PENDLEY SAYS HE’S STILL ACTING DIRECTOR OF U.S. LAND BUREAU

A federal court ruled in September that he was serving unlawfully

William Perry Pendley wants Wyoming to know that he’s still on the job as the nation’s acting head of public lands.

“I have not been ousted. That is not true,” Pendley, the Bureau of Land Management’s deputy director of policy and programs, said during an interview with the Star-tribune this past week.

Pendley’s choice to defend his role managing 245 million acres of the nation’s surface land comes just weeks after a federal court in Montana declared Pendley had “served unlawfully as the Acting BLM director for 424 days.” The decision effectively enjoined him from acting in a director capacity, according to court documents.

Interior Secretary David Bernhardt had issued and renewed orders to give Pendley the authority to act as the agency’s head. Pendley called the orders allowing him to serve as an acting director “perfectly legal.”

But according to District Judge Brian Morris’ Sept. 25 decision, the Trump administration failed to properly follow the statutory requirements of the Federal Vacancies Reform Act when allowing Pendley to remain in his post as a temporary appointee for 15 months. What’s more, the administration failed to garner an official confirmation vote from Congress on the appointment as head of the bureau, as required by law.

Pendley said he firmly disagreed with the court’s decision and has continued to fulfill his duties as assigned.

“We are going to recognize that authority of the court and will obey it,” he said, adding, “now the Secretary (Bernhardt) is signing all of our (BLM) documents.”

The Trump administration has vowed to appeal the decision.

“I see this for what it is. It’s not about me,” Pendley added. “This is just an attempt by the governor, who sued us, to derail what the Trump administration has done.”

This summer, President Donald Trump announced his intent to formally nominate Pendley, but never followed through. When asked if a nomination process would happen in the near future to officially appoint him as BLM’S director, Pendley said, “I don’t know, that’s out of my control.”

Pendley has been a vocal supporter of Trump’s America-first Energy Strategy, often relaxing regulations for oil and gas producers in an effort to cut back on duplicative reporting mandates and spur domestic energy development. Pendley said his goal is to advance Trump’s agenda of “building the economy, providing for jobs, increasing recreational opportunities, and just being a better neighbor as a land management agency.”

In addition to instituting several rule changes to ease the regulatory burdens on energy companies, the BLM under Pendley has also helped bring about the Great American Outdoors Act, moved the BLM’S headquarters to Colorado and prepared firefighters to battle fires during COVID-19.

But several conservation groups have long protested what they call the unconstitutional appointment of Pendley to lead the BLM in any capacity. Many have alleged he has misused his position by opening up too much federal land to energy development, rolling back environmental protections to serve private interests at the expense of the climate and negating the bureau’s multiple use mandate.

In the most recent wrinkle in the case against Pendley, Montana Gov. Steve Bullock struck again by requesting a court block three resource management plans approved by Pendley, which among other changes, made available sweeping swaths of public land for oil and gas development.

William Pendley