Interior’s Bureau of Land Management, known as the nation’s largest landlord, has long offered leases to oil and gas companies, mining firms and ranchers. Now, for the first time, the nearly 80-year-old agency will auction off “restoration leases” and “mitigation leases” to entities with plans to restore or conserve public lands.
Seems encouraging. The fact that the fossil fuel companies hate it and are vowing to litigate makes me disposed to think it’s an actual good thing.
Any non-dem shithead will try their hardest to reverse this on Day 1. We need more majority control in the government.
They might not have to. The far right Supreme Court is salivating at the chance to overturn Chevron deference (the legal test that gives agencies like the FDA, EPA, and BLM deference over the courts when it comes to the areas they’re charged with regulating, so that they can interpret law themselves where reasonable). The Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo case is pending as we speak.
Regulatory agencies are going to get knee-capped if it’s over-turned, they will essentially have to constantly go to court over every decision they make and let judges essentially make the regulatory decisions.
That is going to fucking suck. Welcome back to the goddamn 1960s.
Shall we band together and purchase a couple conservation leases?
Maybe even tax the billionaires and do it at the public expense…