March 5, 2025
Trump appoints pro-industry extremist to high post within Interior Department
WASHINGTON – Livestock industry attorney Karen Budd-Falen has just been announced as the Associate Deputy Secretary appointee for the Department of Interior. Western Watersheds Project immediately condemned the recent appointment, citing her long history of advocating against federal oversight of public lands, her legal defense of anti-government extremists, and her track record of promoting policies that favor private livestock interests over ecological sustainability.
“Karen Budd-Falen has built her career serving those who exploit public lands for private gain,” said Grace Kuhn of Western Watersheds Project. “She’s not a public servant—she’s an industry shill who will now wield enormous power over public lands with no accountability to the American people. As yet another unelected bureaucrat in this administration, her appointment is a direct threat to the future of our wild landscapes.”
Budd-Falen has consistently argued that public land grazing permits constitute a private property right—an extreme and legally dubious position that undermines the federal government’s ability to regulate public lands in the public interest. She has also spent years challenging environmental laws and regulations designed to protect imperiled species and ecosystems.
“Budd-Falen’s appointment raises serious concerns about conflicts of interest and her ability to uphold the Interior Department’s mandate to steward public lands responsibly,” said Kuhn. “Her long history of hostility toward federal agencies responsible for environmental stewardship makes her wholly unfit to lead the very department charged with managing the nation’s public lands.”
Her legal work and rhetoric have consistently framed federal land management agencies as oppressive forces, even going so far as to compare their actions to a “dictatorship.” In a landmark case, Wilkie v. Robbins, she attempted to use the RICO anti-racketeering law to intimidate Bureau of Land Management agents who cited her client for violating grazing regulations.
Adding to these concerns, Budd-Falen was the attorney representing Cliven Bundy, the infamous Nevada rancher who engaged in an armed standoff with federal agents over his refusal to pay grazing fees. While her direct legal work for Bundy predates the standoff, her ideological alignment with anti-federal, anti-public lands movements is well documented. In an interview with the Daily Caller about the Bundy standoff, Budd-Falen stated, “The Cliven Bundy situation goes to show how American citizens react when a government has so expanded that it believes that the citizens are subservient to political power.” Such a statement underscores her alignment with the radical anti-public lands movement, raising serious questions about her ability to oversee the nation’s shared public lands.
“This extremist background is incompatible with leading a federal agency responsible for managing one-fifth of the land in the United States,” said Kuhn. “Karen Budd-Falen’s appointment is a clear signal that this administration is willing to put public lands in the hands of special interests who have long sought to weaken protections for our nation’s most treasured landscapes. We urge lawmakers and the public to stand up for the future of western public lands and speak out against this appointment.”
About Western Watersheds Project
Western Watersheds Project is a nonprofit conservation organization dedicated to protecting and restoring western watersheds and wildlife through public lands policy reform. Our work challenges the destructive impacts of federal land livestock grazing and promotes the sustainable stewardship of public lands for future generations. For more information, visit westernwatersheds.org.
