A full-scale assault threatens to turn public lands over to fossil fuel companies and deny us the right to defend our communities and the places we love and depend on.
By Dr. Barbara Vasquez, WORC Board Chair
I live in Jackson County, Colorado, the beautiful mountainous headwaters of the North Platte River, where hundreds of inactive and abandoned oil wells litter the landscape, degrading important wildlife habitat. They are a few of an estimated 2.6 million unplugged wells across the country that leak methane, benzene, and other toxic substances and have left rural communities, especially in the Mountain West, to suffer from polluted air, contaminated water, and resulting illnesses.
Last year the U.S. began to turn the tide on decades of this kind of reckless fossil fuel development. But in the last few months, that tide has again reversed course and grown into a tsunami of executive orders, administrative actions, and legislation all threatening to sweep away the decades of progress we’ve made towards managing energy development for the good of all Americans, not just fossil fuel and mining companies.
This tsunami makes clear that the federal government is now pandering to corporations already flush with tremendous wealth while denying Americans – especially farmers, ranchers, and other rural Americans throughout the West most affected by fossil energy projects – the right to protect their values and voice their concerns regarding the direct and potentially disastrous impacts on their water, air, and livelihoods.
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In 2024 the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) finalized a long-overdue rule that increased bonding rates companies pay to drill on federal lands and minerals, helping ensure taxpayers don’t have to pay to clean up the toxic messes left behind after companies have pocketed their profits and the oil or gas is gone. Analyses performed by Center for Western Priorities showed virtually no opposition to the rule among 260,000 public comments that the proposed rule generated. The BLM finalized another rule putting conservation on equal footing with energy development – a rule supported by 92% of the 152,000 public comments it received.
The BLM also stopped leasing coal in the Powder River Basin of Wyoming and Montana last year – a critical win for our public health, given that the Basin’s low-grade coal accounts for 14% of total U.S. carbon pollution and is attributed to thousands of premature deaths every year.
Times have changed, dramatically.
We’re now facing a series of executive, administrative, and legislative actions that threaten to not just undo Biden-era conservation wins, but to undermine the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and other bedrock environmental laws that give voice to the public and help ensure that rural communities are not left vulnerable to industry malpractice and abuse.
The latest assault on NEPA occurred on April 23, when the Department of the Interior (DOI) announced a plan to implement emergency permitting procedures to expedite the development of oil, gas, coal, and critical minerals projects on public lands and minerals. The changes to NEPA would reduce the timelines for environmental assessments for fossil fuel projects from one year to 14 days without requiring a public comment period. The timeline for more complicated environmental impact statements (EIS) would take 28 days to be completed, rather than two years, and require only a 10-day public comment period.
The administration’s justification for these expedited permitting procedures is what the Trump administration is calling “a national energy emergency.” No such emergency exists.
The administration’s justification for these expedited permitting procedures is what the Trump administration is calling “a national energy emergency.” No such emergency exists. The U.S. is currently the world’s biggest exporter of liquified natural gas and is producing more oil than any other country on Earth, more than we could ever use.
The announcement of these new procedures follows on the heels of another recent announcement that the BLM is taking steps to reopen federal coal leasing in the Powder River Basin. It did so in immediate response to an executive order (EO) signed by President Trump directing the BLM to prioritize coal leasing as the primary use of public lands with coal beds, despite the fact that:
- 93% of new US electricity comes from solar, wind, or batteries, making it clear that the market has left coal far behind.
- 99% of coal plants cost more to run than those running on renewable energy.
In a clear affront to states’ rights, the EO also directs the Department of Justice to block states’ renewable energy initiatives and the enforcement of states’ environmental laws.
Congress has launched its own legislative salvos. The most dangerous is a bill introduced by Sen. Daines of Montana that would give oil and gas companies control of over 200 million acres of public lands, an area roughly the size of Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho combined. Another bill introduced by Rep. Hurd of Colorado compels the BLM to rescind and reissue nine recently finalized resource management plans, covering over 12.6 million acres of public lands across the West, and give priority to fossil fuel development. Rescinding the new plans would result in the BLM ignoring all of the public comments that went into shaping them and forcing the agency to follow previous plans, some of which were drafted over 40 years ago, while developing the new plans catering to fossil fuel companies.
This federal crusade on behalf of the fossil fuel industry flies in the face of Westerners’ clear pro-conservation values, captured in Colorado College’s 2025 Conservation in the West poll. Residents in each of the Mountain West states were asked if they “preferred leaders who place more emphasis on protecting water, air, wildlife habitat, and recreation opportunities over maximizing the amount of land for drilling and mining.” A clear majority of residents in every state said yes, including 55% in Wyoming and 68% in Montana.
The intent of all of these attacks on public lands, water, and air is clear: Enable corporate polluters to make the biggest financial killing they can on public lands – the American West, its people, our water, our air, and our values all be damned.
The poll also asked, “Do you support keeping the requirement that oil and gas companies, rather than taxpayers, pay for all of the clean-up and land restoration costs after drilling is finished.” Over 89% of residents in every state answered yes. Even in energy-intensive Wyoming, 94% said yes!
And yet, the president signed an EO in February directing the Department of the Interior to essentially kill the bonding rule, relieving oil and gas companies from having to pay for cleaning up their toxic messes after production ends.
The intent of all of these attacks on public lands, water, and air is clear: Enable corporate polluters to make the biggest financial killing they can on public lands – the American West, its people, our water, our air, and our values all be damned.
It’s imperative we fight back.
Call the Department of the Interior at (202) 208-3100 to let the department know that you:
- Object to Interior’s emergency permitting procedures
- because there is no such emergency
- because the procedures strip us of our right to voice our concerns regarding projects on public lands that could have disastrous impacts on our air, water, and communities.
- Object to any actions that would reopen coal leasing in the Powder River Basin
- because burning coal from this region is a severe threat to the health of all Americans
- because the U.S. has already moved on to clean energy, which is significantly cheaper than burning coal.
You can also take action here against Sen. Steve Daines’ brazen public lands giveaway to Big Oil.
A retired biomedical researcher and semiconductor engineer, Dr. Barbara Vasquez is Board Chair of Western Organization of Resource Councils, representing Western Colorado Alliance.
Learn more:
From Wildlife to Wells: How Dr. Barbara Vasquez Fights for Stronger Oil and Gas Regulations
Westerners Call on Interior Secretary Not to Weaken Oil and Gas Reclamation Bonds
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