U.S. Sen. Cynthia Lummis is emerging as a top candidate to be the next Secretary of the Interior in former President Donald Trump’s upcoming administration.
The New York Times reported Friday that Lummis and a few other prominent Republicans are being considered for the role.
When reached by Cowboy State Daily for comment Friday, Stacey Daniels, a spokesperson for Lummis, neither confirmed nor denied that the senator is being considered for the job. Daniels did, however, mention Lummis’ leadership role in the U.S. Senate.
“Senator Lummis has been a leader on public lands issues for many years and currently serves as the chair of the Senate Western Caucus, where she has fought the Biden-Harris administration’s heavy-handed regulations for the past four years,” Daniels said. “She looks forward to serving the people of Wyoming and working with President Trump to overturn these egregious public lands policies that have harmed the West.”
The Interior Department, which oversees 500 million acres of public lands, will be central to Trump’s vision to unleash oil, gas and coal production over the next four years, frequently proclaiming during his campaign stops that the U.S. under his watch would “drill, baby, drill.”
Trump is also expected to swiftly end President Joe Biden administration’s pause on permitting new natural gas export terminals, and to revoke a longstanding waiver that allows California and other states to set tighter pollution standards than the federal government.
What It Would Mean
The way that the Department of the Interior is run is critical to Wyoming, where around 48% of the state's surface area and 65% of the state's minerals are owned by the federal government.
Deb Haaland is the current Interior secretary in President Joe Biden’s administration. Haaland’s policies have generally been looked at unfavorably by Wyoming’s energy industry, but supported by the state’s environmental advocates. Haaland has also been a frequent target of criticism from U.S. Rep. Harriet Hageman, R-Wyoming.
Petroleum and oil interests have long donated to Lummis’ campaigns. From 2019-2024, Open Secrets reports that oil and gas interests gave $191,912 to her campaigns.
Paul Ulrich, the vice president of governmental and regulatory affairs for Jonah Energy, said Lummis has been a champion for Wyoming for a number of years.
Having Lummis chosen as one of the leaders on environmental and mining regulation for the country would be “very exciting” and significantly affect Wyoming, Ulrich said.
“She knows the challenges and knows what needs to happen to fix them,” he said. “She understands Wyoming and understands what we need.”
Travis Deti, executive director of the Wyoming Mining Association, agreed, citing her work on the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works.
“Senator Lummis is an excellent voice for Wyoming’s energy industry and I think she would do an excellent job as Secretary of the Interior,” he said. “She knows the issues and knows what would be important to Wyoming and the U.S. in that position.”
Specifically, Ulrich believes the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) needs a retooling, sometimes taking 10-12 years to get an environmental impact statement completed. He believes Lummis would help the NEPA process become more streamlined and open more lands for mining opportunities.
Lummis served in the Legislature and as treasurer of Wyoming prior to being elected to Congress in 2008. She served in the U.S. House until 2017. That year, Lummis had been considered for Interior chief but was passed over for the role by then-Montana Rep. Ryan Zinke.
In 2019, E&E News reported that Lummis was considered for the role again when Zinke stepped down.
Questions Remain
Erik Molvar, a Laramie resident and executive director of the Western Watersheds Project, said it would be too speculative to say how Lummis would regulate public land issues as he believes she’s been relatively quiet on the topic.
He also said he’s not sure why she’s being considered for the secretary role as Lummis has been much more outspoken on cryptocurrency issues than public lands and energy.
“There’s no way of knowing what a secretary of the Interior Lummis might be like,” he said.
But Molvar did say he’s concerned about how another Trump administration will impact public lands and the environment in America.
“Certainly during the first Trump administration, public lands came under attack,” he said. “They fast-tracked energy projects and dismantled environmental protections.”
Lummis has some healthy competition for the job.
The Times reports that former Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt will be given almost any job he wants in the administration. Adam Paul Laxalt, the former attorney general of Nevada; Sen. Mike Lee of Utah; Kate MacGregor, who served as the deputy interior secretary in Trump’s first term, the Times reports, are also being considered for the role.
Leo Wolfson can be reached at leo@cowboystatedaily.com.
