For two days last week, a senior official in the United States Department of the Interior quietly convened a series of closed-door meetings at the headquarters of the Point Reyes National Seashore.
Karen Budd-Falen—the department’s associate deputy secretary, the third highest-ranking position—serves in an administration that has moved to transform how public lands across the country are used and managed, often minimizing conservation in favor of maximizing economic returns.
Her visit had long been anticipated by local ranching advocates, some of whom hoped it might herald changes to the legal settlement that evicted all but two ranches from the seashore.
Instead, she came not to trumpet news, but to listen.
Ms. Budd-Falen met with park leadership and representatives of the Nature Conservancy, which brokered and financed the deal to phase out most ranching in the seashore. She sat down with leaders of the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria, which has a co-stewardship agreement with the park, and Coast Miwok representatives who lack federal recognition. She met with ranchers who accepted multimillion-dollar buyouts, with others who did not, and with a motley crew of ranching advocates who have spent over a year attempting to unravel the deal.
“‘I’ve never seen a park like this one,’” Chadwick “Ceadda” Conover, who attended several of the meetings, recalled Ms. Budd-Falen telling one group. She was referring not only to its dramatic topography, he said, but to its unusual patchwork of wild and pastoral ranges—and to the tight-knit community that has defined the peninsula for close to two centuries.
Ms. Budd-Falen herself declined to comment on her visit, and the Interior Department did not respond to queries. This account is based on interviews with participants, who described wide-ranging conversations about the park’s future.
The meetings come at a pivotal time for Point Reyes. The settlement reached last January set in motion the departure of 12 dairy and cattle operations; today, they are all either on their way out or already gone ahead of an April deadline. Nearly all of an estimated 90 workers and tenants have been evicted.
After two successive lawsuits brought by the Resource Renewal Institute, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Western Watersheds Project, which argued that ranching polluted the ecosystem, the Nature Conservancy was invited into the fray to help resolve the conflict.
Ultimately, the settlement transferred more than 16,000 acres to the Nature Conservancy for management, in part through conservation grazing. Under the Trump administration, Interior officials led by Ms. Budd-Falen are expected to play a significant role in shaping that program.
“We were fortunate to have Ms. Budd-Falen visit and meet with us at Point Reyes National Seashore,” Rodd Kelsey, the group’s California land program director, wrote in an email. “We’re currently working closely with [the Interior Department] to develop the targeted grazing plan in support of NPS’ identified goals at the Seashore.”
Seashore superintendent Anne Altman did not respond to requests for comment.
Ms. Budd-Falen’s visit was orchestrated in large part by Mr. Conover, an enigmatic figure hellbent on restoring ranching on Point Reyes who has found himself at the center of the effort. Mr. Conover became involved about a year ago and said the chain of introductions began last summer, when he introduced dairyman Albert Straus to his friend, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Mr. Kennedy connected Mr. Straus and Mr. Conover with Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, who in turn put them in touch with Ms. Budd-Falen. When momentum stalled, Mr. Conover escalated his efforts. In August, while driving cross-country, he learned that Ms. Budd-Falen would be attending a cattlemen’s conference in Phoenix, and he detoured to meet her. By October, he had moved to West Marin to devote himself to the cause.
“No one has given me a single cent for being here,” he said. “I got thrown into a fight. I never knew it would go on this long. But I’m not going to quit until I see a resolution for all parties involved—for the Natives, for the farmworkers and their housing, and for the organic farms.”
A self-described cowboy lawyer, Ms. Budd-Falen grew up on her family’s fifth-generation cattle ranch in Wyoming. She has made a career of representing ranchers challenging federal grazing regulations and environmental protections, often arguing for stronger private property rights and greater local control over public lands.
One prominent client was Cliven Bundy, whose armed standoff with federal authorities over unpaid grazing fees she condemned, even as she described the episode as illustrating “how American citizens react when a government has so expanded that it believes that the citizens are subservient to political power.”
In January, Rep. Jared Huffman, the ranking Democrat on the House Committee for Natural Resources and a key figure in bringing the Nature Conservancy into the seashore mediation, called for an investigation into Ms. Budd-Falen over potential ethics violations related to her family’s financial stake in a Nevada lithium mine. Mr. Huffman did not respond to requests for comment about her recent visit to the park.
Those who have worked with Ms. Budd-Falen describe her as a committed advocate for ranchers and a meticulous lawyer who follows the letter of the law.
“She’s certainly a strong advocate for the ranching industry,” said Jim Magagna, executive vice president of the Wyoming Stock Growers Association, which represents the state’s cattle industry. “She understands the issues so well because she grew up on a ranch that depended on federal grazing. She knows it not only from her legal education, but from lived experience.”
Yet conservationists say she is openly antagonistic toward regulation and skeptical of the very environmental safeguards that her agency is tasked with enforcing.
“Karen Budd-Falen is a pretty radical, right-wing activist-attorney,” said Erik Molvar, executive director of the Western Watersheds Project. “It’s somewhat surprising that in a progressive county like Marin, there’s folks with the political connections to this member of the Trump administration who’s got this reputation for being a radical anti-environmentalist.”
None of the environmental groups involved in the seashore lawsuit said they were notified of her visit in advance.
One of Ms. Budd-Falen’s more animated meetings came Monday evening, when she sat down with Kevin Lunny, the firebrand rancher who accepted a buyout; Mr. Straus, the organic dairy pioneer who bought milk from several dairies in the park; Neka Pasquale, founder of the organic food company Urban Remedy; Frank Marques, a cattle breeder who lived on E Ranch until his eviction this winter; Stephanie Moreda-Arend, a fifth-generation North Bay dairy farmer; and Mr. Conover.
Over the course of the conversation, it became clear that “she could have blown the whole deal up; she has the power to do that,” Mr. Conover said. “But she’s not doing that. She seemed very receptive to what we told her, but she is not one-sided. She wants to be fair to the people who took the buyout, T.N.C. and everyone else involved.”
Participants floated ideas for expanding the grazing footprint, preserving ranch housing, improving interpretive signage, protecting remaining leases and even reintroducing a “state-of-the-art dairy with an educational component,” Mr. Straus said.
According to several attendees, Ms. Budd-Falen cautioned that she came from a grazing—not a dairy—background and offered little in the way of assurances. Still, she directed Mr. Straus to compose a proposal. Lance Wenger, a solicitor for the Interior Department, took careful notes.
“No decisions were made and no promises were made,” Mr. Lunny said. “This is not about fire and brimstone and blowing the deal up. It’s a thoughtful process that is about doing the right thing for the natural resources, and including the community’s interests instead of excluding them.” He said Interior officials indicated that a public meeting could be held this spring.
If the visit lacked the ballyhoo of past interventions—like then-Interior Secretary Ken Salazar’s highly publicized 2012 trip ahead of shuttering Drakes Bay Oyster Farm—it nonetheless signaled that Washington is closely watching the peninsula.
Though the Trump administration has not moved to reverse the settlement, its posture appears markedly different from that of its predecessor. When the agreement was finalized in the Biden administration’s waning days, federal attorneys and staff celebrated its completion. In correspondence between Interior Department and park service leadership—obtained by the Light through a Freedom of Information Act request—Barbara Goodyear, an Interior solicitor, marked the moment with enthusiasm: “It’s been a long road, but here it is!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
On Tuesday, Ms. Budd-Falen met with leaders of Graton Rancheria, which has a cooperative management agreement with the park. Greg Sarris, the tribe’s chairman, declined the Light’s requests for comment.
She also met with Theresa Harlan, one of many Coast Miwok descendants who trace their ancestral lineage to Point Reyes but are not members of the tribe. Ms. Harlan leads the Alliance for Felix Cove, a nonprofit seeking cooperative stewardship of a long-neglected 12-acre parcel on Tomales Bay that her adoptive family once called home.
For years, Ms. Harlan said, her proposal has stalled with federal officials and been stonewalled by the tribe, whose approval would be required for any agreement.
“We asked [Ms. Budd-Falen] for a cooperative agreement to steward the 12 to 15 acres,” Ms. Harlan said. “I think she responded enthusiastically to the fact that this was a family home for generations and generations, and its significance is worth saving.”
According to Mr. Conover, who joined the Indigenous representatives’ meeting, Ms. Budd-Falen described Ms. Harlan’s proposal as “very reasonable” and said it felt “very doable.”
The associate deputy secretary also met with a handful of ranchers from the Golden Gate National Recreation Area who are now operating under 20-year leases negotiated through the settlement. They used the meeting to raise concerns about lease terms and discuss ways to provide greater security for their operations. One rancher, Luke Giacomini, said that although he does not share much of her politics, he was encouraged by her engagement.
“She didn’t come out and say that she necessarily wants more grazing; she just wants to make sure grazing happens,” he said. “She’s not coming out here to stomp on anybody. She just wants to make sure the land doesn’t go so fallow that there’s no turning back.”