Trump and his cronies are working hard to gut our national parks and sell off public lands to their corporate backers.
You may have heard that President Trump and Republicans in Congress backed down from including a public lands sale in their “Big Beautiful Bill,” also known as the Big Ugly Bill. Thanks to massive pushback from the public, Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) removed his public lands sell off plan from the reconciliation bill. But, this narrow win is only one piece of the story. The Big Ugly Bill still included dozens of attacks on public lands. And it joined a long list of attacks on our public lands and national parks that the Trump administration has made since day one.
We’re tracking these ongoing public lands attacks from President Trump and Republicans in the 119th Congress. After the uproar over Mike Lee’s proposed public lands sale, they hope the public won’t notice all the other ways they are trying to sell off our public lands and waters to corporate polluters. They know these actions will be very unpopular with people across the country and across the political spectrum. But we’re exposing what they are doing, what may be coming, and sharing how you can help fight back. Here’s what you need to know.
The Trump administration and Republicans in Congress are opening public lands and waters so corporate polluters can ramp up destructive mining, logging and drilling, and produce more dirty energy. While they enrich themselves with the nation’s natural resources, the rest of us will pay the price.
Our public lands, waters and national parks provide affordable access to outdoor recreation. They drive tourism that supports the economies of nearby communities. Many sites preserve critical resources and cultural heritage for Indigenous communities. And keeping these lands free from development ensures clean water and air for surrounding communities and watersheds.
Opening public lands to Big Polluters puts their interests above ours. It gives corporate profits priority over access to the outdoors for all. It makes our air and water dirtier, and extracting and burning more fossil fuels means more emissions to worsen climate change.
Unfortunately the Trump administration and Congressional Republicans have shown their loyalties lie with their corporate backers, not us. Through the Big Ugly Bill, other legislation, and executive orders, they have:
Opened up vast swaths of land to oil and gas leasing. On day one, Trump declared a phony national “energy emergency” as an excuse to massively increase oil and gas leasing on federal lands, including in the Alaskan Arctic. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum also issued orders calling for the same. More moves to open public lands for dirty energy have followed – including in the Big Ugly Bill. Though Sen. Mike Lee was forced to abandon his full-scale sell off plan, the Big Ugly Bill still requires opening millions of acres of public lands for oil and gas lease sales.
Ramped up offshore drilling and deep-sea mining. Republicans in Congress have introduced bills to open up vast stretches of the ocean to offshore drilling and deep-sea mining. Trump signed an executive order to speed up approvals of deep-sea mining permits. These plans take us into uncharted waters. No commercial-scale deep-sea mining is currently happening anywhere in the world. Deep-sea mining is expensive, untested, and likely to devastate ocean ecosystems. But the Trump administration sees it as the next frontier to sell off to corporate polluters.
Expanded logging in millions of acres of forests. Trump has issued executive orders expanding logging and weakening protections for national forests. The administration also rolled back the Roadless Rule, which protects old-growth forests like the Tongass from logging and roadbuilding. Among other negative impacts, logging and roadbuilding in these forests will reduce their capacity to absorb carbon dioxide and help fight climate change. It will also increase the risk of wildfires that could spread to surrounding communities.
National monuments protect some of our country’s most treasured landscapes with extraordinary cultural and ecological importance. The Trump administration and members of Congress are moving to repeal protections for national monuments so they, too, can be opened to corporate interests. For example:
Members of Congress have introduced bills to weaken or eliminate the Antiquities Act to make it much harder for presidents to designate national monuments. The Antiquities Act gives the president power to establish national monuments to protect federal public land with extraordinary cultural, historical, and ecological value. Since it became law in 1906, 18 presidents – 9 from both parties – have used it to designate over 150 national monuments.
Trump’s Department of Justice (DOJ) released a legal opinion stating that the president can abolish national monuments. It contradicts a longstanding DOJ opinion from 1938 that monuments cannot be revoked once established under the Antiquities Act. The administration has already expressed interest in revoking monuments like Chuckwalla in California and Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante in Utah. The new DOJ opinion sets the stage for revoking these and other monuments.
Trump issued an executive order repealing protections for the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument and opening it up to commercial fishing. The Pacific Remote Islands covers an area southwest of Hawai`i that includes seven islands, an atoll, and Kingman Reef. Opening the area to commercial fishing threatens its rare, diverse ecosystem, including 22 species of protected marine mammals.
The Trump administration and Republicans in Congress have pursued extreme cuts at land management agencies. These cuts include firing thousands of workers who maintain our public lands. With fewer staff and resources to keep facilities open and manage crowds, our national parks and other popular sites will be less safe and less accessible for the millions of people who enjoy visiting them. Examples of these actions to slash land management agencies include:
Firing over 2,000 career staff at the Department of the Interior. This number includes about 1,000 at the National Park Service and hundreds at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Bureau of Land Management.
Announcing a major reorganization of the Department of Agriculture, which includes the U.S. Forest Service. The restructuring will close many Forest Service offices across the country.
Proposing a 2026 budget that cuts funding to land management agencies by more than a third of 2024 levels.
Advancing an appropriations bill that drastically cuts funding to land management agencies. Among other things, it includes a $61 million cut to the Department of the Interior and a $213 million cut to the National Park Service.
If these attacks weren’t bad enough, we expect to see even more threats to public lands and waters in the coming months.
The Big Ugly Bill cemented efforts to drill, log, and mine our cherished lands. Many of its provisions will begin taking effect over the next few months. In addition, the Trump administration will soon finalize rule rollbacks, like the rollback of the Roadless Rule.
We also expect that the administration will continue to gut land management agencies with funding and staff cuts. And now that they have taken initial steps to make this easier, we anticipate more rollbacks of national monument protections.
In the face of all this, we’re not giving in – we’re fighting back.
LCV is hosting events at public lands across the country with local communities, artists, advocates, and elected officials to advocate for these cherished places. We are also working every day to urge legislators to vote NO on bills that open our treasured lands and waters to corporate polluters, end protections for national monuments, or defund the National Park Service and other land management agencies. Take five minutes today to help support this work:
Send a message to tell Congress: Stop the sell off and keep public lands in public hands!
Learn how you can protect public lands and waters in your own state, and join your LCV state affiliate.
Stay up to date on the latest threats to public lands with our tracker.
Act Now
There are 640 million acres of public lands owned and managed by the federal government, including national parks, monuments, and wilderness areas. These safeguard cultural and historic sites, protect water sources, and create $45 billion in economic output along with nearly 400,000 jobs. The Trump administration wants to sell our public lands to private interests. Tell Congress to protect our public lands.
Tell Congress: Keep Public Lands in Public Hands
Aug 28, 2025
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