Her nomination to head the BLM ended abruptly. Here’s how she would have approached the job

Just two hours before her Senate hearing to become the next director of the Bureau of Land Management, Kathleen Sgamma received a call from Interior Secretary Doug Burgum. She was loading into a car with her family to drive to the Capitol when he told her that she needed to withdraw her nomination.

Sgamma told E&E News by Politico about the exchange this past May. Burgum, she explained to the reporter, “basically told me that I had failed vetting.”

The reason Burgum gave was a leaked memo Sgamma wrote to oil and gas executives following the Jan. 6 attack on the capitol. “I am disgusted by the violence witnessed yesterday and President Trump’s role in spreading misinformation that incited it,” she wrote.

“We must listen to and accept others whom we disagree with, even when they don’t return that respect,” she wrote. “By making this effort individually and together as citizens, we may eventually get political leaders who better reflect the ideals of our nation.”

Prior to the BLM nomination, Sgamma — a Buffalo, New York, native — was the president of the Denver-based Western Energy Alliance, an oil and gas trade organization that advocates for extractive industries in the Intermountain West, where she had worked for 20 years.

A graduate of MIT and Virginia Tech with several years of experience as a U.S. Army intelligence officer, Sgamma described herself as someone with a “natural proclivity for public lands.”

Where that proclivity often produces conservationists, Sgamma “took the road less traveled,” becoming a staunch oil, gas and natural resources advocate. She often testified in Congress on behalf of her clients, and was a feature in court cases over National Environmental Protection Act reviews that impacted the companies she represented. Sgamma was also a named contributor to Project 2025’s section on the Department of the Interior.

Four years after she wrote that memo, Sgamma’s bid to join the administration of the same political leader she wrote was “discredited” came to a rather abrupt end. She is “still disappointed” about how things worked out, but reiterated that “if there was any bitterness it’s completely gone now, that’s for sure.”

The Deseret News recently spoke with her about the priorities for public land management, renewables, the Bundy family, public land sales, and how the BLM can get its authority and trust back. The discussion has been edited for length and clarity.

Deseret News: What were your priorities then and what do you think are the biggest issues facing the Bureau of Land Management now?

KS: My priorities are what I think are the biggest issues facing the BLM. First and foremost, the priority is the unleashing of American energy. Obviously that’s a priority of the president, so that would have been my priority. I thought the secretarial order, “Unleashing American Energy” — with the laundry list of things that needed to get done — is spot on.

The other priority is to figure out how to get NEPA (National Environmental Policy Act) done in a timely manner, that’s legally defensible. Congress passed the Fiscal Responsibility Act that (stipulated) NEPA should be done within two years, and it should be a reasonable page limit.

The Fiscal Responsibility Act helps to insulate the bureau in court when it comes to our RMPs (resource management plans). They don’t have to be science projects, they don’t have to be years-long research projects. We’ve seen judges flyspeck BLM NEPA in the past (flyspeck in a legal context means to pay meticulous, close attention to minute details while seeking flaws) and Congress has clearly said, ‘Nope — it’s to look at environmental impacts that are of approximate cause and it is to get it done in a reasonable time, so that we can make it in America.’

Then, thirdly, is to leave the land better than we found it. Continue to make progress on reducing invasive species, to reduce fuel load to handle wildfires better. Can we do something about wild horses so they’re not ripping up the range and crowding out native species?

Regulation and renewables

DN: What do you think the role of regulation plays for the BLM? It can be a contentious part of land management, and so I’m curious to understand how you navigate that tension with NEPA or regulation otherwise.

KS: I kind of glazed over it with my first priority which is unleashing American energy. In that secretarial order was quite a bit about permitting, so BLM needs to get to regular order on permitting not just for oil and gas but also for ranchers.

They need an update to their permitting rule. We shouldn’t be putting ranchers in that uncertainty of not knowing if they’re going to get their grazing permits renewed every 10 years. So regularity for all kinds of different regulations is absolutely necessary at the BLM.

DN: One of the places that struggles the most with regulation is renewable energy — geothermals in Utah, for example. What do you think is the role of renewables in releasing America’s energy future?

KS: There are certain areas with geothermal resources and we should be able to develop those as well — we’ve got some great resources in Utah and Nevada and all across the West. Permitting should be certain and it should be accomplished in a reasonable amount of time when looking at renewables, as well as critical minerals which are absolutely essential for renewables and also a whole host of other applications as well.

There was a critical minerals mine that took 19 years to get through the NEPA. That is ridiculous. We know how to do mining. We know how to mitigate the impacts from mining. Modern mining is done in a way that is protective of the environment and so that should take a couple of years, not 19.

DN: How about wind and solar? There are complaints that, in an effort to push extractive leases, the current administration is putting restrictions on other renewable energy sources.

KS: Well, there should be certainty for all kinds of different energy sources. The thing about wind and solar is that they take up a huge amount of land for very little energy. So we saw in the previous administration and the Obama administration, that they favored renewables — wind and solar — over oil and gas.

They put more resources there and wind and solar don’t return any revenue to them. Oil and gas do. (The Biden and Obama administrations) fast-tracked their NEPA (reviews) and completely ignored the impact of mines. They completely ignored the impact on birds and other wildlife.

Not completely, I mean wildlife held up — desert animals, particularly, with solar — but they would downplay it. So the permitting and NEPA for renewables should recognize the impacts. It shouldn’t be favored over oil and gas. It should be a balance.

DN: In terms of unleashing America’s energy potential, do you think considerations should be made for the impacts of burning fossil fuels and how that affects the climate?

KS: Well, I think we’ve gotten past this notion that we can just get rid of fossil fuels and then climate change will be solved. We don’t have alternatives that do everything that oil, gas and coal do. In the absence of actual alternatives that are 24/7 reliable, that don’t chew up the land, don’t take up so much mining — we can’t even mine enough to completely replace oil gas and coal with renewables — it’s a pipe dream to think that we can replace everything with wind and solar. That’s just not how it works.

Highest and best land use

DN: Do you think there’s a way for the future of the BLM to find a middle ground between those who prioritize conservation and those who prioritize natural resource extraction?

KS: That is BLM’s lot in life. It is the red-headed stepchild of the federal land management agencies. Everybody loves the park service and we lock away national parks, and that’s a clear preservationist agenda.

But BLM has a multiple-use agenda, and it does have to balance those multiple uses. It has to balance conservation with productive uses on appropriate working landscapes. It will never please everybody. It will always have people screaming at it, but that’s just the nature of multiple-use lands. You have to have a thick skin.

DN: In your estimation, what is the highest and best use of our public lands?

KS: Well, the highest and best use depends on the area you’re talking about. Obviously, the highest and best use of Arches National Park is preservation only. The highest and best use of the Uinta Basin is for oil and natural gas development, because it’s a huge resource. So it depends on the area you’re in, what your highest and best use is.

DN: What about the areas whose use cases are unclear and also hyper-contentious, such as Bears Ears or Grand Staircase?

KS: That’s a great example of why when you decree something from on high without a public process — national monuments are decreed by the president — that’s when you get the most conflict. President Clinton (did) Grand Staircase-Escalante behind everybody’s back without notifying Utah because he knew that those on the ground would oppose that action.

The Antiquities Act designations don’t require any NEPA review — it’s the only major federal action on public lands that don’t require NEPA. So they don’t go through any kind of public input process. Then you get those contentious issues like with Bears Ears and Grand Staircase. It’s perpetual. It never goes away.

Who should manage public lands?

DN: Who are the best stewards of public lands?

KS: Ultimately, private landholders always take care of their land better than federal bureaucrats, flat out. We know that private forests are managed better than the Forest Service, for example.

That doesn’t mean there aren’t really well-managed forests or really well-managed parts of the BLM surface estate. But federal agencies are perpetually underfunded; they never have enough. And when you own something, you take better care of it.

Private entities, then those closest to it. Those at the county and at the state level are closer to the land than the federal bureaucracy is.

The good thing about the BLM is that most of its employees are out West. You have very dedicated land managers who are also close to the ground and do a great job of managing land under the constraints that they have. But transferring lands to states … whenever it’s suggested, you get apoplectic responses.

I would put that in that order: private, then those closest to the ground and then — kind of as a last resort, just because there’s so much public land — would be the federal government.

DN: How did you feel about the controversial efforts made by the Senate and House natural resources committees to introduce land sales into the reconciliation bill?

KS: Well, it’s back to my earlier comment about how apoplectic people get when you talk about transferring any lands to the states. What’s being talked about is transfers for purposes of housing around Las Vegas, for example, or other areas like St. George that are constrained by federal lands.

Let’s not get apoplectic. Every single acre of BLM lands or federal lands is not Yellowstone. If there are some lands where the better and higher use is to support a community with affordable housing or infrastructure, then let’s take a step back. It’s not the end of the world. Lands are still protected. Wilderness areas are still protected.

DN: Using public lands for affordable housing — how reasonable do you think that is?

KS: It’s a small amount that we’re talking about. If it’s millions and millions and tens of millions of acres, that’s one thing. But if it’s a reasonable amount of land in an area that’s appropriate — it’s already near development, it’s not off in the middle of nowhere — then, again, let’s be reasonable about it.

That’s the thing about federal lands, right? Unless it’s a presidential decree of tens of millions of acres like the Antiquities Act, every single acre on BLM goes through a land-use planning process. Any decision goes through NEPA. So you have to look at the impacts locally, on the ground and look at, what acre are we talking about? Where is it? What’s the multiple use in the area? What are the other natural resource values in the area that need to be protected?

It’s a very painstaking process and it’s done deliberately. And you have to give BLM a lot of credit for doing that hard work and taking those bullets constantly.

The Bundys, credibility and the future

DN: Speaking of taking bullets, there’s been a lot of reporting about how the Bundy family standoff showed that the BLM could not enforce its own rules. Do you think there’s a way for the bureau to recover some of its credibility?

KS: The Bundy standoff was one of these situations where BLM employees weren’t supported necessarily. The Bundys certainly felt like they were getting a poor shake. In certain communities, it will never recover.

But let’s face it, the federal government instigated that situation by pushing ranchers. The Fish and Wildlife Service and BLM had some overzealous federal employees. You had environmental groups trying to push out ranching and using the federal government to do that. The Bundys were particularly stubborn and the Bundys did not handle it very well and, ultimately, stepped way over the line.

When there is that resource conflict, you have to build trust with people. You have to bring everybody to the table. You have to listen to all sides. You have to do the hard work of working with all stakeholders, no matter how thorny they may be.

DN: In cases where those stakeholders threaten violence?

KS: Well, the Bundys clearly overstepped their bounds and they were punished for it accordingly. But the federal government overstepped its bounds too. A federal bureaucracy that stays in its lane, that follows the law, that is not overzealous, that fairly balances competing interests … you have to show all stakeholders that you’re listening to everyone, that you’re taking their input into consideration and not trying to push them off the land, so that when you have to make those thorny decisions that are not going to satisfy everyone, you have a record of having done it the right way.

DN: You believe that conservation and natural resource extraction go hand in hand?

KS: Oh, absolutely. Because we have areas that are preserved — hundreds of millions of acres of wilderness and national parks, and there’s no development there. But we also have hundreds of millions of acres of working landscapes that contributed to the wealth of the nation.

It’s a false choice that we can either have conservation or we can develop our resources. We can and we do both: we develop our natural resources and we protect the land.

It’s a balance. It’s not either or. Is there an impact? Absolutely. There’s an impact from oil, gas, coal, wind, solar, agriculture, but we mitigate it. We reduce the risk that accidents happen or we make sure that we keep the impact as low as possible, that we manage those risks.

We provide an energy resource that not only powers America, but enables the world to be successful.