Oil and gas association leader is Trump’s pick to lead BLM, biggest public lands agency

WASHINGTON D.C. (Feb. 12, 2025) — The Trump administration has nominated Kathleen Sgamma, president of the Western Energy Alliance, to be the next director of the Bureau of Land Management. If Sgamma is confirmed, the country’s largest manager of public lands by acreage will be led by a longtime promoter of the oil and gas industry who has repeatedly argued in favor of more leasing, faster well-permitting and fewer restrictions. 

The BLM has a mandate to manage its 245 million-plus acres for multiple uses, including hunting and other outdoor recreation. But in practice, the agency historically prioritized extractive uses like grazing, drilling and mining. In 2024, the Biden administration finalized a suite of rules that confirmed conservation is an equally valid part of the “multiple use” equation and helped guide responsible renewable energy development on BLM lands. Under Sgamma's leadership, the Western Energy Alliance filed legal challenges to those rules. 

"It took almost a half-century for the BLM to finally adopt the balanced ‘multiple use’ approach mandated by Congress. Now the Trump administration wants to go back in time to an agency that exclusively serves industry."

Sgamma also co-authored the section on the Department of the Interior in The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, which is considered an unofficial blueprint for the second Trump administration’s policy goals. Project 2025 features specific policy recommendations that would ensure conservation and communities take a back seat to drilling and extraction. These include reducing accountability for polluters by removing safeguards that protect local air quality; calling to remove protections for treasured places across the country like Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge; reinstating orders from the previous Trump administration that give industry preferential treatment; significantly restricting public input; and insisting government agencies offer as much acreage for lease as possible every quarter, regardless of market conditions.  

Lydia Weiss, senior director for government relations at The Wilderness Society, made the following statement about the news: 

“Our public lands are cherished and owned by all Americans. No one should be surprised that the Trump administration tapped the oil and gas lobby for a leader of the BLM, but they should be concerned. It took almost a half-century for the BLM to finally adopt the balanced ‘multiple use’ approach mandated by Congress. Now the Trump administration wants to go back in time to an agency that exclusively serves industry.”   

“Recent rules like the BLM public lands rule, oil and gas rule and renewable energy were part of a major positive shift in how the U.S. manages its shared natural resources. Those rules were wholly in line with the mission and authority already set by lawmakers for the agency, and they aligned with public support for conservation across the West, in the communities that know BLM lands best. The choice of Kathleen Sgamma sends yet another message that the Trump administration cares less about people and nature than it does the short-term interests of oil and gas corporations.”