Public land protectors ready for a fight

President-elect Donald Trump’s first term was a disaster for America’s public lands. While the prospects for his second term are even more bleak, Westerners across the political spectrum — even those who voted for Trump — stand ready to oppose attempts to sell off America’s public lands to the highest bidder.

As for Trump’s pick for Interior Secretary, North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum: If Burgum tries to turn America’s public lands into an even bigger cash cow for the oil and gas industry, or tries to shrink America’s parks and national monuments, he’ll quickly discover he’s on the wrong side of history.

Public lands have strong bipartisan support in the West. The annual Conservation in the West Poll, last released by the Colorado College State of the Rockies Project in February 2024, found that nearly three-quarters of voters — including Republicans — want to protect clean water, air quality and wildlife habitats, while providing opportunities to visit and recreate on public lands.

That’s compared to just one-quarter of voters who prefer maximizing the use of public lands available for drilling and mining. According to the poll, which surveyed voters in Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming — 80% of Westerners support the national goal of conserving 30% of land and waters in America by the year 2030.

Bipartisan support for more conservation and balanced energy development has been a cornerstone of the poll’s findings since it began in 2011.

Under the leadership of President Joe Biden and Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, the current administration has made progress over the past four years in bringing public land management in line with the preferences of Western voters. That includes better protecting the Grand Canyon, increasing accountability for oil and gas companies that operate on public land and putting conservation — at last — on par with drilling and mining on public land.

The President-elect may find it hard to immediately exploit what Westerners want. After Trump took office in 2017, he promised to transform public land management, ignoring the wishes of the American people.

Trump’s first Interior secretary, Ryan Zinke, misused his position to advance his dream of owning a microbrewery in Montana. Trump’s second Interior secretary, oil and gas industry lobbyist David Bernhardt, put his finger on the scale in the interest of a former client. Trump’s choice to run the Bureau of Land Management, William Perry Pendley, served illegally without being confirmed by Congress.

We worked hard to shed light on this corruption and defend public lands from Trump’s attacks. Still, Trump’s Interior department allowed oil and gas companies to lock up millions of acres at bargain basement prices.

In his second term, Donald Trump will likely attempt to shrink national monuments like Bears Ears in Utah and permit drilling and mining in inappropriate areas. The president-elect has already committed to undoing Biden’s energy and environmental policies.

Project 2025, the policy handbook written by former Trump officials — including many of the people Trump is eyeing for key positions in his new administration — clearly lays out a plan to gut the Interior Department and remove environmental safeguards that ensure the health of our public lands.

Project 2025 would give extractive industries nearly unfettered access to public lands; severely restrict the power of the Endangered Species Act; open millions of acres of Alaska wilderness to drilling, mining and logging; and roll back protections for spectacular landscapes like Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments. It also would remove protections for iconic Western species such as gray wolves and grizzly bears.

What can we do about this assault? The law and public opinion are on our side. Public land protections are stronger today than ever, thanks in large part to the grassroots efforts of Indigenous tribes, local community leaders and conservation organizations.

We know much of what’s in Trump’s public lands playbook, and we will fight back. We’ll continue to shine a light on corruption within the Trump administration and hold it accountable.

Our partners will work in Congress to stop bad policies and projects from going forward. We are ready to take action in the courts and in the streets. And we’re not waiting until Inauguration Day to start.

Jennifer Rokala, the executive director of Center for Western Priorities, a nonpartisan public lands advocacy group, is a contributor to Writers on the Range (writersontherange.org), an independent nonprofit dedicated to spurring lively conversation about Western issues.