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Has Congress Put Public Land Sales Back on the Table?
House rules could make it easier to sell or transfer federal public lands to the states, an idea broadly opposed by hunters and anglers
As of January 2023, the U.S. House of Representatives “rules” package, which determines how the chamber will operate this session, includes a change that makes it easier for the federal government to sell off or give away your public lands.
The new rule removes the Congressional Budget Office’s requirement to consider the financial value of public lands if selling or transferring those lands to other entities. American sportsmen and sportswomen handily beat back similar efforts to devalue and shift ownership of public lands nearly a decade ago—and we are ready and willing to do it again.
America’s 640 million acres of federal public lands—including lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Forest Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service—provide irreplaceable fish and wildlife habitat and public hunting and fishing opportunities for millions of Americans. These lands are so important for access in the West that nearly three-quarters of Western hunters depend on them for access, and they support the $689-billion outdoor recreation economy.
Quite simply, hunting and fishing would not exist as we know them if it weren’t for the public lands that provide all Americans with outdoor opportunities, free of charge.
The idea that our public lands should be sold off and given away seems to resurface every decade or three. It usually goes like this: A group of ill-informed decision-makers come to the conclusion that public lands are frivolous and unnecessary and should be sold off or transferred to some other authority. The idea sprung up in the 1970s and early 1980s with the Sagebrush Rebellion and then resurfaced in the 2010s.
From 2014 through early 2017, this idea was pushed hard in state legislatures and in Congress by a group of misguided lawmakers. In 2015 alone, a total of 37 individual bills were proposed in 11 Western states, all aimed at selling or transferring your public lands. But things really came to a head in early 2017, when former Congressman Jason Chaffetz introduced H.B. 621, which would have sold off 3.3 million federal acres.
Hunters and anglers recognized these bills as a threat and mobilized in force to stop them. For our part, the TRCP launched its Sportsmen’s Access campaign, which enabled more than 66,000 individuals to send letters to their lawmakers, encouraging them to oppose any effort to undermine public lands. The TRCP further joined with 114 national and local Western hunt-fish organizations and worked with 23 counties in six Western states to oppose this misguided idea.
In the end, the vast majority of state bills failed and most state and federal lawmakers—getting the message that the idea was deeply unpopular—quickly distanced themselves from the position that our public lands should be sold or transferred. On the campaign trail that year, Donald Trump stated his clear opposition to the concept of selling public lands, essentially ending the debate—until now.
Unfortunately, some lawmakers are again aiming for your public lands, and they’ve started their efforts with the recent House rules change. The good news is that we’ve never seen an issue resonate more clearly with hunters and anglers than the threat of public land disposal.
The TRCP will continue its important work of collaborating on real-world solutions to habitat and access challenges in this Congress. But if lawmakers want to pick this fight again, we are also ready and willing to take them on.
Photo by Josh Metten (@joshmettenphoto)
TRCP’s Top Conservation Priorities for Congress in 2023
How lawmakers can build on recent conservation wins and advance habitat, access, and recreation solutions that were narrowly missed last session
The 117th Congress was a productive one for hunters and anglers. Together, our community succeeded in passing legislation to digitize and map public land access, provide landowners with tools to address our changing climate, invest in Everglades restoration, and, most recently, address the increasing spread of chronic wasting disease.
The 118th Congress is now underway, with narrow majorities in both the House and Senate and a considerable workload in the coming year. Fortunately, conservation issues have a way of garnering bipartisan agreement—a necessity as Congress takes up landmark legislation like the 2023 Farm Bill. The TRCP and our partners look forward to working with both sides of the aisle to advance conservation solutions in the coming months.
Here’s what’s at the top of our list for habitat and access in 2023.
Investing in Landowner-Led Conservation
Providing over $6 billion each year for voluntary, incentive-based conservation, the Farm Bill is the biggest piece of legislation impacting fish and wildlife in the U.S. Congress crafts a new Farm Bill every five years, and with the last bill expiring in September, 2023 is when decisions will be made that shape habitat on private lands for half a decade.
That is why the TRCP and our partner groups have been hard at work over the past several months to develop a comprehensive platform for what hunters and anglers would like to see in the 2023 bill.
This includes tripling investment in the popular Voluntary Public Access and Habitat Incentive Program, which provides dollars directly to state agencies to expand local walk-in hunting access opportunities by working with willing landowners. VPA-HIP provides a significant return on investment, with $5.20 in economic activity for every dollar invested in the program. That supports not just the landowners that choose to enroll, but also local businesses like game processors, diners, motels, gas stations, and more. The access, of course, is a boon for sportsmen and sportswomen, particularly in states where there are few public lands. In fact, when polled, nearly 60 percent of hunters in Illinois said that the land made available through the Illinois Recreational Access Program was the only huntable acreage accessible to them.
Beyond VPA-HIP, hunters and anglers are looking to lawmakers to improve the Conservation Reserve Program to ensure it remains a premier tool for habitat conservation, prioritize the enrollment of conservation easements to keep working lands and their habitats in place, and ensure that wildlife remain a co-equal focus of USDA conservation programs as climate mitigation becomes a growing priority in agriculture.
Outside of the Farm Bill, the North American Grasslands Conservation Act, which mirrors the successful landowner-led model of the North American Wetlands Conservation Act, remains our best opportunity to curb the rapid depletion of our nation’s most imperiled ecosystem.
Improving Recreation Opportunities on Public Lands
As lawmakers negotiated an end-of-year funding deal in late 2022, a proposed package of recreation and public lands bills wound up on the cutting room floor and should receive top billing in 2023.
This starts with the America’s Outdoor Recreation Act, a bipartisan package of bills developed by Senators Manchin and Barrasso to enhance recreation opportunities on public lands. Included are bills directing the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management to expand access to shooting ranges and complete road-use planning on their lands. Other bills would streamline permitting processes for guides and outfitters, limit the spread of invasive species, support gateway communities, and make it easier for outdoorsmen and women to experience our vast public lands.
In addition to the recreation-focused legislation, there are several locally developed land management changes and protections for top-notch hunting and fishing destinations like Oregon’s Owyhee Canyonlands, Nevada’s Ruby Mountains, and Colorado’s Thompson Divide. While some of these bills have been on the table for years, they could see renewed attention in the Senate.
The TRCP has remained engaged in these conversations and continues to work alongside Republicans and Democrats to advance these and other proposals to improve access and conserve one-of-a-kind habitat. Our community is confident in the ability of Congress to unite around these sensible natural resource policies, as they’ve proven able to do so through passage of legislation like the Great American Outdoors Act, America’s Conservation Enhancement Act, and John D. Dingell Conservation, Management, and Recreation Act in recent years.
Providing Necessary Resources for State Wildlife Management
For more than a century, sportsmen and sportswomen have led the charge on new ways to invest in fish and wildlife habitat. That leadership role continues in 2023 as we look for a way to pass the Recovering America’s Wildlife Act, landmark legislation that would provide $1.4 billion annually in dedicated funding to state wildlife agencies to conserve species of greatest concern. Not only would this new funding restore habitat and benefit hunters and anglers, it would also keep those species from being listed under the Endangered Species Act, minimizing untold costs to the energy industry, developers, and small businesses.
The RAWA was widely celebrated, enjoyed broad bipartisan support, and nearly made it to the finish line in 2022. Now, its base of support is greater than ever before. Hunters, anglers, conservationists, recreators, landowners, and business owners agree on the importance of passing RAWA. While the path is never easy, the TRCP and our partners will be working to expand congressional support, secure approval in the House Natural Resources Committee and the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, and send RAWA to the president’s desk in the 118th Congress.
Accelerating Conservation and Restoration Projects
We’re expecting Congress to consider legislation to improve project approvals—especially for energy development, mining, and other infrastructure projects—early in 2023. It may be a surprise to some that challenges with permitting and approvals don’t only slow down development projects, but also the stream and wetland restoration, forest health, and other environmentally beneficial projects. Costly and often redundant planning processes discourage local partners from participating and result in wasted time and energy while federal funds remained locked up with the agencies, rather than benefitting fish and wildlife.
Additionally, when it comes to improving mining and renewable energy development on public lands, hunters and anglers have long fought for bipartisan solutions like the Public Land Renewable Energy Development Act and Good Samaritan Remediation of Abandoned Hardrock Mines Act. PLREDA, for example, would balance renewable energy development and habitat needs, while funding for fish and wildlife conservation projects. The Good Samaritan legislation would reduce existing barriers to abandoned hard rock mine cleanup, making it easier for local partners to help improve water quality and habitat.
Accelerating conservation and restoration projects will ensure that the funds made available by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and other recent legislative successes touch down on the landscape. In the year ahead, the TRCP will be engaged on both sides of the aisle, bringing conservation and habitat restoration priorities to the permitting conversation taking place in Congress.
For more information, and to take action in support of these critical conservation priorities in the year ahead, visit the TRCP Action Center. To follow important conservation legislation as it makes its way through Congress, follow @theTRCP on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.
Top photo by Aaron James.
Q&A: Outdoor Industry Leader Lindsey Davis
Outdoorswoman and director of SITKA’s ecosystem grants program shares her most memorable hunt, the toughest conservation challenges facing Utah’s Wasatch Front, and how climate change has affected her experience of hunting, fishing, and enjoying the outdoors
Lindsey Davis is an entrepreneur, conservation advocate, writer, and ecologist based in Salt Lake City, Utah, where she has been exploring public lands with a rod, gun, or bow for more than eight years. She currently runs SITKA Gear’s ecosystem grants and conservation partnerships program and serves on the board of directors for the Outdoor Alliance and Utah Wildlife Federation. Previously, she spent three years shaping the work of the Outdoor Recreation Roundtable, a coalition of outdoor recreation trade associations representing over 110,000 American businesses.
We first met Lindsey when she was fresh off her first hunting season, during her tenure as CEO at Wylder, a built-by-women-for-women outdoor gear retailer she co-founded in 2016. Since then, we’ve been fortunate to be able to check in with her along the journey of developing her skills and mindset about hunting success.
Today, she shares her thoughts on some of the toughest conservation challenges we face.
TRCP: How and with whom do you prefer to spend your time outdoors?
LINDSEY DAVIS: I seek out ways to interact with the landscape around me through hunting, fishing, and foraging for wild food and observing wildlife. No matter where I am, finding wild edible plants and cooking my catch are my favorite ways to build memories in a new place. I love experiencing this on the home front with my friends and family here in Utah, and while exploring new places with friends and knowledgeable locals. Those with literacy in the landscape tend to be the people I enjoy being outdoors with most!
TRCP: Describe your most successful/rewarding day afield or on the water. When was this and what were you doing?
DAVIS: One of my most memorable days in the field was my first successful archery hunt. I had backpacked into the Uinta National Forest for the opening weekend of mule deer season. That year, we’d had a wet spring, so the gooseberries were ripe and full. As I stalked around the woods, I ate fistfuls of berries and looked for deer. I ended up being in the right place at the right time to find a bachelor herd of mule deer, and I put a successful stalk on one of them.
On that hunt, the days were long, the skies were clear, rain was regularly refreshing the landscape, and we were the only hunters around. It was perfect.
TRCP: What is the biggest habitat challenge in your area?
DAVIS: There are many challenges facing wildlife and its habitats here in Utah, but the most glaring in my opinion is the rapid pace of development and population growth in this state. Along the Wasatch front, we have four of the fastest growing cities in the nation and a ton of new housing developments. Advocates are working diligently to map key habitat areas and propose smarter development, but every year I see more wintering grounds and sagebrush habitat ripped out and replaced with condos. I fear that we are putting too much pressure on our wildlife in this urban interface with little understanding of the impacts.
TRCP: How has climate change affected your hunting and fishing experiences in recent years? (Example: Altered seasons or migrations, species decline due to drought or wildfire, invasive species pushing out native forage, etc.)
DAVIS: You have to pay attention to snow, rain, and wildfire like never before. The strength and severity of winter storms has affected the ability of elk, deer, and pronghorn to make it through the winter. The amount of precipitation determines whether there will be enough green-up in the spring for calving females and what elevations the herds will need to be at in the late-summer and early-fall to find food. These same factors impact where ranchers will be grazing their sheep and cattle on public land. It all matters so much and determines how and where I hunt in the fall.
Variability in these factors has changed where it is productive for me to hunt in recent years. Wildfires have made it necessary to pack an inhaler and an N95 mask. It has also made it near impossible, at times, to see wildlife more than a few hundred yards away. Warmer water temperatures have made flyfishing closures imperative for the health of fish, limiting recreational fishing hours to just a handful a day before noon.
In short, it feels like there are just too many pressures on wildlife.
TRCP: How has this affected outdoor recreation businesses and/or hunting and fishing participation where you live?
DAVIS: Here in Utah, hunting and fishing participation is growing for the first time in decades. This makes for even more pressure on delicate resources at a challenging time. Limited hours for flyfishing inhibits a guide’s ability to book full days, which is having a huge impact on the guiding and outfitting components of outdoor recreation. With population increasing, hunting tag allotments are growing more limited and permits are harder to acquire, frustrating residents who would like to hunt every year.
TRCP: Why do you feel responsible for engaging in conservation and efforts to build climate resilience?
DAVIS: I see humans as a part of, not the center of, the ecosystem at large. We have an outsized impact on our natural habitats and also have the means and resources to do things differently. Because I am aware of my impact on the natural world around me, I feel responsible for being a steward and working to ensure generations that follow mine have the opportunity to experience wildlife and its habitats.
TRCP: What is one thing you wish every hunter and angler knew about the impacts of climate change?
DAVIS: While our individual experiences of climate change feel isolated and unique, it is a global issue we are all experiencing. I wish we had more of a shared sense of responsibility around it—more than the priority species we care about or the one region where we live.
TRCP: Do you think the hunting and fishing community is getting serious about fighting for climate change solutions? What would you like to see more of?
DAVIS: I appreciate the growing interest that the hunting and fishing community is showing toward climate change solutions. I think there is still more proving ground for our community at large before we are known as unified and serious, but we are getting there.
Learn about and get more involved in pushing for nature-based solutions to climate change here.
Top photo by Bianca Germain. Read more about Lindsey Davis on her website.
A Hunter and Angler’s Guide to the Omnibus Funding Deal
Hits, misses, and other highlights for conservation in the end-of-year package that keeps government funding flowing
Just before the Christmas holiday, Congress quickly took up and passed a funding agreement that keeps the gears of government moving through September 30, 2023. Importantly, the package carried several conservation priorities across the finish line and boosted funding for key programs that are perennially stretched thin. On the downside, long-sought transformational solutions, like the Recovering America’s Wildlife Act, and major public lands legislation failed to make it across the finish line.
Here’s a breakdown of what the omnibus deal included for hunters and anglers:
- The Chronic Wasting Disease Research and Management Act authorizes $70 million annually to boost data on and curb the spread of the disease. The bill also directs the U.S. Department of Agriculture to carry out a review of its Herd Certification Program for captive deer operations. Read more about this victory here.
- The Driftnet Modernization and Bycatch Reduction Act does away with the use of harmful mesh gillnets in federal waters, which has had devastating impacts on marine species and ecosystems.
- The Charitable Conservation Easement Integrity Act eliminates a harmful exploitation of the charitable conservation easement tax deduction, ensuring Americans can continue to voluntary conserve private acreage.
- The Growing Climate Solutions Act will improve farmers’, ranchers’, and foresters’ access to carbon markets, creating additional revenue streams and keeping lands intact in the process.
Beyond these highlights, the package included modest funding increases for critical conservation initiatives, like the Partners for Fish and Wildlife Program, North American Wetlands Conservation Act, Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program, and others. Unfortunately, given inflation, many of these adjustments amount to flat funding from the year prior.
On the downside, the deal also:
- Failed to include the Recovering America’s Wildlife Act, bipartisan legislation that would have provided $1.4 billion annually for state agencies to manage and address species of greatest concern.
- Included a rider that continues to tie the hands of Fish and Wildlife Service experts when it comes to making decisions aimed at keeping the greater sage grouse off the endangered species list.
- Overlooked funding for the implementation of the MAPLand Act, which the TRCP and hunters and anglers everywhere fought so hard to get across the finish line earlier this year.
- Failed to include a suite of public lands or recreation bills that would have boosted access and opportunities for sportsmen and sportswomen on our nation’s vast public lands.
2022 was a rollercoaster year in Congress, and many expected the late-December flurry of post-election dealmaking that resulted in this funding agreement. Drafting and passing a package of twelve appropriations bills is no easy task, particularly during a midterm election year. The TRCP, our partners, and the entire hunting and fishing community have been actively engaged in the process from the start, and we look forward to building off these successes—and circling back to missed opportunities—in 2023.
HOW YOU CAN HELP
From now until January 1, 2025, every donation you make will be matched by a TRCP Board member up to $500,000 to sustain TRCP’s work that promotes wildlife habitat, our sporting traditions, and hunter & angler access. Together, dollar for dollar, stride for stride, we can all step into the arena of conservation.
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