The Department of the Interior serves as the steward of approximately 500 million acres of federal public lands — roughly one-fifth of the entire United States land mass — along with 700 million acres of subsurface minerals and 1.7 billion acres of the Outer Continental Shelf. Its bureaus manage the National Park System, oversee Bureau of Land Management (BLM) territories, protect and restore endangered species through the Fish and Wildlife Service, manage tribal trust responsibilities through the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and regulate surface mining through the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement. These lands belong to all Americans. They represent an irreplaceable inheritance — ecological, cultural, spiritual, and economic — that took geological epochs to form and decades of conservation law to protect.
Project 2025 treated this inheritance as a balance sheet to be liquidated. The Heritage Foundation's chapter on the Department of the Interior, authored primarily by William Perry Pendley — a former acting BLM director who spent decades as an attorney advocating for the wholesale transfer of public lands to private interests — openly calls for dismantling conservation protections, gutting the BLM's stewardship mission, shrinking or eliminating national monuments, opening every available acre to fossil fuel extraction and hard-rock mining, stripping Endangered Species Act protections from wolves and grizzly bears, and overriding the tribal co-management agreements that Indigenous nations fought generations to secure. The Trump administration implementing that blueprint in 2025 approved more oil and gas drilling permits than in any prior year on record, laid off more than 2,000 Interior Department employees, rescinded $500 million in National Park Service funding, and moved to open 1.3 billion acres of Outer Continental Shelf waters to drilling.
The next Democratic administration must reverse this destruction with the same speed and force with which it was inflicted. Restoration of Interior is not an environmental issue alone — it is a matter of Indigenous sovereignty, rural economic stability, climate resilience, public health, and national identity. This chapter details the damage, the legal foundations for restoration, and a comprehensive reform agenda to protect public lands, honor tribal nations, accelerate clean energy, and conserve America's natural heritage for generations to come.
The Stakes: More than 300 million Americans depend on Interior's water, lands, and wildlife management. Outdoor recreation on federal public lands alone generates $128 billion annually and supports nearly one million jobs — more employment than logging, mining, and livestock grazing combined. National monuments protect irreplaceable archaeological sites, sacred Indigenous landscapes, and rare ecosystems that cannot be recovered once destroyed. The Bears Ears National Monument alone contains more than 100,000 archaeological sites. Each acre opened to extraction that destroys a cultural site, or each species pushed past the threshold of extinction, represents a permanent loss. The window to act is narrow, and the damage is deep.
Key Reforms:
- Restore Bears Ears, Grand Staircase-Escalante, and all unlawfully reduced national monuments to their full, legally established boundaries
- Achieve the 30x30 conservation goal: protect 30 percent of U.S. lands and waters by 2030
- Establish statutory tribal co-management authority and fulfill federal trust responsibilities to Indigenous nations
- Reform oil and gas leasing on public lands to eliminate speculation, raise royalty rates, and enforce bonding requirements for reclamation
- Restore the BLM's conservation mission as co-equal to its multiple-use mandate
- Fully fund the National Park Service, reverse DOGE workforce cuts, and eliminate the deferred maintenance backlog
- Accelerate clean energy permitting on public lands while protecting sensitive habitats and cultural resources
- Restore and strengthen Endangered Species Act enforcement, ending politically driven delistings
- Protect Indigenous sacred sites through the Sacred Places Protection Act
- Halt offshore drilling expansion and reinstate Biden-era coastal protections
Constitutional and Legal Basis: Antiquities Act (54 U.S.C. § 320301), National Park Service Organic Act (54 U.S.C. § 100101), Federal Land Policy and Management Act (43 U.S.C. § 1701), Endangered Species Act (16 U.S.C. § 1531), Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act (25 U.S.C. § 5301), Mineral Leasing Act (30 U.S.C. § 181), Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (43 U.S.C. § 1331), Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act (30 U.S.C. § 1201), National Historic Preservation Act (54 U.S.C. § 300101), American Indian Religious Freedom Act (42 U.S.C. § 1996), National Environmental Policy Act (42 U.S.C. § 4321), Migratory Bird Treaty Act (16 U.S.C. § 703), Land and Water Conservation Fund Act (54 U.S.C. § 200301), Property Clause (U.S. Const. Art. IV, § 3, cl. 2).
What Project 2025 Did:
Project 2025's Interior chapter calls for a fundamental reorientation of public land management — away from conservation and multi-generational stewardship toward maximum resource extraction. William Perry Pendley, who wrote the chapter, is on record stating that the federal government's ownership of public land is unconstitutional — a position rejected by every federal court to consider it, and one that, if implemented, would transfer lands belonging to all Americans into private and state hands.
National Monument Destruction:
President Trump's first term dramatically shrunk two of the most significant monuments in the nation:
- Bears Ears National Monument, established by President Obama in 2016 at 1.36 million acres, was slashed by approximately 85 percent to roughly 228,000 acres across two noncontiguous units. This reduction was challenged immediately in federal court by five tribal nations. The Supreme Court, in Antiquities Act litigation, left the core legal question — whether a president can reduce a monument designated by a prior president — unresolved, creating ongoing vulnerability.
- Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument was reduced by nearly half, a cut of more than 860,000 acres, opening the excised lands to coal and uranium mining, livestock grazing intensification, and off-road vehicle access.
- The Trump administration in 2025 authorized an internal strategic plan review specifically targeting Bears Ears, Grand Staircase-Escalante, and other monuments for further reduction or elimination, framing the review as assessing monuments for "right-sizing."
BLM Conservation Mission Reversal:
Project 2025 calls for relocating BLM headquarters out of Washington, D.C. — a logistical disruption implemented under the first Trump term as a political tool to force experienced career staff to resign — and for stripping conservation as a coequal use of public land. The document explicitly frames conservation and environmental protection as subordinate to extraction.
The Trump administration in 2025 approved 63.7 percent more federal and Indian oil and gas drilling permits compared to the prior year, approved 6,027 new drilling permits — more Applications for Permits to Drill than any year in the prior 15 years — and held 22 lease sales generating over $356 million, claiming it exceeded four years of Biden administration revenue in twelve months.
The Sale of America's Commons:
The "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" advanced in Congress with administration support mandated quarterly lease sales and required BLM to offer at least 50 percent of all public land nominated by oil and gas companies. As of 2025, more than 81 percent of BLM lands in the West — over 200 million acres — were already open to oil and gas leasing. This agenda treats public lands not as a national trust but as a commodity inventory.
Sagebrush Rebellion Ideology Embedded in Policy:
Project 2025 openly channels the "Sagebrush Rebellion" ideology — the decades-old Western movement to transfer federal lands to states or private ownership. Pendley's chapter advocates for prioritizing "economic uses" over conservation and argues that federal land retention violates constitutional principles. This position is ideologically consistent with land transfer movements that would end federal stewardship entirely. Such transfers would benefit extractive industries and real estate developers at the expense of hunters, anglers, hikers, and future generations who depend on public land access.
The administration's fiscal year 2026 budget request of $936 million for BLM — a 34 percent cut from the FY2025 enacted level — deliberately starves the agency of the capacity to fulfill its stewardship obligations. An agency that cannot afford to conduct environmental reviews, process permit applications on a reasonable timeline, or staff field offices has its multiple-use mission effectively gutted without requiring a statutory change.
Water and Watershed Destruction:
Federal public lands provide drinking water to more than 60 million Americans through rivers, streams, and aquifers that originate on or flow through BLM, National Forest, and Park Service lands. Opening these lands to intensified extraction, off-road vehicle use, and surface mining without adequate environmental review threatens water quality and quantity at a regional scale. The San Juan River system, which flows through the Bears Ears monument region, provides drinking water to Navajo Nation communities that already face severe water access challenges. Monument reduction exposed additional portions of the watershed to disturbance.
What Project 2025 Did:
Workforce Destruction:
The DOGE initiative and administration layoff orders devastated the National Park Service workforce. Approximately 1,000 NPS employees were cut in the initial DOGE wave alone. By mid-2025, NPS had lost approximately 20 percent of its workforce in just a few months. The department finalized reduction-in-force plans targeting an additional 1,500 NPS positions. Total planned Interior Department cuts exceeded 2,000 employees across BLM, NPS, the U.S. Geological Survey, the Fish and Wildlife Service, and supporting offices.
The consequences were immediate and operational:
- Yosemite National Park halted reservations for nearly 600 camping spots
- Parks reduced operating hours and closed visitor centers
- Seasonal hiring and training for summer seasons was disrupted
- Search and rescue capacity was compromised
- Resource monitoring, fire prevention patrols, and wildlife management programs were halted
Budget Destruction:
Congress rescinded $500 million in Inflation Reduction Act funding allocated specifically for National Park Service staffing. The Trump administration's FY2026 budget requested $936 million for BLM — a cut of $476 million, or 34 percent, from the FY2025 enacted level of $1.412 billion. The NPS deferred maintenance backlog exceeded $23 billion before these cuts; gutting staffing and operations funding deepens it further.
The False Economy:
Project 2025 frames park service cuts as fiscal discipline. The data proves otherwise. National Park Service lands generated approximately $57.2 billion in economic output and support hundreds of thousands of jobs in gateway communities. Destroying the workforce that maintains these parks destroys the economic foundation of rural communities that depend on them.
What Project 2025 Did:
Project 2025 calls for wholesale weakening of the Endangered Species Act (ESA), 16 U.S.C. § 1531. Specific proposals include:
Critical Habitat Destruction:
- Weakening critical habitat designations to exclude areas outside a species' current range, even if those areas are essential to recovery
- Requiring economic cost analysis in listing decisions — a requirement the ESA prohibits for listing determinations, and one that would inject political economics into what must be a scientific determination
- Restricting reintroduction of species to suitable habitat outside their present range, preventing recovery of species like the Mexican gray wolf and California condor
Politically Driven Delistings:
The Trump administration in 2025 pushed to permanently delist the gray wolf across most of the United States, with U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Brian Nesvik stating wolves "no longer need federal protections." The House passed the "Pet and Livestock Protection Act of 2025," which would reissue the first Trump term's delisting and explicitly bar judicial review of that action. The House Natural Resources Committee approved, on a 20-19 party-line vote, legislation to delist the Greater Yellowstone grizzly bear population.
Regulatory Rollbacks:
Project 2025 calls for reinstating Trump-era ESA regulations that weakened protections for threatened species (as distinct from endangered species), allowed economic impacts on listing decisions, and restricted the geographic scope of critical habitat designations. These rules were finalized in 2019 and struck down or stayed by federal courts; Project 2025 calls for reimposing them with additional restrictions.
The Ecological Stakes:
The gray wolf and grizzly bear serve as keystone species in Western ecosystems. Wolf reintroduction in Yellowstone demonstrably changed river courses, forest composition, and prey population dynamics. Delisting these species for political reasons — over the objection of wildlife scientists — represents a deliberate subordination of ecological science to livestock industry lobbying.
What Project 2025 Did:
Project 2025 takes a contradictory and ultimately harmful approach to tribal nations. While the document includes language about tribal self-determination, its substantive proposals undermine the tribal co-management frameworks that Indigenous nations fought generations to establish.
Dismantling Bears Ears Co-Management:
In June 2022, the five tribal nations of the Bears Ears Commission — the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, Navajo Nation, Ute Indian Tribe of the Uintah Ouray, Hopi Nation, and Pueblo of Zuni — signed a historic intergovernmental agreement with BLM and the U.S. Forest Service establishing co-management of Bears Ears National Monument. This agreement was the product of years of advocacy and represented the first formal co-management arrangement of a national monument by tribal nations.
The Trump administration's reduction of Bears Ears in 2017 was made with no meaningful tribal consultation. The Navajo Nation stated publicly: "The decision to reduce the size of the Monument is being made with no tribal consultation." The reduction excluded from protection areas that tribal members use for traditional, ceremonial, and spiritual practices. The 2025 administration moved to review the monument again, threatening the co-management agreement and the tribal management plan developed collaboratively over years.
Fossil Fuel Development as Substitute for Sovereignty:
Project 2025 proposes "facilitating fossil fuel and mineral development on Indian lands" as its primary framework for tribal economic development. This approach treats extraction revenue as a substitute for genuine self-determination and ignores tribal nations' right under the free, prior, and informed consent doctrine to reject development they do not want on their own lands.
Sacred Site Erasure:
Bears Ears contains more than 100,000 archaeological and cultural sites. Monument boundaries set by the Obama and Biden administrations protected these sites from disturbance. The Trump monument reductions removed tens of thousands of these sites from monument protection, exposing them to off-road vehicle damage, illegal artifact collection, and ground disturbance from grazing and exploration.
What Project 2025 Did:
Migratory Bird Treaty Act Gutting:
The Trump administration reinstated a 2017 opinion from the Solicitor of the Interior concluding that the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA), 16 U.S.C. § 703, does not prohibit "incidental take" — the killing of migratory birds as a byproduct of industrial activity such as oil pits, power lines, and wind turbines. This opinion, which contradicts decades of agency practice and numerous circuit court precedents, stripped legal accountability from industries responsible for killing hundreds of millions of migratory birds annually.
Project 2025 explicitly calls for codifying this interpretation through legislation, permanently removing incidental take liability from the MBTA. Scientists estimate that approximately one billion birds are killed in the United States annually by building collisions, cats, oil pits, power lines, and other incidental causes. Removing MBTA liability eliminates the legal mechanism that historically incentivized industry to adopt bird-safe practices.
Wildlife Corridor Destruction:
Interior public lands form the backbone of North American wildlife corridors — the connected landscapes across which species migrate, seek food, and maintain genetic diversity. The administration's 2025 actions — opening lands to drilling, reducing monument boundaries, increasing grazing allotment sizes, and gutting conservation staffing — fragment these corridors across the Rocky Mountain West, the Intermountain Basin, and the Pacific flyway. Fragmentation is among the leading causes of species decline and extinction; once wildlife corridor connectivity is broken by industrial development, restoration requires decades and enormous investment.
The BLM's 2023 Conservation and Landscape Health Rule established a framework for identifying and maintaining wildlife corridors as part of the multiple-use mission. The Trump administration rescinded this rule in 2025, removing the regulatory basis for corridor protection on the 245 million acres of BLM-managed lands.
What Project 2025 Did:
The Trump administration signed executive orders on Inauguration Day, January 20, 2025, reversing President Biden's January 2025 permanent withdrawal of 625 million acres of ocean from offshore drilling — the largest offshore drilling ban in American history.
The administration then proposed a new 2026-2031 five-year Outer Continental Shelf oil and gas leasing program covering approximately 1.3 billion acres — the most aggressive offshore leasing expansion in decades — targeting California's entire coast, nearly all of Alaska's offshore waters, and vast stretches of the eastern Gulf of Mexico, including areas protected by decades-old congressional moratoria.
The administration simultaneously proposed offshore leasing in almost all Alaska waters under a separate plan, threatening ecosystems, Indigenous subsistence fishing rights, and coastal communities from the Gulf of Alaska to the Chukchi Sea.
The Legal Challenge:
The Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (43 U.S.C. § 1331) does not grant a president authority to reverse a prior president's withdrawal from leasing. In 2019, Federal District Judge Sharon Gleason ruled that President Trump's first-term attempt to reverse Obama-era offshore withdrawal was "unlawful and invalid." The administration ignored this precedent. More than 400 municipalities and over 2,300 elected officials across the Atlantic, Pacific, and Gulf coasts formally opposed the 2025 expansion.
Alaska Indigenous Communities:
Alaska's Indigenous coastal communities face dual threats from offshore drilling expansion. First, drilling operations in Alaska's Outer Continental Shelf waters threaten subsistence fishing and marine mammal hunting rights guaranteed by treaty and statute — rights that are not merely economic but constitute the cultural and nutritional foundation of communities that have lived on Alaska's coast for thousands of years. Second, offshore drilling infrastructure increases ship traffic, noise, and pollution that disrupt the whale and fish migrations these communities depend on. The Trump administration's proposed offshore leasing program in almost all Alaska waters disregards the free, prior, and informed consent obligations the United States owes to Alaska Native communities under domestic trust law and international norms.
Project 2025's Interior agenda imposes concrete human costs that fall disproportionately on Indigenous communities, rural gateway communities, outdoor recreation workers, and future generations:
Workforce and Institutional Capacity: Approximately 1,000 NPS employees, 800 BLM staff, and thousands of additional Interior workers lost their jobs. These losses are not merely statistical. Each terminated ranger represents years of institutional knowledge about specific landscapes, ecosystems, and visitor populations. Each eliminated wildlife biologist represents ESA compliance capacity that takes years to rebuild. Each laid-off hydrologist represents water monitoring capacity that affects downstream water rights holders and drinking water systems. The Trump administration's DOGE agenda is not efficiency — it is the deliberate destruction of the government's capacity to steward public lands.
Gateway Communities: Towns like Moab, Utah; Springdale, Utah; Estes Park, Colorado; Jackson Hole, Wyoming; and hundreds of others throughout the West depend economically on the national parks and public lands that bring visitors. These are not liberal urban communities — they are frequently rural, often politically mixed, and in many cases economically fragile. Gutting NPS staffing, reducing park operating hours, and degrading the visitor experience harms these communities directly. The outdoor recreation economy supported approximately 5 million U.S. jobs economy-wide and generated $1.2 trillion in economic output — a sector larger than the domestic oil and gas industry and dependent on the health of public lands.
Indigenous Nations: Tribal nations lost co-management partnerships built over years of government-to-government negotiation and were denied consultation on monument reductions affecting their sacred sites. The Navajo Nation, Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, Hopi Nation, Pueblo of Zuni, and Ute Indian Tribe of the Uintah Ouray invested years of political and legal effort to secure the Bears Ears co-management agreement. The Trump administration's threat to reduce the monument again in 2025 threatened to erase that investment and expose more than 100,000 archaeological and cultural sites to disturbance. Navajo Nation communities adjacent to Bears Ears also depend on the San Juan River watershed, which is protected by monument management restrictions — restrictions endangered by monument reduction and leasing expansion.
Coastal and Fishing Communities: Communities along California, Atlantic, and Gulf coasts face potential offshore drilling operations in waters that have been protected for decades, threatening commercial fisheries, recreational fishing, coastal tourism, and the marine ecosystems that underpin these economies. Commercial fishing generates approximately $18 billion in economic output annually. Offshore drilling accidents — as the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster demonstrated — can devastate these industries for years.
Ecological Consequences: Gray wolf and grizzly bear populations face politically driven delisting at the precise moment when recovering predator populations are beginning to provide measurable ecological benefits. The reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone beginning in 1995 demonstrably altered elk grazing behavior, restored streamside vegetation, changed river morphology, and increased biodiversity across the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. Delisting reverses these gains. The outdoor recreation economy — which generates $128 billion annually and supports nearly one million jobs on federal public lands — is put at risk by workforce degradation, access reduction, and ecological deterioration that degrades the landscapes people pay to visit.
The Property Clause:
The federal government's authority to manage public lands is grounded in Article IV, Section 3, Clause 2 of the U.S. Constitution: "The Congress shall have Power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States." The Supreme Court has consistently held that this authority is plenary — Congress has full power to determine how federal lands are managed, retained, or disposed of.
Light v. United States, 220 U.S. 523 (1911): The Supreme Court upheld federal power to manage public lands against state challenge, holding that public lands "are not held in trust for the states in which they are situated," but for all Americans.
Kleppe v. New Mexico, 426 U.S. 529 (1976): The Supreme Court reaffirmed plenary federal authority over public lands, rejecting the argument that states have superior management authority.
The Property Clause:
The federal government's authority to manage public lands is grounded in Article IV, Section 3, Clause 2 of the U.S. Constitution: "The Congress shall have Power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States." The Supreme Court has consistently held that this authority is plenary — Congress has full power to determine how federal lands are managed, retained, or disposed of.
Light v. United States, 220 U.S. 523 (1911): The Supreme Court upheld federal power to manage public lands against state challenge, holding that public lands "are not held in trust for the states in which they are situated," but for all Americans.
Kleppe v. New Mexico, 426 U.S. 529 (1976): The Supreme Court reaffirmed plenary federal authority over public lands, rejecting the argument that states have superior management authority.
The Antiquities Act Authority:
The Antiquities Act (54 U.S.C. § 320301) grants the president authority to designate national monuments on federal lands "to protect objects of historic or scientific interest." Presidents of both parties have exercised this authority to protect lands ranging from the Grand Canyon (Theodore Roosevelt) to Bears Ears (Obama) to Northeast Canyons and Seamounts (Obama). The Antiquities Act does not grant a president authority to reduce or abolish a monument designated by a prior president — a question the Supreme Court has not definitively resolved but that several federal circuit courts have addressed skeptically.
Federal Trust Responsibility:
The federal government's trust responsibility to tribal nations derives from treaties, statutes, and established common law. United States v. Mitchell, 463 U.S. 206 (1983), recognized that when the government takes control of Indian trust assets, it assumes a fiduciary duty enforceable in court. The Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act (25 U.S.C. § 5301) establishes the statutory framework for tribal self-governance and co-management.
Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA), 43 U.S.C. § 1701 (1976): FLPMA established the BLM's multiple-use and sustained-yield mission, required the development of Resource Management Plans for all BLM land, and prohibited disposal of public lands without congressional authorization. FLPMA declares it "the policy of the United States that the public lands be retained in Federal ownership" unless disposal serves the national interest. Project 2025 treats this retention policy as an obstacle; it is a statutory mandate.
National Park Service Organic Act, 54 U.S.C. § 100101 (1916): The Organic Act established the NPS mission "to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wild life therein and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations." The non-impairment mandate is the legal floor — NPS must not allow uses that impair park resources for future generations. Gutting NPS staffing and budgets while opening park gateway areas to development violates this mandate.
Antiquities Act, 54 U.S.C. § 320301 (1906): Authorizes presidential designation of national monuments. Monuments must protect "objects of historic or scientific interest." The president may designate "the smallest area compatible with proper care and management." Courts have held that monument designations are entitled to judicial deference and cannot be revoked by subsequent presidents without explicit congressional authorization.
Endangered Species Act, 16 U.S.C. § 1531 (1973): Requires listing of species as threatened or endangered based on "the best scientific and commercial data available" without considering economic impact on listing decisions (Tennessee Valley Authority v. Hill, 437 U.S. 153 (1978)). Requires designation of critical habitat and preparation of recovery plans. Prohibits federal agencies from authorizing actions that jeopardize listed species. Section 7 consultation requirements apply to all federal agency actions, including BLM land management decisions.
Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, 43 U.S.C. § 1331 (1953): Authorizes offshore oil and gas leasing on the Outer Continental Shelf under a five-year leasing program developed by the Secretary of the Interior. Grants the president authority to withdraw areas from leasing; the statute's silence on reversal of prior withdrawals has been interpreted by courts as prohibiting subsequent presidents from re-opening withdrawn areas without affirmative congressional action.
Mineral Leasing Act, 30 U.S.C. § 181 (1920): Governs oil, gas, coal, and mineral leasing on public lands. Sets royalty rates (currently 12.5 percent for onshore oil and gas — below market rates that need reform), bonding requirements, and reclamation obligations. Project 2025 calls for loosening bonding requirements and reducing environmental review, which would shift reclamation costs to taxpayers.
American Indian Religious Freedom Act, 42 U.S.C. § 1996 (1978): Declares it "the policy of the United States to protect and preserve for American Indians their inherent right of freedom to believe, express, and exercise the traditional religions of the American Indian, Eskimo, Aleut, and Native Hawaiians, including but not limited to access to sites." This policy obligation requires meaningful consultation on management of sacred sites and prohibits agency actions that substantially burden Indigenous religious practice without compelling government interest.
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) is the nation's primary source of scientific data on natural hazards, water resources, geology, geophysics, and land change. USGS data informs every significant Interior Department land management decision, from wildfire risk assessment to groundwater availability to earthquake hazard mapping.
The Trump administration's plans announced in October 2025 targeted USGS for severe staff reductions, describing plans to "eviscerate" the agency's capacity. Proposed cuts included positions in water resources research, earthquake monitoring, volcano observatory programs, and climate and land use change science. Destroying USGS scientific capacity is not incidental to the extractive agenda — it is instrumental to it. Agencies that lack independent scientific data cannot effectively evaluate the environmental consequences of extractive industry permits, enforce resource protection requirements, or defend conservation decisions in court.
The administration also took steps to suppress or alter USGS publications on climate change, water availability, and species habitat — continuing the first Trump administration's practice of removing climate data from agency websites and preventing publication of research inconsistent with the administration's extraction agenda.
Scientific integrity at USGS is not merely an institutional concern — it is the evidentiary foundation for every conservation decision, every permit review, every endangered species assessment, and every water rights determination that Interior makes. The next administration must not only restore USGS funding and staffing but must establish binding scientific integrity policies that prohibit political interference with agency science across Interior's entire bureau structure.
Federal courts have consistently upheld expansive presidential authority to designate monuments and rejected challenges to large monument designations:
- Light v. United States, 220 U.S. 523 (1911): Established the foundational principle that public lands belong to the United States government and are not held in trust for any state
- Mountain States Legal Foundation v. Bush, 306 F.3d 1132 (D.C. Cir. 2002): Upheld President Clinton's Utah monument designations against size challenges
- Tulare County v. Bush, 306 F.3d 1138 (D.C. Cir. 2002): Rejected constitutional challenges to large monument designations, affirming that the Antiquities Act's "smallest area" requirement does not provide a judicially enforceable limit on presidential judgment
- Zinke v. Havasupai Tribe: Litigation over Bears Ears reductions remains active in federal courts; the D.C. Circuit has jurisdiction over the question of whether reductions are lawful under the Antiquities Act
The next administration must advance the affirmative legal position — through litigation, rulemaking, and legislation if necessary — that the Antiquities Act does not grant reduction authority to subsequent presidents. This position is supported by the text of the Act, which grants authority to "declare" monuments but contains no revocation or reduction provision; by the historical practice of presidents who have enlarged but not reduced prior monuments; and by the canon of constitutional avoidance, which requires courts to interpret the Act in a manner that preserves, rather than destroys, the objects of historic and scientific interest the Act was designed to protect.
On Day One, the president will issue proclamations restoring Bears Ears National Monument to its full 1.36 million-acre boundary as established by President Obama's 2016 proclamation, and restoring Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument to its full 1.9 million-acre boundary as established by President Clinton's 1996 proclamation. Both proclamations will:
- Explicitly reaffirm the co-management framework for Bears Ears with the five tribal nations of the Bears Ears Commission
- Direct BLM and the Forest Service to resume the collaborative management plan development process with tribal partners
- Restore the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition's formal role in monument management
- Reinstate and strengthen all management plan restrictions on mineral extraction, off-road vehicle use, and surface disturbance within monument boundaries
The proclamations will also restore Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument to its full protected status, reversing the Trump administration's 2020 order allowing commercial fishing in the monument.
Within 60 days of inauguration, the Secretary of the Interior will conduct a comprehensive review of all monuments reduced, modified, or threatened during the Trump administrations and will recommend restoration of any monument where the reduction violated the Antiquities Act's requirement that designations reflect the "smallest area compatible with proper care and management of the objects to be protected" — a standard that, read correctly, does not authorize subsequent reduction.
Congress must pass the National Monument Integrity Act to:
- Establish by statute that national monuments designated under the Antiquities Act cannot be reduced or revoked by subsequent presidents without affirmative congressional action
- Require meaningful tribal consultation before any monument review, modification, or management plan change
- Provide that management plans developed in collaboration with tribal co-managers have the force of binding agreements under the federal trust responsibility
- Create an independent scientific advisory panel to evaluate monument objects and management effectiveness
The Federal Land Policy and Management Act mandates multiple-use and sustained-yield management of BLM lands. "Multiple use" includes recreation, watershed protection, wildlife habitat, and scenic values — not exclusively extraction. The next administration will:
- Issue a Secretary's Order reaffirming conservation, recreation, wildlife habitat, and watershed protection as co-equal uses of BLM lands, reversing any orders that subordinate conservation to extraction
- Reinstate BLM Washington, D.C. headquarters as the primary administrative center, and reverse the politically motivated relocation that gutted career staff
- Cancel or review all Resource Management Plan amendments finalized under the Trump administration that opened additional lands to extraction without adequate environmental review under NEPA, 42 U.S.C. § 4321
- Reinstate the BLM Conservation and Landscape Health Rule, which established a framework for identifying and prioritizing conservation leases and landscape-scale restoration on BLM lands
The current oil and gas leasing system on public lands is rigged in favor of the fossil fuel industry at taxpayer expense. The administration will:
- Issue an executive order directing Interior to reform the onshore oil and gas royalty rate from 12.5 percent — unchanged since the Mineral Leasing Act of 1920 — to a minimum of 18.75 percent, equal to the offshore rate, through rulemaking under 30 U.S.C. § 226
- Require bonding for reclamation of all new and existing oil and gas wells at levels that fully cover the cost of plugging, reclamation, and long-term monitoring — ending the taxpayer-subsidized orphan well crisis, which has left more than 130,000 unplugged orphaned wells on federal lands
- Implement a "polluter pays" fee for methane waste from oil and gas operations on public lands under authority of the Inflation Reduction Act and the Mineral Leasing Act
- Suspend and review all oil and gas leases issued without adequate NEPA review under the Trump administration, particularly in areas of high conservation value, wilderness character, or proximity to sacred sites
- End the practice of issuing leases for speculation: require that nominated parcels be developed within five years or returned to the public domain
- Cancel the mandate for quarterly lease sales and reinstate the quarterly sale process under the Interior Department's discretion, consistent with multiple-use mandate and conservation science
Current law under the General Mining Act of 1872 — unchanged for over 150 years — allows hard-rock mining companies to extract gold, silver, copper, uranium, and other minerals from public lands without paying royalties. The next administration will:
- Advocate for congressional enactment of a hard-rock mining royalty at a minimum rate of 8 percent of gross proceeds
- Require reclamation bonds that fully cover remediation costs before permits are issued
- Withdraw from hard-rock mining, oil and gas leasing, and all surface-disturbing activities all lands within one mile of national park boundaries, wilderness areas, wild and scenic rivers, and tribal sacred sites
- Fully enforce the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act (30 U.S.C. § 1201) requirements for coal mine reclamation
The administration will immediately reverse all DOGE workforce reductions at the National Park Service. Within 180 days:
- Offer reinstatement to all NPS employees terminated or constructively displaced by DOGE actions and subsequent reduction-in-force orders
- Restore the NPS workforce to at minimum its January 2025 level and begin a multi-year staffing expansion to address the deferred maintenance and operational backlog
- Prioritize hiring of resource managers, rangers, fire crews, and interpretation staff
- Reinstate diversity, equity, and inclusion programs for NPS hiring to ensure park ranger corps reflects the diversity of the American public
The National Park Service's deferred maintenance backlog exceeds $23 billion, encompassing crumbling roads, failing water systems, deteriorating historic structures, and inadequate visitor facilities. The administration will:
- Seek a $10 billion emergency appropriation for NPS deferred maintenance, building on the Great American Outdoors Act of 2020 (P.L. 116-152), which authorized $9.5 billion over five years for deferred maintenance
- Direct NPS to prioritize maintenance projects that have the greatest impact on visitor safety, resource protection, and park gateway community economies
- Establish a National Park Infrastructure Bank to leverage federal investment with private and state partnerships for maintenance of non-resource facilities
The administration will submit to Congress a FY2027 NPS budget restoring the $500 million rescinded from Inflation Reduction Act funding and adding at minimum an additional 15 percent above FY2024 enacted levels to address operational backlogs created by two years of budget and workforce cuts.
President Biden's America the Beautiful initiative established the goal of conserving 30 percent of U.S. lands and waters by 2030 — the 30x30 framework endorsed by the Convention on Biological Diversity and supported by the scientific consensus on preventing a sixth mass extinction. The next administration will:
- Issue an executive order reinstating and strengthening the 30x30 framework, establishing measurable benchmarks for land and water protection each year through 2030
- Direct all Interior bureaus to identify candidate areas for conservation, prioritizing areas of high biodiversity value, water recharge zones, wildlife corridors, and lands adjacent to existing protected areas
- Establish a BLM Conservation Leasing Program allowing conservation organizations and tribal nations to hold conservation leases on BLM lands in the same manner that extractive industries hold development leases, providing a market-based tool for protecting lands without removing them from BLM management
The administration will transmit to Congress a Wilderness proposal package recommending designation of at minimum 10 million acres of lands with wilderness characteristics in the first two years, in coordination with affected states, tribal nations, and local communities.
The administration will:
- Reinstate full protections for the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument
- Designate at minimum three new marine national monuments in areas of high ecological value identified by NOAA and the Fish and Wildlife Service
- Support international agreement on protecting 30 percent of the world's oceans under the UN High Seas Treaty
The administration will issue a Presidential Memorandum within 30 days of inauguration directing all Interior bureaus to:
- Conduct government-to-government consultation with tribal nations before any action affecting tribal interests, treaty rights, sacred sites, or lands under tribal co-management — implementing the consultation requirements of Executive Order 13175 (2000) with enforceable standards and timelines
- Reinstate and expand the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition's co-management role, restoring the full intergovernmental agreement signed in June 2022
- Direct the Bureau of Indian Affairs to review and address the backlog of unresolved tribal treaty and trust claims
- Appoint tribal nation representatives to all advisory boards, planning processes, and review panels for public lands adjacent to or within tribal territories
The administration will champion enactment of the Sacred Places Protection Act to:
- Establish a formal process for tribal nations to identify and register sacred sites on federal lands, with binding consultation requirements before any agency action affecting those sites
- Provide that federal agencies must demonstrate a compelling government interest before authorizing any ground-disturbing activity within a defined buffer zone around registered sacred sites
- Create criminal penalties for unauthorized excavation, collection, or disturbance of sacred sites, supplementing existing penalties under the Archaeological Resources Protection Act (16 U.S.C. § 470)
- Fund tribal monitors to accompany any archaeological survey, permitting, or inspection activity in areas containing sacred sites
Congress must pass the Tribal Co-Management of Public Lands Act to:
- Provide explicit statutory authority for BLM, NPS, and the Forest Service to enter co-management agreements with tribal nations for lands within or adjacent to traditional territories
- Give co-management agreements the legal effect of binding agency policy, not merely advisory frameworks
- Fund tribal governments to participate meaningfully in co-management planning, including funding for tribal historic preservation offices, traditional ecological knowledge programs, and tribal monitors
- Require co-management agreements as a prerequisite for any new resource extraction permit on lands within co-management areas
The Bureau of Indian Education serves approximately 46,000 students in 183 schools across 23 states. The administration will:
- Restore funding cut by the Trump administration to BIE schools
- Support tribal control of BIE schools consistent with the Indian Self-Determination Act
- Increase BIE per-pupil funding to be competitive with public school funding in relevant states
- Fund full implementation of the BIE School Replacement and Repair Program to address the backlog of structurally deficient school buildings
Within 90 days of inauguration, the Secretary of the Interior will direct the Fish and Wildlife Service to:
- Initiate relisting proceedings for gray wolf populations delisted under the Trump administration, applying the ESA's science-based standard under 16 U.S.C. § 1533
- Initiate listing proceedings for grizzly bear populations under the FWS's own January 2025 proposed rule, completing the rulemaking process that was abandoned under political pressure
- Review and reverse all Trump-era regulations weakening ESA protections for threatened species, including regulations published at 84 Fed. Reg. 44,753 (2019) that changed the standard for threatened species protections
- Restore the blanket rule providing threatened species with the same protections as endangered species, reversed by the Trump administration's 2019 ESA rules
The administration will:
- Issue a revised rule clarifying that "critical habitat" under the ESA includes areas outside a species' current range that are essential to recovery, reversing Trump-era restrictions
- Remove economic impact analysis from listing decisions, consistent with the statutory text and the Supreme Court's holding in Tennessee Valley Authority v. Hill
- Fund a comprehensive review of all species whose listing status has not been reviewed within the statutory five-year period, prioritizing species with declining population trends
The Mexican gray wolf (Canis lupus baileyi) remains one of the most endangered mammals in North America, with fewer than 250 individuals in the wild. The administration will:
- Issue an executive order directing FWS to finalize the Mexican Wolf Recovery Plan revisions expanding the recovery area into Colorado and Utah
- Work with tribal nations in the wolf's historic range to develop co-management agreements for wolf recovery on tribal lands
- Fund full implementation of depredation compensation programs to address conflicts with livestock producers
The Migratory Bird Treaty Act (16 U.S.C. § 703) has protected migratory birds from incidental killing by industrial operations since 1918 through a strict liability framework that incentivized industry adoption of bird-safe practices. The Trump administration reinstated the 2017 Solicitor's opinion concluding that incidental take is not prohibited, removing legal accountability from industries responsible for killing hundreds of millions of birds annually.
The administration will:
- Revoke the Solicitor's opinion limiting MBTA liability and reinstate the longstanding interpretation that incidental take violates the Act, consistent with the majority of circuit court holdings
- Publish a proposed rule establishing a general permit framework for incidental take that requires demonstrated adoption of best practices for bird-safe operations, with administrative process for industry compliance
- Support enactment of the Migratory Bird Protection Act to codify incidental take liability by statute and resolve the circuit split, creating a national standard
- Restore FWS Migratory Bird Program staffing to FY2024 levels and fund expansion of the North American Bird Conservation Initiative
- Require incidental take analysis as a component of NEPA review for all major federal permits on public lands, including oil and gas drilling permits and clean energy projects
The Fish and Wildlife Service requires expanded capacity to fulfill its ESA, MBTA, and National Wildlife Refuge management responsibilities. The administration will seek:
- A 25 percent increase in FWS operational budget above FY2024 enacted levels
- Staffing restoration and expansion for the Ecological Services Program, which processes ESA consultations and species listings
- Full funding for State and Tribal Wildlife Grants to support partner conservation efforts
- Restoration of the National Wildlife Refuge System operations budget to address deferred maintenance and staffing gaps across the 568-unit National Wildlife Refuge System, which protects habitat for more than 700 species of birds, 220 species of mammals, and 250 species of reptiles and amphibians
Public lands have extraordinary clean energy potential. The Biden administration approved more than 25 gigawatts of clean energy projects on public lands — enough to power more than 12 million homes. The Trump administration reversed course, prioritizing fossil fuel leasing over renewable energy. The next administration will:
- Issue an executive order reinstating the BLM's Renewable Energy Rule, which reduced fees for solar and wind projects by approximately 80 percent and streamlined permitting in priority areas
- Reinstate the Western Solar Plan's framework making over 31 million acres of BLM land available for solar development in appropriate zones
- Set a target of approving 50 gigawatts of clean energy capacity on public lands by 2030
- Fast-track permitting for clean energy projects in the BLM's identified priority areas, while requiring rigorous habitat protection reviews for projects outside those areas
- Fund transmission infrastructure planning to connect clean energy projects on public lands to population centers
Clean energy expansion on public lands must not replicate the harms of fossil fuel development. The administration will:
- Require all clean energy permit applications to complete full ESA Section 7 consultation and NEPA environmental review
- Prohibit clean energy development in wilderness areas, wilderness study areas, areas of critical environmental concern, lands with wilderness characteristics, national monuments, and within co-management areas unless affirmatively approved by tribal co-managers
- Establish mitigation requirements for habitat disturbance from clean energy infrastructure, funded by developer fees
- Create a biodiversity offset program requiring clean energy developers on public lands to fund conservation of equivalent or greater habitat value
Public lands generate revenue from fossil fuel and clean energy leasing that should benefit the communities adjacent to those lands. The current revenue-sharing framework returns 25 percent of oil and gas royalties to states and counties under the Mineral Leasing Act (30 U.S.C. § 191). The next administration will:
- Seek legislative expansion of revenue sharing from clean energy leasing to include 25 percent to host states and counties and 10 percent to tribal nations with traditional territories overlapping the project area
- Establish a Public Lands Transition Fund, financed by royalties from fossil fuel leasing, to support economic diversification in fossil fuel-dependent gateway communities transitioning to clean energy and outdoor recreation economies
- Fund community benefit agreements as a condition of major clean energy project approvals, requiring developers to support local workforce training, infrastructure improvements, and environmental monitoring programs in affected communities
The administration will take the following actions within the first 90 days:
- Reinstate all USGS employees terminated or displaced by DOGE actions and proposed reduction-in-force orders
- Restore and expand the USGS Water Resources Research Program, which monitors water quality and quantity in rivers, lakes, and aquifers across all 50 states
- Reinstate USGS earthquake monitoring programs, including the Advanced National Seismic System network, which provides real-time earthquake data used for building code standards and emergency response
- Fund expansion of USGS volcano observatories, particularly in Alaska, Hawaii, and the Pacific Northwest
- Restore all USGS climate change research programs and reinstate publication of all reports suppressed or withheld during the Trump administration
The Secretary of the Interior will issue a comprehensive scientific integrity policy applicable to all Interior bureaus — BLM, NPS, FWS, USGS, BIA, Bureau of Reclamation, and Office of Surface Mining — that:
- Prohibits any political appointee from altering, delaying, suppressing, or misrepresenting scientific findings produced by agency scientists
- Requires that all agency decisions affecting land and resource management be based on the best available science, with the scientific record publicly disclosed
- Establishes an Interior Scientific Integrity Officer with authority to investigate and publicly report on violations of scientific integrity policy
- Provides civil service protections for agency scientists who report political interference with scientific work
- Requires that all ESA listing decisions, critical habitat determinations, and environmental impact statements identify the scientific basis for each conclusion and document any instances where political review sought to alter scientific findings
The administration will seek appropriations restoring USGS to its FY2024 funding level and adding 20 percent above that level to address the backlog of deferred scientific monitoring, mapping, and research programs. Priority funding increases will be directed to:
- Streamflow gauging network restoration and expansion, which underpins water rights adjudication across the arid West
- National groundwater monitoring network, critical for agricultural and municipal planning in drought-affected regions
- Land Remote Sensing Program, which provides satellite data on land cover change, wildfire, flood, and drought
- Mineral Resources Program, to provide independent scientific assessment of mineral deposit locations and values — reducing dependence on industry self-reporting in permitting decisions
The administration will on Day One:
- Issue an executive order withdrawing from oil and gas leasing all areas covered by President Biden's January 2025 withdrawal, including the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, Pacific Coast of Alaska, and eastern Gulf of Mexico
- Direct the Solicitor of the Interior to defend in court the legal authority of presidents to make permanent offshore drilling withdrawals under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act
- Cancel all lease sales scheduled under the Trump administration's 2026-2031 proposed five-year leasing program
The administration will:
- Reinstate the withdrawal of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge coastal plain from oil and gas leasing, consistent with the Congressional intent behind ANWR's creation
- Reinstate protections for the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska that restrict the most sensitive ecological areas from leasing
- Support tribal nations along Alaska's coast in asserting subsistence fishing rights and opposing offshore drilling operations that threaten those rights
- Work with Congress to permanently protect ANWR from drilling through statute, removing it from the discretion of any future administration
The administration will:
- Complete and submit to Congress a comprehensive Ocean Climate Action Plan developed in coordination with NOAA, the Fish and Wildlife Service, and coastal states
- Reinstate and expand the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument to its full extent
- Support international negotiations for binding protections for the high seas under the UN High Seas Treaty
- Establish and fund an Office of Ocean Resource Management within Interior to coordinate offshore energy leasing with marine protected area designations, ensuring that the 30x30 goal includes meaningful ocean conservation
The Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF), authorized at 54 U.S.C. § 200301, directs revenues from offshore oil and gas leasing into a fund for protecting federal public lands and providing matching grants to states for recreational parks and open space. Congress permanently authorized the LWCF at $900 million per year through the Great American Outdoors Act of 2020 (P.L. 116-152), but the Trump administration proposed diverting these funds away from land conservation toward maintenance of existing federal facilities and roads — a fundamental perversion of the LWCF's purpose.
The next administration will:
- Direct Interior to use LWCF funds for their statutory purpose: acquiring lands with outstanding natural, scenic, recreational, and ecological values
- Issue an executive order requiring that at minimum 40 percent of LWCF acquisitions benefit communities that lack equitable access to public open space, implementing the Justice40 framework's commitment that 40 percent of federal environmental investments benefit disadvantaged communities
- Prioritize LWCF acquisitions that fill gaps in protected area networks, create wildlife corridors, protect water sources, or connect existing federal lands to community open spaces
- Restore state and local assistance grants that the Trump administration proposed cutting, which fund local parks, trails, and recreational facilities in all 50 states
- Work with Congress to expand LWCF authorization to $1.5 billion annually to address the backlog of identified but unfunded acquisition priorities
Within the first year, the Secretary of the Interior will identify and begin acquisition proceedings for:
- High-priority inholdings within national parks and monuments — private land parcels surrounded by or adjacent to protected areas — whose private ownership creates management conflicts and access barriers
- Lands at the headwaters of rivers that provide drinking water to major population centers, prioritizing voluntary willing-seller transactions
- Lands in the path of documented wildlife corridors connecting existing protected areas, particularly in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, the Southern Rockies, and the Pacific flyway
- Coastal lands at immediate risk of development that provide storm surge buffering, carbon sequestration, and recreational access for communities with limited open space
- Issue presidential proclamations restoring Bears Ears National Monument to 1.36 million acres and Grand Staircase-Escalante to full boundaries, reaffirming the co-management framework with the Bears Ears Commission tribal nations
- Sign executive order withdrawing from oil and gas leasing all areas covered by Biden's January 2025 offshore drilling ban, covering 625 million acres of ocean
- Issue presidential memorandum directing all Interior bureaus to conduct government-to-government consultation with tribal nations before any action affecting tribal interests, treaty rights, or sacred sites, with enforceable 90-day consultation timelines
- Issue executive order reinstating BLM's Renewable Energy Rule and Western Solar Plan, and directing BLM to prioritize clean energy permitting in identified priority zones
- Sign executive order reinstating and strengthening the 30x30 America the Beautiful framework with annual benchmarks and Secretary-level accountability
- Issue executive order halting all Interior Department reduction-in-force actions and offering reinstatement to all employees terminated since January 20, 2025
- Issue a Secretary's Order reinstating the BLM Conservation and Landscape Health Rule and re-establishing conservation as a co-equal use of public lands
- Direct the Solicitor of the Interior to issue legal opinions defending the illegality of the Trump monument reductions and the illegality of the offshore drilling executive orders under existing statutory authority
- Reinstate the Interior Department's scientific integrity policy and designate an Interior Scientific Integrity Officer with investigative authority
- Complete comprehensive monument restoration review identifying all monuments reduced or threatened under Trump administrations; issue proclamations for all unlawfully reduced monuments
- Cancel all oil and gas lease sales scheduled by the Trump administration that have not yet been completed, pending NEPA review and compliance with restored conservation requirements
- Initiate notice-and-comment rulemaking to reform onshore oil and gas royalty rates from 12.5 percent to 18.75 percent under authority of 30 U.S.C. § 226
- Initiate relisting rulemaking for gray wolf and grizzly bear under the ESA's scientific standard, directing FWS to apply the best available science without political interference
- Execute renewed intergovernmental agreement with the five nations of the Bears Ears Commission, restarting collaborative monument management plan development with full tribal co-management authority
- Cancel the mandate for quarterly oil and gas lease sales under the "One Big Beautiful Bill" provisions and reinstate Interior Secretary's discretion over lease sale scheduling under FLPMA
- Submit to Congress an emergency supplemental appropriations request of $2 billion for NPS workforce restoration, operational recovery, and deferred maintenance
- Publish notice of proposed rulemaking to reverse Trump administration 2019 ESA rollbacks (84 Fed. Reg. 44,753)
- Designate Secretary-level task forces for each major reform area with 180-day action plans and public accountability reporting
- Complete initial USGS restoration plan, reinstating all terminated scientists and data programs
- Restore State and Tribal Wildlife Grants at full FY2024 funding levels through emergency reprogramming
- Finalize royalty rate rulemaking increasing onshore oil and gas royalties to 18.75 percent
- Complete comprehensive review of all Trump-era Resource Management Plan amendments and initiate repeal or revision of amendments inconsistent with FLPMA's multiple-use mandate
- Introduce to Congress the National Monument Integrity Act, the Sacred Places Protection Act, and the Tribal Co-Management of Public Lands Act
- Complete initial 30x30 assessment identifying priority conservation areas and submit first annual progress report to Congress
- Finalize new ESA rules reversing Trump administration 2019 rollbacks
- Approve first 10 gigawatts of new clean energy projects under streamlined permitting process
- Publish draft hard-rock mining royalty proposed rule and transmit proposed legislation to Congress
- Complete review of all pending ANWR and Alaska offshore drilling permits and cancel those not in compliance with restored protections
- Submit Wilderness designation recommendations to Congress for 10 million acres, prioritizing areas with documented wilderness character and tribal cultural significance
- Achieve 15 gigawatts of approved clean energy capacity on public lands by year two as interim milestone toward the 50 gigawatt 2030 goal
- Finalize and begin implementation of BIE school repair and replacement program with dedicated capital budget
- Complete Mexican gray wolf recovery plan revision under 16 U.S.C. § 1533 and initiate coordinated population expansion into Colorado and Utah in partnership with affected tribal nations and state wildlife agencies
- Finalize new offshore five-year leasing program covering only areas without prior withdrawal protections, with robust environmental review for all Gulf of Mexico lease sales
- Achieve measurable progress toward 30x30: protect or restore at minimum 10 million additional acres through conservation leases, tribal co-management agreements, wilderness designations, and LWCF acquisitions
- Fully staff NPS and BLM to pre-Trump levels plus 15 percent by year three, with priority hiring of resource managers, interpretive rangers, and scientific staff
- Achieve full bonding compliance for all active oil and gas wells on public lands, with funded remediation plans for all identified orphaned wells, eliminating the taxpayer liability for reclamation of abandoned federal lease sites
- Complete hard-rock mining reform rulemaking and transmit Hard-Rock Mining Reform and Reclamation Act to Congress with administration support
- Establish tribal co-management agreements for at minimum five public land units beyond Bears Ears, in partnership with tribal nations who have expressed interest
- Achieve Sacred Sites registry operational maturity with tribal nations in all regions participating
- Complete BLM Resource Management Plan revision process for plans amended without adequate NEPA review under the Trump administration
- Purpose: Establish by statute that national monuments designated under the Antiquities Act cannot be reduced or revoked by subsequent executive action without explicit congressional authorization
- Key Provisions: Define unlawful "reduction" as any change to monument boundaries or management plan that removes protection from objects of historic or scientific interest identified in the designating proclamation; require congressional approval of any monument boundary change exceeding five percent of monument area; require a tribal consultation period of at minimum 18 months before any monument review; provide judicial review in federal district court for any monument modification
- Constitutional Authority: Congress's plenary authority under the Property Clause (Art. IV, § 3, cl. 2) to prescribe rules for federal lands, including rules governing the executive's monument authority
- Purpose: Provide explicit statutory authority for federal land management agencies to enter binding co-management agreements with tribal nations for lands within or adjacent to traditional territories
- Key Provisions: Authorize BLM, NPS, and USFS to execute co-management agreements with tribal nations; require that co-management agreements be treated as binding agency policy; fund tribal participation in co-management through annual appropriations; require co-management consultation before any extractive use permit is issued in co-management areas; provide for tribal monitors at all archaeological surveys and permit inspections in co-management areas
- Constitutional Authority: Property Clause; Indian Commerce Clause (Art. I, § 8, cl. 3); federal trust responsibility
- Purpose: Provide enforceable legal protection for Indigenous sacred sites on federal lands, implementing the policy declared in the American Indian Religious Freedom Act (42 U.S.C. § 1996)
- Key Provisions: Establish a federal registry of sacred sites on federal lands based on tribal identification; require a one-mile buffer zone around registered sacred sites within which no ground-disturbing activity may be authorized without a compelling government interest finding reviewed by federal courts; criminalize unauthorized excavation or disturbance of registered sacred sites; fund tribal historic preservation offices to participate in the registration and monitoring process
- Constitutional Authority: Indian Commerce Clause; Property Clause; congressional power to implement treaty obligations
- Purpose: Accelerate clean energy development on public lands while ensuring protection of sensitive ecological and cultural resources
- Key Provisions: Codify the 30x30 conservation goal as a statutory objective; establish a clean energy development fund financed by royalties from fossil fuel leasing and clean energy lease revenues; require that 30 percent of clean energy lease revenues be distributed to affected tribal nations and gateway communities; set a statutory goal of 50 gigawatts of approved clean energy capacity on public lands by 2030; fund transmission infrastructure connecting public lands clean energy to load centers; prohibit clean energy development in wilderness areas, national monuments, and identified critical habitats without tribal co-manager approval
- Constitutional Authority: Property Clause; Commerce Clause; Congressional taxing and spending power
- Purpose: Modernize the outdated General Mining Act of 1872 to require royalty payments and full reclamation bonding for hard-rock mining on public lands
- Key Provisions: Establish a federal royalty on hard-rock mineral extraction of eight percent of gross proceeds; require reclamation bonding at 125 percent of estimated reclamation costs before any permit is issued; create the Abandoned Mine Reclamation Fund financed by royalties to clean up legacy orphaned mine sites; require comprehensive NEPA review and ESA Section 7 consultation for all new hard-rock mining permits; prohibit new mining in areas within one mile of national park boundaries, wilderness areas, tribal sacred sites, and wild and scenic rivers
- Constitutional Authority: Property Clause; Commerce Clause
- Purpose: Permanently prohibit offshore oil and gas leasing in the Atlantic, Pacific, and eastern Gulf of Mexico Outer Continental Shelf regions, removing these protections from executive discretion
- Key Provisions: Prohibit lease sales under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act in the Atlantic, Pacific, eastern Gulf of Mexico, and Alaskan coastal waters subject to prior congressional moratorium; prohibit leasing in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge coastal plain; provide that this prohibition may only be modified by an Act of Congress; establish a coastal community resilience fund from Gulf of Mexico lease revenues to fund adaptation to sea level rise and storm surge
- Constitutional Authority: Commerce Clause; Property Clause; Congress's plenary authority over the OCS under 43 U.S.C. § 1332
- Purpose: Substantially increase funding for ESA implementation and establish a dedicated recovery fund for the most imperiled species
- Key Provisions: Increase annual appropriations for the Fish and Wildlife Service's Ecological Services Program by $500 million over five years; establish a Species Recovery Fund financed by fees on extractive industry permits on public lands; require completion of recovery plans within three years of listing; require five-year status reviews for all listed species with a mandatory relisting process for species whose populations decline after delisting; restore the blanket rule protecting threatened species at the same standard as endangered species; prohibit economic cost analysis in listing decisions consistent with the ESA statute
- Constitutional Authority: Commerce Clause; Property Clause; Treaty power (Migratory Bird Treaty)
- Purpose: Protect and expand public access to federal lands for recreation, ensure equitable access across income levels and communities of color, and permanently fund the Land and Water Conservation Fund
- Key Provisions: Permanently authorize the Land and Water Conservation Fund at $900 million per year; require that at minimum 40 percent of LWCF funds benefit underserved communities and communities of color consistent with the Justice40 framework; fund a National Trails Maintenance Corps to address deferred maintenance on trails systems; require BLM and NPS to develop public transportation access plans for major parks and recreation areas; prohibit user fees at NPS units for low-income families qualifying for federal nutrition assistance
- Constitutional Authority: Property Clause; Commerce Clause; Congressional spending power
- Purpose: Codify Migratory Bird Treaty Act incidental take liability by statute, resolve the existing circuit split in federal courts, and restore accountability for industries that kill migratory birds through incidental operations
- Key Provisions: Affirm that "take" under the MBTA includes incidental take resulting from industrial operations; establish a general permit framework allowing industry to demonstrate adoption of best available practices for bird-safe operations as a safe harbor; set minimum mitigation requirements for unavoidable incidental take; fund FWS's Migratory Bird Program at $150 million annually; require incidental take analysis as part of NEPA review for all major industrial permits on federal lands; establish criminal and civil penalty provisions with revenues directed to the Migratory Bird Conservation Fund
- Constitutional Authority: Treaty power (Migratory Bird Treaty with Canada, 1916; Mexico, 1936; Japan, 1972; Soviet Union, 1976); Commerce Clause
Land Conservation:
- 30 percent of U.S. lands and waters under conservation protection by 2030, as measured by the America the Beautiful framework
- At minimum 10 million additional acres of wilderness designated during the administration
- All national monuments restored to full legally established boundaries within 90 days of inauguration
- Zero net loss of protected acreage from any monument reduction during the administration's tenure
Workforce and Operations:
- National Park Service workforce restored to January 2025 levels within 180 days
- BLM workforce restored to January 2025 levels within 180 days
- Zero deferred maintenance projects in the "critical" category for visitor safety by year four
- NPS visitor satisfaction scores restored to 2024 levels within 24 months
Fossil Fuel Accountability:
- Onshore oil and gas royalty rate increased to 18.75 percent through final rulemaking within 18 months
- 100 percent of active oil and gas wells on public lands in bonding compliance within 24 months
- Funded reclamation plans in place for all identified orphaned wells by year four
- Zero new leases issued in areas of high conservation value, monument boundaries, or co-management areas without full environmental review
Clean Energy:
- 25 gigawatts of clean energy approved on public lands within 24 months
- 50 gigawatts of approved clean energy capacity on public lands by 2030
- Clean energy permitting timelines reduced to 24 months for priority area projects
Tribal Sovereignty:
- Tribal co-management agreements in place for Bears Ears and at minimum five additional public land units adjacent to tribal territories by year two
- Sacred sites registry operational with at minimum 500 registered sites by year two
- Zero unauthorized ground disturbance within registered sacred site buffer zones during the administration's tenure
- Government-to-government consultation conducted before 100 percent of significant Interior Department actions affecting tribal interests
Endangered Species:
- Gray wolf relisting final rule published within 18 months
- Grizzly bear listing determination completed within 24 months
- Backlog of overdue five-year ESA status reviews cleared by year three
- Mexican gray wolf population exceeding 300 individuals by 2030
Offshore:
- All Biden-era offshore drilling protections reinstated by Day One
- No new offshore lease sales in Atlantic, Pacific, or eastern Gulf of Mexico during the administration's tenure
- Legislation permanently prohibiting offshore drilling in protected coastal waters introduced to Congress within year one
Scientific Integrity:
- USGS workforce fully restored to January 2025 levels within 90 days of inauguration
- Interior Scientific Integrity Officer position filled and operational within 60 days
- Zero suppressed or politically altered agency scientific publications during the administration's tenure
- All USGS data products and research reports suppressed during the Trump administration publicly restored and archived within 180 days
Economic and Community Outcomes:
- Outdoor recreation economy on public lands maintained at or above $128 billion annually throughout the administration's tenure
- Gateway community economic indicators — employment, tax revenue, visitor spending — tracked annually and reported to Congress
- At minimum $500 million in LWCF acquisitions per year, with 40 percent directed to communities lacking equitable access to public open space
- Abandoned and orphaned well reclamation fund operational and funded by year two, with publicly tracked progress toward the elimination of all orphaned well taxpayer liabilities on federal lands
- Hard-rock mining royalty revenue generating at minimum $500 million annually in the first year following enactment of reform legislation, directed to reclamation of legacy abandoned mine sites
Tribal Trust and Consultation:
- BIA trust fund management backlog eliminated by year three
- BIE per-pupil funding increased to within 10 percent of surrounding state public school average by year two
- All Interior agency policies reviewed for compliance with federal trust responsibility within year one, with corrective action plans for identified deficiencies
- Annual public report on government-to-government consultation activities across all Interior bureaus, tracking compliance with consultation requirements
- Sacred Sites registry operational with tribal participation from all 12 Interior Department regional zones
Migratory Birds and Wildlife:
- Migratory Bird Treaty Act incidental take liability restored within 90 days through revocation of the 2017 Solicitor's opinion
- National Wildlife Refuge System deferred maintenance backlog reduced by 30 percent by year four
- State and Tribal Wildlife Grants at full statutory authorization levels by year one
- FWS Ecological Services Program backlog of ESA consultations and listing petitions reduced by 50 percent by year three through restored and expanded staffing
Revenue Accountability:
- Onshore oil and gas royalty collections audited annually and all underpayments pursued for collection
- Clean energy revenue-sharing legislation introduced to Congress within year one
- Hard-rock mining royalty rulemaking completed within 24 months
- Public Lands Transition Fund operational with at minimum $100 million appropriated for fossil fuel community economic diversification by year two
Constitutional Provisions:
- U.S. Const. Art. IV, § 3, cl. 2 (Property Clause)
- U.S. Const. Art. I, § 8, cl. 3 (Indian Commerce Clause)
- U.S. Const. Art. II, § 2 (Treaty Clause)
Statutes:
- Antiquities Act, 54 U.S.C. § 320301 (1906)
- National Park Service Organic Act, 54 U.S.C. § 100101 (1916)
- General Mining Law of 1872, 30 U.S.C. § 22
- Mineral Leasing Act, 30 U.S.C. § 181 (1920)
- Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, 43 U.S.C. § 1331 (1953)
- American Indian Religious Freedom Act, 42 U.S.C. § 1996 (1978)
- Archaeological Resources Protection Act, 16 U.S.C. § 470 (1979)
- Endangered Species Act, 16 U.S.C. § 1531 (1973)
- National Environmental Policy Act, 42 U.S.C. § 4321 (1970)
- Federal Land Policy and Management Act, 43 U.S.C. § 1701 (1976)
- Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act, 30 U.S.C. § 1201 (1977)
- Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act, 25 U.S.C. § 5301 (1975)
- National Historic Preservation Act, 54 U.S.C. § 300101 (1966)
- Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, 16 U.S.C. § 1271 (1968)
- Wilderness Act, 16 U.S.C. § 1131 (1964)
- Migratory Bird Treaty Act, 16 U.S.C. § 703 (1918)
- Great American Outdoors Act, P.L. 116-152 (2020)
- Land and Water Conservation Fund Act, 54 U.S.C. § 200301
Supreme Court Cases:
- Light v. United States, 220 U.S. 523 (1911) (federal public land authority)
- Kleppe v. New Mexico, 426 U.S. 529 (1976) (plenary federal land authority)
- Tennessee Valley Authority v. Hill, 437 U.S. 153 (1978) (ESA prohibits economic analysis in listing)
- United States v. Mitchell, 463 U.S. 206 (1983) (federal trust responsibility)
- Mountain States Legal Foundation v. Bush, 306 F.3d 1132 (D.C. Cir. 2002) (monument designation authority)
- Tulare County v. Bush, 306 F.3d 1138 (D.C. Cir. 2002) (large monument designations valid)
Regulatory Authorities:
- 43 C.F.R. Part 3100 (BLM oil and gas leasing regulations)
- 50 C.F.R. Part 402 (ESA Section 7 consultation procedures)
- 43 C.F.R. Part 46 (NEPA implementation for Interior Department)
- 36 C.F.R. Part 60 (National Register of Historic Places)
- Trump ESA rollback rules, 84 Fed. Reg. 44,753 (Aug. 27, 2019) (to be reversed)
Project 2025 Source:
- Heritage Foundation, Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise, Chapter 16 (Department of the Interior), authored by William Perry Pendley (2023)
- Center for Western Priorities, From Disavowal to Delivery: The Trump Administration's Rapid Implementation of Project 2025 on Public Lands (January 2026)
- Environmental Data and Governance Initiative, Project 2025: Department of the Interior — Annotated (2024)
Economic Data:
- Outdoor Recreation Roundtable, Outdoor Recreation on Federal Public Lands Generates $351 Million Daily (2025)
- Bureau of Land Management, Progress on Public Lands: BLM 2025 Trump Administration Accomplishments (January 2026)
- National Parks Conservation Association, National Park Service Workforce and Funding Data (2025)
- Headwaters Economics, Public Lands and Economic Outcomes (2024)
- Center for American Progress, The Trump Administration's Expansive Push to Sell Out Public Lands to the Highest Bidder (2025)
Monument and Tribal Sources:
- Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition, The Bears Ears Commission (documentation of co-management agreement)
- BLM and U.S. Forest Service, Inter-Governmental Cooperative Agreement for Bears Ears National Monument (June 18, 2022)
- National Parks Conservation Association, Bears Ears Makes History with Release of Proposed Management Plan (2024)
- Earthjustice, The Biden Administration's Record on Tribal Rights (2024)
- Natural Resources Defense Council, NRDC et al. v. Trump et al. (Bears Ears National Monument) (ongoing litigation)
- Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, Trump's Repeal of Utah Monuments Leaves Millions of Acres in Limbo (2025)
- National Geographic, What Trump's Shrinking of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante Means (2017, updated 2025)