Public lands on the market? How Trump is renewing a push to switch protected landscapes for personal pursuits.

[ad_1] This story was initially printed by Grist and is reproduced right here as a part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

America’s federal public lands are actually distinctive, a part of our birthright as residents. No different nation on this planet has such a system.

Greater than 640 million acres , together with nationwide parks, forests, and wildlife refuges, in addition to lands open to drilling, mining, logging, and quite a lot of different makes use of, are managed by the federal authorities — however owned collectively by all Americans. Collectively, these parcels make up greater than 1 / 4 of all land within the nation.

Rep. John Garamendi, a Democrat representing California, has referred to as them “one of many biggest advantages of being an American.”

“Even when you don’t personal a home or the newest laptop available on the market, you personal Yosemite, Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon, Golden Gate Nationwide Recreation Space, and lots of different pure treasures,” he wrote in 2011 .

Regardless of broad, bipartisan public assist for shielding public lands, these shared landscapes have come below relentless assault through the first 100 days of President Donald Trump’s second time period. The administration and its allies in Congress are working feverishly to tilt the size away from pure useful resource safety and toward extraction , threatening a pillar of the nation’s id and custom of democratic governance.

“There’s no bigger focus of unappropriated wealth on this globe than exists on this nation on our public lands,” mentioned Jesse Deubel , govt director of the New Mexico Wildlife Federation, a conservation nonprofit. “The truth that there are pursuits that wish to monetize that, they’d prefer to liquidate it and switch it into money cash, is not any shock.”

Landscape protections and bedrock conservation laws are on the chopping block, as Trump and his workforce look to spice up and fast-track drilling, mining, and logging throughout the federal property. The administration and the GOP-controlled Congress are eyeing selling off federal lands , each for housing improvement and to assist offset Trump’s tax and spending cuts . And the newly shaped Division of Authorities Effectivity, or DOGE, led by billionaire Elon Musk, is wreaking havoc inside federal land administration businesses, pushing out hundreds of civil servants. That purge will depart America’s pure heritage extra susceptible to the myriad threats these lands already face, together with rising customer numbers, local weather change, wildfires, and invasive species.

<img alt="Canoers paddle out to fish on Broken Bridge Pond in the White Mountain National Forest in New Hampshire in 2021." data-chromatic="ignore" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-nimg="fill" class="mvmjsc0" style="position:absolute;height:100%;width:100%;left:0;top:0;right:0;bottom:0;color:transparent;background-size:cover;background-position:50% 50%;background-repeat:no-repeat;background-image:url("data:image/svg+xml;charset=utf-8,%3Csvg xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg' %3E%3Cfilter id='b' color-interpolation-filters='sRGB'%3E%3CfeGaussianBlur stdDeviation='20'/%3E%3CfeColorMatrix values='1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 100 -1' result='s'/%3E%3CfeFlood x='0' y='0' width='100%25' height='100%25'/%3E%3CfeComposite operator='out' in='s'/%3E%3CfeComposite in2='SourceGraphic'/%3E%3CfeGaussianBlur stdDeviation='20'/%3E%3C/filter%3E%3Cimage width='100%25' height='100%25' x='0' y='0' preserveAspectRatio='none' style='filter: url(%23b);' href='data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAEAAAABCAQAAAC1HAwCAAAAC0lEQVR42mN8+R8AAtcB6oaHtZcAAAAASUVORK5CYII='/%3E%3C/svg%3E")" sizes="(max-width: 639px) 100vw, (max-width: 1023px) 50vw, 700px" srcset="https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-1233756305_WhiteMountainsCanoeing.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=256 256w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-1233756305_WhiteMountainsCanoeing.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=376 376w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-1233756305_WhiteMountainsCanoeing.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=384 384w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-1233756305_WhiteMountainsCanoeing.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=415 415w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-1233756305_WhiteMountainsCanoeing.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=480 480w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-1233756305_WhiteMountainsCanoeing.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=540 540w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-1233756305_WhiteMountainsCanoeing.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=640 640w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-1233756305_WhiteMountainsCanoeing.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=750 750w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-1233756305_WhiteMountainsCanoeing.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=828 828w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-1233756305_WhiteMountainsCanoeing.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=1080 1080w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-1233756305_WhiteMountainsCanoeing.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=1200 1200w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-1233756305_WhiteMountainsCanoeing.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=1440 1440w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-1233756305_WhiteMountainsCanoeing.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=1920 1920w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-1233756305_WhiteMountainsCanoeing.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=2048 2048w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-1233756305_WhiteMountainsCanoeing.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=2400 2400w" src="https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-1233756305_WhiteMountainsCanoeing.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=2400"/> Canoers paddle out to fish on Damaged Bridge Pond within the White Mountain Nationwide Forest in New Hampshire in 2021. Brianna Soukup, Portland Press Herald through Getty Photos/Grist

The Republican marketing campaign to undermine land administration businesses and wrest management of public lands from the federal authorities is nothing new, relationship again to the Sagebrush Rebellion motion of the Nineteen Seventies and ’80s, when assist for privatizing or transferring federal lands to state management exploded throughout the West. However the pace and scope of the present assault, together with its disregard for the general public’s assist for safeguarding public lands, makes it extra worrisome than earlier iterations, a number of public land advocates and authorized specialists advised Grist.

That is “in all probability essentially the most vital second for the reason that Reagan administration by way of privatization,” mentioned Steven Davis, a political science professor at Edgewood School and the creator of the 2018 ebook In Protection of Public Lands: The Case In opposition to Privatization and Switch . President Ronald Reagan was a self-proclaimed sagebrush insurgent.

Deubel mentioned the conservation neighborhood knew Trump’s return would set off one other drawn-out battle for the way forward for public lands, however nothing might have ready him for this degree of chaos, notably the hassle to rid businesses of hundreds of staffers.

The nation is “in a way more pro-public lands place than we’ve been earlier than,” Deubel mentioned. “However I believe we’re at better threat than we’ve ever been earlier than — not as a result of the time is true within the eyes of the American individuals, however as a result of we've got an administration who might give two shits about what the American individuals need. That’s what’s acquired me scared.”

The Inside Division and the White Home didn't reply to Grist’s requests for remark.

<img alt="A National Park Service ranger wears a patch as she conducts a walking tour in Everglades National Park, Florida on April 17. The Trump administration’s DOGE program has fired hundreds of park rangers across the United States." data-chromatic="ignore" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-nimg="fill" class="mvmjsc0" style="position:absolute;height:100%;width:100%;left:0;top:0;right:0;bottom:0;color:transparent;background-size:cover;background-position:50% 50%;background-repeat:no-repeat;background-image:url("data:image/svg+xml;charset=utf-8,%3Csvg xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg' %3E%3Cfilter id='b' color-interpolation-filters='sRGB'%3E%3CfeGaussianBlur stdDeviation='20'/%3E%3CfeColorMatrix values='1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 100 -1' result='s'/%3E%3CfeFlood x='0' y='0' width='100%25' height='100%25'/%3E%3CfeComposite operator='out' in='s'/%3E%3CfeComposite in2='SourceGraphic'/%3E%3CfeGaussianBlur stdDeviation='20'/%3E%3C/filter%3E%3Cimage width='100%25' height='100%25' x='0' y='0' preserveAspectRatio='none' style='filter: url(%23b);' href='data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAEAAAABCAQAAAC1HAwCAAAAC0lEQVR42mN8+R8AAtcB6oaHtZcAAAAASUVORK5CYII='/%3E%3C/svg%3E")" sizes="(max-width: 639px) 100vw, (max-width: 1023px) 50vw, 700px" srcset="https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-2210749859_RangerBadge.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=256 256w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-2210749859_RangerBadge.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=376 376w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-2210749859_RangerBadge.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=384 384w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-2210749859_RangerBadge.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=415 415w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-2210749859_RangerBadge.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=480 480w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-2210749859_RangerBadge.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=540 540w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-2210749859_RangerBadge.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=640 640w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-2210749859_RangerBadge.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=750 750w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-2210749859_RangerBadge.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=828 828w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-2210749859_RangerBadge.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=1080 1080w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-2210749859_RangerBadge.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=1200 1200w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-2210749859_RangerBadge.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=1440 1440w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-2210749859_RangerBadge.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=1920 1920w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-2210749859_RangerBadge.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=2048 2048w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-2210749859_RangerBadge.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=2400 2400w" src="https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-2210749859_RangerBadge.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=2400"/> A Nationwide Park Service ranger wears a patch as she conducts a strolling tour in Everglades Nationwide Park, Florida on April 17. The Trump administration’s DOGE program has fired a whole lot of park rangers throughout the US. Joe Raedle/Getty Photos through Grist

In an article posted to the White Home web site on Earth Day, the Trump administration touted a number of “key actions” it has taken on the surroundings, together with “defending public lands” by opening extra acres to vitality improvement, “defending wildlife” by pausing wind vitality tasks, and safeguarding forests by increasing logging. The accomplishments listing obtained widespread condemnation from environmental, local weather, and public land advocacy teams.

That very same day, a leaked draft strategic plan revealed the Inside Division’s four-year imaginative and prescient for opening new federal lands to drilling and different extractive improvement, decreasing the quantity of federal land it manages by promoting some for housing improvement and transferring different acres to state management, rolling again the boundaries of protected nationwide monuments, and weakening bedrock environmental legal guidelines just like the Endangered Species Act.

In the meantime, Trump’s DOGE is within the strategy of cutting thousands of scientists and different employees from the varied businesses that handle and defend public lands, together with the Nationwide Park Service and the Bureau of Land Administration, or BLM. Almost each Republican senator went on the report this month in support of selling off federal lands to scale back the federal deficit, voting down a measure that might have blocked such gross sales. And Utah has promised to proceed its authorized battle aimed toward stripping greater than 18 million acres of BLM lands throughout the state’s border from the federal authorities. Utah’s lawsuit, which the Supreme Court docket declined to listen to in January, had the assist of quite a few Republican-led states, including North Dakota whereas present Inside Secretary Doug Burgum was nonetheless governor.

To advance its agenda, the Trump administration is citing a sequence of “emergencies” that shut observers say are at finest exaggerated, and at worst manufactured.

A purported “vitality emergency,” which Trump declared in an govt order simply hours after being inaugurated, has been the impetus for the administration attempting to throw longstanding federal allowing processes, public remark durations, and environmental safeguards to the wind. The motion goals to spice up fossil gas extraction throughout federal lands and waters — regardless of home oil and gasoline manufacturing being at record highs — whereas concurrently working to thwart renewable vitality tasks. Trump relied on that very same “emergency” earlier this month when he ordered federal businesses to prop up America’s dwindling, polluting coal trade, which the president and his Cupboard have insisted is “stunning” and “clear.” In actuality, coal is among the many most polluting types of vitality.

“This entire thought of an emergency is ridiculous,” mentioned Mark Squillace , a professor of pure sources regulation on the College of Colorado, Boulder. “And now this push to reinvigorate the coal trade appears completely loopy to me. Why would you attempt to reinvigorate a moribund trade that has been declining for the final decade or extra? Is unnecessary, it’s not going to occur.”

Coal consumption within the US has declined more than 50 percent since peaking in 2005, in accordance with the US Power Info Administration, largely resulting from market forces, together with the supply of cheaper pure gasoline and America’s rising renewable vitality sector. In the meantime, Trump’s tariff warfare threatens to undermine his personal push to broaden mining and fossil fuel drilling .

The specter of excessive wildfire — an precise disaster pushed by a posh set of things, together with local weather change, its position in intensifying droughts and pest outbreaks, and many years of fireplace suppression — is being cited to justify slashing environmental opinions to ramp up logging on public lands. Following up on a Trump executive order to extend home timber manufacturing, Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins signed a memo declaring a forest well being “emergency” that might open practically 60 % of nationwide forest lands, greater than 110 million acres, to aggressive logging.

Then there’s America’s “ housing affordability crisis ,” which the Trump administration, dozens of Republicans, and even a handful of Democrats are pointing to in a rising push to open federal lands to housing improvement, both by promoting land to non-public pursuits or by transferring management to states. The Trump administration just lately established a task force to determine what it calls “underutilized lands.” In an op-ed saying that effort, Burgum and Scott Turner, secretary of Housing and City Improvement, wrote that “a lot of” the five hundred million acres Inside oversees is “appropriate for residential use.” A number of the most high-profile members of the anti-public lands motion, together with William Perry Pendley , who served as performing director of the Bureau of Land Administration throughout Trump’s first time period, are championing the thought.

<img alt="An aerial view of gas and oil drilling pads in the Plateau Creek Drainage, near DeBeque, Colorado, where the Bureau of Land Management sold leases in 2016 and 2017." data-chromatic="ignore" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-nimg="fill" class="mvmjsc0" style="position:absolute;height:100%;width:100%;left:0;top:0;right:0;bottom:0;color:transparent;background-size:cover;background-position:50% 50%;background-repeat:no-repeat;background-image:url("data:image/svg+xml;charset=utf-8,%3Csvg xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg' %3E%3Cfilter id='b' color-interpolation-filters='sRGB'%3E%3CfeGaussianBlur stdDeviation='20'/%3E%3CfeColorMatrix values='1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 100 -1' result='s'/%3E%3CfeFlood x='0' y='0' width='100%25' height='100%25'/%3E%3CfeComposite operator='out' in='s'/%3E%3CfeComposite in2='SourceGraphic'/%3E%3CfeGaussianBlur stdDeviation='20'/%3E%3C/filter%3E%3Cimage width='100%25' height='100%25' x='0' y='0' preserveAspectRatio='none' style='filter: url(%23b);' href='data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAEAAAABCAQAAAC1HAwCAAAAC0lEQVR42mN8+R8AAtcB6oaHtZcAAAAASUVORK5CYII='/%3E%3C/svg%3E")" sizes="(max-width: 639px) 100vw, (max-width: 1023px) 50vw, 700px" srcset="https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-983879332_fracking-pads-BLM-land.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=256 256w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-983879332_fracking-pads-BLM-land.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=376 376w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-983879332_fracking-pads-BLM-land.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=384 384w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-983879332_fracking-pads-BLM-land.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=415 415w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-983879332_fracking-pads-BLM-land.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=480 480w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-983879332_fracking-pads-BLM-land.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=540 540w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-983879332_fracking-pads-BLM-land.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=640 640w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-983879332_fracking-pads-BLM-land.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=750 750w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-983879332_fracking-pads-BLM-land.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=828 828w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-983879332_fracking-pads-BLM-land.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=1080 1080w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-983879332_fracking-pads-BLM-land.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=1200 1200w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-983879332_fracking-pads-BLM-land.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=1440 1440w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-983879332_fracking-pads-BLM-land.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=1920 1920w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-983879332_fracking-pads-BLM-land.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=2048 2048w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-983879332_fracking-pads-BLM-land.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=2400 2400w" src="https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-983879332_fracking-pads-BLM-land.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=2400"/> An aerial view of gasoline and oil drilling pads within the Plateau Creek Drainage, close to DeBeque, Colorado, the place the Bureau of Land Administration offered leases in 2016 and 2017. Helen H. Richardson, The Denver Submit through Getty Photos/Grist

With out guardrails, critics argue the sale of public lands to construct housing will result in sprawl in distant, delicate landscapes and do little, if something, to deal with dwelling affordability, as the problem is pushed by a number of components, together with migration developments, stagnant wages, and better development prices. Notably, Trump’s tariff insurance policies are anticipated to lift the typical value of a brand new dwelling by nearly $11,000 .

Chris Hill , CEO of the Conservation Lands Basis, a Colorado-based nonprofit working to guard BLM-managed lands, mentioned the dearth of inexpensive housing is a critical concern, however “we shouldn’t be fooled that the thought to dump public lands is an answer.”

“The overwhelming majority of public lands are simply not appropriate for any type of housing improvement resulting from their distant areas, lack of entry, and obligatory infrastructure,” she mentioned.

David Hayes, who served as deputy Inside secretary through the administrations of Presidents Barack Obama and Invoice Clinton and as a senior local weather adviser to President Joe Biden, advised Grist that Trump’s broad use of govt energy units the present privatization push aside from earlier efforts.

“Not solely do you could have the rhetoric and the intentionality round managing public lands in an aggressive means, however you need to couple that with what you’re seeing,” he mentioned. “This administration goes farther than every other ever has to push the boundaries of govt energy.”

Aaron Weiss , deputy director of the Middle for Western Priorities, a Colorado-based conservation group, mentioned Trump and his workforce are doing all the things they will to avoid regular environmental guidelines and safeguards with a view to advance their agenda, with no regard for the regulation or public opinion. “All the pieces is an imagined disaster,” Weiss mentioned.

Oil, gasoline, and coal jobs. Mining jobs. Timber jobs. Farming and ranching. Fuel-powered vehicles and kitchen home equipment. Even the water strain in your bathe. Ask the White Home and the Republican Occasion they usually’ll inform you Biden waged a warfare towards all of it, and that voters gave Trump a mandate to reverse course.

<img alt="A slot canyon cuts through the western portion of one of the country’s newest national monuments, Chuckwalla Mountains, near Chiriaco Summit, California." data-chromatic="ignore" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-nimg="fill" class="mvmjsc0" style="position:absolute;height:100%;width:100%;left:0;top:0;right:0;bottom:0;color:transparent;background-size:cover;background-position:50% 50%;background-repeat:no-repeat;background-image:url("data:image/svg+xml;charset=utf-8,%3Csvg xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg' %3E%3Cfilter id='b' color-interpolation-filters='sRGB'%3E%3CfeGaussianBlur stdDeviation='20'/%3E%3CfeColorMatrix values='1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 100 -1' result='s'/%3E%3CfeFlood x='0' y='0' width='100%25' height='100%25'/%3E%3CfeComposite operator='out' in='s'/%3E%3CfeComposite in2='SourceGraphic'/%3E%3CfeGaussianBlur stdDeviation='20'/%3E%3C/filter%3E%3Cimage width='100%25' height='100%25' x='0' y='0' preserveAspectRatio='none' style='filter: url(%23b);' href='data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAEAAAABCAQAAAC1HAwCAAAAC0lEQVR42mN8+R8AAtcB6oaHtZcAAAAASUVORK5CYII='/%3E%3C/svg%3E")" sizes="(max-width: 639px) 100vw, (max-width: 1023px) 50vw, 700px" srcset="https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-2150625807_Chuckwalla-Mountains-National-Monument.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=256 256w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-2150625807_Chuckwalla-Mountains-National-Monument.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=376 376w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-2150625807_Chuckwalla-Mountains-National-Monument.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=384 384w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-2150625807_Chuckwalla-Mountains-National-Monument.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=415 415w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-2150625807_Chuckwalla-Mountains-National-Monument.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=480 480w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-2150625807_Chuckwalla-Mountains-National-Monument.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=540 540w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-2150625807_Chuckwalla-Mountains-National-Monument.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=640 640w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-2150625807_Chuckwalla-Mountains-National-Monument.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=750 750w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-2150625807_Chuckwalla-Mountains-National-Monument.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=828 828w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-2150625807_Chuckwalla-Mountains-National-Monument.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=1080 1080w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-2150625807_Chuckwalla-Mountains-National-Monument.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=1200 1200w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-2150625807_Chuckwalla-Mountains-National-Monument.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=1440 1440w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-2150625807_Chuckwalla-Mountains-National-Monument.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=1920 1920w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-2150625807_Chuckwalla-Mountains-National-Monument.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=2048 2048w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-2150625807_Chuckwalla-Mountains-National-Monument.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=2400 2400w" src="https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-2150625807_Chuckwalla-Mountains-National-Monument.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=2400"/> A slot canyon cuts by the western portion of one of many nation’s latest nationwide monuments, Chuckwalla Mountains, close to Chiriaco Summit, California. President Trump rescinded the world’s monument standing on March 15. David McNew, Getty Photos through Grist

Throughout Trump’s first time period in workplace, Inside Secretary Ryan Zinke repeatedly boasted that the administration’s conservation legacy would rival that of his private hero and America’s conservationist president, Theodore Roosevelt — solely to have the late president’s great-grandson, Theodore Roosevelt IV, and the conservation neighborhood bemoan his record on the helm of the large federal company.

Like Zinke, Burgum invoked Roosevelt in pitching himself for the job. “In our time, President Donald Trump’s vitality dominance agenda could be America’s large stick that shall be leveraged to attain historic prosperity and world peace,” Burgum said throughout his affirmation listening to in January, referencing a 1990 letter by which the twenty sixth president mentioned to “converse softly and carry an enormous stick.”

The Senate confirmed him to the publish in January on a bipartisan 79-18 vote . Some public land advocates initially considered Burgum, now the chief steward of the federal lands, waters, and wildlife all of us personal, as a palatable nominee in a sea of problematic potential picks. A billionaire software program entrepreneur and former North Dakota governor, Burgum has talked at size about his fondness for Roosevelt’s conservation legacy and the outside.

No matter honeymoon there was didn’t final lengthy. 100 days in, Burgum and the remainder of Trump’s workforce have taken not a stick, however a wrecking ball to America’s public lands, waters, and wildlife. Earlier this month, the brand new CEO of REI mentioned the outside retailer made “ a mistake ” in endorsing Burgum for the job and that the administration’s actions on public lands “are fully at odds with the longstanding values of REI.”

At an April 9 all-hands assembly of Inside staff, Burgum confirmed off photos of himself touring oil and gasoline services, celebrated “clear coal,” and condemned burdensome authorities regulation. Burgum has repeatedly described federal lands as “ America’s balance sheet ” — “belongings” that he estimates could possibly be value $100 trillion however that he argues Individuals are getting a “low return” on.

“On the world’s largest steadiness sheet final yr, the income that we pulled in was about $18 billion,” he mentioned on the staffwide assembly, referring to cash the federal government brings from lease charges and royalties from grazing, drilling, and logging on federal lands, in addition to nationwide park entrance charges. “Eighteen billion would possibly look like an enormous quantity. It’s not an enormous quantity if we’re managing $100 trillion in belongings.”

In focusing solely on revenues generated from vitality and different useful resource extraction, Burgum disregards that public lands are the inspiration of a $1 trillion outside recreation economic system, by no means thoughts the quite a few local weather, environmental, cultural, and public well being advantages.

Davis, the creator of In Protection of Public Lands: The Case In opposition to Privatization and Switch , dismissed Burgum’s “steadiness sheet” argument as “shriveled” and “fallacious.”

<img alt="" data-chromatic="ignore" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-nimg="fill" class="mvmjsc0" style="position:absolute;height:100%;width:100%;left:0;top:0;right:0;bottom:0;color:transparent;background-size:cover;background-position:50% 50%;background-repeat:no-repeat;background-image:url("data:image/svg+xml;charset=utf-8,%3Csvg xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg' %3E%3Cfilter id='b' color-interpolation-filters='sRGB'%3E%3CfeGaussianBlur stdDeviation='20'/%3E%3CfeColorMatrix values='1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 100 -1' result='s'/%3E%3CfeFlood x='0' y='0' width='100%25' height='100%25'/%3E%3CfeComposite operator='out' in='s'/%3E%3CfeComposite in2='SourceGraphic'/%3E%3CfeGaussianBlur stdDeviation='20'/%3E%3C/filter%3E%3Cimage width='100%25' height='100%25' x='0' y='0' preserveAspectRatio='none' style='filter: url(%23b);' href='data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAEAAAABCAQAAAC1HAwCAAAAC0lEQVR42mN8+R8AAtcB6oaHtZcAAAAASUVORK5CYII='/%3E%3C/svg%3E")" sizes="(max-width: 639px) 100vw, (max-width: 1023px) 50vw, 700px" srcset="https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-2211394507_TrumpEnergyEO.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=256 256w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-2211394507_TrumpEnergyEO.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=376 376w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-2211394507_TrumpEnergyEO.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=384 384w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-2211394507_TrumpEnergyEO.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=415 415w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-2211394507_TrumpEnergyEO.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=480 480w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-2211394507_TrumpEnergyEO.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=540 540w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-2211394507_TrumpEnergyEO.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=640 640w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-2211394507_TrumpEnergyEO.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=750 750w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-2211394507_TrumpEnergyEO.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=828 828w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-2211394507_TrumpEnergyEO.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=1080 1080w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-2211394507_TrumpEnergyEO.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=1200 1200w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-2211394507_TrumpEnergyEO.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=1440 1440w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-2211394507_TrumpEnergyEO.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=1920 1920w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-2211394507_TrumpEnergyEO.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=2048 2048w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-2211394507_TrumpEnergyEO.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=2400 2400w" src="https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-2211394507_TrumpEnergyEO.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=2400"/> Inside Secretary Doug Burgum, second from left, seems to be on as President Donald Trump indicators govt orders about boosting coal manufacturing on April 8. Jabin Botsford/Washington Submit through Getty Photos

<img alt="" data-chromatic="ignore" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-nimg="fill" class="mvmjsc0" style="position:absolute;height:100%;width:100%;left:0;top:0;right:0;bottom:0;color:transparent;background-size:cover;background-position:50% 50%;background-repeat:no-repeat;background-image:url("data:image/svg+xml;charset=utf-8,%3Csvg xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg' %3E%3Cfilter id='b' color-interpolation-filters='sRGB'%3E%3CfeGaussianBlur stdDeviation='20'/%3E%3CfeColorMatrix values='1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 100 -1' result='s'/%3E%3CfeFlood x='0' y='0' width='100%25' height='100%25'/%3E%3CfeComposite operator='out' in='s'/%3E%3CfeComposite in2='SourceGraphic'/%3E%3CfeGaussianBlur stdDeviation='20'/%3E%3C/filter%3E%3Cimage width='100%25' height='100%25' x='0' y='0' preserveAspectRatio='none' style='filter: url(%23b);' href='data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAEAAAABCAQAAAC1HAwCAAAAC0lEQVR42mN8+R8AAtcB6oaHtZcAAAAASUVORK5CYII='/%3E%3C/svg%3E")" sizes="(max-width: 639px) 100vw, (max-width: 1023px) 50vw, 700px" srcset="https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-2202116779_MuirWoodsProtest.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=256 256w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-2202116779_MuirWoodsProtest.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=376 376w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-2202116779_MuirWoodsProtest.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=384 384w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-2202116779_MuirWoodsProtest.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=415 415w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-2202116779_MuirWoodsProtest.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=480 480w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-2202116779_MuirWoodsProtest.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=540 540w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-2202116779_MuirWoodsProtest.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=640 640w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-2202116779_MuirWoodsProtest.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=750 750w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-2202116779_MuirWoodsProtest.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=828 828w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-2202116779_MuirWoodsProtest.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=1080 1080w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-2202116779_MuirWoodsProtest.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=1200 1200w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-2202116779_MuirWoodsProtest.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=1440 1440w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-2202116779_MuirWoodsProtest.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=1920 1920w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-2202116779_MuirWoodsProtest.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=2048 2048w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-2202116779_MuirWoodsProtest.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=2400 2400w" src="https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-2202116779_MuirWoodsProtest.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=2400"/> Demonstrators protest federal workforce layoffs at Muir Woods Nationwide Monument in Marin County, California, on March 1. Santiago Mejia/San Francisco Chronicle through Getty Photos

“You must willfully be ignorant and ignore all the things of worth about these lands besides their marketable commodity worth to give you that conclusion,” he mentioned. While you add all their myriad values collectively, public lands “are the most important discount you'll be able to probably think about.”

Davis likes to match public lands to libraries, colleges, or the Division of Protection. “There are specific issues we as a society resolve are vital and we pay for it,” he mentioned. “We name that public items.”

The final time conservatives ventured down the general public land privatization path, it didn’t go effectively.

Shortly after Trump’s first inauguration in 2017, then-Rep. Jason Chaffetz, a Republican representing Utah, launched laws to sell off 3.3 million acres of public land in 10 Western states that he mentioned had “been deemed to serve no goal for taxpayers.”

Public backlash was fierce. Chaffetz pulled the invoice simply two weeks later, citing issues from his constituents. The episode, whereas transient, largely pressured the anti-federal land motion again into the shadows. The primary Trump administration continued to weaken safeguards for 35 million acres of federal lands — greater than every other administration in historical past — and supplied up thousands and thousands extra for oil and gasoline improvement, however stopped wanting attempting dump or switch massive areas of the general public area.

But as the previous few months have proven, the anti-public lands motion is alive and effectively.

Public land advocates are hopeful that the present push will flounder. They anticipate courts to strike down lots of Trump’s environmental rollbacks, as they did during his first term . In current weeks, crowds have rallied at quite a few nationwide parks and state capitol buildings to assist retaining public lands in public arms. Democratic Sen. Martin Heinrich of New Mexico, who voted to verify Burgum to his publish and serves because the rating Democrat on the Senate Power and Pure Assets Committee, has used social media to warn in regards to the rising Republican effort to undermine, switch, and dump public lands.

“I proceed to be inspired that individuals are going to be loud. They already are,” mentioned Deubel, the chief director of the New Mexico Wildlife Federation. “We’re mobilizing. We’ve acquired enterprise and industries. We’ve acquired Republicans, we’ve acquired Democrats. We’ve acquired hunters and we’ve acquired non-hunters. We’ve acquired all people talking out about this.”

In a time of utmost polarization on seemingly each concern, public lands take pleasure in broad bipartisan assist. The 2025 “Conservation in the West” poll discovered that 72 % of voters in eight Western states assist public lands conservation over elevated vitality improvement — the best degree of assist within the ballot’s historical past; 65 % oppose giving states management over federal public lands, up from 56 % in 2017; and 89 % oppose shrinking or eradicating protections for nationwide monuments, up from 80 % in 2017. Even in Utah, the place leaders have spent millions of taxpayer dollars selling the state’s anti-federal lands lawsuit, assist for shielding public lands stays excessive.

“Even in all these made-up crises, the American public doesn’t need this,” Hill mentioned. “The American individuals need and love their public lands.”

<img alt="Boats dock at Antelope Point Marina on Lake Powell near Page, Arizona" data-chromatic="ignore" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-nimg="fill" class="mvmjsc0" style="position:absolute;height:100%;width:100%;left:0;top:0;right:0;bottom:0;color:transparent;background-size:cover;background-position:50% 50%;background-repeat:no-repeat;background-image:url("data:image/svg+xml;charset=utf-8,%3Csvg xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg' %3E%3Cfilter id='b' color-interpolation-filters='sRGB'%3E%3CfeGaussianBlur stdDeviation='20'/%3E%3CfeColorMatrix values='1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 100 -1' result='s'/%3E%3CfeFlood x='0' y='0' width='100%25' height='100%25'/%3E%3CfeComposite operator='out' in='s'/%3E%3CfeComposite in2='SourceGraphic'/%3E%3CfeGaussianBlur stdDeviation='20'/%3E%3C/filter%3E%3Cimage width='100%25' height='100%25' x='0' y='0' preserveAspectRatio='none' style='filter: url(%23b);' href='data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAEAAAABCAQAAAC1HAwCAAAAC0lEQVR42mN8+R8AAtcB6oaHtZcAAAAASUVORK5CYII='/%3E%3C/svg%3E")" sizes="(max-width: 639px) 100vw, (max-width: 1023px) 50vw, 700px" srcset="https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-1243202600_BoatsPublicLandsTourism.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=256 256w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-1243202600_BoatsPublicLandsTourism.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=376 376w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-1243202600_BoatsPublicLandsTourism.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=384 384w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-1243202600_BoatsPublicLandsTourism.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=415 415w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-1243202600_BoatsPublicLandsTourism.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=480 480w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-1243202600_BoatsPublicLandsTourism.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=540 540w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-1243202600_BoatsPublicLandsTourism.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=640 640w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-1243202600_BoatsPublicLandsTourism.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=750 750w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-1243202600_BoatsPublicLandsTourism.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=828 828w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-1243202600_BoatsPublicLandsTourism.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=1080 1080w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-1243202600_BoatsPublicLandsTourism.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=1200 1200w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-1243202600_BoatsPublicLandsTourism.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=1440 1440w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-1243202600_BoatsPublicLandsTourism.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=1920 1920w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-1243202600_BoatsPublicLandsTourism.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=2048 2048w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-1243202600_BoatsPublicLandsTourism.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=2400 2400w" src="https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/GettyImages-1243202600_BoatsPublicLandsTourism.webp?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=2400"/> Boats dock at Antelope Level Marina on Lake Powell close to Web page, Arizona in 2022. Public lands are the inspiration of a $1 trillion outside recreation economic system within the U.S. David McNew, Getty Photos through Grist

At his current staffwide assembly, Burgum mentioned Roosevelt’s legacy ought to information Inside employees within the mission to handle and defend federal public lands. These two issues, administration and safety, “should be held in steadiness,” Burgum confused.

But in social media posts and pleasant interviews with conservative media, Burgum has left little doubt about the place his priorities lie, repeatedly rolling out what Breitbart dubbed the “4 infants” of Trump’s vitality dominance agenda: “Drill, Baby, Drill! Map, Baby, Map! Mine, Baby, Mine! Build, Baby, Build!” “Defend, child, defend,” “preserve, child, preserve,” and “steward, child, steward” have but to make it into Burgum’s lexicon.

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