Stories about “Project 2025” have been circulating in the news, but what many hunters and anglers may not realize are the vast implications it would have for the conservation of our nation’s public lands and waters. This presidential transition document – organized by the Heritage Foundation – establishes policy recommendations for a conservative president in 2025. Authored by William Perry Pendley, the former Acting Director of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), a host of these recommendations for the Department of the Interior would be detrimental to the future of these cherished public resources, and those who rely on them for the pursuit of their outdoor traditions.
BHA strongly opposed former President Trump’s nomination of Pendley as Director of the BLM which culminated in more than 25,000 BHA members and supporters taking action to contact their senators, urging them to reject Pendley’s confirmation and later calling for his removal from the BLM. Pendley was never confirmed, but despite overwhelming concerns expressed by the public he would go on to serve as Acting Director, unlawfully for over a year.
Pendley’s role in drafting Project 2025 raises many red flags for hunters and anglers who value our public resources and wild places. Pendley, who has a long history of supporting the widespread sale of public lands, and more recently authored an article advocating for the sale of public lands for housing development, has absolutely no place anywhere near the management of these resources.
Outlined in Project 2025 are a suite of recommendations for our public lands and waters that would directly reverse policy priorities that BHA has advocated for. These include rolling back the conservation status for more than 50 million acres of public lands; dismantling the America the Beautiful initiative to conserve 30% of our lands and waters by 2030; restricting the use of the Land and Water Conservation Fund; and targeting bedrock conservation laws such as the Antiquities Act.
Hunters and anglers across the U.S. should take note of the expansive list of threats to our public lands and waters contained within Project 2025, and join BHA in opposing each anti-conservation recommendation, including:
- Dismantling the America the Beautiful initiative to conserve 30% of our lands and waters by 2030 and reviewing all resource management plans finalized in the previous four years to consider adopting less conservation-oriented alternatives.
- Allowing state and local governments to block the acquisition of willingly sold private lands through the Land and Water Conservation Fund.
- Reviewing national monument designations and seeking the repeal of the Antiquities Act.
- Abandoning collaborative efforts led by the BLM to conserve greater sage-grouse habitat.
- Reversing decisions that provide protections for the Thompson Divide in Colorado and the Boundary Waters in Minnesota.
- Approving the Ambler Road, a private 211-mile corridor across the southern Brooks Range of Alaska.
- Opening millions of acres to new development in the Western Arctic and weakening conservation regulations that will impact habitat for the rapidly declining Western Arctic Caribou Herd.
- Revoking Alaska BLM Public Land Orders, opening 28 million acres of public lands to development that have remained in conservation status since 1971.
- Reinstating the legally deficient Environmental Impact Statement for oil and gas leasing in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and reissuing leases.
- Reinstating the Alaska Roadless Rule, which would, once again, remove protection for more than 9 million acres of the Tongass National Forest.
Join BHA today to support the voice for our wild public lands, waters and wildlife.
Backcountry Hunters & Anglers is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. We are nonpartisan and do not endorse or oppose any candidate or party for any elected office. We advocate for the primacy of public lands and waters as issues that voters should consider as they cast their ballots.