Overnight Energy: Pendley order to stay atop public lands bureau sidesteps career official | Trump officials sued over relaxed rules on killing wolf pups, bear cubs

by Rebecca Beitsch - 08/26/20 6:15 PM ET

HAPPY WEDNESDAY! Welcome to Overnight Energy, The Hill’s roundup of the latest energy and environment news. Please send tips and comments to Rebecca Beitsch at rbeitsch@digital-stage.thehill.com. Follow her on Twitter: @rebeccabeitsch. Reach Rachel Frazin at rfrazin@digital-stage.thehill.com or follow her on Twitter: @RachelFrazin.

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OUT OF ORDER: The latest order keeping the controversial head of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in his job after his nomination unraveled is the latest example of how political appointees are shutting out career officials, according to former employees and other critics.

The White House earlier this month pledged to withdraw acting Director William Perry Pendley’s nomination amid a flood of opposition from Democrats and conservation groups citing his history fighting federal ownership of public lands.

Pendley, who has been in the job over a year, remains the de facto head of BLM pursuant to succession orders that he himself signed. Legal experts have said he lacks the authority to take that action.

The succession orders also sidestep the BLM’s department manual, which states that its top career official should lead the agency in the absence of a director.

The BLM’s director position has been vacant for the entirety of the Trump administration. The top two officials below BLM director are deputy director for operations – the top career role in BLM now held by Michael Nedd – and deputy director for policy and programs, a role for political appointees currently filled by Pendley.

It’s Nedd’s role that BLM’s manual specifies should take over when there is not a Senate-confirmed director in place.

The legal lingo…

“In the absence of the director, the deputy director, operations is the first assistant and acts as the director,” the manual states.

Critics say the move is all about preserving Pendley’s role at a time when he likely could not get the 51 votes needed to be confirmed in the Senate — even with the GOP holding a majority.

“At the end of the day, it’s about putting Perry Pendley in charge instead of a career person,” said Aaron Weiss, deputy director of the Center for Western Priorities, a public lands watchdog group.

Weiss sees it as part of a broader trend of centralizing land management decisions within the top ranks of the Department of the Interior, particularly in the office of Secretary David Bernhardt.

“He’s centralized all decisionmaking authority in his office in D.C. so no land management decisions can be made by career officials that know what they’re doing.”

Interior said the succession orders that place Pendley in charge instead of Nedd are used “to ensure operational integrity in the absence of certain officials. Having the president’s appointees run the department is required by the Constitution, which vests executive powers in the duly elected representative of the people.”

Critics, however, say Interior is skirting the Constitution by failing to get Senate confirmation for Pendley.

Ray Brady, a former BLM employee now with the Public Lands Foundation, a retiree group for the agency, said the intent of the manual is to “place experienced career professionals in that senior position if the director is not available, including if the position is vacant.”

“Why bypass senior career leaders to place a political person in charge? In my mind that is why the department manual is written that way,” he said, adding that Pendley signing a memo to put himself in charge “appears to be somewhat a conflict of interest.”

Read more here.

FOR THE BEARS: A coalition of 13 groups sued the Interior Department and National Park Service (NPS) on Wednesday over its decision to ease restrictions on hunting bear cubs and wolf pups at national preserves in Alaska.

A rule published in June reversed a 2015 ban on certain hunting practices including hunting black bear cubs, using artificial light at den sites and hunting wolves and coyotes – including pups – during denning season.

On Wednesday, the groups, which include environmental and animal rights organizations, criticized the rule as cruel and argued that it is bad for the ecosystem.

“The National Park Service is now overtly sanctioning the killing of defenseless bear cubs and wolf pups in their dens; the exact opposite of what most believe is ‘fair chase,’ ” Jamie Rappaport Clark, president and CEO for Defenders of Wildlife, said in a statement.

“This controversial practice is extreme and wholly inconsistent with the Park Service’s mission to conserve wildlife and wild places. We are suing to protect Alaska’s irreplaceable wildlife and hold the National Park Service accountable to their conservation mission,” she said.

Their lawsuit targets the technical legal bases behind the administration’s decisionmaking.

An NPS spokesperson defended its rule in a statement to The Hill.

“The final rule affirms the state of Alaska’s role in wildlife management on Alaska national preserves, consistent with the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) and Department of the Interior (DOI) policies guiding the federal-state relationship in the management of fish and wildlife,” the spokesperson said.

RNC RECAP: The GOP has sought to use this week’s Republican National Convention to paint their opponents as having extreme viewpoints on environmental issues through speeches by a lobsterman from Maine and a Democratic mayor from Minnesota.

Lobsterman Jason Joyce praised the Trump administration for removing protections from a marine monument established by former President Obama.

“Four years ago, the Obama-Biden administration used the Antiquities Act to order thousands of square miles of ocean off limits to commercial fishermen. They did it to cater to environmental activists. Although Maine’s lobstermen don’t fish there, Obama’s executive order offended us greatly. It circumvented the fisheries council’s input,” said Joyce, who added that Biden would be “controlled by the environmental extremists.”

And Robert Vlaisavljevich, the mayor of the mining town of Eveleth, Minn., argued that Biden’s environmental policies are bad for working people.

“Joe Biden has allowed radicals like [Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.)] to craft his environmental policies. Their so-called Green New Deal is a job-killing disgrace,” he said.

WHEELER ON RFS: EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler said the agency has not yet determined how much ethanol refineries should blend into their fuels for the coming year.

“This has been a very unusual year, as far as this vehicle miles traveled,” Wheeler said on a call with reporters.

“The Covid response has had a negative impact on both the corn growers as well as the refiners and we’re trying to understand what the market is going to be, and what we should expect for next year.”

Ethanol manufacturers have been pushing the Trump administration for clarity on biofuels before the election, and corn and ethanol groups say their support for President Trump is not guaranteed.

Read more on The Hill’s past coverage on discontent with Trump within the ethanol community here.

ON TAP TONIGHT:

The Republican convention continues tonight starting at 8:30.

OUTSIDE (AND INSIDE) THE BELTWAY:

EPA backs out of N.J. study of cancer-linked chemicals, Bridgewater Courier News reports

EPA Touts Winning Record, but Some Attorneys Dispute Its Numbers, Bloomberg Law reports

Mountain Valley asks FERC for more time to complete pipeline, The Roanoke Times reports

How Trump’s assault on bird law could backfire on industry, E&E News reports

ICYMI: Stories from Wednesday…

Pendley order leaving himself in charge of BLM sidesteps top career official

Hurricane Laura could be ‘unsurvivable‘ in parts of Texas, Louisiana

Trump administration sued over relaxed restrictions on killing wolf pups, bear cubs