Trump’s Plan: Open Our Public Lands To Oil And Gas Drilling
January 17, 2025
Trump has vowed to open our treasured public lands to oil and gas exploration. Here’s what his executive action would mean for our health, climate progress, clean air and water.
Trump’s Promises:
- Trump’s transition team pledged he would sign executive orders “within seconds” to unwind protections for drilling on federal land.
- Trump promised to “reopen” the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling.
The Impacts:
- Expanded oil and gas leasing on federal lands would increase cumulative global climate pollution by 1.2 billion metric tons of CO2 equivalent between 2024 and 2050.
- Oil and gas drilling on public lands destroys biodiversity, land health, recreational access, traditional and cultural use by Indigenous communities, and clean energy development.
- Between 2010 and 2019, there were at least 5,900 oil spills in the U.S. alone, an average of almost two spills per day.
- As of July 2024, the oil and gas industry was sitting on 6,903 unused, approved drilling permits, both onshore and offshore.
- In January 2025, an oil drilling lease sale in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) had no bidders.
- ANWR is one of the last truly wild places in the U.S. and includes land considered sacred by the Gwich’in tribe.
- If U.S. public lands were their own country, they would rank fifth in the world for climate pollution.
- Fossil fuel production, transportation, and combustion from federally owned oil and gas accounted for more than 20 percent of U.S. climate pollution from 2005 to 2015.
- Fossil fuel companies have already abandoned more than 120,000 oil and gas wells without properly plugging them up, creating environmental hazards that threaten drinking water supplies, endanger wildlife, and serve as a significant source of pollution.
- More than 168 million people enjoy America’s outdoor recreation, making conservation and stewardship of public lands and waters critical.
- The U.S. Forest Service found that public lands within five kilometers of oil and gas wells see less visitation than sites farther away from wells.
- The Southern Environmental Law Center found that tourism dollars drop by about 50 percent in counties and parishes where oil rigs and other drilling infrastructure are prevalent.