Everything the Trump Administration Did to America’s Public Lands in 2025
An accounting of the Trump administration’s actions against public lands, conservation laws, and the people who protect them.
2025 may well be remembered as a turning point in modern history. The year the western world’s liberal ideals collapsed under sustained assault, led not by its enemies, but by the United States itself.
America didn’t merely retreat from its founding principles or abandon its allies. It turned on them. The country that once claimed to champion law, restraint, and democratic governance instead modeled something far darker: open corruption, institutional capture, and the rule of power unconstrained by truth or consequence.
Public lands tell that story with unusual clarity.
They’ve always been a measure of what a country believes about itself — whether it sees shared inheritance or private spoils, stewardship or extraction, restraint or domination. In 2025, that question was answered decisively. Through action after action, decision after decision, carried out with speed, coordination, and open contempt for the public trust.
The Dismantling of America’s Public Lands
What follows is an itemized record of nearly everything the Trump administration did to America’s public lands in 2025.
It’s not complete — the pace, volume, and deliberate effort to obscure these actions have made full accounting nearly impossible — but it is more comprehensive than anything assembled elsewhere. Taken together, these actions amount to something unmistakable: a government that no longer governs in the public interest, but uses the power of the state to strip, sell, and sacrifice what belongs to all of us.
The following are in no specific order:
Issued a day one executive order to “unleash” extraction in Alaska, explicitly targeting the Tongass National Forest and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge by tearing down long-standing public-land protections across millions of acres.
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum told oil, gas, and mining executives that they, not the American public, are the “customer” of the Department of the Interior, openly declaring that federal land management exists to serve industry, not the nation.
Rescinded the National Forest Roadless Rule in the face of overwhelming public opposition, stripping protections from nearly 59 million acres of America’s last intact national forests and throwing them open to roads, logging, drilling, and industrial scarring.
Announced plans to wipe out conservation safeguards on 13 million acres of Alaska’s Western Arctic, sacrificing one of the most wildlife-rich landscapes in North America—caribou calving grounds, polar bear habitat, subsistence lands—to oil drilling.
Ordered the removal of longstanding protections from 28 million acres of “D-1” public lands in Alaska, an area larger than the state of Virginia, to allow mining and drilling on lands that dozens of Alaskan Native tribes had urged to keep protected.
Revived the rejected Ambler Road mining project in Alaska by directing steps to approve a 211-mile private industrial road through the Brooks Range and Gates of the Arctic National Park, a route that would cut across 11 major rivers and 3,000 streams in pristine wilderness.
Began the process of rescinding the mineral withdrawal protecting the Boundary Waters watershed, reopening over 225,000 acres of Superior National Forest to copper-sulfide mining, despite overwhelming public opposition and catastrophic spill risk.
Stated their intent to reinstate the canceled mining leases for the Twin Metals copper-nickel mine on the edge of the Boundary Waters Wilderness – reviving a project (owned by a Chilean conglomerate with a toxic spill record) that had been halted to protect the wilderness watershed.
Moved to overturn a 20-year ban on new oil and gas leasing on 336,000 acres around Chaco Culture National Historical Park (New Mexico), targeting protections put in place in 2023 to safeguard thousands of ancient Puebloan archaeological sites and sacred landscapes from drilling.
Quietly killed proposed mineral withdrawals protecting the Upper Pecos River watershed—without public notice—exposing a culturally significant, trout-rich river system to new mining claims overnight.
Removed a 2024 drilling ban in Nevada’s Ruby Mountains, reopening this iconic recreation and wildlife area to oil and gas leasing after it had been slated for long-term conservation.
Moved to rescind the Bureau of Land Management’s Public Lands “Conservation Rule,” which had just been finalized in 2023. This rollback abandons the policy of treating conservation on par with extraction across 245 million acres, stripping out requirements to balance land use and protect ecologically important areas.
Repealed five recently completed BLM resource management plans in Alaska, Montana, North Dakota, and Wyoming to boost oil, gas, and coal development – a reversal that strips protections from roughly 6.4 million acres, including wildlife migration corridors and Alaska Native subsistence areas.
Gutted the Endangered Species Act by redefining “harm” so destroying an endangered animal’s habitat no longer counts—a legal sleight of hand designed to allow extinction by bulldozer while pretending the law still exists.
Quietly ordered a review of all “withdrawn” public lands, effectively targeting national monuments without saying so explicitly, as a first step toward shrinking or abolishing protected monuments in the name of energy and mineral development.
Stripped protections from Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument, opening over 400,000 square miles of pristine ocean to commercial exploitation after decades of preservation.
Declared a fake “emergency” to fast-track oil and gas permits, allowing companies to bypass ESA and historic-preservation reviews and slashing public comment periods under the pretext of crisis.
Ordered the entire 1.56-million-acre coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to be opened for drilling and mandated new lease sales in the Western Arctic, erasing habitat protections outright.
Reinstated voided oil leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge that had been canceled in 2021, restoring leases held by a state-owned corporation (AIDEA) and clearing the way for drilling to proceed in the refuge despite unresolved legal and environmental concerns.
Advanced a Forest Service rule to speed up oil and gas leasing across nearly 190 million acres of national forests—stripping the agency’s ability to say no and hollowing out environmental review.environmental reviews, making it easier for drilling to spread across national forests.
Signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act into law, forcing oil and gas lease sales every three months across nine Western states whether or not there’s demand, turning public lands into a permanent auction block.
Pushed through provisions in the OBBBA locking in nine additional drilling lease sales in the Arctic Refuge and Western Arctic over the next decade, writing long-term fossil fuel extraction into law.
Gave oil companies unprecedented control over leasing by removing BLM’s discretion to reject industry-nominated parcels. Under the OBBBA, any public land the industry wants to lease must be offered within 18 months – even if it’s next to a national park, wildlife refuge, or community – leaving agencies virtually no ability to say no.
Blocked new site-specific environmental safeguards on leases: H.R. 1 prohibits BLM from adding protective stipulations or mitigation measures to oil and gas leases (unless already in the land’s management plan). This means even if a proposed well would harm a sacred site, wildlife habitat, or park viewshed, BLM cannot require extra protections beyond the outdated plan.
Restored the practice of noncompetitive oil & gas leasing on public lands. The OBBBA brought back $1.50/acre “over-the-counter” leasing (allowing companies to grab unsold parcels for next to nothing) and eliminated the $5-per-acre nomination fee, encouraging speculative leasing and locking up land with no return to taxpayers.
Slashed federal royalty rates for oil and gas extracted from public lands, cutting royalties from 16.7% down to 12.5%, the lowest rate since 1920, dramatically reducing revenue to taxpayers and incentivizing more aggressive drilling on public lands.
Cut coal royalties on public lands almost in half (from 12.5% down to 7%) through the OBBBA, giving a massive discount to one of the dirtiest industries on earth.
Ordered 4 million additional acres of federal land to be made available for coal leasing – reversing the trend of declining coal leases and launching a last-minute unprecedented coal “fire sale” on public lands despite low demand and climate concerns.
The OBBBA requires a 75% increase in timber production on national forests and BLM lands and authorizes new 20-year logging contracts – turning public forests into a volume-driven feedlot to help offset the bill’s tax cuts.
Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) tried to ram a provision into the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” that would have forced the sale of more than 2 million acres of your public land—a brazen fire sale to bankroll tax cuts for the wealthy, stopped only because people noticed in time. More recently Lee tried to remove language requiring the National Park Service to retain all of it’s property as federal land managed by NPS from the 2026 appropriations bill.
Issued an executive order in March invoking emergency authorities to accelerate commercial logging on public lands – directing agencies to use loopholes in the Endangered Species Act to bypass environmental reviews and expedite timber harvests.
Declared nearly 60% of all national forest acreage to be in a state of “emergency” due to wildfire risk to justify large-scale logging projects across roughly 112 million forest acres without normal environmental oversight, under the guise of crisis response.
Signed an executive order on March 20, 2025 making mining the “primary” use of all federal public lands that contain mineral deposits. The order directed that mining be prioritized above recreation, wildlife, or conservation on federal lands, effectively elevating mining over all other uses wherever minerals are present.
Directed agencies to fast-track mining permits and explore subsidies for gold, copper, and uranium mining—bending public-land policy to serve even the most toxic projects.
Launched a rulemaking to weaken hardrock mining oversight in national forests, teeing up faster approvals, thinner reviews, and reduced public input for destructive mining proposals.
Overrode the National Park Service to side with a gold mine operating inside Mojave National Preserve, declaring that a private mining company does not need Park Service permission to keep destroying land inside a national park unit—a staggering assertion of industry supremacy over the park system itself. This was followed by public endorsements of the mine by President Trump and Secretary Burgum.
Carried out a mass purge of the National Park Service workforce, nearly a quarter of the agency, crippling parks nationwide while pretending the damage was about “efficiency” rather than ideological sabotage.
Forced every National Park Service employee to effectively reapply for their own job by submitting resumes in less than a week. An act of calculated humiliation engineered by Russ Vought to demoralize and humiliate public servants.
Proposed a 2026 budget that gutted parks, forests, and wildlife refuges by more than a third, deliberately starving the agencies charged with protecting the land while smirking about “fiscal responsibility.”
Moved to raid the Land and Water Conservation Fund, America’s most successful conservation program, to plug budget holes elsewhere, treating permanently protected land as a piggy bank to smash open.
At a Senate hearing in May 2025, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum proposed transferring low-visitation national park units to states, dismissing such parks as “cost centers” with “almost no visitors” rather than an irreplaceable part of your national heritage.
Launched a federal effort to identify “underutilized” public lands for real estate development, formally declaring that land not actively exploited for profit is land wasted.
Issued orders forbidding park superintendents from reducing hours, closing facilities, or limiting visitor services without approval from Washington, even after massive staff cuts, effectively mandating a lie be maintained even as staff disappeared and resources collapsed.
Forced national parks to stay open during the October 2025 shutdown with skeletal staffing, allowing trash, damage, and safety hazards to pile up while nearly 9,300 park workers were locked out, an intentional spectacle of dysfunction.
Stripped 760 acres of public land in California from civilian use and handed it to the Navy for border wall operations, erasing recreation and access without public consent or debate.
Quietly prepared yet another attack on Bears Ears and Grand Staircase Escalante, signaling the administration’s intent to finish the job it started in Trump’s first term: shrinking monuments until nothing meaningful remains.
Directed Interior to scour national monuments across 13.5 million acres of Arizona, California, and New Mexico for oil, gas, and mineral potential — openly plotting how to gut places that were set aside precisely to be off-limits.
Clawed back approximately $267 million from the National Park Service that had been provided by the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, depriving NPS of resources Congress had already allocated.
Amended NEPA to create a pay-to-play fast-track: project sponsors can pay 125% of review costs to force an Environmental Assessment within 180 days and an Environmental Impact Statement within 1 year of the Notice of Intent.
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin declared the EPA’s job is no longer protecting the environment and rebranded the agency’s mission as lowering the cost of buying a car, heating a home, and running a business.
The EPA announced plans to kill pollution rules for coal plants, including standards for mercury/soot—pollution that damages kids’ brains and lungs.
EPA announced plans to abolish the “Good Neighbor Rule,” letting upwind states dump smog pollution onto downwind neighbors.
Rebranded metallurgical coal as a “critical mineral,” a transparent lie designed to funnel subsidies to an industry that should already be paying for the damage it has caused.
Directed the Interior Department to inventory all mineral resources on federal lands and aggressively prioritize their extraction – essentially instructing agencies to find and open up more areas for mining, drilling, and logging across public lands, regardless of conservation status.
Nominated oil-and-gas lobbyist Kathleen Sgamma to run BLM, then dumped her not because she was captured by industry, but because she privately acknowledged that the January 6 attack on the Capitol was disgusting, proving fealty to Trump matters more than law, ethics, or reality.
Nominated former Rep. Steve Pearce, an anti-public lands zealot known for pushing public land sell-offs and trying to overturn national monument designations, to serve as Director of the Bureau of Land Management.
During the government shutdown the administration continued processing new oil and gas permits on public lands as “essential” business, even as most park protection, visitor services, and other public-land functions were shut down.
Secretary Burgum publicly characterized U.S. public lands as part of the nation’s “balance sheet” – essentially viewing parks, refuges and forests as financial assets for extracting coal, timber, and minerals, rather than natural and cultural treasures to be preserved.
Halted enforcement of a 2024 BLM rule that limited gas flaring and venting from oil wells, postponed key compliance deadlines by at least a year and allowed continued waste of taxpayer-owned natural gas and ongoing methane pollution.
Overturned the new methane emissions fee on oil and gas operations, removing penalties for companies that leak excessive methane on public lands.
Launched a coordinated four-rule assault on the Endangered Species Act, designed to neuter the law without repealing it — forcing economics into extinction decisions (a direct violation of the law), stripping protections from threatened species, and making “critical habitat” nearly impossible to define.
Specifically targeted Alaska’s Tongass National Forest – directing that roadless areas and old-growth timber in the Tongass be opened to logging and road-building once again, despite this 16.7-million-acre rainforest’s global ecological importance.
Wiped out decades of bipartisan NEPA guidance without public input, blowing apart the nation’s environmental review system and daring the courts to stop them.
Legalized industrial bird killing by reviving a Migratory Bird Treaty Act interpretation that absolves corporations when their infrastructure kills wildlife by the thousands.
Ordered a “comprehensive review” of all national wildlife refuges and fish hatcheries to identify sites that “no longer align” with their original purpose, a thinly veiled plan to close, privatize, or exploit lands that exist explicitly to remain wild.
Backed efforts to cripple the Antiquities Act, aiming to permanently prevent future presidents from protecting land at all.
Invoked a self-declared “national energy emergency” to fast-track energy projects – an emergency proclamation used to justify waiving normal environmental safeguards and speeding permits for oil pipelines, transmission lines, and other infrastructure across public lands.
Dismantled the National Park Service’s climate programs and scientific advisory bodies, purging expertise at the exact moment climate impacts are accelerating.
Halted or reversed agreements that gave Native American tribes a formal co-management role in certain national parks and monuments, enabling easier exploitation of sacred land.
Reopened the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument to commercial fishing, sacrificing 5,000 square miles of fragile ocean ecosystem for short-term profit.
Reinstated barbaric predator-killing practices in Alaska, allowing bears and wolves to be baited, trapped, and killed in dens on federal preserves—turning protected land into bloodsport territory.
It’s Staggering
If this list feels excessive, that discomfort is the point. Democracies don’t collapse all at once. They’re dismantled through accumulation — through norms broken, laws ignored, safeguards hollowed out, and institutions degraded until they no longer function as intended.
That’s what 2025 represents. Each one of these offenses is a crisis in their own right. Together, they’re a catastrophe.
What comes next will be worse unless something interrupts it.
This administration has already demonstrated that the law is not a constraint. It’s an obstacle. It will be violated when convenient, ignored when inconvenient, and rewritten when necessary. That’s not conjecture, it’s the record. The only variable now is resistance.
At present, there is effectively none. The White House, the House, the Senate, and the Supreme Court are all in lockstep. Power moves straight through. Ambition becomes statute. Ideology becomes policy. Dissent is sidelined. The results are visible above, line after line, action after action.
If Democrats manage to retake the House, that alignment breaks — but nothing else about this administration changes. Normalcy will not return. Restraint will not suddenly appear. What changes is the terrain. Extreme legislation becomes impossible. Reconciliation is no longer available. Shutdowns would necessitate real concessions. And the response will be predictable: an unprecedented expansion of executive power, a flood of unilateral action, and a willingness to push past legal limits that have already proven meaningless. That will not stop the damage, but it will slow it. And at this point, slowing it matters.
There are no precedents we can rely on to predict where this leads — at least none within American history. We’re in uncharted territory now. The safeguards failed faster than anyone expected. Institutions that were supposed to absorb stress and hold the line collapsed under pressure. What remains is fragile, contested, and under constant assault.
This list exists for one reason: to prevent amnesia.
Because what has happened this year will be minimized. It will be rationalized. It will be recast as “business friendly” and the new normal. And if that happens, if this moment is explained away instead of confronted, then the destruction of America’s public lands will be far from all that’s lost.
The Year Ahead
Next I’ll take a look at the year ahead and what we can expect on our public lands in 2026.
Thanks for reading.
Until next time,
Jim
Thank you for listing all the damage the regime is causing we the people have the power to stop it. My New Year’s resolution is to continue to fight the regime
They paved paradise, put up a parking lot
With a pink hotel, a boutique, and a swingin' hot spot
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone
They paved paradise, put up a parking lot