“We will mine more, drill more, cut more timber.” — James Watt, Ronald Reagan’s first Interior secretary.

As we wait for the incoming Trump administration to identify its nominee for Interior secretary, we can't help but envision what the outcome could be. Among those said to be under consideration, or jockeying for the job, are retiring U.S. Rep. Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming, U.S. Rep. Rob Bishop of Utah, and Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin, all Republicans who favor energy exploration over conservation.

What shouldn’t go unnoticed is that Donald Trump could place the immediate future of hundreds of millions of acres of publicly owned lands — lands that all 321.4 million Americans have a vested interest in — into the hands of a politician who hasn’t shown they have the country’s best interests in mind when it comes to fracking regulations, public lands stewardship, or environmental protection.

• Rep. Lummis has supported legislation that would give states control over fracking regulations on federal lands in their state; has opposed the Obama administration’s climate change program; signed legislation that opponents said “would prevent the EPA from protecting the world class fisheries of Bristol Bay, Alaska” from the proposed Pebble Mine; and voted along the lines of the League of Conservation Voters just 5 percent of the time during her eight years in the House.
• Rep. Bishop has tried time and again to restrict the president’s use of the Antiquities Act to designate national monuments; helped found the Federal Land Action Group, FLAG, which works to transfer federal lands to states; declined requests that he denounce “Bundy-style thuggery and lawlessness on our nation’s public lands;” and been criticized for introducing legislation that opponents claim would weaken the Clean Air Act, the Federal Land Policy and Management Act, the National Forest Management Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, and the Wilderness Act.
• Gov. Fallin has embraced pro-oil policies in Oklahoma; been criticized by the Sierra Club for having “been an absentee governor on all important environmental issues in our state during her term;” signed legislation that prohibited local governments in Oklahoma from banning hydrologic fracking; and in October led a day of prayer “to thank God for the blessings created by the oil and natural gas industry and to seek His wisdom and ask for protection.”

If you believe James Conca, a contributor to Forbes on energy and the environment, who on November 10 wrote that “energy in the new Administration will be just what the industry ordered,” you can further appreciate how any nominee Trump chooses for Interior will be bad for public lands management if you oppose energy exploration, want additional national monuments, and support federal land ownership.

And there has been much speculation over whether Mr. Trump could rescind monument designations bestowed on such places as Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument in Maine as well as Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in Utah.

The prospect of the next Interior secretary being a hard-line conservative who believes lands managed by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management or U.S. Forest Service should either be given to the states within which they exist or simply opened up to more energy exploration and logging is understandably concerning to those who appreciate public lands for recreation and habitat conservation and oppose rampant, loosely regulated fossil fuel energy production.

Then, too, there’s the economic return from preserving public lands. According to the Center for Western Priorities, one study indicates that 90 percent of America’s public lands already are open to oil and gas leasing, while just 10 percent are set aside for recreation, conservation, and other uses. Too, it's been demonstrated that counties with more protected lands, such as national monuments, perform better economically than counties without such protected areas. Additionally, surveys conducted by Colorado College conclude that majorities of voters in Western states believe public lands should remain under control of the federal government.

While the National Park System may not be directly impacted by energy development under the next administration, it very well could be adversely impacted by land management along its borders.

At the end of the day, we should question whether an Interior secretary who believes in aggressive energy exploration, reducing the size of public lands ownership, and weakening environmental regulations would be acting in the best interests of the entire U.S. population or simply in the interests of a fraction of that population and industry heads.