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Next Interior Memos weekly digest, 27 June 2025

It's been another busy week for Interior and things that matter to its mission and serving the country

Jacob Malcom

• 5 min read
A building with a tower extends into the dark blue, pre-dawn sky, with a few tree silhouettes to the left and a crescent moon above.
Santa Fe served as a great venue for the Western Governors' Association meeting this week. Here, the Bataan Memorial Building stands against a clear, pre-dawn sky to greet the day.

Welcome to this week's digest of news and views related to the Department of the Interior and Next Interior. The busy-ness of this week meant a 1-day delay for the digest, but we'll get it back on schedule next week.

Also note that this week we include an action item: help us say happy 85th birthday to the US Fish and Wildlife Service (more info below), which is part of the Department!

What happened

  1. Selling off our public lands, continued (part II). Some good and some not-so-good news on the public lands front. First, lawmakers heard the public's very strong negative reaction to Utah Senator Lee's reconciliation proposal to sell off Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) lands and he withdrew the amendment. Hooray! That was followed in short order by his announcement that he would amend the proposal to try again to get it past the Senate's parliamentarian; more on that below. Read more
  2. Western Governors' Association (WGA) annual 2025 meeting. Next Interior attended the WGA meeting in Santa Fe, New Mexico, which featured Department of the Interior-related discussions of energy, AI, public lands, and more. You can check out the summary - still about 3,000 words because a lot happened - in our Next Interior Memo. Read more
  3. Dr. Megan Bang, an Ojibwe scholar at Northwestern University, becomes first Native American on MacArthur Foundation board. Along with the recent news from the MacArthur Foundation of their increased focus on Indian Country and work to support self-determination, Tribal Business News reported that the Foundation also has its first Native American representation on their board. Representation matters. Read more

Bonus item: As discussed in the Next Interior Memo on the WGA meeting, Secretary Burgum included his normal - and misleading - lines about the unreliability of renewable energy, never once mentioning the advances in power storage, from batteries to thermal mass to hydro. Maybe he doesn't want to draw attention to the fact that the administration's actions are undercutting that progress? E&E and others are watching:

Screenshot of news story that reads: "Grid battery installations may plunge 29% due to Congress, Trump — report The energy storage industry saw record growth at the beginning of this year. New tariffs and the GOP megabill could reverse that trend."
E&E News is covering the role of tariffs and the GOP megabill rescissions that could harm grid power storage.

Other news:

What's coming up

  1. Selling off our public lands, continued (part III). While last week saw the mixed bag of public lands news, it's not yet resolved. As E&E News summarized Senator Lee's forthcoming proposal, "[it] would order the sale of up to 0.5 percent of Bureau of Land Management lands that are within 5 miles of a population center. That more than half of his initial proposal, which ordered the disposal of up to 1.5 percent of the federal estate." In response, several House Republicans from the West sent a letter to Speaker Johnson outright opposing the sale. We'll see what comes of this issue. Analysis and more
  2. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has a birthday on Monday. The Service was established on 30 June 1940 from the merging of the Bureau of Fisheries and the Bureau of Biological Survey. Today, the Service manages about 570 national wildlife refuges, works to conserve over 1,500 threatened and endangered species in the US (and hundreds more worldwide), protect migratory birds and a variety of freshwater fish, and combats wildlife trafficking...all made possible by thousands of dedicated public servants! Help us celebrate the Service's 85th birthday! (We'll give the card a week or so to gather kudos before sending it to the Service...slightly belated, but I hope they understand.)
  3. Independence Day. Next Friday is the Fourth of July, the day we celebrate being a nation not ruled by kings but by the people. We declared this principle and then put into place a system of government that established checks and balances among three branches of government and assured a suite of fundamental rights, like the freedom of speech and freedom of assembly in the First Amendment. We hope you're able to get out and celebrate!

Parting shot

Speaking of Independence Day and the First Amendment:

A crowd of people holding protest signs stands in front of a stucco / adobe building and under the roof of a hotel drive-through area. One observer in a bright green hat is present and facing the crowd, which is loud but peaceful. Mostly clear skies are overhead.
About 2,000 people showed up to the WGA 2025 meeting to protest the sale of our public lands proposed by Senator Mike Lee of Utah and supported in various ways by the current administration. It was great to see people come out in big numbers on a Monday afternoon! Photo CC-BY-SA Next Interior

Do you like this digest? Want to see more or something different? Get in touch to let us know: memos@nextinterior.org. We're going to try to settle into a regular weekly pattern with the digest on Thursdays (occasionally Fridays) and one other Memo earlier in the week, probably Tuesdays.