Key news from November:

• A new proposal under consideration by the Trump Administration would allow private companies to play a larger role in national parks, transferring public assets and heritage to private industry. The National Park Service also quietly announced it disbanded the Zinke-era parks advisory panel stacked with industry representatives.
   
• Washington, D.C.-based Bureau of Land Management employees received reassignment letters, kicking off a 30-day clock for each employee to accept a forced relocation, resign, or face potential termination. Acting BLM Director William Perry Pendley said he would relocate to Grand Junction if he is formally nominated. 
   
• According to a batch of over 900 pages of emails, Interior Secretary David Bernhardt frequently let agency ethics officials know which decisions he preferred from their office.
   
• In energy news, Arizona's Navajo Generating Station—the largest coal plant in the West—shut down after 45 years in operation. The Navajo Nation also announced it will no longer financially back the purchase of coal mines.
   
• Although the BLM removed some parcels in sage-grouse habitat from upcoming oil and gas lease sales in several states following a court order, the agency is inconsistently pulling lands from these  sales. More than 100,000 acres of public lands in sage-grouse habitat are still available for lease in Wyoming, Colorado, and Utah.
   
• The Trump administration announced a draft plan that would open millions of acres in the Alaskan Arctic to oil and gas drilling. 
   
• A state audit revealed that Utah's oil and gas regulators failed to enforce environmental and safety rules for decades. Although regulators identified many instances in which standards were violated, they could not identify a single fine ever issued against an oil and gas operator in the last 24 years.
   
• The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee voted to fully and permanently fund the Land and Water Conservation Fund. It is unclear if, or when, Majority Leader McConnell would schedule a vote before the full Senate. 

What to watch for in December:

• The Trump administration is expected to roll back land protections for millions of acres of California desert by reversing the Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan to make way for energy development. 
   
• BLM employees being relocated to Grand Junction, Colorado have until the middle of December to agree to move or face termination. 
   
• The last short-term spending bill funds the federal government through late December. If another spending bill isn't agreed upon, national parks could be closed, or kept open without staff like last year.