BLM changes its homepage from backpackers watching a sunset to a black wall of coal

The Bureau of Land Management’s homepage was transformed Thursday from a photo of two backpackers watching the sun set over a wide open range of fields and hills to a solid wall of coal, Daryl Fears reports for The Washington Post. "The photo speaks volumes about the way the Trump administration is prioritizing the land. BLM, under the Interior Department, controls more than half a billion acres, including national monuments and wilderness areas that humans visit and where a variety of animals roam, but the feature image is all about coal." (BLM homepage on Wednesday and Thursday)

"It follows President Trump’s campaign promise to bring back the coal industry and his recent executive order lifting a moratorium on new coal leases," Fears writes. "It also follows the issuance of a lease to mine 56 million tons of coal in Utah."