What's up with the Interior Strategic Plan?

On November 10th, the Department of Interior released a strategic plan for the next five years..  Buried in a paragraph about streamlining coordination with states, tribes, and local governments was a bombshell. Over the next 5 years, the document directs the Department of Interior overseeing the Bureau of Land Management, the National Park Service, and the US Fish and Wildlife Service to “work to decrease the size of the federal estate by offering to states, localities and Tribes the opportunity to purchase federal lands.” Elsewhere in the document, the Interior planned “direct transfer of lands in support of reliable energy production and transport”. Organizational strategic plans don’t usually cause an uproar, but this one did. At the time of this writing, on the morning of Friday, November 13th, the plan has been pulled off the Department of Interior’s website, leaving behind nothing but regret and a 404 ‘page not found’ error. 

It’s hard to understand why leadership at the Department of Interior thought it advisable to include these controversial statements in a plan that otherwise had a lot to like. There were multiple pages devoted to increasing recreational access, working with states and tribes, and protecting endangered species. (There were also numerous sections devoted to building and supplying data centers using public lands, which we will set aside for now.) The plan had been open for public comment earlier last summer, and the land disposal language was nowhere to be found. Adding it for the final draft seems at best clumsy, at worst like a bad faith effort to slip it past public scrutiny. 

Now, selling or transferring public lands isn’t automatically a bad thing - in fact the federal government does it all the time. Federal law like the Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA) create processes for the agencies to plan for, seek comment for, and execute limited land sales of isolated, degraded, or otherwise unneeded parcels that can benefit local communities. Congress can also convey land through the legislative process if there’s a pressing and demonstrable need, such as housing or municipal infrastructure (think wastewater plants or landfills). These processes are uncontroversial and have been ongoing for decades. Proceeds can go to fund conservation on other public lands, or acquisition of new parcels that we wish to protect. Land management agencies can also acquire land using money from the Land and Water Conservation Fund. Since 1976, federal land ownership outside of Alaska has remained largely stable, with a slight decline and some shuffling between agencies. The point here is that a) we can sell land when we need to and it makes sense, and b) we have existing processes designed to govern the disposal of land responsibly and democratically. We can argue and litigate individual sales of individual parcels, but hey, that’s what Democracy is for right? 

The main problem with land disposal arises when people try to force them through at scale, and outside the established processes. In 2024 and 2025, the State of Utah attempted to force the transfer of millions of acres through a novel, and largely unfounded legal theory, speedrunning a smack down by the US Supreme Court. Senator Mike Lee from Utah then followed that up with a spectacular failure in the budget reconciliation process, attempting to sell 2-3 million acres of public land and prompting a singularly united backlash from environmentalists, hunters and anglers, outdoor recreation, industry, and everyone in between. After public statements from Montana and Idaho’s Congressional delegations – including Lee’s committee colleague and fellow conservative Jim Risch – Senator Lee pulled the language in abject defeat. Since then, public land disposal has been a third rail of politics in the American West. It was a centerpiece issue in Risch’s reelection, in the Montana Senate race to replace Steve Daines, and played a role in helping Sam Forstag flip the Montana 1st Congressional District. 

This brings us to today. When Secretary Burgum and the team around him decided to include direction for Interior to pursue land disposal in the new Strategic Plan, they must have anticipated backlash, right? Right?? Maybe not. When the plan went public, Senator Tim Sheehy tweeted out a disapproving statement, writing:

“We are seeking information from the Administration on this proposal.

Our office was not consulted on this. Last year, I stopped the sale of lands in the One Big Beautiful Bill.

I will not allow ONE ACRE of Montana land to be sold.”

Another Republican Senate staffer confirmed that the administration had not consulted or even given a heads up that this would be in the Strategic Plan. Idaho’s senators reached out to the administration for clarification, and presumably made it clear that mass land disposal would not be on the table without Congressional approval, meaning not at all. 

At the Idaho Outfitters and Guides Association, we don’t always agree on everything. Our members are diverse in their views, and our positions on policy issues reflect that. However, when it comes to public lands, our members are clear on what they want: keep public lands in public hands. When we saw this plan, we immediately moved to make those views clear. Within the day, we sent a letter to the leadership at the Department of Interior, and put our Congressional delegation on notice, asking them to follow up as well. The pressure from Idaho and Montana, as well as IOGA and other groups, clearly worked, as Interior pulled the plan down from their website on Friday morning. It’s not clear if they’ve reached back out to Senate offices or other stakeholders to clarify, mollify, or apologize. 

There are a few lessons to take from this episode. First, public lands and their constituencies still carry a powerful weight to push back and impose costs on anyone perceived as selling or disposing of public lands. Second, it demonstrates a level of political blindness from the Department of Interior. The backlash to this was extremely predictable, and the fact that they do not seem to have anticipated it is, frankly, embarrassing. It detracts from their ability to achieve any of the other objectives stated in the plan, some of which are good and popular! Third, it’s a strong signal that the public land disposal movement is alive and well, if underground. Slipping this into a final draft of a strategic plan demonstrates a desire of at least some staff to elude public notice while still pulling on the levers of power available to them. 

Overall, this will likely strengthen the voice of the majority of Americans that love and support our public lands. Interior blinked this time, and the people who use and love these lands made that happen. But the idea didn’t go away. It just went quiet. We’ll be watching for the next draft.