David Vela | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Acting Director of the National Park Service | |
| In office October 1, 2019 –August 7, 2020 | |
| Preceded by | P. Daniel Smith (Acting) |
| Succeeded by | Margaret Everson (Acting) |
Raymond David Vela is a parks administrator who is the former acting director of the United States National Park Service. [1]
Vela grew up in Wharton,Texas. At a Senate hearing,he described himself as the oldest grandchild of a sharecropper. [1]
He graduated from Texas A&M University with a degree in recreational parks and tourism sciences in 1982. [2]
Vela is the former superintendent of Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming. [1] He has also worked as the National Park Service's director for workforce and inclusion;director of the National Park Service Southeast region;and superintendent of the George Washington Memorial Parkway,Palo Alto Battlefield National Historic Site and Lyndon B. Johnson National Historical Park. [1]
He has held other positions at San Antonio Missions National Historical Park in Texas,Appomattox Court House National Historical Park in Virginia;Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia,Pennsylvania. [2]
President Donald Trump first nominated Vela as director of the National Park Service in 2018. The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee voted to advance Vela's nomination in 2018,but he was never confirmed by the Senate. Vela joined the National Park Service's Washington office as acting deputy director of operations. [1] In September 2019,Interior Secretary David Bernhardt announced that he was promoting Vela to director on an acting basis. [3]
Vela is the first Latino to lead the National Park Service. [4]
In May 2020,two activist groups,Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility and the Western Watersheds Project,sued over Bernhardt's ongoing interim appointments of Vela to run the National Park service and William Perry Pendley to run the Bureau of Land Management,which bypassed Senate confirmation. [5]
In June 2020,Vela announced that the Trump administration would end a five-year-old ban on certain hunting practices in Alaska. The rule change will allow hunters to bait hibernating bears from their dens,kill wolf mothers and pups in their dens,shoot swimming caribou from a boat,and target animals from airplanes and snowmobiles. [6]
Vela campaigned for the Great American Outdoors Act,passed by Congress and signed by Trump on August 4,2020. The law allocates billions of dollars to improve park maintenance. [7]
Vela announced on August 7,2020,that he would retire in September 2020. [8] He was replaced by Margaret Everson. [9]
Vela is married and has a daughter and a son. [2]
The director of national intelligence (DNI) is a senior,cabinet-level United States government official,required by the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 to serve as executive head of the United States Intelligence Community (IC) and to direct and oversee the National Intelligence Program (NIP). All IC agencies report directly to the DNI. The DNI also serves,upon invitation,as an advisor to the president of the United States,the National Security Council and the Homeland Security Council on all intelligence matters. The DNI,supported by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI),produces the President's Daily Brief (PDB),a top-secret document including intelligence from all IC agencies,handed each morning to the president of the United States.
The Antiquities Act of 1906,is an act that was passed by the United States Congress and signed into law by Theodore Roosevelt on June 8,1906. This law gives the President of the United States the authority to,by presidential proclamation,create national monuments from federal lands to protect significant natural,cultural,or scientific features. The Act has been used more than a hundred times since its enactment.
Mountain States Legal Foundation (MSLF) is an American conservative free market public interest law firm based in Lakewood,Colorado. Its lawyers argue cases on property rights and federal land management in the American West,as well as gun rights and other constitutional law cases.
The Jimmy Carter National Historical Park,located in Plains,Georgia,preserves sites associated with Jimmy Carter,39th president of the United States. These include his residence,boyhood farm,school,and the town railroad depot,which served as his campaign headquarters during the 1976 election. The building which used to be Plains High School serves as the park's museum and visitor center. As Carter lives in Plains,the area surrounding the residence is under the protection of the United States Secret Service and is not open to the public.
The under secretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere,or USC(OA),is a high-ranking official in the United States Department of Commerce and the principal advisor to the United States secretary of commerce on the environmental and scientific activities of the department. The under secretary is dual hatted as the administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration within the Commerce Department.
Jonathan B. Jarvis served as the 18th Director of the United States National Park Service,confirmed by the United States Senate on September 25,2009,and serving until his retirement on January 3,2017.
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This is a list of political appointments of current officeholders made by the 45th president of the United States,Donald Trump.
David Longly Bernhardt is an American lawyer who served as the 53rd United States Secretary of the Interior from 2019 to 2021 during the Trump administration. He previously was a shareholder at the Colorado law firm Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck,where he was an oil and energy industry lobbyist and natural resources attorney. He began working for the United States Department of the Interior (DOI) in 2001,and served as the department's solicitor from 2006 to 2009 and deputy secretary from 2017 to 2019.
Russell Thurlow Vought is an American former government official who was the director of the Office of Management and Budget from July 2020 to January 2021. He was previously deputy director of the OMB from 2018 to 2020 and acting director from 2019 to 2020.
Andrew R. Wheeler is an American attorney who served as the 15th administrator of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from 2019 to 2021. He served as the deputy administrator from April to July 2018,and served as the acting administrator from July 2018 to February 2019. He has been a senior advisor to Governor of Virginia Glenn Youngkin since March 2022. He previously worked in the law firm Faegre Baker Daniels,representing coal magnate Robert E. Murray and lobbying against the Obama Administration's environmental regulations. Wheeler served as chief counsel to the United States Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works and to the chairman U.S. senator James Inhofe,prominent for his rejection of climate change. Wheeler is a critic of limits on greenhouse gas emissions and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
William Perry Pendley is an American attorney,conservative activist,political commentator,and government official who served as the acting director of the Bureau of Land Management from 2019 to 2021.
P. Daniel Smith is a longtime United States government administrator who is a former acting director of the U.S. National Park Service in the Trump administration.
Michael T. Reynolds is a career parks administrator who served as an acting director of the United States National Park Service in the Trump administration.
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Margaret Everson is an American lawyer who served as the acting director of the United States National Park Service for six months and the acting director of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service for 15 months during the Trump administration. She is the only person to have headed both the National Park Service and Fish and Wildlife Service.
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