The government shutdown isn’t stopping the Trump administration from advancing its policy priorities, especially when it comes to fossil fuels.
When it announced its contingency plans for the shutdown, the Bureau of Land Management said that staff who are in charge of processing leases and permits for oil and gas, leases for coal or “other energy and mineral resources necessary for energy production” would still have to work.
Since that time, it has continued to approve drilling permits. Between Oct. 1 and Wednesday, the bureau approved 474 permits to drill on public lands.
That figure is fairly in line with previous months when the government was open, with 494 permits approved in August and 505 in September.
Interior Secretary Burgum said during a recent event that the administration is scrounging up funding wherever it can to pay people for activities such as approving permits.
“Whether it’s a an entrance fee at a park, I’ve got nobody out there to collect that, whether it’s getting permits done, we’re grabbing any cash that was laying in any drawer to try to pay those essential people, including the people that can do the permitting, so that we can keep going,” Burgum said last week during an event at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
“We’re on a track way ahead of last year in terms of permitting, and whether it’s permitting, timber, grazing, oil and gas, infrastructure, easements… if it crosses federal land, we’re trying to do everything we can to not be handicapped,” he added.
Interior Department spokesperson Kristen Peters said in an email that drilling permits were being processed “using associated filing fees.”
She added that the Bureau of Land Management “collects a non-refundable processing fee when an oil and gas operator submits” a permit application.
At the same time, Burgum mused that the government may also consider further layoffs as a result of the funding lapse. The Trump administration has broadly sought to lay off workers and shrink the size of the government, though mid-shutdown reductions in force have been halted by the courts.
“What all of us are doing in the Cabinet is taking a hard look at ‘wow, maybe we actually don’t need all of these resources’” Burgum said while criticizing Democrats amid the ongoing shutdown.
“So maybe they’re actually helping us get to the point where we can say, ‘We don’t need as many people; we don’t need as much cost.’”
Interior in particular has sought to keep the Trump administration’s fossil fuel agenda moving forward, even as the shutdown hampers other government services.
The contingency plan from the Bureau of Land Management, which falls under Interior, says that it is keeping some staffers on in order to “address the National Energy Emergency.”
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s plan, meanwhile, states that it will have employees available “to work on priority conventional energy projects.” The term “conventional energy” typically refers to fossil fuels.
These priority projects include preparing the administration’s plan for offshore drilling for the years ahead, as well as “preparation for the anticipated calendar year 2026 offshore critical mineral lease sales and oil and gas development plans.”
While offshore minerals mining has never been done at a large scale, the White House has directed Interior to set up a program for mining the ocean floor. The plan indicates that the administration plans to auction off those mining rights next year.
When the shutdown plans were announced, Interior said on social media that it would “ensure permitting and other efforts related to American Energy Dominance are continued.”
Critics argue that the government should not be continuing to fund fossil fuel approvals while cutting back essential services.
“They can’t find money for SNAP benefits, but they can find money to keep permitting oil and gas drilling. That’s the priorities for this administration right now,” said Aaron Weiss, deputy director of the conservation group Center for Western Priorities, which has published its own tracker of the administration’s approved permits.
President Trump has expressed a fondness for fossil fuels and antipathy toward renewables, particularly repeating his intention to “drill, baby drill.”
Meanwhile, Interior may not be alone.
The New York Times has reported that at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), staffers are working on a plan that would loosen restrictions on coal plants’ mercury releases.
According to Bloomberg Law, a key EPA official said last week that staffers with jobs related to chemicals are still working during the shutdown.
“We’ve been intentional and aggressive in establishing a structure to ensure EPA is focused on statutory obligations & Presidential priorities, not the overreach of the previous administration,” an EPA spokesperson said in an email.
“EPA continues to work to fulfill our statutory obligations, emergency response efforts, and Administration priorities,” the spokesperson added. “Despite the Democrat shutdown, EPA maintains essential operations because we are unwavering in our commitment to our mission of providing clean air, clean land, and clean water for all Americans. Moreover, we’ll continue to dismantle the Biden Administration’s wasteful and costly agenda.”
The spokesperson added that the agency is operating according to its shutdown plan, under which 89 percent of the agency’s staff was slated for furlough.
The shutdown plan states that issuance of “permits, guidance, regulations, and policies” will cease unless they are “necessary for exempted or excepted activities.”
