Trump taps #OilIndustry insider to oversee drilling on #PublicLands

#BureauOfLandManagement nominee #KathleenSgamma heads a #FossilFuel industry trade group that sued the Biden administration over a landmark #conservation rule.

By Maxine Joselow

"President Donald #Trump has nominated oil and gas advocate #KathleenSgamma to lead the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management, the agency tasked with managing millions of acres of public lands and waters for the benefit of all Americans.

"The nomination of Sgamma, who heads a Denver-based oil and gas industry trade group called the #WesternEnergyAlliance, heralds a seismic shift in the management of roughly 245 million acres of public property — about one-tenth of the nation’s land mass.

"If confirmed by the Senate, she would be a key architect of Trump’s #DrillBabyDrill agenda alongside Interior Secretary and '#EnergyCzar' #DougBurgum. An MIT graduate who previously worked in consulting, she has advocated for the BLM to prioritize oil and gas drilling, #HardrockMining and #livestock grazing on public lands nationwide.

"A spokesman for Sgamma did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

"During his first term, Trump tapped conservative lawyer William Perry Pendley to lead the BLM on an acting basis. But Trump never nominated Pendley, a vocal advocate of selling off public lands, to helm the agency on a permanent basis, prompting a rebuke from a federal judge.

"President Joe Biden in 2021 chose Tracy Stone-Manning, a prominent Montana-based #environmentalist, to lead the BLM. Earlier in her career, Stone-Manning worked on conservation policy at the #NationalWildlifeFederation and led Montana’s Department of Environmental Quality.

"Under Biden, the BLM finalized a landmark rule that sought to put conservation, #recreation and #RenewableEnergy development on equal footing with #ResourceExtraction on public lands. Sgamma’s Western Energy Alliance filed a lawsuit challenging that rule, which the Trump administration is expected to overturn.

"In an interview with The Washington Post in April, Sgamma criticized the regulation for allowing ranchers, renewable-energy developers and other interests to lease federal lands for the purpose of #conservation and #HabitatRestoration.

"We have no choice but to litigate,' she said. 'These conservation leases seem to be designed to preclude energy development on federal lands.'

#Environmentalists criticized #Sgamma’s nomination.

"'This choice shows that the new administration will leave no favor ungranted for the oil and gas industry and the wealthy #FossilFuel #executives who funded Trump’s campaign,' #AlanZibel, oil and gas research director with the liberal advocacy group #PublicCitizen, said in an email.

"#JeffEshelman, president and #CEO of the Independent Petroleum Association of America, which represents small oil producers, praised Sgamma’s selection while critiquing the Biden administration."

Original article:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2025/02/12/trump-bureau-land-management-kathleen-sgamma/

Archived version:
https://archive.ph/tmTH6#selection-645.0-724.1
#USPol #BigOilAndGas #Oiligarchy #Oligarchy #BigOilAndGas #BigOilKnew #KillCapitalism #WaterIsLife #LandIsLife #CorporateColonialism #Corporatocracy #BigOilCriminals #ClimateEmergency #ClimateCatastrophe #ClimateCrisis
#NoMiningWithoutConsent #NoMiningOnConservationLands #DrainTheSwamp? More like, #OilUpTheSwamp!#IndepdendentPetroleumAssociationOfAmerica