Oil-Industry Pick to Lead the BLM Withdraws Amid Revelations She Once Criticized the President
Trump’s nominee to lead the Bureau of Land Management, oil-industry veteran Kathleen Sgamma, withdrew her nomination Thursday, just hours before her confirmation hearing in the Senate. Political news outlets are now reporting that the cabinet shakeup was spurred by revelations around Sgamma’s past criticisms of President Trump.
Sgamma’s last-minute decision to withdraw stunned some lawmakers. It also came as a surprise to the environmental groups who have been strongly opposed to Sgamma’s nomination since it was announced in February.
A coalition of those groups sent a letter Tuesday to Senators Mike Lee (R-UT) and Martin Heinrich (D-NM) expressing their opposition, saying her strong ties to the oil-and-gas industry and history of litigation against the BLM makes her a poor candidate to lead the agency. But it’s possible that another letter, written by Sgamma herself, had more to do with her withdrawal than any pushback from the environmental and public-lands communities.
Sgamma wrote the letter, entitled “A Hope for a Resurgence of Sanity,” on Jan. 7, 2021, in which she strongly criticizes Trump for the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. Its heading makes clear that the letter was sent as a “special message” to members of the Western Energy Alliance. Sgamma has been president of the Denver-based oil and gas trade group since 2006.
The existence of Sgamma’s letter has been reported in the Washington Post and Politico, which notes that it was first publicized earlier this week by a left-leaning watchdog group Documented. Nick Surgey, an investigative reporter and the group’s executive director, also shared a copy of the letter on X. Although calls to WEA from Outdoor Life went unanswered Thursday, the WEA confirmed with Politico that the memo came from the group.
1/ Kathleen Sgamma, the @realDonaldTrump
pick to lead @BLMNational
, privately wrote she was "disgusted" by Trump "spreading misinformation" on Jan. 6 and "dishonoring the vote of the People," per a memo to oil execs obtained by @ItsDocumented
. Her Senate hearing is Thursday. pic.twitter.com/LfLneHHaAi— Nick Surgey (@NickSurgey) April
8, 2025
In her opening paragraph, Sgamma prefaced the letter saying she tries to avoid reacting to political events, or otherwise commenting on issues that fall outside the focus of the WEA, which is primarily to advocate for energy development on public lands in the West. She added, however, that the events that took place at the Capitol on Jan. 6 compelled her to speak up.
“I am disgusted by the violence witnessed yesterday and President Trump’s role in spreading misinformation that incited it,” Sgamma wrote. “I’m disgusted he discredited all the good work he did reorienting the judiciary back toward respect for the rule of law and … I’m disheartened he besmirched his smart, well-intentioned people in the agencies who did such good work on important policies that advance the crucial mission of making life-sustaining, affordable energy accessible to all Americans, no matter their race, gender, and political orientation.”
Sgamma added that she sees hope for the U.S. after “hitting rock bottom as a country.” And she closed her letter by wishing President-elect Biden “the best of luck in his goal to return to normalcy and moderation,” even as the WEA continues to oppose “radical climate change policies” and other regulations that halted or slowed drilling and energy development on federal lands.
Some politicians are still speculating about how the letter relates to Sgamma’s withdrawal during the eleventh hour Thursday.
“I don’t know whether she withdrew, or the White House withdrew her,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) told Politico, adding that she was both “stunned” and disappointed by the news.
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Former Interior Secretary David Bernhardt, meanwhile, called the situation “sad” and “self-inflicted.” Current DOI secretary Burgum has not yet released a public statement.
The last-minute decision leaves the nation’s largest and least-funded land manager without a director or a deputy director at a time when the agency is being reshaped and trimmed down amid mass layoffs. The BLM oversees more than 245 million acres of public land, mostly in the West, along with roughly 700 million acres of subsurface mineral rights.
Utah’s Sen. Lee, who was supposed to lead Sgamma’s confirmation hearing Thursday, issued a prepared statement after her withdrawal saying he looks forward to working with the Trump administration to identify another nominee. It’s unclear at this point who that next pick might be.
The post Oil-Industry Pick to Lead the BLM Withdraws Amid Revelations She Once Criticized the President appeared first on Outdoor Life.
Source: https://www.outdoorlife.com/conservation/sgamma-blm-nominee-withdraws/
