The Weekly Wrap — November 7, 2025
A rotten week for The White House
Welcome back to The Weekly Wrap, a Friday newsletter from Public Domain. Chris is out elk hunting in Montana this week. Roque is animal tracking in California, and currently unreachable, so he must be having fun. And I am getting ready to head up to northern Wisconsin next week with my fiancé and our dog to do some writing and a bit of autumn hiking.
But before I hit the road, I am on roundup duty. This week was a bad one for The White House. Tuesday’s elections saw voters aggressively reject Trump’s GOP, with resounding Democratic victories in New Jersey, Virginia, New York and more. By all accounts, Trump’s team also took a beating at the Supreme Court on Wednesday, where the justices appeared highly skeptical of the administration’s aggressive use of tariffs to implement the President’s policy agenda. Meanwhile, the government shutdown drags on and the impacts worsen. On Thursday, news broke that the FAA planned to reduce air traffic at 40 airports across the country. Hopefully you don’t have to hop a flight this weekend. If you do, godspeed. Bring snacks.
“Every President has a moment where they get punched hard in the face, and opponents lose their fear,” observes political commentator Matt Stoller. Could this be President Trump’s punched-in-the-face moment? We shall see.
In the meantime, let’s get to some public lands and wildlife news:
From The PD Desk…
Top Interior Official Made Millions In An Industry Trump Despises
This week for Public Domain, Chris dug into the millions that Deputy Secretary of the Interior Department Kate MacGregor made during her time in the private sector. After leaving the Interior Department at the end of Trump’s first term, she took a big job at energy giant NextEra, and made bank. NextEra, of course, has major investments in the renewable sector, which has been a target of the Trump administration’s ire. Now that MacGregor is back in a top job at DOI, and despite the big money she received at NextEra, she is helping lead an agency central to Trump’s anti-renewable agenda.
Another oil ally at the Interior Department
Trump nominates ex-New Mexico lawmaker to oversee public lands - The Guardian
President Trump has a habit of stocking the Interior Department with oil industry lobbyists and the like. You’ve got former offshore oil industry lobbyist Matt Giacona at the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. You’ve got Adam Suess, a former oil executive, serving as a senior counselor to the Secretary. You’ve got Tyler Hassen, another former oil industry executive, who helped engineer the DOGE purges at DOI. And now Steve Pearce is joining the show. Pearce, a former Congressman who made millions selling his oilfield services company, was nominated this week by Trump to lead the Bureau of Land Management. We will be digging into Pearce’s record in the coming days.
More D.C. Developments ….
U.S. Park Police seeks hundreds more officers amid Trump’s crime crackdown — The Washington Post
The Washington Post reports that the U.S. Park Police, a branch of the National Park Service, aims to double its forces in Washington D.C. in the coming months. The move is meant to make the Park Police “‘the premier law enforcement agency in D.C.’ — keeping the city safe ‘regardless of inaction’ by the local police department and local elected officials.” This will be a very interesting story to track. Turning the National Park Service’s police force into a front-line urban law enforcement agency controlled by the President and the Interior Secretary — what could go wrong?
Trump Can Reconsider Permit for Offshore Wind Farm, Judge Rules — NYT
Also in Washington, a federal judge ruled this week that the Trump administration can reconsider approval of a major wind farm, known as SouthCoast Wind, that is planned off the coast of Nantucket. The wind project, a joint effort from the companies EDP Renewables and ENGIE, was approved by the Biden administration at the very end of his term. Trump despises wind energy, and his administration has signaled that it wants to re-evaluate the Biden-era approval of SouthCoast Wind. The project has also faced opposition from the town of Nantucket, which sued DOI’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management earlier this year over its approval of the project.
Interior freezes layoff plans — E&E News
The Interior Department will not be laying off civil servants during the government shutdown. E&E news reported on Wednesday that Interior announced in a court filing that it “has no plans to, and therefore will not be, issuing [reduction in force] notices to any employees during this lapse in appropriations.” After the mass exodus of Interior employees during the DOGE purges earlier this year, it seems DOI now needs all hands on deck.
Wildlife Watch
Trump administration won’t issue nationwide recovery plan for grey wolves
In a report this week, Trump’s Fish and Wildlife Service announced that it does not intend to issue a recovery plan for grey wolves, which are listed as endangered in 44 states and as threatened in Minnesota. Under the Endangered Species Act, USFWS is supposed to develop recovery plans for protected species. But the Trump administration, in the aforementioned report, asserted that grey wolves don’t deserve ESA protections and so it has decided not to develop a recovery plan for the species. Conservationists were outraged at the news.
“I’m appalled that Trump wants to strip gray wolves of federal protections and turn their management over to states that are dead set on killing them,” wrote Collette Adkins, senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, in a statement. “Courts have repeatedly made it clear that our country’s gray wolves have not recovered in places like the southern Rocky Mountains and West Coast. We’ll challenge the Trump administration’s unlawful decision to once again abandon wolf recovery, and we’ll win.”
A Cool New Tool
We wanted to give a shout out to the folks at Next Interior, a new organization dedicated to strengthening the Interior Department and supporting the agency’s important mission. Next Interior is developing a useful new mapping project, dubbed “Interior’s Contributions,” that uses public data to illustrate the different ways that DOI supports the people of the United States, including the economic impact from national parks across the nation. You can check out more here.
And a puppy …
And finally, I’ll leave you with this cute picture of our newish puppy. She is a 7-month-old sweetheart who has gained *60 lbs* since June. She loves tug-of-war, food, chasing things, the park, food, chewing things, and food.
As always, thank you all for your continued support. If you have ideas for next week’s round up, please reach out. We’d love your input. Have a great weekend everyone.