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President Donald Trump has nominated long-time oil and gas advocate Kathleen Sgamma to lead the Bureau of Land Management, the agency that oversees over 245 million acres of national public lands.
Sgamma, a co-author of the energy section of Project 2025, is currently the head of the Western Energy Alliance, a trade association for oil and gas companies with operations across the West. For years, Sgamma has been one of the loudest voices advocating against protections for public lands and the environment. She has consistently twisted the facts to fit her agenda, including downplaying the existence of human-caused climate change. Additionally, she has taken positions that are inconsistent with laws set by Congress, like the BLM’s multiple use mandate and the requirement that the agency seek public feedback about land management decisions like leasing and drilling.
In a new blog post, Center for Western Priorities' Communications Manager Kate Groetzinger digs into the reasons Sgamma is an unfit choice to run the BLM and an unreliable spokesperson for the agency. “If she can’t be trusted to tell the truth about drilling on public lands, she certainly can’t be trusted to regulate it,” Groetzinger writes.
Podcast: Western voters reject Trump agenda on public lands
On the latest episode of The Landscape, Aaron and Kate break down the results of Colorado College’s annual State of the Rockies Conservation in the West poll with pollsters Lori Weigell and Dave Metz. The poll found that voters in the West support preserving and protecting public lands more than ever before in the poll’s 15-year history. That’s right—just as President Trump and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum are working to open up public lands for unfettered drilling and mining, majorities of Western voters, including Republicans, are saying, “We want those lands protected.” (The poll was conducted in eight Western states from January 3-17, 2025.)
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We are at a pivotal moment in our country’s history that demands all of us to work together and make our country stronger. We can’t do this by gutting the very agencies we need to keep us safe.”
