Protecting Local Zoos Act of 2026

— 527 — Department of the Interior Bay in Alaska; to expand recreation across BLM’s vast, diverse, and unique land- scapes; or to manage timber and rangelands to prevent wildfires, would all journey to Grand Junction. Convention opportunities on Colorado’s western slope would abound for BLM’s disparate constituencies to congregate and meet with BLM leadership. The Western States Sheriffs’ Association, for example, whose annual gathering attracts hundreds of law enforcement officers from 17 western and plains states might have moved its event to Grand Junction. Law Enforcement Officers. In 2002, at the direction of the Secretary of the Interior in the days following the 9/11 attack, the Inspector General (IG) for DOI made a series of department-wide recommendations regarding law enforcement. Then-Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton ordered adoption of those recom- mendations, which drew strong bipartisan support from Congress. Over the years, most were implemented. One, however, remained undone: placing all BLM law enforcement officers (LEOs), that is, its 212 Law Enforcement Rangers and 76 Special Agents, in an exclusively law enforcement chain of command. This was not just the IG’s recommendation in 2002, but that of every IG who fol- lowed. It is also the strong recommendation of the department’s top LEO. Moreover, it has been the urgent recommendation of law enforcement professionals across the country, especially in the West, for decades, including the Western States Sher- iffs Association. Unfortunately, over time, BLM leadership stonewalled, adhering to a haphazard system in which LEOs reported to non-LEO superiors, including not only state directors, but also district and field managers with expertise in other fields—range management or petroleum engineering, for example—with only 24 hours of law enforcement study. Obviously, those managers lack a comprehensive understanding of law enforcement issues—constitutional, legal, and tactical. In addition, they do not uniformly apply or enforce rules of conduct or ethical stan- dards for LEOs and special agents, leading to weakened esprit de corps and morale. Worse yet, because of their duties as managers of the multiple-use lands under their jurisdiction, they are exposed to conflicts of interests and may intentionally or unintentionally prevent LEOs from investigating violations or applying the law. In the final days of the Trump Administration, Secretary David L. Bernhardt ordered, and Deputy Director William Perry Pendley implemented, the IG’s recom- mendation. Of course, leadership heads exploded; they were furious with their loss of authority, not to mention subordinates and budgets. Unfortunately, in the first days of the Biden Administration, BLM Deputy Director Mike Nedd suspended Pendley’s order. Nonetheless, LEOs, the BLM, and westerners want LEOs—who make life-and- death decisions—to be as well-trained and well-equipped as possible. They should report to a professional, expert, and knowledgeable chain of command. After all, they protect visitors to BLM lands and the natural and cultural resources of those lands, as well as the employees who manage those lands. — 528 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise BLM’s LEOs must keep in touch, work closely, and coordinate with fellow fed- eral, state, and local law enforcement officers. In the Trump Administration, they joined state and local law enforcement in arresting dangerous suspects in Cortez, Colorado; responded to a request from a rural sheriff in Arizona to rescue a family stuck in freezing temperatures; and, teamed up in an all-hands-on-deck effort to locate a missing American Indian teenager in rural Montana. More important, western LEOs need the assurance that the BLM LEOs with whom they work are professionals who report through a professional chain of command. Wild Horses and Burros. In 1971, Congress ordered the BLM to manage wild horses and burros to ensure their iconic presence never disappeared from the western landscape. For decades, Congress watched as these herds overwhelmed the land’s ability to sustain them, crowded out indigenous plant and other animal species, threatened the survival of species listed under the Endangered Species Act, invaded private and permitted public land, disturbed private property rights, and turned the sod into concrete. BLM experts said in 2019 that some affected land will never recover from this unmitigated damage. There are 95,000 wild horses and burros roaming nearly 32 million acres in the West—triple what scientists and land management experts say the range can sup- port. These animals face starvation and death from lack of forage and water. The population has more than doubled in just the past 10 years and continues to grow at a rate of 10 to 15 percent annually. This number includes the more than 47,000 animals the BLM has already gathered from public lands, at a cost to the American taxpayer of nearly $50 million annually to care for them in off-range corrals. This is not a new issue—it is not just a western issue—it is an American issue. What is happening to these once-proud beasts of burden is neither compassionate nor humane, and what these animals are doing to federal lands and fragile ecosys- tems is unacceptable. In 2019, the American Association of Equine Practitioners and the American Veterinary Medication Association—two of the largest organi- zations of professional veterinarians in the world—issued a joint policy calling for further reducing overpopulation to protect the health and well-being of wild horses and burros on public lands. The National Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board, a panel of nine experts and professionals convened to advise the BLM, endorsed the joint policy. Furthermore, animal welfare organizations such as the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and the Humane Society of the United States recognize that the prosperity of wild horses and burros on public lands is threatened if herds continue to grow unabated. The BLM’s multi-pronged approach in its 2020 Report to Congress46 included expanded adoptions and sales of horses gathered from overpopulated herds; increased gathers and increased capacity for off-range holding facilities and pas- tures; more effective use of fertility control efforts; and improved research, in concert with the academic and veterinary communities, to identify more effective

— 540 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise 24. U.S. Department of the Interior, “Order No. 3354: Supporting and Improving the Federal Onshore Oil and Gas Leasing Program and Federal Solid Mineral Leasing Program, July 6, 2017, https://www.doi.gov/sites/doi.gov/ files/uploads/so_-_3354_signed.pdf (accessed March 16, 2023). 25. U.S. Department of the Interior, “Order No. 3355: Streamlining National Environmental Policy Reviews and Implementation of Executive Order 13807, “Establishing Discipline and Accountability in the Environmental Review and Permitting Process for Infrastructure Projects,” August 31, 2017, https://www.doi.gov/sites/doi.gov/ files/elips/documents/3355_-_streamlining_national_environmental_policy_reviews_and_implementation_ of_executive_order_13807_establishing_discipline_and_accountability_in_the_environmental_review_ and_permitting_process_for.pdf (accessed March 16, 2023). 26. U.S. Department of the Interior, “Order No. 3358: Executive Committee for Expedited Permitting,” October 25, 2017, https://www.doi.gov/sites/doi.gov/files/elips/documents/so_3358_executive_committee_for_ expedited_permitting_0.pdf (accessed March 16, 2023). 27. U.S. Department of the Interior, “Order No. 3360: Rescinding Authorities Inconsistent with Secretary’s Order 3349, “American Energy Independence,” December 22, 2017, https://www.doi.gov/sites/doi.gov/files/elips/ documents/3360_-_rescinding_authorities_inconsistent_with_secretarys_order_3349_american_energy_ independence.pdf (accessed March 16, 2023). 28. U.S. Department of the Interior, “Order No. 3380: Public Notice of the Costs Associated with Developing Department of the Interior Publications and Similar Documents,” March 10, 2020, https://www.doi.gov/sites/ doi.gov/files/elips/documents/so-3398-508_0.pdf (accessed March 16, 2023). 29. U.S. Department of the Interior, “Order No. 3385: Enforcement Priorities,” September 14, 2020, https:// www.doi.gov/sites/doi.gov/files/elips/documents/signed-so-3385-enforcement-priorities.pdf (accessed March 16, 2023). 30. U.S. Department of the Interior, “Order 3389: Coordinating and Clarifying National Historic Preservation Act Section 106 Reviews,” September 14, 2020, https://www.doi.gov/sites/doi.gov/files/elips/documents/signed- so-3385-enforcement-priorities.pdf (accessed March 16, 2023). 31. Bureau of Land Management, “Updating Oil and Gas Leasing Reform: Land Use Planning and Lease Parcel Reviews,” IM 2018–034, January 31, 2018, https://www.blm.gov/policy/im-2018-034 (accessed March 16, 2023). 32. Lease Now Act, S. 4228, 117th Cong., 2nd Sess. (2022). 33. ONSHORE Act, S. 218, 116th Cong., 2nd Sess. (2019). https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate- bill/218/text (accessed March 18, 2023). 34. Federal Register, Vol. 87, No. 130 (July 8, 2022), pp. 40859–40863. 35. The Biden Administration’s 2023–2028 proposed program is fatally flawed. Katie Tubb, “Comment for the 2023–2028 National OCS Oil and Gas Leasing Proposed Program,” BOEM–2022–0031, October 6, 2022, http:// thf_media.s3.amazonaws.com/2022/Regulatory_Comments/BOEM%202023-2028%20lease%20plan%20 comment%20KTubb.pdf (accessed March 16, 2023). 36. See Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, Public Law No. 117–169, §§ 50261–50263. 37. Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, Public Law No. 115–97, § 20001, and U.S. Department of the Interior, “Order No. 3401: Comprehensive Analysis and Temporary Halt on All Activities in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge Relating to the Coastal Plain Oil and Gas Leasing Program,” June 1, 2021, https://www.doi.gov/sites/doi.gov/files/elips/ documents/so-3401-comprehensive-analysis-and-temporary-halt-on-all-activitives-in-the-arctic-national- wildlife-refuge-relating-to-the-coastal-plain-oil-and-gas-leasing-program.pdf (accessed March 16, 2023). 38. In 2016, Interior Secretary Sally Jewell instituted a moratorium on new coal leases while conducting a programmatic environmental impact statement under NEPA to address concerns about competition and inconsistency with the Obama Administration’s climate policy. In 2017, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke lifted the moratorium and ended development of a programmatic environmental impact statement. In April 2021, Interior Secretary Debra Haaland rescinded Zinke’s order and initiated a new review of the coal-leasing program. See U.S. Department of the Interior, “Order No. 3338: Discretionary Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement to Modernize the Federal Coal Program,” January 15, 2016, https://www.doi.gov/sites/doi. gov/files/elips/documents/archived-3338_-discretionary_programmatic_environmental_impact_statement_ to_modernize_the_federal_coal_program.pdf (accessed March 16, 2023); U.S. Department of the Interior, “Order No. 3348”; U.S. Department of the Interior, “Order No. 3398”; and Federal Register, Vol. 86, No. 159 (August 20, 2021), pp. 46873–46877. — 541 — Department of the Interior 39. Katie Tubb, “No More Standoffs: Protecting Federal Employees and Ending the Culture of Anti-Government Attacks and Abuse,” testimony before the Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests, and Public Lands, Committee on Natural Resources, U.S. House of Representatives, pp. 2–4, October 22, 2019, https://congress. gov/116/meeting/house/110104/witnesses/HHRG-116-II10-Wstate-TubbK-20191022.pdf (accessed March 16, 2023). 40. News release, “Secretary Haaland Announces Steps to Establish Protections for Culturally Significant Chaco Canyon Landscape,” U.S. Department of the Interior, November 15, 2021, https://www.doi.gov/pressreleases/ secretary-haaland-announces-steps-establish-protections-culturally-significant-chaco (accessed March 16, 2023); News release, “Biden–Harris Administration Proposes Protections for Thompson Divide,” U.S. Department of the Interior, October 12, 2022, https://www.doi.gov/pressreleases/biden-harris-administration- proposes-protections-thompson-divide (accessed March 16, 2023); News release, “Biden Administration Takes Action to Complete Study of Boundary Waters Area Watershed,” U.S. Department of the Interior, October 20, 2021, https://www.doi.gov/pressreleases/biden-administration-takes-action-complete-study-boundary- waters-area-watershed (accessed March 16, 2023); and News release, “Interior Department Takes Action on Mineral Leases Improperly Renewed in the Watershed of the Boundary Waters Wilderness,” U.S. Department of the Interior, January 26, 2022, https://www.doi.gov/pressreleases/interior-department-takes-action- mineral-leases-improperly-renewed-watershed-boundary (accessed March 16, 2023). 41. Endangered Species Act, Public Law 91–135, § 4(b)(2), and Federal Register, Vol. 85, No. 244 (December 18, 2020), pp. 82376–82389. 42. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, “Governing the Take of Migratory Birds Under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.” https://www.fws.gov/regulations/mbta (accessed March 16, 2023). 43. Dino Grandoni and Anna Phillips, “Biden Restores Climate Safeguards in Key Environmental Law, Reversing Trump,” Washington Post, April 19, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate- environment/2022/04/19/biden-nepa-climate-trump/ (accessed March 16, 2023). 44. Donald Trump, “Executive Order on Creating Schedule F in the Accepted Service,” Executive Order 13957, October 21, 2020, https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-creating- schedule-f-excepted-service/ (accessed March 16, 2023). 45. Kathleen Masterson, “Nevada Wild Horse Population Skyrockets To New High,” KUNR Public Radio, July 22, 2019, https://www.kunr.org/energy-and-environment/2019-07-22/nevada-wild-horse-population-skyrockets- to-new-high (accessed March 20, 2023). 46. U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management, “Report to Congress: An Analysis of Achieving a Sustainable Horse and Burro Program,” Fact sheet, May 8, 2020, https://www.blm.gov/sites/blm.gov/files/ Final%20Fact%20Sheet%20WHB%20Report%20To%20Congress.pdf (accessed March 17, 2023). 47. Pendley, Sagebrush Rebel, pp. 45–47. 48. James D. Linxwiler, The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act At 35: Delivering on the Promise, Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Institute, Vol. 53, Chap. 12 (2007), § 12.03(1)(a)(iv), https://www.guessrudd.com/wp-content/ uploads/sites/1600422/2020/05/The-Alaska-Native-Claims-Settlement-Act-at-35.pdf (accessed March 16, 2023). 49. Ibid., § 12.03(1)(a)(vii). See generally Richard S. Jones, Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971 (Public Law 92–203): History And Analysis Together With Subsequent Amendments, Report No. 81–127 GOV, June 1, 1981, http://www.alaskool.org/PROJECTS/ANCSA/reports/rsjones1981/ANCSA_History71.htm (accessed March 16, 2023). 50. 43 U.S. Code, Ch. 33. ANCSA also created 12 Native-owned regional corporations and authorized $962 million in “seed money.” Linxwiler, The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act At 35, § 12.03(2)(e). 51. ANCSA provided that the withdrawal of the lands would expire in 1978 if Congress had not designated the lands as federal enclaves. John K. Norman Cole and Steven W. Silver, Alaska’s D-2 Lands, Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Institute, Vol. 6B, Ch. 5, September 1978, and Raymond A. Peck, Jr., And Then There Were None: Evolving Federal Restraints on the Availability of Public Lands for Mineral Development, Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Institute, Vol. 25, Ch. 3, 1979. 52. Andrus used purported authority under the FLPMA to withdraw 40 million acres, and Carter used purported authority under the Antiquities Act of to withdraw 56 million acres. James D. Linxwiler, The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act: The First Twenty Years, Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Institute, Vol. 38 Ch. 2, 1992 at 2.04(8)(c), https://ancsa.lbblawyers.com/wp-content/uploads/ANCSA-Paper-with-Table-of-Contents-1992.pdf (accessed March 16, 2023).

— 528 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise BLM’s LEOs must keep in touch, work closely, and coordinate with fellow fed- eral, state, and local law enforcement officers. In the Trump Administration, they joined state and local law enforcement in arresting dangerous suspects in Cortez, Colorado; responded to a request from a rural sheriff in Arizona to rescue a family stuck in freezing temperatures; and, teamed up in an all-hands-on-deck effort to locate a missing American Indian teenager in rural Montana. More important, western LEOs need the assurance that the BLM LEOs with whom they work are professionals who report through a professional chain of command. Wild Horses and Burros. In 1971, Congress ordered the BLM to manage wild horses and burros to ensure their iconic presence never disappeared from the western landscape. For decades, Congress watched as these herds overwhelmed the land’s ability to sustain them, crowded out indigenous plant and other animal species, threatened the survival of species listed under the Endangered Species Act, invaded private and permitted public land, disturbed private property rights, and turned the sod into concrete. BLM experts said in 2019 that some affected land will never recover from this unmitigated damage. There are 95,000 wild horses and burros roaming nearly 32 million acres in the West—triple what scientists and land management experts say the range can sup- port. These animals face starvation and death from lack of forage and water. The population has more than doubled in just the past 10 years and continues to grow at a rate of 10 to 15 percent annually. This number includes the more than 47,000 animals the BLM has already gathered from public lands, at a cost to the American taxpayer of nearly $50 million annually to care for them in off-range corrals. This is not a new issue—it is not just a western issue—it is an American issue. What is happening to these once-proud beasts of burden is neither compassionate nor humane, and what these animals are doing to federal lands and fragile ecosys- tems is unacceptable. In 2019, the American Association of Equine Practitioners and the American Veterinary Medication Association—two of the largest organi- zations of professional veterinarians in the world—issued a joint policy calling for further reducing overpopulation to protect the health and well-being of wild horses and burros on public lands. The National Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board, a panel of nine experts and professionals convened to advise the BLM, endorsed the joint policy. Furthermore, animal welfare organizations such as the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and the Humane Society of the United States recognize that the prosperity of wild horses and burros on public lands is threatened if herds continue to grow unabated. The BLM’s multi-pronged approach in its 2020 Report to Congress46 included expanded adoptions and sales of horses gathered from overpopulated herds; increased gathers and increased capacity for off-range holding facilities and pas- tures; more effective use of fertility control efforts; and improved research, in concert with the academic and veterinary communities, to identify more effective — 529 — Department of the Interior contraceptive techniques and strategies. All of that will not be enough to solve the problem, however. Congress must enact laws permitting the BLM to dispose humanely of these animals. IMMEDIATE ACTIONS REGARDING ALASKA Alaska is a special case and deserves immediate action.47 When Alaska was admitted to the Union in 1959, nearly its entire landmass was federally owned; therefore, Alaska was granted the right to select 104 million acres (out of 375 million acres) to manage for the benefit of its residents.48 In less than eight years, Alaska selected 26 million acres. Then-Interior Secretary Stewart Udall—who served during the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations—put a freeze on further land selections to protect any claims that might be asserted by Native Alaskans.49 Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. The discovery of oil at Prudhoe Bay in 1968 made resolution of the issue by Congress a matter of urgency. As a result, in 1971, Congress passed the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA), which allowed the Native community to select 44 million acres.50 Environmentalists, upset that too much of the land they coveted would be selected by the state and Native Alaskans for development, demanded the inclusion in the act of a provision—Section 17(d)(2)—that ordered the Interior Secretary to withdraw 80 million acres for future designation by Congress as parks, refuges, wild and scenic rivers, and national forests.51 The deadline for this congressional action was 1978, and as it neared, the Carter Administration, impatient and worried, decided to force Congress’s hand. The Administration unilaterally withdrew 100 million acres from any use by the state or Native Alaskans.52 Alaska promptly sued, charging that the Administration had failed to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act.53 In a lame duck session at the end of 1980, Congress passed (over the objec- tions of the Alaskan delegation) the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, which revoked all of the withdrawals of the Carter Administration and sub- stituted congressional designations that put 100 million acres permanently in federal enclaves, doubled the acreage of national parks and refuges, and tripled the amount of land declared to be wilderness.54 Through all of this, Alaska pressed for the DOI to convey the lands to which Alaska was entitled by federal law, but the department grudgingly transferred only portions of that land. By the time Ronald Reagan took office, Alaska had received less than half the lands to which it was entitled after its admission into the Union, and Native Alas- kans had received only one-third of the land due to them.55 From January of 1981 through 1983, however, under Reagan, Alaska received 30 million acres and a com- mitment of land transfers at the rate of 13 million acres annually. In the same period, Native Alaskans received 11 million acres, which constituted nearly 60 percent of their entitlement, and an additional 15 million acres were transferred by the end of 1988.56