"A coalition of environmental groups is mounting a legal challenge to former Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke's controversial decision to reinstate grazing rights for Oregon father-and-son ranchers Dwight and Steven Hammond following President Trump's pardon of their arson convictions.
The Bureau of Land Management in 2014 declined to renew the Hammonds' four grazing permits on 26,000 acres of federal land after the pair was convicted in 2012 of setting fire to adjacent federal lands.
But Zinke, in one of his last acts before leaving office Jan. 2, ordered BLM to reissue grazing permits to the Hammonds, citing the presidential pardon (Greenwire, Jan. 29).
The lawsuit, filed today in the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon, targets Zinke's "eleventh-hour decision" to renew the Hammonds' grazing permits. They ask the court to throw out the reissued grazing permits."
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