“William Perry Pendley, who once wrote that the “Founding Fathers intended all lands owned by the federal government to be sold,” last month was officially nominated by President Donald Trump to become the director of the Department of Interior’s Bureau of Land Management, which manages 247 million acres of public land, predominantly in western states.
Pendley, a native of Wyoming, has served as the bureau’s acting director since last July, thanks to a series of extensions authorized by Interior Secretary David Bernhardt, who was raised in Rifle and attended the University of Northern Colorado. Even before it became official, Pendley’s nomination was challenged in federal court in May by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, which argued that the Trump administration has circumvented the Senate’s constitutional “advice and consent” role in confirming high-level employees.”
