The week between Christmas and New Year’s is, for most Americans, a week of vacation, travel, rest, and time with family and friends. It is a time when the fewest people are focused on the daily news; in fact, many people purposely ignore the rest of world and concentrate on their own families, at least for a few days.
That is precisely why politicians can always be counted on to push their most controversial plans during just such a week, when fewer people will notice. So, what would the last week in December be without a rash of new regulations – which most people won’t hear about until next year?
The White House quietly published its “unified agenda” in early December, hinting at these new regulations. Those included nearly 50 new clean air rules alone. One will require factories and other plants to invest in “maximum achievable” control even after their emissions fall below required threshold levels.
The war on coal continues with a further reduction in already-existing silica dust restrictions, and another constraint on clean coal-fired power plants, even those with modern technology that already emit almost nothing.
The Fish and Wildlife Service will add dozens more species to the endangered list, including red-cockaded woodpeckers and at least two new spotted owl “subspecies.” Another plan involves locking up over 200,000 acres in two states as critical snake habitat. Another agency will impose an 11 mile-per-hour speed limit to impede boating along the Atlantic Coast, to “save” the right whales (do they die if overhead boats go too fast?).
Perhaps the most daring year-end stunt, though, is a Bureau of Land Management (BLM) plan to bypass an entire range of federal laws requiring public involvement in the decision-making process.
Remember, this is the same agency that just a few months ago proposed an entirely new official “use” of public lands, called “conservation leases.” That is, a process to lease BLM lands for no use at all, contrary to the law. The Federal Land Policy Management Act explicitly defines leasable uses of BLM land, but administrators apparently couldn’t care less what the law allows. The House-passed Interior Appropriation Bill already includes a provision blocking that illegal plan, but BLM is determined to go ahead with it anyway, while no one is looking.
This latest year-end stunt is arguably even worse. BLM now proposes to “cut through bureaucratic red tape and streamline” public land closures. I should describe how offended some BLM officials get when I use phrases like “bureaucratic red tape,” but I digress. This 11th hour proposal would allow designated officials – we are not told who – to declare “emergencies” that would empower them to close public lands, without the normal pesky requirements of public notice and public comment periods.
The proposal describes such “emergencies,” to mislead us that this is about floods, fires, and other natural calamities, though people do not tend to visit public lands that are underwater or ablaze. No, these “emergencies” also include “large special events,” or “unforeseen events,” which are not defined. The list also includes “public health emergency, or a change in public land use that creates a public safety hazard.” That sounds marginally reasonable, but the proposed solution is sinister and dangerous.
All land management changes must by law be published in the Federal Register, including a public comment period, agency responses to those comments, and a well-defined appeals process. BLM now proposes to ignore those requirements, publishing any notice it deems necessary – not in the Federal Register, but on a social media site like Facebook, or in a local newspaper, not necessarily the one local residents read. Worst of all, a mid-level bureaucrat could declare any “emergency” to justify closing public lands, and the decision would take immediate effect, even while any appeal or lawsuit is pending.
The proposal’s description complains that the annoying public process hinders BLM’s “ability to prevent or reduce the risk to public health or safety, property, or important resources.” Note that last category, implying that such an “emergency” can be declared any time officials think any legal activity bight be a threat to “important resources.” All public lands are important resources.
The notice says all temporary closures must show the date closures start and end. That’s great, except it also says this update would place no restriction on how long a temporary land closure remains in effect, just “until the situation it is addressing has ended or abated.” As decided by some yet-unnamed official.
Welcome to December in Washington.
An edited version of this column appeared in the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel December 29, 2023.
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