Latest / The Wild Idea / The Wild Line: U.S. Forest Service Overhaul, Interior Aims to Drill Chaco Canyon, Protections for Rice's Whale Lifted

Transcript

The Wild Line: U.S. Forest Service Overhaul, Interior Aims to Drill Chaco Canyon, Protections for Rice's Whale Lifted · The Wild Idea

• 0:00
  Welcome to the Wild Line, where land stories are the lead stories, where these days it feels like we might be the band playing on the deck of the Titanic that people might.
• 0:10
  Well, this is our report for April 3rd, 2026.
• 0:14
  Bill, it was my intention to begin this week's Wild Line with any number of positive news stories that we've collected this week from San Francisco Bay to the Gulf of Mexico. But one story is just too big to ignore, the proposed reorganization of the United States Forest Service.
• 0:32
  This announcement, which has been anticipated for months, still hit like a rock. Let's start with the headline. The Forest Service will be moving its headquarters out of Washington, D.C., where it has been since the creation of the agency in 1905. Most of the D.C. staff will be asked to relocate to a new headquarters in Salt Lake City, Utah. The agency will also be eliminating all of the regional offices, of which there are nine, and will instead open a series of state offices with newly created state directors. There will be 15 of those offices in total, and most of those offices will be opened alongside state forester operations, leaning into this administration's efforts to focus the agency on timber production.
• 1:17
  There will be support centers in different pockets of the country and some consolidation of the research division of the Forest Service. The USDA announced these changes using a narrative that they hope might move decisions closer to communities and saying that most of the nation's national forests are in the West. But there seems to be much more at play here. So what does it all mean? Well, we can look back at the first Trump administration's decision to move the Bureau of Land Management out of D.C., in that case to Grand Junction, Colorado, and the turmoil that that created. BLM at the time was effectively hollowed out, losing a massive amount of institutional knowledge to folks who chose to leave rather than move. In the case of the Forest Service this time around, that hollowing out is only going to be magnified, with the agency already having lost over 16% of its workforce to staff cuts and coerced resignations and retirements through the efforts of DOGE.
• 2:17
  This seems to do little to move the agency forward, but instead appears to be a move to set the work back decades. And it will make it incredibly difficult for a new administration to get the agency on stable footing in the future.
• 2:31
  Tuesday was a difficult day for public lands, and our hearts and our thoughts are with our friends throughout the Forest Service.
• 2:39
  I need a palate cleanser. What do you say we hit the positive stuff now?
• 2:44
  Let's do it.
• 2:45
  Well, ironically, this is also a Forest Service story. In what is being called a major victory for the communities and wildlife that depend on North Carolina's Nantahala and Pisgah National Forest, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina ruled that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Forest Service violated the Endangered Species Act by relying on a faulty analysis during the creation of the controversial Nantahala-Pisgah Forest Plan adopted in 2023. The court's decision effectively prohibits the Forest Service from relying on the plan and sends the forest back to their prior plan until they seek a new biological opinion.
• 3:26
  At the core of the suit, filed by the Southern Environmental Law Center on behalf of Mountain True, Defenders of Wildlife, Sierra Club, and the Center for Biological Diversity, is bat habitat. Several endangered bat species rely on the forest for critical habitat, and the plan seemed to be, at a minimum, ignoring those needs. Here's SELC staff attorney Allison Merlin on how the case came about.
• 3:51
  Most of the organizations that we represented and SELC itself were part of a collaborative partnership process that included a very diverse group of stakeholders from timber groups to game hunting groups to conservationists like us to put forward a series of recommendations for what the forest plan should look like.
• 4:10
  That process went well. It was hard. We made hard compromises. Everyone else did too. And ultimately, the forest decided to move forward with a forest plan that took almost none of those recommendations to heart. And so we had to, all of the groups involved and SELC had to look at the final plan and really determine if it complied with law enough that we could honor those relationships over what the species on the national forest needed in the first place. So truly, no one wanted to sue over this. We did it because the plan violated the law and because these forests, especially when looking at the biological opinion, these forests are some of the last best habitat for these bats. These bats that are in desperate trouble, these bats that are dying off en masse from other threats like white nose syndrome, they can't lose this habitat and survive. And so ultimately, the fact that this plan violated the law and that that was the natural result of these failings, that is what carried the day for our decision to file.
• 5:15
  There was a chance to keep this case out of the court's hands, but those efforts to find a solution were rebuffed. Again, here's Allison.
• 5:23
  It is not an overstatement to say that all of the groups involved, the plaintiffs and SELC spent thousands of hours in the objection process. We submitted 300 plus pages of comments.
• 5:35
  We were meticulous in going through the plan and commenting on every change we thought was reasonable for the Forest Service to make. We talked about changing habitat classifications so that changes could be made in a simpler, broader way instead of fighting over these small details about what trees you can cut and where and those specifications. I mean, we came at the Forest Service with what felt to us like a plethora of positive ideas about how to reach a meaningful compromise that would still allow a robust timber program, it would still allow a robust recreation program, and that would not lead to the Forest Service failing in its obligation to protect imperiled species.And they just ignored those suggestions, uh, and that forced us into court. There was no other solution we could see. We tried... Man, we tried everything that we could think of. Um, and if, if they don't want to find a reasonable compromise, at a minimum, they still have to follow the law.
• 6:34
  As someone who personally spent seven years of my life trying to help the National Forest of North Carolina find common ground on critical issues for this forest plan, it is frustrating that it took the courts to step in. But I can honestly say that the agency staff left no choice in the matter. And I say that as someone who's always valued the difficult job that public servants within the agency have, and I always wanna give them the benefit of the doubt. But I can hope that this decision can set a better path for the management of these forests into the future.
• 7:06
  SCLC staff attorney Spencer Scheidt seems to agree with me.
• 7:09
  I feel like this is a real opportunity for the Forest Service. I feel like the Forest Service cut a lot of corners. It cut a lot of partners out, and it sort of went its own way. And the court called it out. And now it has an opportunity to fix those errors, to right those wrongs, to mend those fences, and to go back and really study and try to find a plan that will actually benefit the bats and the outstanding biological resources on the Nantahala Pisgah.
• 7:38
  It's so good to hear from Allison and Spencer. They are the very, very best.
• 7:43
  In California, our friends at Trust for Public Land have signed an agreement to purchase for one hundred and seventy-five million dollars Golden Gate Fields, the famous horse racing track that operated along the San Francisco Bay shoreline from 1941 until it closed in 2024. The trust plans to transfer the one hundred and sixty-one acre property to the East Bay Regional Park District as a new public waterfront park, which would sit beside several existing parks and fill a gap that would connect a nearly continuous ten-mile stretch of public open space along the bay.
• 8:17
  The deal is expected to close early next year. Plans for the site are expected to include wetland restoration, trails, expanded beach access, and possibly some sports fields. It's a once in a generation land conservation win for one of the most densely populated shorelines in the country. If you'd like to find out more about the Trust for Public Land, Bill and I just spoke last week with their president and CEO, Cary Besinet Hauser. You can find a link to that Wild Idea episode in the show notes. Meanwhile, the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled last week that permits to build in Florida wetlands must stay in the hands of federal regulators and not the state of Florida. The ruling upholds a 2020 decision finding that the EPA and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service violated the Endangered Species Act when they approved Florida's wetlands permitting program.
• 9:11
  Florida has the second most wetlands in America. Only Alaska has more. And developers have long viewed taking over permitting as their holy grail because it would make bulldozing wetlands faster and easier. The court said no. The state and federal agencies now have ninety days to file a petition with the U.S. Supreme Court. So this fight may not be fully resolved yet, but for now, federal protections for the Florida panther, manatee, wood stork, and countless other species remain intact.
• 9:41
  Bill, my home state just announced the brand new Maumelle Pinnacles Master Plan this week, a landmark effort to expand outdoor recreation while protecting one of central Arkansas' most important natural resources. The project spans more than twenty-four thousand acres stretching from downtown Little Rock to Lake Maumelle and beyond. The plan calls for a connected trail network linking Pinnacle Mountain State Park, Rattlesnake Ridge, Blue Mountain, Lake Maumelle, and surrounding conservation lands, with about sixty percent of the twenty-eight trail and crossing projects slated for completion within the next five years. The broader project is designed to play out over fifteen years to two decades and involves collaboration from The Nature Conservancy, Central Arkansas Water, Arkansas State Parks, and local governments. And it represents exactly the kind of durable bipartisan conservation win that's worth celebrating in a week like this one. More of the week's headlines following this short break.
• 10:41
  And back to the Wild Line. From Charlottesville, Virginia, the Southern Environmental Law Center announced the winners of its 2026 Philip D. Reed Environmental Writing Award. Catherine Coleman Flowers received the book award for Holy Ground: On Activism, Environmental Justice, and Finding Hope, a collection of deeply personal essays on climate change, rural poverty, and the communities most often left behind. Lindsey Lyles received the journalism award for a Garden & Gun feature on the ongoing fight to save the red wolf, whose only wild population survives in a small corner of eastern North Carolina. In a week dominated by legal battles and government votes, it's a reminder that the stories being told about these places matter just as much as the lawsuits and the policy fights. My thinking is that both of these writers did that work exceptionally well. Unfortunately, Bill, it can't all be good news. In a move that conservation groups are calling unprecedented and illegal, the so-called God Squad, formerly the Endangered Species Committee, voted unanimously this week to exempt all oil and gas operations in the Gulf of Mexico from the Endangered Species Act.
• 11:55
  It was the committee's first meeting in thirty-five years, and it delivered exactly what Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth demanded when he invoked a rarely used national security provision of the 1973 law that established it.
• 12:10
  Blanket immunity for oil and gas exploration, development, and production across the entire Gulf of Mexico.
• 12:18
  The species most directly in the crosshairs of this action is the Rice's whaleWith only about 51 individual rice as whales remaining, it's the only whale species endemic to the United States, and it lives its entire life in the Gulf.
• 12:34
  This week's vote overruled a National Marine Fisheries Service requirement that oil and gas ships operate at safe speeds and monitor for whale locations to avoid deadly strikes. We caught up with former director of the US Fish and Wildlife Service and friend of the pod, Martha Williams, for what she thought when she heard the news.
• 12:52
  When I look back on it, it appears, but again, this is so murky, it appears that the oil and gas industry chafed at literally having to pick up their own trash. And operate in a manner that doesn't jeopardize the extinction of a critically endangered species, the rice's whale. And then you have Pete Hegseth, it seems like he seized an opportunity to either distract from
• 13:26
  or to turn the narrative on the war in Iran and say, "Oh, I know what we could do. Doug Burgum, would you convene the God Squad?" Which literally exempted the full scope of the Gulf of, and I'm gonna say Mexico. [laughs] I mean, that's a whole nother kettle of fish. Um, exempted the full scope of oil and gas activities, uh, from the requirements of Endangered Species Act. So that means ship strikes. That means oil spills. Like we haven't been there before in the Gulf. Habitat destruction. And while the committee should have, you know, turned in their beds at night over having to make a decision on whether a species, it's fine to have just blink out or not, there are also all these other threatened and endangered species that are beloved. You know, the, the, and that were, some were doing better. Kemp's ridley sea turtle, they're the most endangered sea turtle globally, and their primary nesting is in the Gulf. Leatherback, hawksbill turtles, loggerhead, green turtles, fish, sturgeon, corals, manta rays that are so slow growing and they're so sparse. Um, curlews, pelicans, whooping cranes. Like what?
• 15:02
  I, I just... It's really hard for me to fathom and put words to what just... It just doesn't make sense. It's really baffling. It's sloppy work, and it's greed.
• 15:16
  Earthjustice called this vote of the committee illegal and said that it will go to court to stop it, arguing that the administration is exploiting what it called a, quote, self-made gas crisis, end quote, to strip protections from endangered whales and other imperiled species. Environmental groups have already filed suit before this week's meeting, and they say they'll amend those lawsuits immediately. So this one is far from over.
• 15:42
  Out in the Pacific, the Trump administration took steps on a different kind of access question. The Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council took final action this week in suggesting that the government restore commercial fishing in parts of four Pacific marine national monuments. We talked to Angelo Villagomez from the Center for American Progress about these marine monuments and what is driving this.
• 16:05
  Uh, so this is the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, the Pacific Islands Heritage Marine National Monument, Mariana Trench Marine National Monument, and then, uh, the Rose Atoll Marine National Monument. And, you know, the, the, the specific recommendations, um, are all slightly different. Some of them were to completely open them to commercial fishing. Some were to open, uh, large swaths of it open to, to commercial fishing. Uh, but what happens now is they will tr- they are transmitting these recommendations to the president in the hopes that he will sign another one of his executive orders. Pre- President Trump
• 16:42
  ran on drill baby drill.
• 16:45
  Uh, but this is fish baby fish, and there's also deep sea mine baby deep sea mine. And what we're seeing with this administration is just the selling off of our public lands and waters and, you know, turning our natural resources into a balance sheet that can be sold. Um, and this is just with, with, with the fisheries here in the Pacific, this is just that particular flavor of, you know,
• 17:10
  taking some of our natural resources and, and selling them off to the highest bidder. Public lands and public waters are as, as popular in the territories as they are in the rest of the country. You know, the, these, the idea of having these protected areas is an important part of the identity, uh, for Pacific Islanders. And not everybody wants to sell off all of our fish to industrial, industrial interests.
• 17:31
  Finally, on March 31st, the Trump administration began a seven-day public scoping period as part of its proposal to open public lands to oil and gas drilling in the greater Chaco Canyon region. The administration began this process way back in October by initiating tribal consultation on its proposal to reverse Public Land Order 7923. That public land order withdrew and put over 336,000 acres surrounding Chaco Culture National Historic Park off-limits to unchecked extractive development for 20 years. If the Interior Department moves forward with its new proposal, new oil and gas leasing and development on public lands will be allowed within 10 miles of the park's boundaries, even on lands directly bordering the park, threatening the irreplaceable cultural resources throughout the landscape.
• 18:21
  The BLM has already leased over 90% of federal lands surrounding Chaco Culture National Historic Park for drilling. Oil and gas companies have drilled more than 37,000 wells on these and other nearby lands, and they've built a sprawling network of roads, 15,000 miles of roads. That's five times greater than the distance from Los Angeles to New York.
• 18:46
  This seven-day scoping period is your chance to provide input and to make your voice heard. You can find a link to do exactly that in our show notes.
• 18:56
  That is our report for April 3rd, 2026. We'll be back next Friday with another Wild Line. On Tuesday's new episode of The Wild Idea, we start our virtual spring break tour of the East Coast. Our first stop, Burlington, Vermont, where we're talking with Dr. William Keeton on the world of old growth trees. Until then, act up and run wild.
• 19:20
  The Wild Line is a production of Wild Idea Media. Production and editing by Bryn Russell at Podlad. Digital support by Holly Wilkoszewski at Daypack Digital. Our theme music, Spring Hill Jack, is from Railroad Earth and was composed by John Skehan. The executive producer is Lara Hodge. Learn more about us at thewildidea.com. [outro music]