Karen Budd-Falen, the agency’s associate deputy secretary, is actively working on grazing matters despite her last-known ethics documents, which disqualified her from doing so.
Public lands
Posted inArticles
The BLM wants to ramp up logging. Oregonians aren’t so sure.
People are grappling with the agency’s notice that signals a significant increase in timber harvesting across 2.5 million acres.
Posted inMarch 2026: The Uncertainty of Farming in the Colorado River Basin
Black riders have always held the reins
What ‘High Horse’ gets right about Black cowboys and the West.
Posted inArticles
Trump’s BLM is going all-in on resource extraction
The agency’s new plan for ecologically significant areas of western Oregon is not responsible forest management.
Posted inArticles
Trump’s BLM nominee waffles on public land sell-off stance
Steve Pearce, the White House’s second oil and gas-connected pick, is ”not so sure” he’s changed.
Posted inArticles
It’s time to rethink how we care for our public lands and waters
Two former, high-ranking Interior Department employees, from opposing political parties, call for an overhaul of public-land management.
Posted inArticles
Karen Budd-Falen’s ethics documents spark renewed calls for an investigation
Interior’s new release of ethics disclosures shed new light on the official’s growing scandal.
Posted inArticles
Skimo is hot, in hot times
The newest Olympic winter sport arrives just as snow droughts are becoming more likely.
Posted inFebruary 2026: The Recording Artists
What’s needed to protect sage grouse?
The Burns Paiute and Shoshone-Bannock tribes are proving that reducing grazing may be the key to saving the iconic bird.
Posted inArticles
The nation’s trails are disappearing
Government-issued maps offer a promise for safely exploring our public lands, but they no longer reflect the reality of what’s actually on the ground.
Posted inArticles
Alaska’s public lands are a political battleground
The first year of the second Trump administration saw a bewildering array of federal actions in the 49th state. Here’s your guide to where things now stand.
Posted inArticles
Congress passes environmental funding without Trump’s deep cuts
But the bipartisan effort still trimmed climate research and fails to solve agencies’ chronic underfunding.
Posted inArticles
6 takeaways from our public-lands grazing investigation
Subsidies prop up ranching, grazing degrades the land and politics underpin the system.
Posted inArticles
Top Interior Department official has ties to Thacker Pass lithium mine
Karen Budd-Falen’s family ranching operation agreed to sell water rights to the company developing the controversial Nevada lithium project.
Posted inArticles
Water across the West at risk as Trump targets national monuments
A new study found that about 83% of water passing through public lands uses monument designation for its only protection.
Posted inArticles
National parks aren’t just for tourists. They’re an essential home for wildlife.
Pick up this new book on Yosemite for the photos but stay for the captivating animal stories.
Posted inDecember 2025: Wild Harvest
How ranchers accused of breaking the rules dodge oversight
Elected officials interfere with agency efforts to protect the land.
Posted inDecember 2025: Wild Harvest
Congress made it easier to ignore grazing’s harm to public lands
Federal law requires agencies to review the environmental impacts of grazing, but government employees allege the system is riddled with loopholes.
Posted inDecember 2025: Wild Harvest
The wealthy profit from public lands, and taxpayers pick up the tab
Roughly two-thirds of grazing on Bureau of Land Management land is controlled by just 10% of permit holders.
Posted inDecember 2025: Wild Harvest
How we reported Free Range, our grazing investigation
Data and analyses used in the stories.