Dissed: Bundy action, fed inaction

A group of Nevada environmental and government leaders called on federal officials to arrest the people who are occupying some buildings at Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon.

At a Jan. 19 news conference, they expressed their “frustration at the inaction of federal authorities in Nevada” in dealing with the Bundy family and other public lands activists who operate outside the law.

Paiute leaders Fawn Douglas and William Anderson, environmentalists Tygel Pinto and Robert Buntjer, Clark County Assemblymember Elliot Anderson and Sen. Kelvin Atkinson were among the group. Such events were held in Oregon, Idaho, Washington and New Mexico. Many media reports have portrayed the West as unified in supporting the Bundys.

An armed standoff near Bunkerville in 2014 in which U.S. Bureau of Land Management officials tried to enforce court orders against grazing fee scofflaw Cliven Bundy ended without a resolution and a federal investigation of the standoff has drifted without resolution, as well.

The Oregon action—led by two sons of Cliven Bundy—is supposedly in support of two men who were convicted by a jury of starting a fire on public lands in 2012. Prosecutors said the fire was set to cover up an illegal hunt. The defendants said they were burning to deal with invasive plant species. The jury found against them. The family of the two men have repudiated the Bundy occupation. So did many “militia” members who participated in the 2014 standoff.