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environment
This Land Is... No One's Land
Our movements must question mythologies and admit contradictions if we intend to build a new world that’s sustainable, reciprocal, and inclusive for all.
Jan 25, 2026
As a guest on the 2019 podcast “Post-doom with Michael Dowd,” terrestrial ecologist Tom Wessels agrees humanity is entering a “bottleneck,” a condition that can afflict any species that ceases to live in relationship and reciprocity. Ballooning populations get stuck trying to claim space in an un-expandable hole, and many die.
This is what’s going through my head as I idle in an impossibly long single line of traffic on the road into Mount Kisco, New York. My kids are in the back of the car, asking for snacks. It is three days since Renee Good’s murder, 10 days since the end of the deadliest month in the deadliest year for people in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody.
“No snacks,” I tell the kids, scanning for parking. “You should eat your meals. Then I wouldn’t have to throw away food and bring a buffet everywhere we go.”
Pedestrians pass our car with protest signs as car exhaust blows through the vents. I feel an unexpected pang of tenderness for our quiet kitchen table, its leftover bowls of cereal and uneaten peanut-butter toasts. I already know I’ll give in, as all mothers do, when they can, when their children want to eat.
This land is no one’s land. This land was not made for you and me. This land is part of us, as we are part of it.
“But we compost the food,” my 7-year-old says, “so it’s actually good for the Earth when we throw it away.”
Our eyes meet in the rearview mirror as I prepare a response, but then the car behind me beeps and I see a distant light has turned green.
We crawl past the demonstration and I honk in support. Upbeat `80s pop blares from a speaker, backdrop to the protesters’ screams, whistles, and bells. My three-year-old, already a musician, moves his head as close as his car seat will allow, trying to deconstruct the music and noises.
“Go again, mommy,” he says. But at that moment I find a miraculous spot, just down the street from the main event, open perhaps because of the one-hour limit on the meter. I claim the space anyway; lug the kids, coats, and backpack out of the car; lock the doors; fill the meter; and grab hands for the walk toward the protest.
A few steps into the journey, a woman asks if she can photograph my kids. I smile and say, "No thank you," covering their faces with my hands. Photos become a constant request over the next hour. Many people ask, but others just lift and click. My son picks up a sign in the grass and I read it to him: No Fascist USA. More phones point in our direction.
I survey the crowd and think of something Monique Cullars-Doty, co-founder of Black Lives Matter Minnesota, said on the news the other day. “America has never addressed its love affair with white supremacy,” she said, connecting the ICE murder of Renee Good to the state-sanctioned violence that has assaulted Black and brown communities for centuries.
It is one thing to agree with this assessment—that white supremacy made colonialism possible, slavery imperative, resource hoarding commendable, ecological collapse acceptable, and ICE inevitable. It is quite another to admit our complicity, to connect our daily transgressions—a need for the latest gadget, an idling tailpipe, a thoughtless unkindness—to the generations of violence that made all this possible.
I squat in the wet grass and dig through the backpack, dipping my fingers deeper until I hear crinkling plastic. The kids hold out their hands expectantly and whisper, “Yes!” when their favorite granola bars emerge from the bag.
The music stops abruptly, and a woman with a kind face speaks over a microphone. She is Woody Guthrie’s granddaughter, simply by association evoking a simpler time, a sepia time, a time of acoustic guitar and faith in good intentions.
Thinking of her grandfather makes me think of mine—a Jewish Romanian immigrant’s son who stood with Black neighbors in 1950s Milwaukee when other Jewish neighbors, newly minted “white” by America’s slippery standards, wanted to prevent more Black families from moving in. My grandfather now floats above the scene, a beloved figure whose own people’s history was weaponized as justification for more land grabs and violence.
Guthrie’s granddaughter begins to sing:
This land is your land; This land is my land
And my blue-eyed son who loves music, the child I’ve always somehow felt the need to remind people is technically Jewish despite his blonde hair and last name, drops his snack, steps forward into the circle, and opens his mouth to sing along. A hundred phones rise in unison to capture the image.
I resist the urge to cover his face, crouch next to him, and try to join in. But the words catch in my throat.
My land. Your land.
As far as I can tell, not a single Indigenous Lenape person, the first peoples who walked this place now called Mt. Kisco, is present.
This land was made for you and me.
Behind the song circle is a vast cement parking lot, and before it a busy road. The bear, wild turkey, wolves, birds, and aquatic species once so abundant as to be considered eternal, are nowhere to be seen.
From California to the New York island
Places unnamable and unknowable, claimed in this song that once defined a movement, but never created a path or vision for us all.
And yet, here is my son singing, somber, understanding that what he’s participating in is important. And there is my daughter, running around behind the crowd, feeling the joy of community together, the freedom of cool air on her skin. The wrongness and the beauty of it all seem too hard to untangle, and I wonder if this is one way the bottleneck shows up—as the end of the road for a fundamental myth.
In the 2019 interview, Wessels addresses this. He speaks with curiosity about what might come next. Communities for much of human history were “…actually emotionally quite rich,” he says. “They had vibrant relationships within their clan community, they had a vibrant relationship with Mother Earth, they had stories and myths that made that linkage even stronger… so life could have been physically hard, but might have been experientially rich.”
Is there a way for us to treat our past myths with tenderness, while still recognizing where they went horribly wrong? Can we compost rather than discard them, and maintain the parts that serve? Can we teach our children new myths to carry them to a richer, more vibrant, gentle, reciprocal, and inclusive world?
This land is no one’s land. This land was not made for you and me. This land is part of us, as we are part of it.
The song ends, and worries of a parking ticket push a new world’s mythologies from my mind. I grab my son’s hand and scan for my daughter, whose silhouette I spot immediately. She’s reaching for the branches of an ancient fir tree by the road, drawn in by its shade and pungent scent, as so many have been before.
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Top Official's Disclosure Failure Underscores 'Naked Corruption' of Trump Interior Department
"Congress must say enough is enough and immediately open an investigation into just how deep the rot at Burgum’s Interior goes," said one critic.
Jan 06, 2026
Ethics experts this week raised red flags over a senior US Interior Department official's failure to disclose her family's financial interest in the nation's largest lithium mine, which opponents say was illegally approved by the Trump administration.
In 2018, Frank Falen, husband and former law partner of current Associate Deputy Interior Secretary Karen Budd-Falen—the third-highest ranking Department of Interior (DOI) official—sold the water rights from a family ranch in Humboldt County, Nevada to a subsidiary of Lithium Americas for $3.5 million.
The subsidiary, Lithium Nevada, wanted to build a highly controversial $2.2 billion open-pit lithium mine—Thacker Pass—that required both massive amounts of water and approval from the DOI. Falen's water rights sale also hinged upon DOI approving the mine.
At the time, Budd-Falen worked as the DOI's deputy solicitor for wildlife. In 2019, she sat down for a lunch meeting with Lithium Americas executives in the DOI cafeteria.
“They just happened to mention to me they were going to DC, and I was like, ‘Well, my wife is back there,’” Falen said of the Lithium Americas executives in a New York Times interview. “It was my fault because I just said, ‘Yeah, you should stop by and say hi to my wife.’"
The US Bureau of Land Management (BLM), part of DOI, approved the mine during the final days of Trump's first administration via an expedited process to circumvent lengthy environmental review. Indigenous and conservation groups, working together in the Protect Thacker Pass coalition, subsequently sued over what they argued was the mine's illegal approval.
A Lithium Americas spokesperson told the Times: "We haven’t worked directly with Karen Budd-Falen related to Lithium Americas, nor have we ever met with her in a formal capacity regarding our project.”
However, ethics experts question the financial ties between Falen and Thacker Pass and why Budd-Falen did not publicly disclose her husband's $3.5 million water deal.
“Did she have any oversight of the environmental review process regarding Thacker Pass?" Kyle Roerink, executive director of the Great Basin Water Network, a Nevada conservation group, said during an interview last week with High Country News. “If she didn’t recuse herself, it would fly in the face of the impartial decision-making that Americans expect from government officials.”
Doug Burgum’s third-in-command Karen Budd-Falen made millions after the Trump administration fast-tracked what’s now the nation’s biggest lithium mine. Illegal, conflict of interest, corruption, or whatever you want to call it, there’s a rot in our Interior Department. https://nyti.ms/3LfBVWM
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— Save Our Parks (@saveourparks.us) January 5, 2026 at 1:00 PM
Robert Weissman, co-president of the watchdog group Public Citizen, told the Times: "It’s not clear that Karen Budd-Falen knew she had a conflict, but it’s clear she should have known, and that the public should have known. It’s also clear that she should not have met with Lithium Nevada."
Green groups and Indigenous peoples—including the the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony, Burns Paiute Tribe, and Summit Lake Paiute Tribe—fiercely oppose the mine. Opponents argue the project lacks consent, had a rushed environmental review, and that the mine would threaten wildlife and water and desecrate sacred Indigenous sites.
Thacker Pass, whose name means "rotten moon" to all three tribes, is also the site of an 1865 massacre of dozens and perhaps scores of Northern Paiute men, women, and children by US Cavalry troops. The tribes want it listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
In September, the Trump administration and Lithium Americas reached a deal under which the government will take a 5% equity stake in both the company and the Thacker Pass mine in return for Department of Energy loan money as demand for lithium—a key component of electric vehicle batteries, cellphones, and laptops—is surging worldwide.
The apparent conflict of interest involving Budd-Falen continues a history of corruption at Trump's DOI in both the president's first and current terms. First-term Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke's tenure was plagued by ethics violations and abuse of office. Federal investigators found that Zinke lied to them about his involvement in private land deals while in office, had improper relationships with developers, and improperly used taxpayer funds to pay for chartered aircraft and helicopter flights.
Zinke resigned in 2019. His eventual successor, David Bernhardt, was called a "walking conflict of interest" and "as corrupt as it gets" due to his prior work as a fossil fuel lobbyist.
Budd-Falen could also benefit from the Trump administration's invasion of Venezuela. According to reporting from Public Domain's Jimmy Tobias and Chris D'Angelo, Budd-Falen or her husband hold tens of thousands of dollars worth of stock in fossil fuel companies including ExxonMobil and pipeline firm Enterprise Products Partners.
Responding to Budd-Falen's failure to disclose her family's interest in the Thacker Pass mine, Save Our Parks spokesperson Jayson O’Neill said Monday:
This raises substantial questions about the lack of transparency, clear conflicts of interest, and potential illegal self-dealing at the Interior Department under [Interior Secretary] Doug Burgum. It wasn’t enough for Burgum’s top lieutenant, Karen Budd-Falen, to hold tens of thousands of dollars in Big Oil stocks while advancing their interests at Interior. Now we find out that she worked behind the scenes with Lithium Americas’ representatives and lobbyists, which received fast-track approval, making her and her husband millions.
"This naked corruption and self-dealing is par for the course at Doug Burgum’s Interior Department, which is more focused on self-serving and special interests than the American people and our outdoor heritage," O'Neill added. "Congress must say enough is enough and immediately open an investigation into just how deep the rot at Burgum’s Interior goes.”
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Watchdog Warns Trump and Burgum's Halting of Offshore Wind Projects Is Illegal
“Burgum’s actions on offshore wind appear to be motivated by the personal financial interests of those in the administration, not our collective national interests."
Dec 29, 2025
A week after the US Department of the Interior said it was immediately halting five offshore wind projects in the interest of "national security," a watchdog group told congressional committees Monday that the move is "not legally defensible" and raises "significant" questions about conflicts of interest concerning a top DOI official's investments in fossil gas.
Timothy Whitehouse, executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), wrote to the top members of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and the House Committee on Natural Resources regarding the pause on projects off the coasts of Virginia, New York, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Massachusetts—projects that account for billions of dollars in investment, employ thousands of people, and generate sustainable energy for roughly 2.5 million homes and businesses.
The announcement made by Interior Secretary Doug Burgum last week pertained to "five vague, perfunctory, cookie-cutter orders" halting the projects, wrote Whitehouse, but PEER is concerned that the orders were issued to evade the Congressional Review Act (CRA), under which the action to halt the projects likely constitutes a "major rule."
Whitehouse explained:
Under the CRA, a rule that meets any one of three criteria (an annual effect on the economy of $100,000,000 or more; a major increase in costs or prices for consumers, individual industries, federal, state, or local government agencies, or geographic regions; or in pertinent part significant adverse effects on competition, employment, investment, productivity, or innovation) is a major rule. Interior’s pause likely meets all three.
As a major rule under the CRA, the pause cannot take effect until at least 60 days after BOEM provides Congress the requisite notification and report under the CRA, which, according to GAO’s database, has not yet occurred. Congress must use its oversight authority to unveil the truth and, as appropriate, and to enforce the rule of law.
He said in a statement that “Burgum’s move is designed to bypass all congressional and public input."
The CRA states that a rule is "the whole or a part of an agency statement of general or particular applicability and future effect designed to implement, interpret, or prescribe law or policy or describing the organization, procedure, or practice requirements of an agency.”
Press statements by the DOI and by Burgum last week were "statements of general applicability and imminent future effect, designed to implement policy," wrote Whitehouse, who also said the interior secretary embarked on "a coordinated rollout with Fox News entities."
On December 22, Fox anchor Maria Bartiromo asked Burgum at 8:00 am Eastern, “What next action did you want to tell us about this morning?” Five minutes later, FoxNews.com published its first story on Burgum's orders, citing a press release that had not yet been made public and including a quote from the secretary about the "emerging national security risk" posed by the offshore wind projects.
"If last week’s actions are allowed to stand, future presidents will have unchecked authority under the guise of national security to target federal leases related to entire disfavored energy industries for political purposes."
Burgum's announcement to Fox came at least one to two hours before Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) acting Director Matthew Giacona provided the orders to the lessees running the five wind projects.
Further, wrote Whitehouse, "Burgum’s voluminous public comments in the hours and days since the pause further show the true purpose of Interior’s singular action."
"The national security pretext quickly gives way to broad and spurious talking points about the 'Green New Scam,' how 'wind doesn’t blow 24-7' (evincing Burgum’s seeming unfamiliarity with energy storage technologies), and unyielding promotion of liquified natural gas projects," wrote Whitehouse.
Aside from the alleged illegality of Burgum's order, PEER pointed to Giacona's potential conflicts of interest with BOEM operations and specifically with halting wind projects. Giacona is a "diligent filer" of financial disclosure forms required by the Ethics in Government Act, noted Whitehouse—but those forms point to potential benefits he may reap from shutting down offshore wind infrastructure.
Giacona reported his purchase of interests in the United States Natural Gas Fund (UNG) on September 16. The fund tracks daily price movements of "natural" gas delivered at the Henry Hub in Louisiana and is subject to regulation by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
"Accordingly, a government employee who has an interest in UNG also has a potential conflict of interest with the underlying holdings of UNG (currently primarily natural gas futures contracts at the Henry Hub)," wrote Whitehouse.
PEER does not know whether Giacona continues to hold a financial interest in UNG or whether the offshore wind pause will have a "direct and predictable effect on a financial interest in UNG," but Whitehouse noted that Burgum and DIO have entwined the pause with the promotion of liquefied natural gas.
"It is disconcerting that Mr. Giacona temporarily had even a de minimis financial interest in natural gas futures while also leading the agency that manages the development of natural gas resources on the outer continental shelf," wrote Whitehouse, adding that Giacona also sold interests in the United States Oil Fund on September 3, while overseeing BOEM.
Based on Giacona's investments, said Whitehouse, “Burgum’s actions on offshore wind appear to be motivated by the personal financial interests of those in the administration, not our collective national interests. This is another misguided step in transforming the federal government into a franchise of the fossil fuel industry.”
“On public lands across the United States, the Department of the Interior has tens of thousands of additional active leases related to oil, gas, wind, solar, and geothermal production and mining for energy-related minerals," he added. "If last week’s actions are allowed to stand, future presidents will have unchecked authority under the guise of national security to target federal leases related to entire disfavored energy industries for political purposes."
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