Latest / The Wild Idea / The Wild Line: A Pipeline Executive Heads to Congress, SpaceX Eyes Refuge Land, and E&E News Loses a Quarter of Its Newsroom
Transcript
- 0:01Welcome to the Wild Line, where land stories are the lead stories. This is our report for March 27th, 2026.
- 0:08Bell today is peak bloom for DC's cherry blossoms. I wish you were here to see it. But turning to the news, Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt appointed energy executive Alan Armstrong to the US Senate on Tuesday, filling the seat left empty by Markwayne Mullin, who was confirmed as Secretary of Homeland Security earlier in the week. Armstrong spent more than three decades at Williams Companies, one of the largest natural gas pipeline operators in the country, handling roughly a third of all US natural gas volumes. He's been clear about his priorities, including permitting reform, where Armstrong says it's become, quote, "Very, very hard to build large-scale infrastructure," end quote, and that fixing that issue is critical to US competitiveness. Armstrong cannot run for the seat in November under Oklahoma law, which means he has a narrow window in which to pursue his goals. But it could be a consequential one for energy development on federal lands.
- 1:07Elsewhere on the Hill, legislation that would permanently block any wilderness designation at Big Cypress National Preserve is drawing opposition from more than two dozen conservation groups. While there's no active proposal to designate wilderness at Big Cypress right now, Florida Republican Senator Rick Scott wants to make sure none ever comes forward. Back in 2024, the National Park Service identified more than a hundred and ninety thousand acres that could qualify as wilderness, but chose not to recommend any, citing opposition from the Miccosukee and Seminole tribes, and management access needs. Conservation groups, meanwhile, argue that oil and gas operations and off-road vehicle use have caused serious damage at the preserve, and that wilderness designation remains an important tool to protect what's left, while also being clear that any future designation must protect tribal rights and access.
- 2:03The US Fish and Wildlife Service is weighing a proposed land exchange with SpaceX, involving hundreds of acres in the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge. Under the deal, seven hundred and twelve acres of refuge land would transfer to SpaceX, while six hundred and ninety-two acres owned by SpaceX would come into federal ownership. The agency says the swap would improve habitat consolidation and benefit endangered species like the ocelot and aplomado falcon. But environmental advocates aren't buying it. Some have called the land being offered to SpaceX, quote, "Some of the most beautiful left in the Rio Grande Valley." And there's a historical wrinkle. Parts of the acreage sit within the Palmito Ranch Battlefield National Historic Landmark, where the final battle of the Civil War was fought in 1865. This proposal comes with a comment period, so if you'd like to make your voice heard, look for the link in our show notes.
- 2:59In Massachusetts, Governor Maura Healey has announced her support for lifting the state's long-standing Sunday hunting ban, one of two to still exist in the United States. Healey framed changing the policy as a matter of equity and wildlife management, letting working families hunt closer to home and giving wildlife managers more tools.
- 3:19Kevin Bogardus, who covers the Interior Department for E&E News, shared some difficult news on Twitter. That's right, I said Twitter, this week. Roughly twenty-five percent of the staff at E&E News, widely considered the essential publication for energy and environmental reporting, have accepted buyouts from management. Bogardus described watching extraordinary colleagues and close friends walk out of the door with no explanation from management about why the cuts were necessary. E&E News is the publication most of the reporters, advocates, and agency staff in our space rely on to know what's actually happening. These are the people who know which BLM office is quietly rewriting a management plan or which congressional staffer is driving a wilderness bill. And losing that depth of institutional knowledge matters for all of us who care about these issues. We wish those departing E&E News well, and we're grateful for the work that they did.
- 4:17There's more to come. We'll be right back.
- 4:20Public land stories continue right now. Anders, I want to bring a couple more stories to light from my time last week at the Wallace Stegner Center's thirty-first annual symposium. The first is a bold idea calling for Congress to form a public land law commission. I spoke with an advocate for the idea, Andrew Mergen, Emmett Assistant Clinical Professor of Environmental Law, Faculty Director at the Harvard Law School.
- 4:44So there have been many, uh, several public land commissions, uh, that Congress has sort of chartered with sort of making recommendations about what public land law should look like in the future. The most famous is one that was run from 1964 to 1970. It was chaired, uh, by Wayne Aspinall, a co-congressman, Democratic congressman from, uh, Colorado. And he had pledged his support to the Wilderness Act of 1964 to President Kennedy. And, but he had done it on the condition that he, uh, he was concerned about the environmental angle of the Wilderness Act. And he wanted, uh, he thought it was time for the nation to take a hard look at how public lands should be managed. And so he gave the support to the president and, and then the, uh, Congress passed this commission. And, uh, it, um, had many, many public hearings and engaged the public again and again. It re-issued a number of reports on a wide variety of issues, including, like, the mining law. It recommended that the law be changed. That still hasn't happened. Uh, it looked at, uh, how grazing, for instance, is managed. All of these things. It left the national parks alone, but it took a really broad look at, um, at public lands. It came out with a hundred and thirty-seven recommendations. Uh, some of them talked more, were more in favor of disposal, more, some were more in retention. Uh, um-Report was issued called One-Third the Nation's Land by a guy named Paul Gates, who is a very well-known public land historian. So that book is still really, really valuable in terms of understanding our public lands. So they start pens down in nineteen seventy, the book comes out, and then in seventy-six we have two very important public land statutes enacted, uh, FLPMA, which is the Organic Act for BLM, and the National Forest Management Act, which was, um, you know, reform legislation. There was a lot of clear-cutting going on before that. Whatever. Uh, there's no question that the work of the commission informed those statutes. And in fact, FLPMA states, uh, uh, that the policy of the United States is to retain possession of these lands. Huge. Um, so my hope is that if we-- this-- there's so much pressure on our public lands. So much has changed since nineteen sixty-four, since nineteen seventy-six, you know, fifty years ago when FLPMA was enacted. Climate change is huge for public lands. We need to manage these lands for resilience. We have both droughts and intense flooding as a result of climate change. We have a biodiversity loss and a biodiversity crisis. We have issues with alien, uh, invasive species, uh, harming our, our resources. We have tensions between recreational users. We have a urgent need to create transmission corridors for both green energy and to satisfy energy demands. Uh, there's long been confusion about what it is to manage lands for multiple use. And a commission gives us the chance to step back and sort of say, "Commit as a nation to understanding these issues in the hopes that an informed Congress will make good decisions about how the future moves forward." And I think it's, uh, I-- what I would like to do is see... One of the reasons I'm for this is that I think right now we're seeing a death by a thousand cuts. As your listeners may know, there's been this activity under the Congressional Review Act to set aside, uh, land management plans. That is a terrible way to manage. That, that is not management. That's, that is, like, management by sugar high, right? "Oh, we've-- look, we've done something." I think we as, as public land owners should demand a, like, a disciplined process. And, you know, um, John Leshy is sort of the authority on public lands. And, and what he has always said about the process is that it was disciplined, it was rigorous, uh, it was fueled by good intentions and the sort of respect that I think Americans have for these lands. And I'd like to see us rally around a similar effort. So that's where I'm at.
- 9:01Another panel at the symposium was, as you might imagine, on roads, forests, and fire. Following the panel, I had a conversation with Bill Anderegg from the University of Utah School of Biological Science and Wilkes Center for Climate Science and Policy about the role scientists play in communicating the facts on wildfire.
- 9:21I think the wildfire challenge really highlights that we need science more than ever right now, but it's incredibly hard to get that science out, communicated, and, and in the hands of folks who wanna make better decisions. And so I see the goal of scientists as really, let's collect all the evidence, and let's build the tools and the data sets to help people make informed decisions about how to reduce their wildfire risk, how to manage our forests, and how to generally build a more kind of climate-resilient society here in the West.
- 9:52I'm curious what-- where you see gaps in the science. Like, are there things that you're like, "Boy, I'd really hope that we can go analyze this element"? Maybe it's in the social sciences as much as the physical sciences, right? But, like, are there gaps you think that, that, uh, that are screaming for funding for an opportunity to, to research more?
- 10:15I think there are large gaps in the physical sciences around better wildfire models that are really actionable, giving people, you know, what's the wildfire risk in my community or near my property. Um, and I think there are actually really massive social science gaps too, and that's really how do you
- 10:32induce people to make wise decisions? To-- how do you communicate these effectively, and how do you really get people on board to be proactive in, in, um, tackling wildfire?
- 10:45Finally, Bill and I wanted to share with you a free virtual event hosted by Groundshift, a new effort determined to develop creative, durable, and transformative ideas to shape the next century of public land and water stewardship in the United States that Bill and I have covered on the Wild Line before. Their event, a panel called Reimagining Public Lands Management for the Future, will feature a discussion on the growing pressures on public lands, climate change, energy demand, surging recreation, and federal funding cuts, with speakers including former Deputy Interior Secretary Lynn Scarlett, Latino Outdoors Executive Director Luis Villa, and PERC CEO Brian Yablonsky. That event will run next Thursday, April second, from three to four Eastern. Registration is free, and you can find a link on how to do that in the show notes.
- 11:38That is our report for March twenty-seventh, twenty twenty-six. We'll be back next Friday with another Wild Line. On Tuesday's new episode of The Wild Idea, we bring you our webinar recording from earlier this month, The Past, Present, and Future of the Roadless Rule.
- 11:54Until then, act up and run wild.
- 11:57The 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.
- 12:20[upbeat music]