Washington, D.C. – Today, Senate Interior-Environment Appropriations Subcommittee Ranking Member Jeff Merkley (D-OR) delivered the following remarks at the hearing reviewing the President’s Fiscal Year 2026 budget request for the U.S. Department of the Interior with Secretary Doug Burgum:
Senator Merkley’s remarks, as prepared for delivery, are below:
“Thank you, Chair Murkowski, and welcome Secretary Burgum.
“Mr. Secretary, I have to say that I am just…astonished. Astonished by what we have all seen over the past 4 months at the Interior Department.
“Coming into this second Trump administration, I feared that the Interior Department would open up more lands to drilling and mining, deepening our addiction to fossil fuels and ignoring the existential threat of climate chaos. And that is exactly what is happening. Despite the U.S. operating at an all-time high for energy production, and more than 19 million leased acres sitting idle – that’s 46% onshore and 79% offshore unused. Yet the administration lied to the American people and declared a bogus ‘energy emergency.’ Now, you’re expediting fossil fuel permitting and dropping protections for vast swaths of public land – while restricting new renewable energy production. You don’t have an ‘all of the above’ energy policy, you have a ‘fossil above all’ energy policy.
“I also feared that a second Trump administration would undermine the Endangered Species Act in order to pave the way for industry and other developers to not have to be bothered by protecting species on the brink of extinction or the health of their ecosystems. And, right on time, the Department proposed a change to Endangered Species Act regulations declaring that habitat destruction somehow doesn’t count when it comes to harming a species.
“But Mr. Secretary, what I never expected to see – not even for a second – was an administration that would fire, or push out under threat, hundreds of dedicated public lands employees, including firefighters and park rangers, who keep us safe and protect our national treasures. I never expected to see an administration openly propose to offload vast numbers of national park units onto the states, fracturing our treasured system with an eye on profit rather than preserving our collective heritage.
“I never expected to see an administration so brazenly violate bipartisan Congressional direction by holding back funds for State and Tribal Historic Preservation Offices, National Heritage Areas, International Anti-Poaching groups, and Volunteer Trail Groups.
“I never ever expected to see an administration that would so callously propose to forsake our treaty and trust responsibilities to sovereign Tribal Nations.
“In your confirmation hearing, you said how proud you were, as Governor, of the strong partnership you had with Tribes in North Dakota. We don’t have to wonder what they think about your proposal to cut core Tribal programs for road maintenance, public safety, social services, and other vital government services nearly in half, or cut Tribal school construction by 80 percent, in a system with $1 billion in deferred maintenance and dozens of schools in desperate condition.
“A broad coalition of organizations from across Indian Country serving Tribal Nations and Tribal citizens sent you a letter on April 11th calling these cuts ‘absolutely unacceptable’ and that they ‘undermine the sacred promises made by the United States to Tribal Nations.’ I’d like to submit that letter for the record, Madame Chairman.
“And I never expected to see an administration delay funding for wildfire preparedness, fire red-card employees, or try to end air and smoke monitoring in national parks as we enter into wildfire season. All as we are here on the brink of another fire season. You have left us less prepared. It is truly astonishing.
“Safeguarding endangered species and ecosystems, preserving public lands, supporting Tribal Nations, and protecting against wildfires are fundamental responsibilities of the Department of the Interior.
“For the Trump administration, however, it’s clear that absolutely nothing is sacred.
“President Franklin Delano Roosevelt said, ‘There is nothing so American as our National Parks…the country belongs to the people.’
“And the environmentalist and novelist Wallace Stegner said, ‘National parks are the best idea we ever had.’
“If creating the National Park System was the best idea we’ve ever had, this Trump administration proposal is the worst. Parks bind us together as a nation – they are our shared natural wonders, open to all. Parks preserve and show us our shared history, places where we can take pride in what happened there, and places where we can learn how we can better live up to our ideals. Congress created nearly every National Park unit by law not just our ‘crown jewels’ specifying why each location deserves recognition in our national story. But this administration wants to strip down the National Park System and hand out the parts.
“Mr. Secretary, you like to talk about ‘unleashing America’s balance sheet’ with regard to our public lands. But accounting for the value of public land is not as simple as listing capital assets in a business.
“How would you price the value of recharging one’s soul on the rim of the Grand Canyon while you’re calculating the critical mineral value of mining there? How do you measure the value of a 4th Grader gasping in awe at the unspoiled natural wonder of Crater Lake, in Oregon, for the first time? Or of an adult, who watched civil rights marches on TV in the 60s, walking across the Edmund Pettis bridge in Selma, Alabama, reliving the fight for racial equality and remembering Bloody Sunday, 1965?
“This administration talks about public lands as if they are transactions and available for freewheeling trade or sale. Resources to exploit for revenue instead of treasures to be celebrated, protected, and passed on to future generations of Americans.
“Mr. Secretary, let me be clear: Our National Park units, our National Wildlife Refuges, and our National Landscape Conservation System belong to the American people. Our public lands are not for sale.
“So, today, I want to dive deeper into this shocking proposal to sell-off America’s treasures, to destroy endangered species and ecosystems, to walk away from our responsibilities to Tribes, to fire dedicated, professional federal workers, and to freeze funding for parks, non-profits, and, most dangerously, wildfire preparedness.
“I look forward to our discussion. Thank you.”
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