On April 4, 2025, hidden at the bottom of a U.S. Forest Service press release, the Trump administration removed protections of two landscapes previously safeguarded from mineral development, claiming that doing so would “help boost production of critical minerals.”1 The move came just weeks after President Donald Trump’s March 20, 2025, executive order calling for a rapid increase in mineral production on national public lands.2 The canceled mineral withdrawals in the Pecos River watershed in New Mexico and the Ruby Mountains in Nevada had been protected by the Biden administration due to their important recreational, wildlife, and cultural values.3 Neither of these places should be opened for development; nor are they in any way critical for meeting U.S. mineral needs.
Instead, the move signals that the Trump administration intends to point to its mining order as an excuse to sell off and sell out U.S. public lands. The executive order, which aims to identify public lands with mineral deposits and prioritize them for mining, allows or takes steps toward allowing mining nearly everywhere, including currently protected lands such as national monuments and mineral withdrawals.4 It puts a target on all national public lands, especially those with existing mining claims, industry interest, or presumed mineral resources. Regardless of other values public lands have—including recreation, wildlife, culture, and conservation—Trump’s order makes mining the No. 1 use. This will likely lead to additional lands being swiftly and silently unprotected to build the wealth of mostly foreign-owned mining corporations at the expense of America’s most treasured landscapes.5
Breaking down Trump’s “mine everywhere” order
Trump’s executive order “Immediate Measures to Increase American Mineral Production” directs U.S. Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum to identify a list of “as many sites as possible” on national public lands known to hold mineral deposits and explicitly prioritize mining as the primary use of those lands, abandoning the congressional mandate to balance multiple uses.6 The directive includes revising existing land use plans to prioritize mining, bypassing requirements to solicit and incorporate public input, and prioritizing mining applications for immediate approval.7 Particularly when combined with the Department of the Interior’s recent move to truncate permitting review, this order has the potential to swiftly sell out public resources to mining corporations.8 Moreover, the mineral production order covers an extremely broad range of minerals—going beyond currently defined critical minerals—and allows the chair of the newly created National Energy Dominance Council to determine any additional compound or material as a “mineral.”9
While the United States does need to identify sustainable mineral sources for the clean energy transition, it must do so with intentional protection of communities and the environment, rather than brazen development on some of the nation’s greatest natural assets.10 The “mine everywhere” order, on the other hand, shamelessly benefits special interest.11 From the get-go, the order includes minerals that are not critical to U.S. needs—such as gold and coal—but will pad the pockets of billionaires and corporations.12
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Mining to pad corporate pockets, not meet U.S. needs
Gold: One mineral listed as a priority in the executive order is gold. Historically, gold has served the primary purpose of increasing the wealth of the rich in the form of jewelry or gold bars.13 Even today, half of the demand for gold is for jewelry, and a majority of the other half is for investment and bank reserves, not for the purposes outlined in the order.14 Furthermore, gold mining is responsible for more mercury pollution than any other human activity, causing life-threatening harms to miners as well as nearby communities and ecosystems.15 Even abandoned gold mines have resulted in long-lasting pollution to communities and waterways.16
Coal: Trump’s order also cites coal, and a separate executive order officially added it to the list of new minerals of focus.17 Coal is the most polluting fossil fuel, and the coal industry has been declining for decades due to competition from less expensive alternatives.18 A study from Energy Innovation finds that more than 99 percent of coal plants are more expensive to run than to replace with new solar or wind energy.19 Coal plants also have detrimental effects on public health, with estimated health costs of up to $26 billion each year.20 The inclusion of coal as a mineral in Trump’s executive order is senseless and will only result in higher energy costs and greater public health harms.
What’s at risk?
Trump’s “mine everywhere” order could potentially put a huge amount of protected U.S. lands under threat. Under the outdated Mining Law of 1872, which governs mining on U.S. public lands, most federal lands are already open to mining claims; this executive order sets the stage for removing the few protections in place.21 It is likely to target many iconic landscapes currently protected from hard rock and coal mining, including parks, monuments, mineral withdrawals, and other public lands.
A recent analysis by the National Parks Conservation Association found that more than 3,700 mining claims exist within the boundaries of national parks and national monuments.22 Nationwide, more than 490,000 mining claims exist on public lands. And the Trump administration has already begun approving mines on congressionally protected National Park Service lands, including the Mojave National Preserve in California.23 Despite the significant amount of mining claims on public lands, 72 percent of respondents to a survey of Western voters opposed removing protections for public lands to allow more drilling, mining, or other development.24
Public lands under threat from the “mine everywhere” order
Mineral withdrawals
The mining order’s first two targets were the Ruby Mountains and the Pecos River watershed, both protected through mineral withdrawals—a tool that limits mining activity in a specific area of public lands to maintain other values in the area, such as those of scientific, scenic, historical, ecological, environmental, air, water, or archeological resources.25 While unprotected under the guise of critical minerals, the Ruby Mountains mineral withdrawal was canceled to allow for oil and gas development, despite Trump’s 2019 Forest Service determination that the area has low to no potential for oil and gas and, generally, has low energy resource value.26 The mineral withdrawal for the Pecos River watershed was also revoked to allow for gold and other mineral development,27 which incited local outrage due to the area’s history of mining pollution and contamination of its water resources.28 Both of these sites have remarkable conservation value and are critical drivers of the local outdoor recreation economy.29
Another mineral withdrawal that the Trump administration may target is that of the Boundary Waters in Minnesota, which could be a near-term target for sulfide-ore mining, as outlined in Project 2025—the far-right authoritarian playbook for an incoming conservative administration.30 Boundary Waters is the largest wilderness area east of the Rocky Mountains and north of the Everglades as well as America’s most visited wilderness area.31 The watershed was protected by President Joe Biden on January 26, 2023, after extensive public input.32 Studies estimate that if mining were to take place in the region, the loss in visitor spending caused by industrial and related development and pollution could amount to $288 million a year and lead to the overall loss of 4,490 local jobs.33
National monuments
The Trump administration is also likely to target national monuments with this order. During his first term, Trump directed the review of 27 monuments, which led to the downsizing of two sites in Utah—Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante.34 Project 2025 called these rollbacks insufficient and suggested that a future administration expand on them.35 The Trump administration has already removed protections from one marine national monument,36 and Interior Secretary Burgum is actively “reviewing” the boundaries of additional national monuments.37 Several specific national monuments have potential targets on their backs due to mining claims or previous industry conflict in their protections.
For instance, Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni – Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument has a long history of conflict, as decades of uranium mining have contributed to kidney failure and cancer among Navajo communities.38 Mining at this monument poses a significant risk of water contamination to a region whose waters support 40 million people and that has been increasingly susceptible to drought.39 It also hosts one of the most iconic outdoor recreation communities in the country.40 Two out of three Arizonans across the political spectrum support a permanent ban on new uranium mining around the Grand Canyon.41
When Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante were drastically downsized during the first Trump administration, emails exposed that mining and drilling were driving factors behind the decision to gut the monuments.42 While they were unprotected, numerous mining claims were staked,43 and more than 100,000 acres of Bears Ears were leased for oil and gas drilling—although the majority of those leases were later canceled.44 Mining and drilling in these sites would impede access, risk public health, irreparably damage cultural sites and ecosystems, and harm local economies.
Arctic
Sensitive public lands in the Arctic, including the Brooks Range, would likely also be under threat. On June 28, 2024, President Biden rejected the proposed Ambler Access Project, which threatened to develop a 211-mile private road through the Brooks Range and the Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve.45 The minerals reported at the proposed Ambler Mining District are either not critical or are speculative in existence.46 Yet upon his inauguration, Trump named Ambler Road among projects to “[unleash] Alaska’s extraordinary resource potential,” and on March 20, he eliminated land protections in a move that would enable the proposed road to move forward.47
Other Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service lands
While this “mine everywhere” order could be used to justify selling out some of the higher-profile protected lands discussed above, the order also puts hundreds of millions of additional acres of Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service lands at risk, including lands currently managed to conserve sensitive wildlife habitat, cultural and historic sites, drinking water resources, and public recreation opportunities. Already, there are authorized mining operations on about 1.3 million acres of public lands.
48 And the Trump administration recently began rushing the environmental reviews for mining projects on public lands in five states.
49 This executive order attempts to make mining the primary purpose almost anywhere else industry may want to control, regardless of the land’s public values and the input of local communities, Tribes, and other public lands users.
Who benefits?
This order almost exclusively benefits foreign-owned mining corporations and investors, leaving taxpayers and communities in the rubble. The Mining Law of 1872 has never been updated. As a result, there are few to no safeguards to protect natural resources, drinking water, and nearby communities from mining—one of the most toxic polluting industries.50 In fact, the mining order directs Secretary Burgum to clarify how waste and tailings are treated, potentially making it even easier for mining companies to dump waste.51 And yet, under this century-and-a-half-old law, taxpayers get nothing for minerals taken from public lands.52
This order almost exclusively benefits foreign-owned mining corporations and investors, leaving taxpayers and communities in the rubble.
Hardrock minerals are the one resource that private companies can extract without paying any royalties to taxpayers. Other industries, such as oil and gas, pay royalty fees on the oil and gas they extract from national public lands. But mining companies extract publicly owned minerals for private profit for free. Furthermore, most mining companies are foreign-owned, meaning that most of the profits from mining in the United States do not even benefit American companies.53
Conclusion
Trump’s “mine everywhere” executive order targets some of the country’s most sensitive, valuable, and irreplaceable lands. Putting mining priorities above any other use of public lands threatens some of America’s most treasured assets. The Trump administration’s intentions to expand mining across public lands are out of touch with Americans’ priorities and will sell out national landscapes to advance corporate and billionaire interests.
The authors would like to thank Nicole Gentile, Drew McConville, Christian Rodriguez, Mona Alsaidi, Maragret Cooney, Steve Bonitatibus, and the local and national conservation leaders who are building impactful and equitable conservation solutions every day.