By Rachael Hamby
Over the past year and a half, the second Trump administration has pursued an aggressive agenda to prioritize extractive uses of our national public lands at the expense of wildlife and their habitats, outdoor recreation access, and the iconic natural landscapes that are unique to the Western U.S. Many of these efforts have focused on oil and gas, coal, timber, and mining. Now, under the leadership of Karen Budd-Falen, a public lands rancher who is also the Interior department’s third-highest ranking official, grazing is getting its turn in the spotlight.
Karen Budd-Falen’s leadership at Interior on this issue has already raised a number of ethical questions. Her family owns ranches that could benefit from pro-grazing policy changes. This situation would normally require that she not work on grazing-related policy at the Interior department; however, Budd-Falen was granted a waiver to work on grazing issues despite the potential for her family to benefit directly.
Largely bypassing Congress, the Trump administration has focused on executive orders and agency actions to force its priorities while simultaneously removing protective regulations and policies that were designed to protect our environment and national public lands from the excesses of irresponsible exploitation of our natural resources and ensure that the public has a voice in how public lands are managed. After issuing executive orders and rescinding rules related to oil and gas and mining on national public lands, the administration is now turning its attention to grazing. In May, on the same day that the Bureau of Land Management’s Public Lands Rule was officially rescinded, the BLM published new proposed grazing regulations that would loosen rangeland health standards, narrow grazing permits to strictly “production-oriented” uses, make a number of administrative procedures more favorable to ranchers, and significantly limit opportunities for public input.
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