This week on The Wild Line, we’re tracking a House bill to gut environmental review for forest projects, a Farm Bill that trades weakened conservation funding for new wilderness, a narrowed definition of “take” under the Endangered Species Act, and new mining claims at Bears Ears. From Capitol Hill markups to a courtroom fight over 2017’s monument rollbacks, these stories track how far this Congress and administration are willing to push public lands and wildlife policy in a single week.

🎧 Listen to the full episode for context, analysis, and what to watch next.

House Natural Resources Committee Advances Anti-NEPA Bill, Holds Hearings on Public Lands Measures

The House Committee on Natural Resources marked up more than a dozen bills Tuesday, including California Republican Rep. Tom McClintock’s H.R. 184, the Action Versus No Action Act, which would eliminate the requirement for federal agencies to evaluate reasonable alternatives to a proposed action under NEPA for forest management projects on land suitable for timber production or in need of hazardous fuel treatment, a designation now covering 59% of national forests, plus similar BLM projects. Wednesday and Thursday subcommittee hearings covered park boundaries, historic site designations, Western water rights settlements, invasive species, Florida wildlife, and the expansion of Big Bend National Park.

Read more:

• Legislative Hearing on H.R. 177, H.R. 3717, H.R. 5935, H.R. 6869, H.R. 8546, H.R. 9017, H.R. 9590 and H.R. 10117 | House Committee on Natural Resources: Water Wildlife, and Fisheries
• Legislative Hearing on H.R. 1031, H.R. 2323, H.R. 7495, H.R. 8276, H.R. 9104, H.R. 9148, H.R. 9999, S. 1051 and S. 1377 | House Committee on Natural Resources: Federal Lands
• Legislative Hearing on H.R. 7269 and H.R. 8674 | House Committee on Natural Resources: Indian and Insular Affairs
• Full Committee Markup

Senate Agriculture Committee Advances Farm Bill With Wilderness Wins and Rollbacks

The Senate Committee on Agriculture voted Wednesday to advance the Farm Bill to the floor, its second attempt after an August 6 party-line vote failed 11-10, passing this time with the return of Kentucky Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell. The bill weakens pesticide safety standards, cuts funding for conservation programs like EQIP and CSP, and grants sweeping forestry exemptions from environmental review, but its forestry title also adds more than 100,000 acres of new wilderness across the Shawnee, Ouachita, and George Washington-Jefferson National Forests, plus a feasibility study for a Benton MacKaye National Scenic Trail spanning Georgia, Tennessee, and North Carolina.

Congressional Democratic Caucus Unveils “Thriving Economy Project” Policy Blueprint

The Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition, a coalition of House Democrats known as SEEC, released its Thriving Economy Project this week, a policy blueprint built on the premise that economic growth and environmental health can reinforce each other. Developed with members of Congress, former senior congressional aides, past administration officials, and energy and environmental policy experts, the project organizes priorities including clean energy, lower household costs, reduced pollution, sustainable manufacturing, climate resilience, job creation, and economic competitiveness into policy pillars, each co-chaired by a member of Congress.

Grand Teton Euthanizes Black Bear After Visitors Fed It Near Delta Lake

Grand Teton National Park staff euthanized a black bear this week after visitors along the popular Delta Lake trail repeatedly fed the animal, eroding its fear of humans until it began approaching people without hesitation. Park officials said the bear’s behavior left euthanasia as the only option to prevent physical contact with visitors. The incident renews a longstanding warning among wildlife managers: a fed bear is a dead bear.

Fish and Wildlife Service Moves to Redefine “Take” Under the Endangered Species Act

The New York Times reported on an internal U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service memo that would narrow the legal definition of “take” under the Endangered Species Act to cover only the intentional killing of a listed animal, following the agency’s earlier redefinition of “harm” to exclude habitat destruction. Responding to the memo’s disclosure, the agency issued a statement asserting the Act “continues to prohibit take of endangered wildlife, including actions that harass, pursue, hunt, shoot, wound, kill, trap, capture, or collect listed wildlife or attempts to do so,” language that sidesteps whether the underlying definition of take is actually changing.

New Mining Claims Filed at Bears Ears as Lawsuit Seeks to Reopen 2017 Monument Fight

Sixteen new mining claims were filed within 24 hours of the 60-day mark since President Trump’s proclamation cut three million acres from the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments. Separately, a coalition including the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, Sierra Club, Grand Canyon Trust, Patagonia, and the five tribal nations of the Bears Ears Commission filed suit this month seeking to reactivate litigation over Trump’s 2017 monument rollbacks, left dormant when President Biden took office, so both sets of proclamations can be challenged together.

Roadless Rule Comment Period Extended as Coalition Pushes for One Million Comments

The USDA extended the public comment period on its proposed rescission of the Roadless Area Conservation Rule, still formally in the draft environmental impact statement stage despite Secretary Brooke Rollins’ clear intent to rescind. Rebecca Gillis, Vice President of Government Affairs and Advocacy for the Conservation Alliance, is featured urging individuals, businesses, and nonprofits to use the extra time toward a coalition goal of one million comments, to contact elected officials and governors in support of the Roadless Rule, to host in-person comment events, and to spend time in roadless areas to make the issue personal.

Remembering Annie Dillard, Who Turned Watching Nature Into a Spiritual Practice

Writer Annie Dillard died this week at 81 at her home in South Wellfleet, Massachusetts. Her 1974 book Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, a record of a year spent observing the flora, fauna, and changing seasons of Virginia’s Roanoke Valley, won the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction and reshaped the modern nature essay; Dillard was 28 at the time, the youngest winner in the award’s history. Often compared to Thoreau, whom she studied in her master’s thesis, Dillard rejected the “nature writer” label, describing herself instead as a theologian wrestling with a God who presides over both beauty and brutality.

Next Week

That’s our report for September 18, 2026.

We’ll be back next week with more land stories that matter. 

Until then — Act Up and Run Wild.

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