The 10 public lands and wildlife protections that could be rolled back before the end of the Trump administration
With two months left, Interior Department has long list of damaging policy changes
Over the past three and a half years, the Trump administration has left a wake of destruction when it comes to managing our parks, public lands, and wildlife. Under the leadership of former oil lobbyist David Bernhardt and scandal-plagued former Congressman Ryan Zinke, the Interior Department finalized sweeping policy changes, eliminating rules to reduce methane emissions from drilling on public lands, rolling back regulations to increase the safety and transparency of hydraulic fracturing, watering down offshore drilling safety rules enacted after the Deepwater Horizon explosion, dramatically shrinking national monuments in Utah, and weakening enforcement of the Endangered Species Act.
Now, with just over two months left, the Trump administration is racing to finalize even more destructive policies — from advancing drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to reducing protections for endangered species and migratory birds.
The Center for Western Priorities started tracking the Interior Department’s rule changes at the beginning of 2020, finding 92 policy changes it hoped to achieve during its final year. Since then, the department has finalized 20 of those policies, including land use plans to allow increased development on lands cut from Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments, and weakening air quality standards for offshore drilling.
There are at least 31 policy changes in the process of being finalized by the Interior Department. Here are the ten policy changes with a realistic possibility of being finalized by the end of the Trump administration that pose the most risk to America’s public lands and wildlife:
- Approving seismic testing and auctioning oil and gas leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
- Allowing oil and gas companies to inadvertently kill migratory birds, including in oil spills, without penalties under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act
- Further weakening the Endangered Species Act by limiting which habitat can be protected
- Amending long-term management plans to expand drilling and mining opportunities on public lands in the following areas — Northeast New Mexico, including around Chaco Canyon, southwest New Mexico, including the Permian Basin, Alaska’s National Petroleum Reserve, vast swaths of Western Alaska, lands managed under the California Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan, and western Idaho
- Reopening loopholes to allow oil, gas, and coal companies to skirt royalties owed to taxpayers
- Weaken safety regulations for exploratory offshore drilling in the Alaskan Arctic
- Reducing environmental and regulatory reviews to speed the process of timber sales on public lands
- Allowing baiting of brown bears and increased trapping in Alaska’s Kenai National Wildlife Refuge
- Expanding opportunities to privatize services in national parks
- Allowing property owners to veto listings on the National Register of Historic Places
You can view the complete list of proposed policies below, and find even more information about proposed actions to remove, deny, or add protections for plants and animals under the Endangered Species Act on our continually updated tracker.
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