Weekly Watch: Burgum Prioritizes Big Oil Networking While America’s Parks and Public Lands Suffer

Billionaire Interior Secretary Prioritizes Big Oil Networking Overseas While America’s Parks and Public Lands Suffer

HELENA, MT – Save Our Parks is tracking the massive assault against America’s national parks and public lands system by Donald Trump, billionaire Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, and their cronies, documenting the ongoing consequences of Trump’s unprecedented attack on our nation’s natural heritage. 

While America’s national parks face their worst staffing crisis in history and emergency response teams operate at a fraction of their capacity, billionaire Interior Secretary Doug Burgum was in Milan, Italy speaking at an international Big Oil conference this week.

Meanwhile, America’s parks and public lands are crumbling. Visitors and users are at risk. Yet Burgum prioritizes energy networking overseas over his actual secretarial responsibilities back home, leaving his unqualified anti-public land cronies to do the bidding of Trump’s connected political donors.

The Interior Secretary’s attendance at the conference with fossil fuel executives with whom he maintains financial ties raises questions about priorities: Is Burgum working for Americans or for his and Trump’s corporate cronies? Despite his best efforts to boost Big Oil profits by exploiting and gutting protections for public lands and waters, prices on everything keep rising and Americans are paying more at the pump.

This comes just days after Burgum’s unprecedented power grab—consolidating control over all U.S. Park Police under his direct authority—surfaced. The move immediately prompted Police Chief Jessica Taylor to announce she was stepping down.

This week, Burgum and his cronies also continued their attack on our public lands. They proposed a plan to roll back protections, including the public lands rule that leveled the playing field between conservation and oil drilling on public lands. They added layers of unnecessary red tape to America’s most successful and popular parks and public access program, and they are pushing for additional devastating workforce reductions and budget cuts to America’s beloved parks. But Burgum’s whereabouts remain largely hidden from public view. He’s kneecapping affordable clean energy for American families while manufacturing a fail-by-design crisis to justify privatizing our parks and public lands.

Burgum’s hypocrisy knows no bounds. Less than a year ago, the then-North Dakota Governor issued a glowing proclamation acknowledging clean energy week to celebrate his state generating a third of its power from wind. But now, Burgum is killing clean energy projects along with the lower energy costs, investments, businesses, and jobs that come with them, and is, in part, directly responsible for Americans’ skyrocketing electricity bills. 

And many are frustrated with Burgum, even leaders from deep Republican states, who are also suffering under his mismanagement and dereliction of duty. He placed corrupt billionaire and criminal Michael Boren as Policy, Management, and Budget Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary while secretly installing Kevin Lilly—a wealthy Goldman Sachs executive with zero conservation experience—to oversee the nation’s most treasured natural resources. Trump and Burgum’s assault on parks and public lands is facing strong opposition from members of their own party. 

Each week, Save Our Parks compiles and distributes a roundup documenting threats to America’s national parks and public lands. Our weekly watch report tracks budget cuts, staffing shortages, privatization efforts, and policy changes affecting our treasured natural and historical sites. Compiled news coverage, eyewitness accounts, and official reports from across the country provide essential information in order to hold the Trump administration, Secretary Burgum, and lawmakers accountable and defend our shared natural heritage.

Parks and Public Lands in the News: 

Safety and Preparedness

New York Times: Wildfire Fighters, Unmasked in Toxic Smoke, Are Getting Sick and Dying

• “But year after year, the Forest Service sends crews into smoke with nothing to prevent them from inhaling its poisons. The agency has fought against equipping firefighters with masks. It issues safety handbooks that make no mention of the long-term hazards of smoke exposure. And its workers are not allowed to wear masks on the front line, even if they want to.”

E&E: EPA to ease national park air quality program

• “EPA is advancing plans to weaken a mainstay air quality program for national parks even as environmental groups go to court to challenge the Trump administration’s reading of a key underpinning.”

Duluth News Tribune: Amid Trump cuts, Voyageurs National Park scales back emergency services to 4 days per week

• “‘There is a lot of uncertainty, creating a stressful situation for park staff that are operating in an unstable climate, including reduced staff capacity and lack of job security,’ Hausman Rhode said. ‘Through it all, they are stretched thin but committed to standard operating hours and boat tours during our park’s peak summer tourism season. … Voyageurs, and all our parks, need support, funding and stability now more than ever.’”

CBS News: Trump cuts leave national parks understaffed and with reduced visitor hours, data shows

Privatization and Sell-Offs

New York Times: Trump Moves to Scrap Biden Rule That Protected Public Lands

• “The proposal from the Bureau of Land Management would prioritize the use of public lands for oil and gas drilling, coal mining, timber production and livestock grazing. The Biden administration, in contrast, had championed their use for conservation, recreation and renewable energy development.”

KUNC: Trump Administration puts limits on popular conservation program 

• “However, the Trump Administration is now limiting how the pot of money can be spent. A recent order by Interior Secretary Doug Burgum could prevent the Bureau of Land Management from acquiring land and stymie projects outside of places currently managed by the agency. It also requires sign-off from state governors and county commissioners.”

Sierra: Public Lands Are on the Line

• “Baker has worked for ForestWatch since 2016 … ‘Huge, huge reductions,’ Baker said, ‘which we’d never really seen before.’ To him, the administration’s rationale was clear. ‘They were looking at public lands as, ‘OK, well, what can we do with these? Can we drill? Can we log?’’ Three years later, the Trump administration issued proposals for logging in Los Padres National Forest, including one for the Pine Mountain Project.”

Community Impacts

Associated Press: From slavery to pollution, National Park employees flagged material deemed ‘disparaging’ to US

• “The Trump administration is reviewing material about slavery, the destruction of Native American culture, climate change and more at federal parks after employees flagged information that could be ‘disparaging’ to Americans, according to screenshots shared with The Associated Press.

Philadelphia Inquirer: Removing or editing Philly slavery exhibits is ‘un-American,’ 45 local historical groups tell Trump’s Interior secretary 

• “Dozens of preservation and historical organizations from the Philadelphia area have signed onto a letter addressed to President Donald Trump’s secretary of the interior opposing the potential changes or removal of more than a dozen exhibits about slavery at Independence National Historical Park that could occur in a little over a week.”

Red State Observer: Devils Tower Closure Highlights Government Overreach and Outrage

• “In a stunning move that has riled local leaders and residents, the National Park Service (NPS) has announced the closure of Devils Tower National Monument after hours, limiting access from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily. This decision has been met with immediate backlash, particularly from state Senator Ogden Driskill, a Republican, who criticized the abrupt change as ‘stupidity at its highest level.’”

E&E News: Burgum places Park Police under his direct control

• “Interior Secretary Doug Burgum has realigned the leadership structure at the U.S. Park Police to give him greater authority over its operation…The Park Police is among the federal law enforcement agencies that have been deployed in Washington as part of what President Donald Trump has billed as a crackdown on crime and homelessness.”

Stories on the Trail

@SierraClub: Here’s then-governor Doug Burgum LESS THAN A YEAR AGO issuing AN OFFICIAL PROCLAMATION recognizing CLEAN ENERGY WEEK 2024 and celebrating the fact that HIS STATE GENERATES A THIRD OF ITS POWER FROM WIND

@Western.Priorities: Bad move Doug… 😤#publiclands #conservation

@ParkDisservice: DOI’s under scrutiny as employee eliminations expose how unprepared we were for fire season - funny how firing qualified folks & cutting funding will do that…🤔

The Crisis Continues:

The crisis continues to escalate across America’s 640-million-acre public lands system and is poised to get worse after Trump’s spending package, passed by Congressional Republicans, slashed some $267 million of previously committed funding for national parks. The National Park Service has lost nearly a quarter of its permanent workforce since Trump took office, with some parks now operating without superintendents and at half-staff during peak visitation. Between Trump, DOGE, and Republicans’ draconian budget cuts, hiring freezes, and workforce reductions, the staffing shortages are forcing scientists, park rangers, and other safety personnel to clean toilets and pick up garbage instead of conducting critical work like ongoing maintenance and supporting visitor safety.

Save Our Parks documents and exposes conditions across America’s federal park and public lands system through monitoring reports, visitor testimonials, and accountability research. The campaign maintains comprehensive documentation through its website at SaveOurParks.us.

To speak with Save Our Parks spokesperson Jayson O’Neill, email jayson@focalpointstrategygroup.com. 

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