What Trump’s pick for Interior deputy means for public lands

By Heather Richards, Michael Doyle | 01/13/2025 02:01 PM EST

Utility executive Kate MacGregor is heading for a return engagement as the department’s deputy secretary, a post she held in the first Trump administration.

Katharine MacGregor speaking.

Katharine MacGregor, then nominee to be deputy Interior secretary, testifies during her confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill on Nov. 5, 2019. President-elect Donald Trump has tapped her to return to that role. Francis Chung/POLITICO

Katharine MacGregor, who was named this weekend as President-elect Donald Trump’s choice for deputy secretary of the Interior Department, appears well-positioned to lead the incoming administration’s push for “energy dominance” on public lands along with expanded access for hunting and fishing at wildlife refuges and other public lands.

And in what would be her second stint in Interior leadership, she would be well-poised to move efficiently, according to her colleagues from the first Trump administration.

“I don’t want to be too flippant about it, but they’re not fucking around,” said Joe Balash, who was Interior’s assistant secretary of lands and minerals management in the first Trump administration. “Kate’s been there. She knows how it works. She’s there to make things happen. … This is no time for on-the-job training.”

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David Bernhardt, who was Trump’s Interior secretary from 2019 to 2021 and is helping manage Trump 2.0’s Interior transition team, echoed that message in an interview.

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