The story of how the federal government waived decades of environmental law to build roads and barriers through Big Bend National Park and adjacent lands | In the 1980s, a black bear swam across the Rio Grande and climbed into the Chisos Mountains, the first of her kind to return to Big Bend National Park after hunters and ranchers wiped out the population four decades earlier. For thousands of years, this remote corner of West Texas has been a crossroads where wildlife moves freely between the United States and Mexico. In 2026, the federal government set out to change that. Citing border security in a sector that accounts for just over 1 percent of apprehensions along the U.S.-Mexico border, the Department of Homeland Security waived dozens of laws, including the Endangered Species Act and the 1935 law that created the National Park itself. In August, bulldozers began clearing riparian habitat along the Rio Grande to make way for patrol roads and vehicle barriers. "Breaking Big Bend" traces six months of shifting plans and broken assurances, the bipartisan coalition of sheriffs, ranchers, conservationists, Texas Republicans that forced construction to stop, and what listeners can do before the pause runs out.
Recorded September 18, 2026. Some details may have changed since recording.
