Interior Secretary Doug Burgum on Friday downplayed the Trump administration’s plan to shrink half a dozen national monuments in Arizona, California, New Mexico and Utah.
Burgum, who also serves as chair of President Donald Trump’s National Energy Dominance Council, said during an interview that Interior is complying with the president’s executive order to assess whether the nation’s existing national monuments are the “appropriate size” but said the White House was focused on other priorities.
“We’ll go through a thorough review and whatever that timeline lays out, but this is not … a top priority of the administration in terms of all the things we’ve got to face,” he said when pressed for the timing during Semafor’s World Economy Summit on Friday.
The comments come as the White House is looking closely at where it can abolish or greatly reduce the size of national monuments designated by Democratic presidents. Six monuments have made the shortlist in the wake of an internal Bureau of Land Management review of areas with existing mineral withdrawals, POLITICO’s E&E News has previously reported.
