public lands

The new photo on the Bureau of Land Management’s homepage shows a wall of coal at the Peabody North Antelope Rochelle Coal Mine in Wyoming, echoing President Trump’s support for the struggling industry. Under the Obama Administration, the photo was of a man and a boy backpacking in the mountains and looking into the sunset.

The Forest Service is wading through public comments on its proposal to continue to allow ranchers to graze up to 5,600 sheep in the largest wilderness area in Colorado, which is three-quarters of the size of Rhode Island, says The Associated Press. Despite hopes that a decision on the year-old proposal would be announced this winter, it could be months before that happens, according to a Forest Service spokeswoman.

House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Rob Bishop has put in a budget request to allocate $50 million to pay for costs related to transferring federal land to states, says The Hill. One of the loudest voices in the land transfer movement, the Republican senator from Utah Senator argued in his request that “poorly managed federal lands create a burden for surrounding states and communities.”

Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch has a mixed record when it comes to rulings on public lands and environmental issues, says Fortune, based on an Associated Press review of Gorsuch’s case history. "I think that his record, although the number of cases is quite limited, shows that at times it has led to decisions that one might consider environmentally favorable, and about an equal number of times it has led to decisions some might think are environmentally unfavorable," said Donald Kochan, associate dean and professor at Chapman University's Dale E. Fowler School of Law.

Created during the Nixon era, the Endangered Species Act "is not working today," said Sen. John Barrasso, chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee in opening a hearing modernizing the law. The Washington Post says the hearing brought "round after round of criticism from Republican lawmakers who said the federal effort to keep species from going extinct encroaches on states’ rights, is unfair to landowners and stymies efforts by mining companies to extract resources and create jobs."

Some of the country’s biggest outdoor retailers, including Patagonia, say they won’t be attending one of Utah’s biggest outdoor trade shows because of the state’s stance on public lands, says High Country News. The show brings tens of millions of dollars to the state each year, while “Utah’s outdoor recreation companies employed 122,000 people and brought $12 billion into the state each year.”

Utah senators voted 22-6 to urge President Trump to cancel the Bears Ears National Monument designation made in the last days of the Obama administration, reports Deseret News. The 1.35-million-acre area is used by Native American groups, including the Navajo, to forage for wild foods like pine nuts and juniper berries, and to hunt rabbits.

The death notice, written by Rep. Jason Chaffetz himself, appeared a little over a week after he filed a bill to sell 3.3 million acres of federal land in 10 Western states, an area in total nearly as big as Connecticut. "I hear you and HR 621 dies tomorrow," Chaffetz wrote on Instagram, which recorded nearly 8,000 "likes" for the announcement.

Republican Rep. Jason Chaffetz of Utah has introduced a bill to “dispose,” or sell off, 3.3 million acres of federal public land across 10 states — an area the size of Connecticut, reports The Guardian. The Wilderness Society calls the move “step two” of the GOP’s strategy to take public land out of federal hands, after the Republican House passed a rule allowing the government to sell off federal lands without requiring revenue from the transaction.

As the Trump administration settles into the White House, seven states are hoping for dramatic changes in the federal government's public-lands policy, reports E&E News, offering analysis of each state. Alaska, Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, North Dakota, Utah and Wyoming, which together contain 60 percent of U.S. public lands, are set to be battlegrounds for environmentalists, landowners, ranchers and oil companies.

The Trump administration has removed nearly all mention of climate change from the White House website, says Reuters, while publishing a call for increased energy development and fewer environmental regulations.

With his wife and family seated behind him, Rep. Ryan Zinke faced the Senate Committee for Energy and Natural Resources yesterday during his confirmation hearing for secretary of the Interior. The Montana Republican told the committee that he was “absolutely against” the sale or transfer of public lands. But he reassured many of his fellow Republicans that under his watch states would have more say in the management of natural resources and wildlife within their borders.

A preliminary report conducted by the Department of the Interior says the office is considering whether to raise coal royalty rates on public lands and require compensation from coal companies for carbon emissions. Coal on public land accounts for 10 percent of total U.S. greenhouse emissions, says The Seattle Times.

Prosecutors in the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge investigation in Oregon are calling on a judge to order blogger Gary Hunt to remove sensitive material about the trial’s informants from his website Outpost of Freedom.

In a switch, President-elect Donald Trump settled on Rep. Ryan Zinke, a Montana Republican just elected to his second term in the House, for secretary of the Interior, said NBC News, one of several news organizations to report the decision. Zinke, 55, "described as an avid hunter and fisherman, was an early and consistent supporter of Trump's campaign," said NBC.