It’s baaack! We had this discussion during Trump I.
We even have a category for privatization.
I first got a hint of the Trump 2 discussion when Senator Heinrich posted on X.
Public lands belong to all of us. Under the Republicans’ agenda, wealthy out-of-state landowners can turn our most beloved public lands into their private resorts.
I tried to track down what the Senators were responding to and reporter Kellie Lunney told me:
It’s being talking about as a potential pay-for in reconciliation. But there’s nothing “on paper” yet as far as an official proposal.
That sounded a bit out of the mainstream. Generally the fear is that R’s want to give federal lands to the States who generally don’t want them and can’t afford them. If we look at the (bipartisan) Western Govs are about strengthening the federal/state relationships.
Certainly there were think tankers during 1.0 and probably now thinking about it. Of course, some can use a broad definition of “privatization” as in leases for oil and gas are, and leases for “conservation” aren’t.
Here’s what Wikipedia says:
Recent Privatization Initiatives and Proposals
In 2006, President Bush’s proposed budget included the auctioning of 300 thousand acres of national forests, 500 million acres of land managed by the Department of the Interior,[5] and 125 thousand acres managed by the Bureau of Land Management[6] in order to reduce the national deficit
In 2017, President Trump decreased the size of the Bear Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments by over 2 million acres.[7] This allowed the land to be leased by oil, gas and mining companies[8]
But indeed, there is some thought to selling or trading land for housing near communities. But that’s not exactly “wealthy out-of-state landowners.” Anyway, this from Center for Western Priorities in today’s newsletter:
The Conservation Alliance announced Wednesday that over 60 businesses have joined together to send a powerful message to the president and Congress: protecting our public lands is critical to individuals, communities, and businesses across the country.
The new coalition, Brands for Public Lands, includes companies headquartered in 17 states representing varying industries and interests, from outdoor apparel and gear to media, retailers, and tourism. Overall the group represents over 48,000 employees and over $17.5 billion in revenue. Its members include REI, Patagonia, and the Outdoor Industry Association.
The group plans to focus on stopping the wholesale sell-off of public lands, defending national monuments, and protecting iconic landscapes from industrial extraction. It sent a letter Wednesday asking Congress not to sell off public land to pay down the national debt or offset tax cuts
Hmm.. “wholesale sell-off of public lands.” I always wonder why if these folks have $17.5 billion in revenue, and are interested in federal lands, why don’t they spend their time beefing up federal recreation programs by… granting them funds directly. It just seems to me that helping the Forest Service and BLM serve recreationists and protect the land better would be more direct than being one of many groups trying to get their way with Congress. They are always talking about the importance of the recreation economy, and how recreation is better than
“extractive” industries, but as far as I know only OHV and hunting and fishing pay into a fund for recreation support. Or even expanding donation programs like the Ski Conservation Fund.
So much helpful, direct work could be done, but of course they are an industry looking out for their best interests as well.
It sounds like REI is generally against anyone in the Trump Admin since REI earlier signed a letter supporting Doug Burgum and had to backtrack:
“Many of you shared your disappointment and your frustration with that decision,” Laughton said. “Let me be clear: Signing that letter was a mistake. The actions that the administration has taken on public lands are completely at odds with the long-standing values of REI. While this happened before I arrived at the co-op, I’m here today to apologize to our members on behalf of REI, to retract our endorsement of Doug Burgum and to take full accountability for how we move forward.”
I don’t really understand why these corporations spend so much energy on political stuff. Another example: the Outdoor Retailer Trade Show.
Denver announcement Thursday that it is the new home for the nation’s largest outdoor recreation trade show underscored an important aspect of modern business — politics matter.
The Outdoor Retailer trade show — actually two trade shows a year — confirmed that it is leaving Utah after 20 years and decamping east to Denver.
The change comes not because Denver has a bigger airport or extended a financial incentive. Organizers who made the announcement Thursday were frank that the reason they chose to move from Salt Lake City to Denver, starting in 2018, was because Colorado is more “progressive” and has a better “culture” for the industry.
Anyway, moving on from that particular puzzle.
In Outdoor Life, there was a fairly comprehensive article “How seriously should we take the sale of federal lands? Very seriously experts say.” I’ll take the scariest ones first.
Land Tawney, co-chair of American Hunters and Anglers Action Network, cited Burgum’s confirmation-hearing statements for his conclusion that large chunks of the federal estate might be sold or traded away as early as this year.
“Most people don’t realize that the BLM already has the authority to dispose of smaller parcels,” says Willms, associate vice president of public lands for the National Wildlife Federation, a legal scholar, and a Wyoming hunter and angler. “The law requires that the BLM has to go through a land-use planning process and identify the acres for disposal. The agency has to show that it’s in the national interest and must sell parcels for fair-market value, but there’s a clear pathway for this.”
How can these two statements both be true? Unless there’s an RMP process that could be started and finished this year.
Given that Republicans have a slim majority in both houses, “you could see a pathway for a proposal to sell [BLM land] that isn’t opposed by Congress, and since it doesn’t require the approval of Congress, it makes it a little easier for a sale to proceed.”
Actually getting RMPs done and getting Congress to agree both sound fairly difficult. Later Willms makes this point.
“The firewall is the process,” he says. “The BLM can’t sell a parcel if it hasn’t been identified in a land-use plan, so the land-use planning process creates an opportunity for public notice and comment and opportunity to legally challenge the outcome of that land-use plan. That’s your first firewall. The second is when the land-use plan is finalized. If it’s over 2,500 acres, Congress has to be notified and there’s an opportunity to weigh in with your members of Congress and encourage them to pass a resolution that says no, they don’t support the disposal.”
Of course, Congress could pass a law that supersedes FLPMA, or Congress could, for instance, use the budget-reconciliation process to dispose of federal lands without a traditional stepwise process.
“Conceivably Congress could say that it wants to dispose of 1.5 million acres of public land to offset proposed tax cuts,” says Willms. “They would then identify a process to do that. If that happens, your firewalls look a lot different.”
Close to the end of the article, Willms broaches the subject of reexamining FLPMA and NFMA
“Throughout the last months you hear the refrain that these public lands are not managed well,” says Willms. “This could be a moment — a way to turn the temperature down — and say we need to have a conversation about federal land management as a whole and are we doing it right? What should our priorities be and how should we do it? We had this conversation 60 years ago that led up to FLPMA and the National Forest Management Act. Maybe it’s time to reconvene that conversation and talk about these land-management statutes and consider what we can do differently.”
Yup, it could happen but I’m sure there are other things to worry about.
Like losing federal recreation positions due to them having been recently hired or converted, for one.
I tend to doubt there will be some sort of massive federal land sell-off. Trump seems to treat the federal government as his personal property, and as such, federal land is “his” land. I cannot imagine he would simply want to give it away. As a real estate man, he might want to sell off lands at a high premium (though I have no evidence of this), but no state has much money lying around to pay that kind of price, and the private market likely won’t pay high per acre prices for most federal lands.
Trump will surely seek to lease the heck out of the leasable acres – his people have said as much – but as the previous thread makes clear, leases are not sales. A bigger potential difficulty for the future than the probably chimerical threat of mass land sales is the degree to which federal agencies will retreat from lease oversight (e.g. by waiving royalties, terminating enforcement personnel, and so on).
I think it’s pretty rich for environmental groups to complain about “privatizing” federal land when they were the ones pushing conservation leases during the Biden admin with the express goal of granting total management authority over vast areas of federal lands to natural asset companies (controlled by them of course). Seeks like privatizing is only bad if it benefits someone other than big ENGOs.
I guess I missed the part where the non-profits were going to profit from conservation leases.
The goal was always to effectively transfer management authority over large swathes of federal land to for-profit natural asset companies which own the rights to all “ecosystem services” of that land. The NACs would in turn be controlled by the big environmental organizations, which would give them direct management authority over federal land, and also provide them with funding since they could directly charge the public for access. The NAC model has been pioneered in other countries and conservation leases were the first step to bringing it to the US.
Didn’t you know you can just make stuff up as long as it isn’t critical of the current admin?
I know it is somewhat taboo for us to openly criticize the current admin on this blog, but to then criticize the outdoor industry/corporations for not supporting the current administration is grossly hypocritical. In hindsight, I can only assume that REI and their shareholders are grateful that they decided to rescind that letter of support for Burgum, given the administrations ongoing efforts to dismantle our public land management agencies to a state that will be unrecognizable in many ways. Particularly when it comes to the management of recreational access, trails, wilderness and facilities. Finally, we must remember that the corporate rights to engage and lobby congress is not restricted to only those entities that align with one particular political party or presidential administration.
The demand for public lands recreational opportunities has exploded in the past 15 years, but the feds have done precious little to accommodate it. It used to be possible, when on a road trip, to simply pull into a FS campground at 4:30pm, grab a site, and be set for the night. Today, that’s largely impossible, as most sites have been reserved on recreation.gov many months previous.
The federal response to this increase in demand has been inadequate, to say the least. We should be creating new campgrounds, new national parks, new trails – essentially more of everything- to meet the increasing demand.
And the reservation system, managed by Booze-Allen in DC, is managed more for private profit than for service to Americans. The no-show rate at reserved campsites is huge, with most facilities having empty campsites with no means to open those up to campers looking for a site. Booze Allen doesn’t care, because they have already made their money, nor is there any mechanism in place to punish no-shows who don’t have the courtesy to cancel their reservation.
Well, there’s this … the Senate rejected an amendment to the federal budget framework seeking to block federal lands from being sold off to reduce the federal deficit.
https://www.publicdomain.media/p/senate-votes-down-public-lands-measure?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email&fbclid=IwY2xjawJmJptleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHodgxFeHyIORbEnO_VrdWG9EUQD6ZOZKhNQTXIJBq2W59fV-7z0KbMdDuJDc_aem_RnGbwfuZ4f5mYF8orH3kMw&triedRedirect=true
Yes, that’s the amendment I mentioned that Hick and Heinrich submitted.
It’s what I call Partisan Pickleball
Team A (or some think tank, or a subset of Team A, has a bad idea that will never fly)
Team B points to it and says “all of Team A wants this.”
Media points out astonishing plays by either side.
This can go on forever back and forth, but those of us in the cheap pickleball court seats know that this is just a game. And some of us wish the Congress would turn its attention to doing more useful things.
My suggestion is to just ignore this BS about selling off public lands. This has been repeated ad nauseam everytime a Republican has been elected, but nothing has ever come of it. Like Crying Wolf.
There is nothing to this and is just speculation by those that hate Trump and will say anything to justify their beliefs (that Trump is evil, etc., etc).
Or you could think maybe 5 percent harder and realize why folks are concerned about privatization versus conservation leasing? I know the boldly ~heterdox~ thinkers of this forum can handle it. Surely it can’t be hard to not parody positions you oppose, right? The insinuation that this is all chicken little and the only scenario folks are worried about is all public land vanishing, versus, say, a concern that a door is being opened to irreversible impacts on areas they care about?
“public land vanishing, versus, say, a concern that a door is being opened to irreversible impacts on areas they care about?” Vanishing? What?
You frame the concern of the post and groups you cite, specifically CWP, as ridiculous for suggesting public lands will be sold off. I agree their framing is a tad catastrophist. But in framing the entire conversation as overblown fears, you parody a legitimate concern. That concern being that in selling public lands people see the potential for irreversible loss of things they care about. It doesn’t really matter that it’s unlikely that “wholesale liquidation” would occur. For all of your rhetorical finger wagging about respect you have little compunction for presenting your ideological opponents here (and elsewhere) as fundamentally silly and incapable or unwilling of entertaining nuances, all while doing the same.
No, I’m not saying that CWP is ridiculous au contraire, I have much respect for them. But sometimes their predictions (and worries) do not come to pass. It is their job, in a way, to raise concerns. It is my job to say what concerns I think are likely to come to pass, based on history, my own knowledge and experience, and intuition.
“It is their job, in a way, to raise concerns.” Yes, hopefully you realize that by raising those concerns repeatedly over the years, spotlighting suggestions and proposals to transfer, sell, or privatize public lands, directing public attention to them, helping to amplify voices and voters opposed to such proposals, CWP and others have thus far ensured that such things haven’t come to pass. By ignoring or failing to spotlight such suggestions or proposals now, those things are more likely to come to pass, and may well come to pass regardless, given this administration’s indifference to public opinion.
Sharon, Concerning outdoor oriented corporations you ask, “why don’t they spend their time beefing up federal recreation programs by… granting them funds directly?” Would that be done through a cooperative agreement? Or is there another way to do it? REI donates 10 cents from every transaction to the National Forest Foundation. That amounts to something. REI also organizes stewardship events on public lands. I’m focusing on REI here because I’m a member and follow what they do.
As for these businesses spending money on political stuff… it seems like it is to protect their interests that help their bottom line just like the petroleum industry does.
On the topic of selling public land, personally, it would surprise me if this administration sold off choice pieces of public land to friends who want to build resorts – kind of like the desire to acquire Gaza to develop. Or maybe even transfer land to states that want it (e.g., Utah wanting to acquire 18.5 million acres of BLM land). That’s just my personal opinion, of course, extrapolating from things this administration is doing that I never thought would happen in this country during my lifetime – things outside the scope of this forum.
Yes, “history, my own knowledge and intuition” don’t seem to be too relevant under an administration that’s doing so many things nobody has done before (in this country any way). When you’ve got a president whose goal is maximizing attention on him, why wouldn’t he support extremist proposals for public lands? More to the point – why take a chance, given the irreversible nature of divesting?
They seem to be trying the old “James Watt model” of pushing projects through, undercover of knowingly ridiculous and improbable ideas being proposed. It worked back then but, with all the environmental groups watching everything like a hawk, that ruse is not going to work. I think I read somewhere that the Administration embraces Watt’s previous successes.
Talking about bucking a trend …
“In a move aimed at expanding Alabama’s public lands and strengthening outdoor recreation, U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville and Representative Mike Rogers have introduced the Talladega National Forest Expansion Act . The legislation proposes to expand the boundaries of the Talladega National Forest by up to 50,000 acres across Clay, Coosa, and Talladega counties.
If passed, the bill would authorize the U.S. Forest Service to purchase land from willing sellers, with a particular focus on improving the Pinhoti Trail—Alabama’s longest hiking trail. The expansion seeks to address the current interruptions in the trail, known as “road walks,” where hikers must travel along roadways instead of dedicated forest paths.”
https://www.newsbreak.com/calhoun-journal-1587828/3961134019733-alabama-legislators-introduce-talladega-national-forest-expansion-act