A resolution notifying the House of Representatives of the election of a Sergeant at Arms and Doorkeeper of the Senate.

— 533 — Department of the Interior order to fulfill the yet-unaltered congressional mandate contained in federal law, to provide for jobs and well-paying employment opportunities in rural Oregon, and to ameliorate the effects of wildfires, the new Administration must immedi- ately fulfill its responsibilities and manage the O&C lands for “permanent forest production” to ensure that the timber is “sold, cut, and removed.”79 NEPA Reforms. Congress never intended for the National Environmental Policy Act to grow into the tree-killing, project-dooming, decade-spanning mon- strosity that it has become. Instead, in 1970, Congress intended a short, succinct, timely presentation of information regarding major federal action that signifi- cantly affects the quality of the human environment so that decisionmakers can make informed decisions to benefit the American people. The Trump Administration adopted common-sense NEPA reform that must be restored immediately. Meanwhile, DOI should reinstate the secretarial orders adopted by the Trump Administration, such as placing time and page limits on NEPA documents and setting forth—on page one—the costs of the document itself. Meanwhile, the new Administration should call upon Congress to reform NEPA to meet its original goal. Consideration should be given, for example, to eliminat- ing judicial review of the adequacy of NEPA documents or the rectitude of NEPA decisions. This would allow Congress to engage in effective oversight of federal agencies when prudent. Settlement Transparency. Interior Secretary David Bernhardt required DOI to prominently display and provide open access to any and all litigation settlements into which DOI or its agencies entered, and any attorneys’ fees paid for ending the litigation.80 Biden’s DOI, aware that the settlements into which it planned to enter and the attorneys’ fees it was likely to pay would cause controversy, ended this policy.81 A new Administration should reinstate it. The Endangered Species Act. The Endangered Species Act was intended to bring endangered and threatened species back from the brink of extinction and, when appropriate, to restore real habitat critical to the survival of the spe- cies. The act’s success rate, however, is dismal. Its greatest deficiency, according to one renowned expert, is “conflict of interest.”82 Specifically, the work of the Fish and Wildlife Service is the product of “species cartels” afflicted with group- think, confirmation bias, and a common desire to preserve the prestige, power, and appropriations of the agency that pays or employs them. For example, in one highly influential sage-grouse monograph, 41 percent of the authors were federal workers. The editor, a federal bureaucrat, had authored one-third of the paper.83 Meaningful reform of the Endangered Species Act requires that Congress take action to restore its original purpose and end its use to seize private prop- erty, prevent economic development, and interfere with the rights of states over their wildlife populations. In the meantime, a new Administration should take the following immediate action: — 534 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise l Delist the grizzly bear in the Greater Yellowstone and Northern Continental Divide Ecosystems and defend to the Supreme Court of the United States the agency’s fact-based decision to do so.84 l Delist the gray wolf in the lower 48 states in light of its full recovery under the ESA.85 l Cede to western states jurisdiction over the greater sage-grouse, recognizing the on-the-ground expertise of states and preventing use of the sage-grouse to interfere with public access to public land and economic activity. l Direct the Fish and Wildlife Service to end its abuse of Section 10(j) of the ESA by re-introducing so-called “experiment species” populations into areas that no longer qualify as habitat and lie outside the historic ranges of those species, which brings with it the full weight of the ESA in areas previously without federal government oversight.86 l Direct the Fish and Wildlife Service to design and implement an impartial conservation triage program by prioritizing the allocation of limited resources to maximize conservation returns, relative to the conservation goals, under a constrained budget.87 l Direct the Fish and Wildlife Service to make all data used in ESA decisions available to the public, with limited or no exceptions, to fulfill the public’s right to know and to prevent the agency’s previous opaque decision-making. l Abolish the Biological Resources Division of the U.S. Geological Survey and obtain necessary scientific research about species of concern from universities via competitive requests for proposals. l Direct the Fish and Wildlife Service to: (1) design and implement an Endangered Species Act program that ensures independent decision- making by ending reliance on so-called species specialists who have obvious self-interest, ideological bias, and land-use agendas; and (2) ensure conformity with the Information Quality Act.88 Office of Surface Mining. The Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement (OSM) was created by the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 (SMCRA)89 to administer programs for controlling the impacts of surface coal mining operations. Although the coal industry is contracting, coal constitutes

— 533 — Department of the Interior order to fulfill the yet-unaltered congressional mandate contained in federal law, to provide for jobs and well-paying employment opportunities in rural Oregon, and to ameliorate the effects of wildfires, the new Administration must immedi- ately fulfill its responsibilities and manage the O&C lands for “permanent forest production” to ensure that the timber is “sold, cut, and removed.”79 NEPA Reforms. Congress never intended for the National Environmental Policy Act to grow into the tree-killing, project-dooming, decade-spanning mon- strosity that it has become. Instead, in 1970, Congress intended a short, succinct, timely presentation of information regarding major federal action that signifi- cantly affects the quality of the human environment so that decisionmakers can make informed decisions to benefit the American people. The Trump Administration adopted common-sense NEPA reform that must be restored immediately. Meanwhile, DOI should reinstate the secretarial orders adopted by the Trump Administration, such as placing time and page limits on NEPA documents and setting forth—on page one—the costs of the document itself. Meanwhile, the new Administration should call upon Congress to reform NEPA to meet its original goal. Consideration should be given, for example, to eliminat- ing judicial review of the adequacy of NEPA documents or the rectitude of NEPA decisions. This would allow Congress to engage in effective oversight of federal agencies when prudent. Settlement Transparency. Interior Secretary David Bernhardt required DOI to prominently display and provide open access to any and all litigation settlements into which DOI or its agencies entered, and any attorneys’ fees paid for ending the litigation.80 Biden’s DOI, aware that the settlements into which it planned to enter and the attorneys’ fees it was likely to pay would cause controversy, ended this policy.81 A new Administration should reinstate it. The Endangered Species Act. The Endangered Species Act was intended to bring endangered and threatened species back from the brink of extinction and, when appropriate, to restore real habitat critical to the survival of the spe- cies. The act’s success rate, however, is dismal. Its greatest deficiency, according to one renowned expert, is “conflict of interest.”82 Specifically, the work of the Fish and Wildlife Service is the product of “species cartels” afflicted with group- think, confirmation bias, and a common desire to preserve the prestige, power, and appropriations of the agency that pays or employs them. For example, in one highly influential sage-grouse monograph, 41 percent of the authors were federal workers. The editor, a federal bureaucrat, had authored one-third of the paper.83 Meaningful reform of the Endangered Species Act requires that Congress take action to restore its original purpose and end its use to seize private prop- erty, prevent economic development, and interfere with the rights of states over their wildlife populations. In the meantime, a new Administration should take the following immediate action:

— 576 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise 38. Garland Memorandum, October 4, 2021; press release, “America First Legal Seeks Two Federal Investigations on Attorney General Merrick Garland’s Infamous Oct. 4th Memo Siccing the FBI on Concerned Parents,” America First Legal Foundation, March 14, 2022, https://aflegal.org/america-first-legal-seeks-two-federal- investigations-on-attorney-general-merrick-garlands-infamous-oct-4th-memo-siccing-the-fbi-on-concerned- parents/ (accessed February 3, 2023). 39. Luke Rosiak, “In Aftermath of Enemies List, School Committee Pledges to ‘Silence the Opposition,’” Daily Wire, March 27, 2021, https://www.dailywire.com/news/after-enemies-list-school-body-pledges-to-silence-the- opposition (accessed February 3, 2023). 40. The language of the Equal Protection Clause “reflects that ‘achieving equal protection against lawbreakers was at the core of the Clause’s objectives.’” Lefebure v. D’Aquilla, 15 F.4th 650, 669 (5th Cir. 2021) (Graves, J. dissenting) (quoting Lawrence Rosenthal, “Policing and Equal Protection,” Yale Law & Policy Review, Vol. 21, No. 53 (2003), p. 70) cert. denied, 212 L. Ed. 2d 791, 142 S. Ct. 2732 (2022)), https://casetext.com/case/ lefebure-v-daquilla-2 (accessed February 3, 2023). 41. See, for example, Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler’s actions in 2020 calling on federal officials—executing their mission to protect federal property and officials—to leave the city, saying, “They’re not wanted here” despite the fact that local reports found that “[o]ut of more than a thousand arrests reported by the Portland Police Bureau and other local law enforcement since late May 2020, only about 8.4% of the cases are still open” and that the “rest have been dismissed or listed as no complaint, which means authorities are not currently pursuing charges.” BBC News, “Portland Protests: Mayor Demands Federal Officers Leave City,” July 20, 2020, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53466718 (accessed February 3, 2023), and Hannah Lambert, “91% of Portland Protest Arrests Not Being Prosecuted,” Portland Tribune, January 5, 2021, https://archive.ph/ OSDbz (accessed February 3,2023). 42. Figure 4, “Trend in Average Guideline Minimum and Average Sentence Imposed for Armed Career Criminals Fiscal Years 2010–2019,” in U.S. Sentencing Commission, Federal Armed Career Criminals: Prevalence, Patterns, and Pathways, March 2021, p. 26, https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/research-and-publications/ research-publications/2021/20210303_ACCA-Report.pdf (accessed February 3, 2023). 43. 18 U.S. Code § 924(e), https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/924 (accessed February 3, 2023). 44. S. 1586, Restoring the Armed Career Criminal Act, 117th Congress, introduced May 12, 2021, https://www. congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/1586 (accessed February 6, 2023). 45. This could require seeking the Supreme Court to overrule Kennedy v. Louisiana, 554 U.S. 407 (2008), in applicable cases, but the department should place a priority on doing so. 46. 21 U.S. Code § 801 et seq., https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/21/chapter-13/subchapter-I/part-A (accessed February 3, 2023). 47. 18 U.S. Code §§ 1961–1968, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/part-I/chapter-96 (accessed February 3, 2023). 48. For more on this topic generally, see “Ensuring Enforcement and Administration of Our Immigration Laws,” infra. 49. See Paul J. Larkin, “Twenty-First Century Illicit Drugs and Their Discontents: The Scourge of Illicit Fentanyl,” Heritage Foundation Legal Memorandum No. 313, November 1, 2022), https://www.heritage.org/sites/default/ files/2022-11/LM313.pdf. 50. Jessica Rendall, “100,000 People Died from Drug Overdoses in the US in One Year, a Record,” CNET, November 18, 2021, https://www.cnet.com/health/medical/100000-people-died-from-drug-overdoses-in- the-us-in-one-year-a-record/ (accessed February 3, 2023). 51. U.S. Department of Justice, National Security Division, “Information About the Department of Justice’s China Initiative and a Compilation of China-Related Prosecutions Since 2018,” last updated November 19, 2021, https://www.justice.gov/archives/nsd/information-about-department-justice-s-china-initiative-and- compilation-china-related (accessed February 3, 2023). 52. Ronn Blitzer and Jake Gibson, “Biden DOJ Ending National Security Initiative Aimed at Countering China amid Complaints About Bias,” Fox News, February 23, 2022, https://www.foxnews.com/politics/doj-ending-china- initiative-national-security-program-bias (accessed February 3, 2023). 53. National Security Strategy, The White House, October 2022, p. 23, https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/ uploads/2022/10/Biden-Harris-Administrations-National-Security-Strategy-10.2022.pdf (accessed February 3, 2023). See also ibid., p. 8. — 577 — Department of Justice 54. U.S. Department of Justice, “About DOJ: Our Mission,” https://www.justice.gov/about (accessed February 4, 2023). 55. 18 U.S. Code § 248, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/248 (accessed February 4, 2023). 56. Danielle Wallace and Jake Gibson, “Pro-life Activist Mark Houck Pleads Not Guilty to Federal Charges After FBI Arrest,” Fox News, September 27, 2022, https://www.foxnews.com/us/pro-life-activist-mark-houck-pleads- not-guilty-federal-charges-fbi-arrest (accessed February 4, 2023). 57. Patty Knap, “Paul Vaughn, Pro-life Father of 11 Arrested by FBI Speaks Out,” National Catholic Register, October 18, 2022, https://www.ncregister.com/news/paul-vaughn-pro-life-father-of-11-arrested-by-fbi-speaks- out (accessed February 4, 2023). 58. 597 U.S. ___ (2022), https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/597/19-1392/case.pdf (accessed February 4, 2023). 59. Jonah McKeown, “TRACKER: Pro-Abortion Attacks in the U.S. Continue (Updated),” Catholic News Agency, last updated September 22, 2022, https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/251553/map-vandalism- attacks-continue-at-pro-life-centers-across-us (accessed February 4, 2023). 60. 28 U.S. Code § 516, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/28/516 (accessed February 4, 2023). 61. 28 U.S. Code § 519, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/28/519 (accessed February 4, 2023). 62. 295 U.S. 602 (1935), https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/295/602/ (accessed February 6, 2023). 63. 591 U.S. ___ (2020), https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/19-7_new_0pm1.pdf (accessed February 6, 2023). 64. See Brief for the United States, 303 Creative v. Aubrey Elenis, No. 21-476, August 2022, https://www. supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/21/21-476/234119/20220819182151542_21-476%20303%20Creative%20LLC%20 v.%20Elenis%20FINAL.pdf (accessed February 4, 2023). 65. Oral Argument Transcript, 303 Creative v. Aubrey Elenis, No. 21-476, December 5, 2022, https:// www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts/2022/21-476_8n59.pdf (accessed February 4, 2023). 66. Brief for the United States, Masterpiece Cakeshop Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, No. 16-111, September 2017, p. 9, https://www.scotusblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/16-111-tsac-USA.pdf (accessed February 4, 2023) (quoting Agency for International Development v. Alliance for Open Society International, Inc., 133 S. Ct. 2321, 2327 (2013), quoting in turn Rumsfeld v. Forum for Academic & Institutional Rights, Inc., 547 U.S. 47, 61 (2006)). 67. Ibid., p. 10. 68. Ibid., pp. 10–11. 69. West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624, 642 (1943), https://tile.loc.gov/storage- services/service/ll/usrep/usrep319/usrep319624/usrep319624.pdf (accessed February 4, 2023). 70. Cohen v. California, 403 U.S. 15, 24 (1971), https://constitutionallawreporter.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/ Cohen-v_-California.pdf (accessed February 4, 2023). 71. West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 640. 72. McCullen v. Coakley, 573 U.S. 464, 476 (2014), https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/573/12-1168/ case.pdf (accessed February 4, 2023) (quoting FCC v. League of Women Voters of California, 468 U. S. 364, 377 (1984)). 73. See, for example, 42 U.S. Code § 2000d, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/2000d (accessed February 4, 2023); 42 U.S. Code § 2000e, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/2000e (accessed February 4, 2023); 20 U.S. Code § 1681, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/20/1681 (accessed February 4, 2023) 74. See “Advancing Equity and Racial Justice Through the Federal Government,” The White House, https://www. whitehouse.gov/equity/ (accessed February 4, 2023). 75. 18 U.S. Code § 1461, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1461 (accessed February 6, 2023). See also 18 U.S. Code § 1462, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1462 (accessed February 6, 2023). 76. 18 U.S. Code § 241, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/241 (accessed February 6, 2023). 77. A similar argument could be advanced for the department’s other criminal law enforcement responsibilities such as those within the Environmental and Natural Resources Division. 78. See, for example, Paul Kiel, “Controversial USA Delivered ‘Voter Fraud’ Indictments Right on Time,” TPM Muckraker, May 1, 2007, https://web.archive.org/web/20070503021505/http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/ archives/003107.php (accessed February 4, 2023).