Trump wants to make it easier to drill in national parks. We mapped the 42 parks at risk.

Weaker regulations could mean oil and gas pollution and spills in pristine national parks.

Updated by Sarah Frostenson@sfrostensonsarah.frostenson@vox.com Apr 20, 2017, 8:40am EDT

Two oil rigs sit just outside of Theodore Roosevelt National Park near Watford City, North Dakota. There aren’t currently any oil wells inside the park, but the new administration’s lax stance on drilling in national parks might soon change this.

Ken Cedeno/Corbis via Getty Images

It’s no secret that oil and gas companies are on the hunt for new places to drill. But the quest for more fossil fuels could heat up in places you might not expect: our national parks.

With President Donald Trump’s executive order on energy, federal agencies are now reviewing all rules that inhibit domestic energy production. And that includes regulations around drilling in national parks that, if overturned, could give oil and gas companies easier access to leases on federal lands they’ve long coveted.

"This opportunity is unique, maybe once in a lifetime," Jack Gerard, president of the American Petroleum Institute lobby group, told Reuters. It could also put some of America’s most pristine and ecologically sensitive areas at risk of oil spills, ground contamination, and explosions. 

There are currently more than 500 active oil and gas wells spread across 12 national parks, as you can see in the map below. In 2015, drilling on federal lands made up nearly a fifth of overall US production. 

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