A federal judge has fired a controversial Trump official who oversees vulnerabilities in public land defenses and ordered that he remain in office without Senate approval.
U.S. District Judge Brian Morris ruled that former oil industry attorney William Perry Pendley was illegally running the Bureau of Land Management, which oversees about 1 in 10 U.S. acres of land for 424 days.
Bret Hartle, director of government affairs at the Center for Biological Diversity, argued that as a result, the courts could potentially strike every major action taken by the Bureau in the last three years.
“They have never had a recognized person running the agency,” Hartley said. “Even before Pendley there was never a never ending list of people acting around, and that’s not what you’re going to do.”
The U.S. Constitution requires Donald Trump to seek Senate approval for agency heads. And the Federal Vacancies Reform Act sets a time limit for it to do so. Trump nominated Pendley for the post but dropped the nomination when it became clear he would not be able to secure the required votes.
The bureau determines how nearly a quarter-billion acres of public land, primarily in the western U.S., can be used for mining, oil and gas drilling, livestock grazing, and recreation. Under Trump, he has been at the forefront of the administration’s campaign to lift environmental sanctions for oil and gas drilling and other developments on public lands.
Before joining the Trump administration, Pendley called on the government to sell its public lands and claimed that climate change did not exist. He also cited the example of anti-Muslim individuals and CNN. According to No, unauthorized immigrants are blamed for diseases.
During Pendley’s tenure, the bureau has finalized plans to allow drilling, mining and grazing on Utah National Monuments, reduced by Trump-Bear Years and Grand CDCase Escalant Monuments. It proposes oil and gas drilling Chaco Canyon in New Mexico, a national historic historical park where sacred original arts are found.
Pendley also began the process of moving the bureau from Washington D.C. to Grand Junction, Colorado – which employees have long believed was to weaken their regulatory capabilities.
All of these actions are now under investigation. Colin Omara, president and CEO of the National Wildlife Federation, said: “We are in an unfamiliar area.”
The ruling came after the Democratic governor of Montana in July claimed to have removed Pendley, saying he was illegally overseeing the bureau, which is housed within the Department of the Interior. The judge gave the department 10 days to summarize what decisions should be kept separate by the pendulum.
“Today’s ruling is a victory for the Constitution, the rule of law and our public land,” Governor Steve Bullock said Friday. Environmental groups and even democratic legislators in the western states applauded the judge’s action after months of urging him to remove the pendulum.
Home Office spokesman Connor Swanson said the administration would appeal and called the decision “aggressive” and “out of the bounds of the law.” He said the Obama administration had filled similar posts with temporary rights in the agency. (Other administrations have looked at the deadline for approval from the Senate, but environmental advocates say none of them have ignored them, like Trump.)
Environmental groups have also challenged acting leadership in other parts of the interior department – the National Park Service, the Fish and Wildlife Service and the Surface Mining .Face.
The decision is the latest push against the administration’s practice of filling key positions without Senate approval.
Last month, the Office of Government Accountability, a bipartisan congressional oversight spokesman, said Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf and his acting deputy, Ken Cusinelli, were serving executives and were unfit to run the agency. It has been at the forefront of administrative initiatives on immigration and law enforcement. Shortly after the GAO questioned DHS officials, Trump formally appointed Wolf as secretary. His nomination was heard by the Senate last week but is unlikely to be confirmed before the November election.
Trump withdrew Pendelli’s nomination when it became clear he could disrupt important U.S. races in Montana, where Bulllock present Republican Steve Dines, and Colorado, where Republican Senator Corey Gardner has been ousted by former Governor John Hickman. . Public lands in those states enjoy popular support.
Pendley continued to hang on to the post despite withdrawing his candidacy, under an arrangement he had set up months ago. In the May 22 order, Pendley took over the top position in the bureau, as deputy director, while the director’s office is vacant.
Since then, it has approved two successful land resource management plans in Montana, which would open up 95% of the state’s federal land to oil and gas development, Bullock’s lawyers argued in court filing.
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