February, 11 2020, 11:00pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Yetta Stein, Communications Associate
Western Values Project
yetta@westernvaluesproject.org
(406) 529-1682
With Subpoena Power Granted, Interior's Culture of Corruption Poised to Face Tough Questions
The BLM Move Remains Unexplained, Unjustified, and Recklessly Destructive
WASHINGTON
Today, with Interior Secretary Bernhardt's Department consistently embroiled in conflicts of interest and questionable ethical conduct, the House Natural Resources Committee (HNRC) granted Chairman Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.) the power to subpoena Interior in order to force the agency to turn over critical documents.
"The Trump administration has time and again shown its true colors: corporations and special interests first, the American people second. But the culture of corruption at Interior has run particularly rampant under former mega-lobbyist Interior Secretary David Bernhardt and the anti-public land zealots he's hired," Jayson O'Neill, Deputy Director of Western Values Project said. "Congress has demanded answers about the reckless BLM move time and again only to be stonewalled. Now, Secretary Bernhardt's attempt to cover up the dismantling of this critical public lands bureau so it will better serve the Trump administration's special interest allies will be revealed."
With the ability to subpoena Interior, HNRC has previewed its intention to get to the bottom of the controversial Bureau of Land Management (BLM) move West. Below are seven questions that subpoenas could help answer.
- Did the agency conduct a formal cost-benefit analysis of moving the BLM Headquarters to Grand Junction and reassigning other personnel to state offices? The only known analysis of the move is a mere two pages long. The provided document fails to address a host of key factors including relocation costs per employee, inevitable increased travel costs, potential impacts on agency functionality, as well as any cheaper alternatives. The document ultimately "does little to back the agency's reasoning" for the move. The new headquarters has also already proved problematic for BLM law enforcement personnel and is expected to cause many others.
- What was the role of White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney in pushing for the BLM reorganization after saying it was a way to get career staff to quit? After Mick Mulvaney stated that relocating career employees would force them to quit, it was clear the BLM's brain-power would suffer. So far, the relocation is causing a "major brain drain", as career staff - whose expertise and integrity have previously stood in the way of Trump's giveaway to special interests - are choosing to resign from the bureau rather than relocating and uprooting their entire lives.
- What terms and incentives were BLM employees really offered to relocate, and are they still available to employees? How many BLM employees have actually committed to moving to Western state offices and where? Has the agency been successful at recruiting high-quality candidates to work at the new Grand Junction headquarters? After Interior employees who transferred were warned that they "should expect a drop in their overall pay," it's unclear why any BLM employee would choose to relocate. Interior initially approved bonus payments to employees willing to relocate. But employees may be transferred without receiving these bonuses.
BLM is expected to lose "the majority" of its DC-based employees, but so far, the agency has refused to release official information about the number of employees who are relocating, transferring to other DC-based bureaus, or leaving the agency. While Acting BLM Director Pendley claims that as many of two-thirds of employees have agreed to relocate, sources told E&E News that as many as 80% of DC staffers will not be relocating. Further, BLM has had trouble finding qualified candidates willing to move to Grand Junction, as well as to other state offices. So far the bureau has been unable to fill more than half of senior leadership positions located in the new Grand Junction headquarters.
- Were impacts on the diversity and inclusiveness of the BLM discussed before going forward with the move? The decision to relocate BLM will likely decrease diversity and likely open the agency to discrimination lawsuits. Meanwhile, Acting BLM Director Pendley touts a troubling history on civil rights, diversity, and inclusion.
- Why were some BLM staff from state offices temporarily reassigned to work at the new headquarters in Grand Junction? What was the cost of this temporary reassignment to taxpayers? BLM employees have been temporarily reassigned to the agency's new headquarters to "give the appearance" it is "occupied and busy." Temporary reassignments have been seen as "a waste of time at best and a waste of taxpayer resources at worst."
- Did Interior or BLM leadership communicate with representatives of the oil and gas corporations and special interest groups with which they now share a building before the lease was signed? After Interior signed a lease for the BLM's new office space, it quickly became clear that the agency would be co-located with several extractive corporations and special interests, including Chevron, Laramie Energy, and the Colorado Oil and Gas Association. Given Interior's previous attempts at accomplishing the to-do lists of industry allies, the office location is suspect and deserves scrutiny.
- Who offered Colorado Senator Cory Gardner the platform to announce the BLM relocation and why? The first to announce the BLM's official relocation? Colorado Senator Cory Gardner. Gardner's announcement came as other members of Congress, notably members of House Natural Resources and House Appropriations, remained in the dark about the decision.
Sen. Gardner seems to be the loudest spokesperson for the move: when asked for details about the number of positions being relocated to each state, an Interior official even referred a reporter to Gardner's website.
Western Values Project brings accountability to the national conversation about Western public lands and national parks conservation - a space too often dominated by industry lobbyists and their allies in government.
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US Voter Registrations Surge as Republicans Try to Limit Ballot Access
One group said it has registered over 100,000 new voters since U.S. President Joe Biden dropped out of the 2024 race.
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The group behind a popular get-out-the-vote technology platform said Friday that it's registered more than 100,000 new U.S. voters since President Joe Biden withdrew from the 2024 presidential race, a surge that came amid mounting Republican efforts to make it harder to register and vote.
Vote.org said that 84% of voters registered in the new wave are under age 35. Nearly 1 in 5 new registrees is 18 years old. Andrea Hailey, the group's CEO, said that "since 2020, we have led the largest voter registration drive in U.S. history," with more than 7.8 million people registered.
After dropping out, Biden endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to face former Republican President Donald Trump and Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) in the November election. The new presumptive Democratic candidate has already earned endorsements from many Democrats in Congress and groups advocating on issues including climate, labor, and reproductive rights.
Vote.org's success comes as Republicans at the federal level are proposing and passing legislation creating obstacles to the ballot box.
Earlier this month, U.S. House Republicans passed Rep. Chip Roy's (R-Texas)
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However, Rep. Summer Lee (D-Pa.)
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Lee said the SAVE Act underscores the need to pass her recently introduced Right to Vote Act, "which would establish the first-ever affirmative federal voting rights guarantee, ensuring every citizen may exercise their fundamental right to cast a ballot."
Earlier this year, U.S. Senate Democrats also reintroduced the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, legislation its sponsors say will "update and restore critical safeguards of the original Voting Rights Act."
Meanwhile, Republican-controlled state legislatures and red-state governors are enacting laws imposing tough restrictions on voter registration, with violations punishable by stiff fines that critics say are meant to dissuade people from registration drives and similar efforts.
Again under the guise of preventing fraud, Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis last year signed legislation limiting voter registration drives, with fines of up to $250,000 for violators.
"These draconian laws and rules are like taking a sledgehammer to hit a flea," Cecile Scoon, an attorney and president of the Florida chapter of the League of Women Voters,
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Three years after Kansas passed a law making "false representation" of an election official a crime, campaigners say it's become extremely difficult to sign up new voters.
"In 2020, even with the pandemic, we had registered nearly 10,000 Kansans to vote. Now, we haven't been able to register anyone," Davis Hammet, president of the youth voter mobilization group Loud Light, told the Times.
In Louisiana, Republican state lawmakers quietly passed legislation making it easier for election officials to toss out absentee ballots with missing details, limiting how people can mail in other voters' ballots, and restricting the ability to assist people with disabilities with their ballots.
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In Nebraska, Republican Secretary of State Bob Evnen last week
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"We refuse to accept thousands of Nebraskans having their voting rights stripped away," ACLU of Nebraska legal and policy fellow Jane Seu said in a statement. "We are confident in the constitutionality of these laws, and we are exploring every option to ensure that Nebraskans who have done their time can vote."
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Climate and environmental defenders on this week implored U.S. senators to block a permitting reform bill introduced this week by Sens. Joe Manchin and John Barrasso that campaigners linked to Project 2025, a conservative coalition's agenda for a far-right overhaul of the federal government.
Common Dreamsreported Monday that Manchin (I-W.Va.) and Barrasso (R-Wyo.)—respectively the chair and ranking member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee—introduced the Energy Permitting Reform Act of 2024.
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"This dangerous bill doesn't deserve a floor vote."
These are nearly identical policies to what's proposed in Project 2025's Mandate for Leadership. The plan, which was spearheaded by the Heritage Foundation, calls for "unleashing all of America's energy resources," including by ending federal restrictions on fossil fuel drilling on public lands; limiting investments in renewable energy; and rolling back environmental permitting restrictions for new oil, gas, and coal projects, including power plants.
While Manchin has been trying—and failing—to pass fossil fuel-friendly permitting reform legislation for years, Brett Hartl, director of public affairs at the Center for Biological Diversity, said that his "Frankenstein legislation is taken straight from Project 2025, and it's the biggest giveaway in decades to the fossil fuel industry."
Hartl said the bill "deprives communities of the power to defend themselves and gives that power to Big Oil by making it harder for communities to challenge polluting projects in court," and "prioritizes the profits of coal barons over public health."
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Hartl added that "to preserve a livable planet," Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) "must squash this legislation now."
Manchin—who has said this will be his last term in office—has been a steadfast supporter of the fossil fuel industry, partly because his family owns a coal company. The senator says his permitting reform bill "will advance American energy once again to bring down prices, create domestic jobs, and allow us to continue in our role as a global energy leader."
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"Don't be fooled: The Energy Permitting Reform Act is another dirty deal to fast-track fossil fuels above all else."
NRDC managing director of government affairs Alexandra Adams said Wednesday that "this bill is a giveaway for the oil and gas industry that will ramp up drilling and environmental destruction at a time when we need to be putting a hard stop to fossil fuels."
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Sudan's military is blocking United Nations aid trucks from entering at a key border crossing, causing severe disruptions in aid in a country that experts fear may be on the brink of one of the worst famines the world has seen in decades, The New York Timesreported Friday.
The border city of Adré in eastern Chad is the main international crossing into the Darfur region of Sudan, but the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), the state's official military, which is engaged in a civil war with a paramilitary group called the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), has refused to issue permits for U.N. trucks to enter there, as it's an RSF-controlled area.
U.S. and international officials have issued increasingly alarmed calls for steady aid access to help feed the millions of severely malnourished people in Darfur and other areas of Sudan.
Last week, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the United States ambassador to the U.N., said that the SAF's obstruction of the border was "completely unacceptable."
Both warring parties in Sudan continue to perpetrate brazen atrocities, including starvation of civilians as a method of warfare. This piece focuses on the SAF's ongoing obstruction of essential aid. The situation is catastrophic. The policy is criminal. https://t.co/FKhqQh3EI9.
— Tom Dannenbaum (@tomdannenbaum) July 26, 2024
The Sudanese who've made it out of the country and into Adré reported dire and unsafe conditions in their home country.
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Another mother, Dahabaya Ibet, said that her 20-month-old boy had to bear witness to his grandfather being shot and killed in front of his eyes when the family home in Darfur was attacked by gunmen late last year.
Now the mothers and their families are refugees in Adré, where 200,000 Sudanese are living in an overcrowded, under-resourced transit camp.
In addition to those that have made it out of the country, there are 11 million people internally displaced within Sudan, most of whom have become displaced since the civil war began in April 2023.
An unnamed senior American official told the Times that the looming famine in Sudan could be as bad as the 2011 famine in Somalia or even the great Ethiopian famine of the 1980s.
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The U.S. last week announced $203 million in additional aid to Sudan—part of a $2.1 billion pledge that world leaders made in April, which some countries have not yet delivered on.
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The International Service for Human Rights on Friday warned that both the SAF and RSF were engaged in wrongful killings and arrests, especially targeted at lawyers, doctors, and activists. The group called for an immediate cease-fire.
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