Where Public Lands Stand As We Enter 2026

A mass sell off? More lay offs? Privatized national parks? This isn’t about predicting the future, it’s the facts about where the war on America’s public lands stands right now.

Last year saw an unprecedented assault on America’s public lands. While the high profile attempt to sell millions of our acres ultimately failed, reductions in force still decimated staffing levels, regulatory rollbacks reduced environmental protections, and rampant corruption began to misappropriate funding. 2026 is the year all of that will begin to cause real impacts to the places you and I love to spend time outdoors, and to the natural resources all of us rely on for clean air and water, abundant biodiversity, and reliable energy. Here’s a rational look at where we stand today.

National Parks Are Saved…For Now

What They’re Doing: FY2026 “minibus” packages (the ones they were supposed to pass in September…) passed by the House and being moved through the Senate continue National Park Service funding at 2025 levels and place strict controls on changing how that budget may be spent. It will also prevent the executive branch from engaging in further mass reductions in force, with any changes that impact more than 5 percent of an agency or department’s workforce requiring advance notice to Congress. Language inserted into the bill by pro-parks groups that would have made any future sale of any land or property currently managed by NPS illegal has been removed.

My Analysis: Phew. While this is by no means an unqualified victory—one which would restore NPS staffing to pre-Trump levels and which would meaningfully begin to address the multi-billon dollar maintenance backlog while protecting the park service from any future attacks—it’s more than I expected given the current moment, and the near-complete lack of power Democrats currently have in Congress.

Your Takeaway: This year we’re going to see Republicans in the Executive Branch fight Republicans in Congress over how much harm they’re allowed to wreak on the country. The administration is proceeding as if there won’t be mid-term elections, or, if there is one, as if they don’t care what the result will be. Republicans in Congress, especially those up for re-election, are trying to do the bare minimum of good, or at least grift cleverly masked as good, in an effort to maintain their majorities. Which faction will win is, at this point, anyone’s guess, and probably hinges more on stuff like public opinion of ICE raids, and at what point the wars in Venezuela, Iran, Greenland and elsewhere start resulting in dead Americans.

Interior Is Trying To Fool Hunters And Anglers

What They’re Doing: Doug Burgum put his warm cookies down long enough to issue a new Secretarial Order mandating that all BLM, USFWS, and BOR properties be open to hunting and fishing unless managers specifically close it.

My Analysis: The primary impact of that order is going to be from the press release that announced it, and the subsequent headlines from pro-fascist hunting and fishing groups parroting its claims. Pretty much all public lands are already open to hunting and fishing. Exceptions include areas experiencing emergencies such as ongoing or recent wildfire activity, unseasonal weather conditions that impact wildlife behavior or survival, and similar. There will be no substantial new acreage available for public recreation, but area managers are going to have to spend time writing and justifying new orders again closing areas impacted by the above.

Your Takeaway: Given that Republicans don’t care to represent the majority of Americans who didn’t vote for them, the pushback to Steve Daines’ and Mike Lee’s effort to sell off millions of acres of public lands last year from traditionally conservative-leaning affinity groups around hunting and fishing took the regime by surprise. See this as an effort to get ahead of messaging this year, so those demos will already have their brains melted by the time any big sell off attempts or otherwise unpopular actions occur.

Nobody Knows What’s Going On In Wildlife Refuges

What They’re Doing: The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service quietly commissioned a “review” across all 96 million acres of land and 760 million acres of ocean it’s responsible for. A similar “review” is what led to the largest reduction in public lands protection ever during the first Trump administration. That review was begun and concluded over the holidays, when most Americans were distracted. The results have been created, but have not yet been made publicly available.

My Analysis: Speaking to my buddy Andrew McKean from Outdoor Life, the head of USFWS claimed, “People have assumed that means we’re looking for ways to sell land. That is not the intent. The intent is to make sure we’re still doing those things that were intended when the refuge was created but also to make sure that things aren’t completely askew from our current mission.”

No effort to destroy America’s unique system of public lands or the clean air, clean water, and abundant biodiversity that exist because of them has ever billed itself as what it actually is. Couching this review as “Hey, relax guy,” is not reassuring.

Your Takeaway: Of all the ongoing threats to our public lands, this is the one you should be most concerned about. I think it’s relevant to note DOI’s attempt to get ahead of manipulating the message around hunting and fishing here because Wildlife Refuges were created specifically to serve hunters and anglers, who also provide a large part of their funding.

Is Land Property?

What They’re Doing: It looks like Republicans are going to shoot for another budget reconciliation package later this year, as a follow up to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Public Domain reports that an early framework for such contains a call for selling off “federal properties.” Republicans lawmakers are claiming “properties” don’t mean “lands.”

My Analysis: Go back to that National Park budget. A lot of the 350 or so NPS sites that advocates are worried might be subject to a sell off are historic sites, which are sometimes just a single building. Republicans insisting on a strict interpretation of the legalese they’re cooking up is not reassuring.

Your Takeaway: This is one to watch as the FY2026 budgets are finally wrapped up, and Congress moves on to new business. Given the approach of the mid-terms, I don’t think we’re going to see any sort of effort from Congress to sell millions of acres of land all together, but they may chip around the edges while pushing much disinformation about the oft-disproven “efficiencies” of privatized operations. Remember that a trial run of privatization is an express step along the path of White House plans to privatize and sell off the entire National Park system.

Congressional Review Act vs The Boundary Waters

What They’re Doing: Representative Pete Stauber (R-MN) just introduced a motion to apply the Congressional Review Act to a Biden-era order from DOI that blocks the construction of a mine that will dump pollution into his state’s pristine Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. As I’ve reported on extensively, shifting normal departmental operations into “rules” that must be approved by Congress opens up a Pandora’s Box of unintentional consequences that may get Republican donors their mine, but will also further break the permitting process administered by DOI, and harm the ability for anyone to conduct business on public land.

My Analysis: You know, we could be bribing Republican lawmakers too. Doing so is often way cheaper than you’d think, and given how transactional that crowd is, I don’t think they have any concerns about where their bribes originate, or who benefits from what actions they are asked to take.

Your Takeaway: Republican lawmakers are becoming their own worst enemies here. Invoking the CRA to repeal an order preventing mine construction will also almost certainly call into question the legality of the permits any construction on that mine will operate under, something pro-environment orgs are likely going to start suing over this year. That would push the timeline for this project several years into the future, into such a time as Chilean billionaires hopefully no longer hold the ability to buy off corrupt American politicians.

A Nothingburger In Utah

What They’re Doing: The USDA and the state of Utah have inked a deal for state participation in management of national forests in that state. Doing so subverts NEPA, and limits public involvement in decision making on public lands in that state. Similar plans are already in place in Montana and Idaho. They’re doing this to speed permitting for expanded timber extraction under the guise of preventing wildfires, which is a popular if easily disproven lie that Republicans like to tell.

My Analysis: Last March I explained the regime’s plans to work around the National Environmental Protection Act, and the processes it mandates for stakeholder involvement in decision making. NEPA Is not just about helping the environment, it’s also a process that guarantees permitting gets done in a thorough manner in order to create the kind of regulatory certainty that justifies the investment of private capital. There are no major sawmills in Utah. If a bunch of religious extremists were actually serious about destroying forests in their state, they’d need to find companies willing to invest tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars in the construction of industrial infrastructure to support logging operations in that state. And those companies would need to find that funding from major financial institutions and secure it with insurance. All of that requires the kind of regulatory certainty provided by the NEPA process. Without it, they’re going to have a hard time wrecking any meaningful acreage.

Your Takeaway: What additional logging Utah is able to achieve will just exacerbate both the likelihood and severity of wildfire in that state. Despite Republican rhetoric, logging can only be shown to prevent wildfire when it’s conducted immediately adjacent to structures. And lawmakers looking for handouts in Park City aren’t going to find a lot of people enthusiastic about losing their views. You probably don’t need to worry too much about this one.

Monuments Are In Cold Water

What They’re Doing: Writing for his new non-profit public lands newsroom, my old boss Chris Keyes expresses concern that Republicans are gearing up for another national monument shrinkage attempt.

My Analysis: It feels good to see Chris write about this topic. Writing the same thing way back in May, 2024 caused the first major rift between me and Outside, which eventually led to the situation where they gave me verbal confirmation that my campaign for State Senate here in Montana wouldn’t conflict with my employment, but then a phone call terminating my contract effective immediately on the same day I announced my candidacy. The long and short of the story is that the Supreme Court is publicly shopping for a case that will allow them to issue a ruling restricting the Antiquities Act, and possibly revoking the status of monuments created by recent Democrat administrations. At the same Project 2025 calls for the administration to conduct its own review of the legality of the Act. Seeing Chris (who was laid off before I was fired) acknowledge all this is reality makes me feel a little less crazy.

Your Takeaway: “In 2026, Americans should prepare for at least one national monument—and perhaps a half dozen—to be formally targeted for boundary reductions, weakened protections, or outright elimination,” Chris writes.

Meanwhile…

If we all have one major takeaway from last year I think it should be awe for the professionalism and commitment demonstrated by the federal employees tasked with protecting our public lands. Despite massive RIFs, constant threats and disparagement, and the longest government shutdown in American history, they held places like National Parks together while keeping visitors safe.

But that heroic effort can only last so long, and things are starting to crumble. One report from National Forest Managers in Washington illustrates how:

Top photo: USFS

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