After 150 days in office, President Trump has signed executive orders on a pace of more than one per day. An emerging priority of the administration is increasing the use of federal land for resource production. This post reviews those orders, which target energy policy overall, specific resource-rich areas under the United States’s control, and specific natural resources.
Energy Priorities
Executive action towards federal land aligns with the administration’s general movement away from renewable energy sources towards legacy sources of energy. On the administration’s first day, the president signed several executive orders targeting the intersection of energy and federal lands.
The “Unleashing American Energy” Executive Order set the stage for the administration’s desire to use federal lands to generate energy. The Executive Order declares that it is the policy of the United States “to encourage energy exploration and production on Federal lands and waters, including on the Outer Continental Shelf.” It also directs the heads of all federal agencies to review any regulation or other positions that “impose an undue burden on the identification, development, or use of domestic energy resources — with particular attention to oil, natural gas, coal, hydropower, biofuels, critical mineral, and nuclear energy resources.” The “Declaring a National Energy Emergency” Executive Order, echoing similar sentiments, directs federal agency heads to use all lawful authorities, emergency or otherwise, “to facilitate the identification, leasing, siting, production, transportation, refining, and generation of domestic energy resources, including but not limited to, on Federal lands.” The term “energy resources” in the Order aligns with the attention to oil, natural gas, coal, hydropower, biofuels, critical mineral, and nuclear energy resources.
Regional Actions
President Trump also signed executive orders targeting the use of federal lands in specific geographical areas, such as the “Outer Continental Shelf from Offshore Wind Leasing” and “Unleashing Alaska’s Extraordinary Resource Potential” Executive Orders. The Offshore Wind Leasing order withdraws “from disposition for wind energy leasing all areas within the Offshore Continental Shelf (OCS).” The withdrawal pauses new and renewed leases of any area in the OCS for wind generation. It also instructs agencies to pause “new or renewed approvals, rights of way, permits, leases, or loans for onshore or offshore wind projects pending the completion of a comprehensive assessment and review of Federal wind leasing and permitting practices.” This order attempts to reverse Biden-area wind generation priorities, which centered on the OCS, demonstrating not all energy sources are prioritized in the current administration. At the same time, the Alaska order directs agencies to take action to ensure all regulations, orders, guidance, policies, or other similar documents align with the goal to “maximize the development and production of the natural resources located on both Federal and State lands within Alaska.” This order similarly rescinds many Biden-era guidance documents like restrictions on the National Petroleum Reserve and halts on leases in the Arctic Nation Wildlife Refuge.
Coal and Other Resources
Recent executive orders target the development of specific resources on federal land from coal to fisheries. The “Reinvigorating America’s Beautiful Clean Coal Industry” Executive Order, published in April 2025, instructs the Secretaries of the Interior, Agriculture, and Energy to create a federal report identifying coal reserves on federal lands, proposes policies to address impediments, and ultimately enable the mining of such coal resources by either private or public actors. The order further instructs the Secretaries of the Interior and Agriculture to use this report to prioritize the land for “coal-related activities.” The “Immediate Measures to Increase American Mineral Production” Executive Order, published in March 2025, similarly instructs the Secretaries of Defense, Interior, Agriculture, and Energy to “identify as many sites as possible on Federal land managed by their respective agencies that may be suitable for leasing… for the construction and operation of private commercial mineral production enterprises.” It then instructs the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Energy to enter into leases with private entities on these lands for mineral production purposes. “Mineral” is defined as “critical mineral, as defined by 30 U.S.C. 1606(a)(3), as well as uranium, copper, potash, gold, and any other element, compound or material as determined by the Chair of the National Energy Dominance Council (NEDC).”
Other orders target resources garnering less media attention. The “Immediate Expansion of American Timber Production” Executive Order instructs the Bureau of Land Management to issue new guidance to “facilitate increased timber production” on federal lands, while the “Unleashing American Commercial Fishing in the Pacific” Executive Order expands the availability of commercial fishing in the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument (PRIMNM) and instructs the Secretary of Commerce or repeal regulations burdening commercial fishing in the PRIMNM.
Conclusion
The first six months of the current Administration demonstrate a renewed priority on using federal land to increase production of a wide variety of natural resources. Agencies have moved quickly to act on these orders, demonstrated for example by the Department of the Interior implementing “emergency permitting procedures to accelerate the development of domestic energy resources” and the Secretary of Agriculture canceling two mineral lease withdrawals on Forest Service land to “help boost production of critical minerals”—in both instances citing Executive Orders for these actions. The next three-and-a-half years will continue to see the Trump administration transform these priorities from policy initiatives into regulatory action. We will continue to monitor these actions on the Corporate Environmental Lawyer blog.
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