memorable scene in season one of hbo’s hit series “The White Lotus” shows Tanya McQuoid (Jennifer Coolidge) asking her date how he got involved with the blm, and why he decided to devote his life to activism. Greg Hunt (Jon Gries) is bewildered. Tanya, like many Americans, assumes that the initials stand for Black Lives Matter, an anti-racism group. “Black Lives Matter? I’m not involved in that,” he replies. Now it is Tanya’s turn for bewilderment. Finally, Greg reveals that he works for a distinctly different blm: America’s Bureau of Land Management.

The Bureau of Land Management (the blm from here on) is not one of America’s better-known federal agencies. It is just one of 11 bureaus within the Department of the Interior, and is responsible for managing 10% of America’s lands, or more than 245m acres, mostly in the western states. It issues permits for development on the country’s public lands. For a long time, that meant approving oil and gas drilling.