WEMO DEEP DIVE / PART 3

The Insider

One attorney spent 16 years suing BLM over WEMO from the outside. Then the Biden administration appointed her as BLM’s second-in-command. She then played a key role in weaponizing the WEMO decision during the final hours of the Biden Administration. This is the revolving door that shaped the WEMO outcome.

The Insider

Nada Wolff Culver: From Plaintiff to Defendant

Nada Wolff Culver is a Colorado environmental attorney whose career spans private practice, nonprofit advocacy, and unelected senior official at the Bureau of Land Management. Her involvement in the WEMO matter spans more than two decades— from helping to bring and win the original litigation as the plaintiff while she was Senior Counsel & Director at the Wilderness Society, to serving as the named federal defendant as the Deputy Director at the BLM in the subsequent case which led to closing 2,200 miles of trails (Center for Biological Diversity v. Culver).

Yes. You’ve read that correctly. Nada Culver went from suing the BLM to being the second-in-command at the BLM while being sued by the very same organizations she spent the bulk of her career working with.

Revolving Door Timeline

20 Years of Access to Power on Both Sides

THE REVERSAL

From Suing BLM to Running BLM

The same attorney who helped bring and win the original WEMO lawsuit as a Wilderness Society advocate became the named federal defendant in the successor case.

The Cases

Key Legal Proceedings Involving Culver

Culver’s career touches several of the most consequential public land access cases in the past two decades. Here are the ones directly relevant to WEMO and the broader access fight:

THE FINAL DIRECTIVE

On Her Way Out, Culver Weaponizes Minimization Criteria

On January 17, 2025, three days before the administration change, Nada Culver signed a Policy Memorandum as Acting BLM Director titled “Application of the minimization criteria at 43 CFR 8342.1.” The memo instructs every BLM State and Field Office in the country to apply the minimization criteria more aggressively when designating OHV routes.

The memo explicitly cites the October 2024 WEMO ruling as the catalyst: “In light of another ruling finding the BLM’s compliance with the minimization criteria inadequate.” That ruling is Center for Biological Diversity v. Culver. The case where she was the named defendant.

Read that again. The attorney who spent 16 years at The Wilderness Society building the legal framework to challenge BLM travel plans using the minimization criteria then used the ruling in a case where she was also the defendant to issue a national policy directive telling every BLM office in America to apply that same standard more strictly.

Read that one more time. It’s imperative you understand the game.

Lowlights from the directive:

Translation:

Closing trails is not enough. Mitigation does not count. Access is secondary to the minimization criteria. And if BLM cannot prove every route minimizes impacts to an undefined standard, the default is closure. This is now national policy, signed into effect by the same person who spent her career building the legal strategy to make it happen.

The memo was signed on January 17, 2025 – during the final hours of the Biden Administration. Culver served as Acting BLM Director through January 20. The policy directive she issued applies to every travel management plan on every acre of BLM land in the country. It is the final product of a 20-year strategy: build the legal precedent from outside the agency, enter the agency, and then codify that precedent into binding national policy on the way out the door.

You can download and read the directive yourself here.

“Culver’s involvement in the WEMO matter spans more than two decades: from helping to bring and win the original 2006-2009 litigation as a Wilderness Society advocate, through the lengthy replanning period that followed, to serving as the named federal defendant in the 2021 successor case during her time as Principal Deputy Director of BLM.”

Why This Matters

The Political Actors Behind the Closure

The timeline and actors in this case speak for itself.

The WEMO decision did not happen in a vacuum. It is the product of a 20-year legal strategy, executed by organizations with sustained access to both sides of the courtroom and the decision-making authorities of the federal government. Understanding who shaped this outcome is essential to understanding how to change it.

This is the missing context that connects the legal arguments in Parts 1 and 2 to the political reality behind them. The regulatory framework that made the WEMO closure possible was not just a product of bureaucratic complexity combined with litigation pressure. It was shaped, tested, and leveraged by a network of advocates who later held the power to implement the policies they had spent decades demanding and building.

TAKE ACTION

We’ve Won Before, But With an Engaged Community

BRC has been defending your access to public lands for nearly 40 years. WEMO is the biggest threat we’ve ever faced. The precedent set here won’t stop at California’s borders. We need you in this fight.

It’s Time For a New Playbook.

BlueRibbon Coalition isn’t standing idly by. We’re fighting to change the rules that make cooperating in the current system a losing endeavor. Join us.