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Earlier this month, the House Natural Resources Committee conducted a field hearing at Grand Teton National Park ostensibly focused on funding for national parks, where members of Congress heard calls for increased funding for maintenance and for reversal of DOGE staffing cuts. Meanwhile, the Trump administration continued what conservation advocates characterize as an "assault" on national public lands.
While Western voters were expressing their support for protections and funding for national public lands, the Trump administration was busy with a number of policy actions that undercut conservation, including a proposal to rescind the Public Lands Rule; a proposal to rescind the Roadless Rule; and a secretarial order attempting to limit the use of the Land and Water Conservation Fund. Congress is also attempting to use the Congressional Review Act to wipe out land management plans, a scheme that would unleash "legal and regulatory chaos" according to Center for Western Priorities deputy director Aaron Weiss.
"The administration is saying that public lands should be managed primarily for the good of powerful drilling, mining and development interests," said Alison Flint, senior legal director at The Wilderness Society. "They’re saying that public lands' role in providing Americans the freedom to enjoy the outdoors, and conserve beloved places … is a second-class consideration."
"These threats to public lands are very much alive," said Lauren Bogard, senior director of advocacy at the Center for Western Priorities, at a Keep Parks Public event in Jackson, Wyoming, earlier this month.
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Repeal of the [public lands] rule puts the thumb on the scale in favor of those other uses and completely shuts out conservation from the conversation. And once you open that door to such uses as mining and drilling, it’s difficult to close it. Often, there’s just no going back, and once it’s gone, it’s gone forever.”
