Pulse of the Land - 2/23/2026
Who Owns the Map? This Week on Public Lands, Minerals, and the People Redrawing the Lines.
“Of all the questions which can come before this nation, short of the actual preservation of its existence in a great war, there is none which compares in importance with the great central task of leaving this land even a better land for our descendants than it is for us.”
— Theodore Roosevelt
This Week’s Take
The throughline this week is simple and loud: big extraction is racing to lock in space on public land before the public fully wakes up. From a five-and-a-half-million-acre Arctic lease sale to new mining fights in Nevada and along the Minnesota–Canada border, oil, gas, and “critical minerals” are all pressing on the same finite map. The good news: tribes, local communities, and a very tired but stubborn public are meeting them in court, in comment portals, and in the halls of Congress. Voting in the November elections will be critically important.
The State of Public Lands, Energy, and Minerals
February 17 — Massive Arctic lease sale faces new legal fire
Conservation groups and an Iñupiat organization sued to stop a March 18 oil and gas lease sale that would open about 5.5 million acres in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska, including tracts near Teshekpuk Lake and the Colville River that were long treated as special protection areas.
Why it matters: This is one of the biggest single public-lands oil offerings in years, and it targets wetlands, caribou habitat, and subsistence hunting areas at the exact moment the United States claims it wants to cut climate pollution; if it goes forward, it locks in new Arctic fossil infrastructure on public land for decades.
February 20 — Interior opens 2.1 million acres in Alaska’s Dalton Corridor to mining and other claims
The Department of the Interior, led by Doug Burgum, issued Public Land Order 7966, lifting long-standing protections and opening about 2.1 million acres along the Dalton Highway utility corridor to entry under mining and other public-land laws, framed as fulfilling Alaska’s statehood land promises and enabling “major energy projects.”
Why it matters: This is a huge shift in who controls a critical strip of tundra that already carries the Trans-Alaska Pipeline and roads; it makes it much easier to stake new mineral claims and build energy infrastructure in caribou and subsistence country, trading federal planning and public input for faster extraction on land that had been effectively off-limits for decades.
February 9–11 — Boundary Waters mining protections hang on a knife’s edge
After the House voted in January to overturn a 20-year ban on sulfide-ore mining in the watershed of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, advocates warned this week that the Senate could soon take up the same resolution under the Congressional Review Act, even as the vote has now been delayed and hunters, anglers, and paddlers are flooding senators with calls.
Why it matters: This is about whether a law can permanently reopen the door to copper-nickel mining just upstream of one of the cleanest lake and river systems in North America; if this rollback succeeds, it becomes a blueprint to strip long-term mineral withdrawals from other public-land watersheds.
February 18 — Congress eyes monument plans as a new tool for undoing protections
New analysis and advocacy this week highlighted that members of Congress are now using the Congressional Review Act—the same repeal tool threatening Boundary Waters’ mining moratorium—to go after public-land management plans, starting with the resource management plan for Grand Staircase–Escalante National Monument and potentially others like California’s Carrizo Plain.
Why it matters: These plans are the master blueprints that say where drilling, mining, and transmission lines can and cannot go; if Congress starts wiping them out with simple majority votes, it erases years of local input and leaves communities fighting bad projects one by one on a tilted field. Check out Our Public Lands & Waters post on how this administration is inappropriately using this obscure law.
The People in Charge
February 18 — Park veterans say the new National Park Service nominee is built for concessions, not conservation
The Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks blasted President Trump’s choice of Scott Socha, a senior executive at hospitality giant Delaware North to lead the National Park Service, citing his lack of land-management experience and deep financial ties to park concession contracts worth billions.
Why it matters: Putting the country’s top concessionaire in charge of the park system blurs the line between steward and vendor; it tilts decisions about access, development, and even conservation funding toward industrial tourism and revenue, not quiet habitat or backcountry protections.
“The Director shall have substantial experience and demonstrated competence in land management and natural or cultural resource conservation.” - (US Code) CHAPTER 1003 - ESTABLISHMENT, DIRECTORS, AND OTHER EMPLOYEES
February 19 — Energy Secretary threatens to pull the U.S. out of the International Energy Agency over climate planning
At a ministerial meeting in Paris, Chris Wright gave the International Energy Agency one year to drop its net-zero-by-2050 scenarios from flagship reports, warning that otherwise the United States may quit the agency altogether, while calling net-zero goals a “destructive illusion.”
Why it matters: The International Energy Agency’s models are the yardstick many governments and companies use to plan clean energy build-out; if the U.S. forces that yardstick back toward fossil-heavy futures, it undercuts the case for rapid renewables, efficiency, and transmission even as public-lands drilling and export projects ramp up.
February 20 — Alaska’s governor cheers Dalton Corridor opening as a win for “unleashing” state resources
Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy publicly praised Interior’s Dalton Corridor order as a “milestone” that will help the state secure long-promised lands and “develop its resources,” tying the move directly to the administration’s “Unleashing American Energy” agenda.
Why it matters: State leaders are signaling they plan to lean hard into new selection and development of these federal acres; for conservation and community groups, that means the real fights are coming next over which parcels move out of federal hands, what gets mined or drilled first, and how subsistence and wildlife factor into those choices.
November 19 - A big job at Yosemite shows a different kind of leadership choice
Something I missed that is a glimmer of hope.
About three months ago, the park service quietly made Ray McPadden an agency veteran and former Army ranger the new superintendent of Yosemite National Park after a stint as acting superintendent, citing his experience managing visitor use, wildfire risk, and conflicts over protest banners on cliffs like El Capitan.
Why it matters: At one of the crown-jewel parks, the agency still picked a career public-lands manager over a corporate outsider, a reminder that not every leadership slot is moving toward privatization and that resistance to those trends is still coming from inside the system as well as outside.
Thank you for reading! I highlight threats to public lands and the energy industry’s impact. I believe clean energy is the future, and ALL energy projects should prioritize private land first to keep wild places wild. When energy extraction is needed on public lands all projects must restore the land after extraction. Public lands are unique and once lost, they’re gone forever.
Sources:
Department of the Interior - Department of the Interior Opens 2.1 Million Acres in Alaska’s Dalton Corridor
Pahrump Valley Times - ‘Too special to drill’: Tribe, environmentalists sue over mine near Ash Meadows
AP News - House Republicans vote to lift 20-year ban on mining near pristine Boundary Waters Canoe Area
Alaska Beacon - A major new Arctic oil field prompted a deal to protect caribou. Then Trump officials backed out.
The Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks - National Park Service Director Must Champion Parks
AP NEws - Lawsuits challenge renewed push for oil drilling in Alaska petroleum reserve and upcoming lease sale
Reuters - US Energy Secretary Pressures to Quit Net Zero Agenda
Alaska Office of Governor Mike Dunleavy - Governor Dunleavy Welcomes Interior Department Actions Opening 2.1 Million Acres in Dalton Corridor
SF Chronicle - Yosemite National Park Names New Superintendent