The head of a Denver-based oil and gas trade group that lobbies for expanded drilling on public lands is Republican President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Bureau of Land Management.
Kathleen Sgamma is the president of Western Energy Alliance, which represents independent oil and gas producers who operate in nine western states. In that role, she has been a leading opponent of efforts by conservation groups and public lands managers to restrict oil and gas drilling on federally-owned public lands, including the 245 million acres administered by the BLM.
Sgamma’s nomination to lead the agency was published in the Congressional Record late Tuesday, though no formal announcement had yet been made by the White House.
U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert, a Windsor Republican, called Sgamma’s selection a “major win for Coloradans.”
“I’ve had the opportunity to work closely with her on several efforts to responsibly manage our lands while also allowing our oil and gas industry to thrive and bring back American energy dominance,” Boebert said in a press release.
Sgamma was the author of a section on energy policy in Project 2025, a controversial blueprint for the incoming Trump administration produced by the conservative Heritage Foundation. The plan calls for sweeping rollbacks of Biden-era public lands policies and a return to Trump’s “energy dominance agenda,” including by expanding oil and gas lease sales, expediting drilling permits and cutting the royalties and fees that producers must pay to extract publicly-owned resources.
Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon described Trump’s nomination of Sgamma as “an excellent choice…to lead the Bureau of Land Management.
“As someone who has worked with Ms. Sgamma,” Gordon continued in a prepared statement, “I know she is well-qualified and knowledgeable when it comes to Wyoming, the West, and multiple use of public lands.”
The state of Wyoming, for example, is involved in multiple lawsuits regarding BLM policies — some supporting the agency’s positions, such as the 5,000-well Converse County Oil and Gas Project, and many more against: the BLM’s ‘conservation rule,’ the agency’s rule to end federal coal leasing in the Powder River Basin and the sage grouse management amendments.
With a vast footprint in Wyoming, BLM lands support a multitude of uses that, combined, generate billions of dollars and more than 70,000 jobs in the state, according to the agency. But its ever-evolving rules and regulations — rooted in the multiple-use doctrine of the Federal Land Policy and Management Act — often confound public land stakeholders.
Gordon is reviewing the BLM’s controversial Rock Springs Resource Management Plan revisions prescribing the future management of 3.6 million acres of southwest Wyoming, and is considering suing the agency over it. Earlier this month, new Interior Secretary Doug Burgum directed Wyoming’s BLM office to review the plan and recommend changes by Feb. 18.
Western Energy Alliance is one of the BLM’s most frequent challengers in court and has long sought to overturn several of the agency’s rules implemented under the Biden administration.
“Honored to be nominated by @realDonaldTrump to serve as Director of BLM to help unleash American energy,” Sgamma posted on the X social media platform on Wednesday. “I’ve worked on public lands issues for 20 years at @WesternEnergy1 & greatly respect the work BLM does balancing multiple uses [with] stewardship.”
Sgamma joins another Denver-based oil and gas advocate, newly confirmed Energy Secretary Chris Wright, as a key appointee in the Trump administration. Wright, former CEO of oilfield services company Liberty Energy, has served as a member of Western Energy Alliance’s board of directors since 2020 and was the recipient of the group’s “Wildcatter of the Year” award in 2022.
During Trump’s first term, the Bureau of Land Management’s headquarters were moved to Grand Junction as part of a controversial “reorganization” of the agency, which environmental advocates blasted as a thinly disguised effort to force out senior civil servants and concentrate power in the hands of pro-industry political appointees. Project 2025 calls for the agency’s headquarters to be returned to the West, a move that it describes as “the epitome of good governance.”
Chase Woodruff is a senior reporter for Colorado Newsline. His beats include the environment, money in politics, and the economy.
Colorado Newsline is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.
The Crude Life republishes their articles, features and stories online and/or in print under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.
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