The Trump administration is planning to sell federal public lands to states, local governments and tribes. If successful, the effort could undo decades of conservation efforts by Congress and environmental organizations.
Those aims are detailed in the U.S. Department of the Interior Strategic Plan 2026-2030, released on Tuesday.
“The Department will work to decrease the size of the federal estate by offering to states, localities and Tribes the opportunity to purchase federal lands,” the plan reads. “Through these sales, the Department will be able to focus its resources on primary federal responsibilities and nationally significant federal lands.”
The plan was issued about a week after the “blue tsunami” delivered Democrats sweeping victories across the country and control of both chambers of Congress in 2027, setting the stage for challenges to President Donald Trump’s agenda.
According to federal law, Congress can block federal land sales that exceed 2,500 acres, but the administration can sell smaller parcels without legislative oversight.
‘An open invitation to oil and gas companies’
The Interior Department’s plan sparked a swift backlash from several environmental groups.
“It feels like a real lame duck move to put out such a politically toxic plan,” Kate Groetzinger, communications director for the Center for Western Priorities, told the Mountain West New Bureau.
According to Colorado College’s 2026 State of the Rockies survey, 74% of Western voters said they oppose selling some national public lands for oil and gas development. That could be an outcome of Interior’s strategic plan, Groetzinger added.
The plan says land will go to states, localities and tribes, but Groetzinger and other environmentalists are worried they could be privatized for profit at some point. This is partly because some local governments might struggle to budget for the costs of managing the lands year after year.
Some lines in the plan are also drawing speculation. For instance, it states that “Interior will pursue strategic rights-of-way agreements, land exchanges and direct transfer of lands in support of reliable energy production and transport.”
“It really, to me, reads like an open invitation to oil and gas companies, data center companies, mining companies to come to the Interior Department and say, ‘Hey, give us this land.’ And the Interior Department is saying, ‘Just tell us what you want, and we'll give it to you,’” Groetzinger said.
The plan did not identify whether the federal government has specific parcels in mind to transfer or sell. Groetzinger said the lands most likely to be in play are those held by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, which are subject to a wide variety of possible uses from agricultural to energy to recreational, versus National Park Service lands, which focus on cultural resources and outdoor recreation.
Along with the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act, which the Senate recently approved and could make it easier to develop energy projects, Groetzinger said “this plan is a death sentence for public lands,” though some supporters point to the act’s potential to boost renewable energy.
Meanwhile, the new strategic plan also calls for the Interior Department to “consolidate its workforce to advance operational efficiencies.”
This comes after 300,000 federal workers were laid off last year, with large cuts to public land agencies, including 18,998 separations at the Department of Agriculture and another 7,210 at the Interior Department, according to the Pew Research Center.
“We need more nature,” Environment America’s Great Outdoors Campaign Director Ellen Montgomery said in a statement. “Our national leaders should be focused on funding the agencies that manage our public lands. They should find more wild places to protect and add to our national parks and wildlife refuge systems not put those lands in jeopardy.”
The strategic plan has not yet prompted official responses from state governors or tribal leaders.
What does the plan say?
The Interior Department’s plan states that a portion of the proceeds from federal land sales will go back to “purchasing entities” to be used for other conservation purposes. At the same time, it says this decreases “the federal taxpayer’s financial responsibility to manage federal lands.”
It also says Interior will invest more in conservation and recreation easements on private lands with money from the Land and Water Conservation Fund, which was established by Congress in 1964 and has long focused on access and protection for federal lands and waters.
“This effort will ensure that the federal estate does not continue to grow while at the same time increasing recreation access for the American public,” the plan states.
It also focuses heavily on bolstering the country’s domestic energy supply, saying it will “accelerate energy production from reliable sources, including clean coal, oil, gas, hydroelectric, geothermal and advanced nuclear technologies.”
Renewable energy sources such as wind and solar are excluded from the list.
How did we get here?
Land use in the West is a centuries-old debate.
More recently, in the summer of 2025, Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) led an effort to sell up to 3 million acres of federal land with an amendment to Trump’s tax and spending bill. Lee said the land would be used for housing or other “associated community needs.” After public backlash, the amendment failed.
The government often sells or leases small areas of federal land for energy, housing or other uses, but as Derek Monson with the Utah conservative think tank the Sutherland Institute told NPR, those sales are much smaller and rarely tied to a large, partisan spending bill.
The federal government owns more than 50% of the land in five Western states — Nevada, Utah, Idaho, Alaska and Oregon — and between 30% and 50% of the land in Wyoming, California, Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico, amounting to about 480 million acres in those 10 states alone.
The federal government owns roughly 28% of U.S. land, or about 640 million out of a total 2.27 billion acres, federal data shows.
This story was produced by the Mountain West News Bureau, a collaboration between Boise State Public Radio, Wyoming Public Media, Nevada Public Radio, KUNR in Nevada, KUNC in Northern Colorado, KANW in New Mexico, Colorado Public Radio and KJZZ in Arizona as well as NPR, with support from affiliate newsrooms across the region. Funding for the Mountain West News Bureau is provided in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and Eric and Wendy Schmidt.
