The Mountain Pact strives to keep our constituents informed on federal public lands, climate, and conservation policies that are relevant to western mountain communities. Below is a compilation of news alerts, policy, and campaign updates. Subscribe to receive these alerts.
2026 Conservation Updates
February 27, 2026
February 2026 Conservation Update
Greetings from The Mountain Pact! This month we’ve been focused on voicing our opposition to anti-public lands crusader Stevan Pearce to be the director of the Bureau of Land Management. Pearce has made selling off public lands a cornerstone of his political agenda. Pearce tried to shrink Organ Mountains–Desert Peaks National Monument in his own district by 92%, co-sponsored the HEARD Act, which would have forced federal agencies to identify land to sell off for deficit reduction, worked to protect oil and gas companies from paying higher royalties to taxpayers, and is on record as wanting to “reverse this trend of public ownership of [public] lands.”
We also closely tracked Utah Senator Lee's and Rep. Maloy's actions to dismantle the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument Resource Management Plan. Read more below on these and other items from February.
January 30, 2026
January 2026 Conservation Update
Greetings from The Mountain Pact! 2026 is off to a fast start, and has already proven challenging for many of us who have watched the events in Minnesota over the past few weeks in horror. Our thoughts are with the friends, families, and loved ones of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, as well as everyone who has been impacted by these distressing and violent events. In scary times like these, we find it helpful to do what we can in our own communities, and hope you and yours are able to find time to peacefully reflect on these tragedies and take action locally.
In that spirit, we’ve been hard at work keeping tabs on the ongoing threats to public lands from the administration and pushing back against the nomination of an extreme, anti-public lands politician to run one of our nation’s most important public land management agencies. If you haven’t already, please consider contacting your Senator and urging them to vote no on Stevan Pearce’s nomination to direct the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). Thank you for all that you do, and together let’s continue fighting to make sure we keep our public lands right where they belong: in public hands.
