Interior Secretary Doug Burgum defended the Trump administration’s deepest proposed cuts to the National Park Service, its $1 billion deal to kill two offshore wind projects, and a new $10 billion fund for construction in Washington, D.C. during a House Interior Appropriations subcommittee hearing on Monday.
The hearing centered on the administration’s fiscal year 2027 Interior budget, which proposes cutting the Park Service by $1 billion, eliminating dedicated renewable energy funding at the Bureau of Land Management and Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, and slashing the U.S. Geological Survey by 37 percent. Congress rejected similar cuts last year on a bipartisan basis and directed the department to maintain adequate Park Service staffing.
Ranking Member Chellie Pingree of Maine pressed Burgum on his decision to pay French energy giant TotalEnergies nearly $1 billion to walk away from its offshore wind leases. Pingree called the arrangement “indefensible,” pointing out the administration is paying to shut down domestic energy production at the same moment Americans are paying an average of $4.04 per gallon of gas.
Burgum also invoked whale populations as a reason to oppose offshore wind, weeks after he chaired the so-called “God Squad” committee that voted to exempt Gulf of Mexico oil and gas drilling from the Endangered Species Act, likely dooming the Rice’s whale to extinction. In a statement, CWP Communications Manager Kate Groetzinger said “Secretary Burgum reached new heights of hypocrisy in his desperate attempts to justify the Trump administration’s incredibly unpopular public lands agenda.”
Representative Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, the ranking member of the full Appropriations Committee, said the Park Service had lost roughly a quarter of its staff since the end of the Biden administration. Burgum rejected the premise: “The [argument] that there was a massive reduction in the parks or anywhere across Interior related to DOGE is simply not factual,” he told the subcommittee, according to E&E News. But Interior has admitted that roughly 1,600 Park Service staff left last year through early retirement and deferred resignation offers, on top of DOGE’s probationary firings that a federal judge ordered reversed. Burgum will appear before the Senate Interior Appropriations Subcommittee on Wednesday.
Public comment closes today on Forest Service “stealth mining” rule
A proposed Forest Service rule would let mining companies explore for minerals on up to five acres of national forest land without a plan of operations, environmental review, or public notice. CWP Policy Director Rachael Hamby explains in Westwise that under the “notice-level operations” framework, if the Forest Service does not respond within 60 days, a project is automatically approved. “This could mean drilling holes and other mining activity in the middle of a trail or sensitive wildlife habitat, or close to a stream that provides water for people and animals alike,” Hamby writes, “and the public wouldn’t know about it until digging or construction has already begun.”
Public comments on the rule are due today, Tuesday, April 21, at regulations.gov.
Quick hits
Burgum’s wildfire mandate: smother every blaze
E&E News | GovExec | Hotshot Wake Up
Stone-Manning: Forest Service move ‘will be every bit as destructive’ as BLM relocation
New Arctic wildlife refuge lease sale set for June amid litigation
Former Trump Interior official Casey Hammond pays $31,500 over ethics violation findings
Arizona representatives demand Burgum release withheld Colorado River funds
State grantmaker withholds funds for Moab because community ‘doesn’t support oil’
The Trump administration wants to take an ax to the East’s last great forests
Opinion: Doug Burgum’s ugly legacy
Quote of the day
In little over a year since being confirmed as the person to oversee 480 million acres of public land and 1.7 billion offshore acres of the continental shelf, Burgum has done more damage to Roosevelt’s legacy than any previous Interior secretary. That includes slash-and-burn predecessors like James Watt and Ryan Zinke.”
—Mike McFeely, InForum/WDAY
Picture This
Warning: Going to sleep on Sunday will cause Monday.
Staying awake all night does not prevent Monday. See you on Monday.
P.S. The American badger (Taxidea taxus) is found throughout the western and central U.S. They are mostly nocturnal and can vouch that staying up all night does not prevent Monday from happening. Please do not badger them about it. We speak from experience. Also, avoid talk of snakes and mushrooms.
Image: A badger sits in front of two boulders surrounded by grass and wildflowers at Rocky Mountain National Park, CO.