A number of writers — pundits and news commentators, mostly, people with large public followings — have been announcing lately that they are launching substack newsletters. Substack is subsidizing many of these moves with fat advances, but to hear these writers tell it, that’s not what’s motivating them: they are moving from mainstream outlets or starting a newsletter in addition to their regular gig, they say, because they hope the new format will allow them to write more freely, get out from under their editors’ thumbs, break some rules, offend orthodoxies, and tackle a wider range of subjects than they might when writing for mainstream media outlets.

I am pretty skeptical of these claims and read them mainly as marketing ploys, but I can sympathize with the urge, the urgently felt need, to branch out, find a new groove, and explore new topics. That does not mean I plan to switch this blog over to substack. I don’t have many (non-paying) subscribers as is (but I am grateful for those I have); and lacking the big follower counts and public platforms these writers have before they stage their own deplatformings and moves to substack, I doubt I could attract enough paying customers for the move to make much sense, financial or otherwise.

I’m nevertheless longing to do new things with this blog, no matter how many people subscribe to or read it, and make it more than a chronicle of my FOIA adventures, which is essentially what it’s become over the past year or so. My focus on that topic has brought me a few new subscribers, but it’s also slowed me down — I’ve allowed the slow trickle of documents from my FOIA lawsuit to set the pace — and boxed me into a single story.

I am restless and claustrophobic, off the page and on, so I don’t like feeling boxed in, physically or intellectually. Besides, I’ve got other stories to tell and other projects that need my attention. Some of them have grown out of the work on industrial development around Lake Superior that began more than a decade ago with 1913 Massacre; some of them (like this post on tribal consultation) arise from new connections I see between my work on industrial development and my interest in models of power and consent (which I’ve talked about under the rubric of The Asking Project); and some of them, thank goodness, have nothing at all to do with those things.

Of course, that doesn’t mean I am done with the Boundary Waters and the Freedom of Information Act — not just yet. My FOIA case in DC District Court is still open; and this week saw some new developments.

First, to celebrate Sunshine Week, I put up a new version of the FOIA webinar I gave back in July. The version that Friends of the Boundary Waters posted on YouTube did not include the presentation slides, because I failed to notice a Zoom prompt asking me whether I wanted to record my desktop until the webinar was over. I synced the slides with the webinar audio and created this new version. It’s easier to follow.

Second, a motion to stay was filed on Thursday in Wilderness Society v. Bernhardt, the main lawsuit challenging the Department of Interior’s renewal of Antofagasta’s leases. It appears that newly confirmed Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland is less than enthusiastic about the lawsuit she inherited from her predecessor, David Bernhardt. The motion asks for a stay of 90 days so that Haaland and Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, both of whom have publicly opposed sulfide mining near the Rainy River Watershed, can review the matter. The review looks to be pretty comprehensive, and will cover the government’s current position, the reinstatement of Antofagasta’s mineral leases, and the historical lease files.

A review of that scope is likely to bring a lot of suppressed evidence — the findings of the abruptly canceled mineral withdrawal study, the stipulation of a production requirement, and so on — to light. In a Twitter thread about the filing yesterday. I wagered the review would undo Jorjani’s work:

Or we’ll see the scientific study resumed. Whatever route the review takes, the new Secretaries should also ask their Inspectors General to look into the conduct of the Solicitor’s Office at Interior and the Secretary’s Office at USDA over the past four years. There is plenty of evidence of undue influence, regulatory capture, administrative sabotage, and all sorts of corruption and malfeasance, from contempt of Congress to perjury and violations of NEPA. We need accountability in order to set things right.

If any of the records I’ve published along the way can help reviewers get closer to the truth of what happened, or help bring about a reckoning, then maybe it will all have been worth it.