Senate Should Reject Trump’s Nominee to Head Bureau of Land Management
Statement of Robert Weissman, President, Public Citizen
Note: President Donald Trump today announced that he will nominate William Perry Pendley to lead the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. Pendley is currently a bureau deputy director who has been exercising the authority of the director temporarily, allowing him to skirt a confirmation hearing.
William Perry Pendley is an anti-government extremist and climate change denialist who embodies the Trump administration’s desire to do the bidding of dirty energy corporations. Throughout the pandemic, U.S. Interior Secretary David Bernhardt and Pendley have taken preferential treatment of oil and gas executives to a new level, expediting requests from companies to allow them to avoid paying a fair price for drilling on our public lands. The U.S. Senate should promptly hold a hearing and vote to reject this extreme nominee.