Sen. Mike Lee will head the Senate committee overseeing energy resources, public lands, water and issues related to Native Americans when Republicans take majority control of the body next year, he announced Tuesday morning.
The senator said he was “humbled and honored” to have been selected by his Republican colleagues to head the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources in a post to X.
“Time to get to work and unleash American energy,” he wrote.
The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, of which Lee is currently a member, weighs legislation related to public lands, renewable energy, oil, gas, coal and nuclear energy.
The senior member of Utah’s federal delegation is currently the minority ranking member on the Senate Public Lands, Forests and Mining Subcommittee. He also sits on the National Parks Subcommittee and the Water and Power Subcommittee.
As President-elect Donald Trump transitions into the White House, Lee was speculated as a possible pick for attorney general. He told the Deseret News, however, that he planned to stay in the Senate to help implement Trump’s agenda.
“It’s time to harness our nation’s abundant natural resources to achieve energy independence, stimulate economic growth, and return stewardship of our beautiful lands to the American people who know them best,” Lee said in a statement Wednesday. “I look forward to collaborating with my colleagues to make life affordable again for families in Utah and across America.”
Lee will replace Sen. Joe Manchin — a former Democrat from West Virginia who announced this year he was leaving the party to become independent — as the committee’s chair. A spokesperson for Manchin did not immediately respond to comment on Lee’s new role.
Rep. John Curtis, who will replace Mitt Romney representing Utah in the Senate next year, congratulated Lee on his new position.
“With his leadership, I believe we can make significant strides in ensuring open access to our public lands, expanding energy opportunities, unlocking critical mineral resources, and safeguarding Utah’s treasured landscapes for generations to come,” Curtis said in a statement.
Utah Gov. Spencer Cox wrote in a congratulatory post to social media that, “Our country will benefit greatly from your leadership as we gear up for a new age of energy abundance.”
Lee has been bold in his opposition to the U.S. moving away from fossil fuel production in pursuit of cleaner, renewable energy, accelerated by the President Joe Biden administration.
On his personal X account, @BasedMikeLee, he has asserted that coal and natural gas are clean energy. Their use is globally recognized as a leading cause of climate change.
Lee has also made claims that continuing to rely on coal and natural gas will result in more affordable energy for “the poor.”
While coal has historically had a low cost per unit of energy, solar, wind and other renewable energy sources have become more affordable. According to a 2023 report by Energy Innovation Policy and Technology LLC and the University of California, Berkeley, 99% of U.S. coal plants cost more to run than the price to replace them with renewable alternatives.
Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, an environmental nonprofit focused on protecting the state’s red rock country, said in a statement that Lee’s new role “is a direct threat to America’s public lands.”
“With his radical [Make America Great Again] policy positions of doubling down on fossil fuels and denying that climate change poses an immediate threat to the nation’s well-being, coupled with his work to undo the very concept of America’s public lands,” said Travis Hammill, SUWA’s Washington director, “Senator Lee is uniquely and distinctly unqualified for this leadership post.”
Last week, Lee reintroduced the “Undoing NEPA’s Substantial Harm by Advancing Concepts that Kickstart the Liberation of the Economy,” or UNSHACKLE, Act. The legislation would make a series of reforms to the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA, including scaling back environmental reviews for federal projects.
In a statement, Lee said that NEPA environmental review processes have “become a weapon used by special interests to make much-needed infrastructure and maintenance projects throughout our country prohibitively expensive.”
Lee has also been vocal about perceived federal overreach on Utah’s public lands.
He opposes the Antiquities Act, a 1906 law that authorizes presidents to create national monuments, like Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments in southern Utah, established by President Barack Obama and President Bill Clinton, respectively.
When the Bureau of Land Management finalized a management plan for Bears Ears this fall, Lee said the proposal was “the latest in a long line of top-down, federal overreach that prioritizes political agendas over real solutions.”
“These are public lands, yet the public most affected by these decisions — the ranchers, recreationists, and workers — has been sidelined,” he said in a statement.
On his personal X account, Lee posted that Biden “has become quite skilled in the art of sacrificing western-state economies at the altar of radical environmentalism” through his use of the Antiquities Act.
Lee also introduced the Outdoor Americans with Disabilities Act this summer, which he says will allow more people to access the country’s public lands by building more roads on them. But some hikers with disabilities disagree, arguing that the bill is “a blatant attempt to scapegoat disability as an excuse to build more roads.”
That legislation followed the BLM’s closure of roads near Moab last year.
Amid an affordable housing crisis felt in communities across the country, Lee has pitched allowing developers to build homes on public lands — a proposal echoed by members of the incoming Trump administration.
While some elements of the plan have already been in practice by the federal government for decades, the goal of Lee’s Helping Open Underutilized Space to Ensure Shelter, or HOUSES Act, was to streamline federal land transfer for the purpose of building housing.
But critics have pointed out that the bill did not place any cost or income requirements on the housing to be built, and argued the legislation would likely benefit some of the wealthiest Americans.
Update, Nov. 20, 4:25 p.m. • This story has been updated to include a statement from Sen. Mike Lee.
