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bureau of land management
Doug Burgum Puts Private Profits Over Public Lands and Tribal Rights
Last month the Interior Department approved new grazing rules that revoke tribal rights to graze bison on federal land in favor of cattle, all to benefit wealthy ranchers.
Jun 12, 2026
When the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee held confirmation hearings for current Department of Interior head Doug Burgum, he made it quite clear that he viewed public lands, lands belonging to the American public, as an asset on “America’s balance sheet.” His implication was pretty clear: These public lands should be used to turn a profit.
Public lands belong to all Americans and were set aside for their protection, not for profit. But, no surprise, Burgum fully supports exploitative industries like oil, gas, and mining on public lands, so who’s balance sheet will benefit? At an energy conference in Houston last year he noted, “If we’re going to drill, baby, drill, then we’ve got to be asked to also mine, baby, mine.”
So much for conservation and environmental protection of our public lands! But, like most members of the current administration, he acts like using your office to extract profit wherever possible is acceptable and “smart”—protecting the public trust takes a back seat. In 2024, President Donald Trump asked a gathering of oil and gas executives at his Florida estate hosted by Burgum to raise $1 billion for his campaign, for which in return he would roll back environmental protections requested by the oil industry. In his thinking, that’s smart, a win-win, personal profit for the president and windfall profits for energy companies.
But Burugm also knows there is profit to be made above ground on the public lands that cover large stretches of the Great Plains. Last month the Interior Department approved new grazing rules that revoke tribal rights to graze bison on federal land in favor of cattle, i.e. “production-oriented livestock.”
Aside from money made by extractive industries, administration officials, and ranchers—all at the expense of taxpayers and the environment—there are too few who question why the ongoing racism of the current administration is allowed to continue.
In the early 1800s, upward of 50 million bison roamed the Great Plains; by 1900, fewer than 1,000 were left. An organized campaign of commercial hunting, the government’s desire to subjugate the Native tribes by exterminating their food supply, and the perceived need to close the range for private cattle grazing nearly exterminated the American bison.
Déjà vu.
Tribal efforts to expand the herd, in cooperation with former Interior Secretary Deb Haaland during the Biden administration, prioritized efforts to manage the herd for traditional purposes of food, cultural heritage, and land conservation—and public land overseen by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) was part of that partnership.
While fees charged for cattle grazing on BLM land are claimed to benefit the US Treasury, these fees do not help Secretary Burgum’s “balance sheet” either. Permitted grazing on BLM land actually costs taxpayers money, while it benefits a small number of mostly rich landowners. True, there are ranchers who use the privilege of grazing public lands responsibly, yet there are others who abuse the privilege, while the administration turns a blind eye and continues to roll back environmental enforcement. Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy continued to illegally graze BLM land in Nevada for years after piling up fees and fines of over $1 million.
Aside from money made by extractive industries, administration officials, and ranchers—all at the expense of taxpayers and the environment—there are too few who question why the ongoing racism of the current administration is allowed to continue. While the outright slaughter of Native tribes as seen in the 1800s is no longer occurring, the government is clearly denying the tribes the right to celebrate their culture, their heritage, and their right to a decent life on land that was once theirs, land where millions of bison grazed, animals that evolved with the native prairie and in effect managed it and put it to its highest use. Land that now, in addition to production-oriented livestock, is covered by millions of acres of corn and soy.
It is unlikely that cattle, corn, and soy will ever be replaced by bison herds on the Great Plains, because as the Coalition of Large Tribes (COLT), which represents more than 50 tribes managing 25,000 bison on land that accounts for about 95% of Indian Country noted, the new Interior Department rules are designed to protect cows and were published without prior consultation with tribes.
It is not nostalgia that bison should graze public lands, especially those adjacent to tribal reservations. Bison are far better environmental stewards than cattle and, for that matter, probably people as well. It is also, perhaps, a pipe dream that this administration would recognize the inherent cultural rights of Native Americans, or any minority for that matter. To them, the extraction of profit for themselves and their corporate cronies is all that matters. But this administration will someday end, and perhaps the next will be more enlightened and respectful of minority rights and common sense.
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'Hands Off the Arctic,' Say Wilderness Defenders as Trump Holds Alaska Oil and Gas Lease Sale
“Some places are too important to sacrifice,” said one Indigenous leader as the Trump administration invited fossil fuel companies to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
Jun 05, 2026
The Trump administration is set Friday to sell oil and gas drilling leases on 689,000 acres in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, a pristine and protected area in northeastern Alaska's coastal plain known for its massive biodiversity and held sacred by its Indigenous inhabitants.
The US Department of the Interior's (DOI) Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is offering 60 tracts in the ANWR to fossil fuel companies that submitted bids by Wednesday. The lease sale is the first of four in the ANWR mandated under the One Big Beautiful Bill signed by President Donald Trump last year and follows two previous sales this decade, one of which saw little interest during Trump's first term and another that generated no bids during the tenure of former President Joe Biden.
The sale is part of Trump's "drill, baby, drill" fossil fuel agenda and follows last October's reopening by the DOI of 1.56 million acres of the Coastal Plain to oil and gas leasing. The move reversed the Biden administration's 2023 cancellation of all existing oil and gas leases in the ANWR and ban on drilling across 13 million acres of the adjacent National Petroleum Reserve.
The Trump administration also recently transferred approximately 1.4 million acres of public lands along the Dalton Utility Corridor from the BLM to the state of Alaska, a move one conservationist warned "will only help corporate polluters transform Alaska into an industrial wasteland... for the sake of expanding the portfolios of mining and oil and gas companies."
The ANWR is home to Indigenous peoples, primarily the North Slope Iñupiat and the Gwich’in. The former are generally supportive of fossil fuel development, arguing that it provides jobs and revenue and boosts self-determination, while the latter broadly opposes drilling.
The Gwich'in call the area “the sacred place where life begins" and rely upon its rich biodiversity—especially its 200,000-strong porcupine caribou herd—for their survival. ANWR boasts some 270 animal species, including musk oxen, Arctic foxes, snow geese and other migratory birds, and all of the world’s remaining South Beaufort Sea polar bears.
While the American Petroleum Institute, the nation's leading fossil fuel lobby, welcomed Friday's lease sale, calling Alaska's oil and gas "key to America's energy security," Kristen Moreland, executive director of the Gwich'in Steering Committee, countered that "some places are too important to sacrifice."
In a Thursday call with reporters, Moreland said that "tomorrow's lease sale is about much more than economics or development. It is about whether our voices, our culture, and our way of life matters."
Conservationists also denounced the lease sale, which Earthjustice—part of a coalition challenging the DOI's policy in federal court—called "another effort to sell out our public lands to boost corporate profits, while Indigenous communities, wildlife, and future generations carry the risk."
US Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) said Friday on X that "America's public lands—including the incredible Arctic National Wildlife Refuge—belong to all of us. But now the Trump-Vance administration is auctioning it off to their Big Oil cronies that already have plenty of other areas to drill."
In a video posted Thursday on social media, US Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-NM) called ANWR "the crown jewel of our American National Wildlife Refuge system."
"Tomorrow, the Trump administration is gonna try to lease the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for oil drilling. So I've got a message for all the oil majors out there," the senator said. "I understand you have a job to do. That job never involves drilling in American national parks or national wildlife refuges. Don't bid."
Congresswoman Adelita Grijalva (D-Ariz.) also posted a video addressing the lease sale and arguing that Big Oil—part of an industry that spent nearly $450 million during the 2024 election cycle on campaign donations, lobbying, and other efforts to elect Trump and down-ballot Republicans—is "calling the shots."
The Alaska Wilderness League said on X that "no matter how the administration and oil industry spin today’s lease sale, the outcome doesn’t change: weak demand, shrinking interest, and a story that keeps collapsing under its own promises."
"The Arctic is not for sale, never has been, never will be," the group added. "Hands off the Arctic."
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Trump Admin Quietly Approves Massive Crude Oil Expansion Project
"This thinly analyzed decision threatens the lifeblood of the American Southwest," said one environmental attorney.
Jul 04, 2025
The Trump administration has quietly fast-tracked a massive oil expansion project that environmentalists and Democratic lawmakers warned could have a destructive impact on local communities and the climate.
As reported recently by the Oil and Gas Journal, the plan "involves expanding the Wildcat Loadout Facility, a key transfer point for moving Uinta basin crude oil to rail lines that transport it to refineries along the Gulf Coast."
The goal of the plan is to transfer an additional 70,000 barrels of oil per day from the Wildcat Loadout Facility, which is located in Utah, down to the Gulf Coast refineries via a route that runs along the Colorado River. Controversially, the Trump administration is also plowing ahead with the project by invoking emergency powers to address energy shortages despite the fact that the United States for the last couple of years has been producing record levels of domestic oil.
Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) and Rep. Joe Neguse (D-Colo.) issued a joint statement condemning the Trump administration's push to approve the project while rushing through environmental impact reviews.
"The Bureau of Land Management's decision to fast-track the Wildcat Loadout expansion—a project that would transport an additional 70,000 barrels of crude oil on train tracks along the Colorado River—using emergency procedures is profoundly flawed," the Colorado Democrats said. "These procedures give the agency just 14 days to complete an environmental review—with no opportunity for public input or administrative appeal—despite the project's clear risks to Colorado. There is no credible energy emergency to justify bypassing public involvement and environmental safeguards. The United States is currently producing more oil and gas than any country in the world."
On Thursday, the Bureau of Land Management announced the completion of its accelerated environmental review of the project, drawing condemnation from climate advocates.
Wendy Park, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, described the administration's rush to approve the project as "pure hubris," especially given its "refusal to hear community concerns about oil spill risks." She added that "this fast-tracked review breezed past vital protections for clean air, public safety and endangered species."
Landon Newell, staff attorney for the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, accused the Trump administration of manufacturing an energy emergency to justify plans that could have a dire impact on local habitats.
"This thinly analyzed decision threatens the lifeblood of the American Southwest by authorizing the transport of more than 1 billion gallons annually of additional oil on railcars traveling alongside the Colorado River," he said. "Any derailment and oil spill would have a devastating impact on the Colorado River and the communities and ecosystems that rely upon it."
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The Senate GOP’s Great Western Land Heist
A buried budget clause could force the largest public land sell-off in modern history, without a vote, a hearing, or a warning.
Jun 21, 2025
The Owyhee Canyonlands still wake to the hush of sage wind and canyon light, where bighorns navigate basalt ledges and silence is a kind of song. That song, and many others, may soon be gated.
Buried in the Senate reconciliation package lies a directive to the Interior and Agriculture secretaries. They are ordered to sell off up to 3.3 million acres of Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service land across 11 Western states within five years.
This is no minor bureaucratic maneuver. It is a mass land transfer on a scale most Americans cannot imagine. We are talking about 227 Manhattans, nearly as large as Connecticut, six times the size of Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Every acre could vanish behind a fence, a lease, or a luxury gate, permanently removed from public access.
What they see as inventory for extraction or speculation, we know as wildlife corridors, ancestral sites, and living ecosystems.
And the damage may not stop there. In addition to this directive, an amendment advanced by Sens. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Steve Daines (R-Mont.) dramatically expands the scope of what land can be targeted next. That amendment opens up as much as 258 million acres, more than half of all public land managed by the BLM and Forest Service, as eligible for future sale. The amendment does not raise the total acreage that must be sold now, but it vastly expands the pool of land that could be nominated for disposal, setting the stage for further mass privatizations.
The sheer scale of the amendment, expanding eligibility to 258 million acres, raises questions about intent. While the bill still caps mandated sales at 3.3 million acres, the broadened eligibility pool may serve several strategic purposes. It positions the smaller number as a “reasonable compromise,” creating the illusion of moderation while setting the legal stage for far greater disposals in future bills. It also appeases private-sector interests by offering a vast catalog of public land to lobby over, speculate on, and nominate for sale. For lawmakers like Sens. Lee and Daines, long committed to shrinking federal land ownership, it advances a deeper ideological goal: redefining public land as provisional and disposable. Even if not all of it is sold now, marking it as eligible redraws the line between what belongs to the people and what can be taken.
Even national monument lands, while currently excluded, may be at risk. The Trump administration’s Department of Justice has argued that a president has the authority to revoke monument protections unilaterally. If that view prevails, another 13.5 million acres of previously protected lands could be opened for sale with the stroke of a pen. That is nearly as much land as the entire state of West Virginia. It is the equivalent of more than 10 Grand Canyon National Parks or over 15,000 Central Parks. All of it currently protected for future generations. All of it just one legal argument away from the auction block.
The Map They Will Not Show You
Behind closed doors, agency and congressional staff, working closely with industry allies, are drawing lines around timber-rich slopes, mineral-heavy ridges, and land primed for private development. What they see as inventory for extraction or speculation, we know as wildlife corridors, ancestral sites, and living ecosystems. These are not forgotten or idle lands. They are part of a shared inheritance now being marked for liquidation.
The bill does not define these parcels as protected, but instead excludes only national parks and formally designated wilderness areas as essential for continued public stewardship. This opens the door to the disposal of millions of acres that remain critical for wildlife, water, and people. At risk are places like:
- Tensleep Canyon, Wyoming: granite walls long sought for magnesite and limestone extraction;
- The Owyhee Canyonlands: This expansive public land, encompassing deep desert canyons across three states, has already been highlighted by several groups most notably the Friends of the Owyhee as a site directly threatened by the Senate land-sale proposal.
- Molalla River, Oregon: a century-old timber corridor still featured in BLM logging plans; and
- Grand Staircase region, Utah: red-rock mesas stripped of nearly 1 million acres of monument protection in 2017, now eyed for coal and uranium leases.
These are only the best-known examples. Many more have already been, and are likely still being, quietly marked by developers, oil and gas firms, and mining consortia.
No hearings. No vote. No chance to object.
The provision does not merely authorize these sales. It mandates them. Each agency must sell between 0.5-0.75% of its total land base through competitive auction within five years. That adds up to between 2.3 and 3.3 million acres. That so-called small fraction still equals more than 3 million acres, roughly the size of Connecticut or nearly one-and-a-half of the area of Yellowstone National Park.
States are granted a “right of first refusal,” but it is a hollow gesture. There is no requirement that land be offered at fair value, no obligation to preserve public access, and no mandate for consultation with Indigenous nations. There are no environmental reviews or affordability conditions. The public has no voice in what is sold or to whom.
These are our lands. Yet we are being shut out of the decision entirely.
Who Wants It, and Who Is Fighting Back
The provision’s primary backers include Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, several Republican members of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, large residential developers, fossil fuel and mining companies, and private equity firms that see public land as cheap inventory.
But opposition is accelerating. Sens. Martin Heinrich of New Mexico and Ron Wyden of Oregon, both senior Democrats on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, have pledged to fight the inclusion of the land-sale mandate in the reconciliation bill. Even some Republicans from traditionally pro‑development states, such as Sen. James Risch of Idaho and Sen. Steve Daines of Montana—who cosponsored the amendment enabling large‑scale land sales, but later sought to distance himself by emphasizing narrow scope and expressing opposition—have acknowledged public concern over the lack of transparency and long‑term risks.
It is worth asking whether this land policy is a public act or a private arrangement with public consequences.
Tribal governments, conservation groups, small recreation businesses, and national advocacy organizations like the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, Backcountry Hunters & Anglers, and Outdoor Alliance have publicly opposed the public land sell-off provision. They warn that the measure bypasses hearings and public input, threatens access to public lands, and endangers sacred sites, wildlife corridors, and rural economies. The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance called it a direct threat to Utah’s redrock country, and multiple Indigenous groups have condemned the lack of tribal consultation.
And the land grab is happening in a political context where the Trump family, once again in the White House, is expanding its business empire, including foreign real estate deals. According to Eliot Brown of The Wall Street Journal, India’s richest man, Mukesh Ambani, is one of many international investors pouring money into Trump Organization developments. These include projects in real estate, cryptocurrency, and other sectors that stand to benefit from relaxed land-use and ownership rules. It is worth asking whether this land policy is a public act or a private arrangement with public consequences.
Why You Should Care, Wherever You Live
Public lands do more than store carbon. They store stories. They teach children the sound of a free-running stream. They preserve the last unbroken skies. They support a $1.2 trillion outdoor recreation economy that sustains 5 million jobs and helps recharge watersheds that irrigate crops across the American West.
The land they’re targeting is not empty. It is not surplus. It is alive. It is where the land still speaks in the languages of those who came before. Where every ridge holds a name, every stream a story. It’s where people go to breathe again. To walk without noise. To teach a child how water sounds. It’s where we remember we are small, and that smallness is sacred.
What’s being auctioned is not just land. It is access. It is silence. It is memory, future, belonging, and the last wild chance some people have to feel whole again.
Privatizing these lands is not only an economic and environmental betrayal. It is a moral one. This is not about housing. This is about extraction. This is about raw power, inherited greed, and the open theft of the commons. To do so is to erase the covenant between people and place, to sell the inheritance that binds generations.
And when it’s gone, it’s gone. You don’t replant a thousand-year-old forest. You don’t buy back a clean river. You don’t resurrect what you sold to a bulldozer.
What You Can Do Today
Congress is moving fast, and the window to stop this is closing. The provision to force the sale of public lands is buried deep in a massive budget bill, shielded from public debate and poised to pass quietly behind a smokescreen of competing headlines. This is the moment to act. Delay means disappearance. Once these lands are gone, they do not come back.
- Call your senators. Encourage family and friends to do the same. Capitol switchboard: (202) 224-3121. Urge them to strike the land-sale mandate from the budget bill.
- Text RESIST to 50409 to send messages to your senators through Resistbot. Resistbot has delivered over 35 million letters, with congressional staff confirming they receive and read them. Independent research shows the tool can boost civic engagement and influence legislative awareness.
- Download and share the Wilderness Society’s interactive “public lands at risk” map and policy alerts. These tools are available through their Media Resources page and recent press releases. Use them to spark conversations at trailheads, town halls, and farmers’ markets.
- Submit a letter to your local paper and help raise public pressure before the bill advances further. Letters to the editor are widely read and often monitored by congressional staff. You can also share your message through neighborhood forums, community Facebook groups, or organizations you’re part of.
- Support those on the front lines, including the Wilderness Society, Native American Rights Fund, Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, Backcountry Hunters & Anglers, the Outdoor Alliance, and the Intertribal Timber Council.
Rep. John D. Dingell, America’s longest-serving member of Congress, often reminded us that public lands are more than state assets. He believed they are held in trust, stating plainly, “In democratic government, elected officials do not have power. They hold power in trust for the people who elected them.”
We were never meant to sell the sacred. But if we stay silent now, the lines on the map will be redrawn without us. The land will forget we were ever part of it.
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'Historic Victory' as Biden BLM Restores Protections for 28 Million Acres in Alaska
"Tribal consultation must be treated as a requirement—not an option—when the federal government is making decisions that could irrevocably affect tribal communities," said Interior Secretary Deb Haaland.
Aug 27, 2024
Indigenous tribes and conservation groups applauded the Biden administration on Tuesday for listening to the demands of Alaska Natives, who have called on the federal government to protect 28 million acres of land in the state from mining—warning that failing to do so would threaten food security and cultural identity for tens of thousands of people.
U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland's announcement that the land would be protected from mining interests—reversing a decision by former President Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee—"is a big deal for the communities and wildlife who call Alaska home," said Dan Ritzman of the Sierra Club.
"These lands and waters are unparalleled not only for their natural beauty, but for the habitat they provide imperiled wildlife, and the recreation opportunities they offer us," said Ritzman, who heads the group's Conservation Campaign. "These 28 million acres are some of the last truly intact wildlands in the United States. Secretary Haaland deserves credit for listening to those who have called for their protection for generations to come."
The Bureau of Land Managament (BLM) said Trump made an "unlawful decision" when his administration ended longstanding protections for the lands "without sufficient analysis of the potential impacts of such a decision on subsistence and other important resources, appropriate tribal consultation, and without compliance with other legal requirements," opening the lands to oil and gas extraction.
"Tribal consultation must be treated as a requirement—not an option—when the federal government is making decisions that could irrevocably affect tribal communities," said Haaland. "Continuing these essential protections, which have been in place for decades, will ensure continued access and use of these public lands now and in the future."
"These 28 million acres are some of the last truly intact wildlands in the United States."
The Wild Salmon Center noted that the lands in question contain some of the largest remaining intact ecosystems in the country, "from high alpine tundra to the pristine estuaries and wetlands in places like Bristol Bay, home to the world's most abundant wild sockeye salmon runs."
Alaska Native tribes have also called for the public lands to be protected because they serve as a habitat for caribou.
"Secretary Haaland's decision today is an important step toward a future full of healthy lands, waters, and people who thrive on wild salmon, waterfowl, other migratory animals, and seasonal plant life," said Anaan'arar Sophie Swope, executive director of Mother Kuskokwim Tribal Coalition. "Our Yukon-Kuskokwim region's wetlands are vital to our people's way of life."
Swope said the coalition is pushing for further action from the BLM to stop the "dangerous and destructive" 315-mile pipeline proposed by Donlin Gold.
"These actions would ensure future generations' ability to safely live on the land while carrying our customary and traditional knowledge," said Swope.
Haaland's announcement comes two months after the Biden administration blocked the construction of an industrial road that would have opened access for mining in Alaska, and weeks after the BLM proposed expanded protections for the Western Arctic—but President Joe Biden's approval of the Willow oil extraction project has been condemned as an "oil stain" on his climate record.
Drew McConville, senior fellow for the Center for American Progress, said the restored protections announced Tuesday are an "historic victory for public lands and the result of unwavering advocacy from Alaska Native communities."
"The Trump administration's attempt to open them up to industrial development was both shortsighted and reckless," said McConville, "especially when Alaska is warming at more than two times the pace of the rest of the planet."
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Biden Proposes New Protections From Oil and Gas Drilling in Western Arctic
While applauding the proposal, climate advocates said they would "keep fighting to ensure there's no new oil extraction on a single acre" of the region.
Jul 13, 2024
Indigenous groups in Alaska were joined by climate advocates on Friday in welcoming the Biden administration's proposal to expand protections from oil and gas drilling in the Western Arctic, though some groups emphasized that the federal government should not stop with the newly announced effort.
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) said it was opening a 60-day comment period regarding a potential expansion of areas protected from drilling in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska (NPR-A), also known as the Western Arctic.
The announcement comes three months after the Biden administration unveiled protections for 13 million acres of the 23 million-acre reserve, barring oil and gas companies from extraction there.
With wildlife including the 150,000-strong Western Arctic caribou herd, muskoxen, polar bears, migratory birds, and native plants depending on the reserve as their habitat, the Sierra Club said President Joe Biden's moves to designate Special Areas in the region are crucial—especially considering the Arctic is warming four times faster than the rest of the world.
"If enacted, these proposed protections would be another historic move towards long-term preservation of America's Arctic," said Athan Manuel, director of Sierra Club's Lands Protection Program. "The Arctic is at the frontline of climate change. President Biden is making it the frontline of climate action."
"If enacted, these proposed protections would be another historic move towards long-term preservation of America's Arctic."
The group pointed out that further protections would allow the NPR-A to store carbon and provide subsistence hunting and gathering areas for Alaska Natives including the Iñupiat.
Protections like those proposed on Friday, said Nauri Simmonds of Sovereign Iñupiat for a Living Arctic, are "vital for balancing the systematic disempowerment that's happened in our region for decades" as fossil fuel companies—with the approval of administrations including Biden's—have extracted oil and gas in the Arctic.
"In my Aaka's (grandmother's) lifetime, she witnessed the transition from living a traditional lifestyle to experiencing the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System being constructed and oil fields erected close enough to her traditional lands to be seen, heard, and lead to evacuations for Nuiqsut (the most impacted village from oil and gas development on the north slope of Alaska) as recently as 2022," said Simmonds. "We welcome this most recent announcement, and will continue to work towards building stronger communities in ways that lead to autonomy and self-determination on our traditional lands."
The BLM said it plans to consult with Alaska Native tribes during the 60-day comment period.
Groups including Friends of the Earth (FOE) and the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) expressed cautious optimism about the Biden administration's plan to further protect the largest single unit of public lands in the U.S. from oil and gas exploration.
Raena Garcia, senior fossil fuel and lands campaigner at FOE, called the comment period "a great step toward conserving the Arctic's ecological and cultural significance," but warned that the proposed protections "should not stop at today's announcement."
The Department of the Interior "must establish additional safeguards to prevent the irreversible environmental harm that oil and gas projects like [the Willow oil drilling project] pose to our climate and communities," said Garcia.
Cooper Freeman, Alaska director at CBD, said the entire Western Arctic must "be protected from all oil drilling."
"Anything less is like shuffling deck chairs on the Titanic," said Freeman. "If the federal government continues to allow oil drilling anywhere on the reserve, it'll fuel the climate chaos devastating polar bear dens, migratory bird nesting wetlands, and caribou calving grounds in designated special areas. We'll keep fighting to ensure there's no new oil extraction on a single acre."
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Protecting Forests Can Help Us Combat the Climate Crisis–If Done Right
If we are to restore old growth, combat climate change, and preserve wildlife habitats and have forests for future generations to experience, we must change the way that we manage our public forest lands.
Mar 30, 2024
In December, the Biden administration took a redwood-sized step toward protecting old-growth trees and forests. Following a presidential executive order in April 2022, the U.S. Forest Service announced that it intends to amend all 128 forest land management plans to conserve and expand old growth in national forests. That move clears the way for us to stop chainsaws from felling our oldest trees, which are worth more standing than as lumber. We commend Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack (who presides over the Forest Service) and his team.
As with any policy proposal, the devil is in the details. To truly prevent timber companies from chopping down our old-growth trees and forests, the final version of this proposed amendment, expected in January 2025, must be stronger in a few specific areas.
- The amendment as announced would limit the logging of old growth for commercial motives. The Forest Service must go further and prevent the commercial exchange of old growth cut down for any reason. There’s no reason for old-growth trees to ever be sold to timber mills.
- All protections enacted must apply to the entire National Forest System, especially to Alaska’s Tongass National Forest. The Tongass was exempted from the plan announced in December. There is more old growth in the Tongass than anywhere else, and leaving the crown jewel of our National Forest System out of a plan to protect old growth is nonsensical.
Environment America and our allies with the Climate Forests Campaign have been and will continue to advocate for the strongest possible protections for these trees and forests.
While it is a strong step in the direction of protecting critical trees and forests, even if the Forest Service’s final amendment includes the robust protections described above, it will still omit many important trees and forests.
Some of these forests are managed by another federal agency, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). Interior Secretary Deb Halaand and BLM Director Tracy Stone-Manning should propose their own plan to protect older trees and forests on BLM’s lands.
We’re facing twin crises—climate change and biodiversity loss. To combat both, we need more “climate forests”—vibrant ecosystems full of older trees that absorb and store carbon.
Old-growth forests are irreplaceable and worthy of elevated protection, but there are hardly any left. To recover even a fraction of what was lost to logging over the centuries, the United States must act to protect mature trees and forests, the future old growth, from commercial logging. These forests are still developing and will turn into old-growth ecosystems, supporting biodiversity and storing more carbon if we let the trees grow. The solution to our shortage of old-growth forests is to nurture these future ones, but the Forest Service’s proposed amendment would not confer meaningful safeguards for mature forests.
Humans have built wooden homes, fences, furniture, and other products for centuries. The problems started when people began to believe that trees were most valuable when chopped down. We started industrial-scale logging to clear land for agriculture, cities, railroads, and highways. We’ve managed our forests accordingly, accepting a Forest Service mission that includes the “productivity of the nation’s forests.”
After more than a century of management for “productivity,” many of our nation’s “forests” are rows of trees of uniform species and age that we let grow only to chop down in a few decades. They resemble fields on a farm. Two-thirds of our country’s forests are “timberlands,” designated for industrial logging. If you embrace the concept of a forest as a fully functioning ecosystem, developing over decades or centuries without large-scale human interference, then it’s clear that the public forests of the United States mostly come up short.
This shortage is unfortunate because we’re facing twin crises—climate change and biodiversity loss. To combat both, we need more “climate forests”—vibrant ecosystems full of older trees that absorb and store carbon. Our national forests and grasslands are home to 3,000 species of wildlife, and according to the Forest Service, “forests in the U.S. remove the equivalent of about 12% of annual U.S. fossil fuel emissions.” No other technology can match forests for carbon removal at this scale. We don’t even have to invest in research and development to spin up new forests. We simply have to let our existing forests grow.
Approximately 38% of forestland in the United States is publicly owned, most of that is managed by the federal government. If we are to restore old growth, combat climate change, and preserve wildlife habitats and have forests for future generations to experience, we must change the way that we manage our public forest lands.
The Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management have their work cut out for them. Step one should be to finalize this proposed amendment so that it protects as many trees as possible. The administration must simultaneously be working on step two: developing durable policies for protecting the rest of our “climate forests.” We’ve heard too many trees fall in our forests. Now, it’s time to keep them standing.
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Republicans Advance Boebert Plan Forcing Taxpayers to Foot Bill for Big Oil's Mess
"The oil and gas industry could stick taxpayers with a massive bill of between $2.9 billion and $17.7 billion," warned Public Citizen's Alan Zibel.
Dec 06, 2023
Fossil fuel industry-funded Republicans on the U.S. House Natural Resources Committee voted Wednesday to advance Rep. Lauren Boebert's bill that would saddle taxpayers with the massive cost of cleaning up oil and gas wells on federal lands.
"Corporations awarded a lease to drill on federal land must post a bond. If the leasing corporation abandons an exploration site, goes bankrupt, or fails to plug a well securely, the posted bond covers the cost of doing so," Public Citizen explained this week in a statement opposing the proposal.
The Colorado Republican's Restoring American Energy Dominance Act (H.R. 6009) would block a proposed rule from the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) revising federal regulations "to update the fees, rents, royalties, and bonding requirements related to oil and gas leasing, development, and production" in line with the Inflation Reduction Act signed by President Joe Biden last year.
"Rep. Boebert is plainly on the side of the oil and gas companies that don't want to be held accountable for exploiting hardworking taxpayers."
Based on a BLM review of the costs to plug orphaned wells, the rule—strongly opposed by polluting oil and gas companies—would raise the minimum lease bond amount to $150,000 and the minimum statewide bond to $500,000. It would also end the use of nationwide bonds.
"Without these crucial protections, the oil and gas industry could stick taxpayers with a massive bill of between $2.9 billion and $17.7 billion," Public Citizen's Alan Zibel warned in a report published Tuesday in anticipation of the House committee vote.
"We already allow far too much climate-destroying fossil fuel drilling on public lands in Western states," Zibel added in a statement Wednesday. "The least we can do is ensure taxpayers don't get stuck subsidizing the fossil fuel industry's cost of doing business."
"Even as U.S. fossil fuel production soars to record levels," he said, "Republicans are doing the bidding of fossil fuel lobbyists by trying to block modest, sensible efforts to reduce blatant, long-standing giveaways in the system for leasing public lands for oil and gas production."
In the leadup to the vote, Accountable.US highlighted that the "Big Oil-backed, far-right extremists" on the Republican-led committee have taken at least $3.8 million in campaign contributions from the oil and gas industry during their political careers.
Rep. Garret Graves (R-La.) leads the pack with $850,945, followed by committee Chair Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.) at $416,575, based on the group's analysis of OpenSecrets data. Boebert, who is only in her second term, ranks sixth, with $121,150.
"Rep. Boebert is plainly on the side of the oil and gas companies that don't want to be held accountable for exploiting hardworking taxpayers," Accountable.US spokesperson Chris Marshall said Wednesday. "The American public can't afford to suffer from this broken, polluting system any longer."
Thanks to the panel's party-line vote, H.R. 6009 now moves to the House floor. It faces far better odds of passing the GOP-controlled lower chamber than the divided Senate—but even if the bill got through Congress, Biden could veto it.
While Biden—who is seeking reelection next year—campaigned on being a "climate president," he has come under fire from campaigners and frontline communities for continuing fossil fuel lease sales for public lands and waters, greenlighting the Willow oil project and Mountain Valley Pipeline, and blowing off COP28, the ongoing United Nations climate summit taking place in Dubai.
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Biden Proposal for Fossil Fuel Leasing on Public Lands Called 'Massive Climate Failure'
"President Biden is blowing an opportunity to end oil and gas extraction on public land as the world reels from one climate catastrophe to the next," said a Center for Biological Diversity campaigner.
Jul 20, 2023
Years after U.S. President Joe Biden campaigned on a promise to ban new oil and gas leases on public lands, his administration earned fresh criticism from green groups on Thursday with a proposal to update regulations for the federal fossil fuel leasing program.
The U.S. Department of the Interior unveiled a proposed rule for the outdated fiscal terms of the onshore oil and gas leasing program. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Director Tracy Stone-Manning said it "aims to ensure fairness to the taxpayer and balanced, responsible development as we continue to transition to a clean energy economy."
However, advocacy organizations including the Center for Biological Diversity slammed the rule as a "massive climate failure."
"This is a cowardly proposal that fails the basic climate imperative of ending fossil fuel expansion and phasing out production," said Taylor McKinnon, the center's Southwest director. "President Biden is blowing an opportunity to end oil and gas extraction on public land as the world reels from one climate catastrophe to the next. This dangerous plan would ravage more of the landscape with fracking while sealing our fate of increasing megafires, more preventable heat deaths, a shrinking Colorado River, and runaway wildlife extinctions."
The center is among more than 500 groups that responded to the rule with a letter urging Biden to "rapidly phase down federal fossil fuel extraction and production on public lands" to near-zero by 2030, as part of the global effort to meet the 2015 Paris climate agreement's 1.5°C goal.
"Any rule that fails to phase out oil and gas production on public lands will sacrifice human lives, ecosystems, and entire species at the altar of fossil fuel corporations and their insatiable quest for profit," McKinnon warned. "It will be another shameful addition to Biden's record alongside the Willow project, his thousands of new drilling permits, and his rollback of environmental laws to enable illegal fossil fuel pipelines."
Biden successfully challenged former President Donald Trump three years ago in part by pledging to take the climate emergency seriously and reverse the Republican's attacks on the planet. While the Democrat has certainly made some progress, particularly compared with his predecessor, he has also come under fire for failing to live up to what he promised as a candidate.
The BLM's new proposal comes as both Biden and Trump are running in the 2024 presidential contest and as much of the Northern Hemisphere is dealing with extreme heat intensified by global warming that has been largely driven by fossil fuels.
"Even as record heatwaves bake the country and floods ravage eastern states, the Biden administration continues to cozy up to Big Oil," said Nicole Ghio at Friends of the Earth. "President Biden can't be a climate leader unless he addresses the root cause of the climate crisis: fossil fuels. Turning a blind eye to his broken leasing program proves once again that Biden is content to fiddle away while the world burns."
As the Western Environmental Law Center (WELC) highlighted Thursday, the BLM "telegraphed its modest intentions for the proposed rule in its November 2021 Report on the Federal Oil and Gas Program, which we noted at the time failed to live up to its billing as a 'comprehensive review' responding to the climate crisis."
Several campaigners sounded the alarm over that report, which was produced in response to a Biden executive order. One critic said that "greenlighting more fossil fuel extraction, then pretending it's OK by nudging up royalty rates, is like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic," a sentiment that was echoed by a WELC senior attorney on Thursday.
"Following months of consecutive climate disasters, the Bureau of Land Management's determination to rearrange deck chairs instead of deploying lifeboats is deeply disturbing," said WELC's Melissa Hornbein. "Coming from an administration that kicked off its tenure with some of the loftiest climate rhetoric of any government on the global stage, Interior's obdurate reaffirmation of the status quo is staggering."
Some advocacy groups were more tempered in their responses to the rule, while still stressing the need to end such leasing.
"These changes were badly needed—to put it mildly—and will help make onshore leasing more fair to taxpayers and hold industry accountable for its harms," said Josh Axelrod, senior policy advocate at the Natural Resources Defense Council. "The agency is aiming to limit leasing to areas with existing development and the most viable resources, and is clarifying how it will implement fiscal reforms in the Biden administration's historic climate law."
"But we can't continue to lease our public lands for fossil fuels while facing climate and biodiversity emergencies—and what is truly key moving forward is for the agency to forge an approach for measuring and mitigating the program's impact on climate," Axelrod added.
Public Citizen president Robert Weissman similarly said that "these rules are a welcome change from the long-standing status quo of policies that provide giveaways to the oil and gas industry. Antiquated rules incentivize oil and gas corporations to shirk their obligation to clean up the mess they create, leaving old, rusty wells pocking the national landscape and foisting the cleanup bill on taxpayers."
"Today's proposed rules would impose realistic financial requirements on oil and gas corporations to pay for the remediation of old, decrepit wells, as federal law requires," Weissman pointed out.
"While these rules are helpful, the Biden administration's proposal continues with the climate-destroying practice of leasing federal lands for drilling, which is entirely out of sync with the administration's climate goals," he emphasized. "But as long as drilling exists on public property, corporate polluters should be held to a high standard for operating and cleaning up their wells."
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Biden Administration Sued Over Oil Drilling on California Public Lands
The U.S. Bureau of Land Management "has failed to evaluate how these projects heat the climate, guzzle water, and add to some of the dirtiest air in the country," said one attorney.
Jun 23, 2023
Five environmental groups on Thursday sued the Biden administration in an attempt to prevent the "unlawful" drilling of new oil wells on public land in California's San Joaquin Valley.
According to Earthjustice—which filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) on behalf of the Center for Biological Diversity, Friends of the Earth, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the Wilderness Society—BLM on May 31 "rushed" the approval of six drilling permits in the Mount Poso oil field near Bakersfield "without allowing input from the public and nearby communities, as required by federal law."
The plaintiffs argued that "BLM failed to comply with multiple laws requiring the agency to consider the cumulative, harmful impacts this drilling will have on air quality, water, climate, and environmental justice in one of the most polluted areas of the country," Earthjustice noted. "To date, BLM has never examined the overall harms caused by its permitting decisions in the San Joaquin Valley, yet continues to approve new drilling activity."
The groups asked the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California to halt drilling at the locations affected by the six permits BLM recently issued, pending resolution of the lawsuit and BLM's compliance with various federal laws, including the Clean Air Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, the Federal Land Policy and Management Act, the Mineral Leasing Act, and the Freedom of Information Act.
"It is our hope that the court sees the clear violations of federal law and pumps the brakes before irreversible damage occurs."
"BLM's reckless disregard for public health and the environment violates multiple federal laws meant to prevent these exact harms," Earthjustice attorney Radhika Kannan said in a statement. "Its blatant attempt to withhold its decision-making from public scrutiny further adds insult to injury for residents in the San Joaquin Valley, who cannot afford any more pollution in their communities."
"The San Joaquin Valley is the most polluted air basin in the country, and oil and gas production is a major contributor," Kannan continued. "BLM is not above the law and must answer to the local communities where residents experience the most asthma-related emergency room visits, heart attacks, and low birth-weight infants in the state of California."
Friends of the Earth legal director Hallie Templeton said that "we have done everything we can to warn the Biden administration of the myriad environmental and socioeconomic risks associated with more drilling in Kern County."
"We were deeply disappointed to see these permits granted, and the only option we have left is this lawsuit," said Templeton. "It is our hope that the court sees the clear violations of federal law and pumps the brakes before irreversible damage occurs."
"At every step, the BLM has failed to evaluate how these projects heat the climate, guzzle water, and add to some of the dirtiest air in the country," said Liz Jones, attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity's Climate Law Institute. "It's an appalling violation of our nation's environmental laws to pretend that new drilling won't make the Central Valley's pollution problems worse."
Wilderness Society director Ben Tettlebaum noted that "residents and activists in the Central Valley work every day to make their communities healthy. The last thing they need is for the BLM to threaten their air and water by unlawfully approving more oil and gas drilling in their backyards."
"BLM's oil and gas permitting process is broken," added Tettlebaum. "Its practice of rubber-stamping applications in the shadows without public input and failing to consider the cumulative air, water, climate, and environmental justice impacts is far too common—and it's also illegal. BLM must commit to an open, lawful permitting process that stays true to the Biden administration's commitment to prioritize local communities and environmental justice."
Earthjustice pointed out that the new complaint builds on earlier litigation it filed on behalf of the same coalition, which "successfully challenged BLM's failure to analyze the cumulative harms of oil and gas development in Central California."
As the group explained:
Pursuant to settlement agreements filed in summer 2022, BLM has agreed to complete a proper environmental review for the region. Yet the agency has continued to approve new drilling without the benefit of that analysis. As a result, beginning in 2022, a coalition of local community organizations and national groups submitted extensive comments to BLM documenting how its Bakersfield Field Office routinely issues permits in violation of multiple federal laws and without evaluating the impacts to air quality, water quality and scarcity, climate change, local species, or public health, all while denying nearby communities an opportunity to review and comment on the permits.
Although President Joe Biden vowed on the 2020 campaign trail to crack down on federal leasing for fossil fuel extraction, his administration approved more permits for oil and gas drilling on public lands in its first two years than the Trump administration did in 2017 and 2018.
As a presidential candidate, Biden pledged to ban new oil and gas lease sales on public lands and waters and to require federal permitting decisions to consider the social costs of additional planet-heating pollution. However, since Biden's first-week executive order suspending new fossil fuel leasing was challenged by a group of Big Oil-funded Republican attorneys general, the White House has forsaken those earlier promises—angering voters and worsening the life-threatening climate crisis it claims to be serious about mitigating.
Progressive lawmakers and advocacy groups have urged the Biden administration on several occasions to use its executive authority to phase out oil and gas production on public lands and in offshore waters. A petition submitted last year included a regulatory framework to wind down oil and gas production by 98% by 2035. According to the coalition that drafted it, the White House can achieve this goal by using untapped provisions of the Mineral Leasing Act, Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, and the National Emergencies Act.
That same coalition sued the Biden administration in April for refusing to respond to their petition for rulemaking. The lawsuit came just weeks after the White House greenlighted ConocoPhillips' massive Willow oil drilling project in the Alaskan Arctic. The Biden administration has also taken steps to expand fracked gas export capacity, especially in the U.S. Gulf South, since Russia invaded Ukraine last February.
Biden's moves fly in the face of warnings from scientists, who said last year that wealthy countries must end oil and gas production entirely by 2034 to give the world a 50% chance of limiting global warming to 1.5°C—beyond which the climate emergency's impacts will grow increasingly deadly, especially for the world's poor who bear the least responsibility for the crisis.
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