#department of the interior

[zegalba]

Tom Dale: Department of the Interior (2014)

[lifeinpoetry]

I wish

I told you the truth more.

— Mikko Harvey, from "Department of the Interior," Let the World Have You

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from Nation of Change:

Funded through the National Park Service’s Outdoor Recreation Legacy Partnership (ORLP) program, the Department of Interior announced $46.7 million in grants will be awarded to 10 projects in 8 states. The program, which was started in 2014, helps fund the creation or improvement of outdoor recreation spaces to economically disadvantaged communities.

This is the program's second round of grants this year after $58.3 million in grants were awarded to 14 projects in March.

“The Outdoor Recreation Legacy Partnership program has consistently remained one of the Interior Department’s most impactful programs investing in urban and disadvantaged communities,” Jackie Ostfeld, Campaign Director of Sierra Club’s Outdoors for All, said. “Over the past 10 years it has continued to provide grant funding to communities across the nation, bolstering existing parks and recreation opportunities, creating new ones for millions of people to enjoy.”

According to a press release from Sierra Club, the following project will be funded:

Cleveland, Ohio

The city will receive $461,332 to create two park areas, one with a playground, splash pad, game tables, and more. The other will have picnic tables and an open-use playfield.

Des Moines, Iowa

The city will receive $5,291,000 to add a playground, splash pad, open-air shelters, stormwater management, and more to Birdland Park and Marina.

Houston, Texas

The city will receive $10,000,000 to improve MacGregor Park, including updating existing infrastructure and sports amenities.

New Brunswick, New Jersey

The city will receive $2,041,770 to create a new park with a dog park, play areas, and shade trees.

Porterville, California

The city will receive $2,500,000 to create a new park on undeveloped land, including native drought-tolerant plants, sport courts, and solar lighting.

Raleigh, North Carolina

The city will receive $8,679,930 to develop and restore Smoky Hollow Park, including erosion control, park amenities, native meadows, and more.

“Grants from the Land and Water Conservation Fund are making access to recreational opportunities possible across the country,” David L. Bernhardt, Interior Secretary, said. “We look forward to working with our state and local partners to increase the considerable benefits derived from our local parks and outdoor recreation areas.”

The program provides matching grants, up to 50 percent of the total project costs, to “enable urban communities to create new outdoor recreation spaces, reinvigorate existing parks, and form connections between people and the outdoors,” according to National Park Service.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

April 7, 2024 (Sunday)

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

APR 08, 2024

In August 1870 a U.S. exploring expedition headed out from Montana toward the Yellowstone River into land the U.S. government had recognized as belonging to different Indigenous tribes.

By October the men had reached the Yellowstone, where they reported they had “found abundance of game and trout, hot springs of five or six different kinds…basaltic columns of enormous size” and a waterfall that must, they wrote, “be in form, color and surroundings one of the most glorious objects on the American Continent.” On the strength of their widely reprinted reports, the secretary of the interior sent out an official surveying team under geologist Ferdinand V. Hayden. With it went photographer William Henry Jackson and fine artist Thomas Moran.

Banker and railroad baron Jay Cooke had arranged for Moran to join the expedition. In 1871 the popular Scribner’s Monthly published the surveyor’s report along with Moran’s drawings and a promise that Cooke’s Northern Pacific Railroad would soon lay tracks to enable tourists to see the great natural wonders of the West.

But by 1871, Americans had begun to turn against the railroads, seeing them as big businesses monopolizing American resources at the expense of ordinary Americans. When Hayden called on Congress to pass a law setting the area around Yellowstone aside as a public park, two Republicans—Senator Samuel Pomeroy of Kansas and Delegate William H. Clagett of Montana—introduced bills to protect Yellowstone in a natural state and provide against “wanton destruction of the fish and game…or destruction for the purposes of merchandise or profit.”

The House Committee on Public Lands praised Yellowstone Valley’s beauty and warned that “persons are now waiting for the spring…to enter in and take possession of these remarkable curiosities, to make merchandise of these bountiful specimens, to fence in these rare wonders so as to charge visitors a fee, as is now done at Niagara Falls, for the sight of that which ought to be as free as the air or water.” It warned that “the vandals who are now waiting to enter into this wonderland will, in a single season, despoil, beyond recovery, these remarkable curiosities which have required all the cunning skill of nature thousands of years to prepare.”

The New York Times got behind the idea that saving Yellowstone for the people was the responsibility of the federal government, saying that if businesses “should be strictly shut out, it will remain a place which we can proudly show to the benighted European as a proof of what nature—under a republican form of government��can accomplish in the great West.”

On March 1, 1872, President U. S. Grant, a Republican, signed the bill making Yellowstone a national park.

The impulse to protect natural resources from those who would plunder them for profit expanded 18 years later, when the federal government stepped in to protect Yosemite. In June 1864, Congress had passed and President Abraham Lincoln signed a law giving to the state of California the Yosemite Valley and nearby Mariposa Big Tree Grove “upon the express conditions that the premises shall be held for public use, resort and recreation.”

But by 1890 it was clear that under state management the property had been largely turned over to timber companies, sheep-herding enterprises, and tourist businesses with state contracts. Naturalist John Muir warned in the Century magazine: “Ax and plow, hogs and horses, have long been and are still busy in Yosemite’s gardens and groves. All that is accessible and destructible is rapidly being destroyed.” Congress passed a law making the land around the state property in Yosemite a national park area, and the United States military began to manage the area.

The next year, in March 1891, Congress gave the president power to “set apart and reserve…as public reservations” land that bore at least some timber, whether or not that timber was of any commercial value. Under this General Revision Act, also known as the Forest Reserve Act, Republican president Benjamin Harrison set aside timber land adjacent to Yellowstone National Park and south of Yosemite National Park. By September 1893, about 17 million acres of land had been put into forest reserves. Those who objected to this policy, according to Century, were “men [who] wish to get at it and make it earn something for them.” 

Presidents of both parties continued to protect American lands, but in the late nineteenth century it was New York Republican politician Theodore Roosevelt who most dramatically expanded the effort to keep western lands from the hands of those who wanted only their timber and minerals. 

Roosevelt was concerned that moneygrubbing was eroding the character of the nation, and he believed that western land nurtured the independence and community that he worried was disappearing in the East. During his presidency, which stretched from 1901 to 1909, Roosevelt protected 141 million acres of forest and established five new national parks. 

More powerfully, he used the 1906 Antiquities Act, which Congress had passed to stop the looting and sale of Indigenous objects and sites, to protect land. The Antiquities Act allowed presidents to protect areas of historic, cultural, or scientific interest. Before the law was a year old, Roosevelt had created four national monuments: Devils Tower in Wyoming, El Morro in New Mexico, and Montezuma Castle and Petrified Forest in Arizona.

In 1908, Roosevelt used the Antiquities Act to protect the Grand Canyon.

Since then, presidents of both parties have protected American lands. President Jimmy Carter rivaled Roosevelt’s protection of land when he protected more than 100 million acres in Alaska from oil development. Carter’s secretary of the interior, Cecil D. Andrus, saw himself as a practical man trying to balance the needs of business and environmental needs but seemed to think business interests had become too powerful: “The domination of the department by mining, oil, timber, grazing and other interests is over.”

In fact, the fight over the public lands was not ending; it was entering a new phase. Since the 1980s, Republicans have pushed to reopen public lands to resource development, maintaining even today that Democrats have hampered oil production although it is currently, under President Joe Biden, at an all-time high. 

The push to return public lands to private hands got stronger under former president Donald Trump. On April 26, 2017, Trump signed an executive order—Executive Order 13792—directing his secretary of the interior, Ryan Zinke, to review designations of 22 national monuments greater than 100,000 acres, made since 1996. He then ordered the largest national monument reduction in U.S. history, slashing the size of Utah’s Bears Ears National Monument by 85%—a goal of uranium-mining interests—and that of Utah’s Escalante–Grand Staircase by about half, favoring coal interests.

“No one better values the splendor of Utah more than you do,” Trump told cheering supporters. “And no one knows better how to use it.”

In March 2021, shortly after he took office, President Biden announced a new initiative to protect 30% of U.S. land, fresh water, and oceans areas by 2030, a plan popularly known as 30 by 30. Also in March 2021, Supreme Court chief justice John Roberts urged opponents of land protection to push back against the Antiquities Act, saying the broad protection of lands presidents have established under it is an abuse of power.

In October 2021, President Biden restored Bears Ears and Escalante–Grand Staircase to their original size. “Today’s announcement is not just about national monuments,” Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, a member of the Laguna Pueblo in New Mexico, said at the ceremony. “It’s about this administration centering the voices of Indigenous people and affirming the shared stewardship of this landscape with tribal nations.”

In 2022, nearly 312 million people visited the country’s national parks and monuments, supporting 378,400 jobs and spending $23.9 billion in communities within 60 miles of a park. This amounted to a $50.3 billion benefit to the nation’s economy. 

But the struggle over the use of public lands continues, and now the Republicans are standing on the opposite side from their position of a century ago. Project 2025, the blueprint for a second Trump presidency, demands significant increases in drilling for oil and gas. That will require removing land from federal protection and opening it to private development. As Roberts urged, Project 2025 promises to seek a Supreme Court ruling to permit the president to reduce the size of national monuments. But it takes that advice even further. 

It says a second Trump administration “must seek repeal of the Antiquities Act of 1906.”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[rayeshistoryhouse]

US President Truman announcing Japan's surrender

White House, Washington DC

August 14, 1945

rayeshistory.com

[govpubsfinds]

DESERT AWARENESS

"The history of the desert is a colorful parade of American people. If you want your own glimpse of the parade, remember to look at the messages left by the former inhabitants, and to seek out the folks who have been there a long, long time. Take a minute to look through their eyes at the desert and its history." (7)

Desert Awareness is a short illustrated guide to the California desert by Cathy Klinesteker and the Bureau of Land Management, "written for desert users by desert users" (1). Klinesteker explores the diverse history of people, plants, and animals who live in and interact with the desert. Full color photographs of stunning California vistas by Terry Hickson and Carl Rice, along with adorable illustrations by Virginia Schoeffler bring the desert to life for readers. Desert Awareness embraces the reality of human interaction with the land and the part that we play in the desert ecosystem, from Indigenous communities to hikers, campers, scientists, archeologists, and land management.

The approachable nature and broad scope of this short book means anyone interested in exploring or learning about the California desert will find accessible and responsible ecological information. As a Department of Interior, Bureau of Land Management publication, the guide also includes lists of local BLM offices, a robust references list, and Awareness Activities. Meant for individual or group reflection, Klinesteker explains that these activities are "a reminder that I am connected to the world and to survive, I must take care of it" (46).

note: some of the terminology and phrasing relating to Indigenous peoples is out of date and may be considered inaccurate or offensive.

Citation: Klinesteker, C., United States. Bureau of Land Management., Schoeffler, V., Hickson, T., Rice, C., & United States. Bureau of Land Management. (1977). Desert awareness. Dept. of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management.

Full text available via HathiTrust.

[agentgrange]

I have reason to believe, based on a rabbit hole I went down last night, that there is an ongoing war happening between the National Parks Service and the US Park Police. I take no joy in reporting that the National Parks Service isn't immune from ACAB, with the Park Police being undisciplined dickhead cowboys with unchecked authority in the greater DC Metro area. Even the local county police hate them to the point of leaking evidence the Park Police have withheld from the public and bringing manslaughter charges against Park Police officers following the killing of Binam Ghaisar. Charges that were only stopped by FBI intervention and a proceeding cover up. The legacy of which haunts the organization and colors everything that has happened in the last few months.

There seems to have been what I can only describe as a soft coup by appointing Jessica Taylor as park police chief. The park police union has been eroding the legitimacy of the National Parks Service (otherwise a very progressive liberal institution in comparison to basically every other US government agency) for decades now and I think the wider agency is trying to reign them in even if that means bringing in a rival ex Secret Service hatchet-woman turned EPA auditor. Its worth noting that the Secret Service have a long history of resentment towards the Park Police due to overlapping jurisdictions within Washington DC and their general lack of discipline with their rivalry often breaking out into outright hostility including the assault and detention of a black Secret Service agent. Being a former Secret Service agent, Taylor would be well aware of the Park Police's reputation before her appointment.

Her appointment was rushed through by Park Service’s associate director of visitor and resource protection Jennifer Flynn, seemingly against the wishes of the police union who expected the Park Service to rubber stamp their candidate like previous appointments.

To which I say-- Lol. Lmao even. The Park Police are clearly used to appointing their own oversight and have an incredibly disproportionate amount of power within the NPS that is increasingly at odds with the rest of the agency. All this in mind, it really reads like Flynn brought Taylor in as a deliberate outsider in the hopes of bringing more oversight to the organization that won't immediate fold to the union or engage with their over-up plans every time the Park Police murder someone.

Jennifer Flynn, for her part, doesn't come from the Park Police but instead spent her whole career as a Park Ranger working in various capacities. Maybe its just me but when you see her you think "oh yeah that's definitely what I would expect a park ranger to look like" unlike the hotdog necks at the USPP. While only the associate director, she's been working quietly and smartly to find ways to reign in the park police including amending their jurisdiction over "felony investigations of property crimes, and crimes against society such as serious drug related offenses" under the guise of staffing cuts. To be clear, she unilaterally made the decision that the Park Police may no longer investigate or arrest citizens for non-violent offenses. Again, I can't help but see this as a direct response from sympathetic members of the agency to the Park Police's killing of Bijan Ghaisar to gradually remove the Park Police's authority to carry out law enforcement except when absolutely necessary.

Its an interesting situation to be sure, and while I don't count these two ladies as any sort of socialist heroes on "our side" (they're federal enforcement officers at the end of the day) I'm willing to lend them critical support in their attempts to quietly defang the Park Police. Maybe its wishful thinking but I like to imagine based on everything I've read that there is some sort of concentrated deliberate effort being done here that's successfully circumvented politics by *actually wielding authority to drive positive change* even if they know the limits of their authority necessitates that they do it quietly. USPP clearly thinks of themselves as police officers first and members of the National Parks Service second, and are clearly at odds with the rest of their organization's values. I hope this continues until we see the Park Police be restructured into glorified mall cops with no institutional influence while the bulk of their role is taken over by more responsible organizations within the NPS like the National Park Service Law Enforcement Rangers and other special agents that prioritize the safety of the public over brutalizing people over property enforcement & petty crimes.

Why am I posting this here???... Because so much of my writing has to do with the National Parks Service and the Department of the Interior. Here I am with potentially a genuine case of inter-agency intrigue while conducting completely unrelated research. You can't blame me for wanting to dig into this more and see where it goes. Consider this a story, food for thought, when thinking about these organizations.

[plethoraworldatlas]

A pair of conservation coalitions on Monday made good on their threats to sue the U.S. government over its denial of federal protections for gray wolves in the northern Rocky Mountains, where state killing regimes "put wolves at obvious risk of extinction in the foreseeable future."

The organizations filed notices of their plans for the lawsuits in early February, after the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) determined that Endangered Species Act protections for the region's wolves were "not warranted." The Interior Department agency could have prevented the suits in the U.S. District Court for the District of Montana by reversing its decision within 60 days but refused to do so.

"The Biden administration and its Fish and Wildlife Service are complicit in the horrific war on wolves being waged by the states of Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana," declared George Nickas, executive director of Wilderness Watch, one of 10 organizations represented by the Western Environmental Law Center (WELC).

"Idaho is fighting to open airstrips all over the backcountry, including in designated Wilderness, to get more hunters to wipe out wolves in their most remote hideouts," Nickas noted. "Montana is resorting to night hunting and shooting over bait and Wyoming has simply declared an open season."

Brooks Fahy, executive director of Predator Defense, another WELC group, pointed out that "these states are destroying wolf families in the Northern Rockies and cruelly driving them to functional extinction via bounties, wanton shooting, trapping, snaring, even running over them with snowmobiles. They have clearly demonstrated they are incapable of managing wolves, only of killing them."

KC York, founder and president of Trap Free Montana, also represented by WELC, said that "Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming know that they were let off the hook in their brutal and unethical destruction of wolves even acknowledged as such by the service."

"They set the stage for other states to follow," York warned. "We are already witnessing the disturbing onset of giving the fox the key to the hen house and abandoning the farm. The maltreatment is now destined to worsen for these wolves and other indiscriminate species, through overt, deceptive, well-orchestrated, secretive, and legal actions."

The other organizations in the WELC coalition are Alliance for the Wild Rockies, Friends of the Clearwater, International Wildlife Coexistence Network, Nimiipuu Protecting Our Environment, Protect the Wolves, Western Watersheds Project, and WildEarth Guardians.

The second lawsuit is spearheaded by the Center for Biological Diversity, Humane Society of the United States, Humane Society Legislative Fund, and Sierra Club, whose leaders took aim at the same three states for their wolf-killing schemes.

"The states of Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming act like it's 1880 with the most radical and unethical methods to kill as many wolves as possible in an effort to manage for bare minimum numbers," said Sierra Club northern Rockies field organizer Nick Gevock. "This kind of 'management' is disgraceful, it's unnecessary, and it sets back wolf conservation decades, and the American people are not going to stand by and allow it to happen."

Margie Robinson, staff attorney for wildlife at the Humane Society of the United States, stressed that "under the Endangered Species Act, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service cannot ignore crucial scientific findings. Rather than allow states to cater to trophy hunters, trappers, and ranchers, the agency must ensure the preservation of wolves—who are vital to ensuring healthy ecosystems—for generations to come."

The Center for Biological Diversity's carnivore conservation program director, Collette Adkins, was optimistic about her coalition's chances based on previous legal battles, saying that "we're back in court to save the wolves and we'll win again."

"The Fish and Wildlife Service is thumbing its nose at the Endangered Species Act and letting wolf-hating states sabotage decades of recovery efforts," Adkins added. "It's heartbreaking and it has to stop."

[acmeoop]

PSA Cartoon Storyboard (1970s)

[harrelltut]

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[whatstheusgovernmentdoing]

11/16/24 - White House

President Biden will be meeting with President Xi Jinping of the People's Republic of China today

Department of State: About $17M will support clean energy around the world - Brigadier General Abdul Salam Fajr Mahmoud of the Syrian Air Force has been designated as a human rights violator - The United States and Ukraine have partnered to bring new nuclear reactors to Ukraine

Department of Justice: QOL Medical LLC has agreed to pay $47M due to submitting false claims to federal health care programs - Key Fortune Inc. has settled over their charge of discriminating against a legal immigrant - Larry Dean Harmon has been sentenced to three years in prison for money laundering; must forfeit over $400M in assets - Muhammad Zafar has been sentenced to three years, five months in prison for a health care fraud conspiracy

Department of the Interior: 28,000 jobs have been created over the past three years thanks to the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law

Department of Agriculture: $5M in grants to Tribal students at land-grant colleges - D-SNAP program to bring relief to 22,858 households hurt by Tropical Storm Helene

Department of Labor: Frazer & Jones faces $1M in penalties for continuing to ignore OSHA citations - Liberty Hill Equity Partners LLC to pay $56K in back wages for not giving enough overtime to workers

Department of Housing and Urban Development: HUD has supported homeownership for over 790,000 Americans via the FHA - The Acting President of the Government National Mortgage Association has stepped down

Department of Transportation: $3.4B to upgrade railroads, roads, and ports to strengthen supply chains and lower costs

Department of Veterans Affairs: VA to improve access to their installations

Department of Homeland Security: DHS to issue 65,000 new visas in 2025

[pcttrailsidereader]

Project 2025, Trump, and the Department of the Interior

The topic of public lands rarely surfaces in the questions posed in presidential and vice-presidential debates. It is difficult to know how either the Trump or the Harris administration will approach public lands apart from how the first Trump administration dealt with the issue and, assuming that Harris shares some of the philosophy of Joe Biden, how the last four years have unfolded.

In this post, I intend to look at the Trump record as well as the roadmap laid out by Project 2025, the policy white paper written by conservatives and a number of former Trump staffers. Between 2016 - 2020, the Trump administration systematically reduced the emphasis on climate change, re-examined a handful of wilderness and protected land designations, relocated the BLM headquarters from Washington, D.C. to Grand Junction, Colorado (the Biden administration returned the headquarters to Washington, D.C.), and supported oil and mineral extraction and reduced regulation. He also signed the Great American Outdoors Act which has pumped significant funding (billions!) back into public lands. The GAOA also provided annual funding to the decades-old Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF). These are two very positive initiatives in support of public lands.

Project 2025 has several thrusts as it relates to the Department of the Interior. Based upon the 2016 - 2020 record, these areas of emphasis seem to be in line with Trump priorities:

1) Departmental overhaul

The Department of the Interior encompasses nine bureaus, each with distinct missions ranging from managing national parks to overseeing energy resources. Project 2025 proposes several administrative and structural changes. One of the first major proposals is to again return BLM headquarters back to the American West from Washington, D.C. This move, combined with the implementation of Trump's Schedule F proposal aimed at increasing accountability in hiring and firing federal employees, suggests a significant shift in the DOI's operational dynamics.

2) Energy production and resource extraction

The energy section of the chapter was written by Kathleen Sgamma of the Western Energy Alliance, an oil and gas industry group; Dan Kish of the Institute for Energy Research, a think tank long skeptical of human-caused climate change; and Katie Tubb of the Heritage Foundation. The authors set the tone of the section, titled “Restoring American Energy Dominance,” with this passage:

“Given the dire adverse national impact of Biden’s war on fossil fuels, no other initiative is as important for the DOI under a conservative President than the restoration of the department’s historic role managing the nation’s vast storehouse of hydrocarbons, much of which is yet to be discovered.”

The energy section calls for rolling back Biden-era executive orders and reinstating Trump-era policies that favor oil and gas development. Specific proposals include expanding onshore and offshore oil and gas lease sales, restarting the federal coal leasing program, and reversing protections for areas like the White River National Forest in Colorado.

This aggressive push toward fossil fuel development raises environmental and economic concerns. Critics argue that such policies could undermine efforts to combat climate change and protect public lands from overexploitation.

3) Regulatory and policy reforms

Project 2025 also targets regulatory frameworks like the National Environmental Policy Act, seeking to streamline environmental reviews and permitting processes while eliminating climate reviews for federally funded projects. The document proposes reinstating Trump-era limitations on the Endangered Species Act and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, which could lead to reduced protections for vulnerable species.

Further, the project aims to revoke President Joe Biden’s 30-by-30 plan, which aims to conserve 30 percent of U.S. lands and waters by 2030, and seeks the repeal of the Antiquities Act of 1906, potentially opening up national monuments to commercial activities.

4) Implications for Indigenous lands

The document outlines plans to facilitate fossil fuel and mineral development on Indian lands and overhaul the Bureau of Indian Education. These proposals, combined with securing the nation's borders to protect tribal lands, suggest a significant shift in how the federal government interacts with Native American tribes.

5) A critical examination

Project 2025 presents a vision for the Department of the Interior that aligns closely with the priorities of the Trump administration. While Project 2025 presents a bold vision for the department, its potential impacts on public lands, environmental protections and Indigenous rights demand critical scrutiny. Proponents argue that these changes are necessary for economic growth and national security, but the emphasis on deregulation and resource extraction raises concerns about long-term sustainability and the balance between economic development and conservation. As voters and policymakers consider these proposals, it is essential to weigh the long-term consequences for America's natural heritage and the principles of conservation that have guided the DOI for over a century.

The sweeping changes proposed in Project 2025 underscore a broader ideological battle over the role of government in managing natural resources and protecting the environment. As these plans come under public and political scrutiny, the stakes for America's public lands and natural heritage could not be higher. The next administration's approach to these issues will shape the nation's environmental and energy policies for years to come.

In a future post, I will take a look at the Biden record and any statements that Harris has made on the topic.

It is imperative that those of us who use and love the land, make our voices heard by voting!

[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.

[helgatisha]

Detroit Police Department

Download: simfileshare | patreon | boosty

Inspired by Detroit Become human

The police chief is on the street. I don't know how to fix it, sorry

ID helgatishagame

Residential

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The U.S. Fish and Wildlife service produced the "Native American Policy" in 1994to effectively collaborate between federal agencies and Indigenous Tribes. The policy represents a large shift in the federal governments attitude toward the sovereign status of Native Americans. The policy recognizes the cultural and spiritual connections of Native Americans to the land and natural resources. It supports the preservation of traditional ecological knowledge and practices. It establishes a framework for meaningful consultation with tribes on matters affecting their rights, interests, and resources.

Relationships between the Federal government and Indigenous Tribes is often referred to a pendulum, meaning that one moment the pendulum swings in favor of supporting Indigenous sovereignty and the next moment the pendulum swings to non-supportive. Often, the pendulum swings with the changes of administration. This policy, though problematic, nevertheless shows a commitment of one administration's agency to change how the federal government supports and interacts with Tribes. By outlining the terms of the policy through "sovereignty" and "self-determination" one can see the paternalistic nature the U.S. government has with Tribes.

"Native American governments are recognized as governmental sovereigns and have been referred to as quasi-sovereign domestic dependent nations by the courts. The Service recognizes the sovereign status of Native American Governments" (3)

"The Service favors empowering Native American governments and supporting their missions and objectives in assuming program management roles and responsibilities through contracting and other mechanisms. Therefore, the Service supports the rights of Native Americans to be self-governing, and further supports the authority of Native American governments to manage, co-manage, or cooperatively manage fish and wildlife resources, and to protect their Federally recognized authorities" (4)

"The Service will make available technical expertise from all Service program areas to assist Native American governments in the management of fish and wildlife resources, and to assist the Native American governments in developing their own technical expertise in fish and wildlife conservation and management where requested. The Service will advise Native American governments about the kinds of technical assistance that it can provide. Technical assistance priorities will be developed with input from affected Native American governments." (6)

APA CITATION: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. (1994). The Native American policy of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. [Washington, D.C.]: U.S. Dept. of the Interior, Fish and Wildlife Service.

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