Management

[3liza]

On Earth Day in 2022, President Joe Biden stood among cherry blossoms and towering Douglas firs in a Seattle park to declare the importance of big, old trees. “There used to be a hell of a lot more forests like this,” he said, calling them “our planet’s lungs” and extolling their power to fight climate change. The amount of carbon trees suck out of the air increases dramatically with age, making older trees especially important. These trees are also rare: Less than 10% of forests in the lower 48 states remain unlogged or undisturbed by development. The president uncapped his pen, preparing to sign an executive order to protect mature and old-growth forests on federal lands. “I just think this is the beginning of a new day,” Biden said. But two years later, at a timber auction in a federal office in Roseburg, Oregon, this new day was nowhere to be seen. As journalists and protestors waited outside, logging company representatives filed through a secure glass door to a room where only “qualified bidders” were allowed. Up for sale this September morning were the first trees from an area of forest the Bureau of Land Management calls Blue and Gold. It holds hundreds of thousands of trees on 3,225 acres in southern Oregon’s Coast Range. Forests here can absorb more carbon per acre than almost any other on the planet. A week after Biden’s executive order, the Blue and Gold logging project had been shelved. Now it was back on. The BLM is moving forward with timber sales in dozens of forests like this across the West, auctioning off their trees to companies that will turn them into plywood, two-by-fours and paper products. Under Biden, the agency is on track to log some 47,000 acres of public lands, nearly the same amount as during President Donald Trump’s first term in office. This includes even some mature and old-growth forests that Biden’s executive order was supposed to protect. An Oregon Public Broadcasting and ProPublica analysis found the bureau has allowed timber companies to cut such forests at a faster pace since the executive order than in the decade that preceded it.

lesser evil 🤪

[dailymothanon]

A sketch of Gov in the new episode 🐶! I always kinda imagined Gov to look pretty much how he is portrayed in the episodes tbh so I never bother to make him that much of a separate design 🤔 BUT also this is an excuse to educate y'all on federal land. It will be under the cut for those who wanna learn.

What does Federal Land mean for a state?

Well, this is something I think a lot of folks in here (the fandom) needs to know, because I just see people jump to conclude Gov is horrible towards Nevada. That is not the case.

This is just the basics, but federal land literally just conserves, manages, and protects natural resources and wildlife. For example, national parks are federal lands. You'd notice this because of how western states tend to have more wildlife than the east. And how federal land is mostly administered by agencies such as the BLM, FWS, NPS, and USFS, which all are catered towards handling wildlife and resources.

Federal land also tends to consist of land that states cannot easily manage or utilize, which for Nevada it's pretty easy to notice, as most of Nevada is semi-arid and desert, meanwhile land more available to use, like by rivers and other water sources are not usually federal land.

Historically, up until 1976, you could easily just claim a homestead of hundreds of acres! The Federal Government just ended up taking what nobody else really wanted because they couldn't live there anyways. It's why Nevada has so much Fed Land, and now that land is managed by agencies; and in Nevada's case, most of it is under the Bureau of Land Management. This is why Nevada's population only resides in no more than 20% of the land. Because they bought it as they could use it and live in it, even then they don't use much of the full 20% that is accessible to them.

And it's not as if federal land is completely off-hands, people hunt, hike, camp and fish in federal land all the time! Take Alaska for example, who's 60%+ federal land, in terms of Alaska's size that's a LOT of land, yet Alaska is one of or the best state when it comes to fishing and hunting either way, and Alaska's natural beauty remains largely untouched and unbothered (at least directly).

There is also the fact that if a crime is committed on federal land, it instantly becomes punishable to a higher degree than it would on state grounds, as it becomes of federal interest.

So no, Nevada being 80% federal land isn't bad for him. It's just Gov taking up and protecting what Nevada can't really utilize or manage easily.

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from E&E News/Politico:

The Bureau of Land Management announced Thursday it has finalized a sweeping new public lands rule that places conservation and restoration of public lands on equal footing with energy development and mining.

The final rule implements a suite of conservation policy tools and initiatives BLM offices are directed to employ in an effort to protect natural spaces and restore lands in the face of a warming climate.

The rule states that urgent action is needed to preserve and restore federal rangelands against drought and increased wildfires, or the 245 million acres BLM oversees will no longer be able in the coming decades to support grazing, recreation or energy development.

“The rule does not prioritize conservation above other multiple uses. It also does not preclude other uses where conservation use is occurring,” according to the final rule. “Many uses are compatible with different types of conservation use, such as sustainable recreation, grazing, and habitat management. The rule also does not enable conservation use to occur in places where an existing, authorized, and incompatible use is occurring.”

Critics, including the National Mining Association, blasted the final rule as an effort to block energy production and mining, and a betrayal of BLM’s mandate to accommodate a range of uses beyond conservation.

But it’s a victory for conservation groups and other supporters who see it as a major and long-overdue policy shift for an agency they say has too often favored ranching, oil and gas drilling or mining over the preservation and health of federal rangelands.

The rule will formally take effect 30 days after it is published in the Federal Register, presumably in the coming days.

The final BLM rule is among a handful of major policy changes, rules and initiatives rolled out within the past week as President Joe Biden looks to bolster his appeal to conservationists and young climate activists during an election year.

Summary of the Public Lands Rule from a press release from the Department of the Interior:

The final rule:

Directs BLM to manage for landscape health. Successful public land management that delivers natural resources, wildlife habitat and clean water requires a thorough understanding of the health and condition of the landscape, especially as conditions shift on the ground due to climate change. To help sustain the health of our lands and waters, the rule directs the BLM to manage public land uses in accordance with the fundamentals of land health, which will help watersheds support soils, plants, and water; ecosystems provide healthy populations and communities of plants and animals; and wildlife habitats on public lands protect threatened and endangered species consistent with the multiple use and sustained yield framework.  

Provides a mechanism for restoring and protecting our public lands through restoration and mitigation leases. Restoration leases provide greater clarity for the BLM to work with appropriate partners to restore degraded lands. Mitigation leases will provide a clear and consistent mechanism for developers to offset their impacts by investing in land health elsewhere on public lands, like they currently can on state and private lands. The final rule clarifies who can obtain a restoration or mitigation lease, limiting potential lessees to qualified individuals, businesses, non-governmental organizations, Tribal governments, conservation districts, or state fish and wildlife agencies. Restoration and mitigation leases will not be issued if they would conflict with existing authorized uses. 

Clarifies the designation and management of ACECs. The final rule provides greater detail about how the BLM will continue to follow the direction in the Federal Land Policy and Management Act to prioritize the designation and protection of ACECs. Following public comments, the final rule clarifies how BLM consideration of new ACEC nominations and temporary management options does not interfere with the BLM’s discretion to continue advancing pending project applications.

[yourreddancer]

Heather Cox Richardson

January 7, 2025

Heather Cox Richardson

Jan 8

Today, President Joe Biden signed proclamations that create the Chuckwalla National Monument and the Sáttítla Highlands National Monument, protecting 848,000 acres (about 3,430 square kilometers) of land in southern California’s Eastern Coachella Valley. Under the 1906 Antiquities Act, the president can designate national monuments to protect areas of “scientific, cultural, ecological, and historic importance.”

Yesterday, Biden protected the East Coast, the West Coast, the eastern Gulf of Mexico, and Alaska’s Northern Bering Sea—an area that makes up about 625 million acres or 2.5 million square kilometers—from oil and natural gas drilling. While there is currently little interest among oil companies in drilling in those areas, the new designation will protect them into the future. Noting that nearly 40% of Americans live in coastal communities, Biden said the minimal fossil fuel potential was not worth the risks that drilling would bring to the fishing and tourist industries and to environmental and public health.

The White House noted that Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have “conserved more lands and waters”—more than 670 million acres of them—and have “deployed more clean energy, and made more progress in cutting climate pollution and advancing environmental justice than any previous administration.” At the same time, oil and gas production is at an all-time high, demonstrating that land protection and energy production can coexist.

While oil executives blasted Biden’s proclamation protecting the coastal waters, Democratic lawmakers on the newly protected coasts cheered his action, recognizing that oil spills devastate the tourism and fishing on which their constituents depend: the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, for example, killed 11 people, closed 32,000 square miles (82,880 square kilometers) of the Gulf of Mexico to fishing, and has cost more than $65 billion in compensation alone.

Biden protected the oceans under the 1953 Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, which enables presidents to withdraw federal waters from future oil and gas leasing and development but does not say that future presidents can revoke that protection to put those waters back into development, meaning that Trump—who similarly protected coastal waters when he was president—will have a hard time overturning Biden’s action.

Nonetheless, Trump’s spokesperson Karoline Leavitt called Biden’s decision “disgraceful” and claimed it was “designed to exact political revenge on the American people who gave President Trump a mandate to increase drilling and lower gas prices. Rest assured, Joe Biden will fail, and we will drill, baby, drill.”

Journalist Wes Siler, who writes about the outdoors, environment, and the law, notes that there is a major effort underway among Republicans to privatize public lands to benefit oil and gas industries, as well as other extractive industries, just as Project 2025 outlined. Melinda Taylor, senior lecturer at the University of Texas at Austin Law School, told Bloomberg Law in November: “Project 2025 is a ‘wish list’ for the oil and gas and mining industries and private developers. It promotes opening up more of our federal land to energy development, rolling back protections on federal lands, and selling off more land to private developers.”

In September, Siler wrote in Outside that politicians in Utah have designed a lawsuit to put in front of the Supreme Court. It argues that all the land in Utah currently in the hands of the Bureau of Land Management—18.5 million acres—should be transferred to the control of the state of Utah.

Those eager to get their hands on the land use the words “unappropriated lands” from the 1862 Homestead Act to claim that the federal government is holding the land “without any designated purpose.”

But, as Siler notes, in 2023, BLM-managed land supported 783,000 jobs and produced $201 billion in economic output, and in Utah alone the use of BLM land created more than 36,000 jobs and $6.7 billion in economic output as more than 15 million people visited the state’s public lands. Utah realized hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes on that activity, and while it’s true that states cannot tax federal government lands—as lawmakers say—the government pays the state in lieu of taxes: $128.7 million in 2021.

Transferring that land to the state would sacrifice these funds, and because the state constitution requires the state both to balance its budget and to realize profits from state land, that transfer would facilitate the land’s sale to private interests.

Twelve states have now joined Utah’s lawsuit, arguing that federal control of “unappropriated” land within states impinges on state sovereignty, and they are asking the Supreme Court to take up the case as part of its original jurisdiction. As Siler noted in a May article in Outside, Chief Justice John Roberts has expressed an eagerness to revisit the legality of the Antiquities Act the presidents use to protect land—as Biden did today—suggesting he would be willing to side with the states against the federal government. Project 2025 also calls for Congress to repeal the Antiquities Act.

In Wes Siler’s Newsletter yesterday, Siler noted that the new rules package adopted for the 119th Congress makes it easier to transfer public lands to state control. The rules strip away the need to justify the cost of such a transfer and to offset it with budget cuts or increased revenue elsewhere.

In a press conference today, Trump said he would rescind Biden’s policies and “put it back on day one,” and complained that the 625 million acres Biden protected feels “like the whole ocean,” although the Pacific Ocean alone is almost 38 billion acres more than Biden protected.

Also today, Trump announced that a developer from Dubai, DAMAC Properties, will invest at least $20 billion in the U.S. to create new data centers that support artificial intelligence and cloud services. Trump claimed that the company’s chief executive officer, Hussain Sajwani, is investing in the U.S. “because of the fact that he was very inspired by the election,” but DAMAC has been connected to Trump for a while.

Sajwani attended Trump’s first inauguration, and a company tied to chair and current board member of DAMAC Farooq Arjomand paid $600,000 to the key witness for the House Republicans seeking to dig up dirt on President Biden. That man was Alexander Smirnov, who in December 2024 pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI when he claimed Biden had taken bribes from the Ukrainian company Burisma.

Data centers are notoriously high users of energy. They consume 10 to 50 times as much energy per floor space as does a typical commercial office building, which might have something to do with why Trump’s team is so eager to increase American energy production even as it is already at an all-time high. Trump has promised companies that invest a billion or more dollars in the U.S. that they will get expedited approvals and permits, including those covering environmental concerns.

But if the larger story of this moment is the plunder of our public resources for private interests, Trump’s press conference in general seemed to have a different theme. It was what CNN perhaps euphemistically called “wide ranging,” as he abandoned his “America First” isolationism to suggest using force against China as well as U.S. allies Denmark, Panama, Mexico, and Canada, which would destabilize the globe by rejecting the central principle of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) that countries must respect each other’s sovereignty. He wildly suggested that the Iran-backed Lebanese paramilitary group Hezbollah was part of the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and that his people were part of the negotiations for the return of the Israeli hostages.

Trump’s performance was reminiscent of his off-the-wall press conferences during the worst of the coronavirus pandemic, which tanked his popularity enough to get his team to stop him from doing them. Trump might have chosen to speak today to keep attention away from the arrival of the casket carrying former president Jimmy Carter to Washington, D.C., where it was transported by horse-drawn caisson to the Capitol, where Carter will lie in state in the Rotunda until his Thursday funeral at Washington National Cathedral. The snow and frigid weather were not enough to keep mourners away, and Trump has already expressed frustration that Carter’s death will mean that flags will be at half-staff for his own inauguration.

But he also might have been trying to demonstrate that the transition from Biden’s administration to his own is taking his time and energy in order to add heft to the argument his lawyers made yesterday. They demanded that Attorney General Merrick Garland prevent the public release of special counsel Jack Smith’s report about his investigation into Trump’s attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election because making Trump respond to the media frenzy the report will stir up would take his attention away from the presidential transition.

Trump managed to defang most of the legal cases against him by being elected president, but he apparently still fears the release of Smith’s report. Today, Judge Aileen Cannon, whom he appointed to the bench and who dismissed the charges against Trump in his retention of classified documents, issued an order preventing the Department of Justice from releasing the report. Constitutional law professor Laurence Tribe noted that the order “has no legal basis and ought to be reversed quickly—but these days nobody can be confident that law will matter.”

The presidential immunity on which Trump apparently is relying has also failed to protect him from being sentenced in the election interference case in which a Manhattan jury found him guilty of 34 felonies. In Civil Discourse, legal analyst Joyce White Vance explained that Trump wants to stop the sentencing process because it triggers a thirty-day period for Trump to appeal. “Once the appeal is concluded,” she explains, “the conviction is final.” Trump was apparently hoping to hold off that process and buy four years to come up with a way out of a permanent designation as a felon.

It didn’t work. Today, appeals court judge Ellen Gesmer rejected his attempt to stop the sentencing. It will go forward on Friday as planned.

[rebeccathenaturalist]

Good. These things are horrifying for a whole host of reasons. First, it's mind-boggling that the USDA kills as much native wildlife as they do; last year's report showed that they killed over 56,000 (no that's not a typo) coyotes intentionally, over 5,000 of which died via cyanide M-44s. The report lists hundreds of other species, many native, intentionally killed by the USDA, plus a number that were unintentionally killed as well, for a total of 383,731 native wild animals killed by the USDA in 2022.

But M-44s also don't discriminate. Any animal that disturbs one--a pet, livestock, an endangered animal, or a human being--can get a deadly dose of cyanide. They're baited so that animals manipulate them with their mouths, meaning they literally get a mouthful of cyanide.

While the US Forest Service still uses M-44s, they will no longer be used on any Department of the Interior land. Here's hoping the Forest Service will follow suit.

[horsesarecreatures]

I agree with this decision. Wild horses have the potential to become overpopulated, but that determination needs to be made based on recent environmental assessments, not ones that are 10+ years old. The BLM should be required to perform way more NEPA analyses than they've been doing. They've often skated doing new environmental impact assessments by saying their management practices have not changed, but management practices may need to change when both the land and climate have been.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Tim Campbell

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

January 7, 2025

Heather Cox Richardson

Jan 08, 2025

Today, President Joe Biden signed proclamations that create the Chuckwalla National Monument and the Sáttítla Highlands National Monument, protecting 848,000 acres (about 3,430 square kilometers) of land in southern California’s Eastern Coachella Valley. Under the 1906 Antiquities Act, the president can designate national monuments to protect areas of “scientific, cultural, ecological, and historic importance.”

Yesterday, Biden protected the East Coast, the West Coast, the eastern Gulf of Mexico, and Alaska’s Northern Bering Sea—an area that makes up about 625 million acres or 2.5 million square kilometers—from oil and natural gas drilling. While there is currently little interest among oil companies in drilling in those areas, the new designation will protect them into the future. Noting that nearly 40% of Americans live in coastal communities, Biden said the minimal fossil fuel potential was not worth the risks that drilling would bring to the fishing and tourist industries and to environmental and public health.

The White House noted that Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have “conserved more lands and waters”—more than 670 million acres of them—and have “deployed more clean energy, and made more progress in cutting climate pollution and advancing environmental justice than any previous administration.” At the same time, oil and gas production is at an all-time high, demonstrating that land protection and energy production can coexist.

While oil executives blasted Biden’s proclamation protecting the coastal waters, Democratic lawmakers on the newly protected coasts cheered his action, recognizing that oil spills devastate the tourism and fishing on which their constituents depend: the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, for example, killed 11 people, closed 32,000 square miles (82,880 square kilometers) of the Gulf of Mexico to fishing, and has cost more than $65 billion in compensation alone.

Biden protected the oceans under the 1953 Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, which enables presidents to withdraw federal waters from future oil and gas leasing and development but does not say that future presidents can revoke that protection to put those waters back into development, meaning that Trump—who similarly protected coastal waters when he was president—will have a hard time overturning Biden’s action.

Nonetheless, Trump’s spokesperson Karoline Leavitt called Biden’s decision “disgraceful” and claimed it was “designed to exact political revenge on the American people who gave President Trump a mandate to increase drilling and lower gas prices. Rest assured, Joe Biden will fail, and we will drill, baby, drill.”

Journalist Wes Siler, who writes about the outdoors, environment, and the law, notes that there is a major effort underway among Republicans to privatize public lands to benefit oil and gas industries, as well as other extractive industries, just as Project 2025 outlined. Melinda Taylor, senior lecturer at the University of Texas at Austin Law School, told Bloomberg Law in November: “Project 2025 is a ‘wish list’ for the oil and gas and mining industries and private developers. It promotes opening up more of our federal land to energy development, rolling back protections on federal lands, and selling off more land to private developers.”

In September, Siler wrote in Outside that politicians in Utah have designed a lawsuit to put in front of the Supreme Court. It argues that all the land in Utah currently in the hands of the Bureau of Land Management—18.5 million acres—should be transferred to the control of the state of Utah.

Those eager to get their hands on the land use the words “unappropriated lands” from the 1862 Homestead Act to claim that the federal government is holding the land “without any designated purpose.”

But, as Siler notes, in 2023, BLM-managed land supported 783,000 jobs and produced $201 billion in economic output, and in Utah alone the use of BLM land created more than 36,000 jobs and $6.7 billion in economic output as more than 15 million people visited the state’s public lands. Utah realized hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes on that activity, and while it’s true that states cannot tax federal government lands—as lawmakers say—the government pays the state in lieu of taxes: $128.7 million in 2021.

Transferring that land to the state would sacrifice these funds, and because the state constitution requires the state both to balance its budget and to realize profits from state land, that transfer would facilitate the land’s sale to private interests.

Twelve states have now joined Utah’s lawsuit, arguing that federal control of “unappropriated” land within states impinges on state sovereignty, and they are asking the Supreme Court to take up the case as part of its original jurisdiction. As Siler noted in a May article in Outside, Chief Justice John Roberts has expressed an eagerness to revisit the legality of the Antiquities Act the presidents use to protect land—as Biden did today—suggesting he would be willing to side with the states against the federal government. Project 2025 also calls for Congress to repeal the Antiquities Act.

In Wes Siler’s Newsletter yesterday, Siler noted that the new rules package adopted for the 119th Congress makes it easier to transfer public lands to state control. The rules strip away the need to justify the cost of such a transfer and to offset it with budget cuts or increased revenue elsewhere.

In a press conference today, Trump said he would rescind Biden’s policies and “put it back on day one,” and complained that the 625 million acres Biden protected feels “like the whole ocean,” although the Pacific Ocean alone is almost 38 billion acres more than Biden protected.

Also today, Trump announced that a developer from Dubai, DAMAC Properties, will invest at least $20 billion in the U.S. to create new data centers that support artificial intelligence and cloud services. Trump claimed that the company’s chief executive officer, Hussain Sajwani, is investing in the U.S. “because of the fact that he was very inspired by the election,” but DAMAC has been connected to Trump for a while.

Sajwani attended Trump’s first inauguration, and a company tied to chair and current board member of DAMAC Farooq Arjomand paid $600,000 to the key witness for the House Republicans seeking to dig up dirt on President Biden. That man was Alexander Smirnov, who in December 2024 pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI when he claimed Biden had taken bribes from the Ukrainian company Burisma.

Data centers are notoriously high users of energy. They consume 10 to 50 times as much energy per floor space as does a typical commercial office building, which might have something to do with why Trump’s team is so eager to increase American energy production even as it is already at an all-time high. Trump has promised companies that invest a billion or more dollars in the U.S. that they will get expedited approvals and permits, including those covering environmental concerns.

But if the larger story of this moment is the plunder of our public resources for private interests, Trump’s press conference in general seemed to have a different theme. It was what CNN perhaps euphemistically called “wide ranging,” as he abandoned his “America First” isolationism to suggest using force against China as well as U.S. allies Denmark, Panama, Mexico, and Canada, which would destabilize the globe by rejecting the central principle of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) that countries must respect each other’s sovereignty. He wildly suggested that the Iran-backed Lebanese paramilitary group Hezbollah was part of the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and that his people were part of the negotiations for the return of the Israeli hostages.

Trump’s performance was reminiscent of his off-the-wall press conferences during the worst of the coronavirus pandemic, which tanked his popularity enough to get his team to stop him from doing them. Trump might have chosen to speak today to keep attention away from the arrival of the casket carrying former president Jimmy Carter to Washington, D.C., where it was transported by horse-drawn caisson to the Capitol, where Carter will lie in state in the Rotunda until his Thursday funeral at Washington National Cathedral. The snow and frigid weather were not enough to keep mourners away, and Trump has already expressed frustration that Carter’s death will mean that flags will be at half-staff for his own inauguration.

But he also might have been trying to demonstrate that the transition from Biden’s administration to his own is taking his time and energy in order to add heft to the argument his lawyers made yesterday. They demanded that Attorney General Merrick Garland prevent the public release of special counsel Jack Smith’s report about his investigation into Trump’s attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election because making Trump respond to the media frenzy the report will stir up would take his attention away from the presidential transition.

Trump managed to defang most of the legal cases against him by being elected president, but he apparently still fears the release of Smith’s report. Today, Judge Aileen Cannon, whom he appointed to the bench and who dismissed the charges against Trump in his retention of classified documents, issued an order preventing the Department of Justice from releasing the report. Constitutional law professor Laurence Tribe noted that the order “has no legal basis and ought to be reversed quickly—but these days nobody can be confident that law will matter.”

The presidential immunity on which Trump apparently is relying has also failed to protect him from being sentenced in the election interference case in which a Manhattan jury found him guilty of 34 felonies. In Civil Discourse, legal analyst Joyce White Vance explained that Trump wants to stop the sentencing process because it triggers a thirty-day period for Trump to appeal. “Once the appeal is concluded,” she explains, “the conviction is final.” Trump was apparently hoping to hold off that process and buy four years to come up with a way out of a permanent designation as a felon.

It didn’t work. Today, appeals court judge Ellen Gesmer rejected his attempt to stop the sentencing. It will go forward on Friday as planned.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[wachinyeya]

As many as 3 million “orphaned” or abandoned oil and gas wells are leaking toxins into groundwater and air across the US. Right now, the clean-up fees oil and gas companies are being asked to make as a down payment before they can drill are way too low to cover the actual costs.

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is updating its oil and gas regulations. We need to guarantee they address issues like this and ensure companies foot the bill for plugging these wells!

In addition to raising these “bonding rates” that pay for the clean-up of drilling sites, the BLM's updated Oil and Gas Rule should crack down on land speculation that currently lets companies snatch up land just to pad their asset sheets and make companies pay a fairer share to develop on public lands at all. A modernized oil and gas program will help ensure a comprehensive approach to managing public lands–one that supports healthy, vibrant communities and ecosystems.

[chubby-aphrodite]

Things BLM means:

Bureau of Land Management

Black Lives Matter

Brennan Lee Mulligan