Yosemite development scheme recalls admin’s other public lands sell-off efforts

In late August, NOTUS (now The Washington Sun) reported that the Trump administration has been working behind the scenes to give away a piece of Yosemite National Park to a well-connected investment firm. The unprecedented swap would allow an access road for a planned resort, and it’s a priority for political leaders atSecretary Doug Burgum’s Interior Department (a source told NOTUS: “They want us to be responsive to the property owner and their lobbyists”).  

Federal agencies sometimes make small land swaps for conservation purposes, but a commercially focused trade could set yet another chilling precedent of public land decisions made by the administration to directlybenefit special interests. 

The deal harks back to 19th-century robber barons’ efforts to buy up American land and resources, in the days before a strong national conservation ethic could be concretized in law and regulation. But it’s also entirely in keeping with recent proposals, statements and back-room dealings coming out of this administration, which remains fixated on the promise of privatizing, liquidating or trading away millions of acres of our shared public lands (even if they won’t quite say it out-loud). Some recent and ongoing examples:

1. Among other trades and giveaways: National wildlife refuge land swapped to SpaceX 

The administration’s planned Yosemite deal with Kingsbarn Realty Capital certainly isn’t the first time the administration tried to engineer a swap of public land with a politically powerful corporation. In June, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agreed to give Elon Musk’s SpaceX a chunk of land from the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge, kicking off a wave of protest and legal challenge.

These cozy transactions aren’t always quite so direct; sometimes, they must go through the state (related: see bullet below). Earlier this year, Interior revoked two public lands orders and gave 2.1 million acres of public land to Alaska to facilitate construction of the controversial Ambler Road. That project is a longtime priority of mining companies including Trilogy Metals, whose shares have climbedsince the administration took a 10% stake in the company last year (a move that made millions for Trump ally and fundraiser John Paulson).  

2. Public land sell-off laundered through increased state or local responsibility 

In Colorado, the U.S. Forest Service has asked Pitkin County to take over management for the beloved Maroon Bells Scenic Area, citing high costs. Similarly, Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz recently suggested “delegat[ing] primacy to the states” (the Forest Service later tried to walk it back). This is a classic tack for trying to pull public lands from public hands.

But national agencies like the Forest Service are, by their very design, better positioned to balance the many competing needs of our public lands on a large scale. State trust lands, meanwhile, are managed primarily to maximize financial returns. That creates stronger incentives for logging, mining, energy development—and even selling off lands outright. Lands in state control are simply far likelier to be leased or privatized, denying access to local communities and the American people at large. 

3. Making the case for public land sell-off by gutting land agencies 

This administration has spent two years dismantling land agencies and making privatization seem like a more palatable option. They’ve cut staff, threatened major budget reductions, disrupted research and launched short-sighted re-organization exercises. These steps have resulted in less efficiency, an erosion of institutional knowledge and many millions of dollars spent paying employees not to work.

Federal land agencies with fewer resources provide worse management, and worse management would help the administration and allied lawmakers make the case that public hands will be best off in state, local or private hands.  

4. The public lands “housing” task force that remains shrouded in secrecy  

Early in 2025, the Department of the Interior and Department of Housing and Urban Developmentannounced a task force focused on disposing of “underutilized” public lands for housing. We know they'refocused on disposing BLM lands within 10 miles of any city or town containing more than 5,000 people, a la Sen. Mike Lee’s failed budget reconciliation proposal, but that’s about it.

Public records requests to find out more have turned up evidence that Secretary Burgum’s team worked with Lee to provide analysis and talking points on that budget reconciliation proposal, and that housing developers and allied groups have been the main influence on the administration’s thinking. So it seems safe to say that whatever ultimately comes out of the task force will have a similar direction: mandating the sale of nationally owned public lands, without strong guardrails to make sure the housing developed on those lands ends up being affordable for ordinary people. 

5. Exploring new legal tools to surrender public lands 

In the last couple of years, the Interior Department has been toying with “recordable disclaimers of interest,” or RDIs. By issuing an RDI, Interior can disclaim the federal government’s ownership or interest in a tract of public land. These determinations are provided for in the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976. Notably, RDIs have been central to efforts by the state of Utah to claim title of BLM lands for rights of way. And they’re ramping up: In 2019, the Supreme Court decided in favor of an Alaskan moose hunter who sought to use a hovercraft over state-owned navigable waters, but within a National Park Service preserve where hovercrafts typically wouldn’t be permitted. The case helped open the floodgates for a slew of RDIs that administratively recognize land title in favor of states.

There is serious concern that the RDI process could be used as a backdoor method of easing public land sell-off or transfer from the administrative side—all the more so under BLM Director Steve Pearce, who has been a cheerleader for selling off public lands for many years. RDIs could also be wielded as a covert land-swap tool in legislation by canny members of Congress. 

6. Shutting out the public without a deed changing hands 

If there’s anything this administration learned from the failed Mike Lee land liquidation of summer 2025, it’sthat selling off public lands is deeply unpopular. That might be why we’ve heard nothing about their Lee-esque housing taskforce (see above), and why the planned Yosemite land-swap took crack reporting to see daylight.

But of course, there are numerous ways for Americans to lose access to our public lands or our say in how they’re managed without ownership of those lands technically changing. As we speak, the administration is pursuing (or has already successfully completed) dozens of rulemakings, revisions and reviews that sharply reduce public participation (e.g. Interior’s NEPA “reform”), give preference to extractive interests (e.g. the rollback of the BLM Public Lands Rule), reduce safeguards against drilling and development (e.g. the rollback of the BLM Oil and Gas Rule) or otherwise eat away at our freedom to experience the wild outdoors and conserve them for future generations. 

Many of these were undertaken with drastically shortened comment periods and without public hearings(and we expect even more such attacks in the months ahead, including a proposed BLM rule that will likely weaken land-use planning and protections for “areas of critical environmental concern”). 

That’s to say nothing of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, an administration priority, which gave the oil and gas industry over 200 million acres for drilling—not selling the lands outright but still handing over the keys on an enormous swath of public lands we know and love.   

7. CRA chaos represents sell-off in a different guise 

Over the last year, this administration has worked with Republican members of Congress to pioneer a new crypto-sell-off tactic: Rolling back land-use plans by simple majority vote using the notorious Congressional Review Act, or CRA. These CRA resolutions threaten to break our entire system of public lands by signaling that decades’ worth of community-built plans and public lands protections might not be valid, and they can be overturned at any time.

The trend calls into question all land management plans and the permitting allowed under those plans including oil and gas development, mining and timber sales. It may not be “sell-off” in the classic Mike Lee sense, but it might have a similar effect: Giving the American people less of a stake in the cherished lands we all own.