Trump’s nominee to steer the Bureau of Land Administration, oil-industry veteran Kathleen Sgamma, withdrew her nomination Thursday, simply hours earlier than her affirmation listening to within the Senate. Political information shops are actually reporting that the cupboard shakeup was spurred by revelations round Sgamma’s previous criticisms of President Trump.
Sgamma’s last-minute determination to withdraw surprised some lawmakers. It additionally got here as a shock to the environmental teams who’ve been strongly against Sgamma’s nomination because it was introduced in February.
A coalition of these teams despatched a letter Tuesday to Senators Mike Lee (R-UT) and Martin Heinrich (D-NM) expressing their opposition, saying her sturdy ties to the oil-and-gas {industry} and historical past of litigation in opposition to the BLM makes her a poor candidate to steer the company. However it’s attainable that one other letter, written by Sgamma herself, had extra to do along with her withdrawal than any pushback from the environmental and public-lands communities.
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Sgamma wrote the letter, entitled “A Hope for a Resurgence of Sanity,” on Jan. 7, 2021, wherein she strongly criticizes Trump for the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol. Its heading makes clear that the letter was despatched as a “particular message” to members of the Western Power Alliance. Sgamma has been president of the Denver-based oil and gasoline commerce group since 2006.
The existence of Sgamma’s letter has been reported within the Washington Put up 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 govt director, additionally shared a duplicate of the letter on X. Though calls to WEA from Outside Life went unanswered Thursday, the WEA confirmed with Politico that the memo got here from the group.
🧵1/ Kathleen Sgamma, the @realDonaldTrump
decide to steer @BLMNational
, privately wrote she was “disgusted” by Trump “spreading misinformation” on Jan. 6 and “dishonoring the vote of the Individuals,” per a memo to grease execs obtained by @ItsDocumented
. Her Senate listening to is Thursday. pic.twitter.com/LfLneHHaAi— Nick Surgey (@NickSurgey) April
8, 2025
In her opening paragraph, Sgamma prefaced the letter saying she tries to keep away from reacting to political occasions, or in any other case commenting on points that fall exterior the main focus of the WEA, which is primarily to advocate for power growth on public lands within the West. She added, nonetheless, that the occasions that came about on the Capitol on Jan. 6 compelled her to talk up.
“I’m disgusted by the violence witnessed yesterday and President Trump’s function in spreading misinformation that incited it,” Sgamma wrote. “I’m disgusted he discredited all the nice work he did reorienting the judiciary again towards respect for the rule of regulation and … I’m disheartened he besmirched his good, well-intentioned folks within the businesses who did such good work on necessary insurance policies that advance the essential mission of constructing life-sustaining, reasonably priced power accessible to all Individuals, irrespective of their race, gender, and political orientation.”
Sgamma added that she sees hope for the U.S. after “hitting all-time low as a rustic.” And she or he closed her letter by wishing President-elect Biden “one of the best of luck in his purpose to return to normalcy and moderation,” even because the WEA continues to oppose “radical local weather change insurance policies” and different laws that halted or slowed drilling and power growth on federal lands.
Some politicians are nonetheless speculating about how the letter pertains to Sgamma’s withdrawal in the course of the eleventh hour Thursday.
“I don’t know whether or not she withdrew, or the White Home withdrew her,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) advised Politico, including that she was each “surprised” and upset by the information.
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Former Inside Secretary David Bernhardt, in the meantime, known as the scenario “unhappy” and “self-inflicted.” Present DOI secretary Burgum has not but launched a public assertion.
The last-minute determination leaves the nation’s largest and least-funded land supervisor with out a director or a deputy director at a time when the company is being reshaped and trimmed down amid mass layoffs. The BLM oversees greater than 245 million acres of public land, principally within the West, together with roughly 700 million acres of subsurface mineral rights.
Utah’s Sen. Lee, who was supposed to steer Sgamma’s affirmation listening to Thursday, issued a ready assertion after her withdrawal saying he seems ahead to working with the Trump administration to determine one other nominee. It’s unclear at this level who that subsequent decide is likely to be.