The future of extraction, energy dominance, and federal lands under Trump

Presidential elections have consequences and sometimes they can be monumental for federal lands and waters in the United States. In 1981, President Ronald Reagan appointed James G. Watt Secretary of the Interior. Riding the winds of the Sagebrush Rebellion—the states’ rights movement that sought to take back control of federal lands—Watt proposed opening 80 million acres of the American West and one billion acres of federal waters to oil and gas industries, extensive tracts to coal miners, and tried privatizing another 35 million acres of the federal estate altogether. Some of these efforts were successful. Coal leasing on federal land expanded fourfold, and offshore oil and gas production expanded. But most importantly, the sentiments that embodied Watt’s ideology—namely, hostility towards conservation on public lands and environmental regulation, and the belief that all public lands should be managed for “multiple uses” favoring grazing and extractive industries—gained currency and remain powerful forces at the center of debates over the use and fate of public lands.

Forty-five years later, that same ethos—domestic energy security and natural resource development, opposition to federal control, and disdain for environmental laws—are still core tenets of a very influential part of the Republican party. President Trump campaigned on an “energy dominance” agenda similar to the one that he acted out the first time around, so expect his administration to pursue an all-of-the-above energy strategy that will have consequences for lands and waters managed by the Bureau of Land Management, Forest Service, and Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, and to the nation’s wildlife, clean air, and climate. Many familiar themes from the first term will reemerge in the second.

Drill, baby, drill. The nomination of oil-rich North Dakota Governor and billionaire Doug Burgum as Secretary of Interior came with one directive from the President-elect: “Drill.”

Federal lands and waters provided 26 percent of US oil production and 13 percent of US natural gas production in 2023, according to a study of climate impacts of expanded federal production by Resources for the Future. While that study suggested minimal climate impacts, owing to the nature of global markets for fossil fuels, the continued expansion of oil and gas on federal lands and the rollback of environmental protections will have significant impacts to communities and ecosystems across the western United States. This includes areas of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and National Petroleum Reserve where oil and gas leases could be reinstated or offered.

Rules under the endangered species act that protect sage grouse and other species often conflict with oil and gas development, which is why the first Trump administration weakened the Endangered Species Act (ESA). While that policy was reversed by Biden, with Senator Barrasso, a leading critic of the ESA, atop the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, new legislation undermining the law would not be surprising. Barrasso’s attempts in the past have sought to shift responsibility for ESA enforcement from the federal government to states, which would undermine conservation since some states are hostile to species protections or lack resources for enforcement.

Whoever takes reign of the Bureau of Land Management, the agency that oversees 245 million acres of land in the United States and manages 700 million acres of subsurface mineral estate, will immediately find themselves overseeing controversial projects. It might be many months before we know who that is, if the nomination process goes anything like it did in the first Trump administration. But one project to expect to see revived is the Cadiz Water Project. Proposed over and over again since the 1970s, Cadiz would move desert groundwater in the Mojave Desert near Joshua Tree National Park to coastal Los Angeles via the Colorado Aqueduct. The first Trump administration revived Cadiz after the appointment of David Bernhardt, a former Cadiz lobbyist, to oversee the BLM. Now Cadiz is claiming it will produce green hydrogen from a utility scale solar farm at the company’s ranch, ironically using steel tubes from the Keystone XL pipeline supported by Trump, but rejected early in the Biden administration.

Trump’s BLM will aim to expand oil and gas production. The Biden administration issued a similar number of drilling permits as the prior Trump and Obama administrations, but more permits were issued in the Permian Basin than ever before. Federal oil production will likely continue to rise in New Mexico and Texas. Lifting the Biden administration’s moratorium on liquified natural gas exports could stimulate further production of fossil fuels on public lands, with negative consequences for environmental justice communities.

There will also be pushback on the public lands rule, also known as the conservation and landscape health rule, a landscape-based policy that expands the uses of public lands to include conservation. Mining and energy companies complained that it took too much land and too many natural resources off the table. A push to undo the rule during implementation would set back efforts to conserve and restore important landscapes across the west. In fact, Alaska is already contesting the new public lands rule in court.

Geothermal, uranium, and critical minerals mining prospects. During his first term, Trump added uranium to the critical minerals list, which Biden later removed. After the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), putting it back on the list would make uranium developments eligible for lucrative incentives. Mining industry analysts suggest Trump will place more emphasis on reshoring supply chains with domestic mining as opposed to Democrats approach to “friend-shoring” to get mineral supplies from countries sharing trade agreements. The administration could take away IRA incentives from projects planned in, for example, Canada, and may also place tariffs on imports of mining goods like uranium. Such a move would boost the prospects for uranium developments across the west including areas around Bears Ears National Monument and the Grand Canyon, where proposed uranium developments threaten an aquifer near the Havasupai Reservation in Arizona.

Whether or not this means approval of more mines is up for speculation. The Biden administration was also very friendly with some mining industries, invoking the Defense Production Act and using the Department of Energy Loan Guarantee Program to the benefit of mining companies, especially coalitions looking to develop critical minerals. At the same time, steep declines in prices for some of the sought after metals have stalled the development of lithium and nickel mines. In 2023, the Department of the Interior banned mining in 225,000 acres of Minnesota’s Iron Range, which contains deposits of taconite, copper, nickel, cobalt, and other element, a decision Trump will likely attempt to overturn to appease Republicans in the region. The reality is the market prices for metals have simply made many proposed mining projects uneconomic even with the incentives; global markets might ultimately dictate how much mining gets slated for public lands over the next four years.

The push for “permitting reform” under Biden was already working in mining companies favor. In November, the BLM adopted a series of policies to streamline mine permitting on federal land and help resolve issues across federal, state, local, and Tribal governments, and integrate community feedback early in mine planning to hasten development and make better decisions. This was one of many recommendations in the Interior-led Interagency Working Group on Mining Laws, Regulations, and Permitting and should lead to more efficient permitting processes. With control of the House and Senate, the Trump administration could further erode some of the progress on reforming the 1872 mining law, and further undermine requirements set out in the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) through Congress.

Energy development on public lands includes geothermal and lithium prospects too. Some observers have pointed out the nominee for Energy Secretary, Chris Wright, from natural gas producer Liberty Energy, is a climate skeptic, but also has experience in and enthusiasm for renewables, like geothermal. Geothermal development on public lands got its “permitting reform” in April 2024, when BLM adopted a rule to grant categorical exclusions under NEPA. More geothermal and lithium exploration on public lands was likely to happen irrespective of the election.

The future of federal lands. Before President Biden leaves office, he could use the 1906 Antiquities Act to protect additional lands for conservation under the law. Several national monuments are likely to be nominated in the lame duck session. This could include the proposed Chuckwalla National Monument, which would preserve over 600,000 acres between Joshua Tree National Park and the Colorado River. But whether they would remain protected is in doubt. In his first term, President Trump signed an executive order reviewing all national monuments, and culled the Bear Ears and Grand Staircase Escalante National monuments. William Perry Pendley, the former head of the BLM under Trump, has stated the Act should be repealed, which is also part of the Project 2025 policy road map promoted by the Heritage Foundation. National monument boundaries could be reduced and the Antiquities Act could be eliminated altogether by Trump.

Divesting public lands will also be a theme pursued by the Trump administration. There is a Supreme Court case under consideration—Utah v. United States—where the state of Utah is attempting to claim its federal lands; Wyoming and eleven other states signed onto the petition. Opposition to federal control of land has been a persistent theme in public lands politics since the Sagebrush Rebellion.

Expect the second Trump administration’s efforts to implement an energy dominance agenda to face many legal battles. But also expect continued favorable policies to all mining and energy companies, including wind and solar, despite the rhetoric. The Trump administration will likely leave in place the western solar plan, as the industry supports the plan and the first Trump administration did things to promote solar on public lands like lower lease rates through the Energy Act, something the Biden administration affirmed on the new lease rates earlier this year. Trump also weakened the Migratory Bird Treaty Act by declaring that the law applied only the intentional killing of birds, not the unintentional or “incidental take” that can be an issue with energy and mining operations. Biden revoked the Trump administration’s changes, but failed to finalize a replacement rule before leaving office. It might be a difficult four years for the birds.

US energy policy in many ways still mirrors the all-of-the-above policy first promoted by the Obama Administration, which led the United States to become the world’s top producer of oil and gas; under the Biden administration the United States produced more oil than any nation in history. Elections have consequences, but the significance of this particular election on the energy and carbon emissions trajectory of the world’s largest fossil fuel producer is probably overstated. However, the next administration’s changes to federal lands policies could severely impact wildlife, water, air, and environmental justice by undermining the bedrock environmental laws. These changes will likely be much more significant and have long lasting impacts across millions of acres of western lands.