Protecting America’s Public Lands
Roughly 300 million acres of American lands, most in the West, are set aside as public lands and maintained using taxes paid by all Americans. These lands managed by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Forest Service, National Park Service, and National Wildlife Refuge System are by charter supposed to be managed for multiple uses including recreation and provision of wildlife habitat and clean water sources. Increasingly, however, they are run for the benefit of extractive industries and with little regard for the preservation of the rare wildlife or iconic natural beauty for which they are famous.
With the help of conscientious range management specialists, scientists, law enforcement officers and other workers within these agencies, PEER is uncovering how our precious national heritage is being sold to the highest bidder, often under the direction of poorly qualified and illegally appointed political appointees.
Environmental and public health risks are being ignored by regulatory agencies and decisions heavily influenced by profit-driven industries.
REPORT | The Biden Administration’s Bureau of Land Management
As the Biden administration nears its halfway point, there are both encouraging signs of progress and plenty of room for growth when it comes to conserving public lands. Stronger leadership from the Biden administration and within federal land agencies is critical to act on both the climate and biodiversity crises. No public lands agency more epitomizes the challenges and opportunities ahead than the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) – the country’s largest land manager at more than 245 million acres.
Mapping Rangeland Health
Our interactive BLM Rangeland Health Standards Evaluation Data (2020) on MangoMaps is based on data from 2020, obtained via the Freedom of Information Act. PEER worked with a former BLM contractor to analyze what these records reveal about the condition of our public lands and BLM’s discharge of its duties to safeguard them.
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NEWS FROM PEER
Reopened National Parks Must Curb Overcrowding
Long-Neglected Law Requiring “Carrying Capacities” Should be Dusted Off
Can National Parks Practice Social Distancing?
The still-unfolding pandemic has underlined the public health risks that national parks and refuges pose both to the visiting public and their own employees. How can national parks dedicated to attracting crowds operate in a new era of social distancing?
National Parks Epitomize Trump COVID Inconsistency
As more than 100 national park units have closed, hundreds more remain open in an uneven handling of COVID-19 by the Trump administration.
Coronavirus Leaves National Parks in Leaderless Limbo
Park Entrance Fees Waived as Visitor Centers Shuttered and Staff Telework
America’s Rangelands Deeply Damaged by Overgrazing
Figures Show Vast Areas Failing BLM’s Own Rangeland Health Standards
Nobody Home at National Park Headquarters
Special Assistant a No-Show; Two-Thirds of Top Slots Vacant or Acting
BLM Overrules Staff And Orders More Colorado Drilling
Public Input and Governor’s Objections Ignored by DC-Based BLM Officials
Taxpayers Fleeced Once Again
Public Lands Livestock Operations Pay the Bare Minimum
Conservationists Call for Temporary BLM Lead William Perry Pendley to Step Down
91 Groups Call for William Perry Pendley to Resign or be Removed from Office
National Parks’ Illegal “Non-Profit” Network
Audit Finds Residential Centers Operate without Charter or Oversight
Industry E-Bike Advisory Group Shut Down As Illegal
Sub-Rosa Advisory Group Behind Interior’s Policy Letting E-Bikes on Trails
Lawsuit to Restore E-Bikes Ban in National Parks
New E-Bikes Order Springs from Industry Lobbying and Violates Laws
More Than 500 New Antennas Slated for Yellowstone
Formerly Off-Limits Historic Buildings to Be Honeycombed with Wi-Fi
Rock Bottom Federal Grazing Fees Probed
BLM Cloaking Environmental and Fiscal Impacts of Vast Livestock Program
Suit to Trace Path from Rebel to Uber-Bureaucrat
BLM Must Disclose Circumstances Behind Putting William Pendley in Director’s Chair
Evaporating National Park Staff Levels
Overall Workforce Has Shrunken by More Than a Sixth Since 2011
Horrid Time to Work Inside Interior Department
SES Shudders at Clueless Reorganizations and Parade of Temporary Leaders
Don’t Disney-fy Denali
Big Recreational Development for Wonder Lake Would Pave Paradise
BLM Whistleblower Reinstated
Courthouse Steps Agreement Means Monday MSPB Hearing Is Cancelled
Chances of Seeing Denali Wolves in the Wild Now Remote
1% Viewing Success Record Low After State Eliminated No-Hunt Buffers