This is The Landscape, your show about America's
parks, public lands and politics today. I'm Aaron
Weiss with the Center For Western Priorities,
thawing out a little bit finally in Denver
after a frigid cold weekend.
And I'm Kate Gretzinger in Salt Lake City.
Well, it's the day after president Trump's inauguration,
and we're here to break down the barrage
of executive orders he issued last night.
Our guest today is Drew McConville, a senior
fellow on the conservation policy team at the
Center For American Progress.
His research is focused on energy, public lands,
and Alaska. Drew, thanks for joining us. Thanks.
Good to be with you
both.
Well, Drew, it was certainly maybe not a
surprise last night. It was a bit of
shock and awe in terms of the volume
of executive orders that we saw last night,
night, not just the environment, but, of course,
immigration,
inflation,
a whole lot.
Did what we saw last night in terms
of those executive orders line up with what
you were expecting?
Were there any surprises for you?
Yeah. On the one hand, it was pretty
shocking and outrageous.
Shocking
how shamelessly,
president Trump was proclaiming that he would do
anything and everything to put the interests of
oil and gas ahead of anything else.
And that includes walking away from our global
leadership on climate, our,
clean energy advantage,
in the race with China,
and that he would direct his political team,
really, to find ways around the law, really,
all in the name of fossil fuels.
On the other hand,
you know,
it's
as usual, this amounted to a whole lot
of talk.
And, really, we didn't see a lot of
action. Most
of the actions that matter are gonna come
later,
and a lot is easier said than done
when it comes right down to it. Yeah.
Fair enough. It was there was a lot
in there. And reading through them,
was very confusing. It was like, can he
even do this? It was the thought I
had a lot a lot,
many times last night. But, let's talk about
public lands now. How many of these orders
pertained in some way to public lands? And
can you sort of give a quick summary
of the ones that did?
Yeah. There were a few,
really, where that are probably most important when
it comes to our parks and public lands.
There was, one executive order on,
focused on Alaska's
lands and waters and resources
that was called Unleashing
Alaska's Extraordinary
Resource Potential.
There was
the declaration
of a national energy emergency,
which has implications
for,
for drilling and mining
on public lands.
And,
there was a pretty lengthy
executive order called Unleashing American Energy
that had to do with,
that has implications for
drilling,
mining again on public lands and waters.
There was also,
a couple of executive orders, one in particular,
that revoked
past,
kind of a laundry list of of past
orders from the Biden administration.
And
that those had implications as well, including for
this national conservation mission that president Biden launched,
with a lot of support
and for
our efforts to fight the climate crisis too,
in particular.
Obviously, a lot of big flowery language, especially
in those titles of things like unleashing extraordinary
resource potential.
But maybe the silliest there is this notion
that there is an energy emergency
since as we've noted many times on this
podcast,
oil and gas production in America is higher
than it has ever been in history.
So
why say that there's an emergency,
if there's certainly,
no shortage of energy going around?
Yeah. And
there's not only that, you've got oil and
gas companies sitting on, you know, decade of
unused leases, something like that.
And at the same time that he's saying
we're in the midst of an urgent energy
crisis,
he says,
but we don't really wanna do anything about
wind and solar. Actually, on wind, we wanna
shut it all down and immediately halt
any new approvals
of,
both offshore or and onshore wind.
So it it doesn't line up with the
rhetoric for sure.
Why is he doing that?
You know,
I think it's pretty clear when you when
you dig into it that what this is
about is
trying to give any excuse
possible to his political team to find ways
around the law,
in order to advantage,
the oil and gas and and mining
industries that he,
seems to be looking out for here.
And he's specifically calling out,
ways looking for ways around the Endangered Species
Act,
looking for ways around clean water protections,
clean air,
and other other ways. And so calling it
an emergency,
even if it's not an emergency,
seems like what what he's trying to do
here is,
look for ways around the law.
Right. So following from that, the,
unleashing American energy, of course, is sort of,
I guess, his response to the made up
energy emergency.
What was in that EO and sort of
which parts of that really touch on public
lands? Yeah. I mean, there's a lot in
that,
EO.
It does read like,
both a,
I mean, it does read a little bit
like a special interest,
wish list. It also reads a little bit
like,
a list of the things president,
Trump seems to have a beef against, like
electric vehicles and wind.
You know, and it also amounts to quite
a bit of bluster,
and a lot of directions to come back
to him with reports,
and,
recommendations of actions
and where, you know, ultimately,
the the impact will be felt later.
When it comes to
you know, one of the one of the
first things that it talks about is expanding,
drilling and mining on public lands and waters.
And, really, what
it what it does is
basically launch a search and destroy mission with
public lands,
wildlife, and climate protections in the crosshairs.
And it's calling out this,
energy dominance
agenda that he's talked about before.
This time around, he's layering in a new,
element of that and call calling for minerals
dominance.
And and, basically, he calls out he calls
on his political team to
look for existing regulations,
orders,
guidance, policies,
and any and the like, really, to
look for actions that can be revoked because
they're a, quote, unquote, burden,
to
energy development. And, again, energy development doesn't count,
wind and solar.
Just talking about fossil fuels pretty much,
as well as reviewing
protections
of for public lands that are,
well, as well as reviewing protections for public
lands from,
mineral
extraction.
So
here,
they're not named. The places aren't named, but
we're talking about places like Chaco Canyon. We're
talking about the Boundary Waters in Minnesota.
That's sort of what's coded in here. And,
again, a bit of a search and destroy
mission.
Right. It was almost like they didn't know
exactly what they
wanted to undo, but they were just like,
hey. Go look at anything that could be
impacting
oil and gas production
and mining and and figure out how to
reverse it. Or they just don't wanna say
the quiet part out loud yet because they
know that mining in the boundary waters is
in fact really unpopular. So we're not gonna
say that
explicitly on day 1. Now one of the
things they did say explicitly in here
is the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge called out
by name as somewhere that Donald Trump wants
to drill. Drew, I know you focus a
lot on Alaska in your work.
So walk us through what the the the
Trump Alaska order in particular is trying to
do.
Yeah. The Alaska order, more so than the
energy,
order is very specific,
and it is the
special interest hit list, really, when it comes
to Alaska mining and drilling.
It is talking about the western Arctic and
even those areas that where well, even the
most special areas, called special areas,
right, which are,
places like to checkbook lake, this incredible caribou
habitat and wetlands area.
We have birds from all over the world
coming to nest.
Almost anybody should agree these places should be
off limits to drilling.
That's targeted. In fact,
for some reason, the executive order calls for
revoking the same regulations twice.
So it's going after the western Arctic.
It is going after the Tongass National Forest.
It's the world's largest intact temperate rainforest, and
it's trying to open that up to old
growth logging.
It's directing
the completion of this Ambler Road, which is
a a mining,
road to a mining project that may someday
exist, but it's cracking open,
gates of the Arctic National Park and and
other protected areas in the process.
As you mentioned, it
president Trump seems hell bent on drilling the
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, one of the most
biodiverse
spots in the country sorry, in the world.
And,
even though
the oil and gas industry has had 2
bites of the apple and shown no interest
no no major oil companies have any had
any interest in leasing the Arctic National Wildlife
Refuge.
President Trump here is trying to,
take another run at it and force drilling
in that place as well.
There's one other one other thing in that
order that I would call out because it's
it's kind of buried in there.
But
there's,
there are elements of that order, that executive
order on Alaska
that would open up 28,000,000
acres of public lands.
He doesn't do it. He's directing
the interior department to do this, but to
open up 28,000,000
acres of public lands
to extract the development,
lands that have been close to development since
the seventies.
These are known as the d one withdrawals
if you're really in the weeds.
But, you know, what you need to know
is this is an area that's I think
it's, like, 37
the size of 37 Yosemite National Parks,
amazing wildlife habitat, really important subsistence resources for
Alaska Native communities,
and more than half of the federally recognized
tribes in Alaska have called for these protections
to stay in place.
And then buried in this executive order, Trump
says, no. Let's let's get rid of those.
One of the things that I think got
lost in the initial reporting on these executive
orders because they are, you know, so wide
ranging and he just says do this stuff
is the question of can he actually do
this stuff?
And because he's the most specific in Alaska,
maybe you can just start
there and walk us through how much of
this is actually
plausible,
feasible,
doable
via
EO,
or how much of this is just telling
agencies
figure out a way to do this, but
good luck finding a way to do that
do it legally.
Yeah. That it's a great question.
It's
a lot of talk. It's a lot of,
hey. Look at what I'm signing here in
this,
on a jumbotron
in the,
you know, in the arena,
actually
rolling back,
legal protections
like he's calling for here,
may not be impossible in in some cases.
But,
what you're talking about are protections that were
put in place
through
a lot of science, getting up that getting
a lot of science onto the record, a
ton of public input,
really years of work,
to put in place common sense
legal protections for wildlife, for endangered species, for,
special waters. You know, rolling that back doesn't
happen overnight. It takes,
quite a bit of time for an agency
to reconsider
a rulemaking like,
the rule for the western Arctic.
You know, I I talked about the 28,000,000
acres of public lands in Alaska that,
so much of the state,
wanted to see protected.
You know, the agency, the Department of Interior
and the Bureau of Land Management, then DOI,
you know, they worked
for couple of years,
considering
evaluating the environmental impacts of opening this area
up,
made a really sound decision on the basis
of all that.
If they try to rush through,
a reversal
and just say, oh, we changed our mind,
because president Trump told us to, that that
shouldn't hold up in court. And, know, if
you look back at what happened in the
1st Trump administration, he lost a lot in
court. They they weren't real good at it.
No. That part of it. Actually, having stuff
follow the law and hold up. No. No.
And maybe that's
not the point for president Trump. You know?
Mhmm. I guess I guess we'll see if
he's mainly just interested in the day one
publicity.
You know, is is he and his team
gonna are they gonna put the work into
getting this stuff legally tight and and done?
It's hard to kind of imagine. It's hard
to imagine that's possible.
Sorry about the sound effect in the background
there.
No problem.
Yeah. And and, you were mentioning, you know,
rule makings and that those apply to,
you know, the oil and gas drilling. Like,
pretty much everything that was done under Biden
was done through some sort of NEPA or
rulemaking process that would require
a process to undo. So I guess I
I'm curious, like, do you did any of
these really go into effect last night, or
is this all just wait and see wait
and see what
what gets tied up in court? Like, is
is there anything that actually happened
on the ground?
You know,
not a lot of this happened
immediately.
You know, off the top of my head,
what, you know, what the president can do
and what a lot of presidents have done
is they freeze,
you know, ongoing actions. If something was on
its way to
the be published a rule making was on
its way to be published in the federal
register, the president,
yeah, that he can direct his agencies to
stop that and not not
advance it and pause,
action while they review what the previous administration
has done. And that's not uncommon
to have happened.
The Biden administration didn't leave a lot till
the last minute, though. So a lot of
the most impactful and meaningful actions that we've
talked about in
when we talk about public lands,
these things have been done for a while,
and those really weren't vulnerable to immediate freeze
or pause.
We've also seen a lot of the spending
on important clean energy projects,
on conservation
projects. A lot of that stuff has happened,
and,
you know, facilities are being built as a
result.
Manufacturing,
is getting back in action in a lot
of parts of the country.
That doesn't stop just because the president says
stop. You know? On the other hand,
some some of the federal spending
that is,
supposed to be happening under the law,
including stuff that was passed,
in the bipartisan
infrastructure law, a lot of Republican priorities
were frozen here.
And some of that money,
is gonna be stuck.
And there will be impacts of that,
that get felt pretty immediately.
And I suspect,
that's gonna be pretty unpopular,
especially especially
when you're talking about, money to farmers for,
voluntary conservation programs.
Drought resilience.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we're in the middle
of some really horrific
disasters.
And,
you know, I I doesn't seem like the
time to be hitting the brakes on
climate resilience,
on
wildfire,
resilience projects, but that is one of the
things we saw happen last night.
Okay. So
what are you watching for in the coming
weeks? Obviously, there's
a a new congress that's getting off the
ground,
and Trump, I'm sure, is not done with
these executive orders. So what's on your radar?
Yeah. You know, we we wrote a report
fairly recently.
Last week, actually, it came out. It was
called,
8 ways in special interests are asking president-elect
Trump to sell out US public lands.
You know, a lot of what we saw
yesterday,
looks
a lot like a
the early steps,
towards
selling out, selling off our public lands to
those oil and gas industries
and,
the the mining companies, mostly foreign mining companies,
that he's putting first here in these orders.
But some of the details a lot of
the details really remain to be seen.
So I'm watching
how how that all plays out,
including,
you know, what rule makings, what safeguards
for wildlife and clean water,
get targeted.
I'm gonna be looking at those,
protected areas that were put in place by
this administration
and, you know, how the antiquities act itself,
which is,
a bedrock,
law that an incredible conservation
tool that,
a lot of president Trump's allies have said
should go, you know, after,
you know, over a 100 years of of
being the most important conservation tool we have.
So just a lot of, lot of things
to watch, those national monuments,
and more.
Only other thing I'm gonna add there is
the who.
Who's gonna be tasked with doing this stuff?
We know Doug Burgum, almost certainly gonna be
confirmed
as interior secretary. Kate McGregor, back for a
stint as deputy secretary. But then below that,
who's gonna run the Bureau of Land Management?
Who's
But then, below that, who's gonna run the
Bureau of Land Management? Who's gonna be in
charge of
USGS, which runs this board of geographic names
that's tasked with
doing stupid things like renaming Denali and the
gulf of Mexico.
A whole lot of dumb stuff that we
didn't even have a chance to get to
here that I'm sure we will
eventually. But I think we'll call this great
for now.
Drew McConville,
center,
for American Progress. Thank you so much for
being back with us and walking us through
all the
terrible stuff we saw last night. Well, thanks,
Kate. Thanks, Aaron. Appreciate you all covering this.
Alright. Let's wrap up with a little good
news, shall we?
The Environmental Protection Agency has signed a first
of its kind agreement with the Navajo Nation
to transport 1,000,000 cubic yards of low grade
radioactive waste from a former uranium mine near
Gallup, New Mexico to an off reservation disposal
site.
This mine is one of the largest and
highest risk uranium contamination sites on the Navajo
Nation according to the EPA.
In 2020, researchers found that there are over
1200
abandoned uranium mines on the Navajo Nation. And
a 2008 study found uranium contamination
in 29 water sources across the reservation.
The waste removal process will begin in early
2025
and take 6 to 8 years to complete
according to the EPA.
The disposal facility will be sealed once the
cleanup is done.
Now this brings up another important point that
we are certainly gonna be talking a lot
about over the next 4 years, nuclear waste
disposal.
Elected officials across the west, and this stretches
across party lines,
appear to be embracing nuclear energy
despite the
negative
ongoing impact still today of uranium mining and
nuclear waste and nuclear processing
across the Colorado Plateau, especially
in Arizona
and Utah
and New Mexico, of course.
We're gonna be following this closely because as
much as these politicians say they want clean
nuclear energy,
no one has figured out where to put
all that nuclear waste, which is decidedly
not clean,
and nobody's volunteering saying, yes, please put a
nuclear waste dump in my backyard.
Well, that's it for this episode. Send us
your feedback, podcast@westernpriorities.org,
and let us know what you're worried about
as the Trump administration
moves in.
Thanks again to Drew for jumping on with
us this morning, and thank you for listening
to the landscape.