One of President Donald Trump’s major priorities in his second term has been his so-called “energy dominance” agenda to boost fossil fuel production by weakening or eliminating environmental protections. On the first day of his second term, Trump declared an “energy emergency” based on the “active threat to the American people from high energy prices.” This “emergency” has formed the basis for the administration’s pro-fossil fuel agenda and has been used to justify abrupt policy actions that circumvent laws and procedures designed to incorporate public input and protect the environment.
However, as Center for Western Priorities Policy Director Rachael Hamby lays out in a new Westwise blog post, this plan has not led to lower energy prices. At over $4 a gallon, gas prices are the highest since April 2022. According to data released by the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the month-to-month increase in gas prices for March 2026 was the highest since the EIA started tracking it in 1990. Home electricity prices also increased by an average of over $100 per family in 2025, a trend that is predicted to continue.
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum has been touting high oil prices as a win for industry while insisting that Americans’ energy costs are down when they clearly are not. The Trump-Burgum deregulatory agenda on our national public lands has proven to be wildly unpopular, while failing to deliver on the promise to lower energy prices. Learn more on CWP’s Substack, Westwise, where you can sign up to receive Westwise in your inbox.
Quick hits
‘It’s the folks from DC that are invading’: Pushback over an Arizona border wall
‘Energy dominance’ agenda sidelines Tribes
New federal grazing plan would impact ranchers and Mexican wolf protections
Feds’ $140 million promised to Colorado River drought mitigation projects remains stuck for ‘bureaucratic’ reasons
Snowpack hits record low levels across the West
SFGATE | Montana Free Press | Idaho Statesman | Utah News Dispatch | Summit Daily
At a World War II internment camp, history blows away wind energy
NM announces 60,000 acres of state trust land protected from development
Opinion: Interior Secretary ramps up assault on public land
Quote of the day
This administration has made its intent clear: Cut budgets, drive out the workforce, erase history, greenlight extinction. Energy extraction is paramount, while conservation, research, and preservation are all values that can be discarded. These are not disconnected policy decisions. They are part of the coherent vision of a cabinet secretary who sees public lands as surplus inventory and history as a branding problem.”
—Aaron Weiss, Center for Western Priorities, Writers on the Range
Picture This
Come see the Milky Way shine bright over Cathedral Rock in Coconino National Forest.
Northern Arizona’s Dark Sky communities help protect these incredible views, keeping night skies clear for both stargazers and wildlife alike. #InternationalDarkSkyWeek
(Forest Service photo by Deborah Lee Soltesz.)
Featured image: The Navajo Generating Station in Arizona being imploded, Alan Stark/CC BY-SA 2.0