William Perry Pendley

William Perry Pendley
Deputy Director of the Bureau of Land Management for Policy and Programs
In office July 15, 2019 – January 20, 2021
President	Donald Trump
Director of the Bureau of Land Management
De facto, unlawful
In office July 29, 2019 – September 25, 2020
President	Donald Trump
Preceded by	Brian Steed (acting)
Succeeded by	Tracy Stone-Manning
Personal details
Born	(1945-04-03) April 3, 1945 (age 79) Cheyenne, Wyoming, U.S.
Education	George Washington University (BA, MA) University of Wyoming (JD)
Military service
Allegiance	United States
Branch/service	United States Marine Corps
Rank	Captain

William Perry Pendley is an American attorney, conservative activist, political commentator, and government official who served as the acting director of the Bureau of Land Management from 2019 to 2021.

Pendley was appointed by Interior Secretary David Bernhardt as a Deputy Director of the Bureau of Land Management in July 2019.^[1] He was elevated to acting director less than a month afterward.^[2] Pendley was one of a number of high-ranking acting officials carrying out official duties in the Trump administration who was never confirmed by the Senate.^[3] No BLM director was ever confirmed by the Senate during Trump's presidency.^[4]

U.S. District Judge Brian Morris ruled on September 25, 2020, that Pendley had served unlawfully for 424 days and blocked him from continuing, although Pendley refused to acknowledge the ruling;^[5][6] still, Pendley moved to another role that was not the directorship.^[7]

Early life and education

Pendley is a native of Cheyenne, Wyoming.^[8] Pendley received Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts degrees in economics and political science from George Washington University in Washington, D.C. He received a Juris Doctor from the University of Wyoming College of Law.^[8] He was a captain in the United States Marine Corps.^[8]

Career

During the Reagan administration, Pendley was a deputy interior secretary for energy and minerals under James G. Watt.^[9] Pendley was reassigned in 1984 when a federal commission faulted him, along with other high-ranking officials, in the underpricing of coal-mining leases in the Powder River Basin, the largest such federal sale in history.^[10]

Prior to joining the Department of the Interior, Pendley worked as a Legislative Assistant to former Wyoming Senator Clifford Hansen, and as Minority Counsel to the United States House Committee on Mines and Mining of the United States House Committee on Insular Affairs.^[11]

Pendley is formerly a longtime president of the Mountain States Legal Foundation, a conservative Colorado-based group that advocates for selling off federal land in the West.^[12][3][2] He has written several books opposing government regulation of Western lands.^[9]

Pendley has sued against the Endangered Species Act of 1973, has called the science of climate change "junk science", and has written that climate change believers are "kooks".^[2][3] He falsely claimed in 1992 that there was no credible evidence of a hole in the ozone layer.^[3] In a July 2017 speech to conservative activists, he joked about the killing of endangered species.^[13]

Pendley has also made controversial public comments on some issues unrelated to conservation. In a 2007 fundraising letter, he wrote that illegal immigration was spreading like "a cancer".^[3] In 2017, he wrote that the Black Lives Matter movement was based on a "terrible lie" because Michael Brown had not said "Hands up, don't shoot" before he was killed by a police officer.^[14]

Trump administration

Pendley was appointed to deputy director and then acting director of the Bureau of Land Management in 2019.^[1] His role as acting director of BLM was controversial, given that Pendley had previously advocated for selling off federal lands.^[15] He said he would not pursue mass land sales that he had previously campaigned for, because "the president has made it very clear that we do not believe in the wholesale transfer of federal lands".^[16] He released a list of nearly five dozen former clients, including oil, mining and agriculture interests, that he would recuse himself from decisions on for a year or two.^[17]

Opponents of Pendley's appointment included the Sierra Club; the Wilderness Society; Backcountry Hunters & Anglers; the CEO of the Patagonia clothing company; Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility; Sen. Martin Heinrich, Democrat of New Mexico; and Joe Biden, the 2020 Democratic presidential candidate.^{[18][19][20][21][14]} His supporters included Sen. Steve Daines, Republican of Montana.^[22]

In the Trump administration, Pendley oversaw the relocation of Bureau of Land Management jobs out of Washington, D.C., to Western states. Pendley said that he would prefer to relocate personally to Grand Junction, Colorado, but his own job was one of 61 identified as needing to be kept in Washington.^[23] Congress rejected funding for the relocations, and Rep. Raúl Grijalva of Arizona, the Democratic chair of the House Natural Resources Committee, said that Congress would investigate whether the plan was appropriate.^[24][19] In December 2019, Pendley wrote that nearly two-thirds of the 153 employees told to move out of Washington had agreed to relocate.^[25] U.S. Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt officially established the bureau's headquarters as Grand Junction on August 11, 2020.^[26] As of January 2021, 328 positions had been relocated; of them, 41 employees moved to Grand Junction, and 287 employees left the bureau instead of moving.^[27]

Pendley said the biggest threat to U.S. public lands is wild horses and burros "causing havoc".^[28]

On December 30, 2019, 91 groups with connections to public lands sent a letter to Secretary of the Interior Bernhardt demanding that Pendley resign or be removed from office for alleged conflict of interest. The Interior Department called the groups who signed the letter "environmental extremists."^[29] The day afterward, Bernhardt acted to extend Pendley's tenure through April 2020.^[4] Bernhardt repeatedly issued orders extending Pendley's tenure in an acting capacity, bypassing a Senate confirmation process. In May 2020, two activist groups, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility and the Western Watersheds Project, sued over Bernhardt's ongoing appointments of Pendley to run the BLM and David Vela to lead the National Park Service. In June 2020, an unwritten order by Bernhardt extended Pendley's acting appointment indefinitely.^[30] On June 26, 2020, Trump said he planned to nominate Pendley for confirmation by the Senate, a move that CNN said might give Pendley firmer legal footing to continue on an interim basis.^[31] On August 15, 2020, administration officials said the nomination would be withdrawn.^[32] Pendley continued leading BLM.^[33] On September 8, 2020, the nomination was formally withdrawn.^[34]

Pendley was ordered to leave his position by U.S. District Judge Brian Morris on September 25, 2020, after Governor Steve Bullock of Montana sued in federal court. The Interior Department said it would appeal the ruling,^[5] and Pendley refused to resign,^[6] suggesting that Judge Morris's ruling had "No impact, no impact whatsoever."^[6] Pendley said in an October 2020 press conference that he couldn't be ousted because he was never officially named acting director, and that he acted instead as deputy director for policy and programs.^[35]

Project 2025 participation

Pendley was the author of Chapter 16, Department of the Interior,^[36] of Mandate for Leadership (2025), the policy planning document of the conservative Heritage Foundation's Project 2025 "Presidential Transition Project" for a possible second Trump administration.

Personal life

Pendley and his wife live in Evergreen, Colorado, and he also rents an apartment in Washington, D.C.^[23][37]

See also

• Environmental policy of the Donald Trump administration

References

1. Magill, Bobby (July 30, 2019). "'Trumpian' BLM Chief Expected to Open Development Floodgates (1)". Bloomberg Law. Retrieved July 21, 2020.
2. Aug. 8, Chris D'Angelo; Now, 2019 Like Tweet Email Print Subscribe Donate (2019-08-08). "Land transfer advocate and longtime agency combatant now leads BLM". High Country News. Retrieved 2019-10-10. {{cite web}}: |first2= has generic name (help)
3. Kaczynski, Andrew; LeBlanc, Paul; McDermott, Nathan (8 October 2019). "Senior Interior official denied there was an ozone hole and compared undocumented immigrants to cancer". CNN. Retrieved 2019-10-10.
4. Mufson, Steven. "Interior secretary extends the tenure of federal lands chief — without a presidential nomination". Washington Post. Retrieved 2020-01-14.
5. Brown, Matthew (September 25, 2020). "Judge removes Trump's public lands boss after governor sued". Associated Press. Retrieved September 25, 2020.
6. Randall, Cassidy (10 October 2020). "Trump's public lands chief refuses to leave his post despite judge's order". The Guardian. Retrieved 10 October 2020.
7. Wise, Alana (January 11, 2021). "Amid Domestic Terror Fears, Acting Homeland Security Chief Chad Wolf to Step Down". NPR. Retrieved January 11, 2021.
8. "William Perry Pendley". www.blm.gov. 2019-07-23. Retrieved 2019-10-10.
9. Mufson, Steven (July 31, 2019). "Trump's pick for managing federal lands doesn't believe the government should have any". The Washington Post.
10. Shabecoff, Philip (1984-02-09). "Report Finds Interior Department Mismanaged Coal Lease Program". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2019-10-10.
11. "Secretary Watt Names Acting Head Of New Minerals Management Service | Indian Affairs". www.bia.gov. Retrieved 2019-11-20.
12. "MSLF -- Staff". 2000-10-29. Archived from the original on 2000-10-29. Retrieved 2019-10-10.
13. Tobias, Jimmy (May 20, 2020). "He opposed public lands and wildlife protections. Trump gave him a top environment job". The Guardian. Retrieved May 20, 2020.
14. "INTERIOR: Pendley: Black Lives Matter based on 'terrible lie'". www.eenews.net. Retrieved 2020-07-02.
15. Frazin, Rachel (2020-06-26). "Trump nominates controversial, longtime acting head of land management bureau as director". TheHill. Retrieved 2020-07-14.
16. "EXCLUSIVE: 'Sagebrush rebel' William Perry Pendley embraces role heading BLM". The Washington Times. August 8, 2019. Retrieved 2019-10-10.
17. Doyle, Michael. "INTERIOR: BLM honcho reveals long recusal list". Energy and Environment News. Retrieved 2019-12-26.
18. "Patagonia CEO: Congress Needs to Fire William Perry Pendley From BLM". Men's Journal. 2019-12-23. Retrieved 2019-12-26.
19. "INTERIOR: Will Trump finally nominate Pendley to lead BLM?". Energy and Environment News. Retrieved 2019-12-26.
20. "Sierra Club: Time for Acting BLM Director Pendley to Go". Sierra Club. 2019-10-01. Retrieved 2019-12-26.
21. Fahys, Judy (2020-01-03). "Controversial BLM Chief Pendley's Tenure Extended Again Without Nomination, Despite Protests". InsideClimate News. Retrieved 2020-01-17.
22. "INTERIOR: Daines signals support for Pendley to stay at BLM". Energy and Environment News. Retrieved 2019-12-26.
23. WEBB, DENNIS (8 November 2019). "Acting director of BLM says he'd like to live in Grand Junction". The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel. Retrieved 2019-11-20.
24. Kim, Caitlyn. "Congressional Watchdogs Are Investigating The BLM's Move Out West As The Relocation Looms". Colorado Public Radio. Retrieved 2019-12-26.
25. Verlee, Megan. "BLM Head Honcho Says About 100 Employees Have Agreed To Move West". Colorado Public Radio. Retrieved 2019-12-26.
26. "BLM officially establishes Grand Junction as headquarters". The Times-Independent. 2020-08-14. Retrieved 2020-08-15.
27. Kim, Caitlyn. "Only 41 BLM Employees Moved West With Their Jobs. Nearly 300 Left The Bureau Instead". Colorado Public Radio. Retrieved 2021-09-18.
28. D’Angelo, Alex; Kaufmann, Chris (2019-10-11). "BLM head: 'What I thought, what I wrote, what I did in the past is irrelevant.'". High Country News. Retrieved 2019-12-26.
29. Rebecca Beitsch (Dec 30, 2019). "Coalition of 91 groups asks for resignation or removal of BLM chief". The Hill.
30. [e-mail], DENNIS WEBB (8 June 2020). "Pendley stays on as Bureau of Land Management head". The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel. Retrieved 2020-06-10.
31. Wallace, Gregory (26 June 2020). "William Perry Pendley to be nominated to lead land management agency". CNN. Retrieved 2020-07-02.
32. Siegler, Kirk (August 15, 2020). "Trump To Withdraw Polarizing Nominee To Lead Bureau Of Land Management". NPR.org. Retrieved 2020-08-15.
33. Brown, Matthew (August 18, 2020). "Public lands chief hangs on despite nomination getting nixed". Associated Press. Retrieved August 23, 2020.
34. "Eleven Nominations and Three Withdrawals Sent to the Senate". whitehouse.gov. Retrieved 2020-09-10 – via National Archives.
35. "Public lands official defends job despite judge's ruling". AP NEWS. 2020-10-15. Retrieved 2020-10-16.
36. Pendley, William Perry. "Chapter 16, Department of Interior" (PDF). Mandate for Leadership 2025. The Heritage Foundation. Retrieved 4 July 2024.
37. "Acting BLM director willing to move from DC to western Colorado". FOX31 Denver. 2019-11-09. Retrieved 2019-11-20.