President Donald Trump has been clear that he supports the sale of federal land, a view which was echoed in the Senate’s recently released recommendations for his budget bill.
His administration has already been taking action on the matter, such as creating a task force to survey suitable land for building affordable housing, as reported by The Wall Street Journal.
Why It Matters
The federal government owns around 640 million acres of public land, which accounts for nearly a third of all land in the United States. That land is managed by multiple agencies, including the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), the National Park Service (NPS), and the U.S. Forest Service (USFS).
Public lands have a wide range of uses, not just as national parks, but also as conservation sites and wildlife habitats.
Trump has long held the view that this land could be put to better use by providing additional housing for Americans, but conservation advocacy groups disagree. The Wilderness Society said that “very little of the land managed by the BLM and USFS is actually suitable for housing.”
It warned that much of the public land eligible for sale in the Senate’s proposals for the One Big Beautiful Bill Act includes “local recreation areas, wilderness study areas, inventoried roadless areas, critical wildlife habitat and big game migration corridors.”
Newsweek reached out to the BLM and the USFS via email for comment.
What To Know
Utah Senator Mike Lee shared a clip on X (formerly Twitter) on Thursday of Trump saying last year: “Well we want to have land so we can have housing built…we have so much land and we want to put it to use, so we’re going to have land release, and on that land we’re going to build housing.”
Alex Brandon/AP
Earlier this year, Trump signed an executive order that appeared to indicate that selling off the public land could provide the federal government with vital funding. The White House stated that the order to establish a “Sovereign Wealth Fund” would “help maximize the stewardship of our national wealth.”
“The Federal government directly holds $5.7 trillion in assets. Indirectly, including through natural resource reserves, the Federal government holds a far larger sum of asset value,” the White House said, which the Center for American Progress reported could be a hint at public land.
Last week, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee’s version of the tax and spending legislation included a measure that would be the largest single sale of national public land in modern history, aimed at generating revenue and addressing the “housing crisis.”
The proposals called for BLM and USFS to sell more than 2 million acres over the next five years, with a total of 258 million acres now legally available for potential sale.
What People Are Saying
Jonathan Barth, a professor of history at Arizona State University, Thursday on X: “Those who live in the Western states have a better understanding of this issue. The federal government owns 47 percent of the land in the Western states. The vast majority of these lands are not the national parks that we all cherish and love. They’re land that is squandered away through total neglect. We’re not talking about Yellowstone or Zion or the Grand Canyon, etc. Literally half of the American West remains undeveloped because the feds, including the original BLM, won’t allow it.
“Take a road trip through the American West and you’ll be astounded by how much land is completely and totally unused. The Eastern U.S. used to be like that too — until it was settled and developed, which I assume most of you think was a good idea? My only hesitation is the possibility of foreign-run companies buying it up. That should be strictly prohibited in any legislation.”
The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, in its fact sheet on the legislation: “In the West, this means that the federal government is depriving our communities of needed land for housing and inhibiting growth. President Trump recognized the connection between federal land ownership and the housing crisis, which is why he pledged to ‘open up portions of federal land for large-scale housing construction.'”
It added: “This proposal allows a fraction of 1 percent of federal land to be used to build houses. In doing so, it will create thousands of jobs, allow millions of Americans to realize the American dream, and reduce the deficit and fund our public lands.”
What Happens Next
The committee’s proposals on the sale of federal land, unveiled on June 11 and revised on June 14, are still subject to debate and potential amendment as the Senate deliberates over Trump’s tax bill ahead of the self-imposed deadline of July 4.
