E&E NEWS • February 6, 2024
A former Trump administration Interior Department official says the next Republican president should slash the footprint of national monuments from Maine to California, and press to bar future presidents from wielding executive power to protect federal lands. That proposal from William Perry Pendley — who led former President Donald Trump’s Bureau of Land Management despite never being confirmed to the post— could end up tested in the courts perhaps even before the next president takes office. “This is a full scale assault on America’s national monuments and all of our common natural heritage,” said Taylor McKinnon, with the Center Action Fund.