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STATEMENT on Burgum/Musk firings across Interior department
DENVER—The Interior department announced this morning that it was firing 2,300 probationary employees across the department. The Center for Western Priorities released the following statement from Deputy Director Aaron Weiss:
“These terminations are foolish, heartless, and do nothing to make the government more efficient. They will, however, endanger parks, communities, water, and wildlife across the country. Firing the next generation of America’s park rangers, scientists, and land managers is a recipe for literal disaster. I don’t know whether we’ll see overflowing latrines, polluted streams, or deadly wildfires first, but Doug Burgum is already leaving a path of destruction across America’s parks and public lands.”
For more information, visit westernpriorities.org. To speak with an expert on public lands, contact Aaron Weiss at 720-279-0019 or aaron@westernpriorities.org. Sign up for Look West to get daily public lands and energy news sent to your inbox.
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Burgum could trash America’s public lands to settle petty political scores
Last week, in his first day on the job, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum issued six secretarial orders, the most detailed of which directs the Interior department to “review and, as appropriate, revise all withdrawn public lands,” a huge category that includes millions of acres of American lands protected by previous presidents as national monuments.
In a new blog post from the Center for Western Priorities, Policy Director Rachael Hamby explains that President Donald Trump remains fixated on undoing anything done by former President Biden, including national monument designations, even though erasing them won’t bring down Americans’ energy bills.
Some of the monuments on Trump’s political hit list include Bears Ears in Utah, Camp Hale–Continental Divide in Colorado, Avi Kwa Ame in Nevada, and the recently designated Chuckwalla and Sáttítla Highlands national monuments in California.
Hamby notes that if Trump or Burgum move to reduce or erase national monuments that don’t contain significant oil and gas or mineral resources, it will confirm that the goal of the administration’s monument review was never to bring down energy costs for Americans, but to score political points and prop up extractive industries at the expense of Western communities and the healthy landscapes, clean water, and clean air that we all depend on.
Oil and gas lobbyist nominated to lead Bureau of Land Management
President Donald Trump nominated Kathleen Sgamma, a professional oil and gas lobbyist, to run the Bureau of Land Management. Sgamma has worked for nearly 20 years on behalf of oil and gas companies to help them strip away protections for public lands in the West. She also wrote the oil and gas section of Project 2025.
“This appointment will hand the keys to our public lands over to oil and gas companies,” said Center for Western Priorities Policy Director Rachael Hamby. “Sgamma will seek to lease every inch of our lands for drilling, no matter their recreational, scenic, ecological, or cultural value. Her appointment is a direct threat to Western communities and wildlife that depend on healthy landscapes, clean air, and clean water.”
Quick hits Trump picks oil and gas lobbyist to lead Bureau of Land ManagementNew York Times | Associated Press | Washington Post | Axios | E&E News | CPR News | Utah News Dispatch | Inside Climate News | WyoFile | Denver Gazette | Denver Post | Colorado Sun
Trump is freezing money for clean energy. Red states have the most to lose Congress agrees on one thing: Expanding access to the outdoors ‘Do less with less’: Utah Reps. Maloy, Kennedy hope to see new public land management under Trump Opinion: Congress should oppose anti-science, anti-public lands bill Record-breaking growth in renewable energy in U.S. threatened by Trump Column: You already know Elon Musk. You need to know Harold Hamm Joy rider who damaged rare plants in Death Valley dunes remains at large Quote of the dayWe’re talking about the ecosystem as a whole, our public lands being public, the water staying clean, and our kids being able to ride the same bike trail that I rode. Someone that doesn’t agree with that is, like, really far out there. I haven’t met them.”
—Jessica Turner, president of the Outdoor Recreation Roundtable, Grist
Picture This @usinteriorHarriet Tubman was born near the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge in Maryland. The refuge’s landscape formed the life and experience of the American hero, who risked her life to help many enslaved people escape to freedom through the Underground Railroad.
Photo by Ernesto Freire
(Featured image: Bears Ears National Monument. Bob Wick, Bureau of Land Management)
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Trump’s Interior secretary is laying the groundwork to settle petty political scores - by trashing America’s public lands
The Trump administration is once again conducting a “review” of national monuments designated by past presidents. Last week, in his first day on the job, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum issued six secretarial orders in service of President Trump’s national energy “emergency”, all with the ostensible goal of bringing down Americans’ energy bills and other costs of living. The most detailed of these orders directs the Interior department to undertake a number of reviews and other activities to advance Trump’s “energy dominance” agenda. Included in the list is a directive to “review and, as appropriate, revise all withdrawn public lands,” a huge category that includes millions of acres of American lands protected by previous presidents as national monuments. The order also targets millions more acres that have been withdrawn from mining or oil and gas drilling — areas like New Mexico’s Chaco Canyon and Minnesota’s Boundary Waters — a long-standing dream of drilling and mining companies.
The monument review is not a surprise. During the first Trump administration, the Interior department under then-Secretary Ryan Zinke conducted a similar review of national monuments. A public comment period held as part of that review revealed that the public adamantly opposed the elimination or shrinking of national monuments. More recently, Project 2025, the extreme policy plan produced by the Heritage Foundation to guide a second Trump administration, suggested conducting another monument review.
Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Bureau of Land Management
A recent analysis conducted by the National Parks Conservation Association and based on data from the Department of Energy identified 13 monuments at particular risk of being targeted by the monuments review because of their mineral resource potential. These include pet political footballs from the past several years, such as Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments in Utah, as well as Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni–Ancenstral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument, designated by President Joe Biden in 2023.
Here are some of the monuments most likely to appear on Trump’s hit listOn top of identifying monuments that could be erased to make way for drilling and mining, the national monument review will likely also serve political purposes. Project 2025 specifically calls for shrinking Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument in Maine and Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument in Oregon, and recommends that a future presidential administration conduct a review of monuments, including those designated by President Biden. It calls on a future administration to make “downward adjustments” to the size of monuments and to seek the repeal of the Antiquities Act of 1906, which presidents have used to protect some of America’s most iconic landscapes, from the Grand Canyon to Acadia.
Grand Canyon National Park, which was first protected as a national monument, National Park Service
Since Burgum’s order is worded broadly and includes all monuments designated under the Antiquities Act going back to Teddy Roosevelt in 1906, it lays the groundwork for the administration to get rid of protections for public lands even if the monuments do not contain significant fossil fuel or other mineral resources. Burgum’s order provides an excuse, however flimsy and illegal, for Trump to settle political scores by removing protections from monuments designated by political opponents he remains fixated on, in particular former Presidents Biden and Barack Obama. This petty and backwards-looking approach will have real and lasting impacts into the future — and will still be illegal and unpopular no matter what the Interior department’s review says.
Below are some of the national monuments that don’t contain significant oil and gas or mineral resources, but may nevertheless be in the crosshairs as Trump looks to score petty political points.
Camp Hale—Continental Divide. National Monument, EcoFlight
President Trump remains fixated on undoing anything done by former President Biden, and this is likely to include national monument designations. Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni–Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument in Arizona is likely to be targeted due to it containing uranium and other mineral reserves. But other monuments are at risk too, even though erasing them won’t bring down Americans’ energy bills. These include:
- Camp Hale–Continental Divide National Monument in Colorado, which celebrates the contributions of the Tenth Mountain Division to American history and protects spectacular high-elevation landscapes in Colorado’s central mountains;
- Avi Kwa Ame National Monument in Nevada, which protects a unique desert landscape that is sacred to many Indigenous Tribes and communities in the area;
- Chuckwalla and Sáttítla Highlands national monuments in California, which recognize the importance of these landscapes to Indigenous Tribes and communities while at the same time protecting important wildlife habitat, plant communities, and geologic features from the impacts of development.
Chuckwalla National Monument, Bureau of Land Management
Similarly, any national monument designated by President Obama could be in the crosshairs of the Interior department’s review. Perennial target Bears Ears National Monument in Utah is almost certain to be prioritized for another illegal attempted reduction, as Trump previously tried during his first term, due to its mineral resources, including uranium and coal. But other monuments designated by Obama will also be at risk even though their reduction or erasure will do nothing to advance “energy dominance” or lower energy bills. These include:- Gold Butte and Basin and Range national monuments in Nevada, which protect unique desert landscapes and geology in the eastern part of the state, have been the target of complaints by personalities such as Cliven Bundy, a Nevada cattle rancher whose refusal to pay required fees to graze his cattle on public lands led to an armed standoff between his supporters and the Bureau of Land Management. After languishing in obscurity and irrelevance for the past four years, Bundy and his adult sons may be returning to the national stage, literally: Cliven Bundy and his son Ryan Bundy appeared on stage behind Trump at a rally in Nevada in January 2025.
Gold Butte National Monument, Bureau of Land Management
Looking backwards even further, the Interior department review is likely to target national monuments that anti-public lands politicians have been fighting ever since former President Bill Clinton designated them in the 1990s. Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in Utah has long been targeted for attempted reductions due to its size, which is designed to protect and highlight the unique and large-scale geological formations of the Colorado plateau. Other Clinton-era monuments include:
- Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument in Oregon, which was designated by Clinton and later expanded by Obama, and has also been challenged in court by opponents; these challenges failed, and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to take up the case. Opposition to this monument has been led not by energy interests but by the logging industry, and the monument was specifically targeted in Project 2025. Unless burning wood is about to be a featured element of Trump’s “energy dominance” agenda, an attempt to remove protections for this monument would simply be a politically-motivated giveaway to commercial timber companies.
Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument, Bureau of Land Management
If Trump and Burgum move to reduce or erase protections for these monuments it will confirm that the goal of this review was never to bring down energy costs for American families, but to get rid of protections for public lands to score political points and clear the path for privatizing these lands to benefit extractive industries at the expense of Western communities, wildlife, and the healthy landscapes, clean water, and clean air that we all depend on.
In conclusion, here’s what might be on Trump’s national monument political hit list:
- Bears Ears, Utah
- Grand Staircase-Escalante, Utah
- Katahdin Woods and Waters, Maine
- Cascade-Siskiyou, Oregon
- Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni–Ancenstral Footprints of the Grand Canyon, Arizona
- Camp Hale–Continental Divide, Colorado
- Avi Kwa Ame, Nevada
- Chuckwalla, California
- Sáttítla Highlands, California
- Gold Butte, Nevada
- Basin and Range, Nevada
Featured image: Bears Ears National Monument, Bob Wick/Bureau of Land Management
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New report shows importance of saying ‘no’ to oil and gas companies
In a new interactive report, the Center for Western Priorities highlights special landscapes with high recreational, ecological, and cultural value that were wrongfully nominated for leasing by oil and gas companies, but rightfully deferred—or removed—from lease sales by the Bureau of Land Management.
The report, titled Don’t Drill Here, showcases examples in which companies sought to drill on the doorsteps of prized landscapes, like Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota and Chaco Canyon in New Mexico. The report demonstrates that when oil and gas companies nominate lands for leasing that are inappropriate for drilling, the Bureau of Land Management’s ability to remove those lands from leasing in response to bipartisan public protest is critical.
These types of conflicts are likely to reemerge as President Donald Trump and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum attempt to remove “burdens” on oil and gas development on public lands, handing the keys to the leasing process over to the oil and gas industry.
“Reducing conflicts while still allowing oil and gas companies the opportunity to drill in appropriate areas should be the goal of the Bureau of Land Management,” said Communications Manager Kate Groetzinger in a statement. “Not enriching oil and gas CEOs at the expense of rural communities and national parks.”
Trump names Kathleen Sgamma as next BLM director
President Donald Trump picked Kathleen Sgamma, a staunch oil and gas industry advocate, as the next director of the Bureau of Land Management. Sgamma is the president of Western Energy Alliance, an oil and gas trade group that has long advocated for greater industry access to public lands and less regulation of oil and gas mining interests.
Quick hits Lawmakers move to dismantle Biden public lands ruleSalt Lake Tribune | Utah News Dispatch | E&E News
Former head of Fish and Wildlife Service goes to bat for Okefenokee Bill to strip Wyoming landowners’ right to sell property to the federal government dies Feds ask Colorado River official to resign, leaving another leadership gap during “existential time” for the river Days before Trump took office, Interior approved oil and gas leases for land bought during 2019 public auction BLM announces free program to help recreationists navigate public lands Opinion: Beware the Trojan horse targeting public lands Colorado biologists caught 3 rare Colorado pikeminnows. What does that mean for the future of this critically endangered fish? Quote of the dayPublic lands are supposed to benefit all Americans. The Trump administration will be met with swift condemnation if it forgets that.”
—Kate Groetzinger, communications director, Center for Western Priorities
Picture This @mountrainiernpsKeep your children from chillin’ and spillin’ while visiting snowy Mount Rainier! Prepare for your visit in advance to ensure they stay warm, dry, and safe while exploring nature’s wintry snow globe.
(Featured image: White Rim Trail in Moab, Utah. Photo by Zach Dischner, Flickr)
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STATEMENT on nomination of Kathleen Sgamma as BLM director
DENVER—President Donald Trump has picked an oil and gas industry advocate to head the Bureau of Land Management. Kathleen Sgamma is the president of the Denver-based Western Energy Alliance, an oil and gas trade group.
Sgamma helped author the oil and gas section of Project 2025, a conservative policy plan that is opposed by the majority of U.S. voters.
The Center for Western Priorities released the following statement from Policy Director Rachael Hamby:
“Kathleen Sgamma is an inappropriate choice to run the Bureau of Land Management. She has consistently misrepresented the industry’s impact on public lands, always putting oil and gas companies’ interests above those of all Americans.
“This appointment will hand the keys to our public lands over to oil and gas companies. Sgamma will seek to lease every inch of our lands for drilling, no matter their recreational, scenic, ecological, or cultural value. Her appointment is a direct threat to Western communities and wildlife that depend on healthy landscapes, clean air, and clean water.”
Learn More- Trump names oil and gas advocate as next BLM director – E&E News
- Five Reasons Why the Oil Industry’s Opposition to a Fair Share on Public Lands is Wrong – Center for Western Priorities
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Rhetoric v. Reality: Big Oil Changes Tune on Addressing Climate Change While Lobby Associations’ Continue to Misinform – Accountable.US
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Project 2025 Energy Plan Authored by Big Oil – Accountable.US
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Gas industry’s war on the public – The Hill
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Twitter fact check 11/14/24 – Center for Western Priorities
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Don’t Buy The Fossil Fuel Industry’s Exaggerated Doom-and-Gloom Claims About Biden’s Energy Plans – Inside Sources
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‘You’re a Dirty Fracking Liar!’ CO Enviro Protesters Crash Oil and Gas Gala – Colorado Times Recorder
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Rhetoric vs. Reality: House hearing on the Bureau of Land Management’s proposed Public Lands Rule – Center for Western Priorities
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Rhetoric vs. Reality: “We [the oil and gas lobby] are so outclassed by the green lobby. They’ve got a lot more money and a lot more horsepower.” – Center for Western Priorities
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Rhetoric vs. Reality: The oil and gas industry has increased production “in spite of the federal government.” – Center for Western Priorities
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Wyoming fails to seize control of national public land, again
In a 15-15 vote on Monday, the Wyoming senate defeated a proposed resolution demanding Congress transfer ownership of all federal public land excluding Yellowstone National Park to the state.
The resolution was introduced late last month by Senator Bob Ide, a commercial real estate developer, who argued that the measure was necessary to counteract federal overreach and theorized that the U.S. Constitution requires the federal government to turn over the public land. The resolution failed despite two amendments to dilute the original proposal—the first excluded Grand Teton National Park from the demand, and the second excluded national forests, monuments, and historic sites.
The vote comes just weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear Utah’s latest land grab lawsuit, which demanded control of over 18 million acres of national public land. These efforts add to the long list of states’ failed attempts to take over national public lands—efforts that remain deeply unpopular with the public.
Bill would move BLM HQ back to Colorado
U.S. Representative Jeff Hurd introduced a bill that would relocate the Bureau of Land Management headquarters back to Grand Junction, Colorado, following the blueprint of Project 2025 and President Donald Trump’s first term. The relocation of the BLM headquarters during Trump’s first term included moving hundreds of Washington-based positions to state offices across the West, but resulted in dozens of senior-level staffers leaving the bureau.
Quick hits Opening more lands and waters for oil drilling won’t lower energy prices Alaska Legislature formally opposes Trump’s renaming of Denali as Mount McKinleyAlaska Public Media | Associated Press | Alaska Beacon | E&E News
Wyoming’s resolution transferring federal lands to the state has failed — againWyoming Public Media | WyoFile | Jackson Hole News & Guide
Colorado National Monument could be reviewed, per Interior Secretary’s orders These 13 national monuments may be ‘at risk’ of losing federal protections, advocates warn Column: The Fix Our Forests Act is not what it claims to be Trump freeze puts wildfire hiring in limbo An Idaho rancher lost zero cattle to wolves in a decade. Can he help Colorado ranchers do the same? Quote of the dayWe hold these lands dear. We hold these lands sacred.”
—Wyoming State Senator Mike Gierau, WyoFile
Picture This <@grandcanyonnpsHappy Valentine’s week! What’s something that makes Grand Canyon butte-iful? Its cool geology and rock formations, for one! Grand Canyon is more than just a canyon—it is made up of cliffs, slopes, spires, and buttes. It rocks!
A butte is a landform with steep sides and a flat top, but is smaller than similar formations like mesas and plateaus. Buttes have a harder layer of rock as a cap, with softer layers of rock underneath. Differences in hard and soft rock layers also give Grand Canyon’s walls their memorable stair-step shape.
Look for more things to love about Grand Canyon throughout the week!
NPS Graphic/C. Kraus
(Featured image: Grand Teton National Park. Photo by chascar, Flickr)
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Senators to Burgum: Hiring freeze will cause ‘chaos’ at national parks
On Friday, 22 U.S. senators wrote a letter to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum warning him that the Trump administration’s effort to shrink the federal workforce could cripple the National Park Service (NPS) ahead of the busy summer season.
President Donald Trump’s hiring freeze rescinded over 2,000 seasonal and permanent job offers from NPS, dealing a major blow to the service’s ability to meet the needs of national parks. As described in the letter, without seasonal staff during peak season, visitor centers may close, bathrooms will be filthy, campgrounds may close, guided tours will be cut back or altogether cancelled, and emergency response times will drop.
“Americans showing up to national parks this summer and for years to come don’t deserve to have their vacations ruined by a completely preventable — and completely irresponsible — staffing shortage,” the senators said.
They also warned Secretary Burgum that some parks could close, which would severely hamstring gateway communities that rely on visitation to sustain local economies. According to the National Park Service, visitors spend about $26.4 billion annually in communities near parks.
Quick hits Senators urge Burgum to halt impending ‘chaos’ at national parks Mysterious land purchases within Joshua Tree National Park worry locals, environmentalists Despite Trump’s anti-public lands stance, Colorado advocates still hope to protect Dolores River canyonlands Trump’s ‘Unleashing American Energy’ could undo BLM’s Rock Springs plan, but not before litigation Carbon capture efforts face less support in Trump’s second term Struck down, again: Lawmakers reject ban on Wyoming’s tradition of killing wildlife with snowmobiles Federal judge rules in favor of couple who built a home in Glacier National Park What will Trump’s ‘Unleashing American Energy’ mean for Colorado, nation? Quote of the dayFederal public lands strike at the very core of what it means to be a westerner, so people from all political viewpoints and backgrounds have very strong beliefs about what it means to live here in the West and the impact public lands have on their lives.”
—Chris Winter, executive director of the University of Colorado Boulder’s Getches-Wilkinson Center for Natural Resources, Energy, and the Environment, Denver Post
Picture This @usinteriorBehold, National Park LIX
Far from the busy streets of California’s cities, @pinnaclesnps — designated the 59th national park in 2013 — offers a haven of towering rock spires, hidden caves and peaceful solitude.
Pinnacles is a place for rejuvenation. Visitors appreciate the unspoiled wilderness, hike the trails, climb rock walls, explore quiet caves, stargaze in clear night skies and camp in the shade of ancient oaks.
Photo by NPS
(Featured image: Sign for Glacier National Park at the east entrance near St. Mary, Montana. Tony Webster, Wikimedia Commons)
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Trump chaos targets park service, environmental offices
Many federal government agencies and programs have been the victims of drastic cuts and attempted layoffs since President Donald Trump took office a few weeks ago. This week, Trump administration officials announced plans to close the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights, and to downsize the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division. And a broad freeze on federal spending has impacted offices across government, including at the EPA and at offices that oversee funding for clean energy projects.
The Trump administration also announced a hiring freeze on seasonal positions at the National Park Service, just when the agency should be lining up extra workers for the upcoming summer tourist season. “It will be chaos. There will be a lot of dirty toilets and a lot of visitors unsatisfied with their experience,” said former National Park Service Director Jonathan Jarvis. “At some point the public has to say this is unacceptable, because Congress is incapable of doing that at the moment.”
Voters reward incumbents’ support for conservationThe Center for Western Priorities Winning the West report, released earlier this week, analyzed several key U.S. senate and congressional races in Western states and found that support for conservation gave candidates an edge in 2024. In Nevada’s U.S. Senate race, Jacky Rosen emphasized her record of support for public land protections, and successfully linked conservation to economic growth. For more analysis of this and other races, visit the Winning the West website to see polling results and read the report.
Quick hits How Trump funding chaos is impacting offices across governmentWashington Post | High Country News | National Parks Traveler | Politico | E&E News
Indigenous communities push back on bill to strip presidents of power to designate national monuments WY state senate kills, then resurrects, resolution calling on Congress to give Wyoming all public lands except YellowstoneWyoFile | Cowboy State Daily | Wyoming Public Radio
Thompson Divide, CO mineral withdrawal among federal actions up for review The latest plot to privatize public lands 23,000 gallons of gasoline spilled into their yard; now, this Durango couple can’t go home Trump’s quest for ‘energy dominance’ is all about the vibes Column: Forget Trump’s wrecking ball. Here’s how to treat America’s public lands Quote of the day[Grand Teton National Park] is the bedrock economic driver for this entire state.”
—Wyoming state senator Mike Gierau, Cowboy State Daily
Picture This @deathvalleynpsWatch where you step! Cryptobiotic soil, also known as desert glue, is a community of organisms that can include cyanobacteria, mosses, green algae, fungi, and lichen. These communities provide structure to the soil, preventing erosion and improving the soil’s ability to absorb and retain water. Cryptobiotic soil is fragile, slow growing and takes many years to form. In Death Valley, you can help protect it by being mindful of where you step while hiking off trail!
Featured image: Grand Teton National Park
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The insidious ways Burgum’s day one orders target public lands
On his first day as Secretary of the Interior, Doug Burgum issued six secretarial orders (SOs) focused on implementing President Donald Trump’s “energy dominance” agenda. While several of the orders are copies of President Trump’s day one executive orders, SO 3418 – Unleashing American Energy takes new aim at Western public lands, going even further than the Trump EOs.
In a new Westwise blog post, Center for Western Priorities Policy Director Rachael Hamby highlights a few of the less-obvious ways Burgum’s SO puts drilling and mining above all else, including:
- Setting the stage for Trump to attempt to shrink or erase national monuments;
- Tossing out resource management plans, including pet targets such as the Rock Springs RMP in Wyoming;
- Erasing habitat protections to make room for mining in the name of national security;
- Clearing the way for mining companies to dump mining waste on public lands.
If brought to fruition, Burgum’s orders could completely upend public land management and cause irreparable harm to the West’s landscapes, wildlife habitats, climate, and communities. As overwhelming majorities of Westerners have known all along, what the Trump administration is proposing is a recipe for squandering America’s most precious asset: our iconic and priceless public lands protected for future generations. Learn more about the orders on CWP’s Westwise blog.
In an energy-producing district, conservation is a winning issueThe Center for Western Priorities Winning the West report, released earlier this week, analyzed several key U.S. senate and congressional races in Western states and found that support for conservation gave candidates an edge in 2024. In New Mexico’s 2nd Congressional District, Gabe Vasquez emphasized his track record on conservation, demonstrating that public lands advocacy can build a base of support across party lines. For more analysis of this and other races, visit the Winning the West website to see polling results and read the report.
Quick hits Arizona legislators lose bid to block Grand Canyon monument protections What the future of energy and public lands could look like under the Trump administration Trump vows to cut oil and gas rules as New Mexico looks to fight back $13 billion in Idaho gold. A mineral critical to U.S. defense. And fresh fears for salmon Texas regulators grapple with a growing problem: Old oil wells leaking polluted water How renewable energy companies are tailoring their pitches for the Trump era Water scarcity could hamper Trump’s push for data centers Cultural fire is the Washoe Tribe’s answer to beat back climate-fueled wildfires Quote of the dayI hope that folks who oppose the monument will come to understand how broad the support is for national monuments like Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni and that we can move on to planning the monument management in a productive, meaningful way.”
—Aaron Paul, Grand Canyon Trust, Arizona Mirror
Picture This @greatsanddunesnpsSnowfall doesn’t just cover the dunes – it transforms them into an ethereal world of light and color. In winter, the park is quieter and the pace is slower, allowing more space for wonder.
Photo: NPS/Patrick Myers 2025
Featured image: Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni – Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument, U.S. Department of the Interior
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The most insidious items in Doug Burgum’s day one secretarial orders
On his first day as Secretary of the Interior, Doug Burgum issued six secretarial orders (SOs) focused on implementing President Donald Trump’s “energy dominance” agenda. If brought to fruition, Burgum’s orders could completely upend public land management and cause irreparable harm to the West’s landscapes, wildlife habitats, climate, and communities.
While several of the orders are copies of President Trump’s day one executive orders declaring a national energy “emergency,” one of Burgum’s orders takes new aim at Western public lands, going even further than the Trump EOs. Here are some of the most insidious items included in SO 3418 — Unleashing American Energy:
Putting every national monument in the crosshairsThe order includes a directive that the Interior department “review and, as appropriate, revise all withdrawn public lands,” including those withdrawn as national monuments under the Antiquities Act, or any withdrawals of public lands from mining or oil and gas drilling. The SO does not mention national monuments by name, but rather refers to the section of the United States Code that contains the Antiquities Act. The care Burgum took to avoid mentioning national monuments by name indicates that Trump and Burgum know how unpopular this attack on national monument protections will be, given that 85 percent of Western voters support the protection of public lands. This fooled exactly no one; a flood of media coverage highlighted this directive as one of the most significant attempts to erase public land protections in favor of drilling and mining. The review sets the stage for another illegal attempt by President Trump to reduce the size of national monuments, as he made in 2017 with Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments.
Adobe Town Wilderness Study Area, BLM Wyoming
Tossing out resource management plansThe order also directs the department to “review and, as appropriate, revise all relevant draft and all finalized resource management plans,” including but not limited to pet targets like the Rock Springs RMP in Wyoming. While an attempt to undo the Rock Springs RMP is no surprise, extending this review to every single draft and final RMP under the Interior department’s authority would send public land management into chaos. RMPs typically take years to develop, involve extensive stakeholder input, and are intended to guide management for many years. Reviewing and revising all of them at once would be a tremendously time- and resource-intensive undertaking. Furthermore, this approach would disregard and undermine the input of local land managers who are most familiar with the concerns of their communities and closest to the on-the-ground reality of developing and implementing RMPs.
Erasing habitat protectionsThe order also directs the department to “review and, as appropriate, revise all relevant critical habitat designations” made by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for the protection of threatened and endangered species, to make sure that habitat designations “take into consideration the economic impact and impact on national security” and the Interior secretary’s authority to exclude areas. The mention of national security in an order that otherwise focuses on “energy dominance” is notable and may be intended to pave the way for the removal of habitat protections in order to expedite mining for critical minerals or other materials deemed to be of national security interest. This is especially concerning if Trump follows through with his proposal to create a “National Energy Dominance Council,” name Burgum as the chair, and give Burgum a seat on the National Security Council. If he takes these dual roles, Burgum would be in a position to prioritize destructive mining on public lands over all other uses, even if it leads to the extinction of endangered species, with economic and national security as the pretext.
Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service
Kneecapping renewable energyThe order also contains a directive that the department take steps to ensure that no department rules or policies would “bias government or private-sector decision making in favor of renewable energy projects” over oil, gas, or other mineral projects. The specific mention of “private-sector decision making” seems intended to pave the way for the removal of any incentives for or encouragement of renewable energy development; meanwhile, there is no mention of a corresponding removal of incentives or encouragement of oil and gas development. This section underscores that “energy dominance” is limited to fossil fuels and does not include renewable energy, even if renewable energy sources are the cheapest option available.
Dumping mining waste on public landsAlso hidden in the order is a directive to revoke Solicitor’s Opinion M-37077 Use of Mining Claims for Mine Waste Deposition, and Rescission of M-37012 and M-37057, which helped ensure that mining companies had located valuable minerals before they could dump mine waste or engage in other mining-related activities on public lands. For many years, companies have been accustomed to staking claims on public lands for hardrock mines and building power lines, pipelines, roads, and mine waste dumps. However, recent court decisions including the ‘Rosemont decision’ found that these practices violated the language of the General Mining Law of 1872, which requires a mining company to show evidence that valuable minerals exist on their claims before they get to use public lands for purposes like dumping waste. These decisions also held that public land management agencies must verify the existence of valuable minerals rather than taking the company’s word for it. The Solicitor’s Opinion revoked by Burgum helped ensure that the finding in the Rosemont decision — that mining companies must locate valuable minerals before they can dump mine waste on public lands — would apply across BLM lands. Just as he did with the national monuments review, Burgum tried to conceal this action by referring to the Solicitor’s Opinion number rather than describing the policy, but it’s clear that the intent is to open up public lands for mining companies to use however they see fit, including as dumps for mine waste.
The Barrick goldstrike mine in Nevada, EcoFlight
Launching an effort to revoke BLM rulesThe order also takes aim at a number of rules and regulations put in place by the Bureau of Land Management under the Biden administration that brought long-overdue balance to public land management. These include the Public Lands Rule, which put restoration and conservation on equal footing with drilling and mining; the Onshore Oil and Gas Leasing Rule, which reformed the federal leasing program to reduce wasteful and inefficient leasing practices, as well as force oil and gas companies to clean up after themselves; the Renewable Energy Rule, which helped streamline the process for developing solar and wind on public land; and the NPR-A Rule, which established important safeguards for more than 13 million acres of Alaska’s Western Arctic. The order directs Interior department officials to review and lay out a path to suspend, revise, or rescind these rules. The only way to legally undo these rules administratively is to go through the same lengthy rulemaking process the BLM used to create these regulations.
Can they get this done?Burgum gives agency staff just 15 days to come up with “action plans” to conduct these reviews and launch revision processes. Given that Burgum himself was just confirmed last week and many top positions within the Interior department, including the director of the BLM, have yet to be filled, it’s unlikely that existing agency staff are crafting well-thought-out action plans. More likely, they’ll turn to Project 2025, the extensive playbook written by the Heritage Foundation that spells out exactly how to turn the oil and gas and mining industries’ wildest dreams into reality. Fortunately, between Project 2025 and Burgum’s SOs, conservation advocates already know exactly what’s in the Trump administration’s playbook and are equipped to respond. As overwhelming majorities of Westerners have known all along, what the Trump administration is proposing is a recipe for squandering America’s most precious asset: our iconic and priceless public lands protected for future generations.
Featured image: Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni — Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument, U.S. Department of the Interior
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Statement on Burgum secretarial order calling for review of national monuments
Denver—On Monday, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum issued a secretarial order calling for the review and possible revision of all national monuments and mineral withdrawals established by past U.S. presidents. The order has a 15 day deadline.
Secretarial Order No. 3418 implements President Donald Trump’s Executive Order 14154, titled “Unleashing American Energy.” Among many other things, it directs Interior department staff “to review and, as appropriate, revise all withdrawn public lands, consistent with existing law, including 54 U.S.C. 320301 and 43 U.S.C. 1714.”
54 U.S.C. 320301 is the section of federal law that gives sitting U.S. presidents the power to designate federal lands as national monuments, thereby withdrawing them from future oil and gas leasing and mining claims. This law was established by the Antiquities Act of 1906. President Biden used the Antiquities Act to establish nine new national monuments.
43 U.S.C. 1714 is the section of federal law that gives sitting U.S. presidents the power to order mineral withdrawals that ban new mining and drilling, like those ordered by President Joe Biden for the Thompson Divide and Chaco Canyon regions.
The Center for Western Priorities issued the following statement from Executive Director Jennifer Rokala:
“President Trump and Secretary Burgum are headed down the wrong path with this monument review. The last time Trump attempted to shrink national monuments, his efforts were met with near-universal condemnation. They should stop now, before they upset millions of Westerners by illegally reducing or eliminating national monuments. Voters want national monuments protected in perpetuity, not opened for drilling and mining. Coming on the heels of the National Park Service hiring freeze, this move shows blatant disregard for Westerners and America’s public lands.”
In his first term, Trump attempted to illegally reduce the sizes of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments. This move was wildly unpopular at the time. In 2017, the Center for Western Priorities conducted two analyses that found a near-unanimous majority of Americans supported national monuments and disagreed with Trump’s move to shrink them.
Recent polling shows national monuments are widely supported by Western voters across the political spectrum. Colorado College’s 2024 State of the Rockies Conservation in the West poll found that 85 percent of Western voters support creating new national parks, national monuments, and national wildlife refuges and Tribal protected areas to protect historic sites or areas of outdoor recreation, and that 71 percent of Republican voters in the West are more likely to support a leader who “designated new national parks and national monuments.”
Polling released by the Grand Canyon Trust in January found that 65 percent of Utah voters support keeping the number and current size of existing national monuments, including 98 percent of Democrats, 82 percent of Independents, and 65 percent of Republicans. And 80 percent of Arizona voters support keeping protections in place for Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni—Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument, including 68 percent of Republicans, 81 percent of Independents, and 91 percent of Democrats.
Learn more:- America to Trump: Hands off our national monuments – Center for Western Priorities
- 2024 State of the Rockies Project Conservation in the West poll – Colorado College
- New Poll: Voter Support for New Grand Canyon Monument Grows – Grand Canyon Trust
- New Poll Shows Utah Voters Strongly Support National Monuments – Grand Canyon Trust
- The Antiquities Act and America’s national monuments: Frequently Asked Questions – Center for Western Priorities
- Monuments Protected Under the Antiquities Act – National Parks Conservation Association
- NPS reels from hiring freeze – E&E News
Feature image: Valley of the Gods, which was illegally removed from Bears Ears National Monument by President Trump; Wikimedia Commons
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Burgum signs first secretarial orders to implement ‘energy dominance’ agenda
In his first day on the job, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum signed six secretarial orders intended to further President Trump’s “energy dominance” agenda. The orders mirror Trump’s executive orders on energy, including his declaration of a “national energy emergency” and his directives to “unleash” American energy.
Secretary’s Order 3417 – Addressing the National Energy Emergency directs all bureaus and offices within the department to identify all available authorities to facilitate domestic energy and critical minerals production—including, but not limited to, on federal public lands—and to identify authorities to expedite energy and natural resources projects. These directives come at a time when U.S. oil and gas production is at an all-time high, and when industry has shown little interest in increasing production even further. “Claiming there’s an energy ‘emergency’ when America’s oil and gas production is at an all-time high is laughable,” Center for Western Priorities Policy Director Rachael Hamby said in a statement in response to Trump’s declaration of a national energy “emergency.”
Secretary’s Order 3418 – Unleashing American Energy directs the agency to review “burdensome” energy development policies and to conduct a review of domestic mining and minerals processing. SO 3418 also includes directives to review a number of policies including the Bureau of Land Management’s Oil and Gas Rule and the BLM’s Public Lands Rule; to review all public land withdrawals; and to review specific BLM resource management plans including the Rock Springs RMP in Wyoming. Department staff have 15 days to submit action plans for bringing these and other policies into compliance with Trump’s executive orders.
Quick hits Interior department takes first steps to carry out Trump energy agenda Senate confirms fossil fuel CEO, climate skeptic Chris Wright as Energy SecretaryAssociated Press | New York Times
How Trump is targeting wind and solar energy – and delighting big oil President Trump wants to scale back clean energy projects. That could impact the Mountain West Replacing mining with nuclear waste? Northwestern Colorado has mixed feelings Change is coming for Montana’s Environmental Policy Act Giving a dam: Wyoming Tribes push to control reservation water as the state proposes sending it to outside irrigators Opinion: Protecting the Amargosa Valley’s lifeline Quote of the dayI mean, we see what can happen with a crude oil train. My God, what are we going to do with a nuclear waste accident?”
—Tim Redmond, Routt County (CO) Commissioner, Colorado Sun
Picture This @alaskanpsAdvancing racial equality can feel like scaling a mountain: in the thick of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, one man managed to do both.
Charles Crenchaw, an experienced mountaineer, joined a team of 15 climbers with the goal of summiting Denali. The journey was fraught with the typical challenges of high-altitude climbing, including fierce weather and the complexities of feeding a sizable crew. Perseverance prevailed, and on June 9, 1964, the majority of the climbers reached the summit. Along with their success in summiting came a notable accomplishment: Crenchaw had become the first Black person to summit Denali, North America’s highest peak.
Despite his accomplishments within the Civil Rights era of the 1960s, Crenchaw did not fit the mold of an activist; instead, he navigated a complex web of societal dynamics, often enjoying privileges that many of his African American contemporaries did not. Although questions linger about his motivations, his navigation of systemic racism, and how he was perceived within the broader African American community, his story of summiting Denali will never be forgotten.
Celebrate Black History Month with us by learning more about Crenchaw’s story: https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/charlescrenchaw.htm
NPS Photo / Ken Conger
Featured image: Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, U.S. Department of the Interior
The post Burgum signs first secretarial orders to implement ‘energy dominance’ agenda appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.
Utah, Wyoming try other land grab strategies after lawsuit failure
After the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear Utah’s long-shot lawsuit challenging the legality of federal ownership of national public lands, Utah and Wyoming are resorting to Plan B—legislative resolutions demanding power over public lands within their borders. In Wyoming, a resolution demanding that Congress transfer ownership of all federal lands and mineral rights to the state, with the exception of Yellowstone National Park, easily passed out of committee. And in Utah, a state legislator has announced plans to introduce a resolution that would call on Congress to enter into a co-management agreement with the federal government for the “Mighty Five” national parks within Utah’s borders.
Even if these resolutions pass, they won’t have any immediate effect since state legislatures can’t make Congress do anything, making this strategy an even longer shot than Utah’s lawsuit. Rather, messaging resolutions like these are intended to communicate to Congress the legislature’s support for this fringe idea, in hopes that members of Congress will feel emboldened to support it. However, transferring national public lands to states is an idea that has been tried unsuccessfully several times since the 1980s and remains deeply unpopular with the public, including in Utah and Wyoming.
Can President Trump even do that? Public lands editionIn the latest episode of the Center for Western Priorities podcast, The Landscape, Aaron and Kate are joined by Mark Squillace, natural resources law professor at the University of Colorado Law School. Professor Squillace provided legal counsel to the Interior Department under President Bill Clinton and Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, and he’s a two-time veteran of this podcast. He discusses the legality of President Trump’s executive orders on public lands, including which are likely to end up in court and whether the Trump administration will have the personnel to implement these orders, after making sweeping layoffs.
Quick hits Utah, Wyoming continue to pursue federal land grabKSL.com | KSTU | WyoFile | National Parks Traveler
Trump wants more drilling, but the oil market is already saturated No uranium-specific emergency plan exists for Navajo Nation as shipments loom; Ute Mountain Ute reps dismayed by accord Trump ‘opened the valve’ on California’s water. Local officials say unhelpful and wasteful action nearly flooded themPolitico | Washington Post | E&E News
Groundwater-for-development debate resurfaces in Montana; Arizona considers giving rural communties a sayMontana Free Press | Arizona Mirror
The power of prescribed fire A dozen Colorado state parks are pursuing international dark-sky designations Editorial: Keep public lands in public hands, a refrain Quote of the dayThe state can help the national parks by calling on the Congressional delegation to ensure parks are managed to their gold standard, as visitors expect. A short-term patchwork management scheme that would siphon money away from the national parks doesn’t help the parks, the visitors, or Utah.”
—Cory McNulty, National Parks Conservation Association, National Parks Traveler
Picture This @elmalpaisnpsWhen you’re driving near Grants, New Mexico on Interstate 40 and the landscapes are speeding by, what do you notice? Do you notice the black rock? Do you notice the mesas in the distance? Do you notice cone shaped hills or large mountains?
Our annual Volcano Week celebration kicks off today, and we’ll be focusing on the diverse natural and cultural landscapes found at El Malpais. This week on your adventure, you will learn about volcanoes and how they shaped the landscape around them. You will learn about how people here have lived and interacted with their landscapes and environment. You will discover more about how environments have changed, or not changed, with time. There is plenty to explore this Volcano Week, so you’ve come to the right place. Welcome to Volcano Week!
NPS Photo
Featured image: Grand Teton National Park, which Wyoming would like to have transferred to the state, U.S. Department of the Interior via Flickr
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Transcript: Can President Trump even do that? Public lands edition
This is an automatically generated transcript. Please excuse spelling and grammar errors.
Aaron: Welcome to The Landscape, your show about America’s parks and public lands. I’m Aaron Weiss with the Center For Western Priorities in Denver.
Kate: And I’m Kate Groetzinger in Salt Lake City. Today on the pod, we’re talking to a natural resources law professor about how enforceable Trump’s executive orders actually are. We talked about the orders affecting public lands in our last episode with Drew McConville from the Center For American Progress. Today, we’ll discuss what’s actually happening on the ground at Interior and in the West. But first, the news.
Aaron: Well, as we record this, it is 4 o’clock mountain time on Thursday, January 30th. We are waiting on the senate to confirm president Trump’s pick to run the interior department, former North Dakota governor Doug Burgum. In a cloture vote on Wednesday, Burgum advanced on a 78 to 20 vote. That’s, essentially that vote to move his nomination toward a final vote. So, that final count, whenever it comes here in a few minutes, will be somewhere in that same territory.
Burgum, of course, will essentially be in charge of implementing President Trump’s agenda at Interior, and that includes the president’s latest attempt to freeze federal spending that could, depending on how all of this goes, affect funding for Indian country, for drought resilience, wildfire preparedness, and a whole lot more. And in addition to that, Doug Bergin will be in charge of implementing president Trump’s executive orders on public lands, which is not coincidentally what we are about to talk about. Roll the tape. Our guest today is law professor Mark Scualacci. He teaches natural resources law at the University of Colorado Law School.
Professor Squillace previously provided legal counsel to the interior department under president Bill Clinton and interior secretary Bruce Babbitt. He is a two time veteran of this podcast and a great source of knowledge for all things public lands law. Professor, welcome back to the landscape. Your timing is great.
Squillace: Thanks very much, Aaron. Great to be here.
Aaron: In our last episode, we went over a lot of these executive orders that came in the early days, the first day, really, of the Trump administration that touched potentially on public lands management. Can you help us just briefly recap in a sentence or two what some of these executive orders do starting with the one on Alaska?
Squillace: Right. So it’s hard to do this briefly because there’s a lot in these exec
Aaron: Yeah.
Squillace: But let me try to sort of hit some of the highlights, I guess. So the Alaska executive order quite clearly is designed to reverse some of the decisions from the Biden administration that would have halted or, perhaps impeded some, oil and gas and mineral development in Alaska. Some of those decisions were not actually final, and so there still is pending action to be taken. But there are a couple of things in the Alaska executive order that I think are worth mentioning. 2 of them involve roads.
So there is the Ambler Road, which is quite controversial. It’s over 200 miles, would require significant number of bridges over 11 major rivers and a lot of smaller rivers and tributaries. Huge impact on the environment. It’s just to the on in at the foot of the Brooks Range Mountains, a really important ecological area for Alaska. And so it’s a quite controversial proposal.
And the Biden administration had sort of been we’re looking at this. They had issued a supplemental environmental impact statement on the Ambler Road, and, they, it looked like maybe they were going to deny the road, request from, from the government. It was not really entirely clear how that was gonna go, but now the Trump administration has suggested that they want the road to be completed. It’s a it’s an interesting project in some ways because it’s it’s all about corporate welfare for mining companies. The state of Alaska is basically proposing to spend 1,000,000 of dollars to build this road for the mining companies.
This is to access something like 4 different, mines, and it’s, you know, one can fairly ask whether or not that’s the proper role of government to be subsidizing these private enterprises in this way, especially when this is likely to have significant adverse environmental impacts in this really sensitive region of the country. There’s a lot of opposition to the Ambler Road by, native communities in Alaska. I believe they filed a lawsuit initially when it looked like this was going through. I think there’s likely to be litigation over this if they if the government decides to go forward with this road. So it’s hard to know whether this actually will happen.
But I think it’s unfortunate that at least they’re not stopping and taking a pause to ask whether or not this is the best use of government resources, whether, this is the best use of our public lands for developing these proposed mines. So it’s gonna be interesting to watch that one. That is sort of highlighted in the Alaska executive order, and so it’s pretty clear that we’re gonna be talking about that going forward. I’m hoping still that maybe that is a road that never will come to pass.
Kate: I wanna just touch on something you mentioned, which is that this is likely to be litigated and that it sort of seems like the the Trump administration is is throwing out, an effort that has been taken a long time to to get some, compromise. And I it seems like that’s kind of the the case with all of these orders touching on energy. Would you say that’s true? And could you sort of summarize what’s what else he’s proposing on public lands?
Squillace: Yeah. Let’s just stick with Alaska for a minute if we can. The the order is kind of interesting. First of all, it sets out all this policy that arguably is not consistent with federal policy as as set out by congress. So there are these issues about whether in an executive order, that is something the president can do, should do.
It’s not self implementing. Right? So an executive order, just to be clear, is just a direction from the president to government agencies about how they should proceed with their activities. And so that’s really an important basis for trying to understand what’s going on with these orders. But let’s just take again the Alaska executive order, which basically, suggest to the interior department and other agencies that they should do all these things, largely involving rescinding decisions that were made by the Trump by, excuse me, by the Biden administration, reinstating leases that the Biden administration canceled in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge, for example, all these things that they’re claiming need to be done, and they really can’t be done without some significant public process.
Right? You can’t just rescind a rule or rescind a previous decision without going through some new process to justify the new decision that you’re making. And so this is just a lot of, rhetoric, I think, from the Trump administration about things that they’re hoping are going to happen. This is, I think, more for political purposes than it is really doing anything on the ground. It is, it’s kind of an interesting sort of aspect of this, which is that the Trump administration is now telegraphing to the public what they’re planning to do in a way that sort of sets, the opposition up to sort of gather their forces and try to decide how they’re gonna oppose some of these things.
So so I think in in the sort of strategic area here, this could be a mistake on their part because they they’re pretty clear about what they wanna do, and people who oppose what they wanna do are likely to marshal their forces and try to resist, this kind of thing. So that’s really something that we should be watching pretty carefully.
Kate: Can I ask a quick follow-up about something you you said?
Squillace: Sure.
Kate: You said that these aren’t self enforcing. So does that mean that no one can really sue the government over this until the interior department tries to implement these rules?
Squillace: I think that’s right. Again, an executive order and I think it’s really important that you maybe inform your guests that an executive order is not something that is self implementing. It is something that, again, it is direction to government agencies about how they should behave. And those government agencies then may take action, which would be subject to review by courts or by internal, administrative review processes within those agencies. So there’s a lot of steps that would have to be taken, in in that case.
And generally speaking, executive orders have language at the end. I don’t know that all of these do, but some of them do. They make it clear you can’t sue, under the executive order, that it doesn’t create any rights, in other words. It just basically directs agencies to do certain things. So, it is telling us what the Trump administration wants to do.
These are things that may very well happen, maybe even are likely to happen. But until those things happen, there really isn’t a basis for a lawsuit.
Aaron: Well and then the other fine print that’s at the bottom of every executive order is that they shall all be implemented consistent with existing federal law. And it seems to be I mean, is that where they’re gonna run themselves into trouble if they say, well, I’m just following these orders, but these orders clearly contravene existing law. I mean, is is there a world in which the president essentially overplayed his hand by stating here is the outcome of this process that I instructed you to begin? Yeah.
Squillace: So I be a little bit careful about that. I the order sort of telegraph that they may want to do some things that are inconsistent with federal law. The orders don’t actually do anything that is inconsistent with federal law because as I said, you have to see what follows from these particular orders. And until the agencies actually take that action, we won’t know whether they’re actually doing something that’s inconsistent with law. You’re right to think that that could very well happen, but it doesn’t happen directly as a result of the issuance of the order.
Kate: So does that mean that a lot of these decisions will actually come down to Doug Burgum, assuming he’s confirmed today?
Squillace: I believe that he will play a significant role in a lot of these decisions. And, you you know, Burgum is going to be an interesting person to sort of see how he decides to perform. By most accounts, he’s a pretty strong personality. He’s obviously a fan of oil and gas development and related kinds of developments, and so I expect him to carry forward with Trump’s agenda on those issues. What we don’t know about Burgum and where I hold out a modicum of hope is that, he could still be positive in supporting land conservation kinds of initiatives of various kinds.
And and, I’m I’m working with some people who are hoping to meet with Burgum early in his administration and and just see where his he is, take his temperature about his views on some of these other issues. Obviously, there are going to be some things I think that I will disagree with in terms of what Interior is doing, but I I’m hoping and maybe it’s a false hope. I don’t know yet. But I I’m hoping that there may be some areas where we can agree on, moving forward.
Aaron: So let’s talk about this energy emergency that president Trump declared. That’s a word that obviously is can a little bit absurd on its face when you consider where oil and gas production is at all time high, in America right now. But legally speaking, what is the president trying to do by using that word and declaring an emergency? And can you just do that? Who decides whether there’s an emergency?
Squillace: It’s a really good question. And this, I have to say, has gotta be the silliest executive order of all of them. I mean, you’re right to point out that claiming that there’s an energy emergency is sort of ridiculous right now, as we as we sit here. But there the specific things that he calls for in the emergency executive order is, basically streamlining certain processes for permitting both with the, Army Corps of Engineers and their section 404 and section 10 permits, which are permits for basically interfering with waters of the United States, navigable waters, and also consultation under the endangered species act. I would say those are the 2 really big things that come out of this order.
And I I just wanna share with you I think this is kind of interesting. I just wanna share with you the definitions of emergency in those two programs. So, both the Fish and Wildlife Service and the Army Corps of Engineers have specifically defined what constitutes an emergency under their standards. And let me read for you emergencies under the Army Corps of Engineers rules. It says that an emergency is a situation which would result in an unacceptable hazard to life, a significant loss of property, or an immediate unforeseen and significant hardship of corrective if corrective action requiring a permit is not undertaken within a time period within a time period, less than the normal time needed to process permit applications.
There is no emergency like that with regard to this particular executive order. That is not the kind of emergency that Donald Trump is talking about in his executive order. And so the there really isn’t any basis for forcing the, Army Corps of Engineers to exercise its authority to issue these permits unless they can show one of these things is available. It’s very similar, by the way, under the Fish and Wildlife Service definition for emergency consultation. That requires a situation involving an act of god, disasters, casualties, national defense, or security emergencies.
So, in both of these cases, I think they’re gonna have a very hard time claiming that there really is an emergency that justifies, consultation and permitting in an expedited fashion. And so if they try to do this, if they try to expedite these things without actually meeting the definition of an emergency, I think they’re going to be vulnerable to litigation. Just point out one other thing about the executive order here that I find sort of hilarious and, silly. There the executive order requires the government to convene the endangered species act committee. Now,
Aaron: Oh, I I just wanna stop you right there. The god squad, is that the the term we’re about to introduce on this pod podcast for the first time? Alright. Let’s do it.
Squillace: Okay. Yes. So this is the god squad. It’s made up of 7 high level government officials chaired by the secretary of the interior, but other officials being at similar levels within the government. And they’re supposed to convene this committee not less than quarterly.
So, apparently, we’re going to be seeing this committee, which has no remit. I mean, the the committee is set up to deal with applications that come in to give an exemption under the endangered species act. But unless there’s an exemption application, there’s no basis for having a committee. So you don’t have a standing committee as this executive order seems to suggest of this endangered species committee. It simply responds to applications that are received.
So whoever wrote this executive order clearly doesn’t understand how the endangered species act works and and in particular, how this, committee works
Aaron: on the wall. In in particular, the god squad, as I recall, has in its entire history, only you could count it in on one hand, something like that. Right?
Squillace: There are a couple. And and and I in both cases, it’s not really a serious application of the exemption process. There there was an exemption for some species on the Platte River, but it was done through an agreement with the parties. It really wasn’t controversial. There was an exemption that was given in the Pacific Northwest for some logging, but, again, there were a number of agreements that allowed that to go forward.
So the the really I mean, I guess what I would say about the Endangered Species Act and these exemption processes is it’s been quite successful in avoiding controversies and conflicts. And so whether that would be true under the Trump administration, I don’t know. But but just sort of suggesting that you can have a standing committee of the endangered species committee is kind of a silly thing to say.
Kate: So following on that, Mark, you know, there when these EOs came out, there were there was speculation that they were written by AI. Do you think the attorneys wrote these? Who where did these come from? Like, why are they so sloppy?
Squillace: It’s a really good question. I I don’t know. I have no idea who decided to come up with these. Clearly, they are simply parroting some of the talking points that Trump and his allies have been making over many years now, Whether they had AI assistance in doing this, I don’t know. It seems like if they did, they wouldn’t have made the mistake about the way they described the endangered species committee, for example.
So it is pretty sloppy in the way that they did this. My sense is that the people who wrote these documents are not experts in the law in which they’re opining on. And so I think that’s why you’re seeing some matters in the executive orders that don’t seem consistent with the law.
Aaron: Alright. So in addition to the energy emergency then, there is this unleashing American energy order. Drew McConville from Center For American Progress, who we talked to last week, called it a bit of a a seek and destroy order aimed at public land protections, but it includes this really broad directive to identify agency actions that impose an undue burden on domestic energy and begin implementing plans to suspend or revise or rescind those. So, again, that sounds like something that does not have teeth and is pretty darn vague on the face of it.
Squillace: Well, I mean, this is one that concerns me, maybe as much as any of them because it suggests some things that are directly contrary to law. Now, again, they’re not self implementing, so we’ll have to see how this goes. But it states a policy of eliminating the electrical vehicle mandate. The president does not have the authority to override congressional decisions about the electric vehicle mandate. It’s also suggesting that they want to basically do away with energy efficiency standards for appliances and light bulbs and other kinds of things like this.
Again, these are all mandated by federal law. And so unless those laws are amended by Congress, the the president has no authority to order agencies to basically eliminate these things. They may try to slow walk some of this stuff, but I think what we’re going to see is some litigation over a law called the Impoundment Act of of 1974. And so, you know, what I think the Trump administration is going to try to do is just not fund, not provide money for some of the things that they don’t wanna fund. There was just a story, I believe, in the papers today or yesterday about them pulling funding at least temporarily from, solar plants that have been already approved and are under contract.
They’re they think they were withdrawing 1,000,000 of dollars from these projects that had already been approved. And whether they can do that or not, I think is going to be the subject of litigation, and I’m skeptical that they’re able to impound this money in this way. Now, you know, it’s probably fair to say that courts aren’t going to lose sleep over a short term kind of delay in this funding. And so if the Trump administration looks at this and they decide, okay. We’re gonna have to go forward with some of this funding, maybe it’ll be okay.
But if they try to keep the funding away from these agencies to do what Congress has already mandated that they do, they’re gonna be sued, and I think they’re probably going to lose on these issues. So that’s something that’s really, significant about this executive order, and we’ll have to watch to see what happens. The other thing that is most upsetting to me about this executive order is that it withdraws the authority of the Council on Environmental Quality, to issue regulations under the National Environmental Policy Act. Now NEPA has been under attack by Republicans, for years. And, you know, the Biden administration just recently, just this past May, completed a new set of regulations to kind of modernize the rules under NEPA.
I think it was a pretty solid effort by the CEQ to modernize their rules. It it very much encourages and and promotes streamlining of permitting so that things can get done more quickly, particularly for infrastructure. I think that was a positive move, by the CEQ. But we’re now in a situation where there’s going to be a lot of uncertainty about how we move forward with NEPA. You know, NEPA’s a statute.
Congress actually amended it, last year in in the Inflation Reduction Act. And so or I think maybe it was actually the Infrastructure Act. Anyway, they amended the law. They basically clarified some aspects of the law. So that’s still in place.
The question is, what are the rules for implementing the law? The executive order suggests that the government through the CEQ should issue guidance, maybe work with the agencies to make sure their procedures are consistent among agencies. But that’s a real heavy lift. And we’re gonna see, I think, a lot of confusion and uncertainty about how we implement NEPA going forward if the CEQ doesn’t have the authority to basically issue these regulations and enforce these regulations through the courts. And so this this becomes a real problem.
Ironically, by upending the CEQ process here, the the regulations, it’s probably gonna cause a lot more delays because there’s going to be litigation over things that, maybe were clear from the regulations that had been issued, but now are fuzzy. And people are gonna use that, uncertainty that’s left behind to litigate issues, and it’s going to, I think, be even more problematic than it would have been if we just stuck with the current regulations.
Kate: Mark, I wanna ask you about some of the rule makings that were finalized under the Biden administration, like the public lands rule, the methane BLM rule. I think there was an oil and gas rule involving bonding. My understanding is the only way to undo those is to do a new rule making process. Is that correct? And
Squillace: That’s exactly correct. So the Administrative Procedure Act makes clear that the repeal of a rule or the modification of a rule is a rule. And so you have to go through a notice and comment process to amend or repeal an existing rule. So that will have to be done before they can repeal these things. I think you have mentioned 3 rules that are likely to be targeted by this administration.
There certainly will be some pushback, by the groups that supported these regulations, and and some of it is pretty silly, I guess. You know, the the industry has actually supported the methane regulations by and large. And one thing I didn’t mention that I probably should have mentioned under the under the energy executive order is what they’re proposing to do with greenhouse gases under the executive order. Right? So so the methane rule, of course, is targeted at reducing the, emissions of methane because it’s a very high toxic greenhouse gas, you know, something like 80 times as much as as carbon dioxide.
And so it becomes really important that we minimize the release of methane into the atmosphere. But what the executive order does with greenhouse gases more generally is basically get rid of all of these sort of, ways in which we understand better how greenhouse gases impact society. So there has long been this organization that was started during the Obama administration called the Interagency Working Group. And the IWG basically, studies the impacts of greenhouse gases on society and has issued several technical reports now, basically trying to quantify what we call the social cost of carbon. In other words, when you put another ton of carbon into the atmosphere, how does that impact society?
And there have been a lot of private studies done on this as well, but the government, of course, has been involved in this now for many years, and they basically give you a number. And that’s extremely helpful in the context of decision making because now decision makers can look at the amount of greenhouse gases that are being, emit emitted with the project, and they can put a number on that. And they can say, okay. This is gonna cost a $100,000,000 in terms of the greenhouse gas emissions that we have here. Maybe you still wanna go forward with that project, but at least you have the information about what the consequences are of going forward with that particular project.
So they’re getting rid of the IWG. I should mention that they did this previously during the early or the first Trump administration. So no big surprise that they’re doing this. They’ve also made clear that they do not want greenhouse gas calculations to be included in decision making for rules or for projects. And so this is really problematic.
I mean, it’s sort of one of these putting your head in the sand and not wanting to know basic information that we should know before we make decisions that have significant consequences on society. And so I I think that’s really troubling. It’s not particularly surprising. But as with with respect to that and with respect to these other rules, I think we’re likely to see, pretty quick efforts to try to overturn them. If they go too fast, maybe they’ll make some mistakes.
I think that’s kinda likely. And one of the interesting things we’re seeing right now is this effort to get rid of so many government employees. And, of course, the irony is that these are the people who would rewrite the rules and who would do the work that’s needed to amend or repeal these particular rules. So they may actually have trouble getting these things done quickly.
Aaron: Because you don’t have enough enough warm bodies to actually do it?
Squillace: Don’t have warm bodies. And and, you know, I think it’s probably fair to say that the people most likely to leave are the people who are probably best at doing these kinds of things. They’re gonna move on to better positions, and it’s the folks who maybe don’t have options to move on to better positions who are gonna be stuck at the agency, and perhaps they’ll have some success with this. But this sort of haphazard way in which they are downsizing the federal government, I think, is really gonna cause problems for them to do some of the things that they claim they want to do.
Aaron: I wanna ask about the critical minerals list, which is something that the US geological survey maintains. And one of these Trump EOs tells USGS to think about adding uranium onto that critical minerals list. So number 1, what’s the point there? What what why would they want that? And is there a legal pathway for uranium to get added to that list?
Squillace: Yeah. I mean, so the the there are several different critical minerals lists. And so we have to sort of think about what do we mean by a critical mineral and and a critical mineral list. But the principal one, I think, is the one that is, issued by the US geological survey. And so they have a list of critical minerals.
Uranium is not currently on it. You could add it to the list, but it I don’t really think it has much meaning. I mean, it becomes a mineral then that we think we’re going to need to promote or develop. I mean, one of the real ironies of this whole critical mineral issue, let’s just move away from uranium for a minute and think more broadly about critical minerals. The effort by the Trump administration to get rid of subsidies and work on renewable energy, like getting he he doesn’t want any more wind power, apparently.
He wants to get rid of EVs. He’s trying to get rid of solar energy, it seems as well. That’s the reason we have such a demand for critical minerals. It’s because they’re being used in EVs, in the batteries, and in the motors that we use for these things, in the wind turbines. They need special kinds of magnets that are part of rare earth elements, part of the critical minerals that we’re trying to protect here.
So, it it seems a little bit crazy to be so focused on critical minerals when you wanna get rid of the very things that use these critical minerals. I mean, we’ve we’ve had this debate about critical minerals because of renewable energy. Right? I mean, because we want more people driving EVs, and we want more solar energy. Yeah.
I mean and so it’s it’s just insane to be thinking, you know, we’re gonna somehow boost development of critical minerals when we’re getting rid of the very things that use these critical minerals. I mean, it’s crazy. Now uranium is an interesting issue. I don’t I don’t care one way or the other, frankly, if it’s added to the critical minerals list. There’s a lot of interest in what are called small modular reactors, SMRs, which is kind of a futuristic idea about how we’re gonna produce energy, nuclear energy, and using uranium.
I don’t know whether this will take off. I do not think that they are currently cost competitive with other forms of electric power generation. They may become so in the future. They haven’t really solved the problem of nuclear waste with these small nuclear reactors. So that’s gonna be an ongoing discussion and debate.
There are some advantages obviously to being able to produce more nuclear power, because it doesn’t have any greenhouse gas emissions. Right? So that becomes really an important factor. And, of course, we are now seeing some mothballed nuclear plants being reopened to provide the energy that we need for AI in particular. I was fascinated by the recent stories about DeepSeq, the Chinese, AI effort, because one of the things that hasn’t got a lot of attention in the press, they talked about how much less money they spent developing this, what they didn’t talk about is how much less energy is needed to use this new form of AI.
And it seems like other, companies might be able to replicate that and reduce in by a significant margin, the amount of energy that they need to, meet the energy demand for these kinds of tools. So that’s a really important development. I don’t know exactly where it’s going, but I’m hopeful that maybe this deep seek, entry into the AI universe is really gonna help us avoid some of the high levels of energy demand that we’re currently seeing with these companies.
Aaron: Quick diversion back to nuclear waste since you you mentioned, obviously, there’s no storage site. It looks like the Yucca Mountain proposal in Nevada is still very dead. I I assume or you were at the interior department the the last time around before that landed in congress, what was it 2002? Congress approved it. Is there anywhere that you know of in the US that is proposed for long term nuclear waste storage that is also politically feasible?
Squillace: I don’t know of any personally. I suspect there could be some areas where the local community community might decide as a means of economic development. They’re willing to take in some of that spent nuclear waste. I mean, one of the concerns about trying to deal with the disposal of this toxic nuclear waste is just making sure we put it in a place that is going to be stable and where the waste can exist permanently without any intrusions or or problems. And for the most part, the government has been sort of forced to focus on federal lands as places where they’re gonna dump this stuff because private land people don’t want the nuclear waste on their sites.
And so it’s just more complicated to use private lands. And yet, the public lands that they’re proposing to use, including the lands in Nevada at, at the the site there, are not necessarily the best places for us to be disposing of this nuclear waste. I mean, Yucca Mountain, maybe would be a place where they could do it, but it’s not entirely clear that, there wouldn’t be concerns about earthquakes in that area that could disrupt the disposal of that material over the long haul. So I think we’ll just have to see how the, how that all plays out. But I don’t see any clear indication of a site where it’s obvious that we should put the nuclear waste in this particular place.
I think there was actually a recent proposal here in Colorado on the West Slope. Some local people were thinking maybe we should take the waste because it would be a boon to our economy. But I don’t see a serious effort to encourage that. And, you know, the politics in Colorado are probably not gonna favor that kind of effort. So we may see those kinds of initiatives and good on them.
I mean, I do think we do need some place to put this stuff over the long haul. I wish we could focus more on geology and the bay the make making sure we have the safest place regardless of what kind of land it is, and I don’t think that’s been the way that we’ve approached that issue at up till now.
Kate: Right. It’s it’s more been like, which communities can we put this next to who don’t have a voice?
Squillace: Right. Exactly.
Kate: So so moving on, since we’ve got you here, we have and we have so many questions. The acting interior secretary issued a temporary suspension of delegated authority, 10 days ago, January 20th, which basically just paused all actions by the interior department for 2 months. Is that a routine thing to do? And if not, will it have any, unexpected fallout? Or or, what what what’s your read on that?
Squillace: I I mean, it is not certainly something that is done routinely. I don’t recall it being done in past changes of administration. It’s short term, and so maybe it’s not a huge deal that they’re imposing this. It is fairly routine to sort of hold up rules that have not gone into effect yet, sort of last minute kinds of rules, and so that would be more common, and that has been done as well in this particular case. Again, this is one of those ironic kinds of decisions that could actually harm what they’re trying to do.
Because a lot of the things that are probably in the pipeline to be done are the issuance of applications for permits to drill on public land. And, you know, the Biden administration has been pretty aggressive in approving these, what we call APDs. And so that presumably is going to hold up further drilling permits by the federal government at least until this, cause is lifted. And so I I don’t know what they’re thinking here. I I suppose it was just the idea that they didn’t they weren’t sure what was going to be happening in this short interim period, and they wanted to just halt everything while they waited to see, when Bergam was confirmed and how he wanted to proceed with these things.
So, we’ll have to see.
Aaron: Looking ahead, Doug Bergam, as we are sitting here taping, is about to be confirmed any second now. He presumably will start in on the office Friday or Monday. And as you noted, these executive orders are not self executing. Doug Burgum actually has to assemble the people to do them and turn them into policy. One of the things we saw from the 1st Trump administration is they cut a lot of corners, and they ended up losing in court a lot.
So how long does it take to do this stuff in a legally defensible way, and what will you be looking for to see if they are following these EOs in a way that might actually hold up in court or if they’re just jumping right to the finish line, finishing rules without doing their due diligence, following NEPA, bringing in the public comment. And what what’s the timing look like on the right way and the wrong way under APA and the other laws involved here?
Squillace: Yeah. Well, it obviously is going to depend on the complexity of the issue. And so for more complex issues, it’s just going to take longer because there’s more information that needs to be digested and understood before you can make a decision. But here’s the key point that I think is likely to cramp their ability to do things very quickly. When a court reviews an agency decision, they don’t just review the record that was developed by the decision maker at that time.
They review the whole record from the previous decision that’s now being reversed. Right? So so we sometimes refer to it in administrative law as whole record review. So let’s say you wanna change a rule. If the Biden administration issued a rule, let’s say, the public lands rule, for example, and they developed a comprehensive record to support that rule, the new rule that’s going to be issued by the Trump administration will have to explain why the findings that were made under the previous rule are no longer operative.
Now I’m not saying they can’t do it, but it’s just harder. And this is where agencies often get tripped up because they think they can they can just sort of make a new set of facts and a new set of, reasons why they’re going to support this new rule without actually going back and looking at the previous rationale for the previous decision that was made. And so it is going to be a process, and it’s going to take some time. And there are probably gonna be some missteps. There almost certainly will be litigation over a lot of these changes that are happening.
And, I just think that, it’s not as easy as they seem to think it’s going to be. And I don’t know whether they’ve learned the lesson from the previous administration. It seems like a whole new cast of characters in many ways. So they weren’t there, I suppose, to learn what, might have been learned before, but we’ll just have to see how it plays out.
Kate: Right. Ryan Zinke is now apparently a public lands advocate.
Squillace: Go figure.
Kate: Right. Go figure.
Squillace: I was just gonna say, I’m hoping he can influence Doug Burgum on some of those land conservation issues because, I mean, Zinke has his problems, I suppose, but he seems to be opposed to the Utah effort to take over public lands. And, you know, that’s a big issue, obviously. And there’s a lot of worry that the Trump administration is gonna turn over some public lands to the states, and and that is something we’re watching carefully.
Kate: Oh, man. Stay tuned. So a final question I have for you, Mark, is it sounds like a lot of this is gonna end up in court, and I assume that’s federal federal circuit court. Is that the one? Am I
Squillace: No. It’s going to be I mean, there are a few statutes where you start in the federal circuit court. I mean, nuclear waste, nuclear regulatory commission decisions, go to circuit court. But almost all decisions on public lands go to the the federal district court first. And there are also administrative appeals for some of these decisions, and so that will extend the timeline as well.
So let’s say the BLM director makes a decision. Those decisions can be appealed to the interior board of land appeals. The IBLA takes forever to make decisions. That could really drag out the whole decision making process in lots of ways. You know, it could even end up, going in toward the end of the administration.
So we’ll just have to see. It depends on the decision, obviously, but there will be lots of different decisions that are going to be appealed, and they will probably have very different timelines depending on what they are.
Aaron: From all of the descriptions you’ve just said of what’s going to be litigated from your position as a law school professor, are the students who are graduating now from your program, is this like guaranteed employment for environmental lawyers for the next 4 years?
Squillace: I I would say no. One of the sad aspects of this whole process of transitioning to a new Trump administration is that for a lot of my students, federal government jobs are off the table. It’s not just the ideology, which many of them might disagree with. It’s the fact that they don’t think they would have job security in a Trump administration where it seems very haphazard. They’re trying to get rid of people.
And so if you’re a new law student or a law student who just has passed the bar and is looking for the first job, looking at a federal government job as a lawyer right now is a really risky kind of proposition. And I’ve heard from a number of students who are saying, we’re not interested in that. And that is a total reversal from the way students have behaved in the past. I mean, even in the first Trump administration, there was a little more interest in maybe moving into government jobs. But right now, we’re seeing the Trump administration showing a really severe hostility to federal workers in a way that I think has scared off a lot of people.
And, you know, there are great jobs with the federal government. I mean, maybe not so much now, but but having worked for the federal government in the past on 2 separate occasions, I can tell you that they’re really wonderful jobs and it’s a wonderful experience. And I feel bad for our students that they’re not gonna have those opportunities, at least not right away. So, yes, there will be some other jobs available. The NGOs are probably gonna be hiring more.
There’ll probably be more money in the NGO community. But it’s not gonna be enough, I think, to hire all the students who are really interested in these issues. So, you know, I’m actually not very sanguine about the prospects for our students getting good jobs doing environmental work.
Kate: Alright. Well, we’ll leave it on that dour note. Mark Scualacci, professor at the University of Colorado Law School, thank you so much for being with us today.
Squillace: Okay. Good to talk.
Kate: Alright. Well, it’s a troubling uncertain time for America, including our public lands, but here’s something to smile about. A consolidated lawsuit against Bajnavasho Itaukukvani ancestral footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument has been dismissed by a federal judge. The 2 lawsuits, which were dismissed together, were brought by Arizona’s Senate Republican caucus as well as a cattle rancher in Northern Arizona whose property overlaps with the monument. The judge found that neither of the plaintiffs had the standing necessary to bring the lawsuit to action.
Now, of course, it’s possible the Trump administration will still attempt to undo or shrink the monument similar to what he did to Bears Ears in Grand Staircase in his first term, in which case we can definitely expect this to end up back in court. But for now, let’s celebrate this win.
Aaron: Well, that is all for now, folks. Please stay with us as we try to make sense of the absolute chaos coming out of the White House. If you have a question about public lands, how any of these executive orders are gonna play out, or if you have a guest you think would be great on our show, send them our way, podcast@westernpriorities.org. And, of course, we always do our best to keep you updated on public lands news in this podcast, but if you want more or, you know, more frequent updates, subscribe to our newsletter Look West. We read the top public land stories every day and send them straight to your inbox.
You’ll find a link to subscribe in the show notes.
Kate: Thanks again to professor Scwalaci for his time today, and thank you for listening to the landscape.
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Can President Trump even do that? Public lands edition
Aaron and Kate are joined by Mark Squillace, natural resources law professor at the University of Colorado Law School. Professor Squillace provided legal counsel to the Interior Department under President Bill Clinton and Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, and he’s a two-time veteran of this podcast. Today, we discuss the legality of President Trump’s executive orders on public lands, including which are likely to end up in court and whether the Trump administration will have the manpower to implement these orders, after making sweeping layoffs.
News- Senate confirms Trump’s pick to lead his ‘drill, baby, drill’ agenda – Washington Post
- Judge tosses legal challenge to Biden’s Arizona national monument – E&E News
- Sign up for Look West – Center for Western Priorities
- Episode transcript
Hosts: Kate Groetzinger & Aaron Weiss
Feedback: podcast@westernpriorities.org
Music: Purple Planet
Featured image: Long Canyon, Burr Trail, Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Utah; Ken Lund/Flickr
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STATEMENT on Senate confirmation of Doug Burgum as Interior secretary
DENVER—The U.S. Senate confirmed Doug Burgum as Secretary of the Interior today by a vote of 79 to 18.
The Center for Western Priorities released the following statement from Executive Director Jennifer Rokala:
“Doug Burgum has a choice to make on day one: will he follow the law or follow President Trump’s illegal orders? The Interior secretary has no authority to freeze payments to Tribes, farmers, or water districts across the West — but Trump’s clumsy and chaotic executive orders try to do just that. As a former governor, Doug Burgum knows that thousands of jobs and millions of people depend on funding from the Interior department to keep our water clean, protect communities from wildfires, and help endangered wildlife. The minute Doug Burgum walks in the door at Interior, he needs to make it clear to Westerners that he will keep those funds moving, even if the White House tries to cut them off again.
“Secretary Burgum has to decide if he will be a force for chaos or consistency on America’s public lands. When Donald Trump inevitably orders him to illegally revoke existing permits for renewable energy, will he have the spine to tell the president ‘no’? If oil and gas billionaires tell Burgum to ignore the bedrock laws that protect America’s lands, waters, and wildlife, will Burgum tell the oligarchs ‘no’?
“Finally, each of the senators who voted to confirm Doug Burgum today need to ask themselves the same questions. Will they exercise their constitutional duty to perform oversight? America will be watching.”
LEARN MORE- Tribes scramble to respond to Trump administration funding freeze [ICT News]
- Trump’s Interior nominee has an oil billionaire benefactor [Westwise]
- Trump Interior Nominee Doug Burgum Hosted ‘VIP Dinner’ for Oil, Gas, and Coal Execs Last Year, Emails Show [DeSmog]
- Senate committees advance Trump’s energy, environment nominees [Look West]
- Statement on Doug Burgum’s confirmation hearing [Center for Western Priorities]
Featured image: C-SPAN screenshot
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EPA cuts off IRA solar money already under contract
Despite President Donald Trump backtracking on his broad funding freeze for federal programs yesterday, the Environmental Protection Agency has cut off the distribution of funds already promised by the government for the popular Solar for All program.
The $7 billion program was authorized by former President Joe Biden’s signature climate bill, the Inflation Reduction Act, to fund programs that provide rooftop solar panels, batteries to store solar energy, and community solar farms. It is managed by the EPA, which expects it to help more than 900,000 low-income households reduce pollution that drives climate change, as well as reduce energy costs.
The Solar for All program recipients, including state and local government agencies and a few nonprofits, have already signed contracts with the EPA amounting to the full $7 billion alloted by the IRA. According to E&E News, they received a letter Tuesday informing them that their grants had been paused until further notice. The letter cited Trump’s “Unleashing American Energy” executive order and said the EPA was pausing “all funding actions related to” Biden-era climate and infrastructure laws.
The solar grants are all obligated, meaning the federal government can’t legally take back any of the funds unless it can prove malfeasance on the part of the recipient, according to legal experts.
Interior nominee Burgum moves on to full Senate voteThe Senate voted yesterday to close debate on Doug Burgum, Trump’s pick to lead the Interior Department. The former North Dakota governor is likely to be confirmed after the 78-20 cloture vote, with 25 Democrats voting in favor. That vote could come as soon as today.
Quick hits Colorado law protects state streams, lakes and wetlands, no matter who is in the White House AI on public lands and Biden’s environmental legacy Appeals court dismisses Alaska oil and gas drilling case Opinion: It’s time to require a bond for each well drilled in NM Los Angeles fires underscore activists’ call to make polluters pay for disasters Uranium ore shipments will resume after Navajo Nation, Energy Fuels reach agreementArizona Republic | Salt Lake Tribune
Lawmakers say no to storing nuclear waste in Wyoming Opinion: We must protect our sacred lands Quote of the day[Solar for All] is a local economic development program that’s going to touch all corners of our country and deliver energy savings and help communities become healthier and more resilient… So to block these funds from moving forward is really callous and shortsighted.”
—Adam Kent, director of the green finance program at the Natural Resources Defense Council
Picture ThisThe colors and textures of @brycecanyonnps_gov in Utah are magical. Water and ice have sculpted the world’s largest concentration of distinctive and mysterious rock formations known as hoodoos.
At 8,000 feet, the scenery changes dramatically in the colder months, providing unique opportunities to see the park and requiring a very different packing list. Review regular closures and regulations, check the forecast and explore how to experience this winter wonderland.
Feature image: Oberon Solar Project in Riverside County,CA; Source: BLM California/Flickr
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White House chaos threatens water, Tribal funds
The Trump administration’s attempt to impose a wide-ranging freeze on federal funds threw Western states and Tribal nations into chaos on Tuesday. The order from the Office of Management and Budget was broadly written and short on specifics, and included a 51-page spreadsheet that targeted thousands of federal grant programs for review.
In the hours between the freeze announcement Tuesday morning and a judge’s order briefly halting the plan in the afternoon, Tribal leaders began to prepare for the impact to health care, agriculture, law enforcement and other programs. The Bureau of Indian Affairs has a $4.7 billion annual budget to fulfill the federal government’s trust obligations.
“We prepaid for every penny we get with nearly 2 billion acres of land,” said Aaron A. Payment, former first vice president of the National Congress of American Indians. “Treaties do not expire when we change presidents so we expect the federal government to be good to their word and not interrupt our funding. Our funding should be fully funded, mandatory, and multiples of what it is today.”
In Colorado, the Trump administration’s attempt to pull funding through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act threw drought mitigation, wildfire prevention, and environmental cleanup plans into doubt. The Denver Post reported that a sanitation district in northern Colorado was supposed to receive a $96 million loan from the EPA to replace its wastewater infrastructure, which includes Rocky Mountain National Park. The district manager told the Post she made six calls on Tuesday to ask about the loan—and no one returned her calls.
Judge tosses Arizona monument challengeA federal judge in Arizona threw out a lawsuit by state legislators who sued to overturn former President Joe Biden’s designation of Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni — Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument. Judge Stephen McNamee said the state Senate president and former state House speaker didn’t even have standing to bring a claim against the monument; the state’s executive branch would have needed to file the lawsuit. “The Legislature is not authorized to bring claims on behalf of the state,” McNamee wrote. Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs had urged President Biden to create the monument.
Quick hits Judge blocks Trump spending freeze after a day of chaosWashington Post | New York Times | Politico | NBC News | NPR News | E&E News
Threat of funding freeze sows confusion across the West, Indian CountryArizona Mirror | Denver Post | Colorado Sun | CPR News | ICT News | National Parks Traveler
Trump executive orders imperil Colorado infrastructure projects Trump tries to use wildfire response to avoid California water law 107 oil and gas wells, mostly on federal land, are about to land on Colorado’s orphan list Bill would let Wyoming landowners sell big-game hunting tags for profitOutdoor Life | Cowboy State Daily
Opinion: Hunting and fishing on the Flathead Reservation is a privilege, not a right Saying farewell to the world’s ugliest solar plant Quote of the dayThe Tribal Nations in the Grand Canyon region have had to fight incredibly hard for protections in the Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni region. Again and again, Tribal cultural needs and even the health of Native American people in the region have been sidelined in order to maximize corporate profits. Today’s decision cannot undo the damage that already has been done, but it leaves in place some long-sought protections going forward.”
—Matthew Campbell, deputy director of the Native American Rights Fund
Picture ThisFrom the misty coastlines to the towering Cascade peaks, every corner of Washington is a reminder of nature’s beauty. Whether you’re hiking through dense forests, camping by crystal-clear lakes, or just soaking in the quiet serenity, exploring your public lands should be at the top of your bucket list!
Chadwick Hill; One Hike a Week
Feature image: White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt holds the first press briefing of 2025. PBS NewsHour
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President Trump’s Day One attack on public lands
Just hours after being sworn in as president on January 20, 2025, Donald Trump began issuing executive orders. CWP spoke to Drew McConville, a senior fellow on the conservation policy team at the Center for American Progress, about the orders affecting the climate and public lands.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity. You can also listen to this episode of The Landscape.
Aaron: Did what we saw last night in terms of executive orders line up with what you were expecting? Were there any surprises for you?
Drew: On the one hand, it was pretty shocking and outrageous. Shocking how shamelessly President Trump was proclaiming that he would do anything and everything to put the interests of oil and gas ahead of anything else. And that includes walking away from our global leadership on climate, our clean energy advantage in the race with China, and that he would direct his political team, really, to find ways around the law, really, all in the name of fossil fuels. On the other hand, as usual, this amounted to a whole lot of talk. Most of the actions that matter are going to come later, and a lot is easier said than done when it comes right down to it.
Kate: Let’s talk about public lands now. How many of these orders pertained in some way to public lands?
Drew: There was one executive order focused on Alaska’s lands and waters and resources that was called Unleashing Alaska’s Extraordinary Resource Potential. There was the declaration of a national energy emergency, which has implications for drilling and mining on public lands. And, there was a pretty lengthy executive order called Unleashing American Energy that has implications for drilling and mining on public lands and waters.
There were also a couple of executive orders, one in particular, that revoked a laundry list of past orders from the Biden administration. And that has implications as well, including for this national conservation mission that president Biden launched [to protect 30 percent of U.S. lands and waters by 2030].
Aaron: Maybe the silliest one is this notion that there is an energy emergency, since as we’ve noted many times on this podcast, oil and gas production in America is higher than it has ever been in history. So why say that there’s an emergency?
Drew: Not only that, you’ve got oil and gas companies sitting on decades of unused leases. And at the same time, he’s saying we’re in the midst of an urgent energy crisis but we don’t really want to do anything about wind and solar. Actually, on wind, we want to shut it all down and immediately halt any new permit approvals, both offshore and onshore. So it doesn’t line up with the rhetoric.
Aaron: Why is he doing that?
Drew: You know, I think it’s pretty clear when you dig into it that this is about trying to give any excuse possible to his political team to find ways around the law, in order to advantage the oil and gas and mining industries. And he’s specifically looking for ways around the Endangered Species Act, clean water protections, clean air, and other things. And so calling it an emergency, even if it’s not an emergency, seems like a justification to look for ways around the law.
Kate: The Unleashing American Energy order, of course, is his response to the made up energy emergency. What was in that EO and which parts of that really touch on public lands?
Drew: There’s a lot in that EO. It does read a little bit like a special interest wish list. It also reads a little bit like a list of the things President Trump seems to have a beef against, like electric vehicles and wind.
It also amounts to quite a bit of bluster and a lot of directions to come back to him with reports and recommendations of actions, so ultimately the impact will be felt later. One of the first things it talks about is expanding drilling and mining on public lands and waters. And, really, what it does is basically launch a search and destroy mission with public lands, wildlife, and climate protections in the crosshairs. It’s calling out this energy dominance agenda that he’s talked about before. But this time around, he’s layering in a new element and calling for minerals dominance.
Basically, he calls on his political team to look for existing regulations, orders, guidance, policies, and actions that can be revoked because they’re a “burden to energy development.” And, again, renewable energy development doesn’t count. We’re just talking about fossil fuels, as well as reviewing protections for public lands that are withdrawn from mineral extraction. So here, they’re not named. But we’re talking about places like Chaco Canyon [in New Mexico], the Boundary Waters in Minnesota.
Kate: It was almost like they didn’t know exactly what they wanted to undo, but they were just like, “Hey, go look at anything that could be impacting oil and gas production and mining and figure out how to reverse it.”
Aaron: Or they just don’t want to say the quiet part out loud yet because they know that mining in the Boundary Waters is, in fact, really unpopular. So we’re not gonna say that explicitly on day one.
One of the things they did say explicitly is the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. It’s called out by name as somewhere that President Trump wants to drill. Walk us through what the Alaska order in particular is trying to do.
Drew: The Alaska order, more so than the energy order, is very specific. And it is the special interest hit list when it comes to Alaska mining and drilling. It is talking about the western Arctic and even the most special areas, called Special Areas, which are places like Teshekpuk Lake, this incredible caribou habitat and wetlands area. We have birds from all over the world coming to nest there. Almost anybody would agree these places should be off limits to drilling. It is also going after the Tongass National Forest — the world’s largest intact temperate rainforest — and it’s trying to open that up to old growth logging.
It’s directing the completion of the Ambler Road, which is a mining road to a mining project that may someday exist, but it’s cracking open Gates of the Arctic National Park and other protected areas in the process. As you mentioned, President Trump seems hell bent on drilling the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, one of the most biodiverse spots in the world, even though the oil and gas industry has had two bites at the apple and shown no interest. No major oil companies have any interest in leasing [land inside] the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. President Trump here is trying to take another run at it and force drilling in that place, as well.
There’s one other thing in that order that I would call out because it’s kind of buried in there. There are elements of that order that could open up 28 million acres of public lands. He’s directing the Interior Department to do this — to open up 28 million acres of public lands to extractive development, lands that have been closed to development since the seventies. These are known as the D-1 withdrawals, if you’re really in the weeds. What you need to know is this is an area that’s, like, 37 times the size of Yosemite National Park, [containing] amazing wildlife habitat and really important subsistence resources for Alaska Native communities. And more than half of the federally-recognized tribes in Alaska have called for these protections to stay in place. And then buried in this executive order, President Trump says, “No. Let’s get rid of those.”
Aaron: One of the things that I think got lost in the initial reporting on these executive orders in which he just says “do this stuff,” is the question of can he actually do this stuff? Because he’s the most specific in Alaska, can you start there and walk us through how much of this is actually do-able via EO and how much of this is just telling agencies to figure out a way to do this, but good luck finding a way to do it legally.
Drew: It’s a lot of talk. It’s a lot of “Hey, look at what I’m signing here on a jumbotron in the arena.”
Actually rolling back legal protections like he’s calling for may not be impossible in some cases. But what you’re talking about are protections that were put in place through a lot of science, a ton of public input. Really, [it took] years of work to put in place these common sense legal protections for wildlife, for endangered species, for special waters. Rolling that back doesn’t happen overnight. It takes quite a bit of time for an agency to reconsider a rulemaking like the rule for the western Arctic. I talked about the 28 million acres of public lands in Alaska that so much of the state wanted to see protected. The Department of Interior and the Bureau of Land Management worked for a couple of years, evaluating the environmental impacts of opening this area up, and made a really sound decision on the basis of all that [to keep it closed to extraction]. If they try to rush through a reversal and just say, “Oh, we changed our mind, because President Trump told us to,” that shouldn’t hold up in court. And if you look back at what happened in the first Trump administration, he lost a lot in court.
Aaron: They weren’t real good at actually having stuff follow the law and hold up.
Drew: Right. And maybe that’s not the point for President Trump. I guess we’ll see if he’s mainly interested in the day one publicity, or will he and his team put the work into getting this stuff legally tight and done? It’s hard to imagine that’s possible.
Kate: Like you mentioned, pretty much everything that was done under Biden was done through some sort of [National Environmental Policy Act] or rulemaking process that would require a process to undo. Did any of these [orders] really go into effect last night? Like, is there anything that actually changed on the ground?
Drew: Off the top of my head, what the president can do and what a lot of presidents have done is freeze ongoing actions. If something was on its way to be published in the federal register, the president can direct his agencies to stop that and pause action while they review what the previous administration has done. And that’s not uncommon. The Biden administration didn’t leave a lot till the last minute, though.
So a lot of the most impactful and meaningful actions that we’ve talked about when we talk about public lands, these things have been done for a while, those really weren’t vulnerable to immediate freeze or pause. A lot of the spending on important clean energy projects and conservation projects has already happened, and facilities are being built as a result. That doesn’t stop just because the president says stop.
On the other hand, some of the federal spending that is supposed to be happening under the law, including stuff that was passed in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, is gonna be stuck. And those impacts will be felt pretty immediately. And I suspect that’s going to be pretty unpopular, especially when you’re talking about money to farmers for voluntary conservation programs.
Aaron: And drought resilience.
Drew: Yeah. I mean, we’re in the middle of some really horrific disasters. And it doesn’t seem like the time to be hitting the brakes on climate resilience and on wildfire resilience projects, but that is one of the things we saw happen last night.
Kate: What are you watching for in the coming weeks? Obviously, there’s a new Congress that’s getting off the ground, and President Trump, I’m sure, is not done with these executive orders.
Drew: We wrote a report fairly recently called, 8 Ways Special Interests Are Asking President-Elect Trump To Sell Out U.S. Public Lands. A lot of what we saw yesterday looks a lot like the early steps towards selling out our public lands to the oil and gas industry and mining companies, mostly foreign mining companies, that he’s putting first here in these orders.
But some of the details really remain to be seen. So I’m watching how that all plays out, including what rule makings, what safeguards for wildlife and clean water, get targeted. I’m going be looking for [actions affecting] those protected areas that were put in place by [the Biden] administration and the Antiquities Act itself, which is a bedrock [conservation] law that a lot of President Trump’s allies have said should go. So, there are a lot of things to watch like national monuments and more.
Aaron: The only other thing I’m gonna add there is the “who.” Who’s going to be tasked with doing this stuff? We know Doug Burgum is almost certainly going to be confirmed as Interior Secretary. Kate McGregor is back for a stint as Deputy Secretary. But then below that, who’s going to run the Bureau of Land Management? Who’s going to be in charge of USGS, which runs this board of geographic names that’s been tasked [by President Trump] with doing stupid things like renaming Denali and the Gulf of Mexico.
Feature image: President Donald Trump signs executive orders following his inauguration. Source: White House/X
The post President Trump’s Day One attack on public lands appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.
This road through a Utah national monument could be renamed after Trump
Utah’s Garfield County board of commissioners will meet next week to consider naming a scenic road after President Donald Trump. Burr Trail Scenic Backway, one of the two roads up for consideration, is a 66-mile historic road through Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, which Trump attempted to illegally shrink in his first term.
“It would just give us a way to tell the president that we really felt like he helped us,” said Commissioner Leland Pollock, referring to when Trump tried to shrink the national monument by millions of acres, a move opposed by majorities of voters in every Western state including Utah.
A change.org petition has gathered nearly two thousand signatures in opposition to the name change. “Degrading the past by prioritizing the name of a man who fractured the monument during his first term makes no sense,” said one commenter. “It is an appalling waste of time and local tax dollars that this is even a conversation being had.”
In 2018, there was an attempt to rename a different Utah highway after Trump following his attempted reduction of Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears national monuments. The proposal was dropped after the bill sponsor said he received overwhelming criticism.
Quick hits Trump targets Alaska’s oil and other resources as environmentalists gear up for a fight Biden’s public lands report card County commissioners propose a scenic byway through Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument be renamed after TrumpSalt Lake Tribune | The Land Desk | KSLTV
With a mining pause, what’s next for this oasis in the Nevada desert? The American Climate Corps fades away Executive orders on energy and climate have advocates across the nation on edge Who should clean up 10 oil wells on the Wind River Reservation? Opinion: Drilling into our wildlife heritage Quote of the dayAs much as President Trump wants to take us back maybe 30 years, that’s not where America’s economy is and that’s certainly not where the law is.”
—Aaron Weiss, Center for Western Priorities Deputy Director, Inside Climate News
Picture This @zionnpsWinter is a great time of year to stargaze in Zion National Park!
In winter, the Milky Way and some of the brightest stars in the night sky are visible, but how is that possible? This time of year, the Earth is actually looking across the edge of our galaxy and through one of its spiral arms. This arm is home to some of our sun’s closest neighbors, which is one of the reasons why these stars appear so bright.
Nights with a new or waning moon provide the darkest conditions. Before stargazing, make sure to check the weather and road conditions, bring lots of warm layers, and a red light to protect your night vision.
Featured photo: Burr Trail runs through Long Canyon in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Utah. Ken Lund
The post This road through a Utah national monument could be renamed after Trump appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.
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