Federal officials will review public land leases and consider redrawing the boundaries of national monuments created under previous presidents as part of efforts to expand domestic energy production, according to a Feb. 3 order from Interior Secretary Doug Burgum.
The secretarial order, titled ‘Unleashing American Energy,’ mandates a 15-day internal review by the Interior Department of certain public lands withdrawn from mining, oil, and gas development.
Though Burgum’s order does not explicitly use the words “national monuments,” it calls on the department’s assistant secretaries to take “actions to review and, as appropriate, revise all withdrawn public lands” under the Antiquities Act of 1906, and the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976….