Bureau of Land Management Acting Director William Pendley

Floor Speech

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Ms. ROSEN. Mr. President, Nevada's public lands are a source of pride and natural beauty, but they are also so much more. They are a source of economic strength for our outdoor industries, and they help support our communities and our State's economy.

Each year, tens of thousands of visitors come to Nevada to see and experience our majestic public lands and our monuments firsthand. We must keep our State's public lands open and accessible for Nevadans, for visitors to our State, and for future generations. That is why we are passionate about protecting and preserving our State's natural wonders.

Public lands make up a big part of our State. In fact, over 80 percent of our land is managed by the Federal Government, and well over 60 percent of Nevada--close to 48 million acres--is managed by the Bureau of Land Management.

I stand here today before you because our Nation's public lands are in danger, not just from the threat of climate change or from deadly wildfires, which are raging across our Nation's Western States as we speak, but also from an unconfirmed and unaccountable acting head of the Bureau of Land Management, Mr. William Perry Pendley. It is well past time for him to go. Allow me to explain just how dangerous Mr. Pendley is for our public lands and for Nevada.

In the past, Nevada has been able to strike a balance between the protection of our public lands and the need for development. That is how things should be. But Mr. Pendley does not respect this balance. When it comes to our public lands, Mr. Pendley has a longtime and documented history of working to destroy our national treasures.

Some of the highlights of Mr. Pendley's disturbing anti-public-land actions and sentiments include this: working on behalf of private interests to roll back critical public land protections during his tenure at a law firm; advocating for the repeal of the Antiquities Act, a landmark law signed by President Teddy Roosevelt that protects our public lands and gives the President the power to designate national monuments; and fighting to drill on sacred Native American lands while mocking these same Native Americans' religious beliefs.

This is a man put in charge of one-third of our Nation's public lands who has referred to the National Environmental Policy Act, our Nation's bedrock environmental law, as ``a terrible burden,'' who has written that ``the Founding Fathers intended all lands owned by the Federal Government to be sold,'' who has aggressively pushed oil and gas leasing on our public lands, and who views climate change as ``junk science.''

Mr. Pendley holds shocking and extremist views and has consistently worked to dismantle the very lands he is in charge of protecting. The administration knows just how bad Mr. Pendley is, which is why it has withdrawn his nomination to serve as Director of the BLM.

His nomination would never pass the Senate. However, it is unacceptable that Mr. Pendley continues to run the Bureau of Land Management as Acting BLM Director. This bureaucratic loophole allows Mr. Pendley to indefinitely serve as the de facto head of the BLM without a confirmation hearing before the American people and in direct defiance of the Senate's constitutional responsibility to advise and consent to executive nominations.

My office has heard from thousands of Nevadans about the importance of our public lands or to raise their concerns about Mr. Pendley--and with good reason. As I said before, the Bureau of Land Management oversees 67 percent of Nevada, and if Mr. Pendley sells off our State's public lands, Nevadans will be the ones paying the price.

I share the concerns of my constituents. Mr. Pendley was unfit to be confirmed as Director, and he is unfit to exercise the authority of the Director without being confirmed. For these reasons, this summer I joined my Senate colleagues in asking Secretary Bernhardt to remove Mr. Pendley from his unconfirmed position immediately.

I stand here today to reiterate: Mr. Pendley must step down or be removed. I call on the President to nominate a qualified Director through the standard confirmation process, one who understands the balance of conservation and development and who has respect for the job that they would hold, because Nevadans can't afford to find out if Mr. Pendley will put two-thirds of our State on the chopping block.

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