Michael Bollen, owner of the billion-dollar high-tech company, Idaho Ranch and founder of Trump's donor, has been clashing with the U.S. Forest Service for many years.
He was accused of flying helicopters dangerously close to build forest department trails, urging officials to seek restraining orders. He was criticized by the Forest Service when he built a private runway at the Hell Rooto Ranch in the National Recreation Area. And in the fall, the Forest Service sent a halt and assumed letter accusing the company of managing the construction of fraudulent cabins on national forest lands.
Now, Boren is the Trump candidate who oversees the very agency he has repeatedly fought.
On Tuesday, the Senate Agriculture Committee is scheduled to hold a confirmation hearing on Boren's appointment, and will be in the role of becoming the secretary of agriculture for natural resources and the environment.
If confirmed, he will manage agencies that oversee around 200 million acres of public land throughout the United States, including maintaining trails, adjusting wildfire responses, and selling wood and other resources. He also oversees the Natural Resources Conservation Services and helps farmers and ranchers save the natural resources of their land.
Boren will lead the Forest Service during a turbulent period.
In April, Agriculture Secretary Brook Rollins issued an order removing environmental protections, mainly from the West, about 60% of national forests, or more than 112 million acres. That came after Trump issued an executive order to increase logging on these lands by 25%.
The Forest Service has also fired thousands of workers as part of Trump's drive to reduce the federal government.
Boren is a “successful businessman who set up six companies,” Trump said in January that he announced his nomination in a true social post. “Michael works to reinvigorate forest management whenever he desperately needs it,” he wrote. “Congratulations Michael!”
Some environmental groups and experts are wary.
“We're a great professor at the University of Idaho Law,” said Jerold Long, a former Justice Department official with a specialization in land use and environmental law. “His hostility towards the Forest Service suggests that it is consistent with what happened with federal agencies.
In a statement, the Agriculture Bureau said Boren “will implement President Trump's first American agenda and ensure that the forest system is well managed, productive and resilient. We look forward to his prompt confirmation by the Senate.” The White House and the lawyers and representatives representing the Boren family did not answer detailed questions in this article.
Boren built a fortune for technology and investment and had little experience in public land management. In 2001 he partnered with his younger brother Dave Boren and another banking buddy to find Clearwater Analytics, an investment and accounting software company based in Boise, Idaho. He also became a trusted Republican campaign donor, gifting it to the Republican National Committee and Trump.
In 2021, Clearwater made its debut on the New York Stock Exchange at a valuation of $5.5 billion. Mr. Boren no longer holds his position in the company.
Boren is a “foreigner, proven leader,” the Republican governor of Idaho said in regards to his nomination. “In Idaho, we manage our land effectively and efficiently,” Boren said, “We bring the same mentality to forest service.”
He and his brothers both share their passion for their land with their Idaho ranch.
In 2015, Boren bought the Hell Rooto Ranch. 480 acres of cattle ranch within the Congress-mandated Saucetooth National Recreation Area, along with the landscape, lakes and rivers of Central Idaho's Panorama Mountains managed by the Forest Service. While private property is permitted within recreational areas, the regulations prohibit developments that undermine scenic, natural, historical or ecological values.
Shortly after Mr. Boren purchased the land, he tried to flatten some of the pasture for what he said to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
However, the 2,500-foot-long site looked like a runway. Many of his neighbors said they were violating rules restricting the development of recreational areas. Boren then installed a $1 million hangar and fuel tank, and neighbors began reporting that small aircraft and helicopters would take off and land on the runway.
Boren's brother, Dave Boren, owns separate 1,700 acres of ranch in central Idaho. In 2019, Dave Bollen sued the federal government for his work on the Forest Service road that had managed to get through his property with easements, saying that the work would harm the environment and the use of his property.
The following summer, after federal court denied an injunction for forest service work, after construction of the trail resumed, a helicopter registered with Michael Boren appeared and flew near the construction crew. “The helicopter was seen below 100 feet from the ground and started coming towards us,” said Dave Coiner, who led the construction crew that day. “They were definitely trying to blackmail us.”
The Justice Department claimed he was piloting the craft in pursuit of a restraining order against Boren, claiming that he had “buffeted the government contractor with helicopter rotor cleaning, sediment and other debris during some low-level passes,” and that the contractor's employees “sortedly felt threatened.”
The US Magistrate Judge warned Dave and Michael Bollen of further interference in the project, but the order was not finally issued. “When I hear that he's been appointed to be under the Forest Service's secretary, it just blows me away,” Coiner said in an interview.
In February 2021, when Boren finally applied for a county permit for the runway, hundreds of people submitted public comments to oppose it. He accused him of lying about his plans, smashing the scenic Idaho landscape, and rejected Boren's proposal that they intended Airstrip as a public service for use in emergencies.
“Millionaire Michael Boren, a multimillionaire from Boise, illegally operates Sawtooth Valley airports without permission,” retired search and rescue operator Gary Gadva wrote in an essay in the opinion of the Idaho Falls Post Register. Idahonians need to unite, he said, by saying, “stop this dangerous precedent that threatens one of our state's most beloved wildernesses.”
Boren said during a hearing about his permit, aired by local station KTVB7, the ranch needed a modest runway. “We did everything we could to do the right thing,” he said. “We didn't build an airport. It's an irrigated pasture, and that's where we land our aircraft.”
Boren overcame the opposition and received county permission. The Forest Service warned him in August 2021 in a letter to further work on the land. “The future use or development of real estate, including unlimited use of runways,” could lead the Forest Service to determine that the area was significantly damaged, local ranger Kirk Flanigan wrote.
Boren then sued critics.
In June 2022, he sued Gadva and others for opposing him due to defamation. First Amendment lawyers and other legal observers said the lawsuit was designed to intimidate critics and curb their right to free speech.
In the revised complaint, Boren said, “The defendant and his co-conspirators appear to hate Boren, at least in part, because of his success and his political and religious beliefs.” A spokesman for Boren's family previously said that Boren is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The complaint did not elaborate on how Boren's faith played a role.
The defendant denied Mr. Boren's allegations.
Among those Boren sued was Dick Fossbury, the county commissioner and celebrating the Olympic champion. The Olympic champion is known for inventing the former innovative high jump style, Fossbury Flop. Fossbury criticized Bollen for building the runway without permission, but died of cancer in March 2023.
Boise-based filmmaker John Conti was also sued. He briefly posted a YouTube video introducing wealthy businessmen who “illegally” built an airport on a ranch and explained in an exp. Conti refused to speak specifically about the incident, fearing retaliation from Boren. “The sawtooth is the last wild frontier and it's really untouched,” he said. “And I think most Idahoans want it to stay that way.”
A district judge of Idaho dismissed Bollen's honor and loss lawsuit in 2022, saying it “could have a major and scary effect on constitutional rights.” Boren filed a lawsuit with the Idaho Supreme Court, but in December the lower courts erred in dismissing it. The case is now back in district court.
Mr. Boren has other run-ins along with the Forest Service and his neighbors.
In 2022, the driver found a gate blocking access to the Forest Service roads about a mile passing through private property owned by West Pass Ranch, LLC. “A sign that denounced “many trespasses and infringement of private property rights” due to the closure. The Forest Service said at the time they would work with landowners to find a solution.
Last fall, the Forest Service sent a letter to the company pursuing a halt, and later registered with Mr. Boren of the Galena Mine. After discovering that the agency said it was an unauthorized cabin, it cleared up the land in the national forest system, close to private property held by the company.
Boren was removed from the Galena Mine registration on February 24th. There are no signs of mining plans. (The company is believed to have acquired the old mining claims to access the land.)
The Forest Service told Boren to restore the land by August, according to the letter. But now the agency believes that the Galena mine has built a waterway in the cabin against its demand, according to three people who know the alleged violation.
Mira Rojanasakul Reports of contributions.
