Over the past year, the Trump administration has made a number of policy changes intended to pave the way for increased mining and other extractive activity on public lands. While the administration’s ‘energy dominance’ agenda is failing to meet its stated goal of lowering energy costs for Americans, policies designed to increase mining on public lands are working as intended, even where operators fail to secure a local mandate from nearby communities. On Tuesday, the Bureau of Land Management announced it is moving ahead with the controversial Dewey-Burdock uranium mine in South Dakota after over a decade of objections by the Oglala Sioux Tribe and conservation organizations.
Last November, the Trump administration released an updated critical minerals list. The update added uranium to the list, even though uranium is a fuel mineral and shouldn’t be eligible based on the Energy Act of 2020, which defined “critical minerals” and requires the U.S. Geological Survey to update the list based on specific criteria. The Trump administration has also expanded the use of the FAST-41 program, originally designed to increase transparency in permitting, to serve as a mechanism to expedite permitting for projects including critical minerals mining and processing.
These and other policy changes are starting to pay off for the mining industry. Uranium’s addition to the critical minerals list and the project’s inclusion in the FAST-41 program have paved the way for the BLM to advance the Dewey-Burdock mine and others like it across the Western U.S., despite concerns about the environmental impacts of mining and mineral processing.
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Public land reform in the new Gilded Age
Quote of the day
Any single project can be bad, but cumulatively, all these projects really present what feels like an existential threat to this extremely finite resource of groundwater in the desert.”
—Mason Voehl, Amargosa Conservancy, Las Vegas Sun
Picture This
🌅 𝗦𝘂𝗻𝗿𝗶𝘀𝗲 𝗦𝗵𝗼𝘄-𝗢𝗳𝗳𝘀
Each spring, male greater sage-grouse gather on leks, communal breeding grounds, and put on a sunrise show that is one of nature’s wildest courtship rituals. ❤️
In late March or early April, males begin strutting on leks to attract a mate. Each morning at dawn, they puff their chests and fan their starburst tails. They inflate bulbous yellow air sacs and thrust their heads forward to produce weird pops and whistles. In preparation for this display, males can gulp and hold about a gallon of air in a pouch of their esophagus, then squeeze it out with force to power their performance. This choreography can happen up to 10 times per minute and continue for hours in the early morning.
Males are intensely territorial on the lek, defending spaces just a few yards across. Rival males often find themselves locked in standoffs just a few feet apart. These displays may escalate into wing-battering to drive off or exhaust an opponent, but they rarely cause serious injury.
🌀 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗹 𝘁𝘄𝗶𝘀𝘁? 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗮𝘂𝗱𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗶𝘀 𝗶𝗻 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗴𝗲.
Females watch the performance and choose the top contenders. Males compete for the best stage position, but success comes down to impressing females with precision, persistence, and timing.
If a female is impressed, she invites a male to mate. Then she builds a nest tucked under sagebrush and lays 4–11 eggs, which hatch in about 25–30 days.
💞 So maybe nature’s dating advice is simple:
Show up early. Bring your best moves. Hold your ground. And let the audience decide.
💡 𝗔 𝗿𝗲𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘃𝗶𝘀𝗶𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘀:
If you’re lucky enough to witness a lek, keep your distance, stay quiet, and let the performance unfold without disturbance.
📸 Photos FWS/Koerner: Greater sage-grouse males strut.
Featured image: The Dewey-Burdock mine is on the edge of South Dakota’s Black Hills, near the Wyoming border. Navin75 via Flickr/CC BY-SA 2.0