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Help Us Tell Congress to

Keep Public Lands in Public Hands!

Congressman Kevin Kiley is Hosting

a Tele-Town Hall on

Monday March 17th at 6:30 PM PDT

Make your voice heard! This tele-town hall is a way for constituents to share concerns and express the need for Congressman Kiley to represent our views and needs as constituents.

The town hall will begin on Monday, March 17, 2025, at 6:30 PM PDT. To join the event at that time, call (877) 229-8493

and enter PIN #122293.

Ask Congress to Keep Public Lands in Public Hands

Members of Congress are planning to sell off your public lands and increase the amount of logging, timber sales, and industrial development on them. If these Members of Congress have their way and begin selling off public lands, we will lose access to many beloved places and our way of life will be dramatically altered.  

A public lands selloff, if enacted, would represent a dramatic shift in federal land policy and a significant loss for all Americans.  It would affect everyone who loves and enjoys public lands in California and throughout the West.

Members of Congress are currently working on the country’s budget for Fiscal Year 2025.  The deadline for them to come to an agreement is currently March 14th. However, we cannot wait to let them hear from us, since budget negotiations have already begun.

Ask Lawmakers to Reverse Staffing Cuts at Land Management Agencies

Public lands are under threat from a severe reduction in the workforce. Over the last decade, agencies like the Forest Service (USFS), National Park Service (NPS), and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) have faced staffing shortages and the programs protecting these areas and enhancing the public's experience of them have suffered for it. Now, these agencies face an even more dire staffing situation, with what staff they have been able to hire facing layoffs from the federal government. These reductions are putting outdoor recreation, public safety, and public lands and waters at risk. With 10% of the USFS workforce laid off agency wide, including essential seasonal workers, the ability to maintain trails, campgrounds, and recreation infrastructure is severely compromised, especially as some Forests are experiencing layoffs of 30% or more of their staff. Locally, so far, the Inyo National Forest has lost 13 employees and 5 out of the 11 Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest staff members have been lost in the Bridgeport Ranger District area. Additionally, more than 20 Yosemite employees and 1,000+ NPS workers nationwide were all laid off. These cuts are already threatening the ecosystems and communities of the Eastern Sierra: approximately 94% of the land in Mono County is publicly owned and about 88% of the public land is federally owned. In Inyo County, 92% of the land is in federal ownership. Now, an independent federal board has ordered the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to temporarily reinstate the close to 6,000 employees fired since Feb. 13, due to the potential illegal nature of the terminations. The Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) issued a stay, ordering the USDA to return the fired workers to their jobs for 45 days while an investigation continues. The future remains uncertain. Congressman Kiley himself is part of an open letter from six members of congress to Acting Director Charles Ezell at the Office of Personnel Management asking for seasonal hiring authorities to be transferred to National Parks in order for basic services such as fee collection, sanitation, and transportation to continue. The letter doesn’t address the 1,700 positions that were already eliminated in the National Park Service, nor other federal employee terminations. 

Public lands lovers of all kinds must raise our voices in opposition to these cuts and ask our lawmakers and the administration to reinvest in the workforce that manages our public lands—staff who know these lands intimately, who live in the communities they serve, and who play a crucial role in preserving and protecting them for future generations.

Make your comments personal to you. What motivates you to speak for public lands? What do you love about federal lands, and why do you want to keep them in public hands? 

Here are a few talking points that may help you get inspired:

• Public Lands Are the Backbone of America:

• • Nearly 40% of the United States is public land, supported by taxpayers and managed by federal, state, or local governments. 
•  
  • The U.S. National Park System and public lands in general, are often called "America’s Best Idea," representing much of the American ideal. The nation is famous for our "wide open spaces" and its natural scenic beauty. Public lands are enormously popular among Americans of all political identities and efforts to sell off public lands are enormously unpopular with Americans. The vast majority of Americans still consistently support public lands and conservation. These sell offs do not represent the American people, and mass layoffs of the people who steward them does not represent the best interests of the American people. 
•  
  • Reps. Gabe Vasquez (D-NM) and Ryan Zinke (R-MT) introduced bipartisan legislation that would ban the sale or transfer of most public lands by the Department of the Interior and U.S. Forest Service, and require congressional oversight of any public lands disposal. The proposal reflects the longstanding and widely held belief that public lands belong to the nation as a whole and should be passed down to future generations in good shape. Vasquez and Zinke’s bill should stand as a signal that keeping public lands in public hands is a vital cause transcending other political differences--and that selling off lands should be a non-starter in the budget reconciliation process.  

• Economic Sense:  
  • Public lands provide valuable ecosystem services like clean air and water, are a large source of government revenue, form the foundation of the $1.2 trillion outdoor recreation economy, and are instrumental to the well-being of local communities across the country. Public lands benefit surrounding communities and the country as a whole economically: rural Western counties with more federal land perform better, on average, than their peers in population growth, employment, personal income, and per capita income. Counties with national parks or national monuments support above-average rates of job growth and are correlated with higher levels of per capita income.
• 
  
  •  Doug Burgum, President Trump’s appointed Secretary of the Interior, has argued that the U.S. government, if it is to be run like a business, should know the value of the corporation’s assets and use those assets “to get a return for the American people.” Yet, Americans across the political spectrum already see the return of these lands: they hold great value to native peoples, recreationists, hunters, fishermen, gatherers; family ranchers; and countless other communities that rely on these areas for clean water and air, for joy and connection, and for the jobs/income that come from natural resource development, recreation, and tourism. Public lands serve the public every day. 
•  
• Loss of Access: 
  • The sell off of these lands means large privatization leading to loss of access and large-scale development.These lands would be "locked up" from public access and benefit. 

• • Staffing shortages caused by these layoffs will lead to a further lack of access and resources for the Americans who visit and use public lands: lack of staffing at visitor centers, out on the land, and at campgrounds will actively reduce accessibility as well as lead to facility and ecosystem degradation. 

Contribute a Public Comment on Each of the Letters Below

Providing comments is how we make our voices heard. Each and every voice makes a difference! Please contact your members of Congress now via the two buttons below to tell them that you strongly object to any large-scale selloff of public lands (or increased timber sales) and that you want public lands to stay in public hands. Tell them that staffing cuts for public land managers and stewards are NOT the future we want to see for public lands.

Make sure your comments are original to you for the most impact. Please also share this action alert with others you know who love our public lands.

Donate to Friends of the Inyo

Friends of the Inyo has not been exempt from nationwide funding cuts to non-profits. With ranger staffing reduced by Trump's administration, our public lands need help from non-profit trail staff now more than ever. In 2024, Friends of the Inyo's Trail Ambassadors played a crucial role in stewarding the public land of the Eastern Sierra by restoring 665 miles of trails, packing out 3,715 pounds of trash, cleaning 293 campsites, engaging 222 volunteers, and educating thousands of visitors on Leave No Trace principles in each of the five Ranger Districts in the Inyo National Forest. This year, we are forced to reduce this staffing to cover 3-4 out of the 5 Ranger Districts. Please donate to help ensure Friends of the Inyo's Trail Ambassador staff can continue to provide on the ground work in partnership with the Forest Service to protect our beautiful lands in the Eastern Sierra.

Volunteer with Friends of the Inyo

Give back to the land and help support public land managers in this difficult time. Sign up to our Volunteer email newsletter to be notified of land stewardship volunteer opportunities. 

If you have any questions, please email allison@friendsoftheinyo.org.

Main Office:

621 W. Line St., Suite 201
Bishop, CA 93514

Satellite Office:

142 E. Bush St.

Lone Pine, CA 93545

Visit us online:

FriendsoftheInyo.org

Write to us:

info@friendsoftheinyo.org

Call us:

(760) 873-6500

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