Senate Republicans Confirm Nearly 50 of Trump's Energy and Land Management Nominees

On May 14, 2026, the United States Senate voted to confirm 49 of President Donald Trump's nominees in a single package — the fourth time Republicans have used a batch-confirmation procedure adopted after a September 2025 rules change [1]. Among those confirmed: Steve Pearce, the 78-year-old former congressman from New Mexico who will now lead the Bureau of Land Management, the agency that oversees 245 million acres of public land [2]. The vote was 46–43, along party lines [3].

The bloc included a dozen U.S. attorneys, several U.S. marshals, ambassadors, and officials at the Departments of Defense, Energy, Commerce, Transportation, and State [1]. The confirmation brought the total share of Trump's civilian nominees who have been installed to roughly 60 percent [1]. For supporters, the vote was a necessary corrective to years of Senate obstruction. For critics, it was a rubber stamp that bypassed meaningful scrutiny of officials who will shape American energy and environmental policy for years.

The Procedural Machinery Behind Bulk Confirmations

The en bloc process that made this vote possible did not exist before September 2025. When Senate Majority Leader John Thune first attempted to advance a batch of 48 nominees, the Senate parliamentarian ruled that the procedure violated existing rules [4]. Republicans then forced a reinterpretation of those rules, creating a two-step process: first, the Senate agrees to an executive resolution (in this case, S.Res. 690) identifying nominees to be taken up as a group; second, the Senate votes on the entire bloc, with each step requiring only a simple-majority cloture vote [4].

The first use of the new process came on September 18, 2025, when 41 nominees were confirmed in a single session. On October 7, the Senate set a record by confirming 74 nominees at once [5]. The May 2026 vote was the fourth such batch.

The result has been a dramatic acceleration in confirmation numbers. Trump's Senate allies confirmed 417 nominees during 2025 alone, surpassing Biden's first-year total of 365, Obama's 350, and Trump's own first-term figure of 338 [5].

Source: Fox News / Brookings Institution

Data as of Jan 1, 2026CSV

Defenders of the process point to constitutional text and recent history. The Appointments Clause vests the nomination power in the president and the confirmation power in the Senate, with no prescribed timeline or format for individual votes [6]. The Atlantic Council has argued that the confirmation process has become "broken," with average confirmation delays reaching 94 days under Trump's second term — nearly four times the 25-day average during the Reagan era [7]. The Partnership for Public Service, a nonpartisan good-government organization, has documented that delays discourage qualified candidates from accepting nominations, leaving agencies understaffed [8].

"The Senate's constitutional obligation is to advise and consent, not to obstruct and delay," Senator Thune said during floor remarks. Republican leaders frame the batch process as a restoration of functional governance, not a departure from norms [1].

The Revolving Door: Fossil Fuel to Federal Office

The speed of confirmation has drawn less criticism than the identities of those confirmed. A joint investigation by Public Citizen and the Revolving Door Project, published in October 2025, identified 43 former fossil fuel industry employees among 111 nominees and appointees to agencies responsible for energy and environmental policy [9]. Of 37 nominees to the Department of Energy, EPA, and Department of the Interior who required Senate confirmation, 25 had ties to oil, gas, or mining industries [9].

The Interior Department stands out: 32 of its appointees have fossil fuel connections, more than any other agency [9]. The EPA accounts for five, and the Department of Energy for six [9].

Source: Public Citizen / Revolving Door Project

Data as of Oct 6, 2025CSV

How does this compare to prior administrations? Direct historical comparisons are difficult because no equivalent systematic tracking existed before 2020. But the pattern differs markedly from the Obama and Biden administrations, which drew heavily from academia, environmental nonprofits, and state regulatory agencies for energy and land management roles. The George W. Bush administration also placed industry figures in key positions — notably J. Steven Griles, a former coal lobbyist who became Deputy Secretary of the Interior and later pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice — but the sheer number documented under Trump's second term is without recent precedent [9].

Energy Secretary Chris Wright exemplifies the trend. The founder and former CEO of Liberty Energy, North America's second-largest hydraulic fracturing company, Wright was confirmed in February 2025 on a 59–38 vote [10]. His financial disclosure revealed he would receive a million-dollar bonus from Liberty Energy after his swearing-in — a payment tied to the company he now plays a role in regulating [11].

Steve Pearce and the Bureau of Land Management

Pearce's confirmation to lead BLM has drawn particular scrutiny. During his time in Congress, Pearce voted against cutting subsidies for oil and gas companies, supported legislation to prioritize drilling over other uses of federal land, and introduced bills to reduce environmental review of pipeline and road projects [12]. In 2013, he helped pass a bill requiring federal land managers to prioritize oil and gas extraction above all other land uses [12].

Conservation groups have pointed to his record on public land sales. The Center for Western Priorities labeled him "Steve 'Sell-off' Pearce," citing his past support for transferring federal lands to state control [13]. During his confirmation hearing, Pearce gave what High Country News described as equivocal answers about whether he would support selling public lands [14].

Pearce's ethics agreement commits him and his wife to divesting financial ties to more than 1,000 oil and gas leases in Oklahoma [12]. Whether that divestiture will be enforced is an open question. The Office of Government Ethics can review compliance, but its enforcement powers are limited to referrals; it cannot independently compel action or impose penalties [11].

Oil and gas industry groups, including the Western Energy Alliance and the National Public Lands Council, supported Pearce's nomination [12]. Supporters describe him as a pragmatic former governor and congressman who understands the economic needs of western communities dependent on resource extraction.

What These Officials Now Control

The newly confirmed appointees inherit authority over a series of consequential policy decisions already in motion:

Drilling permits. In April 2025, BLM issued guidance setting a 28-day target for processing applications for permits to drill on federal land, a sharp acceleration from prior timelines [15]. Pearce will now oversee that process across 245 million surface acres.

National monument reviews. The administration is considering changes to national monuments established as far back as the Theodore Roosevelt era. Landscapes under review include Bears Ears National Monument in Utah, Chaco Canyon in New Mexico, the Boundary Waters in Minnesota, Thompson Divide in Colorado, and the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument [15].

Critical minerals and offshore leasing. An April 2025 executive order directed NOAA to fast-track deep-sea mining permits and instructed the Interior Secretary to establish a process for reviewing permits on the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf [16]. The administration offered 80 million acres for offshore drilling in a December 2025 lease sale [15].

Offshore wind. The Interior Department announced an immediate pause on all large-scale offshore wind leases, citing national security concerns identified by the Department of Defense [17]. Seventeen states and Washington, D.C., have challenged that pause in court [18].

Ethics Pledges and Enforcement Gaps

The Campaign Legal Center found that at least eight of Trump's executive branch nominees would have been barred or restricted from their roles under prior administrations' ethics rules due to recent lobbying work [11]. Trump revoked Executive Order 13989, Biden's ethics pledge for appointees, on his first day in office and replaced it with a narrower framework [11].

Enforcement of existing recusal commitments has proven inconsistent. At the EPA, Senators Jeff Merkley and Adam Schiff demanded that four political appointees in the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention extend their recusal periods indefinitely after FOIA records revealed those officials had accepted meetings with representatives from at least 50 industry associations and chemical companies between February and May 2025 — during the period their recusals were supposedly in effect [19].

ProPublica's financial disclosure database, which covers Trump and more than 1,600 of his appointees, provides raw data but no mechanism for monitoring compliance over time [11]. The Office of Government Ethics issues guidance and reviews initial disclosures but lacks independent enforcement authority. As a practical matter, ethics pledge violations are enforced only if someone files a complaint and the relevant inspector general — themselves a presidential appointee — chooses to investigate.

Tribal Nations and Environmental Justice

The administration's "energy dominance" agenda has direct consequences for tribal nations. Changes to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) review process have shortened comment periods for tribal governments from at least 30 days to as few as seven days on some projects [20]. Tribal leaders and legal scholars have warned that under the revised guidelines, federal agencies may no longer be compelled to engage in formal consultation with tribes [20].

The American Bar Association's Natural Resources & Environment journal described the current approach to public lands as raising "profound questions regarding the abrogation of treaty rights and the federal government's trust obligation to Native Nations" [21].

Federal clean energy funding that supported projects on tribal lands has been cut substantially. Canceled or frozen programs include Solar for All grants, EPA environmental and climate justice block grants, and Department of Energy grants for microgrids on reservations [22]. Tribal officials have described scrambling to salvage projects that were already underway when funding was pulled.

No tribal nations testified during the en bloc confirmation process, which by design consolidated dozens of nominees into a single vote without individual hearings for most [4]. Pearce's separate confirmation hearing before the Energy and Natural Resources Committee did include written questions about tribal consultation, but conservation and tribal advocacy groups described his answers as insufficient [13].

Legal and Political Countermeasures

Senate Democrats, outnumbered in both chambers, have limited procedural tools to contest confirmations that require only a simple majority. Their primary recourse has been through state attorneys general.

As of April 2026, the Democratic Attorneys General Association had filed its 100th lawsuit against the Trump administration [23]. Energy and environmental cases account for a significant share. Seventeen states sued over the offshore wind lease pause [18]. Thirteen state attorneys general sued the Department of Energy over the termination of $2.7 billion in federal energy and infrastructure funding [18]. A separate coalition challenged the repeal of emissions limits on coal- and oil-fired power plants [18].

The attorneys general claim a strong win rate: 55 victories out of 67 cases that have reached a court ruling, according to the association's own tally [23]. Those numbers, however, reflect preliminary injunctions and procedural rulings, not final outcomes — many cases remain in litigation.

Federal courts can also review individual agency decisions for compliance with statutes like the Endangered Species Act, the Federal Land Policy and Management Act, and NEPA. Historically, legal challenges to specific drilling permits or land management plans have had mixed success rates, often winning procedural victories that delay but do not permanently block agency actions.

The Congressional Review Act, which allows Congress to overturn recent agency rules, is unavailable to the minority party. And impeachment of executive branch officials, while theoretically possible, has no practical application in the current political configuration.

The Structural Question

The debate over these confirmations ultimately reflects a deeper structural tension. The Constitution grants the president broad authority to staff the executive branch and grants the Senate the power to confirm. It says nothing about how fast, how carefully, or in what groupings those confirmations should occur.

Proponents of the en bloc process argue that Senate delays — not fast confirmations — are the true norm violation. Brookings Institution data shows that the average confirmation delay of 94 days under Trump's second term is the longest of any modern administration, despite the batch process [7]. From this perspective, bundling is a rational response to systematic obstruction.

Opponents counter that speed and scale come at the cost of scrutiny. When 49 nominees are confirmed in a single vote, individual records, conflicts of interest, and policy positions receive less examination than they would in standalone proceedings. The question is not whether the president is entitled to his team, but whether the Senate is fulfilling its constitutional role as a check — or simply processing paperwork.

The 49 officials confirmed on May 14 are now at their desks. The permits, leases, monument reviews, and regulatory decisions they oversee will determine the future of hundreds of millions of acres of American land and water. Whether the Senate's process was adequate to the weight of those decisions is a question that will be answered not by procedure, but by outcomes.