“I like to remember how much more effective the oil and natural gas industry is at providing a real solution to climate change than any international treaty such as Paris or Kyoto” — Kathleen Sgamma, President Trump’s nominee to lead the Bureau of Land Management

A close oil and gas industry ally and Project 2025 author with a history of minimizing climate change may soon lead the federal agency that leases out public lands for drilling, speeding the way for the rampant exploitation of America’s national public lands for private profit.

President Donald Trump nominated Kathleen Sgamma, the longtime president of the Western Energy Alliance — a Denver-based oil and gas trade group — to run the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management, which manages 245 million acres of public lands, largely in western states.

If Sgamma is confirmed, oil and gas companies will have a close friend and former colleague in office to respond to industry wishes. Sgamma is likely to leave no favor ungranted for the wealthy fossil fuel executives who spent a shocking $450 million to fund Trump’s campaign and elect friendly lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

Sgamma was one of a small group of people who wrote the Project 2025 section on the Department of Interior,^{[[1]](https://www.citizen.org/article/interior-insider-trump-nominee-represented-corporate-polluters-who-paid-93m-in-fines/#_ftn1)} claiming that the Biden administration declared a “war on fossil fuels” — a statement that ignores the reality that U.S. crude oil and natural gas production both set new records during the Biden administration.