It's honestly a little difficult to properly express how hard the Trump regime is leaning into its "villain in a Captain Planet cartoon" schtick with how quickly they're working to gut environmental regulations, strip mine the country, and turn the planet to ash. Furthermore, you can tell it's a real priority for the Kelpto Kaiser, his rich donors, and his fascist administration because of the extreme lengths the regime is willing to go to, in order to (not so) plausibly grant itself the power to do so.

Take for example the US interior department's announcement that they're going to fast track permit approvals for fossil fuel and mining projects on currently protected lands; and by "fast track" we mean reduce the length of the process to the point that the government is basically just rubberstamping mining projects. Their justification for doing so? Trump's executive order declaring an “energy emergency” which the regime argues, grants them extraordinary powers to quickly strip mine national monuments without consultation, or something.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/24/interior-agency-fossil-fuel-mining-permits

US interior agency to fast track permits for fossil fuel and mining projects

"The US interior department has announced plans to radically fast track permitting for projects involving fossil fuels and mining citing Donald Trump’s ‘energy emergency’ declaration that many experts say does not exist.

The move would reduce to a maximum of 28 days permitting procedures that previously could take multiple years, the department said late Wednesday.

Green groups immediately criticized the plans to boost planet-heating fossil fuels and questioned their legality describing them as an extreme change to the nation’s core environment laws.

The department said that reviews that now typically take around a year would be reduced to just 14 days while a full environment impact statement that usually took two years would now take less than a month."

Obviously this is an extraordinarily bad idea for too many reasons to list fully here; not the least of which being that there is no energy emergency because the United States is already "extracting more oil and gas than any other country in world history." On a boiling planet run by genocidal billionaires, the last damn thing anyone needs is the US government helping Trump's fossil fuel industry donors mine more oil and gas we shouldn't be burning out of the ground on federally protected lands. I'm not surprised environmental groups are planning to sue to stop this, and I hope they win; assuming court orders mean anything to this administration at all - it's currently not clear that they do.

A moment must also be spared to note however that this is yet another example of Trump's strategy to expand his executive powers in ways that fracture the rule of law, by declaring a bunch of made up emergencies. At this point, I highly doubt that most Americans even know that the Trump administration has declared no less than 8 "national emergencies" to increase his power to do (mostly) fascist shit; that's how often the regime has gone to this well. There is no more an "energy emergency" in America, than there is an "invasion" by "narco-terrorist gangs" occurring on our southern border. The regime is merely pretending these things are true, and pointing to Trump's delusional edicts to justify enforcing this "unreality" as if they were true; but at the end of the day the Emperor really is bare ass naked, and reality isn't a game of nazi Simon Says.

But Kristen Brengel, senior VP of govt affairs at the #NationalParks #Conservation Association, noted Roosevelt himself used the #law to #protect the huge swath of #land that later became #GrandCanyon National Park.

“He stood on the rim of the Grand Canyon & said he was going to protect it, & then he did,” she said.

*#Conservatives* in Western states especially have long seen the president’s power to unilaterally set aside land as an example of federal overreach, w/many viewing it as a burdensome restriction on #mining & #drilling.

…During his confirmation hearing, Interior Secretary #DougBurgum said the #AntiquitiesAct is meant only for small, “Indiana Jones-type archeological” sites.

Signed into #law by President Theodore Roosevelt, the #AntiquitiesAct of 1906 gives presidents vast powers to #protect #lands & #waters through the creation of #NationalMonuments. But the law is quiet on whether presidents can remove designations set by their predecessors.

The Bureau of Land Management administers ~17k square miles of national monuments in the West….

Other performance metrics include removing #protections for #EndangeredSpecies that have *recovered* & restoring “historic [racist] names” to #landmarks. On his first day back in office, #Trump stripped #NorthAmerica’s tallest mountain of its #Indigenous name, #Denali, & restored its previous title, Mount McKinley.

The draft strategic plan spells out the #Trump admin’s #Interior Dept’s priorities through 2030, which include increasing production of #FossilFuels, opening #lands in #Alaska & elsewhere to #minerals extraction, reducing grazing costs & trying to “release” federal holdings for housing #development.

While #Interior ofcls declined to comment about any potential monument review, the approach was outlined in a “strategic plan draft framework” shared w/ WaPo. One of the dept’s “potential performance measures” going forward, acc/to the document, will be making sure #NationalMonuments are “assessed & *correctly* sized.”

“They opened up Grand Staircase under the previous [#Trump] administration & the #coal market did not rush in, the #oil & #gas market did not rush in, nobody rushed in,” said Tracy Stone-Manning, who led #Interior’s Bureau of #Land Management under #Biden. “There are plenty of #minerals elsewhere. This is about an #ideological battle.”

#Conservation & #Indigenous advocates argue that there is little demand to develop those resources & that the #NationalMonuments represent vital #ecological & #sacred cultural reserves that local communities fought for years to #protect.

In 2021, #SCOTUS Chief Justice #JohnRoberts invited litigants to challenge how presidents of both parties have used the #law to ban commercial activities in vast stretches of #land & #ocean.

The law limits presidents to protecting “the smallest area compatible with the care & management,” Roberts wrote. “Somewhere along the line, however, this restriction has ceased to pose any meaningful restraint.”

The push would spark an intense #legal fight over the right of a president to grant sweeping #lands #protections under the 1906 #AntiquitiesAct — & take them away. In his 1st term, #Trump became the 1st president in more than half a century to modify existing #NationalMonuments when he drastically shrank the boundaries of Utah’s Bears Ears & Grand Staircase-Escalante—only for Pres Joe #Bidento reverse the cuts.

#PublicLands #conservation #wildlife #FossilFuels #ClimateChange #Environment #law

#Interior aides are looking at whether to scale back at least 6 #NationalMonuments, said these individuals…. The list, they added, includes Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni-Ancestral Footprints of the #GrandCanyon, Ironwood Forest, Chuckwalla, Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks, Bears Ears & Grand Staircase-Escalante—national monuments spread across #Arizona, #California, #NewMexico & #Utah.

#Trump officials are analyzing whether to remove federal #protections for #NationalMonuments spanning millions of acres in the West, according to two people familiar with the matter and an internal #Interior Department document, in order to spur #energy development on #PublicLands.

#land #conservation #habitats #ecosystems #wildlife #FossilFuels #ClimateChange #EnvironmentalLaw #law