Western Priorities

A flash flood tore through the bottom of the Grand Canyon over the weekend, killing at least two people and leaving one missing. Between half an inch and a full inch of rain fell in just 30 minutes Saturday afternoon, sending a wall of water down Bright Angel Creek toward the Colorado River.

Phantom Ranch, Bright Angel Campground, and the North Kaibab Trail are closed indefinitely while crews assess the damage. At least 80 people were rescued from the canyon. Part of the reason the storm was so destructive is that it hit the burn scar of the Dragon Bravo wildfire, a destructive blaze that swept across nearly 150,000 acres near the Grand Canyon in July 2025.

“It was like a whirlpool in there, with all the debris circling around, cabins and other equipment,” evacuee David Gregory told CBS News. One footbridge collapsed roughly 10 minutes after his group crossed it. Another hiker in the canyon, Parth Desai, described “waterfalls coming up out of nowhere; boulders, mud, landslides happening everywhere,” according to Al Jazeera.

A similar downpour on Monday caused destructive flooding at Zion National Park. All slot canyons in the park, including The Narrows, were shut off to visitors due to rising water. So far, no one has been reported dead or missing due to this flooding.

Live from Tucson: Arizona’s Public Lands and the Border Wall

The latest episode of The Landscape, recorded live in Tucson as part of CWP’s Keep Parks Public tour, brings together four experts to discuss the current state of Arizona’s public lands: Matthew Nelson with the Arizona Trail Association, Russ McSpadden with the Center for Biological Diversity, Emily Burns with Sky Island Alliance, and Amy Juan from the Tohono O’odham Nation. They talk about the negative impacts of border wall construction ;on wildlife migration, national parks, and Indigenous sites. Listen now wherever you get your podcasts.

Quick hits Report warns of environmental impacts from proposed oil and gas lease near Grand Canyon

KJZZ

Federal judge extends pause on Big Bend border security construction

Texas Public Radio

Opinion: Trump’s plan to sell off a part of Yosemite is what oligarchy looks like

The Guardian

How intense rains in the Grand Canyon turned into a deadly disaster

The Guardian

Proposed changes to U.S. Forest Service rule could open door to more e-bikes, ATVs on national forest lands

Post Independent

Trump’s national park fees for foreign tourists fail to raise expected revenue

Forbes

Interior Department approves massive Navajo coal mine expansion

Santa Fe New Mexican

The buzz of chainsaws in Idaho is testing what wilderness means

KUNC

Quote of the day

A lot of people see wilderness as nothing but a backcountry recreation area, but it’s way more than that. It’s really not even about us. It’s about nature. It’s about the places. It’s kind of nature’s bill of rights.”

—George Nickas, former executive director of Wilderness Watch, KUNC

Picture This

@Interior

Dolly Parton once described the Smokies as “one of those special places that God put here for us to enjoy.”

At Great Smoky Mountains National Park’s 75th anniversary celebration in 2009, she sang about that special place in “My Mountains, My Home.”

Video by @hawriverfilms

 

Feature image: Grand Canyon flooding; Source: GrandCanyonNPS/x.com

The post Grand Canyon flash flood kills 2, leaves 1 still missing appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

Recorded live at Scoundrel and Scamp Theatre in Tucson as part of CWP’s Keep Parks Public campaign, Aaron interviews four experts about the current state of Arizona’s public lands: Matthew Nelson with the Arizona Trail Association, Russ McSpadden with the Center for Biological Diversity, Emily Burns with Sky Island Alliance, and Amy Juan from the Tohono O’odham Nation.

We discuss the impacts of border wall construction on wildlife corridors and Indigenous sites, along with staffing and funding cuts at land management agencies and rollbacks of environmental protections, from Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument and Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge to Quitobaquito Springs.

News

• Death Toll Rises in Grand Canyon Flood as Search Efforts Continue – New York Times

Resources

• Keep Parks Public Tour
• Arizona Trail Association
• Center for Biological Diversity
• Sky Island Alliance
• Watch this episode on YouTube

Produced by Aaron Weiss, Lauren Bogard, Kate Groetzinger, and Lilly Bock-Brownstein
Feedback: podcast@westernpriorities.org
Music: Purple Planet
Featured image: CWP photo

The post LIVE from Tucson: Arizona’s Public Lands and the Border Wall appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

Kate and Aaron run through the weekly news, including the Trump administration’s plans to repeal the Roadless Rule and upend the Forest Service’s travel management planning process. Then, we play the first episode of On Common Ground: An American Inheritance, a new podcast from Eleven Dollar Bill studios, for you.

In this first episode, host Bill Hedden traces how the fight we were allowed to win concealed the one we lost. Bill has spent half a century defending the public lands in southeastern Utah. He is joined by co-host John Leshy, former Solicitor of the Department of the Interior and our foremost scholar of public-lands law and history, along with voices from across the political spectrum. Together, “The Theft” lays out what was taken, how it happened, and why you weren’t supposed to notice until it was too late.

News

• The Forest Service’s own review finds repealing the Roadless Rule could increase wildfire risk and harm communities – Westwise
• Roadless Rule repeal could cause more wildfires – KHOL
• ‘One-Two Punch’: After Attacking Roadless Rule, Trump Targets Off-Road Vehicle Limits – Common Dreams

Resources

• Comment on the Roadless Rule repeal – regulations.gov
• Comment on the Travel Management Rule – regulations.gov
• Comment generator for Roadless – FUSEE
• Keep Parks Public Tour — RSVP to Tucson!
• On Common Ground: An American Inheritance
• Watch this episode on YouTube

Produced by Aaron Weiss, Lauren Bogard, Kate Groetzinger, and Lilly Bock-Brownstein
Feedback: podcast@westernpriorities.org
Music: Purple Planet
Featured image:  Book Cliffs, Utah; Photo by Bob Wick

The post Introducing: On Common Ground, a new podcast about the fight to maintain our public lands appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

DENVER—A new report released today by Rocky Mountain Wild and the Center for Western Priorities illustrates how the Trump administration’s giveaway of national public lands for oil and gas drilling is impacting wildlife, outdoor recreation, and cultural resources across the West. The report, “On the doorstep: How a surge in drilling nominations threatens America’s public lands,” uses eight case studies in five Western states to demonstrate how oil and gas development is encroaching on protected public lands under the Trump administration’s policies.

Congress and the Trump administration have been handing out regulatory giveaways to the oil and gas industry on our public lands under the guise of a so-called “energy emergency” and promoting an “energy dominance” agenda that is failing to achieve its stated goal of bringing down energy costs for Americans. 

Since 2025, Congress and the Trump administration have:

• Made it free for oil and gas companies to nominate more than 200 million acres of national public lands for drilling;
• Required the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to offer any of these lands for leasing within 18 months of being nominated;
• Disregarded concerns raised by hunters and anglers, local officials, ranchers, and other experts;
• Proposed a rule that would make it harder for the public to provide input on where industry can and can’t lease public lands, as well as make it easier for companies to walk away from their cleanup obligations and leave behind uncapped wells that can leak dangerous pollutants. 

The impact of these giveaways is already clear. Oil and gas companies have nominated nine times more acres for leasing since these policies took effect last year. These nominations include lands that have high-quality fish and wildlife habitat and migration corridors, as well as lands that sit inside recreation areas and near state parks, border crucial water resources, and fall on split-estate lands where the surface is privately owned. Yet American energy costs continue to soar, despite President Trump’s promise to bring down costs with his “energy dominance” agenda.

The Center for Western Priorities released the following statement from Policy Director Rachael Hamby:

“Not only is this administration’s ‘energy dominance’ scheme a complete failure, it’s also destroying wildlife habitats and outdoor recreation areas that are beloved by Americans. While oil and gas companies pad their books and rake in profits, families are being squeezed at every turn. Westerners deserve better. Trump’s failed agenda is wrecking the landscapes, wildlife habitats, and outdoor recreation opportunities we rely on and want to pass on to future generations.”

 

Learn more:

• Trump’s “energy dominance” agenda is only helping oil and gas companies [Westwise]
• A closer look at the Trump administration’s proposed oil and gas rule [Westwise]
• ‘Energy dominance’ is an epic failure [Westwise]

 

Featured image: BLM Wyoming via Flickr

The post New report shows the impact of oil and gas drilling nomination surge on public lands appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

Armed and masked agents from U.S. Customs and Border Protection, along with border wall contractors, entered the Tohono O’odham Nation without authorization on Tuesday to work on border wall construction, according to Tribal officials. In recent weeks, the Tohono O’odham Nation has posted “No Trespassing” signs and escorted contractors off the Nation in an effort to resist construction of a border wall through Tribal land over the Nation’s objections.

The Nation has also sued the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to block construction. On August 17th, the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. denied a motion for a preliminary injunction, allowing construction to move forward. “Too many critical issues were not adequately addressed, such as inevitable impacts construction will have on the Nation’s land and the permanent destruction of sacred sites,” Tohono O’odham Nation Chairman Verlon M. Jose said in a statement following the denial. “The Nation will consider all possible options for moving forward, as this issue is simply too important to the O’odham.”

The move coincides with a months-long effort to use the 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 in March. Border wall construction through protected public lands has drawn overwhelming opposition at places including Big Bend National Park in Texas and Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in Arizona.

Quick hits The Texas grid has had a boring summer thanks to batteries

Heatmap

Trump proposal could unleash ATVs across national forests

WyoFile

The real reason the Forest Service is killing the Roadless Rule

Outdoor Life

As soon as two national monuments were downsized, several companies applied to mine there

Nevada Public Radio

What the uranium mines left behind

Native News Online

As the West dries up, more companies are promising they can make it rain

New York Times

New trails at a state park in southern Colorado are ‘a huge piece of the puzzle’ in reviving nearby town

Colorado Sun

Opinion: National monuments drive economic growth and unite diverse interests

Colorado Newsline

Quote of the day

We have lived in this region since time immemorial. There is no doubt this wall will desecrate countless sacred areas, burial sites, and other important locations.”

—Tohono O’odham Nation Chairman Verlon M. Jose, KVOA

Picture This @parashantnps

Stand on any ridge in Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument and you’re watching America move. Not in miles per hour, but in millimeters per year. The ground beneath your feet is slowly stretching apart, reshaping the landscape in real time.

Parashant sits at the meeting point of two remarkable regions, the Colorado Plateau and the Great Basin. The forces that built these landscapes are still at work today, quietly shaping the scenery.

Much of this story begins with plate tectonics. Off the West Coast, oceanic plates dive beneath North America, creating pressure that slowly spreads and thins the crust. This process, called crustal extension, is what gives the Great Basin region its broad valleys and long north‑south mountain ranges.

Here at Parashant, only about 18 miles of crust separate you from Earth’s molten mantle, a good reminder that the land is always changing. Even if we can’t see it happen, the story of this place is still being written, one millimeter at a time.

Want to learn more about plate tectonics at Parashant? Visit our website!
NPS Photo, Hudson Point

 

Featured image: Border fence on the Tohono O’odham Nation, Evan616 via Wikimedia Commons/CC BY-SA 4.0

The post Armed agents enter Tohono O’odham Nation in border wall construction dispute appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

99.5 percent of nearly 16,000 comments opposed the Bureau of Land Management’s proposal to gut leasing reforms

DENVER — An analysis released today by the Center for Western Priorities finds overwhelming opposition to the Bureau of Land Management’s proposal to roll back its 2024 oil and gas leasing rule.

CWP’s analysis found that of 15,822 comments posted to the docket for this rule on regulations.gov, 99.5 percent opposed the rollback, most commonly on the grounds that weaker bonding requirements would leave taxpayers to cover cleanup costs companies walk away from. Just 43 comments, or 0.27 percent, supported it, and 42 comments were unclear. CWP analyzed all 15,822 comments submitted and posted to the docket to determine whether each comment supported, opposed, or took an unclear position on the proposal. (See methodology below.)

The true scale of public engagement is likely even larger; fourteen of the filings in the docket are bundles of signatures collected by advocacy groups, including the Natural Resources Defense Council, Climate Hawks Vote Civic Action, and the National Wildlife Federation Action Fund. Each bundle counts as a single comment in the docket, but together they represent an estimated 120,000 additional people who submitted a comment via a form letter rather than submitting an individual comment.

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BLM’s proposed rule, published in the Federal Register on June 24, 2026, would undo key provisions of the 2024 Oil and Gas Leasing Rule, which strengthened bonding requirements, raised royalty rates, and gave the public more say in lease sales on public lands. The rollback would slash minimum bonding requirements from $150,000 to $10,000 per lease, cut the minimum royalty rate back to 12.5 percent (down from the 16.67 percent rate set by the 2024 rule),  shrink the public protest period on lease sales to just 10 days, and expand noncompetitive leasing. The comment period on the proposed rule closed August 24, 2026. BLM is required to review and respond to substantive public comments before finalizing the rule.

The 2024 rule was itself the product of a lengthy rulemaking process aimed at updating regulations that, in some cases, hadn’t been revised in decades. BLM has said the current proposal is intended to implement changes required by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and executive orders directing federal agencies to expand domestic energy production and reduce regulatory burdens.

The Center for Western Priorities released the following statement from Policy Director Rachael Hamby:

“Nearly sixteen thousand people took the time to weigh in on this proposal, and the message could not be more clear: the public wants to keep guardrails in place that protect taxpayers, public lands, and honest oil and gas operators. Over 99 percent of commenters told the agency to abandon this rollback, and the Trump administration should listen to the American people.”

“For decades, taxpayers picked up the tab when drillers walked away from wells they couldn’t afford to clean up because bonding requirements were set too low to cover costs. Rolling bond rates back doesn’t modernize the oil and gas program—it just recreates the same mess that Western communities have spent decades trying to clean up.”

Methodology

The Center for Western Priorities downloaded every comment and attachment posted to the docket BLM-2025-0037. Using a combination of keyword tagging, large language model analysis, and human classification, each comment was classified as “Oppose,” “Support,” or “Unclear.” The full classification of comments is available for download.

Learn more

• A closer look at the Trump administration’s proposed oil and gas rule – Westwise blog

• Trump bonding rates could cost taxpayers billions – The Landscape podcast

• Statement on the Bureau of Land Management’s Final Oil and Gas Rule – Center for Western Priorities

• Interior’s oil rule changes silence landowners, put land at risk, groups say • North Dakota Monitor – North Dakota Monitor

 

Feature image: Bakersfield Field Office oil derrick, BLM California

The post Commenters overwhelmingly oppose BLM’s rollback of oil and gas rule, analysis finds appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

The Trump administration has completely changed wildland firefighting on national public lands, an approach that is being put to the test as the Western U.S. is facing the worst fire season in years. A collaborative investigation by six publications across the West details the policy changes pushed through by the Trump administration, and the costly impacts those changes are having on the ground.

One of the most significant shifts is a return to a “full suppression” policy in which any fires, even those that are not human-caused, must be put out by 10:00 am the morning after they are discovered. The U.S. Forest Service originally adopted this policy nearly a century ago, but eventually abandoned it since it artificially suppressed naturally-occurring low-intensity fires that forests need, leaving behind unnatural amounts of vegetation that fuels catastrophic wildfires. The Trump administration also announced the creation of a new U.S. Wildland Fire Service, intended to consolidate firefighting crews and streamline communication.

But across the West, fire experts have expressed concern with the combination of major policy changes and significant staffing and funding cuts, especially as communities develop further into high fire-risk areas amid an ongoing drought. Seven people have already died fighting wildfires this year, with several weeks still remaining in the fire season.

Nevada sues Trump admin over Colorado River cuts

Nevada Governor Joe Lombardo announced that his state is challenging the Trump administration’s Colorado River two-year operating plan in court. Nevada’s lawsuit argues that the plan unfairly demands drastic cuts by Lower Basin states without imposing similar cuts on Upper Basin states, and asks the district court to block the plan.

Quick hits Trump admin plans to relax travel rules on national forests

Outdoor Life

Trump’s land grab is the latest chapter of Indigenous cultural genocide

Current Affairs

Trump’s border wall construction threatens rock art as old as the pyramids

Public Domain

Trump admin has spent billions boosting gas exports, spurring more fracking

Inside Climate News

Locals concerned as Trump admin fast-tracks public process for Wyoming rare earth mine

WyoFile

Planned copper mine in southern Arizona draws lawsuit over rare owls

Arizona Daily Star | Courthouse News Service

Canadian uranium firm says lack of outreach in northern New Mexico a ‘mistake’

Source New Mexico

Firefighters sound alarm as US faces critical staffing shortage: ‘We don’t have enough people’

Grist

Quote of the day

The Travel Management Rule is why dirt-bikers and snowmobilers can share national forest lands with hikers and backcountry skiers without conflict. It’s why our national forests provide habitat to support thriving wildlife populations. It is built on local decision-making, with a designation process that ensures that no user group gets steamrolled and all our national forest values are protected.”

—Hilary Eisen, Wild Montana, Outdoor Life

 

Picture This

@devilstowernps
We get a lot of questions asking about what it’s like up top. No, there’s not a massive hole in the middle, it’s actually pretty flat! It is said to be as big as a football field. You can even find small animals and snakes up there. Snakes are great climbers and are often found scaling the Tower, crawling through the cracks. Hawks, Falcons and other birds sometimes drop off their prey on top of the Tower too!
NPS Text/Lohma G. NPS Archives Photo. Featured image: A fuels reduction project on the Tahoe National Forest, U.S. Forest Service

The post How the Trump admin has upended wildland firefighting appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

On Friday, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation released a two-year plan for the Colorado River, requiring the Lower Basin states of Nevada, Arizona, and California to cut their use of water. The seven states that share water from the Colorado River failed to reach a consensus agreement earlier this year, prompting the federal government to step in.

Under the Bureau of Reclamation’s operating plan, the three Lower Basin states will be required to cut their Colorado River water use by 1.25 million acre-feet, with Arizona bearing the brunt of the required cuts. The Upper Basin states of Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, and New Mexico are also encouraged to undertake voluntary water conservation measures, but are not yet forced to make cuts in Colorado River water use under the two-year operating plan.

“What’s clear after seeing the projections for reservoir elevations over the next couple of years is that the buffer the Colorado River reservoirs provided over the last many decades is gone,” Jennifer Pitt, Colorado River program director for the Audubon Society, told the Colorado Sun. “There is real risk for the cities, farmers and ranchers, Tribes, and the entire natural world that depends on the Colorado River.”

Quick hits The BLM may stop notifying landowners about drilling under private land. Ranchers are alarmed

High Country News

National park maintenance work sidelined as Trump’s Freedom 250 takes precedence

Associated Press

A White House official helped an oil company advance its projects. Now she’ll lead its DC office

E&E News

Bigger, hotter fires are slowly erasing America’s great forests

New York Times

Developers now targeting public lands to build huge AI data centers

Cowboy State Daily

Drive for nuclear power boosts uranium industry—and Tribal health concerns in Utah

Salt Lake Tribune

Inside the struggle to dismantle America’s greenhouse gas data

DeSmog

Editorial: A simple concept lawmakers should be able to get behind

Grand Junction Daily Sentinel

Quote of the day

I’ve worked with really incredible federal personnel with the BLM who take every single comment to heart, and they have improved applications immensely based on public feedback, because no one knows their land better than those people who are being directly drilled on.”

—Gwen Lachelt, Western Leaders Network, High Country News

 

Picture This @usinterior

National Park Week is back!

From August 22-30, we’re celebrating the incredible places that protect America’s landscapes, history and stories.

If you love hiking, walking across a historic battlefields, watching wildlife, or standing in the places where history was made, this week is for you.

And mark your calendar: August 25 is the National Park Service’s 110th birthday. In celebration, entrance fees will be waived at NPS sites that normally charge them.

This National Park Week, get out there and find your park.

Photo of Lehman Caves at Great Basin National Park by David Caldwell

Featured image: Lake Mead, Kumar Appaiah via Wikimedia Commons/CC BY-SA 2.0

The post Feds release 2-year Colorado River plan requiring Lower Basin cuts appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

Under Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, the National Park Service has built a fast-track system that guarantees funding and staff for projects President Donald Trump personally requests around Washington, D.C., while over 1,500 requests from parks across the country wait for funding, according to internal documents and interviews with five current and former NPS officials obtained by The Atlantic. Contracting staff approved $1.5 million to replace brick pavers in Lafayette Park in five days, $170,000 to clear a fence for a new golf course at Hains Point in six days, and over $5 million to gild equine statues along Memorial Bridge in 12 days.

This system was created in accordance with President Trump’s executive order to make Washington “safe and beautiful.” According to a transcript of an internal call obtained by The Atlantic, there are three different lists: “White House priorities, high priorities, and low priorities.” Staff working on projects that are not on the White House priority list were told their requests likely would never be funded.

The low-priority list contained 1,573 projects as of mid-July, including wildlife-resistant dumpsters at Bryce Canyon National Park, snow machines for fire remediation in Alaska’s Yukon–Charley Rivers National Preserve, and an archaeological survey at Camp Nelson National Monument.

Spending on park projects outside the Washington region fell $854 million, or 68 percent, in the first eight and a half months of this fiscal year compared with the full previous year, while D.C.-area spending rose about $100 million.

The Forest Service’s own review undercuts the case for repealing the Roadless Rule

The Forest Service’s case for eliminating the 2001 Roadless Rule rests on the claim that new roads reduce wildfire risk, but the government’s environmental study of the rule finds otherwise, according to a new Westwise blog post from CWP Communications Director Kate Groetzinger. The review also found the preferred alternative would “likely adversely affect” 327 threatened and endangered species, a number that rises to roughly 3,500 species under broader assessments, while projected timber revenue of $5 million to $11 million a year would barely dent the agency’s $7 billion road maintenance backlog.

Quick hits How one small section of Trump’s planned border wall became the center of a big battle

Time

Opinion: Why would a government work this hard to stop hearing from people about public lands?

Writers on the Range

Environmental group challenges federal push to expand grazing across the West

OPB

Under Trump, protected wild horses are going to slaughter

New York Times | Cowboy State Daily

Judge rejects Alaska land swap that would allow road through wildlife refuge

Native News Online | E&E News

Opinion: Behind closed doors, there are more threats ahead for our public lands

Salt Lake Tribune

Trump plan to allow drilling near Chaco Culture National Historical Park site sparks alarm from Unesco

The Guardian

Public Domain lawsuit seeks public records related to scandal-plagued Interior Department official Karen Budd-Falen

Public Domain

Quote of the day

This is roughly 10 botched Reflecting Pools here that Doug Burgum has thrown away by telling qualified public servants to not work on behalf of the American people.”

—Aaron Weiss, CWP executive director, E&E News

Picture This
@utstateparks

POV: You’re a lizard. You found a rock. You have decided this is your entire afternoon.

This behavior is called basking, which is the scientific term for sitting on a warm rock until your body temperature improves.

Lizards are ectotherms, meaning they use external heat sources to regulate their body temperature. A warm rock helps with that.

You may see lizards basking on rocks, logs, and other sunny surfaces throughout many state parks. They are not necessarily resting. They are warming up, getting their metabolism moving, and making what appears to be a very reasonable use of an afternoon.

Please enjoy wildlife from a respectful distance. The lizard has plans. The plans are rock. 

 

Featured photo: National Park Service emblem, Mammoth Cave National Park. James St. John/CC BY 2.0

The post NPS has a special docket for Trump’s wish list appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

The Trump administration wants you to believe repealing the 2001 Roadless Rule is about wildfire safety and local control. Its own environmental review says otherwise.

On August 19, the U.S. Forest Service released a 333-page Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) alongside a proposed rule to strip road-building and logging protections from 44.7 million acres of national forest, nearly the size of North Dakota. Buried inside that document, written by the agency’s own scientists, is the truth about what repeal would actually do: increase the risk of wildfire starts, push hundreds of already-struggling species further into decline, degrade drinking water for millions of Americans, and cost taxpayers and rural communities money.

Wildlife will suffer

The Forest Service’s preliminary biological assessment found that its preferred alternative (rescinding the Roadless Rule entirely) is “likely to adversely affect” 327 threatened and endangered species and 71 designated critical habitats. Add in the agency’s broader sensitive-species review, and the number of species facing likely harm climbs to nearly 3,500. The northern spotted owl, marbled murrelet, grizzly bear, bull trout, and multiple salmon and steelhead populations all show up on the list of species the government expects this rule to hurt.

The DEIS itself points out that new roads fragment habitat: the agency’s citations show a 42 percent decline in southern mountain caribou abundance for every one percent increase in nearby road density. One experimental study found a 25 percent drop in bird abundance when road noise was introduced to a previously roadless area.

A Northern Spotted Owl; Kyle Sullivan, BLM

Wildfire risk may not decrease

The Trump administration’s central argument for repealing the rule is that it will help fight wildfires by making it easier to build roads for fuel treatment. The DEIS undercuts that story. Its own fire analysis states that “as the density of roads increases so does the probability, number, and frequency of wildfire ignitions,” and that roadless areas currently see fewer, less frequent wildfire starts than other national forest land. The document also concedes that budget and terrain constraints would make any real gain in fuel-treatment capacity “modest.” In other words, the rule the administration is selling as a wildfire fix could actually increase wildfire risk, according to its own scientists.

Wildfire mitigation work in the Klamath National Forest; USFS photo by Kevin S. Abel

The math doesn’t add up

The DEIS undermines the economic case for repeal as well. It projects the rule could generate $5 to $11 million a year in new timber revenue nationally. Meanwhile, the Forest Service is already sitting on a $7 billion road maintenance backlog, and the agency’s own analysis admits that timber revenue “would not be sufficient to cover the costs of constructing and maintaining all new roads” the rule would enable. New road construction in the steep, remote terrain typical of roadless areas runs anywhere from $80,000 to more than $2 million per mile. Repealing the rule would also harm recreation economies in the West. The DEIS estimates $9 million or more a year in lost visitor spending in communities near affected forests, on top of degraded scenery and backcountry access across millions of acres.

Tribal values are at stake

The DEIS also documents that Tribal consultation found widespread opposition to the repeal. The government summary states that “the majority sentiment among Tribal governments consulted is opposition to the proposed rescission,” with Tribes citing threats to sacred sites, treaty-protected hunting and fishing rights, and the ecological health of ancestral homelands. The DEIS also acknowledges that road construction and logging “could potentially have long-term negative impacts” on historic and archaeological sites nationwide.

Logging in the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forests; USFS photo by Lance Cheung

The public opposes the repeal

A national survey of 1,200 likely voters conducted for The Pew Charitable Trusts by Susquehanna Polling and Research in December 2025 found voters support the Roadless Rule by 76 percent to 13 percent, and oppose the Forest Service’s plan to rescind it by a similar margin, with majorities of Republicans, Democrats, and independents alike favoring conservation of roadless national forest over new logging and mining access. The public expressed overwhelming opposition to the Roadless Rule repeal when the Trump administration first floated the idea in 2025. A Center for Western Priorities analysis of public comments submitted during last year’s preliminary rulemaking process found over 99 percent of commenters opposed rescinding the rule.

Analysis of public comments submitted in response to initial Roadless Rule repeal proposal; Center for Western Priorities

What happens next?

The formal comment period for the proposed rule is open now, and it’s likely the public’s last real chance to weigh in before the Trump administration acts. The agency published the proposed rule and the DEIS together in the Federal Register on August 20, opening a comment period that closes on September 21, which is an unusually short timeframe for a rule of this scale. Comments can be submitted at regulations.gov under docket FS-2025-0001. The Forest Service has not announced a timeline for issuing a final rule once the comment period closes.

The post The Forest Service’s own review finds repealing the Roadless Rule could increase wildfire risk and harm communities appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

DENVER — The U.S. Forest Service’s (USFS) own Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) on repealing the 2001 Roadless Rule, released Wednesday, documents extensive harm from the administration’s preferred plan, including increased risk of wildfire starts and only “modest” fuel reduction gains. 

According to the 333-page DEIS document released alongside the proposed rule, under Alternative 2 (USFS’s preferred option), the DEIS finds:

• The agency would strip road-building and logging protections from 44.7 million acres of national forest (p. 13, 15, 21)

• The agency’s preliminary biological assessment determined the plan is “likely to adversely affect” 327 threatened and endangered species and 71 designated critical habitats (p. 25, 161–162)

• Repeal would increase soil erosion, landslide risk, and sediment pollution (p. 108) in watersheds that supply drinking water to roughly 24 million Americans (p. 121)

• Old-growth forest that has been off-limits for 25 years would be exposed to new logging (p. 78)

• The agency assumes revenue from timber sales “would [not] be sufficient to cover the costs of constructing and maintaining all new roads related to a project” (p. 45)

• The rule opens the door to new oil, gas, and coal leasing on land currently protected by a no-surface-occupancy requirement (p. 58–59)

• USFS’s own fire scientists warn that more roadbuilding in forests could mean more human-caused wildfire ignitions (p. 101)

• The agency concedes that funding and terrain constraints would make any actual gain in fuel-treatment capacity “modest” (p. 225)

• Ignition frequency and density are currently lower in roadless areas and wilderness than on other National Forest System lands (p. 24, quantified as roughly 4x lower on p. 89)

• USFS’s own economists project the rule would cost up to $9 million a year in lost visitor spending in nearby communities (p. 223–224, combining $7 million in lost trail/dispersed-recreation spending and $2 million in lost wildlife-related-recreation spending)

• The rule would degrade scenery and backcountry access across millions of acres of primitive and semi-primitive terrain (p. 25, 192)

• The plan would add to the agency’s $6.9 billion existing road maintenance backlog (p. 43)

• Federally recognized Tribes consulted overwhelmingly oppose the repeal (p. 198), citing threats to sacred sites, treaty-protected hunting and fishing, and cultural landscapes (p. 26)

• Road construction and logging “could potentially have long-term negative impacts” on historic and archaeological sites nationwide (p. 196)

The Center for Western Priorities released the following statement from Communications Director Kate Groetzinger:

“Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins and the Trump administration are trying to spin a move to subsidize the timber industry as a wildfire mitigation strategy, but the government’s own study shows repealing the Roadless Rule could actually increase wildfire risk as well as have shocking negative impacts on Western communities.

“The government’s own scientists found that repealing the Roadless Rule could harm hundreds of species already at risk of extinction, decrease the quality of drinking water in Western communities, cost rural communities millions of tourism dollars, and grow the Forest Service’s already-massive road maintenance backlog. It also found that timber sales won’t offset the cost of building and maintaining new roads.

“Despite all of these negative implications and immense public opposition, the Trump administration seems to be dead set on moving forward with this rule. Western communities must rise up and oppose this change as loudly and forcefully as possible during this month-long comment period.”

Learn more: 

• Proposed rule – USFS
• Comment form for the rule – USFS
• Draft Environmental Impact Statement – USFS
• Comment analysis finds over 99% opposition to repealing 2001 Roadless Rule – CWP
• What is the “Roadless Rule”? – Sierra Club Oregon
• Roadless Rule Recission 2025 interactive map – Trout Unlimited

Feature image: USDA Photo by Preston Keres

The post USFS’s own analysis shows Roadless Rule repeal would harm wildlife, water, and rural communities appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

The federal government’s wildfire response system is lacking resources during what is on track to be one of the most destructive fire years on record. In an August 14 memo, the National Multi-Agency Coordinating Center told fire managers it cannot “provide all requested resources for every fire,” and an August 11 memo warned of “no immediate relief anticipated.”

Wildfires have burned 7.3 million acres as of August 18, the most acres for this point in the year since federal tracking began in 1994, compared with a 30-year average of 4.3 million acres. Seventy-six large fires remain uncontained, and at points this season all 38 of the nation’s standby incident management teams, each requiring at least 24 people, have been committed simultaneously.

This resource strain follows roughly 3,400 firings at the Forest Service under the Trump administration’s workforce cuts. Officials say frontline firefighters were spared, but the incident management teams coordinating the response were not. “These require the most seasoned and experienced managers. And we lost a lot of them last year,” said Timothy Ingalsbee, Executive Director for Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics, and Ecology. “We are just now seeing the impact of that.”

Bulldozers move into protected Arizona desert as second border wall advances near Quitobaquito Springs

A second 30-foot border wall is being built about 100 feet north of the existing barrier in Arizona’s Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, with crews bulldozing a corridor roughly 2.5 miles east of Quitobaquito Springs, home to three endangered species found nowhere else on Earth. “This is the beginning of another destructive chapter for Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument and Quitobaquito Springs,” said Russ McSpadden, southwest conservation advocate for the Center for Biological Diversity, who documented the construction activity.

Join us in Tucson: We’ll be discussing Arizona’s public lands and the border wall in a conversation with advocates including Russ McSpadden. RSVP to join on Friday, August 28 from 5:30 to 8 p.m. at the Scoundrel & Scamp Theatre.

Quick hits Fish and Wildlife Service pauses plan to change wetlands policy

Outdoor Life | E&E News

Bulldozers move into protected Arizona desert as second border wall advances near Quitobaquito Springs

Arizona Daily Star | KGUN 9 | KJZZ | Sierra Sun Times

Poll shows Utahns oppose Trump’s monument reductions

Deseret News

Report: Public lands at risk

Outdoor Alliance

Wildland firefighting bill gains steam as smoke reaches Congress

Roll Call

Trump proposes rescinding roadless rule for 45M forest acres

Arizona Republic | E&E News | Capital Press | AZPM | Grist

Trump administration moves to kill ‘roadless rule,’ but Colorado has its own protections

CPR | Aspen Times

Land acquisition protecting ‘one of the best views of Colorado’ will add 262 acres to national forest

Aspen Times

Quote of the day

We want expertise, and the mistreatment of the federal expertise, the civil service, is going to hurt us for decades to come.”

—Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon, Roll Call

Picture This @zionnps

Aww, a baby condor! But who’s the other one?

The California condor shown here is baby Milagra. Milagra’s story reminds us that not all of the condors we see in Zion begin their journeys in the park: in fact, some don’t begin them in the wild at all.

All condors spend some time in captivity. Ideally, they only stay in facilities for brief visits – routine check-ups to make sure they’re healthy. Some, spend extended time in human care, as we follow means necessary to best protect this endangered species.

50% of condor mortalities are due to lead poisoning, when a condor is exposed to lead through carrion. If that carrion is the remains of an animal shot by a lead bullet, the scavenger animals that eat it (like condors) are subject to extreme illness. Other threats to condors include microtrash, fire, and other types of illness.

Milagra was rescued as an egg, after her mother was found dead of avian flu a short distance from their nesting site. Once hatched, Milagra was raised in captivity, first with puppets, and later by a pair of adopted parents. After she was released, Milagra immediately ran into her biological father: the two recognized each other and shared a meal. Her story is one of hope. With proper care and attention for these wild species, we can hopefully share this world with them for many more years to come.

Photo from the Peregrine Fund

 

Featured photo: The Woolsey Fire, California, 2018. Peter Buschmann/U.S. Forest Service

The post Firefighting resources are ‘critically low’ in record fire year appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

The U.S. Forest Service on Tuesday moved forward with its plan to repeal the 2001 Roadless Rule, threatening the fate of 44.7 million acres of national forest. The proposal, published in the Federal Register today, would strip road-building bans from roadless areas in every state except Idaho and Colorado, which have their own separate rules, and would handle the 9.4-million-acre Tongass National Forest in Alaska through a related executive order.

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins framed the repeal as a wildfire measure, but a group of wildland fire experts wrote to Rollins last year warning that wilderness areas have the lowest number of wildfire ignitions of any forest type. New roads tend to be associated with more human-caused fires, not fewer.

The public has already weighed in on this matter when USDA first floated this repeal last August. Out of 625,000 comments submitted during a preliminary comment period, 99 percent opposed it, according to a CWP analysis. Colorado College’s 2026 Conservation in the West poll found that two-thirds of voters across Western states oppose building new industrial roads in undeveloped public lands for mining, oil and gas development, or timber harvests.

Public comments on the new proposal are due by September 21.

Minnesota governor moves to shield the Boundary Waters from mining

Four months after Congress voted to lift a 20-year federal mining ban in the watershed of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz signed an executive order Tuesday directing state agencies to halt new leases, permits, and environmental review for nonferrous mining in the Rainy River Headwaters Watershed, covering roughly 350 square miles. A poll conducted for Save the Boundary Waters last August found that 57 percent of Minnesota voters oppose sulfide-ore copper mining in the watershed, compared with 23 percent in favor, and that 68 percent statewide want permanent legislative protection to be a top priority.

Quick hits Trump admin announces intent to move forward with Roadless Rule repeal

NOTUS | E&E News | The Hill | New York Times | Associated Press | Flathead Beacon | Oregon Capital Chronicle | The Guardian | More Than Just Parks | KNAU | Colorado Public Radio | Statesman Journal | GearJunkie | Center for Western Priorities [press release]

Walz executive order moves to block copper mining near the Boundary Waters

MPR News | E&E News | Wes Siler’s Newsletter

Opinion: When the bulldozers move before Tribal consent

Native News Online

Border wall expansion brings protests to Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, other Arizona locations

KJZZ | 13News | KOLD [photos]

Proposed changes to rules that protect historic sites ignite pushback in Colorado

Colorado Sun

A watchdog says Yosemite is using Flock cameras. The National Park Service is pushing back

Outside | 404 Media

Native fish displaced in lower Dolores after drought, fire

Durango Herald

‘Extreme Motus’ all-terrain wheelchair now available to rent at Zion National Park

ABC4

Quote of the day

I just think that every American should be free to visit our national parks without their location being traced and tracked by the federal government. Wild places are at the core of American freedom and nobody should be afraid to visit them.”

—Anonymous NPS park ranger, 404 Media

Picture This
@coparkswildlife

Science at work ✅ Antero Reservoir – Our salvage

It’s no easy feat to corral, capture and then transport nearly 1,000 trout in a few hours –– especially when they’re mostly 18+ inches long and weigh several pounds. But, our aquatic biologists, hatchery, state park and local staff did just that earlier this summer.

During the last stages of draining the reservoir, it became crunch time to salvage as many fish as we could. First, we had to wait for the water level to be perfect –– low enough to safely work in the dam’s outlet channel, but high enough to still hold fish. Once the remaining fish were concentrated in the outlet channel, there was just enough room to work with block nets, holding pens and electrofishing equipment.

In the waist-high pool of water, our teams temporarily stunned the fish so they could be caught and consolidated into holding net pens. The fish were then taken to hatchery trucks waiting nearby, and driven to Eleven Mile State Park.

 



Featured photo: Trillum Lake, Oregon Mt. Hood National Forest. USFS<

The post Forest Service moves to repeal Roadless Rule despite 99 percent public opposition appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Rodney Scott ordered a pause on all border construction inside Big Bend National Park, days after footage of construction within the park sparked bipartisan outrage. “Last night I put a pause on all activity in that park as far as construction goes until I can get down there and do a personal evaluation,” Scott said in a video posted to X.

CBP originally denied any construction was underway, saying bulldozers were simply regrading storm-damaged roads, then acknowledged heavy machinery was working on the barrier project but called it “survey and design work — NOT construction of a wall through the park.” Scott insisted CBP was “NOT building a 30-foot wall or stadium lighting” through the park, though the agency’s map had at one point shown a 30-foot steel bollard wall across Big Bend.

“It’s difficult to trust the words of CBP,” said Bob Krumenaker, a former Big Bend superintendent who chairs Keep Big Bend Wild. “We’re hopeful that they’re honest and we can trust them, but it’s too early to know.” Brewster County Sheriff Ronny Dodson also expressed doubts about CBP’s statement: “We can’t count on what we’re reading or seeing or anything,” he said.

Crews have already bulldozed near Santa Elena Canyon without the thirty days’ notice DHS had agreed to provide under a previous court settlement, causing irreparable damage to the landscape and the archaeological sites it contains.

Quick hits Trump blames vandals for dead grass on lawn where he held Fourth of July event

Washington Post

Public lands are at the forefront of Wyoming’s primaries

Inside Climate News

Border agency pauses construction in Big Bend National Park

NOTUS | Public Domain | E&E News | The Hill | The Travel | Axios | Texas Tribune | NPR | Wes Siler’s Newsletter

Judge denies Tohono O’odham request to halt border wall construction

Arizona Capitol Times

Colorado River plummets as lakes Powell and Mead drop to record lows

New York Times

Policy limiting public information on deaths and injuries at national parks raises concern among journalists

Aspen Times

Colorado’s private 14er

Aspen Journalism

Lower oil and gas bonds on federal land could cost taxpayers billions

Utah Public Radio

Quote of the day

If we lose places like Big Bend, we never get them back. The destruction that will be inflicted here will truly be irreparable.”

— Laiken Jordahl, Center for Biological Diversity, NPR

Picture This
@u.s.forestserviceFire personnel return from the fireline on the Black Canyon Fire in Utah.This photo shows the “fuel type” crews are working in. Building fireline in this terrain requires the use of chainsaws to clear a fuel break and hand tools to dig a fireline down to mineral soil. This is often grueling work requiring long hours under harsh conditions.

We thank all our wildland firefighters, the non-fire staff who support them, and the families at home who stand behind them throughout the fire year.

Featured photo: Big Bend National Park, National Park Service=

The post Border agency halts Big Bend construction, for now appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

U.S. Forest Service plans to remove forest protections, ignoring public sentiment

DENVER—The U.S. Forest Service on Tuesday announced its plan to move forward with its repeal of the 2001 Roadless Rule, threatening the fate of 44.7 million acres of national forest across the country.

The proposal, which will be published in the Federal Register tomorrow, would strip road-building bans from roadless areas in every state except Idaho and Colorado, which have their own separate rules, and would carve out the 9.4-million-acre Tongass National Forest in Alaska through a related executive order. Public comments on the rule will be due by September 21, according to USDA.

USDA first floated this plan last August and opened a preliminary comment period on it last September. Americans submitted more than 625,000 comments, 99 percent of which opposed repealing the Roadless Rule, according to a Center for Western Priorities’ analysis. Colorado College’s 2026 State of the Rockies Conservation in the West poll found that 65 percent of voters across eight Western states oppose building new industrial roads in undeveloped public lands for mining, oil and gas development, or timber harvests.

Center for Western Priorities Communications Manager Kate Groetzinger issued the following statement:

“The Trump administration already asked the American public what they thought of this plan, and 99 percent of them said no to repealing the Roadless Rule. Now USDA is back with the same idea, dressed up as a move to reduce wildfire risk even though it will degrade drinking water, fragment wildlife habitat, and increase the Forest Service’s $10 billion road maintenance backlog. This is a giveaway to the timber industry that the public has already rejected once and will reject again.”

Learn more:

• Comment analysis finds over 99% opposition to repealing 2001 Roadless Rule – CWP

• What is the “Roadless Rule”? – Sierra Club Oregon

• Roadless Rule Recission 2025 interactive map – Trout Unlimited

Feature image: Mt. Hood National Forest Trillium Lake

The post Trump admin announces intent to move forward with Roadless Rule repeal appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

Less than 24 hours after President Donald Trump dramatically reduced the size of both Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments, mining interests began staking claims on lands stripped of protections.

At least nine mining claims have been filed on land formerly included in the two monuments since Trump cut each by around 90 percent in July. Seven claims were filed by Kimmerle Mining on land removed from Bears Ears, and two were filed by Craig Rosequist on land removed from Grand Staircase-Escalante. Kimmerle Mining filed claims in Bears Ears after Trump’s 2017 rollback and opened a small uranium and vanadium exploration site.

The claims do not authorize immediate mining, and they may not be honored because they were filed before monument protections officially expire on September 11, but they can be easily refiled after that date. Also, the Trump administration is currently considering allowing claim holders to do exploratory work like digging and clearing on Forest Service land without notifying the agency or receiving any type of permit.

Trump job cuts and changes are making wildfires harder to fight

A combination of larger and more numerous fires and changes by the Trump administration are making it harder for officials to deploy and manage firefighters effectively this year, veteran firefighters and union officials told the New York Times.

The administration has so far cut more than 5,800 jobs from the Forest Service, as well as stood up a new Wildland Fire Service. The result is confusion, supply problems and slower responses, according to former Forest Service officials and the union representing the agency’s workers.

“We just don’t have enough people in the system, not for this kind of fire season,” Mike Dudley, who retired in 2018 as a Forest Service regional director, told the Times. “We’re paying the price for it right now.”

Quick hits Lake Powell hits record low, another sign of crisis on the Colorado River

Los Angeles Times | USA Today

Opinion: Why the Reflecting Pool matters

RE:PUBLIC

Mining executives bought stock in their own firm days before Trump shrank Bears Ears

Grist

Heat waves are melting western snowpack twice as fast, study finds

CPR News

Trump appointee Michael Boren asked aircraft to fight small wildfire near his Idaho ranch as Utah burned

Salt Lake Tribune

Inside the bitter war over cows and wilderness at Point Reyes

Los Angeles Times

Column: Public lands are our shared legacy

WyoFile

US Attorney General Blanche backs Pirro after Trump criticism over Reflecting Pool

Reuters

Quote of the day

This is why the Reflecting Pool matters. It’s all about trust. Yes, it’s a small thing in the grand scheme of Interior’s 640 million acres and hundreds of responsibilities. But if Burgum’s department will fabricate or claim they have evidence to prosecute citizens for crimes they didn’t commit—and allegedly withhold information from federal prosecutors—what does that mean for the decisions Interior makes that we can’t see?”

—Christopher Keyes, RE:PUBLIC

Picture This

@LaikenJordahl

NEW: drone footage shows just how far contractors are tearing into Big Bend’s Mariscal Mountain. All of this destruction has been inflicted in just two days. You can’t pick a flower or take home a rock you find in a national park. But somehow, for no justifiable reason, in a place where nobody crosses the border, CBP contractors are gouging their way deeper into this great American national park.

Governor @GregAbbott_TX, you’ll forever be remembered as the one who let the feds tread all over your state’s sovereignty and natural heritage. Your silence is a rubber stamp on this destruction.

Feature image: Indian Creek, an area removed from Bears Ears National Monument by President Donald Trump; Photo by Bob Wick, BLM

The post Mining claims filed on land removed from Utah monuments appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

Kate and Aaron are joined by Professor John Leshy, one of the nation’s top scholars of public lands law, to discuss a new essay of his that argues America’s public lands are entering a new Gilded Age, complete with robber barons, corruption, and deregulation.

We also talk about a new exposé revealing Doug Burgum to be a really bad boss who’s breaking the law, and about Border Patrol breaking ground inside Big Bend National Park.

News

• Inside Doug Burgum’s rocky tenure at Interior – POLITICO
• “Warfare on the People.” Big Bend Residents Fear the Border Wall Will Cut Off Public Lands. – Outside
• Mapping it out: onX tool connects Montanans to public land comment opportunities – Bozeman Daily Chronicle

Resources

• On Shaky Ground: America’s Public Lands Face an Uncertain Future 
• Keep Parks Public Tour — RSVP to Tucson!
• On Common Ground: An American Inheritance
• Watch this episode on YouTube

Produced by Aaron Weiss, Lauren Bogard, Kate Groetzinger, and Lilly Bock-Brownstein
Feedback: podcast@westernpriorities.org
Music: Purple Planet
Featured image: Basin and Range National Monument; Source: BLM Photo Bob Wick

The post Are America’s public lands entering a new Gilded Age? appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

Ten Senate Democrats are accusing the Interior Department of using a routine-sounding policy review to lay the groundwork for stripping wilderness protections from nearly 200 million acres of public land. In a letter to Secretary Doug Burgum, Sen. Martin Heinrich of New Mexico and nine colleagues wrote that the review “undermines Congress’ role in wilderness management.”

The review, opened through three Federal Register notices in June, covers land managed by the Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service, and Fish and Wildlife Service, including up to 91.4 million acres at BLM alone, according to the Wilderness Society. The public comment period closes August 14.

Heinrich called the process unusual. “It is atypical for the Interior Department to conduct land management planning by asking for comment on its agencies’ general operating procedures,” he wrote, adding that it’s “really just a ploy to weaken protections for public lands,” pointing to the administration’s “obsession with development and disposal of public lands.”

Trump’s “energy dominance” agenda is only helping oil and gas companies

President Donald Trump promised to “cut your energy prices in half” within his first year in office. Instead, “energy dominance” has produced record profits for oil companies and higher gas prices for everyone else. Trump has used his power to cut the cost of drilling on public lands, while driving up the price of oil by waging war on Iran. Eight of the world’s largest oil companies made a combined $93 billion in profit in the second quarter of 2026, nearly double what those companies made last year and more than $1 billion in profit every single day. Read more in a new Westwise blog post on Substack by CWP’s Lilly Bock-Brownstein and Rachael Hamby.

Quick hits People are betting millions to predict wildfires. Congress wants to stop it

Outside

Opinion: Sportsmen should get a say on our public lands, that’s why we need the Local Input Act

Colorado Times Recorder

Bulldozing begins at Big Bend National Park for border wall construction

Washington Post

New Mexico delegation introduces bill to ban uranium mining in Chama Watershed

Source New Mexico

An Indigenous photographic history of America in pictures

The Guardian

White House asks Justice department to consider new reflecting-pool prosecution

Wall Street Journal

House Democrats seek records in dropped Reflecting Pool case against ex-Olympian

Washington Post

The Reflecting Pool haunts Doug Burgum

Axios DC

Quote of the day

The BLM used to be able to look at a nominated parcel, listen to the people who use it, and hold it back when leasing would, for example, impact elk or mule deer calving grounds, choke off a trailhead, or industrialize high-priority habitat. That discretion is gone. The oil company picks the parcel; the BLM is told to process the paperwork. End of story.”

—David A. Lien of Colorado Springs, Colorado Times Recorder

Picture This

@Interior

The monarch migration is about to begin. Along the way, they depend on native flowering plants to rest and refuel. Planting native wildflowers and milkweed in your yard or in your community is one simple way to help these remarkable travelers complete their journey.

Feature image: Rainbow Mountain Wilderness: Source: BLM Nevada, by Bob Wick/Flickr

The post Democrats call Interior wilderness policy review a ‘ploy’ appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

The oil industry just posted some of its best profits in years while Americans pay more at the pump

President Donald Trump promised to “cut your energy prices in half” within his first year in office using his “energy dominance” agenda. Instead, energy dominance has produced record profits for oil companies and higher gas prices for everyone else.

Eight of the world’s largest oil companies made a combined $93 billion in profit in the second quarter of 2026, nearly double what those companies made last year, and more than $1 billion in profit every single day. The increase in profits is connected to the US-Israeli war on Iran, which disrupted oil shipping through the Strait of Hormuz and pushed global oil prices above $126 per barrel at their peak.

ExxonMobil reported $14.5 billion in profit, its highest quarterly total in four years, while Chevron posted $12 billion, its highest quarterly profit in at least six years. Shell earned $9.8 billion, its second-highest quarterly profit ever, and Saudi Aramco topped the list at more than $33 billion.

US refiners also raked in the profits. Valero Energy reported $3.7 billion in net income, up from $714 million a year earlier and its most profitable quarter on record by earnings per share. HF Sinclair’s profit roughly quadrupled year-over-year, and PBF Energy swung from a loss to over $1 billion in profit.

None of this windfall is reaching consumers. The national average price for a gallon of gas was $4.01 on August 10, and prices are higher than a year ago in every state. Refiners say fuel inventories will be slow to rebuild, meaning the high prices are likely to stick around even as the price of crude oil drops.

Oil companies aren’t using their record profits to expand drilling or refining, either. ExxonMobil alone returned $9.4 billion to shareholders in the second quarter through dividends and stock buybacks, and Shell started a new multibillion-dollar buyback program of its own. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum has pointed to record US energy production as evidence that the administration’s regulatory rollbacks are “unlocking the full potential of our domestic energy resources.” But record production and record profits have not translated into lower prices, expanded supply, or any clear benefit for American taxpayers.

In fact, Congress and the Trump administration are giving the oil and gas industry a tax break for drilling on public lands. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed July 4, 2025, cut the onshore royalty rate from 16.67 percent back to 12.5 percent. Interior has also moved to make it cheaper to drill on public lands, proposing a rule that would cut cleanup bonds from $500,000 to $25,000 and shrink the public comment period on lease sales from 90 days to 10. Taxpayers for Common Sense estimates the royalty rate decrease alone has already cost the public $489 million, a figure it warns could climb into the billions as 2026 lease sales get underway.

Oil and gas production, Converse County, Wyoming. BLM Wyoming

This isn’t the “energy dominance” Americans were promised. Trump’s declaration of a “national energy emergency” was based on the need to bring down energy prices for Americans, arguing that inadequate domestic supply “causes and makes worse the high energy prices that devastate Americans.” His “Unleashing American Energy” executive order relied on that “energy emergency” to justify a number of policy actions ostensibly aimed at increasing energy production, presumably to increase domestic supply and bring prices down.

If there were an actual energy emergency, and if the Trump administration was serious about addressing it, the administration would have spent the past year and a half investing in a rapid build-out of inexpensive domestic energy sources like solar, wind, and battery storage. But the administration has actually done the opposite, putting up roadblocks to renewable energy development and paying developers nearly $2 billion in taxpayer funds to abandon offshore wind projects that were already underway. Meanwhile, the administration is doing everything it can to rush oil, gas, and coal projects by cutting corners on environmental reviews and avoiding public comment whenever it thinks it can get away with it. Interior’s current plan would compress reviews that once took up to two years into a single month, and cut the public comment period for projects expected to cause environmental harm down to about 10 days.

This strategy is working splendidly for oil and gas companies. For American families, it’s been a disaster that’s squeezing them when they’re already struggling with rising costs in all other areas of their lives. Adding insult to injury, oil and gas companies are locking Americans out of their public lands by nominating and leasing public lands they don’t intend to drill, tying up both the land itself and management agency resources with unserious nominations and leases. The real energy emergency is the oil and gas takeover of our national public lands at the expense of preserving some of America’s most valuable natural places.

The post Trump’s “energy dominance” agenda is only helping oil and gas companies appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

The National Park Service is reportedly weighing a land swap that would allow a data center to be built inside Prince William Forest Park in northern Virginia, one of the D.C. area’s largest green spaces and a Civil War-era site.

Developer Highland Digital owns an “inholding,” land inside the park’s boundaries that was privately held before the park was established, and was considering building a data center there. But that site has wetlands and streams that complicate permitting, so Highland Digital came up with a workaround: swap its wetland-heavy inholding for other Park Service land nearby that would be easier to develop. It hired lobbyist Jeff Small, a former senior Interior department official in the first Trump administration, to work on the swap in May 2025.

According to the National Parks Conservation Association, the deal looks balanced on paper but actually leaves “the developer com[ing] out ahead” with land “primed for development.” Representative Eugene Vindman’s office asked the Park Service in mid-July whether it even has legal authority to trade park land without congressional approval and says it never got a response, while Highland Digital has since withdrawn a permitting application and scrapped a public meeting without explanation. Since becoming Interior secretary, Doug Burgum has been a vocal advocate of artificial intelligence and data centers.

Huffman, Dexter launch investigation into Energy Fuels execs

Members of the House Natural Resources Committee have opened an investigation into whether Energy Fuels executives traded on advance knowledge of President Donald Trump’s decision to shrink Bears Ears National Monument by more than 90 percent. The company’s CEO, Ross Bhappu, bought 74,000 shares on July 7, the largest insider purchase in company history, and Chairman Bruce Hansen bought 4,000 more the next day, just five days before Trump stripped monument protections from nearly 1.4 million acres, including uranium-rich areas the company has eyed for years.

Representatives Jared Huffman and Maxine Dexter say the company’s lobbying ties to the administration, including a former Trump Interior official on retainer, “may have enabled” Bhappu and Hansen to learn of the announcement early, and they’re demanding Energy Fuels’ communications with Interior, Agriculture, and Defense officials.

Quick hits Opinion: Doug Burgum is the real vandal behind Trump’s failed Reflecting Pool renovation

Daily Beast | Bismarck Tribune

Trump’s fire chief defends crackdown on letting wildfires burn

E&E News

Opinion: Proposed changes to federal oil and gas provisions are bad for public land, private property owners and democracy

WyoFile

Organ Pipe monument closes roads to clear path for 2nd border wall construction

Arizona Daily Star

‘A day of infamy’: Construction bulldozes through Big Bend National Park

GearJunkie

Opinion: Why is Burgum licking Trump’s boots?

Dickinson Press

Six takeaways from the slashing of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante

Outside

OnX tool connects Montanans to public land comment opportunities

Bozeman Daily Chronicle

Quote of the day

In the desert, there is no more valuable habitat than where the trees grow… In this arid region, diversity and abundance of plant and animal species is nowhere greater… This is what they chose to destroy first.”

—Former Big Bend biologist Raymond Skiles on border wall construction inside the park, GearJunkie

Picture This

@Interior

A single lightning strike can reach temperatures nearly 5 times hotter than the surface of the sun. At White Sands National Park, that incredible heat can fuse gypsum sand into formations called fulgurites, better known as “fossilized lightning.”

Feature image: Trail along creek in Prince William Forest in Virginia; Source: Diana Robinson/Flickr

The post NPS is quietly considering a data center deal inside a Virginia forest appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.