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BLM Special Agent Dan Love (photo: BLM Nevada)

In May, 2016, the Bureau of Land Management promoted Special Agent Dan Love, the BLM agent who oversaw security during the agency’s failed roundup of Cliven Bundy’s cattle in April 2014, to a new position overseeing the security of BLM facilities nationwide.

And now, the Dept. of the Interior Office of Inspector General issued a report about Love’s ethics violations at Burning Man and more. The report states:

“We also confirmed that the Supervisory Agent intervened in the hiring process by increasing the number of candidates that would be interviewed. As a result, the Supervisory Agent’s friend, who had worked with the Supervisory Agent as a Federal air marshal received an interview and was ultimately hired as a BLM special agent.

During our investigation, the Supervisory Agent displayed a lack of candor when interviewed and tried to influence an employee’s comments prior to an interview.”

SOURCE: Reno Gazette- Journal

Report: BLM agent broke federal ethics rules at Burning Man

by Jenny Kane

A Bureau of Land Management supervisory agent from Utah violated federal ethics rules after he used his position to get his family and girlfriend into Burning Man and influenced the hiring process for a friend, according to a report released Monday.

The Department of Interior’s Office of the Inspector General for a year and a half investigated three complaints about the agent. The agent is not named in the report but is described as “the person behind many of the BLM requests” at Burning Man that were canceled in 2015, the report said.

Those requests — which included a more than $1 million VIP compound complete with flushing toilets and 24-hour access to ice cream for BLM officials at the annual event in the Black Rock Desert — were pushed by Utah’s former Special Agent in Charge, Dan Love, who oversaw law enforcement at Burning Man for several years.

The VIP compound was an unprecedented request of Burning Man, the organization that hosts 68,000-person artistic campout over Labor Day weekend in Northern Nevada’s Black Rock Desert. When details of the compound leaked to the Reno Gazette-Journal, members of Congress and the public expressed outrage. After the event, Love was reassigned.

Love, who is best known for his chief law enforcement role during the 2014 Bundy standoff, did not respond to requests for comment on Tuesday or Wednesday. He is expected to be a key witness in the Bundy trials, according to an article published last year by the Las Vegas Review-Journal. The first phase of the trials are set to begin Monday.

Inspector General’s Office officials said that the agent’s name was withheld in the report because he is not a top official within the agency, and because it is considered a personnel matter that BLM officials will handle.

According to the Inspector General’s report, the unnamed agent used his official position to buy three sold-out tickets to Burning Man; had five on-duty BLM officers escorting his father, family-friend and girlfriend during the event; and also changed the hiring process so an unqualified applicant, a personal friend of his, would be hired.

“Federal ethics regulations prohibit soliciting gifts from a prohibited source. Ethics regulations also prohibit federal employees from using any authority associated with their public position for the private gain of friends and relatives,” the report said.

The agent’s visitors also received unauthorized access to the Burning Man headquarters for BLM officials and they received overnight lodging in BLM-leased facilities.

When word spread that the agent had complaints filed against him, he used intimidation to discourage his co-workers from speaking with investigators.

“You know, if you don’t side with me, grenades are going to go off and you’ll get hit,” the agent told an employee who later spoke with investigators, according to the report.

Read the rest of this article HERE.

SOURCE: Straight From the Horse’s Heart

If you want to see how the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) shows bias in Environmental Assessments, you only have to look at what the BLM writes in EAs to round up wild horses, and then compare it to what they wrote in an EA to approve the 2013 Burning Man Festival, where 68,000 people, and their vehicles, recently trampled the Black Rock Desert in Nevada.

Gene Seidlitz, BLM’s District Manager for the Winnemucca District gave a Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI) to The Burning Man Festival. It’s kind of funny how “uses” of public lands that bring in significant amounts of money always seem to get a Finding of No Significant Impact.

The June 2012 Environmental Assessment (EA) for Burning Man, states this:

“Black Rock City LLC is responsible for payment of the actual costs of administering the Special Recreation Permit, including all direct and indirect costs, in addition to the commercial use fees. The fees that BLM collected for the designated event period in 2008, 2009 and 2010 ranged from $989,000 to nearly $1.3 million. In 2010, the BLM’s cost recovery from BRC for issuing the permit totaled $795,533.55, and BRC’s commercial use fees totaled $500,483.98 (Aspen 2011).

Agency, city and county personnel get paid overtime, and Black Rock City reimburses this cost.”

(This means BLM employees get paid overtime and Black Rock City foots the bill.) This almost seems like giving “bribes” to the agency, city and county, doesn’t it?

The EA also included this: “Mr. Wayne Burke, Tribal Chairman, stated the following before the Nevada State Senate Select Committee on Economic Growth and Employment: Allowing Tribe members to become vendors to the Burning Man Festival will bring money into the Tribe. We can offer resources to assist Tribe members to do that. We are looking to have our current law and order code pass through the Tribal Council. When it is passed, we will be able to receive traffic citation fines (Nevada State Senate 2011).”

“The Paiute also have received additional funding from BRC outside of the event period. Mr. Scott Carey, Tribal Planner testified before the Senate Select Committee, stating: The Tribe is proud of our partnership with Black Rock Solar, the fund-raising arm of the Burning Man Festival. Using the solar demonstration systems program that the State Legislature approved, we have been able to construct eight solar projects on the reservation. This has led to substantial savings for the Tribe. For example, the community of Nixon has more solar panels per person than any other community in the United States. State Route 447 has more solar panels per mile than any other road in the United States and has been declared “America’s Solar Highway.” We are looking to expand our solar projects into commercial-sized projects (Nevada State Senate 2011).”

(How are the Paiutes going to support solar without water? Isn’t there a drought?)

The maps on p. 98 and p. 238 of the BLM’s Burning Man Festival EA don’t clearly indicate the outline of the Wild Horse & Burro HMAs in relation to the event area and roads/airstrip.

Under Wild Horse and Burros, the EA states: “The cumulative effects study area for wild horse and burros includes the travel routes to and from the event and the air basin (see Figure 5-1).” And then, “The wild horse gather plans would help BLM manage herds that currently have populations in excess of the Appropriate Management Level (AML). While gathering horses and burros is stressful for the captured animals, managing herds at the AML is necessary to comply with the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act and protect rangeland resources”.

Do you think removing wild horses is really about “protecting rangeland resources?” Shouldn’t the BLM be equally concerned about (and prohibit) 68,000 people from entering the desert (and kicking up dust) for an event if the BLM wants to protect the rangeland? The BLM is closing off roads to public lands in other areas to even a few cars.

The EA also states “Cumulative Impacts from the Proposed Action. The incremental contribution of the Proposed Action to cumulative effects on wild horses and burros would be largely limited to the duration of the Burning Man 8-day event and immediately before and afterwards. As such, the Proposed Action would not combine with other activities to result in cumulative impacts to wild horses and burros.”

This sort of minimizes the impact of building an airstrip, roads, and having 68,000 people trampling around in the desert, doesn’t it? What exactly constitutes “cumulative” anyhow? 2 days? 8 days? An annual event with 68,000 people? It seems everything is open to interpretation (and money).

BLM’s decision-making and policies seem to be arbitrary and capricious, and seem to be in violation of the Administrative Procedures Act.

SOURCES:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2406228/Burning-Man-Nevadas-experiment-desert-popular-Nearly-70-000-gather-weekend-debauchery.html?ITO=1490&ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490

https://www.blm.gov/epl-front-office/projects/nepa/28954/37413/39213/FONSI_Burning_Man.pdf

https://www.blm.gov/epl-front-office/projects/nepa/28954/37412/39212/Burning_Man_DOI-BLM-NV-W030-2012-0007-Final_EA.pdf