What's next for Chaco?

After a mere fourteen days, the chance to respond to the BLM’s draft environmental assessment has closed. If you were able to craft a comment in defense of Greater Chaco, well done. If the moment slipped away from you, no shame. You can still be involved.

Now that the Bureau of Land Management has collected comments from the public, they’ll be used to inform its final environmental assessment (EA). In normal circumstances, that might result in a complete re-drafting of the EA or the production of a more in-depth environmental impact statement. Based on the heavily truncated public comment opportunity and lack of real tribal consultation, Trump’s BLM is likely just checking boxes so that it doesn’t face legal trouble based on improper procedure alone.

“At this point, I think DOI is going to issue the decision to [undo the buffer zone] with a [Finding of No Significant Impact].” That’s what former Interior Department attorney Carla Chung Mattix gave as her analysis of the situation.

But don’t let this assessment make all our comment-writing seem like wasted energy. She also told me, “If it can be shown later that DOI did not take public comments that point out flaws in the EA into account, that could be considered in any future litigation.”

And that’s the whole ballgame. The Trump administration has demonstrated that it does not particularly care about the law, the sovereignty of tribal nations, engaging the process in good faith, or the will of the American people. They are rushing the process in order to enact the “drill, baby drill” agenda. But rushing the process exposes the Trump administration to recourse, particularly in the court system.

A tool for permanently protecting Greater Chaco already exists. It’s called the Chaco Cultural Heritage Protection Act. Legislation like this is durable, and it cannot be undone by a hastily conducted administrative process.

The best way to shield the resources of the Greater Chaco landscape is to elect members of Congress who will pass this legislation. The midterms are just around the corner, and they represent an opportunity to return a pro-public lands majority to Congress. If you care about public lands and protecting cultural resources but you’ve never really engaged electoral politics, let this motivate you to get involved.

Make a plan to vote and research who is on your ballot. Identify the candidates who you think will support legislation like the Chaco Cultural Heritage Protection Act. Connect with your friends and family on these issues and encourage them to vote the same way.

Thank you to everyone who wrote a comment and shared my guide. I’m glad to have been able to provide a resource that has been helpful to so many people. If you want to support my ability to produce more resources like this, you can do so by becoming a paid subscriber to this Substack or by purchasing one of my books.

I also want to offer a massive thanks to Carla Chung Mattix, who has been an invaluable resource to me. She has responded with speed and precision to the inquiries that I used to produce the public comment guide. Her own book, National Parks and the Supreme Court: Groundbreaking Legal Battles, releases next week. She was generous enough to send me an advance copy, which I am currently in the middle of reading (it’s excellent).

You can find info to pre-order a copy here.

Thanks for doing what you can to help protect important places like Chaco.

Will