r/PublicLands

BLM hiding major actions to try and limit public comment again. This is not what government is supposed to do, but not surprising how this administration has weakened most environmental laws and siding with big business thanks to Burgum , and Karen Budd Falen a prominent American attorney, rancher, and high-ranking official in the U.S. Department of the Interior. Nicknamed a "cowboy lawyer," she is known for her legal background defending private property rights and opposing federal land regulations designed to protect. In administrative cases before DOI, Interior Secretary Burgum intervened to make policy changes that involved or benefited the former legal clients of Karen Budd-Falen, one of his top deputies.

Due to reporting from Public Domain, it is widely known that Karen Budd-Falen, the agency’s associate deputy secretary, is actively working on grazing matters despite her last-known ethics documents, which disqualified her from doing so. She is actively forcing public lands on BLM, USFWS and NPS to open to grazing to benefit her friends.

Today we need to protect wild horses, please comment before 12 midnight…

This one is about wild horse gathers aka barbaric herding of wildhorses by terrifying means , often separting mothers from foals, leading to deaths and if not, a ride to housing facilities and then often, off to slaughter in Canada and Mexico for food. They want to make sure public cannot comment on each gather after this, this poor EA ehich doesnt even contemplate alternative to the aml’s.

Last day to comment on this

First, the month-long comment opportunity was not announced through BLM’s News or Press Release pages, instead appearing in the agency’s Public Input & Actions section, the National NEPA Register, and on the BLM Wild Horse & Burro Program’s Facebook page.

Second, the proposed analysis begins from an important assumption: that existing Appropriate Management Levels (AMLs) remain in place. While the assessment evaluates different approaches for managing wild horse populations, it does not ask whether those population targets themselves should change.

Third, if finalized, the proposal could shift some of the biggest environmental questions about wild horse management to this nationwide review, rather than debating them each time BLM proposes an individual gather.

https://www.yesmagazine.org/environment/2020/04/27/native-horses-indigenous-history

U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins has moved to rescind protection for nearly 45 million acres of roadless areas, justifying the move in part as being necessary to “reduce wildfire risk and help protect surrounding communities and infrastructure,” despite the existing rule’s exception that allows for the removal of small diameter trees in roadless areas.

Rescinding roadless area protections is not the answer. Roadless areas do not burn at significantly higher rates than other areas of national forests. Since wildfires in national forests are more likely to start in proximity to roads than in roadless areas, building more roads could increase human-caused wildfire ignitions. And, as this story map shows, roadless areas have accounted for only 1% of all significant wildfires in the lower 48 states since 2010.