William Perry Pendley

William Perry Pendley, a climate science denier riddled with connections to the fossil fuel industry, served as Trump’s acting director of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) from 2019 to 2021, a position he proved to be unconfirmable for. Pendley is known for his extreme position advocating for the sell-off of public lands, asserting, “the founding fathers intended all lands owned by the federal government to be sold.” He has routinely mocked environmental science and protections, including the Endangered Species Act, and has demonized diversity. At the BLM, Pendley oversaw the bureau’s relocation to Colorado which effectively removed BLM “from having a seat-at-the-table with other national agencies within the Department of the Interior” and threatened to “functionally dismantle the BLM,” according to a letter by the Public Lands Foundation.

Pendley was never confirmed by the Senate, having failed to secure the votes of even some Republicans given his extensive history challenging BLM itself and the 57 potential conflicts of interest that he would be required to recuse himself from. Then-Interior Secretary Dave Bernhardt gave Pendley the authority of acting director and repeatedly extended his tenure despite widespread opposition. In September 2020, Pendley was ordered to leave his post by a federal judge who found he had already illegally served in the role for more than a year, but Pendley refused to leave and asserted, “I have not been ousted. I’m still at my desk. I have the confidence of the president of the United States. I have the confidence of the Secretary.”

Pendley is the author of the Department of the Interior (DOI) chapter of Project 2025’s Mandate for Leadership, which centers around cutting environmental protections, disseminating the “regulatory regime”, and opening protected federal lands for “economic use.” Throughout the chapter, Pendley proposes the next conservative administration:

– “Conduct offshore oil and natural gas lease sales to the maximum extent”

– “Approve the 2020 Willow EIS, the largest pending oil and gas projection in the United States in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, and expand approval from three to five drilling pads.”

– “Set rents, royalty rates, and bonding requirements [that fossil fuel companies pay to drill on federal lands] to no higher than what is required under the Inflation Reduction Act.”

– Expedite oil and gas permitting.

– “Rescind The Endangered Species Act rules defining Critical Habitat and Critical Habitat Exclusions” from the Biden Administration.

Pendley’s proposals to limit the National Environmental Policy Act ​​(NEPA) were described by the current Interior Secretary Deb Haaland as “inconsistent with protecting public health and the environment.”

Further, Pendley (again) proposed relocating the BLM again as an “immediate action” to take if Trump were to take office. The first move scattered about 300 D.C.-based BLM roles across twelve states and resulted in only about 23% of the staff who needed to relocate accepting their reassignments, dramatically reducing the number of Black and Asian BLM employees in the process. A performance audit by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) concluded that “BLM [had] not substantially followed key practices for effective agency reforms relevant to relocating employees,” and gave four executive action recommendations to improve, none of which the BLM implemented.

On top of dismissing the staffing issues presented by the relocation, Pendley defended the choice to move the BLM into a building that also housed a Chevron corporate office, a branch of the state’s lead energy lobbying firm the Colorado Oil and Gas Association, independent natural gas exploration company Laramie Energy, and additional oil companies. The Public and Environmental History Center at Colorado State University noted, “People whose businesses are based on extractive uses of public lands, including ranchers and energy interests, are among the major proponents of the BLM reorganization because they believe it will give them more access to and possibly more influence over the people who have power over their businesses.”

Pendley first worked in the Interior Department in the Reagan administration under then-Secretary James G. Watt, who went on to lead the Mountain States Legal Foundation (MSLF), a group launched to fight environmental regulations with the financial backing of beer magnate Joseph Coors, who also backed the Heritage Foundation. Pendley would become the longtime president of MSLF, leading the group as it represented oil, timber, and other extractive interests in efforts “attacking environmental protections and designations.” MSLF has also been criticized for consistently undermining Native American rights.

Pendley called the Trump administration’s controversial cuts to Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bear Ears national monuments “insufficient”, and offered Maine and Oregon as examples of states where more national monuments could be reduced. He recused himself from Trump’s legal battle to cut Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument because he previously represented two Utah counties that backed the effort while president of MSLF. There were nearly five dozen entries on a recusal list Pendley shared of groups and individuals he could have had potential conflicts of interest with.