MAGA intensifies its assault on public lands
🌵 Public Lands 🌲
Even before public lands lovers were still celebrating one small victory — i.e. killing a budget bill amendment that would have sold off a half-million acres of federal holdings in Nevada and Utah — the MAGA/Trump/GOP launched a multi-pronged assault on the places Americans hold dear.
The blows come from all three branches of the federal government and seem to be designed to unravel the nation’s framework of environmental protections that have been developed over the last 50 years and more. Meanwhile, the Trump administration’s proposed 2026 budget would gut the agencies that oversee public lands and the programs aimed at stewarding them. Here’s a breakdown of just some of the attacks:
The Supreme Court rejected Apache Stronghold’s bid to block a land swap at Chi’chil Biłdagoteel, aka Oak Flat, in central Arizona, clearing the way for Resolution Copper’s massive mine on sacred ground.
SCOTUS also overturned a lower court’s decision to block federal approval of a proposed Utah railway that would ship Uinta Basin oil alongside the Colorado River and across multiple states to larger markets. More significantly, the ruling also limited the scope of federal environmental reviews to the direct impacts of a proposed project. This means the relevant federal agency need not consider effects of upstream oil and gas drilling facilitated by the railway, or those of processing and burning the oil downstream. The ruling will make it easier for corporations to build pipelines, highways, major oil and gas projects, and so forth.
The U.S. Interior Department egregiously fast-tracked its approval of the Velvet-Wood Mine in Utah’s Lisbon Valley and promised to do the same for similar projects on federal lands to address a purported “energy emergency.”
Interior also expedited permitting for geothermal energy developments on federal lands, beginning with three projects in Nevada.
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum — whose original appointment was endorsed by none other than outdoor retailer REI (remorsefully, it turns out) — moved to roll back protections on 13 million acres of wilderness-quality lands on Alaska’s North Slope, reopening it to oil and gas drilling, mining, and other development.
Sen. Mike Lee, the Utah Republican who apparently still holds Jell-O socials in his office every Wednesday, said he plans to revive the public land sell-off provision in the budget bill. So much for dodging that bullet!
The Trump administration has granted FAST-41 status to Laramide Resources’ proposed La Jara Mesa and Crownpoint-Churchrock uranium mines in New Mexico. The designation is aimed at streamlining permitting for the contested projects in the Grants area. However, the FAST-41 program does not compress the environmental review or licensing process as radically as the BLM did for the Velvet-Wood mine. The Environmental Impact Statement likely won’t be completed until next November.
And then there’s the Trump administration’s proposed 2026 budget. A while back I gave a more general overview of the budget and the deep, deep cuts to almost everything except for defense, border security and Trump’s golf trips. Now we have more detail in the form of the Technical Supplement to the 2026 budget.
Just like the overview, it would would tear apart the nation’s social safety net, set back science, destroy America’s global standing, erode education, eviscerate the federal workforce, rob communities and low-income households of vital funding, gut dozens of federal agencies, generally weaken regulatory oversight, and even transfer some national park units to states. You can read my take on that one here.
Yet the budget still increases the federal deficit — even Elon Musk calls it an “abomination” (harsh words coming from the guy who brought us the vehicular abomination known as the cybertruck) — because it would hike spending to more than $1 trillion for the military industrial complex and the Department of Homeland Security. It would slash funding for nuclear energy research, but spend an additional $11 billion annually to build more nuclear weapons.
This time, I’ll focus on public lands (and related bureaus under the Interior Department and the USFS) because we only have so much space in these emails, and I only have enough self-medication to handle so much outrage and anxiety. Comparisons are between the 2024 actual expenditures and proposed spending for 2026. This is merely a sampling of some items that really stood out.
Cuts for the Bureau of Land Management:
- 1,157 full-time-equivalent staff positions (or about 20% of the entire full-time workforce)
- $216 million for personnel compensation
- $45 million for recreation management
- $17 million for energy and minerals
- $65 million for workforce and organizational support
- $30 million for aquatic resources management
- $114 million for wildlife habitat management
- $45 million for national monuments and national conservation areas
National Park Service
-$980 million (yes, you read that right: The agency that oversees America’s “Best Idea” is having its budget slashed by nearly a billion buckaroos …).
- 5,518 full-time-equivalent employees (… and the agency is losing over 40% of its full-time workforce).
U.S. Geological Survey
- $563 million budget cut for the agency
- $281 million from ecosystems programs
- $46 million from natural hazards programs
- $74 million from water resources programs
- 2,067 full-time-equivalent employees (44% of the permanent workforce)
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
- $149 million from the National Wildlife Refuge System
- $50 million from conservation and enforcement programs
- $16 million from habitat conservation
- $9 million from science support
- $33 million from state and tribal wildlife grants
- 1,785 full-time-equivalent employees (27% of the workforce
Bureau of Indian Affairs
- $120 million from public safety and justice
- $625 million from gross outlays
- 282 full-time-equivalent employees
Bureau of Reclamation:
- $253 million from water and energy management and development
- $51 million from fish and wildlife management and development
National Forest System
- 4,636 full-time-equivalent employees (or 33% of the workforce)
Other notes
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management would have its renewable energy program zeroed out, along with $51 million in cuts for its environmental programs. The Bureau would slash about 10% of its workforce.
The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (which regulates offshore oil and gas operations on the Outer Continental Shelf) would see its budget cut by $150 million.
The Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement’s budget would be reduced by $15 million.
The strikes are coming so rapidly, and from so many different directions, that it has become difficult to keep track, let alone to fight back. That is by design, of course. Advocates can take to the courts to block some regulatory rollbacks, but they have little recourse against Supreme Court decisions. Citizens may be able to convince their congressional representatives to block public land sell-offs, but that draws attention away from lawmakers’ efforts to make it easier to drill and develop public lands.
The attacks will only intensify. The resistance must meet it with equal, opposing force.
📸 Parting Shot 🎞️
Thanks for the details of all the changes. Information is power.
The greens went for too much in that NEPA case and ended up losing more than they bargained for. It's happening more often than anyone is writing about.