This is not Pendley’s first government position. He was a midlevel Interior appointee in the Reagan administration. For decades he has championed ranchers and others in standoffs with the federal government over grazing and other uses of public lands. He has written books accusing federal authorities and environmental advocates of "tyranny" and "waging war on the West." He argued in a 2016 National Review article that the "Founding Fathers intended all lands owned by the federal government to be sold."

In tweets this summer, Pendley has welcomed Trump administration moves to open more federal land to mining and oil and gas development and other private business use, and he has called the oil and gas extraction technique known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, "an energy, economic, AND environmental miracle!"

The Interior Department appointed Pendley as the policy director at BLM, which manages one out of every 10 acres in the United States and 30% of the nation's minerals, in mid-July.

A conservation group called Pendley an "ideological zealot" and pointed to the federal agency's announcement earlier this month that it planned to move the BLM's headquarters from Washington and disperse the headquarters staff among Western states.