Trump’s Interior Department sets up a fierce public lands fight through a directive hidden in plain sight
Sweeping orders would strip protections for endangered species, migrating birds and public lands to make it easier to drill and mine.
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Newly-confirmed Interior Secretary Doug Burgum signed sweeping orders this week to encourage increased American fossil fuel energy production, taking a big step toward fulfilling President Donald Trump’s promise to relax restrictions on mining and drilling federal land.
As part of the effort, Burgum’s orders quietly threaten to redraw and shrink the boundaries of national monuments created by previous presidents to protect unique cultural resources and natural lands. Doing so would spark fierce legal fights and has already raised environmentalists’ concerns.
“We are committed to working collaboratively to unlock America’s full potential in energy dominance and economic development to make life more affordable for every American family while showing the world the power of America’s natural resources and innovation,” Burgum, whose department oversees some 500 million acres of public land, said in a statement.
Overall, much of the orders signed by Burgum explicitly carry out earlier executive orders Trump signed shortly after taking office. For instance, they instruct U.S. Department of Interior (DOI) offices to identify emergency powers that can be used to “facilitate” virtually every stage of energy development — from leasing federal land to extraction to refining to transportation to exporting.
They also reversed Biden administration restrictions that have been criticized by energy industry groups. If carried out, that would strip endangered species and migratory bird protections, and make it harder to develop renewable energy projects as well.
But a provision that doesn’t exactly pop off the page is likely to spark some fierce legal fights in the years ahead: Burgum told DOI staff to consider “actions to review and, as appropriate, revise all withdrawn public lands, consistent with existing law, including 54 U.S.C. 320301 and 43 U.S.C. 1714.”
So, what are those legal citations? The first deals with national monuments — like Utah’s uranium-rich Bears Ears and coal-rich Grand Staircase-Escalante — that were created by past presidents via the Antiquities Act, a law that gave presidents the ability to protect historically or significant public lands.
The U.S. Supreme Court has affirmed the broad authority of presidents to designate national monuments under that law, and that power has been used by presidents of both parties for over a century.
However it is less clear whether presidents can shrink monuments: environmentalists sued Trump during his first administration after he tried to reduce protections for Bears Ears by 85% and Grand Staircase-Escalante by half. But that litigation never concluded, since Biden took over and reversed course.
The second legal citation deals with federal lands protected under the Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA), which can include things like wildlife habitats or refuges and historical sites.
Conservation provisions in the FLPMA were used by the Biden administration to thwart the Twin Metals copper and rare earth metals mine in Minnesota by withdrawing some 225,000 acres of public land from development in the state’s Superior National Forest.
‘The single best decision Donald Trump has made’
Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, who supports shrinking Bears Ears, said last month that Trump’s pick of Burgum as Interior secretary was likely the “single best decision” Trump has made in either his previous or current administrations.
Burgum was most previously the governor of North Dakota, which is known for its oil, coal reserves and mines. He frequently sued the Biden administration over energy issues, and has close ties to the fossil fuel industry.
Cox sued the Biden administration when it restored Bears Ears and Grand Staircase to their pre-Trump sizes, saying they draw unmanageable numbers of visitors to the area. (Relatedly, Utah also unsuccessfully sued Interior’s Bureau of Land Management to try to take control of over 18.5 million acres of federally managed public land.
After Burgum signed the orders, oil and gas groups praised the new administration as well.
‘Too cowardly to clearly state their plans’
Taylor McKinnon, the Southwest director for the environmental group Center for Biological Diversity, told Landmark that “severing protections will meet litigation.”
It’s not exactly clear which specific monuments or areas will be targeted first, though McKinnon said it is likely that Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante will be at the top of the list.
“The scope of this order is sweeping — all monuments, all withdrawals,” he said.
McKinnon added that, since the order only references a legal citation and doesn’t use the term national monuments, that DOI knows “this is wildly unpopular with the American people, and they’re too cowardly to clearly state their plans.”