Public Lands Roundup | Volume 9 | June 7-July 3, 2025
Where do I even begin?! June was quite the eventful month for public lands, and July is shaping up to be just as hot (literally and figuratively). Let’s get up to speed on everything that has happened over the past few weeks and take a peek at what could come.
*Disclaimer: All legal information contained within is for informational and educational purposes only and does not create an attorney-client relationship.*
DOJ Opinion Bad News for National Monuments
On June 10, Deputy Assistant Attorney General at the Department of Justice, Lanora Pettit, issued a legal opinion stating that the President has the legal authority to abolish national monuments under the Antiquities Act of 1906. This is a sharp change in course from a long-held DOJ opinion from 1938, which stated that the Antiquities Act prevents a President from abolishing a previously established monument.
Under the Antiquities Act, the President has the authority to declare historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures, and other objects of historic or scientific interest that are situated on lands owned or controlled by the United States to be national monuments. The size of the monument needs to be confined to the smallest area compatible with proper care and management of the objects to be protected.
While national monuments have traditionally had bipartisan support (roughly half of our national parks began as national monuments), monument designations have become controversial in recent decades. Critics argue that monuments like Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante are too large. However, this perspective often fails to consider the breadth of cultural, historic, and scientific resources across those areas.
The opinion presents an unusual take that the Antiquities Act frankly doesn’t support. The statute provides an explicit grant of power to the President to designate national monuments. It’s wholly silent as to whether a President can revoke or abolish a previously established monument, which indicates those are not powers that the President has.
This opinion helps to reinforce previously stated plans by the Trump administration to review and revise national monument boundaries. Recently designated monuments, including Bears Ears, Chuckwalla, and Sáttítla Highlands, are at risk of losing their monument protections entirely (protections include prohibitions on extraction and natural resources development, which is really what’s at issue).
The Digital Bipartisan Fight to Save Public Lands From Mandatory Sales
Perhaps the biggest news from the past few weeks was the push by Senator Mike Lee to sell public lands in the Big Beautiful Bill. Over the course of 2 weeks, Mike released 3 versions of his plan, which originally included national forests lands and BLM land across 11 states in the West (it was later amended to only include BLM land within 5 miles of “population centers”).
The Wilderness Society put together an interactive map of the public lands that could potentially be on the chopping block, which sparked immediate attention because it gave a visible look at what was at stake. Based on the original proposal over 250 million acres of public lands were at risk, including popular recreation hot spots.
In response to this news the outdoor creator community quickly mobilized to share information about the public lands sales and rally people around contacting their representatives to get it taken off the table. For almost 2 weeks it seemed like my social feeds were nothing but educational content and calls to action, including from large creators who have been notably apolitical in the past.
This wasn’t a coordinated campaign by any single group. It was a bipartisan, grassroots effort across the outdoor creator community, from hunters, to photographers, to hikers, that ultimately generated tens of millions of social media impressions (a very conservative estimate) and an untold number of calls and emails to Senators.
In the end, public lands sales were removed completely removed from the Big Beautiful Bill. While we don’t know what ultimately made Mike Lee cave (there were also issues with the Byrd rule on top of the massive unpopularity), and this certainly won’t be the last attempt to sell and privatize public lands, for now it highlights the role that social media advocacy and public participation can play in protecting public lands.
The BBB is Bad News for Public Lands, Clean Energy, and the Environment
At the time of publication, the House just voted to pass the version of the (awful) Big Beautiful Bill that recently passed the Senate. While public lands sales are no longer included, there are still a lot of threats to public lands, clean energy, and the environment.
Here’s just a small taste of what’s inside:
Mandated quarterly oil & gas lease sales in states across the West.
Mandated new coal leasing on 4 million acres of BLM land.
Opens up new oil & gas leasing in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (interestingly, the federal government ordinarily splits royalties and other income roughly 50/50 with states, but this gives Alaska 70% of the income after 2034).
$267 million cut to National Park Service funding.
Allows companies to pay a fee to opt out of the NEPA process.
Reduction in onshore oil & gas royalty rates from 16.7% to 12.5%.
Repeal of royalties on extracted methane entirely.
Cuts to clean energy tax credits, including EV and residential credits.
In short, it’s a massive giveaway for fossil fuel and other extractive industries at the expense of public lands and the climate. It also has significant cuts to social programs, including Medicaid, that could cause rural hospitals to close and millions of people to lose their health coverage. This is a huge loss for public lands and progress on climate action.
USDA Moves to Rescind the Roadless Rule
On June 23, the USDA announced that they are moving forward with rescinding the Roadless Rule. This is a rule that helps the U.S. Forest Service manage our national forests and has been in place since 2001.
The Roadless Rule protects roughly 58.5 million acres of national forests (~30% of total national forest lands) from road construction, road reconstruction, timber harvesting, and other natural resources development (although there are limited exceptions).
Many popular recreation areas in national forests, including hiking, mountain biking, rock climbing, hunting, camping, and fishing, are within roadless areas. The forests also provide critical habitat for wildlife, clean drinking water, and other ecosystem services.
Some states, including Colorado, have their own roadless area plans that were created with local, public input. The USDA’s announcement creates uncertainty around how state specific plans and roadless areas will be affected.
The Roadless Rule has been controversial since its inception and has faced a litany of legal challenges (from both sides of the aisle) over the years, however its legitimacy has been well established.
The USDA claims that rescinding the rule will allow for “fire prevention and responsible timber production,” however the rule already allows for dangerous fuels to be removed. There’s also evidence that suggests that more roads lead to more wildfires due to increased human activity. The press release also highlights the economic benefits that rescinding the rule will have, which is a tell that logging is the real priority.
In Volume 1 of The Public Lands Roundup I discussed how the Trump administration has made it clear that its primary use for our national forests is timber production (see “Immediate Expansion of American Timber Production’’ and “Addressing The Threat To National Security from Imports of Timber, Lumber” Executive Orders).
Then back in April the USDA issued a Secretary’s Memo (discussed in Volume 4) that declared an “emergency situation” across national forest lands. The Roadless Rule is a direct impediment to carrying out these goals to prioritize logging and maximize profits, while skirting environmental laws and failing to consider the longterm impacts.
Key Federal Climate Websites Taken Down
The Trump administration has taken down a key government website related to climate change that housed the latest National Climate Assessment and information about the US Global Change Research Program. National Climate Assessments are Congressionally mandated reports that summarize the impacts of climate change on the U.S. and help inform decision making. They’re legally required to be available digitally.
According to the White House, the reports will be moving to NASA’s website, however it isn’t up yet. They are still available through NOAA, but the website is not as easy to navigate and search. Hundreds of scientists and other federal employees who were working on the latest National Climate Assessment were fired back in April, so it seems unlikely that this critical (and legally required) research will continue under this administration.