FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 11, 2025
80+ Groups Demand BLM Halt Trump-Era Public Lands Giveaway
Coalition of Frontline, Tribal, Scientific, and Local Leaders Oppose January 2026 Oil and Gas Lease Sale in New Mexico and Oklahoma
Santa Fe, NM — A powerful coalition of over 80 organizations—from Indigenous and frontline community groups to national environmental organizations, faith leaders, farmers, health professionals, scientists, and small business owners—joined thousands of individuals today in delivering a clear message to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM): stop auctioning off public lands to oil and gas corporations.
In a coordinated action, advocates hand-delivered a joint letter and technical comments to the BLM New Mexico State Office in Santa Fe, urging the agency to cancel its proposed January 2026 oil and gas lease sale, which would open 32 parcels totaling 20,479 acres across New Mexico and Oklahoma to new fossil fuel development. The letter—coordinated by the Greater Chaco Coalition and Permian Basin Climate Justice Coalition members—is accompanied by thousands of protest letters from grassroots groups and impacted communities. The signers span rural and urban communities, multigenerational land stewards, and historically marginalized groups who have long borne the brunt of fossil fuel extraction and government neglect.
The proposed sale, a flagship of the Trump administration’s revived “energy dominance” agenda, targets public lands in two of the most overburdened regions in the country: the Permian Basin and Greater Chaco Landscape. Groups say the lease sale represents a federal handout to the fossil fuel industry—at the expense of climate, health, and Indigenous rights.
“This is a hostile takeover of our public lands,” said Rebecca Sobel, Campaign Manager for WildEarth Guardians. “Our coalition brings together people on the frontlines—Indigenous leaders, scientists, small business owners, health advocates, and community organizers—who know exactly what’s at stake. And what’s at stake isn’t just acreage; it’s clean air, drinkable water, cultural survival, and the future of our climate. This lease sale embodies everything wrong with the Trump administration’s agenda: a rushed process, zero accountability, and blatant disregard for those most impacted.”
A Rushed Process, a Growing Uprising
The BLM has allowed only 30 days for public scoping—the minimum required—despite the vast scale and lasting impacts of the proposed lease sale. From surging oil and gas emissions and toxic spills every seven hours, to widening health disparities and the desecration of sacred Tribal lands, groups say this lease sale exemplifies a broken system—one designed to benefit fossil fuel interests over people and the planet.
“This isn’t about energy security—it’s about corporate control,” said Miya King Flaherty, Program Manager for the Sierra Club Rio Grande Chapter. “New Mexico already has some of the most heavily leased public lands in the country. Overburdened communities are saying enough is enough.”
Just days earlier, on Saturday, June 7, hundreds rallied in Taos and Las Cruces in defense of public lands, as part of coordinated events responding to the proposed lease sale and broader efforts to privatize public lands under the Trump administration’s federal reconciliation package.
And the momentum is only building. On Saturday, June 14, hundreds of thousands of people across the country are expected to participate in a national day of action against the Trump administration’s authoritarian overreach and corruption—including more than two dozen events in New Mexico alone.
The message is clear: from Greater Chaco and throughout the Permian Basin, from Alaska to New Mexico, people are rising to defend public lands from fossil fuel exploitation and privatization.
United Front for Public Lands
“This lease sale is part of a broader, deeply harmful agenda to deregulate, privatize, and pollute,” the letter reads. “It is a continuation of a colonial legacy of extraction and environmental injustice. It is the opposite of responsible governance.”
The lease sale is especially egregious, groups say, because it targets two of the most impacted regions in the country:
- The Greater Chaco Landscape, home to Diné and Pueblo communities, sacred sites, and a cultural heritage that has endured for millennia; and
- The Permian Basin, the world’s largest oil-producing region and a global carbon bomb already fueling a climate and public health crisis.
Since 2015, coalitions have protested quarterly lease sales and delivered more than 2 million public comments to the Bureau of Land Management calling for an immediate halt to all oil and gas leasing on public lands in New Mexico. Now, despite over a decade of Tribal consultation and public engagement, the Trump administration is attempting to undo the 10-mile buffer around Chaco Culture National Historical Park established under the Biden administration. Pueblo leaders have consistently called for stronger protections for the full cultural landscape, but instead, the administration is moving backwards—putting sacred sites, homes, and cultural lifeways back on the auction block.
The letter, coordinated by WildEarth Guardians and the Sierra Club Rio Grande Chapter, along with members of the Greater Chaco Coalition and the Permian Basin Climate Justice Coalition, urges the BLM to:
- Cancel the January 2026 lease sale in its entirety;
- Conduct a programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) evaluating cumulative climate, health, and cultural impacts;
- Honor Tribal sovereignty and protect sacred landscapes; and
- End the political capture of public lands by the fossil fuel industry.
Organizers emphasize that this lease sale is only one front in a broader battle to protect public lands from corporate exploitation. With more lease sales on the horizon and legislative threats escalating, groups are calling on the public to contact their elected officials, show up to local actions, and demand an end to fossil fuel giveaways on public land.
Full Letter and List of Signers >> here
Technical Comment Letter >> here
Additional Quotes:
Frontline and Indigenous Leadership
Beata Tsosie, Organizational Director, Breath of My Heart Birthplace:
“To birth generations we honor our caregiver role as part of precious ecologies. It is our human right to birth our children in a clean, healthy and safe environment. We say no to increased leases and extraction that is destroying our lifeways and our quality of life. We must preserve the Indigenous and land-based birthrights of these sacred Peoples, lands, air and waters. We must center Indigenous birthing people in all environmental protections.”
Chrissie Waquie, Member, Diné Medicine Man Association:
“As avid stewards of Mother Earth, hear our prayers as we bear the brunt of protecting her. See through your truest of hearts. Please honor our treaties and our Fundamental Laws of the land. Axhe he, Aswali.”
Renée Millard-Chacon, Co-Founder, Womxn From The Mountain:
“The oil and gas industry is determined to kill our biosphere, communities, and a just transition to renewable energy economies. We need invested allies ready to challenge a system of predatory capitalism—run by the predators—to legally, financially, and culturally respond to the 6th mass extinction we are currently living in.”
Richard Moore, Co-Coordinator, Los Jardines Institute:
“No more false solutions. Time for a public buyout of local energy and for the people to control their energy destiny.”
Legal, Scientific, and Environmental Experts
Rose Rushing, Attorney, Western Environmental Law Center:
“The climate crisis is fueled disproportionately by fossil fuel extraction and combustion, especially in the U.S., and especially on public lands. Even if we limit oil and gas extraction to existing wells, an overwhelming body of scientific research tells us we will pass the climate Rubicon. The BLM’s proposal for new drilling essentially says: Remember the Calf Canyon-Hermit’s Peak fires, the 2024 Roswell floods, the Black Fire, the Cerro Grande fire in Los Alamos, and the Las Conchas fire? That’s just the beginning.”
Valari Taylor, Co-Chair Executive Committee, Sierra Club Rio Grande Chapter:
“Environmental protections are necessary if we intend to continue to inhabit this planet. Let’s not destroy this planet over capitalism.”
Jane Williams, Executive Director, California Communities Against Toxics:
“Chaco Canyon is a national treasure. We would never think of drilling for oil and gas next to the Vatican, and we should not even be considering doing it here.”
Kenneth Ward, Naturalist, Michigan State Extension Services:
“The ancient Chacoans again weep. Those who seek to exploit the sacred land deserve to go the way the buffalo of the Great Plains went.”
Ruth Kastner, Director, The Quantum Institute:
“No lease sales in this area, period. We must stop setting the planet on fire.”
Farmers, Local Stewards, and Land-Based Voices
Rose V Blakelock, Farmer, Mutable Cross:
“As a small farmer and grower here in New Mexico, I know that the land and water are our lifelines. It is a privilege and a gift to be in relationship with both, and a sacred duty to do everything in our power to protect them. We cannot drink or eat oil and gas. We cannot breathe them either. We know too much about the harmful downstream impacts of these industries to callously sell off these precious resources. All of our health and futures depend on this.”
Joseph Zupan, Executive Director, Amigos Bravos:
“The mission of Amigos Bravos is to protect and restore the waters of New Mexico. The proposed lease sale will have a negative impact on this work, in addition to the other harms it may entail to historic sites, public lands, communities, and the natural environment.”
Timothy Edward Duda, Founder, former Director, Terra Advocati:
“The abuse and exploitation of public lands by corporations must end. We have an obligation to protect these areas for wildlife and future generations. Our natural heritage is at stake.”
Anita Amstutz, Founder, Think Like a Bee:
“The fossil fuel industry is destroying our climate, and the precious water and air we need to live in New Mexico. There is no energy crisis, only corporate greed. We will continue to lose the health of our ecosystems and an opportunity to move towards renewable and sustainable energy forms.”
Bill Berg, Agent and Board Member, Save Rio Grande Valley:
“Unless we act now, in 20 years, climate catastrophe mitigation will be the largest item in the economy and will be the world’s largest employer.”
Moral, Faith-Based, and Cross-Movement Voices
Mayor Alan Webber, City of Santa Fe, New Mexico:
“Chaco Canyon is a global treasure without comparison. It needs protection, not development. When we respect our heritage, we embrace our future.”
Delese Dellios, President, Niko Dellios Legacy Fund:
“The communities and historically rich Chaco area have already been overburdened by oil and gas extraction. It is our sacred duty to protect the people, land, and air from further degradation that will only enrich a few corporate interests. Enough is enough.”
Joyce Bogosian, Chief Marketing Officer, Artemis Art Management, Inc.:
“Any lease sale transacted in NM and OK will allow the oil and gas industry free reign to continue its deleterious extraction policies, without any consideration of the extreme harm caused to our people, our lands, water resources and wildlife. The BLM’s decisions will have dire consequences globally.”
Cari Gardner, Vice Chair, New York Progressive Action Network:
“We must provide a sustainable future! We cannot continue to expand fossil fuel infrastructure. Our children deserve better.”
Daisy Kates, New Mexican Resident:
“We have done enough destruction to Native cultures in this country. We need to RESPECT their sacred grounds. We already live under a methane cloud in New Mexico. We should not be adding to this danger to our health.”
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