public lands

After a controversial four-month review of 27 U.S. national monuments, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke won’t recommend that the White House do away with any of them. He did say, however, that “a handful of sites” could see their boundaries changed or shrunken, says the Associated Press.

A federal jury in Las Vegas delivered not guilty verdicts today to four gunmen involved in the 2014 standoff led by Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy. “U.S. prosecutors said the four defendants had committed crimes including conspiracy, assault on a federal officer, extortion, and weapons law violations,” said Reuters.

With two million acres already on fire this year, wildfires in the West are starting sooner in the season and consuming more land under climate change. “A 2016 Climate Central analysis showed that the annual number of large fires has tripled since the 1970s and that the amount of land they burn is six times higher than it was four decades ago,” says Climate Central, adding that the average fire season is 105 days longer than it was in the 1970s.

The U.S. Customs and Border Patrol says it could use a 2005 anti-terrorism law — the Real ID Act — to all President Trump’s border wall to be built through a national wildlife refuge in Texas, without having to conduct an environmental impact studies. The studies are usually mandated for any new construction on federal lands under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).

GOP leaders in Congress are targeting the Endangered Species Act with new bills in both the House and Senate. "The House Natural Resources Committee discussed five bills whose effects would include allowing the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) to use economic costs to deny listing a species as threatened, require the agency to prioritize input in listing decisions from states, remove the gray wolf from the endangered list and limit payouts of attorneys’ fees in Endangered Species Act (ESA) litigation," says The Hill.

The grizzly bear will soon be delisted as an endangered species in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, according to a statement from the Department of the Interior. The area around Yellowstone National Park covers more than 20,000 square miles of Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming.

Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke told the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources that he supports the White House's proposal to cut his department's budget by $1.6 billion, saying "this is what a balanced budget looks like."

The two largest public-lands agencies in the United States, the Interior and Agriculture departments, “signed a memorandum emphasizing cooperation among federal, state, tribal and local agencies in battling wildfires as the main part of the wildfire season arrives,” said The Associated Press. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke and Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue signed the memorandum following a briefing at the interagency fire command center in Boise, Idaho.

With the release of the 2018 White House Budget proposal, environmentalists and public lands advocates are worried over a $1.4 billion (10.9 percent) cut to the Interior Department. The proposal targets federal lands, opens oil drilling in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), and cancels money set aside to bring economic opportunities to Appalachia — often in the form of farming ventures.

During the first day of his tour of Bears Ears National Monument, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke disagreed with Utah officials who have claimed that Native Americans who support the monument are manipulated by special interest groups, says The Salt Lake Tribune.

The outdoor retailer Patagonia says it’s prepared to sue if the Trump Administration tries to revoke any of the country's national monuments. Trump has ordered an unprecedented review by the Department of Interior of all national monuments established under the 1906 Antiquities Act in the last two decades.

On Wednesday, President Trump is expected to order a review of national monuments designated under the controversial 1906 Antiquities Act. Many state politicians, especially in the West where the federal government already owns large tracts of land, have complained that national monuments hurt development opportunities and wrest control away from local decision-makers.

“I have long advocated public service should be for a limited time and not a lifetime or full career,” said Rep. Jason Chaffetz, a Utah Republican, about his decision to not run for re-election. “After more than 1,500 nights away from my home, it is time.”

Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke has reversed plans to transfer control of the National Bison Range to the Bureau of Indian Affairs. When tribes called for the change in 2016, they claimed the federal government had taken the land from American Indians without their consent.

Tracy Stone-Manning, a long-time environmentalist, will serve as the first Senate-confirmed director of the Bureau of Land Management in more than four years, winning a party-line roll call on her nomination, 50-45. Montana Sen. Jon Tester, a Democrat, said Republicans resorted to character assassination in their attempts to defeat the nomination.