Kathleen Sgamma has been nominated to lead the Bureau of Land Management, the nation's largest landlord. Sgamma, a former military intelligence officer, is a familiar face in Washington congressional hearings testifying against BLM policies.

President Donald Trump has nominated a longtime oil and gas industry representative to oversee an agency that manages a quarter-billion acres of public land concentrated in western states.

The Trump administration has named Kathleen Sgamma, a vocal oil and gas advocate for Western states, to head up the Interior Department's Bureau of Land Management, which manages the use of the country's nearly 250 million acres of public lands.

The nominee, Kathleen Sgamma, has worked for nearly two decades on behalf of oil and gas companies in Western states.

If confirmed by the Senate, Kathleen Sgamma, president of the Western Energy Alliance, would oversee management of approximately 245 million acres of surface lands.

Kathleen Sgamma is president of the Colorado-based Western Energy Alliance, which has long pushed for greater access by the oil and gas industry to public lands.

The White House has nominated Kathleen Sgamma, the president of the Denver-based Western Energy Alliance, to be the BLM director, according to Congress.gov. Sgamma’s oil and gas trade group has long advocated for greater industry access to public lands and less regulation of oil and gas and mining interests.

President Donald Trump has selected the head of a Denver-based oil and gas trade group to be the Bureau of Land Management’s next director. If confirmed by the U.S. Senate, Kathleen Sgamma would replace Tracy Stone-Manning as director of the agency tasked with managing natural