Karen Budd-Fallen, a Wyoming-based lawyer with a history of representing ranchers against the Bureau of Land Management, has announced that she’s in the running to be the BLM’s next director.
With a long career of protecting private-property rights, Budd-Fallen, “has challenged grazing regulations and endangered species protections, and in a landmark case attempted to sue individual BLM employees under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO. The Supreme Court ultimately rejected that effort,” reports WyoFile, adding that she served for three years in the Interior Department during the Reagan years.
In the late 1980s, Budd-Fallen once represented a group of ranchers upset that their grazing leases were being revoked by the BLM. The group included Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, who in 2014 led an armed standoff against BLM agents who tried to kick him off public land after he racked up over $1 million in unpaid grazing fees.
But while Budd-Fallen runs in similar circles with Bundy and other so-called Sagebrush Rebellion advocates, she has said that she stands by the federal government and doesn’t believe in efforts to thwart national laws.
The BLM position would have to be approved by Congress, and Budd-Fallen told reporters she still has to decide whether she would take the position if it were offered.