Opponent of nation’s public lands is picked to oversee them

New BLM acting director backs fracking, wants public land sold

WASHINGTON — An ardent critic of the federal government who has argued for selling off almost all public lands has been named the Trump administration’s top steward over nearly a quarter-billion federally controlled acres, raising new questions about the administration’s intentions for vast Western ranges and other lands roamed by hunters, hikers and wildlife.

Interior Secretary David Bernhardt on Monday signed an order making Wyoming native William Perry Pendley acting head of the Bureau of Land Management. The bureau’s holdings are sweeping, with nearly one out of every 10 acres nationally and 30% of minerals under its dominion, mostly across the U.S. West.

Pendley, a former midlevel Interior appointee in the Reagan administration, for decades has championed ranchers and others in standoffs with the federal government over grazing and other uses of public lands. He has written books accusing federal authorities and environmental advocates of “tyranny” and “waging war on the West.” He argued in a 2016 National Review article that the “Founding Fathers intended all lands owned by the federal government to be sold.”

In tweets this summer, Pendley welcomed Trump administration moves to open more federal land to mining, and oil and gas development and other private business use, and he has called the oil and gas extraction technique known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, “an energy, economic, AND environmental miracle!”

Conservation groups called the Pendley appointment an alarming choice, while Western ranchers called it a welcome move that shows the Trump administration is serious about opening public lands to all uses, including mining and ranching.

The Trump administration already has moved to weaken some protections for public lands. It downsized two national monuments in Utah to scale back protections on sacred tribal lands and signed a land exchange deal to build a road through a national wildlife refuge home to migrating waterfowl near the tip of the Alaska Peninsula.

And in what it called a money-saving move, the administration moved BLM headquarters from Washington to Colorado and dispersed staff among Western states. Environmentalists feared that this was a first step in dismantling the agency.

After appointing Pendley the bureau’s policy chief in mid-July, the Interior Department confirmed late Monday it had newly elevated him to acting director.