Unknown Speaker 0:00
The following is a production of wild idea media.
Bill Hodge 0:06
Welcome to the wild line where land stories are the lead stories. This is our report for June 13, 2025 this week, the Department of Justice issued a legal opinion that opens the door for the Trump administration to reduce or remove National Monument designations put in place by prior administrations. The release overturns a legal interpretation that dates back almost 100 years and that presidents don't have that authority. Here's AXIe novice director of designation campaigns for The Wilderness Society. This
Speaker 1 0:38
is an attempt to rewrite a century of established legal interpretation. It is an opinion that is contorting itself to accommodate President Trump's anti parks and anti public lands agenda. It's a revisionist history offered by Trump's DOJ that's full of faulty reasoning and blatant mischaracterizations, and it defies the desires of the majority of Americans who want to see their most precious landscapes protected in perpetuity. We will
Bill Hodge 1:08
keep our community updated if and when the Trump administration takes action using this legal opinion, with protests taking root across the country this week, one form of protest was curtailed by the Park Service, particularly in Yosemite National Park, the park issued an update to what's called the superintendent's Compendium, banning the display of banners or flags larger than 15 square feet on Yosemite steep walls. Recently, climbers have been unfurling flags and banners to protest Israel's operation in Gaza, and banners to support the trans community, as well as other forms of protest, the Park Service issued the update with provisions stating that the offending parties to the new restrictions could face fines up to $10,000 and up to six months in jail. The Park actually cited the Wilderness Act as the driver for the new rule, stating the requirement that wilderness be managed in an unimpaired way for the public and 94% of the park is designated as
Anders Reynolds 2:05
wilderness. Bill yesterday, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee released their draft reconciliation language. And how should I say this? It stinks. The draft text includes a formula for the mandatory disposal of between two and 3 million acres of BLM and national forest lands. Lands in 11 states are eligible for sale, including Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming. The bill establishes a process wherein the secretaries of interior and ag will solicit nominations for lands from quote, any interested parties within 30 days, with priority consideration given to nominations from states or local governments, the language prohibits the nomination or sale of lands in Montana or any lands designated for conservation or historic preservation purposes, like wilderness areas, national monuments, historic sites, etc. But it leaves out administratively designated protections like areas of Critical Environmental Concern, wilderness study areas, inventory, roadless areas, critical habitat areas, or other administrative designation. It also excludes the sale of lands with valid existing rights, which are limited to mining claims, grazing permits, mineral leases or rights of way, it limits the use of these lands. To quote housing or associated community needs, end quote with a 10 year covenant restricting use. After those 10 years, lands may be sold off. State and local governments are given first right of refusal to purchase any tracts of land offered for sale. Tribes are not included on the forestry front, the draft language requires the Forest Service to increase annual timber sales by 250 million board feet every year through 2034 and the BLM must increase sales by 20 million board feet annually. Both agencies are also ordered to enter into long term timber contracts with revenue funneled directly to the Treasury. Some quick math there reveals that two 50 million board feet a year is an extra 11 billion board feet over the next 10 years.
Bill Hodge 4:10
Let's move away from reconciliation quickly and toward the FY 2026 budget and appropriations process buried in the Forest Service's FY 26 skinny budget is a new land transfer initiative that would transfer federal lands to willing states and tribes, starting with sites that used to host Civilian Conservation Centers. The stated goal to quote right size the federal estate and reduce maintenance costs. But the details are vague, and the implications, especially given broader land sale efforts are serious. Those CCC sites are spread across 15 states, including Montana, Colorado, Virginia and North Carolina, among others. Chief of the Forest Service Tom Schultz appeared before the Senate Appropriations Committee this week to account for the Forest Service budget as outlined in the president. President's proposed 2026 budget. Senator Patty Murray grilled the chief on how the agency could ever be prepared for the rapidly accelerating 2025 fire season with a workforce crippled by dose cuts coerced deferred resignations and early retirements. The senator highlighted the fact that the agency is now having to offer financial incentives to bring back staff pushed out earlier this year. Quote, The wildfire season is here, and critical employees are not in place. End, quote, the Senate Natural Resource Committee meanwhile heard from interior secretary Doug Burgum on the President's FY 2026, budget, in response to a question from Senate Nevada Senator Catherine Cortez Masto, Secretary Burgum, seemed to suggest that Nevada, Alaska, Idaho and Utah could be in the mix for additional federal lands
Anders Reynolds 5:50
sell off. But those aren't the only threats to our public lands. Montana, Senator Tim Sheehy pushed to pull the wildland fire management programs of the federal land management agencies and to a single new agency called the Federal wildland fire service is gaining new ground this week, an executive order from President Trump on this topic is rumored to be coming as early as today, moving wildfire personnel into a standalone fire agency separate from land management would undermine the integrated approach that top fire and land management experts widely endorse a fire only agency would likely prioritize suppression, reinforcing outdated strategies, even if it acknowledged the need for more prescribed or managed fire, it wouldn't have the land management tools or mandate to act on it, risking a return to the fire exclusion policies of the 20th century and perpetuating the very suppression bias that helped create today's wildfire crisis. Still, there are some members of Congress working to enhance the protection and management of our public lands in positive ways. This week, we saw three constructive bills start to make their way through the legislative process. First, the House Committee on natural resources heard testimony on representative Jared Huffman bill on tribal self determination. That bill would ensure tribal nations are full and equal partners in the management of federal lands by directing DOI and the Forest Service to incorporate tribal co management into the decision making processes. Then across the hill, Democrat Ron Wyden of Oregon and Republican Ted Budd of North Carolina introduce a bipartisan bill supporting prescribed burns as an essential cost effective and science based strategy to save lives and property. And finally, as we mentioned last week, Wednesday saw the reintroduction of the roadless area Conservation Act, or Raka, which would codify the extremely popular 2001 roadless rule. We talked to Matt Jackson, Alaska State senior manager from The Wilderness Society, about that bill.
Speaker 2 7:47
Roadless area Conservation Act is so important to Southeast Alaska because for the last 25 years now, the roadless issue has just been this political football back and forth, and it's that way, despite being one of the most popular pieces of public land policy I can think of in the 2016 comment period, 96% of all comments out of 10s of 1000s were in favor of keeping the roadless rule. And that number was pretty much the same, whether it was Alaskans commenting or people nationally commenting. And it's like, where can you find anything that 96% of people agree on, like that that's as unanimous as it gets in a healthy democracy. And so like, can we just stick with that? And that's what the roadless area Conservation Act would do it would make it law, and it would prevent it from being this back and forth political football
Anders Reynolds 8:47
bill. Before I sign off, I want to thank an eagle eared listener. Is that a phrase for bringing us some very important late breaking news? Clark County Washington has announced that it is designating the whole of the county as a protective refuge for Bigfoot. The designation came at the request of local fifth graders, and according to the County Council's resolution in support of that request, acknowledges that the quote, rareness of sightings, end quote, underscores the need to protect the county's wild landscapes. Those are some smart kids. Smart
Bill Hodge 9:21
kids, indeed, we went to close today's wild line with a new feature each Friday, we hope to spotlight the work one group from outside the Beltway is doing to make their case for public lands and the nation's capital that week. And today, we are starting with an old friend, the executive director of Save the Boundary Waters Ingrid, Lyons Ingrid. What are you up to in DC this week? This week
Speaker 1 9:42
in DC was a bit of a wild ride. You know, we initially came out this week to work on the reconciliation package, the Boundary Waters was included in the house reconciliation package that passed a little bit ago on the big, beautiful bill language that would sort. Specifically overturn the 20 year mining ban that Secretary Holland took place forced the issuance of foreign mineral leases to a foreign mining company and the watershed of the Boundary Waters, and bar judicial review of those leases. So just a just a beautiful slurry of bad things for the wilderness. And so we're on the hill with a few partners, Minnesota BHA and some other constituents from Minnesota. And you know, every day was a little bit different, just by way of the news. So I'm kind of dealing with a little bit of whiplash right now. But you know, we were going to meet with Republican senators in particular, just to emphasize that, you know, as they think about Senate, environment, natural resources language for the reconciliation bill on their side. You know, what are all the reasons why boundary water stuff should not be in there, checking in with folks who we've been working with, who are the ones to make the argument to the parliamentarian on kind of what goes into reconciliation and not there was a pretty wide and varied argument for why the boundary works. Provision did not adhere to the bird rule and couldn't be included in in the package. And so fortunately, on Tuesday, we did see a amendment or a resolution from the House Rules Committee that stripped language out of the house. Version just completely struck the whole section, which was really a tremendous relief. And then the next day, the Senate in our language came out, and the boundary voters provision was nowhere to nowhere in sight. So we went from kind of like a pretty straightforward advocacy mission, citizen advocacy mission, to a sort of in real time, responding to language being taken out, language not being included at all, and then it's got a pretty crazy tweet yesterday, but maybe we can kind of keep the conversation going from there.
Bill Hodge 11:56
Yeah, so suddenly there was a twist, and after having the language removed from the reconciliation package, both by the Rules Committee on the House side and then it not being included on the Senate in our language, there was a tweet that went out yesterday that, administratively, they're going to try to put that lease back in. And that had to be that whipsaw moment for you of the week, right? Like you're about to leave town and all of a sudden you're getting pulled right back into the frame. Into
Speaker 1 12:23
the fray. Yeah, I literally was sitting at Reagan. I had packed up all my stuff. I was at the bar like the Capitol grill or American Grill or whatever it was. Someone said, Hey, did you see this tweet? And so Secretary of Agriculture, Brooke Rollins tweeted that she and Secretary of the Interior, Doug Burgum, were proud to be initiating a process as part of their initiative to develop American mayoral dominance at home, to overturn or reverse the 20 year mining ban that was put in place by Secretary Haaland in 2023 what's particularly interesting about that tweet. Well, for one thing, she didn't spell rainy the word rainy correctly, so that was a little problematic. But also, you know, they talked about how they were going to initiate a process to undo these protections, and in the same breath, it sort of said, we've done review, and it's clear that this withdrawal isn't needed, you know, including public input. And, you know, our biggest question is, I don't know what public input they're referencing, because the last time that there was, you know, substantial public input on this process was before the protections were put in place. In consideration of those protections and 675,000 Americans, spoke up, and over 98% of them said that they wanted to see the Boundary Waters permanently protect from this type of mining. So unless they're conducting some really massive public input process in a covert fashion, I highly doubt they actually have the things to be able to point to, the record is really strong on this issue, including, most recently, the Forest Service in December 2024 denying consent for leases in this watershed, which they have the right to do. Minnesota and Wisconsin are unique in that way, the Forest Service has the right to consent on leases, federal mining leases in forests. So, you know, it was callous, it was inaccurate. I think for the audience of this podcast, something that's particularly to note is like, is this seriously how we're governing and creating policy on America's public lands? Like the only person who had consultation on this announcement, according to him, was representative stopper who actually called Secretary Rollins when you know boundary order stuff wasn't in Senate. ENR, so yeah, it's disappointing.
Bill Hodge 14:55
You've definitely lived that axiom that those of us who love public lands have to live. Which is our victories are always temporary and our losses can be permanent, because you had some really nice victories this week that were quickly undone, quite literally by a tweet. Yeah, so Well, thanks for being in DC and fighting because fight, and we'll be tracking this, and we'll check in with you soon to see where this all resolves
Speaker 1 15:18
itself. Yeah, sounds great. Phil, thanks again for having me
Bill Hodge 15:22
next Tuesday. Look for the wild ideas. Latest offering a conversation with the new president of the Wilderness Society and former director of the Bureau of Land Management. Tracy stone Manny, for now, that's this week's wild line. Next week, the House of Representatives will not be in session. The Senate will be going home early, and Anders will be off doing Anders things. So I will step up and take a deeper look into some of what we've been following and tracking and what the administration and Lane management agencies are up to in the week ahead. That's next Friday, between now and then, act up and run wild.
Speaker 3 15:54
The wild line is a production of wild idea media production and editing by Bren Russell at podlab. Digital support by Holly wilkoshevsky at daypack digital, our theme music Spring Hill Jack is from railroad Earth and was composed by John skeehan. The executive producer is Laura Hodge. Learn more about us at the wild idea.com you.
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