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logging, mining, oil, and gas and, with the Bureau of Reclamation in 1902, as the nation’s dam builder. Today, DOI has 70,000 employees in approximately 2,400 locations with offices across the United States, Puerto Rico, and U.S. Territories and Freely Associated States.

Historically, DOI operated in a bipartisan manner consistent with the laws enacted by Congress pursuant to its powers under the Property Clause.” Thus, DOT fulfilled its statutory responsibilities in a manner that ensured the ability of western states, counties, and communities to be sustained by both economic and recreational activities on neighboring federal lands, especially given that in some rural western counties, federal lands constituted 50, 60, 70, 80—even 90 percent of the county’s landmass.*

That ended with the Administration of President Jimmy Carter, who, beholden to environmental groups that supported his election, adopted DOI policies consistent with their demands, much to the horror of western governors, most of whom were Democrats. President Ronald Reagan campaigned against this “War on the West,” declared himself a “Sagebrush Rebel,” and, on taking office,* quelled the rebellion by reversing Carter Administration policies. President George H. W. Bush distanced himself from Reagan’s western policies, committed to a “kinder and gentler America,” and proclaimed his desire to be “the environmental President,” which resulted in changes at the his Administration’s DOI—again, much to the dismay of westerners.° President Bill Clinton resumed Carter’s “War on the West,” epitomized by his DOI’s deploying of wolves into the states bordering Yellowstone National Park; the decreed death of a world-class mine in Montana; and the designation of a vast national monument in Utah over the objections of Utah leaders—but with the support of the Hollywood elite.®

Although Texas Governor George W. Bush and former Wyoming Representative Dick Cheney (R-WY) campaigned in 2000 against Clinton’s worst outrages, including the Utah monument, there was no significant ratcheting back of DOI policies that were either objected to by westerners or contrary to the express provisions of federal statutes. President Barack Obama’s DOI resumed the anti-economic federal lands policies activated by Carter and amplified by Clinton; however, Obama’s DOT!’s antipathy to oil and gas activity on federal lands as mandated by Congress could not have come at a worse time.

After the demonstrated success of fracking on Bureau of Land Management (BLM) acreage in Wyoming in 1993, the fracking revolution soon swept the nation,’ yielding massive discoveries on state and private land from coast to coast, but not, thanks to Obama, on western federal lands.* President Donald Trump, on the other hand, immediately ordered his DOI to comply with federal law, conduct congressionally mandated lease sales, and seek to achieve energy dominance or independence. Thanks in part to the success of oil and gas operations on federal land in the West, the United States achieved energy security for the first time since 1957 in 2019.°