The nomination of William Perry Pendley for Director of BLM has been withdrawn. All this withdrawal actually does is avoid the public scrutiny of the Senate confirmation hearing. Pendley will continue to “act with the authority of the director” as he has done, and those before him have done.
We believe that the paperwork, to officially nominate Pendley, was simply a response to a lawsuit filed by PEER. Others filed suits that just restate the claim filed by PEER. We believe that paperwork was simply filed to have something to show the courts, to claim the oversight to actually nominate him was not intentional, not any actual attempt to confirm the nomination.
If a Senate confirmation hearing were to occur with any actual rigor, all of the complaints against Pendley that were dismissed by the Office of the Inspector General, probably under direct orders internally, would have a chance to be aired publicly. (WHE filed one of those complaints)
In 80 days the US faces a challenging “election day.” Under the current administration there has just been a musical chairs game of “deputy director acting with authority of the director” for the last 4 years. This “chair switch game” has simply been a tactic to avoid that scrutiny of a Senate confirmation hearing. It will simply continue.
It is unclear why the House, with Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) holding the gavel, has not held any official hearing or inquiry over the last 4 years into this charade. We understand the avalanche on public lands, but wish this was given at least a hearing in the House. The Senate confirmation hearing was just one place for scrutiny, the House held another power and never exercised it. We are continuing to push the House to exercise that authority.
Many environmental organizations filed complaints, just like WHE did, with multiple oversight agencies. When Pendley was nominated we sent that complaint to the Senate confirmation committee.
PEER filed litigation, other suits followed. Federal courts now offer the only opportunity for real exposure and any order that could could penalize this flouting of the law.
In our view, this is a side-step of the law, nothing more, to avoid a damaging headline.
For wild horse advocates: the “deputy acting with authority of the director” represents a long list of men responsible for authoring and doing the political poker game that divided up the wild horse in “Ten Years to AML” for big lobby groups. All of the men that sat in that chair have deep ties to a very corrupt system and continue to work for the special interests that violate the codes of ethics in the same way Pendleys massive 17 page recusal list demonstrates in painfully obvious ways.
For wild horses? the document that all of the “butts that warmed the chair” pushed for wild horses is almost over the goal line. Help stop it today.
We really need your help.
BLM has failed the public trust and the public resource.
Please take this “3-step” action today. We have a step 4 coming soon.
Your reps need you to educate them. A massive deficit in knowledge exists due to million dollar lobbyists pedaling one product; not demonstrating core problems and how to address them, just a perpetuation of the problems with a bigger bill to the tax payer.
Not only will the issues be perpetuated but public process (NEPA) is set to be gutted.
For wild horses and burros? if they just followed the actual handbook both on range management and the NEPA process would run a lot smoother. The slow death, the agonizing abuses on the range, could be avoided.
Take the 1-2-3 and we will have step 4 for you tomorrow.
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more:
A personal plea, take action for all of our wild horses dying of thirst
A real world example of why we need the HMAP, now
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Categories: Wild Horse Education
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