It is day 28 of Trump and Republicans’ government shutdown.
Millions of federal workers are locked out of their jobs or will not receive their paychecks. Most national parks are open but largely unprotected and at risk of vandalism or harm. Every day that passes means more damage: to the places we love, the people who protect them, and the communities that depend on them.
While Americans wait for paychecks and worry about their health costs going through the roof, Trump’s Interior Department has found time for one thing: helping Big Oil.
Ranking Member Huffman is demanding answers from Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins for keeping fossil fuel operations running during the shutdown while freezing programs that protect people and public lands. Why are drilling rigs running at full speed while firefighters go unpaid? Why do oil executives get the VIP treatment when park rangers get pink slips?
The public deserves to know why Trump’s administration treats this shutdown like a business opportunity for polluters.
When forced to choose between billionaires and everyday Americans, Trump and Republicans show their loyalties every time.
Even as essential services like emergency response, law enforcement, and wildland firefighting collapse, the Trump administration is still processing drilling permits, holding lease sales, and greenlighting mining projects:
As of October 20, 2025, the Department of Interior (DOI) has issued 305 new oil and gas drilling permits on federal lands during the shutdown.
DOI has prepared to open more than 250,000 acres of land in Wyoming and Nebraska and held a coal lease sale for access to Montana’s Powder River Basin.
The administration has approved contentious mining projects, including the 211-mile Ambler Road Project through a protected forest in Alaska and the Libby Mining Project adjacent to a critical wilderness area in Montana.
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) contingency plans list oil and gas permitting activities as one of the few things that will continue during a lapse in appropriations.
Americans are struggling to make rent or afford healthcare. Trump’s team is spending the shutdown helping Big Oil turn your favorite beaches into drilling sites.
This week, reporting based on leaked documents found that the Trump administration plans to propose opening previously protected waters in the Atlantic, Pacific, Eastern Gulf, and sensitive areas off the coast of Alaska to offshore drilling.
The beaches Americans treasure—places like Cape Cod, the Outer Banks, and the California coast—would see oil rigs dotting the horizon, face the disastrous risks of oil spills, and be left with industrial scars that never heal.
Big Oil has been clear that they want these very areas open to drilling despite strong bipartisan opposition.
And the Trump administration is bending the knee.
Meanwhile, in our national forests, wildland firefighters continue to work without pay and staff who support logistics, communications, and administrative support for firefighting are furloughed.
In our national parks, illegal activity is rampant and visitor centers are closed and inaccessible to the public. And across our gateway communities, local economies will suffer as furloughed workers are fired, budgets are cut, and contracts are paused or canceled as a consequence of the Republican government shutdown.
As Americans face expiring health care premiums, uncertain SNAP payments, and extended airport delays during the shutdown, Trump and Republicans continue their reckless drilling and mining across our public lands, prioritizing industries in decline over cheaper, cleaner energy sources like wind and solar.
Despite the record amounts of oil and gas being produced in the United States, Trump has bolstered fossil fuel permitting and leasing under the guise of a legally dubious national energy emergency. Yet, at the same time, he has slowed, stopped, or sabotaged the development of renewable energy that adds cheap energy to the grid, increases our energy dominance, and creates millions of high-paying American jobs.
Republicans love to rail against “cancel culture,” but in their shutdown, they’re the one canceling clean energy projects across the country:
In the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s (BOEM) shutdown contingency plan, offshore oil and gas activities will continue, while all activities related to clean every have been ordered to cease during the shutdown.
The Department of Interior has exempted workers from furlough who permit fossil fuel and mining projects, yet has continued halting new renewable energy projects during the shutdown.
Just last week, the Bureau of Land Management canceled seven solar projects in Nevada that were set to generate 6.2 gigawatts of affordable clean energy.
At the outset of the shutdown, Trump’s Energy Department said it would cancel more than $7.5 billion in awards for hundreds of energy projects, with the vast majority located in Democratic States.
Any effort to cut clean energy is an effort to reduce our energy dominance, independence, and affordability.
If Trump really wanted to address a so-called “national energy emergency” during the shutdown, he would stop ceding our clean energy future to China and sacrificing hundreds of thousands of American clean energy jobs in the process.
Trump didn’t even hide it: he asked Big Oil for $1 billion in campaign cash, and they’ve been getting paid back ever since.
Today, billions in clean energy projects are on hold or cancelled while Big Oil gets to skip the line and reap record profits. That means hundreds of thousands of good-paying jobs lost. That means tying our energy bills to the international oil cartels setting prices at the pump.
Americans deserve better than this.
We deserve clean, affordable, and reliable energy.
We deserve good-paying jobs and affordable healthcare.
Trump’s shutdown is nothing more than retribution against his political opponents and the American people. And every day it continues, it robs the American people of what’s rightfully theirs.
Ranking Member Huffman is holding Trump’s cabinet accountable for turning the Republican shutdown into a payday for polluters. He’s pressing Interior Secretary Burgum and Agriculture Secretary Rollins to explain why oil and mining interests get special treatment while park rangers, firefighters, and everyday Americans are left behind.
We’re fighting to reopen the government, restore public safety programs, and stop Trump’s political paybacks from tearing through America’s public lands.
We’re fighting for American families and the lands they love.
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