Owl in America || January 17, 2025
Notes from an American environmentalist
“Owl in America” is a series of letters chronicling the Trump years from the perspective of an environmental lawyer. The first administration brought chaos to the framework of laws that protect America’s public lands and wildlife, only some of which was repaired during Biden’s term. It remains to be seen whether the increased preparedness of incoming policy-makers will result in increased efficacy at dismantling the executive agencies that administer these lands and protections. These notes will document that transformation.
Hi all~
The fires in Los Angeles are not yet out. The road to recovery will be long. Please keep its people and animals in your hearts, and check out an updated list of suggestions for how to help at the end of this post, generously prepared by writer
of Pasadena.
This morning, I re-read the public lands chapter of The Heritage Foundation’s blueprint for the incoming administration, Project 2025. You’re welcome: I wouldn’t wish that filth on any of my kind readers. But, today, as the Senate vets Cabinet nominee Doug Burgum to head the U.S. Department of the Interior, which manages the 20% of the total American land base that is the subject of that chapter, I decided to once again stare into the abyss and report to you what I saw there.
First, the abyss stared back, and its name was William Perry Pendley. In Trump’s first term, Pendley was the illegal de facto head of the Interior Department until a federal judge finally evicted him in 2020. Pendley popped back up in 2023 as the author of Project 2025’s chapter on the Interior Department.
Next, the abyss laid out its agenda for dismantling environmental protections across our public lands. These involve reinstating Trump I limits on the Endangered Species Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, and individual land management plans, among many others. It specifically calls for rewrites “to eliminate management decisions that advance” conservation goals.
Not explicitly stated, but always lurking in the background, is Pendley and the far right’s long-held penchant for literally, actually selling public lands to private owners. The theories of his 2016 National Review article “The Federal Government Should Follow the Constitution and Sell Its Western Lands” have been reinvigorated by Utah Republican Senator Mike Lee in his recent piece “Land grab: Why citizens, and not the government, should own the wide open spaces of the West.”
Well, that’s Orwellian doublespeak on full display: a transfer of the public’s property into the hands of billionaires would be the actual land grab. Citizens already “own the wide open spaces of the West.” As always, far-right politicians trust their readers won’t notice the glaring misdirection as they work to sell off our shared heritage—not just the ‘resources’ on those lands, but the actual fee title to the lands—to the highest bidder. Privatization of public assets is the goal of any oligarchy, of course.
Conservative legal teams launched a test balloon with the willing assistance of Utah (and Doug Burgum’s North Dakota) in the 2024 case Utah v. United States, which asserted that the Constitution prohibits the federal government from holding approximately 18 million acres of Interior-managed land in the state. The Supreme Court rejected the case earlier this week, but observers expect Utah to soon bring another case with the same objective, but trying a different, stronger legal theory based in statute rather than the Constitution.
Pendley’s chapter of Project 2025 is full of scare words to trigger the reactionary reader: painting land protection actions taken by Democratic presidents as the result of their being ‘beholden to environmental groups,’ or ‘the Hollywood elite,’ with their ‘radical environmental agenda,’ and—as always with this kind of screed—Pendley throws in the restoration of wolves as the ultimate proof of lib insanity. And that’s in just the first three pages.
It repeatedly references “Biden’s war on fossil fuels,” which to the dismay of environmentalists, does not reflect the awkward reality that the Biden term brought record highs in U.S. oil production, higher than during Trump I, outpacing even Saudi Arabia and Russia.
It urges the removal of controversial predators from the Endangered Species list, citing the “dismal record” of the Endangered Species Act. In fact, the ESA has resulted in the continued existence of 99% of the species listed for protection since its enactment in 1973. A number of high-profile species—including our now-official (finally!) national bird, the bald eagle—have been delisted after their populations recovered, thanks to the ESA and massive government and citizen efforts.
Another part of the Project 2025 agenda to dismantle protections for public lands reared its head this week as western Republicans in Congress (Rep. Celeste Maloy of Utah and Rep. Mark Amodei of Nevada) introduced a bill that would revoke a president’s capacity to establish national monuments. Using the authority granted by the Antiquities Act of 1906, presidents from Roosevelt to Carter to Biden have used this power to protect some of America’s most iconic lands and waters, including the Grand Canyon and the Statue of Liberty.
Republican President George W. Bush actually designated several very important marine national monuments, including Marianas Trench and Papahnaumokukea near Hawaii. Project 2025 omits to mention that.
I recently wrote about two new national monuments established by the Biden administration after years of pressure by tribes and public lands advocates, completing a legacy of designating 10 total national monuments and protecting more lands and waters than any previous administration.
Project 2025 explicitly called for this effort to bring about the end of almost 120 years of presidential national monument authority. The proposed legislation is very simple, and would limit monument creation to Congress only (Congress has had this power, but dysfunction in the houses means it has not in recent years exercised it). Here’s the bill’s relevant text in full:
“The establishment or extension of a national monument may be undertaken only by express authorization of Congress.”
That’s it. Why so simple? Longtime public-lands observer and journalist Wes Siler surmises the bill’s authors are well aware it cannot pass a Senate filibuster, requiring 60 votes, in a Senate with only 53 Republicans. He points to the administration’s stated intention to include a range of pending, unrelated bill language in an upcoming omnibus spending bill which only requires a simple majority of 50 votes to pass and is thus filibuster-proof. The single sentence of this monuments bill would be wrapped into the omnibus bill with ease.
Project 2025 also calls for the administration to reinstate Schedule F. This was Trump’s first-term executive order (E.O. 13957) that “stripped protections from civil servants perceived as disloyal to the president and encouraged expressions of allegiance to the president when hiring,” according to Protect Democracy. Trump has stated his intention to reissue the Schedule F order as a “day one” priority.
Democratic Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia lost his gambit last month to achieve a Senate floor consent vote that would have passed the Saving the Civil Service Act, intended to insulate the federal workforce from political interference. Government Executive reported that conservative think tanks have identified some 50,000 agency workers to target for firing.
As far as the ongoing confirmation hearings for North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum for Secretary of the Interior, Jonathan Thompson of The Land Desk reports they have not exactly displayed the governor as a paragon of public-lands policy. One example Thompson notes: when asked about the 1906 Antiquities Act (which gives presidents the power to dedicate national monuments), Burgum said “The 1905 Antiquities Act … its original intention was to protect … antiquities … areas like Indiana Jones type archaeological protections.” That’s … not it at all.
According to the Center for American Progress, Burgum is a billionaire friend to fossil-fuel magnates who co-organized an April 2024 Mar-a-Lago campaign fundraiser at which Trump “suggested that attendees raise $1 billion so that he could win the presidential election and eliminate environmental policies they didn’t like.”
Okay, a palate cleanser. I have to keep this front of mind as we wait for the other shoe to drop: state and local action by concerned citizens, tribes, states, and nonprofit groups can still achieve a lot. Especially when they all work together.
The nonprofit group Save the Redwoods League has transferred 4,500 acres of old-growth and second-growth redwood forest into the Bureau of Land Management’s ownership. Acquired from private ownership to prevent sale to a logging company, it’s a true public asset that now belongs to everyone. Donations, federal funds, state appropriations, and loans taken out by the nonprofit all went into purchasing it. It will be co-managed with the local tribes—the InterTribal Sinkyone Council and the Bear River Band—and according to the state Coastal Conservancy:
The entire Lost Coast Redwood property provides habitat for endangered species including northern spotted owl, marbled murrelet, pacific fisher, coho salmon, and steelhead trout. The streams also support other plant and animal species of special concern including Seaside bittercress, Whitney’s farewell to spring, Point Reyes horkelia, Foothill yellow-legged frog, pacific tailed frog and southern torrent salamander. The property is also home to larger charismatic mammals such as Roosevelt elk, bear, bobcats, and mountain lions.
With everything we know about what is likely in store for federal lands, we might feel a bit of alarm that this jewel of biodiversity has just left nonprofit ownership and will be managed by the abyss. Ahem. I mean, by Doug Burgum, who if his nomination succeeds, appears to be a front man to enact the Pendley agenda of Project 2025.
I think we can breathe easy on this one. A legal condition of the transfer into public ownership is that the land be managed for restoration, open space, tribal cultural heritage, and public access in perpetuity. An endowment was set up to provide permanent funding for those efforts. The lands being targeted by the far-right agenda for sell-off are those that are not specially designated for conservation, recreation, wilderness, etc. The Lost Coast Redwoods, along with other federally managed conservation properties in Northern California, will likely be exempt from attack.
Save the Redwoods League has previously acquired and then donated redwood forests to the local tribes. This new federal forest property is adjacent to several of them, and completes a protected range along the length of California’s north coast that will now have the opportunity to become ancient forest again someday.
That’s something to celebrate.
Talk to you soon,
Rebecca
Here are some aid and assistance resources for the Los Angeles fires compiled by writer Leslie Rasmussen of Pasadena, California.
California Community Foundation
L.A. Fire Department Foundation
Ventura County Community Foundation
American Red Cross of Greater Los Angeles
Center for Disaster Philanthropy
Pasadena Community Foundation (earmarking for Altadena disaster relief)
And here again is the link to an updated post (Lisa Goetz at Bark Academia) listing wildlife and pet rescue and rehabilitators working on behalf of animals in the path of the fires. You can find that list here.
Sources:
https://static.project2025.org/2025_MandateForLeadership_CHAPTER-16.pdf
https://morethanjustparks.substack.com/p/things-fall-apart
https://theconversation.com/interior-secretary-manages-vast-lands-that-all-americans-share-and-can-sway-the-balance-between-conservation-and-development-245887
https://www.nationalreview.com/2016/01/federal-government-should-sell-western-land-follow-constitution/
https://www.deseret.com/opinion/2024/03/22/mike-lee-federal-land-the-west/
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/26/us/bald-eagle-national-bird.html
https://peerj.com/articles/6803.pdf
https://wessiler.substack.com/p/gop-congress-introduces-bill-to-gut
https://www.nps.gov/subjects/archeology/national-monument-facts-and-figures.htm
https://www.reuters.com/graphics/USA-BIDEN/OIL/lgpdngrgkpo/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2024/08/16/biden-oil-drilling-production/
https://protectdemocracy.org/work/trumps-schedule-f-plan-explained/
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2020-10-26/pdf/2020-23780.pdf
https://www.govexec.com/workforce/2024/12/last-ditch-effort-block-schedule-fs-return-thwarted-senate-republicans/401738/
https://www.americanprogress.org/article/8-ways-special-interests-are-asking-president-elect-trump-to-sell-out-u-s-public-lands/
https://www.landdesk.org/p/the-donald-trump-burr-trail-oy
https://www.blm.gov/press-release/blm-acquires-lost-coast-redwoods-property-northern-california
http://scc.ca.gov/webmaster/ftp/pdf/sccbb/2024/2409/20240905Board05_Lost_Coast_Redwoods.pdf
*Inspired by historian Heather Cox Richardson’s Letters from an American.
You can reach me at fearlessgreen@substack.com
Bluesky: Rebeccawisent.bsky.social
Thank you, Rebecca.
Thank you Rebecca. An understatement that there will be much to keep with in the coming years. Thank you for your hard work on our behalf.