The Department of the Interior committed itself on November 10 to reducing the amount of land the federal government owns, in a five-year strategic plan that makes selling public land a stated departmental goal.
The 28-page document, covering fiscal years 2026 through 2030, says 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," according to the plan text quoted by Public Domain. Interior frames the sales as a way to "focus its resources on primary federal responsibilities and nationally significant federal lands."
Michael Carroll, of The Wilderness Society, told Public Domain it is the first time the department has written selling or giving away public land into its own objectives.
What the plan commits to
Three mechanisms run through the document. Federal land would be offered for purchase, with buyers limited to states, local governments and Tribes rather than private bidders. A portion of the proceeds would return to the purchasing government, earmarked for conservation spending elsewhere in that state, locality or Tribal land — a trade Interior describes as improving recreational access while cutting federal management costs.
Money from the Land and Water Conservation Fund, which has historically been used to buy land for public ownership, would shift toward buying access easements across privately owned land instead.
The plan also calls for "strategic rights-of-way agreements, land exchanges and direct transfer of lands" to support energy production and transport, and says Interior "will consolidate its workforce to advance operational efficiencies."
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum tied the plan to energy supply, saying that "a strong and prosperous America requires a reliable, affordable and secure energy foundation." The document envisions agreements with energy developers, miners, timber operators and ranchers.
What it leaves open
The plan sets no acreage target, names no parcels and no states, and does not define "nationally significant." It also does not spell out what counts as a "locality" — whether counties, cities or smaller districts qualify as buyers.
That matters for scale. Interior oversees roughly 500 million acres through the Bureau of Land Management, the Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Park Service and the Bureau of Reclamation, most of it in the West and Alaska. The federal government owns about 80% of Nevada, 64% of Utah and 62% of Idaho.
For comparison, the Senate proposal that collapsed last year under bipartisan opposition would have required sales of up to 1.2 million acres of Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service land — a fraction of the estate, and still enough to sink the bill. A separate Interior and Housing and Urban Development task force has studied releasing up to 400,000 acres for housing.
A plan that sets a direction without a number leaves the practical size of any sale to decisions that have not been made yet. It also runs into the Federal Land Policy and Management Act, which sets a general policy that public lands be retained in federal ownership — the legal obstacle critics cite first.
Reaction
Senator Catherine Cortez Masto, a Nevada Democrat, said she is "prepared to fight" the proposal and is "concerned by the lack of details in this new plan." Senator Martin Heinrich, a New Mexico Democrat, said "public lands belong in public hands." Representative Jared Huffman, a California Democrat, said his party would work to keep the lands public.
Opposition is not confined to Democrats. Representative Ryan Zinke, a Montana Republican who ran Interior during President Donald Trump's first term, has said he opposes any sale or transfer of federal land and would vote against one before his term ends in January 2027.
Kate Groetzinger, of the Center for Western Priorities, said the plan "prioritizes extraction over conservation" and goes further than the Project 2025 blueprint. Ryan Callaghan, president of Backcountry Hunters & Anglers, said the lands most at risk are precisely the ones without national prominence — the ground where people hunt and fish.
Conservation groups also note that a state or county that buys federal land is under no federal obligation to keep it public afterward.
Interior did not respond to requests for comment from Public Domain.
Reporting from Deseret News, Northwest Sportsman and Public Domain.
