President Donald Trump has nominated Kathleen Sgamma, a Denver-based oil and gas industry advocate, to lead the Bureau of Land Management, a move that could have huge impacts on more than 18.4 million acres of public lands and 42.9 million acres of federal mineral estate lands managed by the agency in Wyoming.
Sgamma’s fossil fuels advocacy has already won her a fanbase among Wyoming energy industry leaders.
“Kathleen is highly intelligent and passionate about the oil and gas industry in the West,” said Pinedale-area resident Paul Ulrich, vice president of government and regulatory affairs for Jonah Energy. “Few people know as much as she knows about the challenges the industry faces every day in operating on federal lands.”
Ulrich has worked with Sgamma in his role at Jonah Energy, whose oil and gas operations include big projects on federal lands in Sublette County and elsewhere.
“I couldn’t be more pleased with her nomination,” Ulrich said.
Sgamma, president of the Denver-based Western Energy Alliance, is a fierce proponent of fossil energy and has long lobbied to cut regulation and increase access for mineral development on public lands.
Her confirmation is likely to result in a seismic swing from the agency’s approach under former Director Tracy Stone-Manning, whose prioritization of green energy and conservation was a source of perpetual ire among some Wyoming leaders.
Sgamma told the Cowboy State Daily on Thursday she is unable to comment on her nomination.
Legal Challenge Warrior
Sgamma holds degrees in political science and defense and arms control studies from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, along with a master’s in information technology from Virginia Tech.
She has become a formidable player in the world of energy politics, earning a reputation as a combative advocate unafraid to take on federal agencies standing in the way of oil and gas, including the one she may soon head.
The Western Energy Alliance last year spearheaded a joint legal challenge to the BLM’s Fluid Mineral Leases and Leasing Process rule, which increased fees, rents, royalties and bonding requirements.
It’s also involved itself in the battle to undo the Environmental Protection Agency’s 2024 rule to limit methane emissions from the oil and gas sector, as well as the Securities and Exchange Commission’s climate-related disclosure rules, which required publicly traded companies to publish information on climate-specific risks.
“SEC’s rule seeks to reorient the entire financial system and drive climate change policy rather than promote fair financial returns for workers, retirees, and investors,” Sgamma said at the time.
Yet she’s also proven herself a pragmatic operative able to partner with unconventional allies, as she did when working with the BLM under Stone-Manning to uphold oil and natural gas lease sales in Wyoming in the face of legal challenges from the Wilderness Society – an effort in which the alliance and the agency were successful.
Will Sgamma Uphold The Laws She Lobbied Against?
As extractive industry leaders cheer the prospect of Trump’s nominee, interest groups elsewhere are sounding alarms.
Leaders from the world of conservation worry Sgamma could impose tunnel vision on the agency, lopsiding its multi-use charter.
“The gushing that you’re hearing from the oil and gas industry is warranted because she is an oil and gas industry advocate. She has been her entire career,” said Aaron Weiss, deputy director for Denver-based conservation advocacy group Center for Western Priorities. “She has always put oil and gas drilling ahead of all other uses of public lands.
“So, of course the industry is going to be thrilled that one of their own is going to be running the Bureau of Land Management.”
Weiss told Cowboy State Daily he and others are concerned Sgamma could ride roughshod over the rules and laws she’d previously lobbied against, including recently updated bonding standards on public lands.
The BLM in 2024 completed a sweeping overhaul of its oil and gas leasing program. It was the first major update to the federal onshore oil and gas leasing rules since 1988, the first adjustment to bond rates since 1960 and the first increase in royalty rates in more than 100 years.
In Wyoming, the most contested change was the increase in minimum bond requirements, which was hiked from $10,000 to $150,000 on single lease developments, and lifted from $25,000 to $500,000 on blanket bonds for operators with more than four leases in the state.
Oil and gas advocates said the hike will drive many of Wyoming’s small operators out of business entirely. Conservationists argue it’s needed to ensure taxpayers are not stuck with the reclamation tab.
“The first thing you were going to be watching is if Kathleen Sgama follows the law,” Weiss said. “The inflation Reduction Act overhauled the oil and gas leasing system and put in place safeguards that had been a century overdue [like the law] that requires oil and gas companies to put up bonds large enough to clean up after themselves. Kathleen Sgamma was not a fan of most of those.”
Friends of Fossil Energy Take Over
Sgamma’s nomination marks the latest in the Trump administration’s ongoing makeover of federal leadership roles. Her confirmation would further entrench oil and gas advocates at the helm of some of the government’s most powerful departments.
Former North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, a software entrepreneur and vocal backer of fossil energy development, was confirmed Feb. 3 to head the Department of Interior, which oversees the BLM.
On his first day in office, Burgum signed six secretary's orders outlining an agenda to boost oil and gas exploration and curtail regulation.
Chris Wright, the founder and chief executive of the fracking firm Liberty Energy, was confirmed to lead the U.S. Department of Energy, and has said his immediate priorities will center on the expansion of liquified natural gas and nuclear energy.
Lee Zeldin, a Republican congressman and one time New York gubernatorial candidate who campaigned on approving new pipelines and repealing the gasoline tax, was confirmed in January to head the Environmental Protection Agency.
Can Sgamma Deliver For Rock Springs?
Even as Wyoming leaders and industry advocates express excitement for the makeover of federal administrative leadership, there are limits to what Sgamma may deliver for oil and gas in Wyoming’s southwest.
The nomination comes shortly after the BLM finalized its Rock Springs Resource Management Plan in the waning days of the Biden administration.
The RMP is a years-in-the-making land use guideline for 3.6 million acres of public lands in the state’s southwest, administered out of the BLM’s Rock Springs office. The plan is decried by state leaders and sector representatives, including stock growers and oil and gas developers, who contend it makes new development unduly difficult.
The Biden administration’s RMP “is devastating to Sweetwater County and the whole state of Wyoming in a number of different ways. Our tax base, our mineral production. It can have negative effects on our agricultural community,” Sweetwater County Commissioner Taylor Jones told the Cowboy State Daily.
However, Jones and others expressed renewed hope when Burgum announced the Rock Springs plan, along with several other RMPs, had been put on hold pending further reconsideration.
Jones said Wednesday that he’s hopeful that Sgamma may help revise the plan.
Sgamma herself testified against the BLM’s Rock Springs plan along with similar management plans in three other Western states last year.
“The extent of the proposed land closures and restrictions is at an unprecedented level, with the ultimate effect being a ban on leasing on large parts of the federal mineral estate,” she said.
But even as Burgum has initiated an official review of the RMP, experts say there are limits to how he and Sgamma may change it now. Some believe that only an act of Congress may revise the plan.
“Legal minds are poring over this, to understand technically and legally what they can do and what they can't do,” Jones said. “I think we're in some uncharted waters, and everyone’s still trying to get a sense … of what direction will it go?”
Jacqueline Alderman, spokesperson for the BLM-Wyoming’s High Desert District, told Cowboy State Daily that, “BLM-Wyoming is working with the Department of Interior on next steps regarding the RMP. I can't speculate or comment anymore than that.”
New Era For State's Core Sectors
Beyond Rock Springs, developers are hopeful that Sgamma could move the needle on broader prerogatives, like reforming the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and associated permitting and regulation law.
Following a fitful relationship with the agency under the Biden administration, Sgamma’s potential placement signals a coming era of close collaboration between the BLM and Wyoming’s core sectors.
“As much as we have faith in Kathleen, we also have an obligation to provide her the tools and the horsepower necessary to get these changes where they need to be,” said Ulrich. “On both fine scale issues such as the Rock Springs plan and sage grouse management, but on bigger and heavier lifts like meaningful NEPA reform.”
The sentiment was echoed by Wyoming Energy Authority Executive Director Rob Creager.
“When it comes to understanding the energy landscape in the West, few understand it as well … as Kathleen Sgamma,” Creager said. “We are thrilled with her nomination and look forward to working with the BLM to advance Wyoming energy."
