Look West: Public lands and energy news from the Center for Western Priorities
** Trump's sprawl plan explained
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Tuesday, March 25, 2025
Henderson, Nevada by John Krzesinski ([link removed]) , CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 ([link removed])
The Trump administration announced it has identified 625 square miles (400,000 acres) of national public land across the West for possible sale, ostensibly to address the housing shortage. In an interview with Bloomberg Law ([link removed]) , Jon Raby, the acting director of the Bureau of Land Management, revealed that the administration is considering selling lands as far as 10 miles away from cities and towns with as few as 5,000 residents.
A radius that large is a recipe for sprawl, highways, and trophy homes near national parks, not smart growth or affordable housing, explained Aaron Weiss, deputy director of the Center for Western Priorities.
“Get ready for a housing development to pave over your favorite hiking trail," Weiss said ([link removed]) . "The Trump administration just announced a bleak vision for traffic jams and suburban sprawl across the West. The president wants to sell off the lands that are most accessible to Westerners for hiking, hunting, and camping and turn them into miles of McMansions that stretch across our deserts and mountains."
Last week, the departments of Interior and Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced a plan to work together to identify public land ([link removed]) that could be used to develop housing and to sell that land to local governments and private developers. The announcement did not say whether the agencies would include income restrictions or density requirements on the housing.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration is actively undercutting HUD’s efforts to develop affordable housing. The administration has stalled at least $60 million ([link removed]) in funding intended largely for affordable housing developments nationwide, and is planning to cut HUD staffing in half ([link removed]) .
** Quick hits
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"Completely lunacy:" Former Park Service, Fish & Wildlife employees talk Trump staffing cuts
The Mountain Mail ([link removed])
BLM Utah has lost park rangers, engineers and geologists in a matter of months. See where
Salt Lake Tribune ([link removed])
More than $100 million at stake for Wyoming in Trump's freeze on grants
WyoFile ([link removed])
The doublespeak of Energy Secretary Chris Wright
ProPublica ([link removed])
Analysis: Oil oligarch Harold Hamm wants to take us back to the 1990s
New York Times ([link removed])
New Mexico legislature OKs raising Permian oil royalty rates to 25%
Associated Press ([link removed])
Where have all the sage-grouse gone? A conservation mystery in south-central Washington
OPB News ([link removed])
Opinion: Grand Canyon monument embodies how the Antiquities Act should be used
Arizona Daily Sun ([link removed])
** Quote of the day
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” Here we are, with no plan, just cutting bodies, numbers and dollars. This is completely lunacy. If you were going to do something that was truly designed to destroy an organization, this is about how you’d go about doing it.”
—Former National Park Service superintendent Walt Dabney, The Mountain Mail ([link removed])
** Picture This
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@usfws ([link removed])
Draw me like one of your French girls.
The Eastern collared lizard is sometimes known as the “mountain boomer” but they don't actually make loud sounds. They bring the noise with their vibrant colors. Look for them across the south central US.
Photo: Bill Shreve
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