Department of Interior
Guest Blogger Justin Pidot: Interior Proposes New FOIA Rule that Inhibits Government Transparency
The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) guarantees public access to the records of federal agencies. It embodies the view that government works best when it works in the open. On the Friday between Christmas and New Year’s Eve, the Department of the Interior quietly published a proposed regulation that will make it harder for the …
CONTINUE READINGSecretary Zinke Misleads the Public About Wildfires and Federal Public Land Management
Secretary of Interior’s Op-Ed Ignores Science and Land-Use Planning to Falsely Blame Wildfire Risk on “Radical Environmentalists”
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke published an op-ed today calling for “active management” of our federal public lands to reduce wildfire risk, and blaming “radical environmentalists who would rather see forests and communities burn than see a logger in the woods” for the prevalance and lethality of wildfires in the American West. Zinke’s op-ed is disingenuous, …
CONTINUE READINGRyan Zinke’s Troubling Remarks Undercut Dept. of Interior’s Core Mission
Comments to Oil Trade Association Attack Agency Staff, Dismiss Environmental Safeguards
At a recent meeting of the American Petroleum Institute (the national oil company trade association), Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke made clear some of his plans for the Department of the Interior. According to AP reporting, he called almost 1/3 of employees disloyal, said he plans to speed up oil and logging permits, and revealed a …
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CONTINUE READINGWhy isn’t Interior publicly releasing its monuments review?
Secretary Zinke announced that his Department has submitted its review of national monuments to the President, but he’s not ready to let you and me see it
Today, the Department of Interior announced that it had sent to the White House its report of the review demanded by an April Executive Order of national monument designations under the Antiquities Act over the last 20 years. In an ordinary world, I would have expected that announcement to be accompanied by a link to …
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CONTINUE READINGPoliticians and Commentators Who Criticize Recent National Monuments Are Making Up Their Own Version of History
Republican Presidents from Teddy Roosevelt to Herbert Hoover Designated Millions of Acres Under the Antiquities Act
As several colleagues and I noted here recently, President Trump recently issued an executive order that will result in “review” of national monuments created since 1996. (The Antiquities Act grants Presidents the authority to reserve federal lands as national monuments, protecting them from much new resource extraction and development that would otherwise potentially be available on those …
CONTINUE READINGBears Ears: A Monumental End to the Obama Era
Will the Antiquities Act survive the new administration?
With one week left in his second term, President Obama’s “monumental” legacy is again at the forefront. Just yesterday, the President expanded, by proclamation, the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument in Oregon and the California Coastal National Monument, and created three additional national monuments: the Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument and the Freedom Riders National Monument in …
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CONTINUE READINGFifth Circuit reverses Gulf of Mexico moratorium contempt ruling
You might remember that after the Deepwater Horizon blowout the Department of Interior issued a six-month moratorium on new deepwater exploratory drilling. An industry consortium challenged the moratorium, winning a preliminary injunction against its enforcement from District Judge Martin Feldman. (I criticized that decision here.) Interior withdrew that first moratorium but subsequently issued a second, …
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CONTINUE READINGKlamath dam removal bill introduced in Congress
On November 10, Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR) and Representative Mike Thompson (D-CA) introduced the Klamath Basin Economic Restoration Act in Congress (H.R. 3398 / S. 1851). The bill would approve two Klamath agreements and give the go-ahead to potentially remove four hydroelectric dams from the Klamath River. As we have discussed previously on LegalPlanet, this set …
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CONTINUE READINGInterior releases “regulatory look-back” plan
In January, President Obama issued an executive order calling on all federal agencies to promote retrospective analysis of rules that may be outmoded, ineffective, insufficient, or excessively burdensome, and to modify, streamline, expand, or repeal them in accordance with what has been learned. Last week marked the deadline for agencies to submit preliminary plans for …
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CONTINUE READINGInterior adopts scientific integrity guidelines
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has formalized the Department’s guidelines on scientific integrity and created the new position of Scientific Integrity Officer, to be filled by Dr. Ralph Morgenweck, Senior Science Advisor at the Fish and Wildlife Service. The guidelines are the first agency effort out of the blocks after the White House Office of Science …
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