Trump 2.0: What to expect regarding public lands and the environment

Time to prepare for another four years of "drill, baby, drill"

Just a nice picture of a spectacular place. Jonathan P. Thompson photo.

On Nov. 5, more than 73 million Americans — or just over half of those who voted — chose to send Donald J. Trump to the White House for a second time. Trump garnered a smaller percentage of votes in my southwestern Colorado hometown. Still, four out of ten Durangatans opted for a candidate who stands diametrically opposed to the values I hold dear. And some of those folks are friends or people I admire. 

Surely many of them disapprove of Trump’s behavior and many of his policies, but voted for him anyway simply because he’s a Republican, because he’s not the status quo or Joe Biden or Kamala Harris or a Clinton, because they’re fed up with “wokeness,” because they believe he’ll lower the price of eggs and gasoline, or because he’s the only viable white male on the ballot. Others may have chosen him or not voted at all to protest Biden’s tacit support for the atrocities in Gaza, or his failure to end oil and gas drilling on federal land, or because they believe that Democrats and Republicans are all cut from the same power-hungry cloth. 

I suppose I should be reassured by this, and feel happy for these Trump voters since their side won — as if it were a football game and the Cowboys had crushed the Broncos. But this isn’t a sporting event. And as much as the media may treat elections as horse races, they are not. They have consequences, potentially huge ones, and regardless of why someone may have voted the way they did, the results are the same. This election was a referendum on civility and decency, on compassion and the rule of law, on human rights and equality; and all of those things lost. Corporate power, fear, vindictiveness, and the oligarchy won.

So no, it’s not going to be “okay.” And no, I’m not going to feel happy for folks who voted for Trump, because even though their “team” may have won, they will likely end up losers — unless they are oil companies or billionaires, that is. 

Beauty will persevere, regardless of who is in the White House. Jonathan P. Thompson photo.

When Trump was elected in 2016, it was a shock, of course, but also a bit of a mystery: No one knew what kind of president he’d be or what sort of policies he’d push. Now we have a far clearer sense of what the next four years might look like. 

I’m not convinced Trump will carry out all the threats he made on the campaign trail. Call me a pollyanna, but I doubt he’ll rule as an all-out fascist dictator, as some fear. He probably won’t try to prosecute Liz Cheney and Joe Biden, or sic the military on the “enemies within,” or overtly punish members of the media. His pledge to round up and deport 11 million human beings who came to the U.S. to escape persecution or pursue economic betterment will run up against reality: The nation can’t afford to live without immigrants, whether they are here legally or not. 

But judging from Trump’s platform, promises, and his first-term record, we do know he and his minions will set out to dismantle the administrative state, which is to say gut federal agencies, replace experienced staffers with Trump loyalists, and remove government protections on human health, the environment, and worker safety. Elon Musk, who bought himself a cabinet-level position in the administration, will do his damnedest to slash $2 trillion in government spending, which will include unraveling the already frail social safety net. 

While that image might appeal to those of you with an anarchist or libertarian bent, I can assure you these guys aren’t doing this in the name of Liberty or Freedom. The administrative state may be bloated, inefficient, sometimes ineffective, and often irritating, but its aim is to protect Americans and keep corporations in check. And when Trump and company look to destroy it, they are doing so to clear the way for the super-rich to become even wealthier, for the corporations to pull in more profit, and for Trump and his cronies to evade accountability for wrongdoings — all at the expense of you and me. A Trump administration will be a government by the narcissistic oligarchs, for the narcissistic oligarchs.  

Shiprock and a moody sky. Jonathan P. Thompson photo.

Meanwhile, the MAGA movement’s theocratic strain will decimate the liberties of women, people of color, and LGBTQ+ people. Conservative congress members will push for a federal abortion ban, and Trump may go along with it to pay back his christian-nationalist voters. Trump will give Netanyahu the green light to decimate Gaza and the people who live there, and will similarly step aside and let Putin have his way with Ukraine.

Then there’s the question of what another Trump administration will mean for public lands, the environment, energy development, and the West’s air and water. Again, we can determine a lot by what he did — or attempted to do — during his first administration, along with plans laid out in Trump’s own Agenda 47 and Project 2025. Trump tried to distance himself from the latter during the election, but it was crafted by dozens of his former staffers and associates and is generally seen as the playbook for a second Trump administration. Trump’s public lands agenda will become clearer as he starts to line up cabinet appointments in the coming months. But regardless, I fear our public lands and environment and climate — and by extension all of us humans — are going to suffer.

First dusting of snow on the Abajos and a windmill. Jonathan P. Thompson photo.

The following is a list of potential Trump targets relating to public lands and the environment. It’s important to remember that a president doesn’t have the power to kill just any rule and regulation with the stroke of a pen, but that didn’t stop Trump from trying to do so during his first administration. 

• Trump will work to implement his “drill baby drill” and “energy dominance” policies by opening up more public land to oil and gas leasing and removing regulations on public land drilling. He is likely to roll back Biden’s leasing reforms, which included higher royalty rates — to get a better deal for taxpayers — and stricter reclamation bond requirements to help ensure companies would clean up their messes. 

• Biden banned new oil and gas leasing on lands around Chaco Culture National Historical Park and on the Thompson Divide in western Colorado. Trump and whomever he appoints as Interior secretary will almost certainly try to reverse these bans. In the short-term, lifting the ban wouldn’t be too harmful: There is little interest in drilling either of these places currently. But if oil and gas prices climb, all bets could be off for these special places. 

• The Biden administration’s public lands rule, which aims to put conservation on a par with extractive uses, will probably go on the chopping block. If Trump doesn’t kill it, Congress will. 

• After being closed to drilling for decades, in 2017 Congress and Trump mandated oil and gas leasing in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The Biden administration revoked the leases, then issued a new environmental review, offering the bare minimum of acreage required by law. Expect Trump to significantly expand the acreage available for drilling. 

• The first Trump administration revoked or attempted to revoke the Obama administration’s methane emissions regulations. They’ll probably try the same with Biden’s rules.

• New EPA rules aimed at reducing coal plants’ greenhouse gas and mercury pollution are in Trump’s crosshairs. If they are revoked, it would allow the Colstrip power plant in Montana to continue spewing toxic and planet-warming emissions for years to come. 

• Trump will end the Bureau of Land Management’s proposal to end new federal coal leasing in the Powder River Basin. The ban wouldn’t come into play until current leases are depleted decades from now. Chances are the market for coal will dry up before then, making both the leasing ban and the rollback fairly irrelevant. 

• Trump dramatically shrunk Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears National Monuments during his first term, in part to curry favor with the late Sen. Orrin Hatch, the Utah Republican who held a lot of sway in Washington. Sen. Mike Lee, the Utah Republican and Trump acolyte, may push for a repeat. It would be even more consequential now: high uranium prices have unleashed a flurry of new mining claims and exploratory drilling on all sides of Bears Ears National Monument. 

• Trump is likely to shrink or revoke the Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni-Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument, thereby re-opening more than a half-million acres of uranium-rich lands to new mining claims. The Avi Kwa Ame National Monument in Nevada seems to be safer, simply because the only corporations interested in developing the land are solar and wind companies — and Trump’s no fan of clean energy. 

• Project 2025 calls for revoking the Antiquities Act, which has been used by presidents to protect natural and cultural sites as national monuments since 1906, with many going on to become national parks, the list includes: El Morro National Monument, Petrified Forest National Park, Muir Woods National Monument, Grand Canyon National Park … I could go on and on. 

• You can forget about mining law reform under a Trump administration and GOP-controlled Senate. And global mining corporation Rio Tinto, which is behind the proposed Resolution copper mine at Oak Flat in Arizona, is already urging the incoming Trump administration to weaken environmental laws and expedite permitting for mines. 

• Trump and the GOP dominated Congress will work to weaken the Endangered Species Act. 

• The list, unfortunately, goes on …

During his first term, Trump’s mission was hampered by his own lack of preparation, his incompetence, and his chaotic approach. This time he and an army of professional ideologues are prepared to march into the White House with Project 2025 in hand to lay waste to government as we know it. And they will have the support of a GOP-dominated Congress and a conservative Supreme Court. 

It’s depressing and scary and discouraging. But it is not hopeless. The Biden administration prepared for this possibility by working to make regulations — and national monuments — more resilient to future challenges. Democratic leaders in Western states are already preparing to defend their environmental laws and climate programs against inevitable Trump administration attacks. And environmental groups such as the Center for Biological Diversity, Earthjustice, the Western Environmental Law Center, and many others are ready to challenge Trump at every turn. 

Meanwhile, the Land Desk vows to stay on top of it all, and keep its special community of readers informed.