Western Priorities

Bill would give Interior Secretary Doug Burgum a two-year window to approve projects a future president could not undo

DENVER — A bipartisan permitting bill headed for a Senate vote right after the election would give President Donald Trump and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum two years to approve data centers, nuclear facilities, and fossil fuel projects on public lands, then make those approvals nearly impossible to reverse, according to a new analysis from the Center for Western Priorities.

The Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act, written and sponsored by Senators Mike Lee, Shelley Moore Capito, Martin Heinrich, and Sheldon Whitehouse would be disastrous for public lands:

• Industry lock-in: Section 1401 bars agencies from altering any permit in effect on or after September 16, 2026, unless they meet a “clear and convincing evidence” standard far higher than agencies normally face.
• Public lock-out: Courts could no longer pause projects with botched environmental reviews. Construction would continue while reviews are redone, agencies could not act on what they find, and challengers would get just 150 days to sue.
• Taxpayer price tag: Section 1402 would make taxpayers pay developers 50 to 100 percent of construction costs if a future administration slows a whole category of projects, such as gas plants or nuclear fuel facilities, with money drawn from a Treasury fund that requires no vote of Congress.

Burgum’s Interior Department is already reviewing applications for around 17 data centers on public lands, and it attempted to approve the first one by skipping environmental review and public comment entirely. If this bill passes, that could become the norm for permitting data centers on public lands. The bill would shield permits issued by the Trump administration for everything from drilling to nuclear waste storage on public lands from revocation by a future administration, while Trump’s cancellations of wind and solar projects would remain in place. The bill also rewrites the National Historic Preservation Act, drawing opposition from nine national Tribal organizations and the All Pueblo Council of Governors.

The Center for Western Priorities released the following statement from Executive Director Aaron Weiss.

“Senator Heinrich says his bill ‘will age very well over time.’ As it’s currently written, it will indeed age, locking in data centers and a new nuclear legacy on our public lands for generations—after all, the half-life of plutonium-239 is about 24,000 years.

“Any permitting deal passed under this administration must strengthen the guardrails that keep Burgum and Trump in check, not hand them a blank check. Senator Heinrich should pump the brakes on this bill during the lame duck session and work with leaders in the next Congress to get it right.”

Read our full analysis of the bill on Westwise.

Learn more:

• New map tracks data center applications moving through BLM’s pipeline – Center for Western Priorities
• 6 threats to public lands in the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act – The Wilderness Society
• NRDC Assessment of BAAJA, the 2026 Permitting and Transmission Bill – National Resources Defense Council
• Hard Questions About the Permitting Bill – National Resources Defense Council

 

Feature image: The Utah Data Center located in Bluffdale, Utah; Swilsonmc/Wikimedia Commons 

 

The post Senate permitting bill would cut the public out of public lands and lock in Trump-era data center, nuclear, and fossil fuel approvals appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

A bipartisan permitting bill headed for a Senate vote right after the election would give President Donald Trump and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum two years to approve data centers, nuclear facilities, and fossil fuel projects on public lands, then make those approvals nearly impossible to undo. While the bill would help speed the country’s grid buildout, it currently contains three provisions that would be disastrous for public lands, writes CWP Executive Director Aaron Weiss.

Section 1401 of the bill bars agencies from altering any permit in effect on or after September 16, 2026, unless they meet a “clear and convincing evidence” standard far higher than agencies normally face. Courts could no longer pause projects with botched environmental reviews. Construction would continue while the review is redone, and agencies can’t act on the review findings. Opponents of federal actions would get just 150 days to sue. Section 1402 would make taxpayers pay developers 50 to 100 percent of construction costs if a future administration slows a whole category of projects, like gas plants or nuclear fuel facilities, essentially locking in the priorities of the Trump administration.

Meanwhile, the Bureau of Land Management is currently considering at least 35 data center-related applications covering more than 24,000 acres across six Western states. The bill would essentially shield permits for everything from data centers to drilling issued by this administration from reversal by future administrations. Trump’s cancellations of wind and solar projects, meanwhile, stay in place. The bill, as written, also weakens the National Historic Preservation Act, over objections from nine Tribal organizations and the All Pueblo Council of Governors.

Senator Martin Heinrich, who’s co-sponsoring the bill, once said every person “deserves a chance to provide input” on public land management. His bill, as written, gives Burgum and Trump a green light to cut them out. Read more in the latest post on Westwise.

GAO to probe Trump mineral deals

Federal watchdogs plan to investigate what safeguards the Trump administration is abiding by when taking financial stakes in mining companies and separately examine the Interior Department’s decision to create a new division overseeing offshore energy development. Senator Heinrich and Representative Jared Huffman requested the review from the Government Accountability Office.

Quick hits Trump officials ask Supreme Court to let border security project resume in national park

Washington Post

Judge halts U.S. Forest Service reorganization, ruling it is ‘overwhelmingly likely’ that plans violated federal law

Summit Daily

Trump administration plans to begin work on massive arch in two weeks

Washington Post

Burgum discusses Colorado River plan, calls Arizona’s water cuts ‘completely manageable’

13 News

The future of wolf protections in the West hangs on the Ninth Circuit

High Country News

Trump’s East Potomac Golf Course renovations face a growing legal fight

TIME

What’s behind the $105 million donation to Yellowstone National Park?

Mountain Journal | Wes Siler’s Newsletter

Poll: 96% of Coloradans support conserving public lands

9News

Quote of the day

It is overwhelmingly likely that the USDA’s planned closures and relocations violate Congress’s express restriction on those activities… There is no public interest in allowing the government to violate federal law.”

—U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria, Summit Daily

Picture This

@usinterior

Hot moose summer is over. Welcome to cool moose fall.

At @grandtetonnps, autumn means the moose rut is underway. Bull moose roam in search of females, size up their competition and sometimes put those massive antlers to the test.

Romance, rivalry and really big antlers. Fall has arrived in the Tetons.

Photo by Kevin Yu Shi

Feature image: Spent nuclear fuel at the Hanford Nuclear Site, Wikimedia Commons

The post The Senate permitting bill would lock in data centers and nuclear waste on public lands appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

President Trump signed legislation Tuesday making Chiricahua America’s 64th national park, the first new national park in six years.

Nicknamed the “Wonderland of Rocks,” Chiricahua is known for its balanced boulders, rhyolite pinnacles, and other rock formations. It’s one of several sky islands in southeastern Arizona, which are isolated mountain ranges that rise up out of the surrounding desert “sea” and provide important habitat to species including black bears, jaguars, and more than half of the continent’s birds.

President Calvin Coolidge protected Chiricahua, located in southeastern Arizona, as a national monument in 1924. The park’s boundaries stay the same, and the law protects Tribal access for traditional ceremonies on land that was once home to the Chiricahua Apache. At least five similar bills stalled before Representative Juan Ciscomani and Senators Mark Kelly and Ruben Gallego pushed this one through.

Local leaders are counting on a tourism bump. “More visitors can mean more customers for our hotels, restaurants, and small businesses,” Willcox Mayor Greg Hancock said.

Whether the Park Service can handle them is another matter. Agency officials declined to say whether they will add staff after deep workforce cuts under Interior Secretary Doug Burgum. Additionally, the park currently needs mold abatement in employee housing as well as other repairs, according to a review of park service projects by the Center for Western Priorities.

62 percent of national forests within half-mile of backcountry roads

A new map created by The Wilderness Society finds 310,860 miles of road or other routes in national forests are currently open to motorized vehicles—enough to drive to the moon and a quarter of the way back.

Despite the staggering amount of miles already open to off-road vehicles, motorcycles, and snowmobiles, the Trump administration is proposing to open even more of our national forests to motorized vehicles by revising the agency’s Travel Management Rule. The revision would flip the current “closed unless designated open” system on its head so all routes, including hiking and biking trails, would be open to motorized use unless marked closed.

Quick hits New map reveals extent of data center applications on public lands in the West

Reuters | KLAS | KHQ | KVOA

Court upholds EPA’s authority over Tribal lands in Oklahoma

Native News Online

As Trump wages golf course war, DC residents fear loss of access

New York Times

Report: New data shows how New Mexico can leverage satellites to find and fix oil and gas emissions

Big Gas Polluters

Company powering Google’s data center gives $105 million for Yellowstone conservation

Cowboy State Daily

NRDC says permitting deal is ‘deeply flawed,’ calls for changes

Politico Pro

14 bears were euthanized at one Montana home. Wildlife experts explain what went wrong

Outside

Lawmakers could face a data center backlash if permitting reform bill passes

HuffPost

Quote of the day

The Chiricahuas deserve national park status. They are one of America’s most spectacular and wild places… That said, this designation will bring more visitors, which will require more resources. Doug Burgum and Congress need to fully fund our park system, rather than starving it.”

—Aaron Weiss, executive director of the Center for Western Priorities, Politico Pro

Picture This

@usinterior

America’s newest national park is rock solid!

Chiricahua is officially our 64th national park.

Known as the “Wonderland of Rocks,” this spectacular Arizona landscape was shaped by massive volcanic eruptions and millions of years of erosion, creating the towering rock pinnacles that define Chiricahua today.

But there’s much more to this place than the rocks. Chiricahua National Park is home to an incredible diversity of plants and wildlife and preserves thousands of years of human history, from Indigenous peoples and Chiricahua Apaches to Buffalo Soldiers, pioneers, ranchers and the Civilian Conservation Corps.

A new name for a place Americans have treasured for generations.

Photos by Sean Parker | @seanparkerphotography

Feature image: Massai Point in Chiricahua National Park; Source: nps.gov

The post Chiricahua becomes America’s 64th national park appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

BLM is currently considering at least 35 applications for data centers and related infrastructure on public lands in six Western states, covering more than 24,000 acres

DENVER — The Bureau of Land Management appears to be considering at least 17 applications to build data center campuses on public land in the West, according to a new interactive map from the Center for Western Priorities. Our BLM Data Center Tracker, built from the agency’s own land records, also identifies at least 13 likely applications for infrastructure to support AI data centers, including access roads, water pipelines, telecom lines, and transmission lines.

Altogether, the map shows 35 active data center-related applications covering more than 24,000 acres in Arizona, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, and Wyoming. Last month, press reports and a congressional letter put the number at roughly 12 proposals over 17,600 acres.

What the map shows

Of the 35 active cases on the map, it appears 17 are applications for a data center campus, identifiable by “Data Center,” “Gigasite,” or “Project” in the case name. Because some of these cases seem to be colocated the 17 applications may represent fewer distinct projects. Another 13 applications appear to be for supporting infrastructure, and five cannot be classified into either category based on publicly available information. The best way to use the map is to click into individual cases and read the text associated with the application.

Some of these proposals dwarf a typical data center. NPR reported that Valar Atomics’ Project Beehive in eastern Utah would cover more than 9,000 acres and be powered by small modular nuclear reactors, a technology that has not yet been deployed at commercial scale. A single developer, Copia, has filed 16 site and infrastructure proposals across five states, including an application associated with a 2,520-acre parcel near Las Vegas.

A rush with no rules

Unlike for solar, wind, drilling, or mining, there is no established permitting process for building data centers on public land. This absence hasn’t slowed the administration’s rush to build them, though. In June, BLM permitted a 167-megawatt data center near Boulder City, Nevada, without an environmental review. The Interior Board of Land Appeals halted the project in September after Boulder City and conservation groups challenged it. This week, a judge sent the project back for a proper environmental review.

On September 24, Representatives Jared Huffman, Dina Titus, and 13 other members of Congress sent Interior Secretary Doug Burgum 18 questions about data centers on public lands, including whether the public will be able to weigh in on these proposals. They asked for answers by October 8.

The public’s view on data centers is clear. In a July poll of likely Wyoming voters, more than 90 percent of respondents said data centers are not an acceptable use of public lands. Nationally, Pew Research Center found the share of Americans who say data centers are mostly bad for the environment rose from 39 percent in January to 54 percent in September.

The Center for Western Priorities released the following statement from Deputy Director Lauren Bogard:

“Data centers are not like oil, gas, or minerals, which are extracted from public lands because that’s where they exist. Unlike mining or drilling, there are no natural resources that make it necessary to develop data centers on public lands, and there is no reason to assume data centers belong on them.

“Before even considering putting data centers on public lands, the Trump administration should be obligated to solicit public feedback on this idea. None of these projects should move forward without a permitting framework that lets communities decide where, how, or if data centers get built. That process must include robust, site-specific environmental review and public input opportunities, as well as meaningful, negotiated community benefits that ensure the public is compensated when private companies profit from public lands.”

Methodology

Application (or case) data used to build the map comes from BLM’s Mineral & Land Records System, accessed through its public ArcGIS service across all four application statuses: pending, authorized, interim, and closed. Because BLM has no “data center” category for right-of-way cases, CWP runs two searches: one matching case and applicant names against terms such as “data,” “hyperscale,” “gigasite,” and “modular reactor,” and a second matching applicant names against developers confirmed to be active in the sector. The second search exists because early-stage cases are often filed with no name at all, under LLCs with names that give no hint of their purpose.

Each search returns roughly 300 raw hits, most of them false positives such as legacy radio licenses that use the acronym “SMR.” CWP’s pipeline reviews every hit against corporate records and press coverage. Parcel boundaries come directly from BLM’s survey data. The map is refreshed regularly and was last updated October 16.

This tracker provides a baseline count. An application with no name and an unidentified applicant won’t appear in this count, so the real number of data center-related applications received by BLM may be higher than this map shows. BLM often records zero acres for early-stage applications, so the map likely also undercounts acreage. Finally, a right-of-way application (which all of these are) is a request, not an approval, and pending cases may be withdrawn by the developer or denied by BLM.

Note: The public-facing API used to pull this data from BLM’s Mineral & Land Records System is unavailable as of October 20 at 10am MDT. The map reflects BLM data as of October 16, 2026, and CWP will refresh it (if possible) once the system is back online.

Data and full methodology: https://github.com/Center-for-Western-Priorities/blm-data-centers

Learn more:

• The Trump administration is trying to build data centers on public lands – Westwise
• Data Center Doug wants to “manufacture intelligence” on your public lands – Westwise
• Democrats Demand Answers on Trump Plan to Build Data Centers on Public Lands – Truthout
• Trump Is Considering More Data Centers on Public Lands Than Previously Known – Washington Sun
• The Wilderness Society calls for AI data center moratorium on public lands – The Wilderness Society

The post New map tracks data center applications moving through BLM’s pipeline appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum’s deputy chief of staff, Gregory Wischer, told a federal judge Monday that the felling of more than 500 trees at Washington’s East Potomac Golf Links over Columbus Day weekend was not part of President Donald Trump’s plan to renovate the course.

Wischer, a political appointee who oversees many of Trump’s D.C. “beautification” projects, pinned the work on a 2019 Park Service landscape report. He also sparred with Park Service Deputy Director Frank Lands, who testified last week that Wischer directed him to proceed on October 5 and that acting director Jessica Bowron approved the plan the next day. “I never said go execute,” Wischer said Monday. “The direction came out of your mouth,” plaintiffs’ attorney Abbe Lowell shot back.

Lowell then showed photos from Trump’s June 28 tour of the course with Burgum and architect Tom Fazio, including one of Wischer carrying conceptual golf course proposals. Wischer acknowledged that Fazio’s son texted him the design Trump posted Sunday, and said he “can’t recall” contacting Tom Fazio. Judge Ana Reyes said there was “no universe” in which the timing was a coincidence.

On Sunday, Trump announced the course would close on November 15 for 15 months under a plan Interior developed “under the auspices of Secretary Doug Burgum.” That night, the Justice Department told Reyes there was “no final agency action” because the Park Service “has not completed its review.”

Quick hits 6 threats to public lands in the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act

The Wilderness Society

Judge halts controversial plan to build road in North Cascades riverbed

SFGATE

Forest Service employees warned against sharing the chief’s travel plans after he visited Juneau

Juneau Independent

Yellowstone receives record $105 million gift for infrastructure, conservation, access

WyoFile

In Fairbanks, Interior Secretary Burgum touts deregulation and data centers

KUAC

Judge grills Trump administration over plans to overhaul Washington golf course

Associated Press | New York Times | POLITICO

Arizona joins legal revolt over Trump’s Colorado River plan

POLITICO Pro

Data center project proposed on federal land gets sent back to square one

Nevada Current

Quote of the day

The irreversible destruction these provisions would cause to treasured places like the Arctic, the Boundary Waters, Bears Ears, and Chaco is simply not a reasonable or necessary tradeoff.”

—The Wilderness Society on the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act

Picture This

@usinterior

The marbled orb weaver, aka the “pumpkin spider,” gets its seasonal nickname from its round abdomen and brilliant orange coloring.

These colorful spiders build wheel-shaped webs that are perfect for catching insects that wander into their carefully spun traps.

This one was spotted sitting on a red fall leaf at @ShenandoahNPS, looking ready for spooky season.

Photo by Alan Downie

Feature image: East Potomac Golf Course at Hain’s Point; Source: National Parks Gallery/Picryl

The post Trump aide attempts to dodge blame for DC golf course tree cutting spree appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

As opposition to AI data centers mounts across the country, the Trump administration is moving full speed ahead to approve and construct them on America’s public lands, writes Center for Western Priorities Deputy Director Lauren Bogard in a new Westwise post.

The Bureau of Land Management is considering at least 35 active data center-related applications covering over 24,000 acres in six Western states, according to CWP’s new BLM Data Center Tracker. Many of the applications list no acreage, so the true footprint is likely larger.

Unlike oil, gas, wind, or solar, there is no framework for conducting environmental reviews, collecting public input, or returning revenue to taxpayers for data centers built on public lands. Additionally, data centers are not like oil, gas, or minerals, which are extracted from public lands because that’s where they exist. There are no natural resources that make it necessary to develop data centers on public lands, and there is no reason to assume data centers belong on them.

Meanwhile, opposition is building. The Wilderness Society called for a moratorium on data centers on public land earlier this month, and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility is pressing congressional appropriators to block the projects. In a July survey for Keep It Public Wyoming, over 90 percent of likely voters said data centers are not an acceptable use of public lands. Nationally, Pew found the share of Republicans who say data centers are mostly bad for the environment jumped from 31 to 47 percent since January. Learn more in the latest Westwise post on Substack.

Quick hits Trump geothermal lease sale collides with planned Nevada solar farms

Reuters

Government watchdog finds BLM may be breaking the law by allowing foreign agents to mine on public land

Politico

Federal contract spending on public lands in Colorado dropped $189 million last year

Summit Daily

Trump outlines rapid plan to close and overhaul D.C. golf course

New York Times

Final plans for Trump’s arch appear to abandon his ‘military complex’ idea

Washington Post

Dropping Lake Powell levels reveal ‘crime against nature’

USA Today

Trump doubles down on Reflecting Pool vandalism claims without providing evidence

ABC News

Trump rule lets Alaska hunters lure bears with bacon-greased doughnuts

New York Times | Politico

Quote of the day

Baiting bears with piles of doughnuts, meat scraps, and dog food to lure them into shooting range and gun them down is indefensible and inexcusable as a federal policy decision.”

—Kitty Block, president of Humane World for Animals, New York Times

Picture This

@usinterior

Every autumn, thousands of migrating birds arrive at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge in New Mexico. Sandhill cranes, snow geese and other waterfowl fill the wetlands, creating one of the Southwest’s most spectacular wildlife displays.

Photo by Robert Dunn

Feature image: Utah Data Center located in Bluffdale, Utah and run by the National Security Agency, Source: Swilsonmc, Wikimedia Commons

The post The Trump administration is trying to build data centers on public lands appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

A federal judge ruled that two lawsuits challenging President Donald Trump’s rollbacks of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments in Utah can proceed.

District Judge Tanya Chutkan reopened cases originally filed in 2017 by environmental groups and Tribal entities to oppose President Donald Trump’s downsizing of both national monuments during his first term. Judge Chutkan put the case on hold after President Joe Biden restored the boundaries of both monuments in 2021. In July, President Trump once again slashed the size of both monuments by nearly 3 million acres. In September, a group of environmental organizations and Tribal entities filed a request to reopen the cases, asking the judge to vacate the monument rollbacks and declare them unconstitutional. Chutkan’s order requires the Trump administration to provide 48 hours notice to the plaintiffs before any ground-disturbing activities commence.

“We are reaching out to every Tribe and non-profit to stand together to provide protection of the Earth at Bears Ears,” said Philip Rentz, the board chairman of Utah Diné Bikéyah in a statement when the request was filed. “In 2017 and most recently, President Trump acted illegally in significantly reducing National Monument protections and tried not only to divide Tribes, but to dismantle collaborative efforts that honored trust and treaty responsibilities.”

Quick hits Judge unfreezes lawsuits filed over downsizing of Utah monuments

Arizona Republic | Bloomberg Law

A uranium mine near Grand Canyon National Park raises fears of arsenic contamination in the water

Science Line

Lawsuit challenges Trump administration’s military zone on New Mexico border

Santa Fe New Mexican

Report: How the Trump administration is trading away public lands for corporate benefit

Center for American Progress

Trump funding cuts halt repairs, critical work at national parks

Arizona Republic | Nevada Current | Desert Sun

AI data center water use grows in drought-stricken areas

Bloomberg

Trump’s logging push is reshaping who controls America’s forests

E&E News

Opinion: Access to public lands should unite all Americans

TIME

Quote of the day

At a time of growing loneliness, division, and stress, being outside can improve physical and mental well-being, strengthen community, and reconnect us with one another. For millions of Americans, public lands make that possible.”

—Mary Beth Laughton, president and CEO of REI Co-op, TIME

Picture This

@nmdeptwildlife

Sandhill crane migration season is just around the corner! New Mexico is a very important wintering area for sandhill cranes. The valleys of New Mexico provide a mild winter climate, shallow water roosting sites, and good food resources for wintering cranes. The need to conserve these important areas of crane habitat cannot be overstated to ensure that cranes persist in NM into the future, which is why we oversee the Bernardo Wildlife Management Area.

A sandhill crane can live 20 years or more, which is very long-lived for a bird. Sandhill crane migration lengths are variable, but some birds will migrate very long distances to breed, with some birds that winter in New Mexico breeding as far away as Siberia. Sandhill cranes represent one of the oldest surviving bird lineages on Earth—their presence today connects modern ecosystems (including humans!) directly to deep ecological past. They were here long before any human knew how to use fire.

Featured image: Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in Utah. Source: BLM Flickr

The post Judge unfreezes lawsuits filed over downsizing of Utah monuments appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

A federal judge has issued a preliminary ruling blocking the Trump administration from moving the U.S. Forest Service’s headquarters from Washington, D.C., to Salt Lake City, Utah.

U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria signed an order Tuesday granting a stay on the move. “Congress did not contemplate USDA using its appropriated funds to shut down offices or relocate employees,” Chhabria wrote. “To the contrary, Congress was actively working to restrict the agency’s ability to do so.” Chhabria’s order blocks Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins and other officials from closing offices or reassigning employees to new locations outside of their areas while the lawsuit makes its way through the courts.

In March, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced plans to move the Forest Service headquarters to Utah along with a major restructuring of the agency. The reorganization would have been the largest in Forest Service history, and called for dissolving nine regional offices across the country and closing and consolidating nearly two dozen research facilities. A group of nonprofits, local governments, and labor union organizations filed a lawsuit to block the plan, calling it an “unprecedented reorganization” that would close offices across the country and force thousands of USDA employees to “choose between their families, communities, churches, and lives they have built, and their careers.”

Report says Reflecting Pool liner repair job failed in 85 places

A 75-page “failure analysis” report finds that the blue coating applied to the bottom of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool this summer failed in at least 85 places because of errors in the renovation. The report was commissioned by Atlantic Industrial Coatings, the contractor that did the work, and documents far more damage than previously reported. President Donald Trump and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum falsely attributed the damage to vandals, but the report makes no mention of vandalism to the liner and blames the problems on the use of improper materials and a rush to complete the job before the July 4th holiday.

Quick hits Federal judge blocks bid to relocate Forest Service HQ to Utah

Utah News Dispatch | Salt Lake Tribune | WyoFile | Utah Public Radio | Fox13 News

Report says Reflecting Pool liner repair job failed in 85 places

Washington Post

Nevada residents ‘kept in the dark’ as AI data centers are coming for public land

Associated Press

More than a million responses called for keeping the Roadless Rule intact

Nevada Public Radio

Tribes, advocates say California water plan threatens Klamath salmon restoration

Native News Online

New study links national park reservations with higher income

Outside

Interior blocked funding for projects in Yellowstone, Glacier national parks

Helena Independent Record

Opinion: What happens when you can no longer fight a wildfire?

New York Times

Quote of the day

We believe that public lands are reserved for public good and should be protected and kept in trust for future generations, and the idea of using public lands for data center construction totally flies in the face of that set of values.”

—Olivia Tanager, director of the Sierra Club’s Toiyabe Chapter, Associated Press

Picture This

@nationalparkservice

Some birds sing. Others silently disapprove of your life choices.

Hawkward. Very hawkward.

Among the bird world’s most skilled pilots, Cooper’s hawks zip through cluttered tree canopies at high speed in pursuit of other birds. They’re often spotted near forest edges or open fields, flying with a few stiff wingbeats followed by a glide. But perhaps their most impressive feature is their expression. Cooper’s hawks have a famously intense, judgmental glare, as though they’ve just reviewed your life choices but just can’t look away. This is thanks to a prominent supraorbital ridge: a bony shelf above each eye that, combined with their forward-facing eyes and boxy, flat-topped heads, gives them a rather tough appearance.

It’s an excellent look for a bird that hunts at high speeds. Less ideal if you’re trying to look approachable at a dinner party.

Fun fact for dinner party conversation: the Cooper’s hawk was named after William Cooper (1798–1864), an American naturalist and collector who studied birds in the 19th century. The hawk’s scientific name, Accipiter cooperii, also honors him.

Image 1: @delwatergapnps NPS/Grismer
Image 2: @petrifiedforestnps NPS/Holgerson
Image 3: @castillonps NPS

Featured image: Pando trees in the Fishlake National Forest, Utah. Source: Forest Service photo by Tanya Flores, Flickr.

The post Federal judge blocks bid to relocate Forest Service HQ to Utah appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

A historic drought and the ongoing impacts of climate change have opened the door for a tiny beetle to threaten more than 600,000 acres of ponderosa pine forest across Colorado.

“We anticipate there to be anywhere from twice as much, to three times as much, activity as we saw last year,” said Dan West, an entomologist with the Colorado State Forest Service. According to the 2025 Report on the Health of Colorado’s Forests, impacted acreage increased 148 percent year-to-year, rising to 5,544 acres in 2025, alarming foresters, communities, and lawmakers.

Stands of dead ponderosas increase already elevated wildfire risk and threaten watersheds that millions of residents rely on for clean drinking water—about 4 million people live in nine counties on both sides of the Rocky Mountains. “The threat of high-intensity wildfire is not theoretical, it’s one we’ve experienced,” said Madelene McDonald, Denver Water’s watershed planning manager. “High-intensity fires lead to brown, sediment-laden water flowing into treatment plants, which is really expensive to treat,” she added.

Colorado Governor Jared Polis signed an executive order last December establishing the Ponderosa Mountain Pine Beetle Task Force following warnings from state foresters to get ahead of the outbreak.

Quick hits Colorado’s fight to save ponderosas from existential threat of pine beetles

Capital & Main

Trump raised big money for Freedom 250, but most events appear to be funded by taxpayers

Washington Sun

BLM moves forward with planned lease sale for Colorado’s Roan Plateau

Aspen Daily News

Community activists call on feds to reopen closed borderlands

Arizona Luminaria

How U.S. coal companies are mining ties to Trump

Financial Times

New Mexico opponents of Roadless Rule repeal describe fear of lost quiet, solitude

SourceNM

How the Forest Service is fighting fire with fire in Utah

Deseret News

Essay: Protecting Bahsahwahbee: A living refuge for our ancestors

Emergence Magazine

Quote of the day

The border divides families, it divides communities, it divides mating pairs of jaguars, it keeps mothers from their children, both human and animal. The border kills ancient cottonwoods that have flourished for 200 years in a verdant valley, stretching in one unbroken grove from north to south, until this monstrous metal scar tears through them.”

—Logan Miller, an activist who was arrested in Lochiel in August after trying to stop border construction, Arizona Luminaria

Picture This

@usinterior

Crisp, cooler air, shorter days and leaves turning brilliant shades of gold, orange and red. Add the haunting sound of bull elk bugling across the meadows, and you’ve got the magic of fall at Rocky Mountain National Park.

It’s a gorgeous sight and signals that winter is just around the corner in the southern Rocky Mountains!

Photo at @rockynps by Jim Garrison

Featured image: Source: @Colorado.State.Forest.Service

The post Colorado’s fight to save ponderosas from existential threat of pine beetles appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes presided over an unusual holiday hearing on Monday that stretched to almost four hours following the Trump administration’s actions to cut down hundreds of trees at the East Potomac golf course in Washington, D.C. over the weekend.

The administration provided just a few hours advance notice to the court before moving ahead with a plan to clear more than 400 trees on Saturday. Preservationists are suing to block President Donald Trump’s plan to transform the site into a championship-level course. Reyes said the abrupt move violated an understanding she had with Justice Department lawyers that no major renovation work would proceed without giving the court time to address it. Reyes imposed a short-term restraining order, blocking the National Park Service from taking down any more trees through 2 PM today.

During the hearing on Monday, Reyes demanded immediate testimony on the matter, summoning officials from the National Park Service to testify via Zoom. Frank Lands, the park service’s deputy director of operations, said his instructions came from Greg Wischer, a senior official at the Department of the Interior. Wischer could not be located Monday, so Reyes recessed the hearing with plans to reconvene today.

“I trusted you all not to do precisely what you have done,” Reyes said to the Trump administration attorneys at the hearing, declaring that they had “lost credibility” by defying her clear instructions. “I actually don’t think courts should be playing Parks and Rec,” Reyes said during the hearing. “There is no excuse for this.”

Quick hits Judge halts Trump’s tree demolition at D.C. golf course

Politico | Associated Press | Washington Post | WTOP News

Tohono O’odham Nation fights saguaro removal in borderlands on Indigenous Peoples’ Day

Arizona Republic

In New Mexico’s oil country, people ask: What happened to our water and air?

Capital & Main

Hundreds of thousands of commenters support maintaining the Roadless Rule

Utah Public Radio

Federal judge bars group from fencing off 1,400 acres of Colorado public land

Colorado Sun

One acre of Yosemite has kicked off a battle over the future of national parks

Wall Street Journal

Interior cancels maintenance, programming at New Mexico national park sites

SourceNM

Opinion: The U.S. public is losing its say on environmental policy

Yale Environment 360

Quote of the day

Trespassing on our land to remove the sacred saguaros is like having masked men break into your house and take away your children. The ha:sañ are our family, as much a part of us as any blood relative. To destroy them by the thousands carves a wound in our hearts that will not heal. We call on all people for solidarity as we work to protect our culture and our land from this useless, destructive wall.”

—Verlon Jose, Tohono O’odham Tribal Chairman, Arizona Republic

Picture This

@u.s.forestservice

Granite Peak rises above Buttermilk Meadows on the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest — a stunning backdrop in one of northern Nevada’s most treasured landscapes.

The Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest supports local recreation and plays an important role in the rural economy.

With an elevation of 9,732 feet at Granite Peak, visitors can explore rugged granitic formations, sweeping basins, and vibrant high-desert vegetation including large aspen stands, mountain mahogany, sagebrush, and native grasses.

Plan your visit and experience the beauty of Nevada’s basin-and-range country. The Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest is your starting point for adventure!

(Forest Service by Mark Dallon.)

Featured image: East Potomac Park Golf Course, just South of the National Mall in Washington D.C. Source: Ken Lund, Flickr.

The post Judge halts Trump’s tree demolition at D.C. golf course appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

DENVER—A new analysis by the Center for Western Priorities found that 99.1 percent of the 370,238 public comments posted on the U.S. Forest Service’s (USFS) proposal to rescind the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule oppose the Trump administration’s plan. The comment period closed October 6.

The 2001 Roadless Rule prohibits most road construction and commercial logging on more than 44 million acres of national forest land outside of Colorado and Idaho, where state-specific roadless rules apply. The proposed rule, published August 20, would rescind those protections nationwide and leave the management of roadless areas up to individual forest plans. USFS argues that removing the rule would help reduce wildfire risk and give local managers more flexibility, claims that are undercut by the agency’s own environmental analysis of repealing the rule.

Key findings:

• 99.1 percent of posted comments opposed rescinding the Roadless Rule
• 0.5 percent supported the rescission
• 0.3 percent were neutral or off-topic

The Center for Western Priorities released the following statement from Creative Content and Policy Manager Lilly Bock-Brownstein:

“For the second year in a row, Americans have flooded the Forest Service with comments telling it to keep the Roadless Rule. If the Trump administration moves forward with this proposal, they will be blatantly ignoring the wishes of the American people.

“The Trump administration keeps claiming that repealing the rule is about wildfire, but the public isn’t buying it—our comment analysis confirms that Americans know this is about giving private industry easier access to our public lands.”

These results track previous CWP analyses that found near-universal opposition to the Trump administration’s public lands rollbacks. In September 2025, more than 99 percent of approximately 183,000 comments opposed repealing the Roadless Rule. In November 2025, 98 percent of comments opposed rescinding the Bureau of Land Management’s Public Lands Rule. And last month, 99 percent of 134,312 comments opposed the Forest Service’s rewrite of the Travel Management Rule, which would open national forest roads and trails to motorized vehicles by default.

Methodology:

CWP downloaded all 370,238 comments posted to docket FS-2025-0001 on regulations.gov as of October 7, 2026, 7:06 AM MT. CWP also downloaded and read the 17,857 attachment files submitted with 3,924 of those comments, so that letters submitted as PDFs or images were classified by their content. Those attachments represent an estimated 296,000 additional individual comments or signatures. Each comment was classified as supporting, opposing, or neutral/off-topic using a combination of keyword matching and a large language model. CWP staff manually audited the labels on a sample of 300 comments, which oversampled “support” and “neutral/off-topic” comments. The audit found a labeling accuracy rate estimated at 99.9 percent.

The comments posted to regulations.gov reflect a portion of the massive public outcry against rescinding the Roadless Rule. Conservation organizations have tracked more than 1 million letters and signatures asking the Forest Service to keep the Roadless Rule in place. The General Services Administration does not post every comment submitted to each agency; CWP’s analysis covers all of the comments that are available online.

Learn more:

• USFS’s own analysis shows Roadless Rule repeal would harm wildlife, water, and rural communities — Westwise

• Commenters overwhelmingly oppose Travel Management Rule rewrite — Center for Western Priorities

• Comment analysis finds over 99% opposition to repealing 2001 Roadless Rule — Center for Western Priorities

The post STATEMENT: New analysis finds 99.1 percent of public comments oppose repealing the Roadless Rule appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

An investigation by ABC News has shed new light on the problem of abandoned mines in the Western U.S. and across the country. The investigation compiled records from the Office of Surface Mine Reclamation and Enforcement (OSMRE), part of the Department of the Interior, to create an interactive map of more than 230,000 documented abandoned mine sites.

Many of the documented abandoned mines are in coal-producing regions in the eastern U.S. The investigation points out that since the 1970s, coal mining companies have been required to develop and execute remediation plans to restore the land after coal mining operations have ended, and OSMRE’s Abandoned Mine Land Reclamation Program, established in 1977, addresses legacy coal mines using fees on current coal production. However, there is not a similar funding source for reclaiming hardrock mines, which are much more common in the West. The ABC News map shows just how many documented abandoned mines are concentrated across Western states.

OSMRE officials also acknowledge that there may be many more abandoned mine sites that are not documented or identified. “Mining back in 1865 or 1880 or 1890, there are no records of that. No one kept records,” Lanny Erdos, an OSMRE official, told ABC News. “There potentially can be mines out there that we would have no idea that they are there until they express themselves in some adverse way.”

Quick hits As Pitkin County looks toward management of the Maroon Bells, what does it mean for the iconic place?

CPR News

Conservation group calls for moratorium on AI data centers on US public lands

Reuters

Veteran Interior department lawyer resigns in protest, warns of ‘assault on the rule of law’

Public Domain

Three principles for a wildfire-resilient nation

Ground Shift

Wrongly indicted Olympian seeks investigation into potential DOI, DOJ misconduct in Reflecting Pool case

New York Times | Washington Post | CBS News | ABC News

Forest Service rangers helped ICE detain a group of campers. Now, Congress wants answers

Backpacker

A long (long) walk down Ambler Road

GearJunkie

This sky island destination will likely be America’s next national park

SFGATE

Quote of the day

What’s it going to be? ‘The Maroon Bells brought to you by Budweiser’?”

—Victor Valinskas, visitor to the Maroon Bells Scenic Area, CPR News

Picture This @greatbasinnp

On a cool September evening, sundown reveals the Great Basin one layer at a time: rock and rabbitbrush, sagebrush and pinyon-juniper, the broad basin below, and distant mountain ranges rising beyond it.

These isolated ranges are sometimes described as “sky islands”—higher, cooler habitats surrounded by lower, drier country. Each change in elevation brings changes in temperature, moisture, plants, and wildlife.

But this landscape offers something that cannot be measured by elevation alone.

Quiet. Distance. Room to breathe.

Great Basin National Park preserves not only mountains, caves, ancient trees, and dark night skies, but also opportunities to experience solitude. Sometimes the landscape’s quietest moments tell its story best.

What do you notice first when you look across the Great Basin?

Photo Credit: NPS/G. Zierdt

 

Featured image: An abandoned mine in Colorado’s San Juan Mountains, D&RG Railfan via Wikimedia Commons/CC BY 3.0

The post Abandoned mines ‘a constant problem’ across the West appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

On Monday, contractors knocked down an iconic “grandmother” cottonwood tree on federal land in the San Rafael Valley near Lochiel, Arizona to clear the way for border wall construction. Armed Border Patrol agents cleared an encampment of about 50 people who had gathered to try to protect the cottonwood after three others had already been felled. All four trees were estimated to be as many as 250 years old. The protesters’ efforts included taking turns camping in the tree itself to ensure it was occupied at all times for more than 70 days. Ten protesters were cited and at least another 12 were arrested, including the person who was camped in the tree itself at the time and was forcibly removed from the tree using a cherry picker.

“We are resolute,” said Kate Scott, one of the protesters. “This movement is not going anywhere. They have cut down our grandmother, but her roots are within us.” A similar continual-occupation protest is also happening in a tree on the Mexican side of the border, and a demonstration at the local Bureau of Land Management office is planned for later this week to protest the agency’s recent land closure orders related to border wall construction in the area.

The Border Patrol’s actions fit with a pattern of using the southern border to militarize national public lands, as Center for Western Priorities Creative Content and Policy Manager Lilly Bock-Brownstein wrote in a Westwise blog post earlier this year. “If the administration continues on its current course, these iconic landscapes will continue to be collateral damage,” Bock-Brownstein wrote. “Border security should not require the permanent sacrifice of America’s public lands, and it should not come at the cost of the heritage and economies of the communities that surround them.”

Quick hits Analysis: 99% of commenters oppose motorized use changes in forests

Wyoming Public Radio

Native nations sue over Endangered Species Act changes

High Country News

Supreme Court grapples with case on holding Big Oil liable for climate change

Washington Post

NPS denies request to maintain water stations along Arizona-Mexico border for migrants

KJZZ

Winter is coming, and Crater Lake National Park is in trouble

SFGATE

Residents express worries about copper mine’s return

Las Cruces New Mexican

Judge jails man in moose abuse case and warns: Wyoming values wildlife

WyoFile

Heinrich: Repealing the roadless rule ignores public approval

The Hill

Quote of the day

The Roadless Rule is overwhelmingly popular, including with sportsmen, anglers, campers and recreators. It is so popular that the administration knows it will lose if it consults the public on dismantling it. Thus, the administration is simply refusing to hold public meetings at all. That is not only insulting—it is undemocratic. And it is a failure to listen to the people these lands belong to.”

—U.S. Senator Martin Heinrich of New Mexico, The Hill

Picture This @rockynps

“I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.”
— L. M. Montgomery

October is a special time of the year in Rocky Mountain National Park. Enjoy shades of green, gold, orange, red, and purple throughout the park.

Image Credits: NPS

 

Featured image: San Rafael Valley border wall construction in southern Arizona. Russ McSpadden, Center for Biological Diversity

The post Arrests made as Border Patrol cuts down iconic tree to clear way for border wall appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court will open its new term with a major climate lawsuit brought by Boulder, Colorado as its first case. In 2018, the city and county of Boulder sued ExxonMobil and Suncor, alleging that the companies misled the public about their climate impacts, in violation of Colorado state law. The Supreme Court will hear a request from ExxonMobil and Suncor to block the case from being heard in Colorado district court; a ruling on jurisdiction over these types of cases would have implications for several other pending cases across the country.

“These big oil companies are really desperate to escape trial in these cases so they’re asking the Supreme Court to step in and save them from trial,” Corey Riday-White, legal director for The Center for Climate Integrity, told the Denver Post. “It’s clear the fossil fuel industry doesn’t want the damning evidence of their climate lies to be presented at trial.”

Lawmakers introduce bill to prevent future orphaned wells

On Friday, several Western members of Congress introduced the Stop Orphaned Wells Act, which seeks to prevent oil and gas companies from leaving behind orphaned wells on national public lands. In 2024 the Bureau of Land Management updated bonding requirements to better ensure that oil and gas companies can pay to clean up their own wells, but the Trump administration’s recent proposed Oil and Gas Rule would roll back these updated requirements. The Stop Orphaned Wells Act would codify and strengthen bonding requirements and other accountability measures.

Quick hits Judge blocks border wall construction in Big Bend in Texas

New York Times

Long-awaited Senate deal to speed permitting faces familiar hurdles

Inside Climate News

Massive nuclear plant/waste dump/data center complex planned for BLM land in Utah

The Land Desk

Nevada backcountry vulnerable to more off-roading, logging under federal rule changes

Nevada Independent

Effort to save California’s iconic Joshua trees scrapped after Trump administration blocks funding

Los Angeles Times

Tweak to Endangered Species Act could allow widespread development

Mountain Journal

Opinion: If Doug Burgum got a performance review

RE:PUBLIC

Baseball in a national park? We found 7 ball fields at Grand Teton and Yellowstone

WyoFile

Quote of the day

They said that the [baseball] field was a good place for employees to get outside and recreate. Cory and I both turned and gestured towards the Tetons at the same time and said something like ‘they have this right here.’ I think at that moment they understood that their proposal wouldn’t fly.”

—Brad Boner, Wyoming photographer, WyoFile

Picture This @usinterior

Fall has entered the chat.

Quaking aspens turn brilliant shades of yellow each fall, but what you see above ground is only part of the story.

An entire stand of aspens can be connected underground by a single root system, meaning what looks like hundreds of individual trees may actually be one genetically identical organism. The trunks can live for a century, while the roots beneath them can survive for thousands of years.

Photos by Jim Grindley | @chileno_hikertron and NPS

 

Featured image: Smoke from the Marshall Fire over Superior, Colorado; the destructive impacts of this fire are widely attributed to climate change driven by oil and gas production. Tristantech via Wikimedia Commons/CC BY-SA 4.0

The post Supreme Court to open term with Colorado climate lawsuit appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

Arizona is one signature away from its fourth national park. The Senate passed a bill by unanimous consent Wednesday to redesignate Chiricahua National Monument as a national park and sent it to President Trump’s desk.

The bill was sponsored by U.S. Representative Juan Ciscomani and U.S. Senators Mark Kelly and Ruben Gallego. It leaves the monument’s roughly 12,000-acre boundaries as they are, and it requires consultation with Tribes and continued access for traditional Tribal uses.

Local officials hope the new name will bring more tourists to a site that had just over 70,000 visitors last year. Bill Wade, executive director of the Association of National Park Rangers, said Chiricahua is “certainly worthy of national park status,” but added, “Like a lot of other areas, it is most likely understaffed.”

Some of Chiricahua’s basic needs are already on hold. A new interactive map from the Center for Western Priorities shows 1,492 Park Service projects that Interior department officials classified as “low priority.” Three of them are at Chiricahua: emergency mold abatement in occupied staff housing, replacing electrical systems in historic buildings, and security upgrades. Top-priority work was fast-tracked instead, including a $16 million effort to paint the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool blue.

“These are the everyday projects that keep parks open and running: roof repairs, replacing outdated computers, even buying toilet paper and garbage bags. None of that is low priority. It’s the basic work of national parks,” said Lilly Bock-Brownstein of the Center for Western Priorities.

MLB drops proposal to host baseball game at Grand Teton National Park

Major League Baseball has dropped its proposal to host a game in Wyoming’s Grand Teton National Park. Last weekend, the Washington Post reported that a National Park Service official scouted possible sites. Local leaders then sent letters to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred expressing “strong opposition.” In a Thursday letter, Manfred wrote that “it has become clear the local community does not want us to continue evaluating Grand Teton National Park as a potential site.”

Quick hits Interior is paying $3.4M to repair the national mall’s turf

Washington Sun

DC judge permanently dismisses case charging ex-Olympian with vandalizing Reflecting Pool

Associated Press

The Trump admin cut funding to a conservation nonprofit. The group has no idea why

SFGATE

South Korea contests U.S. claims of new $50 billion pipeline in Alaska

Wall Street Journal

MLB drops proposal to host a baseball game at Grand Teton National Park

Associated Press | Washington Post | Jackson Hole News & Guide |

Conservation groups sue to halt expansion of Hermosa mine onto public lands in Arizona

Tucson Sentinel

Chiricahua National Park Act headed to President Trump may create Arizona’s fourth national park

Arizona’s Family | Arizona Daily Star | 13 News | KGUN | KVOA

4 more endangered California condors take flight near the Grand Canyon

Arizona Republic

Quote of the day

It’s very bewildering to see these cuts at a time when public interest and love for public lands is at an all-time high.”

—Peter Woodruff, executive director of the Great Basin Institute, SFGATE

Picture This @devilstowernps

While Katmai had its Fat Bear Week, here at Devils Tower we are entering our Fat Prairie Dog Week. In preparation for winter prairie dogs will also fatten up. The fatter the prairie dog the better chance it has of surviving the winter. While the prairie dogs in the park don’t hibernate, food can be scarce in the winter, so they need to pack on the pounds. Below is the fattest prairie dog we have ever seen at Devils Tower National Monument. What has been your best sighting of a plump animal? NPS/Brian C. #DevilsTower#FindYourPark

 

(Featured image: Chiricahua National Monument, Arizona. Photo by Ken Lund, Flickr)

The post Chiricahua positioned to become Arizona’s newest national park appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

DENVER—Earlier this year, National Park Service headquarters in Washington shifted about 1,500 projects, many already approved, to a new “low priority” list, the Associated Press reported in August. The projects span more than 200 sites and carry a combined cost estimate of more than $400 million. Park Service employees “were told to not expect anything on the low priority list to be contracted,” one official told the AP, and officials said almost all of the work is expected to go undone.

Meanwhile, White House priorities, including projects tied to President Donald Trump’s Freedom 250 initiative, were given a new, top-priority status. That list included the $16 million botched effort to paint the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool blue.

“The cancelled projects are working on things that are widely popular, across partisan lines. Who doesn’t want safer water and cleaner campgrounds?” a National Park Service ranger told the Center for Western Priorities. CWP is not identifying the ranger. “So they’ll cancel projects like these that keep parks safe in order to save a few dollars, but then they turn around and spend millions in D.C. on gold-plated statues. That’s what’s more important to them, which is both appalling and un-American.”

A new interactive map from the Center for Western Priorities shows 1,492 projects designated low priority at 276 national parks and Park Service offices, drawn from an internal NPS project database. They range from roof repairs and computer upgrades to toilet paper and garbage bags. In the West, 548 projects across 12 states landed on the list, including 97 in Alaska, 90 in California, and 78 in Wyoming.

The Park Service’s repair backlog has doubled over the last decade to more than $24 billion, and the agency has lost at least a quarter of its permanent workforce under the current Trump administration.

Project records are from an internal NPS project database, updated as of late August, 2026.

Explore the map here

The Center for Western Priorities released the following statement from Center for Western Priorities Creative Content and Policy Manager Lilly Bock-Brownstein:

“These are the everyday projects that keep parks open and running: roof repairs, replacing outdated computers, even buying toilet paper and garbage bags. None of that is low priority. It’s the basic work national parks need to function.

“It is illuminating to see which repairs and purchases were pushed aside so Secretary Burgum could pay for President Trump’s vanity projects in Washington. The National Park Service is supposed to protect every park.  Instead, parks across the country are being neglected while money flows to the president’s pet projects.”

Learn more:

• National park maintenance work sidelined as Trump’s Freedom 250 takes precedence — Associated Press

• 2026 NPS Agreement Disapprovals — Center for Western Priorities

• How Burgum is helping Trump gut national parks to fund vanity projects — Center for Western Priorities

• Staffing shortages, traffic jams and a culture war: Inside the fight over America’s national parks — CNN

Featured image: Great American Outdoors Act project in Colorado National Monument. Source: NPS Flickr.

The post STATEMENT: New map shows 1,492 national park projects put on a “low priority” list appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

Valar Atomics, a nuclear startup, is planning to place 456 small nuclear reactors on more than 9,000 acres of Bureau of Land Management land near Price, Utah, according to documents reviewed by NPR.

The company calls the proposal “Project Beehive.” In addition to the reactors, the site would include data centers, a facility to make nuclear fuel, and nuclear waste storage. The reactors would generate around 9.6 gigawatts of power, more than double Utah’s current average electricity output. Construction could begin by the end of this year, with the first reactors online in 2028. Valar has also sought about 650 acres of state land for the project, which the Salt Lake Tribune first reported last week.

Valar has benefited from the Trump administration’s nuclear push. Its test reactor won quick approval this year after the Energy department quietly overhauled its safety rules. Masha Bucher, whose firm co-led a $130 million funding round for Valar, is a former pro-Putin activist who worked as Jeffrey Epstein’s publicist, Mother Jones reported in February.

“If we have facilities like this on public land for waste storage, for massive nuclear development, for data centers, that’s going to have tremendous implications for how public lands are used,” said Lexi Tuddenham, executive director of the Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah.

Quick hits In less than a month, mining claims filed in Bears Ears already triple the total number filed during previous Trump reduction

Bloomberg Law | National Parks Conservation Association [press release] | Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance [press release]

Wyoming electeds unite against ‘peculiar’ Grand Teton baseball field pitch

Jackson Hole News & Guide

What’s Doug Burgum doing with Defense Production Act authority?

Wes Siler’s Newsletter

NOAA scales back Endangered Species Act protections

Politico Pro

Reno-based organization among hardest hit by National Park Service funding cuts

News 4

Opinion: I grew up near Glacier National Park, but this Blackfeet-led experience changed the way I see mountains

Travel + Leisure

The joy of song: Where songbirds came from and why we should listen to them

The Conversation

Colorado towns with bear trouble will share $1M in grants to reduce human-bear contact

Colorado Sun

Quote of the day

With DPA authority, and a National Energy Emergency, Burgum now has everything he needs to move forward with data center construction on public lands under the guise of “national security,” without any public notice or input. The first we learn of these projects may be when they break ground.”

—Journalist Wes Siler, Wes Siler’s Newsletter

Picture This @usinterior

He got it from his mama.

Bear 89, aka Backpack, has come a long way on his journey to becoming the 2026 Fat Bear Week champion.

Born in 2006, Backpack earned his nickname as a cub when he was often seen riding on the back of his mom, Holly. She helped him survive a serious leg injury, and over the years, bear watchers have watched Backpack grow into one hefty brown bear.

Holly knows a thing or two about hefty. The Duchess of Density won Fat Bear Week herself in 2019. Now Backpack has a crown of his own.

Photo: Yearling Backpack in 2007 with a hurt foot by Ranger Jeanne

 

(Featured image: Price Canyon, Utah. Photo by Kabelleger / David Gubler, Wikimedia Commons)

The post Nuclear startup plans hundreds of reactors on Utah public land appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

An Arizona tour company is suing the Trump administration over higher national park fees for people who don’t live in the United States, arguing the policy goes beyond the administration’s legal authority.

Under the Trump administration’s policy, nonresidents are charged an additional $100 per person at some of the nation’s most-visited national parks, and nonresident annual passes now cost $250, compared with $80 for residents. Across Arizona Tours says that the Interior department never had the authority to set the fees, and that only Congress can authorize federal fees.

The tour company is represented by the Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF), a libertarian law firm that focuses on property rights and limiting federal regulatory power. PLF has historically been on the opposing side of conservation groups, like in Sackett v. EPA (2023), which sharply narrowed Clean Water Act protections for wetlands.

Across Arizona Tours’ Carole Stapleton spoke with 80 to 90 potential customers who didn’t book a tour. Many of them cited the higher fees.

Businesses near the Grand Canyon warned about this before the fee took effect in January. About 14 percent of the park’s nearly 5 million annual visitors come from abroad. Last December, Julie Aldaz, general manager of the Red Feather Lodge in Tusayan, said business was already down 15 to 18 percent.

An Interior spokesperson told The Hill that foreign tourists “are paying higher entrance fees to help maintain our parks and improve visitor experiences.” But the surcharge brought in $22.5 million in the first half of 2026. Over roughly the same period, the administration moved at least $90 million in park fee revenue to Washington, D.C., for July 4 fireworks and President Donald Trump’s beautification projects.

Quick hits Opinion: Protecting our water means prioritizing local voices

Colorado Newsline

Billionaires in the wilderness

Mountain Journal

The Forest Service is poised to hand off one of the West’s most visited landscapes

High Country News

Arizona tour company sues over Trump’s nonresident fee at national parks

The Hill | SFGATE | Arizona’s Family

Nevada officials fight to protect public lands from unchecked tech development

Las Vegas Sun

Feds order Colorado coal plant open for another 3 months

Colorado Sun

Research on New Mexico’s Petroglyphs among park projects cut by Trump administration

Santa Fe New Mexican

Developer’s latest hydropower proposal on Navajo Nation draws scrutiny

KNAU

Quote of the day

It’s a myth that in order to make money, you have to trash the environment or that if you protect the environment, it’s going to cost our nation in lost economic productivity.”

—The late businessman and conservationist Ted Turner, speaking with Mountain Outlaw in 2017, Mountain Journal

Picture This @katmainpp

We have a new fat Bear Champ! Bear 89 nicknamed “Backpack”

As Fat Bear Week comes to a close, we’re celebrating more than crowned champions and epic bear glow‑ups, we’re celebrating all of you!

Your votes, your posts, your favorite bear campaigns, and your shared love for Katmai’s wild places turned this week into a collective story shaped by thousands of voices. It’s a reminder that just like America’s 250th anniversary, traditions endure because people keep them alive.

This year, we honored resilience in our bears and in our nation, recognizing the landscapes, communities, and shared stories that connect us. Thanks for being part of the journey. Until next year, enjoy the bears, salmon, and human connection that keeps Katmai’s ecosystems alive.

Photo and graphics courtesy of Explore.org and Sara Wolman

 

(Featured image: Tourists at Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona. Photo by Marek Slusarczyk, Wikimedia Commons)

The post Arizona tour company sues Trump admin over nonresident park fees appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

The Trump administration has scouted sites inside Grand Teton National Park to build a Major League Baseball field, the Washington Post reported Saturday, after MLB asked about staging a regular-season game in a national park.

National Park Service Deputy Director Frank Lands toured three potential locations, including one the Post described as “already disturbed land.” WyoFile, reporting from the park Sunday, noted that while a baseball field can cover about four acres, a stadium can take 25. A full complex with parking can occupy hundreds more. The park’s recently disturbed land is roughly 10 acres of sagebrush bulldozed for a trailhead parking expansion.

Visitors WyoFile spoke with in the park greeted the news with disbelief. “Keep America’s pastime in our baseball parks, not in our national parks,”said David Kelly, an Angels fan from L.A.

National parks are among the country’s most protected national public lands. Constructing a baseball field at Grand Teton could set a dangerous precedent for the entire park system.

“America’s national parks are already in a league of their own,”said Aaron Weiss, executive director at the Center for Western Priorities. “We have a responsibility to care for them, not turn them into a TV spectacle.”

Quick hits Increased traffic, shrunken monuments headline policy shifts on public lands

CPR News

More mining claims staked at Bears Ears

The Land Desk

Burgum brought Venezuelan gold bars to the Roosevelt Room

New York Times

After Trump opened Bears Ears land to business, prospectors swooped in

Grist

Trump admin eyes major BLM restructuring

Politico

The coal industry asked for a rescue. Trump obliged

New York Times

Peaches put this town on the map. The Colorado River drought could wipe it all away

Washington Post

A private ranch that wants 2,000 acres of federal land in Colorado has spent $200,000 to lobby a congressman

Denver Post

Quote of the day

MLB you should know that Grand Teton National Park, home to free ranging wildlife, including grizzly bears, bison, wolves, moose, cougars and elk, is not an appropriate or safe venue for your baseball fantasy.”

—Joan Anzelmo, former superintendent of Colorado National Monument, WyoFile

Picture This @nationalparkservice

Katmai’s brown bears are among the largest bears on Earth. Standing 3–5 feet at the shoulder and stretching 7–10 feet long, they are less “large animal” and more “walking pile of muscle with a snack agenda.”

By mid-summer, adult males are already tipping the scales at 600–900 pounds. But as winter approaches, they enter their annual transformation phase: less “bear,” more “professional food storage unit.”

By October and November, some large males can weigh over 1,000 pounds. Adult females are typically about one-third smaller than males, but still impressively chunky because in the bear world, “getting ready for winter” means turning calories into a luxurious layer of portable insulation. Same.

 

(Featured image: Grand Teton National Park near Jackson Lake Lodge. Photo by Chascar, Wikimedia Commons)

The post Burgum considers building MLB ballpark in Grand Teton National Park appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

GOLDEN—The Trump administration has scouted sites inside Grand Teton National Park for a Major League Baseball ballpark, the Washington Post reported Saturday, after MLB asked about staging a regular-season game in a national park. National Park Service Deputy Director Frank Lands toured three potential locations, including one the Post described as “already disturbed land.” WyoFile, reporting from the park Sunday, noted that while a baseball field can cover about four acres, a stadium can take 25 and a full complex with parking hundreds more, and that the park’s recently disturbed sagebrush amounts to roughly 10 acres bulldozed for a trailhead parking expansion. Visitors WyoFile spoke with greeted the news with disbelief, and neither Interior nor MLB responded to requests for comment.

The Center for Western Priorities released the following statement from Executive Director Aaron Weiss:

“Doug Burgum’s field of nightmares would drop a 20,000-seat stadium into one of America’s most-visited national parks while his department blocks hundreds of grants to the partner organizations that keep parks running. It’s another swing and a miss from the Interior secretary, who has already diverted millions of dollars from park entrance fees to the president’s botched vanity projects. We can’t afford to let Grand Teton become his single-use sandlot. A ballpark there would be bad news for the park’s bears… and every other animal.”

“America’s national parks are already in a league of their own. We have a responsibility to care for them, not turn them into a TV spectacle.”

The post STATEMENT: The National Park Service’s hare-brained plan to put a MLB ballpark in Grand Teton National Park appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.