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By Marni Rose McFall
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Oil and gas development near one of the most culturally significant Native American sites in the United States could move a step closer to reality after the Trump administration proposed rolling back federal protections around New Mexico's Chaco Culture National Historical Park.
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is currently reviewing whether to revoke or reduce a 2023 mineral withdrawal that barred new oil and gas leasing on roughly 336,000 acres of federal land surrounding Chaco Canyon for 20 years.
The agency's draft environmental assessment presents three options: keep the existing protections in place, reduce the protected area from a 10-mile buffer to five miles, or eliminate the withdrawal entirely and reopen the land to new mineral leasing.
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The BLM has opened a comment period for the draft Environmental Assessment for Proposed Revocation of Public Lands Order, but the deadline is now looming.
Newsweek has contacted the Bureau of Land Management for comment via email.
Why It Matters
Chaco Culture National Historical Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in northwestern New Mexico, contains some of the most important archaeological remains of ancestral Puebloan civilization.
The broader landscape includes thousands of cultural sites, ancient roads, shrines and ceremonial locations that remain sacred to many Pueblo communities, the Navajo Nation and other Indigenous groups.
The plans come after President Donald Trump reduced the size of the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments in southern Utah, two of the nation’s most contested national monuments that are both important to Native American tribes, and reignited a decade-long fight over conservation, public lands and presidential authority.
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Opposition to the Chaco Drilling Plan
The plan from the BLM would reopen the area around Chaco Culture National Historical Park for possible oil and gas leasing.
In April of this year, the Interior Department moved to revoke Biden-era protections surrounding Chaco Culture, proposing to rescind Public Land Order 7923, which put areas of land around the park off-limits to drilling and mining.
Under the new proposal, discretion over mineral leasing would be returned to BLM and the land would be opened to new claims and development.
The plan has been met with opposition, including from the All Pueblo Council Governors, which represents the 20 sovereign Pueblo nations of New Mexico and Texas.
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Deb Haaland, who is currently running for Governor of New Mexico and served as the Secretary of the Interior during Biden’s administration, said in a statement that Donald Trump and Director of the United States Bureau of Land Management Steve Pearce "are attempting to open up Chaco to new mineral leasing and entry that would cause irreversible damage."
"Their attempt to profit off this sacred place shows a clear lack of consideration, and disrespect for the lives that New Mexicans live,” she added.
Haaland has long advocated for the Chaco region, and during her time in Congress, worked with the New Mexico congressional delegation to introduce the Chaco Cultural Heritage Area Protection Act.
New Mexico Congresswoman Melanie Stansbury, a Democrat, wrote in a post on X, “Chaco Canyon is not for sale!”
“These sacred, ancestral landscapes must not be sold off to oil and gas leasing—but protected for generations to come. We stand with Pueblo and Tribal Leaders!” Stansbury added.
The National Parks Conservation Association has also opposed the plans and called on people to “stand up for Chaco Culture National Historical Park.”
When Is The Deadline for the Public to Comment?
The deadline for the public to weigh in is Wednesday, July 29. You can leave your comments here.
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: John Fitzpatrick and Gray R. Thomas
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