The U.S. Department of the Interior has put the sale of federal public land into its official strategic plan for the first time, proposing in its 2026–2030 plan to shrink the federal estate by offering land to states, localities and Tribes — a shift that outdoor groups, a former Interior secretary from the president's own party and conservation advocates are already fighting in public.

Source: Field & Stream

“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,” reads the passage on page 16 of the 28-page plan. “Through these sales, the Department will focus its resources on primary federal responsibilities and nationally significant federal lands. A portion of the proceeds will go back to the purchasing entities to use for conservation purposes elsewhere in the state, locality or Tribal land, leading to improved recreation access for American citizens, while at the same time decreasing the federal taxpayer's financial responsibility to manage federal lands.”

Source: GearJunkie / DOI Strategic Plan 2026-2030

500M+ acresPublic land managed by Interior through BLM, the Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Park Service
750,000 sq milesFederal land overseen by Interior — larger than Texas and California combined
28 pagesLength of the 2026-2030 strategic plan; the land-sale passage is on page 16
80% / 64% / 62%Federal share of land in Nevada / Utah / Idaho, per Deseret News figures reported by SUU News
$900M a yearLand and Water Conservation Fund revenue from offshore oil and gas, created in 1964

What the plan says — and what it does not say

The plan, released on Tuesday and covering fiscal years 2026 through 2030, names no specific parcels for sale and sets out no timeline for any sale. Environment America notes that it also sets no acreage limit and no conditions describing which land could be sold. The department's stated vision in the document is “Manage resources. Improve lives. Create opportunity,” balancing resource development with conservation and the goal of becoming an energy-dominant nation, according to SUU News' reading of the plan.

Source: Environment America

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum's opening letter frames the estate as both a national treasure and a working asset, calling for expanded domestic energy production and a secure critical-minerals supply chain alongside recreation, hunting, fishing, grazing, timber, geothermal and hydropower. Burgum quotes President Theodore Roosevelt, who helped shape the department: “Conservation means development as much as it does protection.”

Source: GearJunkie

The conservation fund that would stop buying land

The plan would end the use of the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) to acquire new public land. Congress created the fund in 1964 to reinvest offshore oil and gas revenues into parks, wildlife refuges and recreation; it receives $900 million a year and was fully funded and permanently reauthorized in 2020 under the Great American Outdoors Act. Under the new plan, that money would instead go to conservation and recreation easements on private land — explicitly, critics note, so the federal estate “does not continue to grow.” Environment America's Great Outdoors campaign director Ellen Montgomery said leaders should be protecting more wild places, not putting existing ones in jeopardy, and called on Congress to keep the fund used as intended.

Source: Field & Stream

Energy, critical minerals and AI data centres

Land that stays federal would be worked harder. The plan calls for up-to-date inventories of natural-resource assets to secure supplies of energy, critical minerals and raw building materials “ to build and power homes, data centers and long-term strength of the American economy.” It announces no specific data-centre sites. A November 6 ProPublica report, cited by Field & Stream and GearJunkie, said the U.S. Geological Survey has identified some 91.3 million acres of Interior-managed land with potential to host data centres, across Alaska, Arizona, California, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming. One earlier data-centre project on Bureau of Land Management land near Boulder City, Nevada, was approved by the agency before a federal appeals board overturned that decision.

Source: Field & Stream

ProPublica also reported that Burgum holds investments in AI companies of between $18.1 million and $64.4 million through Arthur Ventures, a firm he co-founded. Asked about that reporting by Utah outlet KSL on Wednesday, Burgum denied any suggestion he stands to profit from AI expansion, saying none of those companies are building data centres or are hyperscalers and describing them as small, privately held start-ups. He had described AI as an “arms race” with China during his 2025 confirmation hearing. Awaaz Punjab presents both the reporting and the denial; neither side's claim about personal benefit has been independently established.

Source: GearJunkie

A smaller workforce to manage what remains

The plan also calls for consolidating the department's workforce, without spelling out what that means for employees. Field & Stream reports the department has already shed more than 20 per cent of its workforce — more than 13,000 employees — largely through the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) drive. The Washington Post reported this week that the administration is weighing a “realignment” of the National Park Service and the Fish and Wildlife Service, including pending duty-station changes, and a recent Fish and Wildlife Service report recommends moving positions from headquarters and regional offices out to wildlife refuges. Interior spokespeople did not answer questions about whether consolidation would mean layoffs, or about the planned land sales, according to reporting citing the Associated Press and The Hill.

Source: Field & Stream

Pushback — including from Trump's first Interior secretary

Rep. Ryan Zinke of Montana, a Republican who served as President Donald Trump's first-term Interior secretary, “remains firmly opposed to the sale or transfer of public lands,” his office said, according to the Associated Press, and he would vote against legislation on the issue before he leaves Congress after this term. Zinke helped lead the push that stripped a public-land sale provision from the House version of Trump's Big Beautiful Bill last year; Senate Republicans later tried to add sales to their version, and that provision was also removed amid bipartisan pushback. The new plan arrives roughly 500 days after Utah Sen. Mike Lee's failed proposal to sell some 3.2 million acres of western public land in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act of 2025 set off a major national backlash.

Source: Associated Press via The Mary Sue / The Hill

Conservation groups argue the risk is what happens after a first sale. Kate Groetzinger, communications director at the Center for Western Priorities, said there is nothing in the plan requiring new owners to keep land in public use, and nothing stopping a state or local government from turning around and selling land to a private developer, particularly land near communities where people spend the most time outdoors. Supporters of the plan, and the plan itself, answer that sales would go only to states, localities and Tribes — not directly to private buyers — and that a share of proceeds returns to buyers for conservation elsewhere.

Source: GearJunkie

The law, the land-planning rule and the Senate bill moving beside it

Any sales would fall under the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976, which generally directs the Bureau of Land Management to keep most of its land in federal hands. Under that law, public land must sell for at least fair market value, and Congress must get advance notice before any tract larger than 2,500 acres is sold. On the same day the plan appeared, the Bureau of Land Management published a proposed rewrite of its public-land planning rules which, according to Washington Post reporting summarised by The Daily Graph, would eliminate the existing 90-day public comment period for major plans and remove the requirement to release draft plans for public feedback, replacing them with public meetings. That proposal remains open for public comments until January 11, 2027.

Source: The Mary Sue / FindLaw FLPMA summary

In the Senate, the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act (BAAJA, S. 5653) was advanced by a 73–25 vote the day before the plan's release and is expected to get a full vote next week. The bill is a permitting measure: GearJunkie reports it would fast-track development projects on public lands, especially AI data centres. An analysis by Our Public Lands and Waters argues its Section 1110 would also affect land sales, imposing a strict 150-day deadline for NEPA challenges, new restrictions on who can sue, and limits on courts' ability to stop an approved project while an environmental review is redone. That reading is the critics' analysis, not a finding by a court, and the bill contains no section titled “land sales.”

Source: Our Public Lands and Waters analysis of BAAJA

What is solid

  • The plan's own words commit Interior to decreasing the federal estate by offering land for purchase to states, localities and Tribes (page 16, quoted verbatim above).
  • No specific parcels, acreage cap or sale timeline are named in the plan, on the reporting of every outlet cited here.
  • The plan ends LWCF purchases of new public land and redirects the fund toward easements on private land.
  • Rep. Ryan Zinke's opposition, in his office's words to the Associated Press, is on the record.

What is only claimed

  • Whether land sold to a state or locality would later be resold to private developers — critics say nothing in the plan stops it; the plan itself limits its stated buyers to public and Tribal governments and returns part of the proceeds for conservation.
  • Whether Secretary Burgum could personally benefit from AI expansion on public land — ProPublica reported AI investments of $18.1M-$64.4M; Burgum told KSL none of the companies build data centres and he is unlikely to profit.
  • Whether BAAJA's Section 1110 would in practice shield land sales from court challenge — that is an advocacy analysis of broad bill language, not settled law.

What happens next — and why it matters in the West

No land can change hands under a strategic plan alone: each sale would still have to clear the 1976 law's fair-market-value and congressional-notice rules, and Interior has named neither a first parcel nor a date. The near-term tests are political and procedural — the full Senate vote on BAAJA next week, the Bureau of Land Management planning-rule comment window that runs to January 11, 2027, and whether congressional opposition that killed land-sale provisions twice last year assembles again. For readers in the West — including the Punjabi diaspora communities and long-haul truckers who live and drive across California, Nevada, Arizona, Washington and the other states where most federal land sits, and where the Geological Survey sees data-centre potential — the plan decides who owns the ground beside the highways, trailheads, hunting grounds and river access points they use every week. Awaaz Punjab will follow the BAAJA vote and the first named parcel, if one is announced.

Source: SUU News