A Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Week for the BLM

We’ve all had bad days and bad weeks, but the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is having a doozy of a time. 

First, the administration’s Director of Office of Management and Budget, Russ Vought, seems to be achieving his stated goal of putting federal workers “in trauma.” These federal workers are in charge of protecting public health and the environment and managing our public lands and wildlife. Over the last year, the Idaho Bureau of Land Management has gone from approximately 1,000 employees down to roughly 300, with 300 being fired and another 300 staff being transferred to the new Wildland Fire Service. That is before the latest round of Deferred Resignation Programs (early retirement) “offers” were made. Any potential cost savings from firing these civil servants and defunding these programs are going to be short term, as the loss of stewardship for our trails and fish and wildlife habitat will cost more in the long run. 

Second, the administration officially rescinded the Public Lands Rule which sought to put conservation on equal footing with extractive industries. It was clear direction, for the first time in the agency's history, that they needed to balance their management.  Effectively, the rule would have given the agency the tools it needed to live up to its mission of “multiple uses and sustained yield” especially in a time of climate change impacts and growing use on public lands. Sadly, the rule never had a chance to fully go into effect because of the election and the pending administration change. Rescinding the rule is yet another example of how this administration is favoring the short-term profits of a few at the expense of us all—most importantly the future of our public lands. The administration is making it clear to the agencies that conservation is not to be a priority. 

Third, Steve Pearce, a known supporter of selling out and selling off public lands, was just confirmed as the new director of the BLM with potentially troubling implications for Idaho. Although Steve Pearce has no authority to sell off public lands, the administration is making it easier to industrialize public lands even if they stay in federal ownership.  

Fourth, the administration removed almost all requirements to notify the public of projects on federal lands and is disallowing public comments on Environmental Impact Statements for complicated projects like cyanide heap leach mines. Canadian mining company Integra Resources is planning on constructing an open pit cyanide heap leach mine at the old DeLamar Mine in the Owyhees. However, the BLM is not going to examine the project through a Draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) or host a public comment period once the environmental impacts are disclosed. A Draft EIS is a key tool for disclosing expected impacts and provides the public a critical opportunity to comment on ways to best avoid, minimize and mitigate impacts. Without it, the public may only have a single opportunity to comment without a full understanding of the project’s environmental impacts. Rather than streamlining the process, excluding the public is likely to make this project more controversial, not less.