Wyoming’s Budd-Falen returning to Interior
Wyoming private property rights attorney Karen Budd-Falen is, for the second time, headed to D.C. to a post with the Department of the Interior for President Trump. Budd-Falen said she has agreed to serve as the Department of the Interior’s associate deputy secretary.
During the first Trump administration, she served as the DOI’s deputy solicitor, where she provided counsel to DOI and former Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke.
“I was the attorney for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Park Service, so I was giving legal counsel on issues related to those two branches,” she said. “This time, I have a broader portfolio.”
As associate deputy secretary, she’ll be called on for issues within the DOI with the exception of oil and gas and Indian Affairs.
She previously also served the DOI during the Reagan administration as a special assistant. At that time, she worked on Bureau of Land Management wilderness policy, grazing fees for BLM land, and a program called asset management, identifying the small tracts of federally owned land that was expensive and difficult for BLM to manage. By identifying those small tracts that were often surrounded by privately owned land, land exchanges could be negotiated.
She said the Federal Land Management and Policy Act, passed in 1976, does not grant the authority for the sale of large tracts of federally owned land without Congressional approval or a ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court. It does allow for the exchange of public land for private land if the exchange is in the public interest, but the sale of huge tracts of land is outside the legal authority of federal agencies.
PROPERTY RIGHTS ADVOCATE
Budd-Falen has a long history as a private practice attorney defending private property rights. She anticipates that once she is in D.C. in the coming days, she will have questions about the BLM, Federal Land Policy andManagement Act and the Taylor Grazing Act come across her desk.
“I know the secretary is interested in working on endangered species, particularly coming up with regulations that make it easier for private landowners to do voluntary agreements to protect endangered species,” she said. “Right now, if a landowner wants to do something voluntary for sage grouse or some other species, it takes an average of four years to get that through the bureaucracy. That’s just simply too long.”
PUBLIC LAND USE
Budd-Falen isn’t looking forward to leaving the Wyoming ranch for the city, but said she is excited for the opportunity to work for a president and a secretary who are interested in working to make public lands more usable — not just for oil and gas, but for all users.
“I also think Interior has some regulations that are far afield from Congressional intent,” she said. “We’re going to be working on pulling that back, particularly with the Supreme Court decision of Loper, which withdrew the Chevron deference doctrine.”
Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo curtailed the power of federal agencies by overturning the 1984 decision in Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council. Under the Chevron doctrine, a court was required to uphold the agency’s interpretation of a statute.
She said she’s pleased with the current and potential Interior staffers who are familiar with the working West, which isn’t always the case.
“Their heart may totally be in the right place, but unless you know how long it takes to get to Walmart from one of these little towns, none of this makes any sense,” she said.
Secretary of the Interior Doug Bergum was confirmed at the end of January, with more the half of Senate Democrats joining Republicans in a 79-18 vote. The former North Dakota governor has been tapped to boost fossil fuel production with a promise to “drill, baby, drill.”
