Blm: Chenoweth Wrong About Expanded Scope Of Authority

U.S. Rep. Helen Chenoweth is accusing the Bureau of Land Management of “trying to pull a fast one” with rule proposals she says appear to expand the scope of its enforcement authority.

But the BLM’s national enforcement director, Dennis McLane in Boise, said on Thursday that all the proposed rules do is consolidate enforcement authority that is currently scattered throughout the agency’s land management regulations.

To support her charge against the BLM, which she has been attacking for years, Chenoweth cited an American Sheep Industry Association analysis of the regulations. It claimed penalties for resource violations that were set at a maximum of $1,000 in fines and a year in jail under the 1976 Federal Land Policy and Management Act would be increased to $500,000 in fines and five years in jail.

But McLane said the higher maximum penalties have been in effect for more than a decade since Congress passed a blanket law enhancing the penalties for federal violations of every kind. Even with the authority since the 1980s, however, McLane said fines imposed by the BLM are typically $500 or less.

“All these proposed rules do is try to tell the people what the situation really is,” he said.

In a letter to BLM Director Michael Dombeck, Chenoweth and Natural Resource Chairman Don Young of Alaska complained that the repackaged regulations were submitted for public review between Nov. 7 and Jan. 6, two days after the election and one day before the new Congress is sworn in.

They asked Dombeck to extend the review into July so that both Congress and the public has the opportunity to fully review the proposal to see if in fact it does result in substantial changes in BLM law enforcement authority as some have charged.