Foto Friday: Autumn 2025 from the road edition
Plus: Interior official Karen Budd-Falen's financial ties to controversial lithium mine revealed
🐓 Regulatory Capture Chronicles 🦊
Mere minutes after I had sent out Tuesday’s dispatch detailing associate deputy Interior secretary Karen Budd-Falen’s vast landholdings, Land Desk reader and indefatigable desert protector Patrick Donnelly sent me some very interesting Securities Exchange Commission documents.
They showed that in 2018, when Budd-Falen was a ranking official in the first Trump administration’s Interior Department, her family’s Home Ranch in Nevada agreed to sell rights to 2,500 acre-feet of water to Lithium Nevada Corp, the developer of the Thacker Pass lithium mine.
The mine, which is being constructed on public land overseen by the Interior Department, has faced stringent opposition from Indigenous and environmental advocates, in part because it is on the site of an 1865 massacre. The Bureau of Land Management approved the mine in 2021. And earlier this year the Trump administration agreed to release a $2.3 billion Biden-era loan for the project in return for a 5% stake in the company and mine.
And now, because the news these days is just so damned tiring, some images from this autumn in the West, which was glorious.
And if you like that, then you should check this one out:
Images from a Four Corners road-trip
I spent a good portion of August driving around the Four Corners in my trusty Silver Bullet looking out at the landscape, visiting folks, and attending events for my new book, Sagebrush Empire. Below are a few of the images I captured, along with a bit of the story behind each, in no particular order. For higher resolution images, visit LandDesk.org.
Ugg. Greed seems endless. Thanks for ending with such beauty.