(WASHINGTON) — President-elect Donald Trump has ambitious plans to utilize U.S. federal lands for the extraction of natural resources.
But Trump – who promised at the Republican National Convention in July to “drill, baby, drill” if he were to be reelected – may not be able to accomplish the vast majority of his plans due to existing protections and the way federal lands are defined, environmental law experts told ABC News.
Trump won’t be able to “just turn on the spigot” for new oil and gas drilling on day one of his administration, Athan Manuel, director of the Sierra Club’s Lands Protection Program, told ABC News.
“Every administration gets to the place where they have to differentiate between the rhetoric that they use in the campaign and the actual challenges when it comes to actually governing,” Stan Meiburg, executive director of Wake Forest University’s Sabin Family Center for Environment and Sustainability, told ABC News.
National parks, wilderness areas, wildlife refuges, military reservations and public-domain lands are owned and managed by the federal government.
Public land is intended to be used for public benefit, but for the last century or so, that definition has sometimes been conflated to also include the extraction of natural resources, such as oil, gas, minerals and timber, according to Peter Colohan, director of federal strategies at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, a nonpartisan think tank.
Federal lands are “for the benefit and enjoyment of all people,” Colohan told ABC News, evoking the famous phrase by former President Teddy Roosevelt that’s inscribed on the arch at north entrance of Yellowstone National Park.
Trump carried out what environmentalists widely regarded as an anti-environmental policy regime during his first term, withdrawing from the Paris Agreement to address climate change upon taking office in 2016 – which he has said he plans to do again, reversing President Biden’s Jan. 20, 2021 action to rejoin the agreement – removing clean water and air pollution protections, and fast-tracking environmental reviews of dozens of major energy and infrastructure projects, such as drilling and fuel pipelines, which Trump has said would help boost American energy production and the economy.
During his next term, Trump also has promised to drastically increase fossil fuels production in the U.S., despite the U.S. already producing and exporting a record amount of crude oil under the Biden administration.
“I think it’s an absolute certainty that Trump is going to push to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, 19.3 million acres in northeastern Alaska that provides critical habitat to several species, to unfettered oil drilling, as well as areas outside of the refuge along the Alaska coast,” Kierán Suckling, executive director for the Center for Biological Diversity, told ABC News. “He’s been gunning for that for years.”
The Trump transition team did not immediately respond to an ABC News request for comment on this story.
Regulatory challenges
The president and the executive branch may have a “great deal of discretion” over control of public lands and monuments, but existing laws to protect lands like the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge will be difficult to overturn, Suckling said.
Since the 1970s, a slew of environment regulations have been put in place to protect the U.S. landscape, such as the establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970, followed by the Clean Water Act in 1972 and the Endangered Species Act in 1973. The Clean Air Act was established in 1963 and has been amended several times since, the first time in 1970.
Because of this legal environmental infrastructure, it would be virtually impossible for Trump to easily or unilaterally change these protections, the experts said. In order for the Trump administration to overturn regulations against use of protected lands for energy production, he would have to present evidence to demonstrate that the proposed actions would not violate existing environmental laws, Suckling said.
“You have to use the best science available and if the science does not support your policy, the law is not going to permit you to do it,” Suckling said.
The day after Trump won reelection, President Joe Biden moved to narrow the scope of the lease in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, signed by Trump in 2017, to limit oil drilling. The Biden administration found “legal deficiencies” in the leases that would have made it possible for the Trump administration to expand fossil fuel production, Colohan said.
The biggest roadblock to Trump’s plans to drill on federally protected lands is whether or not those areas are actually economically competitive, compared to places where people are drilling on private land using hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, Meiburg said.
However, most federal lands are not protected, Drew Caputo, vice president of litigation at Earthjustice, told ABC News. For such unprotected lands, it’s possible for Trump to issue an executive order to lease them for energy production. Even so, whenever a decision is being made to lease public land, “there will be a legal battle for sure,” Colohan said, adding that executive orders are “more reversible” than an existing statutory regulation.
Environmental activist resistance
In order for Trump to open federal land for leasing, his administration is required by law to notify the public, with environmental lawyers certain to be ready to challenge him.
“Environmental laws are carefully designed to produce a stable, democratic, scientific outcome,” Suckling said. “You can’t just get in and jump around and do whatever you want, and that’s why the United States has one of the best-protected environments – one of the cleanest, healthiest environments of any nation on earth,”
During Trump’s first term, the Biological Center for Diversity sued his administration 266 times and won about 90% of those actions, Suckling said. Earthjustice filed about 200 lawsuits against the Trump administration and won about 85% of them, according to Caputo.
“We’re going to have to sue their pants off every chance we get,” the Sierra Club’s Manuel said.
The Trump administration will likely face opposition from other stakeholders as well, such as Native American tribes, which could be impacted should federal land be leased for energy extraction, Meiburg said.
Trump’s loss in the 2020 election may have been the speed bump needed to thwart his agenda for federal lands, some experts also said. Now that he’s been reelected four years later, he’s essentially a one-term president and many of his proposed actions could be tied up in litigation for years, Suckling said.
Conversely, had Trump had eight consecutive years in office, it may have afforded him the continuity to enact more sweeping changes regarding use of federal lands, Caputo said. Should the House or Senate flip to Democratic control after the midterm elections, Trump’s agenda would likely be blunted even more, Manuel said.
However, it’s also challenging for land managers and environmental agencies when there’s constant turnover in the regulatory environment because it can slow progress for environmental protections, Colohan said.
All land is under pressure – whether for development, extraction of resources, agricultural use, climate change or biodiversity loss, Colohan said. But federal lands carry the ideal of conservation for the public benefit, recreation, cultural purposes, and for climate mitigation and resilience, he added.
“Those things are the better, the longer-term benefits that come from conservation,” Colohan said. “And so that’s really a choice that’s made by every administration.”
(NEW YORK) — The Bridge Fire straddling Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties was late Wednesday the largest wildfire in California, as authorities battled several large blazes aided by federal assistance and the state National Guard.
Some 2,500 structures are under threat from the Bridge Fire, Cal Fire said in its latest Wednesday night update, with the wildfire consuming 50,258 acres and at 0% containment.
The blaze — the cause of which is still undetermined — “continued to exhibit extreme fire behavior” through Wednesday, Cal Fire said, growing by 13,000 acres “mainly on the north and east flanks.”
At least 13 structures were destroyed in the Wrightwood area, it added, with power infrastructure also affected. Mountain High West and East Ski Resort were both affected by fire activity, while 20 homes in Mount Baldy and six wilderness cabins were destroyed.
Cal Fire warned that the expanding inferno may cause “spot fires” as it reaches areas of “receptive fuels with little to no fire history.”
The Bridge Fire is one of three large wildfires active in southern California. The Airport Fire — straddling Orange and Riverside counties — continued to burn on Wednesday, at 23,140 acres with 5% containment.
Though firefighting crews ensured minimal growth of the blaze through Wednesday — partially thanks to improved weather conditions — two civilians and 10 firefighters have so far been injured.
Evacuations orders are in place for 5,513 homes in Riverside County, and evacuation warnings in place for 9,581. Some 53,000 Riverside County residents are affected by the fire.
Gov. Gavin Newsom traveled to southern California on Wednesday, proclaiming a state of emergency in Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Orange and Riverside counties in response to the Bridge and Airport fires, his office said in a press release.
Newsom declared a state of emergency related to the Line Fire last weekend. That wildfire — east of Los Angeles in San Bernardino County — was 18% contained as of Wednesday night, Cal Fire said, at 36,481 acres in size.
More than 100,000 people have been displaced from the affected area amid evacuation orders and warnings, with 65,600 structures threatened. One arson suspect was detained earlier this week on suspicion of starting the blaze.
Newsom visited the Line Fire command post in Highland on Wednesday.
“California is deploying every available resource to combat these devastating fires, and we’ll continue to work in lockstep with federal and local partners in this herculean effort,” Newsom said.
(LONDON, Kent.) — As the hunt for the suspected gunman in an eastern Kentucky interstate shooting that left five people injured entered its sixth day, Gov. Andy Beshear said law enforcement officers will be posted at high school football games and stationed along school bus routes in an attempt to ease fear in nearby communities.
Beshear on Thursday said four of the victims shot in Saturday’s sniper-like attack on Interstate 75 near London, Kentucky, have been released from hospitals and that the fifth victim is also expected to survive.
The governor said he is confident that law enforcement teams with the help of agents from the FBI, the U.S. Marshal’s Service and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco Firearms and Explosives will catch suspect Joseph Couch and bring him to justice.
“I don’t yet have the evidence in front of me of what fully led him to this point, but there’s no excuse,” he said. “When you put a plan in place to take the lives of our fellow human beings and try to take as many of them as possible, you can and should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.”
Beshear said the Kentucky State Police believe Couch, 32, is still in the thick woods of the 708,000-acre Daniel Boone National Forest, which he described as “some of the most rugged terrain that anyone could hide in.”
Kentucky State Police Commissioner Phillip “PJ” Burnett said more than 100 officers are combing the forest, where on the day of the rampage investigators found an AR-15 rifle believed to have been used in the the shooting as well as Couch’s vehicle abandoned on a forest road.
“We have no significant updates at this time, but we are following up on leads,” Burnett said.
The commissioner said police are using sophisticated technology in the search, including Kentucky National Guard Black Hawk helicopters, aircraft equipped with thermal imaging and multiple K-9 units, including cadaver-sniffing dogs and FBI bloodhounds brought in from Illinois.
Burnett said the search, which has focused on the area near I-75’s Exit 49, is being expanded in the Daniel Boone National Forest.
“We will keep working until we exhaust every single lead,” Burnett said.
Beshear said he’ll consider deploying National Guard troops to the forest to help in the ground search.
“Right now what was requested is some aerial assistance. The Black Hawks have proven to be very helpful. Right now we don’t have an extra request, but that’s something we would certainly look at,” Beshear said of deploying the National Guard on the ground.
However, Beshear said investigators believe Couch could still be armed and dangerous.
“This isn’t the type of search where you can put a whole bunch of people out there at once because this is an individual that we believe is still armed, would be very difficult to spot and we want to make sure we don’t lose anybody throughout this,” Beshear said.
According to an arrest warrant, Couch, a former member of the U.S. Army Reserves, is wanted on charges of attempted murder and first-degree assault. A $35,000 reward is being offered for information leading to his capture.
Couch was allegedly involved in a domestic dispute on Saturday morning and legally purchased an AR-15 rifle and ammunition at a gun store hours before allegedly opening fire on vehicles traveling on I-75, law enforcement officials told ABC News.
Up to 30 rounds were fired from a hillside near Exit 49, officials said. At least 12 vehicles were struck by gunfire, leaving five people with gunshot wounds, including one victim who was shot in the face, officials said.
Investigators said they believe all of the victims were shot at randomly and that Couch had no previous contact with any of them.
Before the interstate shooting, according to the arrest warrant, a Laurel County 911 dispatcher received a call from a woman who alleged Couch texted her and “advised he was going to kill a lot of people. Well try at least.” The text message was sent to the woman at 5:03 p.m. Saturday, about a half-hour before the interstate shooting started, according to the arrest warrant.
“Couch sent another message to [the woman] that read, in part, ‘I’ll kill myself afterwards,” according to the arrest warrant.
London city officials told ABC News the woman Couch texted is the mother of his child.
Burnett said Thursday that the police “understand there is fear in the community.” To ease fears, he said state troopers and officers will be posted at every high school football game in Laurel County on Friday night.
Beshear said the presence of law enforcement officers is being boosted at area public schools and that state police are helping local police with some bus routes to ensure students get to school safely.
The governor implored citizens not to turn Couch into a folk hero for evading capture.
“There is no notoriety, there is no celebrity in committing an act like this,” Beshear said. “There’s just evil.”
