President Trump has nominated Kathleen Sgamma, a professional advocate for the oil and gas industry, to run the Bureau of Land Management, an agency within the Interior Department that oversees grazing, logging, drilling and wildlife conservation on 245 million acres of public land.
The nomination was received by the Senate on Tuesday and referred to its Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. The committee has not yet scheduled a confirmation hearing for Ms. Sgamma.
Ms. Sgamma is president of the Denver-based Western Energy Alliance, where she has worked for nearly 20 years on behalf of independent oil and gas companies that have sought to strip away government protections and rules on extracting fossil fuels on public lands in Western states.
Her nomination aligns with Mr. Trump’s vision for the Interior Department as a government tool to achieve “energy dominance” by aggressively promoting the extraction of the nation’s oil and gas resources.
Leading the execution of that vision is Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, the former governor of North Dakota who served as a liaison between Mr. Trump and oil and gas companies during Mr. Trump’s most recent presidential campaign. Mr. Burgum helped gather fossil fuel executives last year at Mar-a-Lago for a dinner during which Mr. Trump suggested that industry leaders raise $1 billion for his campaign and that as president he would eliminate Biden-era climate policies.
On Mr. Burgum’s first day as interior secretary, he signed a stack of orders aimed at using all “legal authorities available to facilitate the identification, permitting, leasing, development, production, transportation, refining, distribution, exporting and generation of domestic energy resources and critical minerals.”
In an email to The Times last week, Ms. Sgamma wrote, “We’re pleased that the interior secretary’s orders were so comprehensive and detailed, but they’re just the start of a lot of work to roll back the anti-oil-and-gas policies of the Biden administration.”
The selection of Ms. Sgamma to run the Bureau of Land Management is a 180-degree turn from her predecessor, Tracy Stone-Manning, who sought to enact former President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s “all-of-government” approach to fighting climate change by opening up public lands to wind and solar development while limiting oil and gas drilling. Ms. Stone-Manning, who had worked as an environmental policy adviser to Congressional Democrats and at an environmental advocacy group, also worked with anti-logging activists in her early 20s and was criticized as an “eco-terrorist” by Senate Republicans.
Ms. Sgamma’s nomination alarmed environmentalists. Athan Manuel, the director of the Sierra Club’s Lands Protection Program, said in a statement, “Big oil C.E.O.s already had a friendly face in the White House, and now they have the B.L.M. on speed dial,” referring to the Bureau of Land Management. “By naming Sgamma to run B.L.M.,” he continued, “Donald Trump is betraying the American people and threatening our public lands, all to keep the promise he made to the corporate polluters at Big Oil.”
At least one Republican lawmaker was quick to praise Ms. Sgamma’s nomination on Wednesday. Representative Lauren Boebert of Colorado, a vocal Trump supporter and frequent Congressional provocateur, said in a statement that Mr. Trump had made a “fantastic selection,” saying that Ms. Sgamma “knows our public lands and their untapped resources as well as anyone. I’ve had the opportunity to work closely with her on several efforts to responsibly manage our lands while also allowing our oil and gas industry to thrive and bring back American energy dominance.”
The post Trump Nominates Oil and Gas Advocate to Run Bureau of Land Management appeared first on New York Times.
