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On the first day of his second term, President Donald Trump declared an "energy emergency" and has used this so-called emergency to justify a suite of energy and public lands policies. But many of these policies are inconsistent with an actual energy emergency.
The budget bill pushed by President Trump and passed in July made a number of changes to the federal onshore oil and gas leasing program, with the ostensible goal of increasing oil and gas production. However, oil and gas production was already at record levels during the Biden administration, and is driven more by market forces than by generous lease terms. Rather than stimulate increased production, the policy changes simply lower costs for oil and gas companies to operate on federal lands, and at the expense of taxpayer returns and public access.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration has taken a number of policy actions to make renewable energy development on national public lands more difficult, further undermining the declaration of an "energy emergency." In an actual emergency, the government would pursue a true "all-of-the-above" approach. Instead, as Center for Western Priorities Communications Manager Kate Groetzinger points out, "The upshot of this is that the public is going to lose out on access to public lands and oil and gas companies are really going to be put in the driver's seat when it comes to how our public lands are used."
Staffing shortages are hitting national parks and forests hard this summer
In a new Westwise blog post, Center for Western Priorities Communications Manager Kate Groetzinger lays out the many ways in which the Trump administration’s funding and staffing cuts are crippling our national parks, forests, and other public lands. These cuts are completely at odds with the wishes of the American public, who love public lands and want to see the agencies that care for them fully funded.
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What is important to visitors is healthy ecosystems and cultural landscapes, whereas this administration sees these places more like theme parks than national parks. It’s a Potemkin village scenario where the public can’t see things falling apart behind the scenes.”
