The Department of Interior, headed by former North Dakota governor Doug Burgum, has just released its fiscal year 2026 budget it wants approved by Congress. Included in that budget, on page 13, is a direct call to sell “excess federal lands” to states and Native American tribes.
“In strengthening the Federal Government’s commitment to neighboring communities, the Budget proposes to transfer excess Federal lands to willing States and Tribes,” the budget proposal reads. “Many parks and other Federal lands receive only a limited number of local visitors and do not constitute a primary Federal responsibility. Transferring those lands to willing States and Tribes supports local communities and their economies.”
The assumption is that these “excess federal lands” would be the less-visited parks, wildlife refuges, and recreation areas. There is no specified amount of lands that would be sold, nor is there any specific discussion about what lands might be on the chopping block, anywhere in the Interior Department’s budget.
Burgum’s budget also calls for a total of $1 billion to be cut from the National Park Service, as well as an increase in fees for nonresident visitors to enter any property in the National Park System.
The release of this budget was one-upped by Utah Senator Mike Lee’s call to include public land sales in the senate version of President Donald Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill. Lee, a Republican, added an amendment that would require the Department of Interior and Department of Agriculture to sell between 0.5% and 0.75% of all the land they manage. That amounts to roughly 2 to 3 million acres of land, spread across all Western states except Montana. Exempting Montana from this proposal not only increases the amount of land sold in other states, but it also points to a deal between Lee and Montana Representative Ryan Zinke, another Republican, who was key in shooting down the original public lands sale proposed in the House version of Trump’s budget bill.
The reason for the land sale is the same that numerous Republicans have shared throughout 2025. They claim that federal land needs to be sold to help real estate and energy development in communities where new development is currently impossible, thanks to federal ownership and regulations.
In a video posted to YouTube, Lee explains that the land he wants to sell is “isolated parcels that are difficult to manage, that are better suited for housing and infrastructure.”
One can rightly wonder how, if the land is difficult to manage, it’s well-suited for housing.
Congress Considering Selling 500,000 Acres of Public Lands Through Rushed Budget Process
Brilliant. Steal the land from indigenous people, give them no rights for centuries then sell them back what was stolen from them in the first place. And I thought HMRC were blood sucking night dwellers, sheer amateurs by comparison!