Report: Only 19% of BLM public lands off-limits to oil and gas

A new report from The Wilderness Society reveals just how far the fossil fuel industry’s grip on public lands reaches—at the expense of our communities, wildlife, clean air and water, and the climate.

This comes at a time when Congress is advancing a budget reconciliation bill that would recklessly force lease sales in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and reinstate mining leases next to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness—accelerating industrial development in some of our nation’s most cherished landscapes.

The Trump administration plans to deepen our dangerous reliance on fossil fuels and to “drill, baby, drill” across our shared public lands by removing any barriers to oil and gas development across the country.

But the vast majority of lands are already up for grabs. As of January 2025, more than 81 percent of all BLM-administered lands in the Western United States remain open to oil and gas leasing. That’s more than 200 million acres—and yet, the Trump administration and Congress are targeting to open even more lands up to oil and gas drilling.

And that’s not all. We also found:

• Much of the land leased to fossil fuel companies never produces any oil and gas. As of 2023, of the more than 23 million acres of public land under lease to the oil and gas industry, 46% of those acres were non-producing, often because the lands have little to no potential for oil and gas. This leasing hamstrings land managers from managing these lands for other valuable uses, like outdoor recreation, conservation of wildlife habitat or carefully sited renewable energy development.
• Oil and gas companies have BIG financial incentives for leasing public lands. Since the Mineral Leasing Act of 1920, the federal government has offered de facto subsidies to the oil and gas industry, including bargain-basement royalty rates and rental fees that give fossil fuel companies an unfair market advantage and allow them to reap record profits.
• Current guidance for managing public lands favors the fossil fuel industry. BLM’s Resource Management Plans (RMPs), which are meant to act as blueprints for keeping public lands healthy and productive for multiple uses, have historically defaulted to making lands open to leasing. In most cases, these land use plans are very outdated—many are more than 40 years old and haven’t had public input in decades.

You can learn more about the current state of oil and gas leasing on public lands in our full report.

This report comes as the Trump administration and its allies in Congress are trying to remove barriers to oil and gas drilling on public lands, including legislation recently proposed by Senator Steve Daines (R-MT) that would mandate that over 200 million acres of public lands are offered for lease to oil and gas companies on a quarterly basis.

We urgently need policy reforms that prioritize balanced land management, environmental protection and the promotion of sustainable energy alternatives on public lands. This is what we’re fighting for.

You can join the fight to take public lands and waters back from polluters by donating to The Wilderness Society today. Every gift powers research, advocacy and legal action to keep public lands in public hands—protected for everyone, for generations to come.