With Investigations in Nevada and Utah, BLM Moves to Quell Rising Antigovernment Ire

The federal Bureau of Land Management kept a low public profile in the weeks following the armed standoff at Cliven Bundy’s Nevada ranch, where the government backed down in the face of opposition from heavily armed militiamen. But this week the agency took to the airwaves to promise that such incidents would not go unpunished.

Speaking with National Public Radio, BLM director Neil Kornze said the agency was intent on working through the legal system to address those who broke the law on April 12 when heavily armed antigovernment militias forced BLM to suspend a court-ordered roundup of rancher Cliven Bundy’s cattle from roughly 600,000 acres of public lands. Photos and eyewitness accounts from the standoff indicate that the militiamen trained their guns on federal agents.

“I can’t say a lot because there’s an active investigation going on, but we are working hard to insure that those who did break the law are held accountable,” Kornze said on Monday’s episode of The Diane Rehm Show. “We are going to work through the legal system.”

Kornze’s comments are the first from the BLM since the Nevada standoff, and they come as other clashes between antigovernment “Patriots” and federal agents have popped up around the West.

In Utah, last weekend, antigovernment activists protested restrictions on the use of federal lands by riding ATVs into restricted areas of Recapture Canyon, which were closed to motorized traffic to protect archaeological sites from damage. Megan Crandall, a BLM spokeswoman in Utah, told Hatewatch that there were undercover agents in the Utah crowd documenting who violated federal law, and that the BLM was devoting “substantial resources” to pursue charges there, too.

“The BLM is continuing to investigate and will pursue all available redress through the legal system to hold individuals who broke the law accountable,” Crandall said.