The Trump Administration, in its dedication to self- and industry enrichment, is hoping to sell a sacred cow: public lands. And while many such efforts have been defeated in the past, the current no-holds-barred growth regime elevates their chances of success.
Federal lands are set aside in all 50 U.S. states for the benefit of all Americans. Primarily in the American West, these lands span 640 million acres of natural resources, priceless wildlife habitats, beloved recreation areas, majestic wilderness, and watersheds that protect clean water for millions.
Four agencies manage the vast majority of the acreage. The National Park Service, which manages 433 units across 80 million acres, prioritizes conservation of natural and cultural features for the public’s enjoyment. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service manages the 89 million acres of the National Wildlife Refuge System for wildlife conservation pursuant to the “wildlife first” principle. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM), which manages 244 million acres, and the U.S. Forest Service, which oversees 193 million, have “multiple use” mandates that permit extractive activities like mining, logging, and grazing.
All have in common that they are held for the benefit of the American public by the federal government, as the entity best equipped to manage and sustain them in perpetuity.
Public Lands: A Hard-Earned Treasure
The story of U.S. public land acquisition is one of tireless effort by citizens and policymakers over the past more than 150 years.
The story begins, of course, with the colonial appropriation of lands from Native tribes, often by dishonest treaty, brutal conquest, or epidemic. Decimation of the tribes was so pronounced that the historian David E. Stannard called it the “American Holocaust” in his scholarly book by that title.
In 1781 the colonies began ceding western portions of what is now the United States to the new federal government, creating the first public lands. By 1867, following the acquisition of lands from France, Spain, Great Britain, Mexico, and Russia, federal holdings extended to the Pacific Ocean and encompassed 1.8 billion acres.
Most of these holdings were subsequently transferred to individuals and states; some were reserved for military use or mineral extraction. But an appreciation of the intrinsic value of public lands took hold quickly in the American consciousness.
In the latter half of the 19th century, the widely-read writings of John Muir and a growing awareness of Indigenous conservation practices contributed to a nascent land-conservation movement. The federal government granted Yosemite Valley to the state of California in 1864, and established Yellowstone National Park in 1872. These were the first public lands designated for the explicit purposes of conservation and public enjoyment.
At the time, there was also an emerging awareness that unchecked logging was destroying forests and diminishing water flows. The Forest Reserves Act of 1891 enabled the president to establish forest reserves on the public domain. Presidents of both parties did so enthusiastically, establishing most of the western national forests over the following decades. They did so usually in response to petitions showing broad support among states and citizens.
In the East, where little federal land remained, protecting forests and the waterways they sustain took longer. There was a need for legislation that would allow for the federal purchase of private lands. Persistent efforts by citizens and scientists, bolstered by Theodore Roosevelt’s creation of the Forest Service in 1905, finally produced the Weeks Act of 1911. This legislation has since been used to create more than 40 national forests covering more than 20 million acres.
Roosevelt’s energetic acquisition of land for wildlife, wilderness, and public enjoyment has left a legacy of millions of acres of forests, wildlife refuges, and parks that remain under federal ownership and some degree of protection to this day. Congress has generally matched this enthusiasm. They have passed legislation such as the 1964 Wilderness Act. They have also designated hundreds of wild and scenic rivers, national recreation areas, and other areas where conservation and recreation are prioritized.
The broad popular mandate for protection extends even to BLM lands, generally the most economically marginal and least protected public lands. The BLM was established in 1946 to manage what were largely lands used for grazing in the western United States. In the 1960s, in response to growing interest in public lands, the BLM held hundreds of hearings to determine their fate. The overwhelming response was that these lands should remain under federal ownership, and managed for multiple use. The Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA) of 1976, BLM’s “Organic Act,” put this popular sentiment into public law.
Big Beautiful Lands Subjected to Big Ugly Selloff
FLPMA specified that BLM land could only be disposed of under strict criteria and to serve the national interest. Parcels that meet these criteria are marked “available for disposal” in planning documents and encompass more than 6 million acres. These include popular recreation sites that are always at some risk of disposal, usually to energy interests or developers, according to Erik Molvar, Executive Director of Western Watersheds Project.
The time-honored FLPMA process for land disposal is also time-consuming. Growth interests have turned to Congress to speed up the timeline and expand the lands available. Special legislative proposals like 1998’s Southern Nevada Public Land Management Act have done just that, allowing the sale of BLM lands within a boundary surrounding Las Vegas. Despite resulting sprawl, pollution, and climate change, Nevada members of Congress are pushing to expand that boundary.
Such efforts are usually associated with the political right, as conservatives have consistently, though perhaps irrationally, aligned with growth over conservation. But Nevada’s economy is so dependent on Vegas-centered growth, elected leaders of both parties are on board.
Whether motivated by the prospect of growth or by fringe ideologies that dispute public lands’ constitutionality, large-scale land disposal efforts have also reared their heads. They are most often led by Western lawmakers whose states contain vast public acreage that is unavailable for development.
In 2017, Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) pushed for the Trump administration to sell over three million acres to Western states. Amid intense public outcry, he scrapped the bill and soon left Congress.
This past summer, Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) included language in Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” that would have sold up to 1.2 million acres of BLM lands across 11 Western states. Lee’s supposed rationale—that federal lands must be used to build affordable housing—was not enough to overcome the idea’s abysmal unpopularity. The public backlash, even from Lee’s Republican colleagues, was so pronounced that the provision was jettisoned.
Unfortunately, we have not seen the end of such efforts. An unofficial Republican congressional committee has recently released a framework for a second reconciliation bill. One provision in the bill would:
Direct relevant federal agencies to sell off or lease at a low rate…federal properties to expand access to affordable private-sector housing.
The bill’s architects insist that only federal buildings and the mostly-urban property attached to them would be up for sale, according to Chris Krupp, Public Lands Attorney with WildEarth Guardians, in an interview for the Herald. That seems overly optimistic, given the vague language of “properties” and the provision’s expected $115 billion in revenues.
Quietly Creeping Disposal Schemes
Federal-to-state land transfer schemes are a favorite of federal land foes. The Land and Water Conservation Fund has, since 1964, used royalties from offshore oil and gas to purchase private lands for parks, refuges, and forests. An order last year by Trump’s Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum makes these land acquisitions much more difficult, especially for parks and refuges. It also allows for “surplus” federal lands to be sold back to the states.
Similarly, Trump’s budget request to Congress last year suggested selling or exchanging NPS units to states. But states lack the budgets to maintain new lands, and would likely divest them to private entities.
The same applies to schemes like Rep. Russ Fulcher’s (R-ID) to transfer Idaho’s federal lands to state and local governments. Fulcher insists that “the goal is not privatization but better stewardship through local stakeholder involvement.” But Western states are required by their constitutions to maximize revenues from State Trust lands for public schools. In states with growing populations, the path to maximum revenue may well lie through development and sprawl.
For those who see public lands as fodder for private growth, an easy option is to leave them under federal ownership while granting much of their control to the states. Shared stewardship agreements between the states of Utah, Montana, and Idaho and the Forest Service do just that. The agreements allow the states to expand commercial logging over millions of acres of national forests with minimal public oversight. They strip federal protections, yet leave the feds with the maintenance bill.
Such pathways to monetizing public lands have their appeal, given the massive unpopularity of selling them outright. Fee title ownership of lands by the federal government confers the strongest and most durable potential for conservation. But there is still massive opportunity for exploitation short of outright sale. That opportunity escalates as this administration strips federal protections against the ravages of the livestock, mineral, geothermal, and fossil fuel industries.
Informal privatization can even more easily evade public backlash. In many western states, public and private lands exist in a checkerboard pattern. Initially a product of alternating-parcel land grants to railroads, checkerboard public lands contain trails and recreation sites that are inaccessible except via those private parcels. Historically, access has been protected by easements that establish rights of public access via private property. When private landowners removed agency signage on public parcels and put up their own No Trespassing signs, federal agencies sided with the public. But that is changing. Now, “Private landowners are treating public lands as if they are their own private domain,” said Molvar.
Americans overwhelmingly support public lands, but not many understand their full significance. Most are familiar with public lands only through the iconic national parks they have visited. But Yellowstone, Glacier, and Yosemite would not be what they are without the millions of acres of less-protected USFS and BLM lands surrounding them. If these large expanses of buffering, wildlife-supporting, undeveloped land surrounding them were to be sold off for growth, their complex ecosystems would unravel.
“The universe of people who have a stake in public lands is 100 percent of the American population,’ said Molvar. “The only question is, do they know it?”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kirsten Stade is a writer, editor, and advocate working toward a just, livable planet. For nearly three decades, she has worked at nonprofit organizations focused on the linkages between reproductive rights, population growth, and ecological overshoot; on protecting public lands from extractive industries; and on safeguarding the integrity of regulatory science. She has published extensively in outlets such as Newsweek, The Hill, The Guardian, Counterpunch, and Ms. Magazine, and in the peer-reviewed Journal of Population and Sustainability. She has also coauthored book chapters on reproductive responsibility, ecological overshoot, and animal liberation in published volumes. She has a BS in Earth Systems from Stanford University and an MS in Conservation Biology from Columbia University.
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