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Help Us Tell 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.

We strongly oppose any attempts to recklessly sell public lands through legislative shortcuts like budget reconciliation, which bypass public input, environmental review, and accountability; these reckless actions threaten public access, undermine responsible land management, and betray the public’s trust.

Contact Your Members of Congress with Outdoor Alliance's Portal

Please contact your members of Congress now via the 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.

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.

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. Members of Congress who support federal public lands need to stand up and oppose any measure to sell off public lands.  Anti-public lands members of Congress know that these efforts are wildly unpopular with the American Public that’s why they are trying to bury these measures in rules packages and budget bills.
  • 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.
  • Not only would these land sales permanently extend Trump’s first term tax cuts that only benefited the wealthiest Americans, it would do so at the expense of the millions of regular Americans who depend on and cherish our access to the outdoors.The American people are losing badly needed tax revenue to pay for the management of public lands in this deal, permanently losing the land itself through its ultimate sale and losing all future revenue that could be generated through the land's multiple use management.
  • 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. 

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• 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.
  • Selling off public lands is short sighted, self serving, and irreversible. It’s a betrayal of the public trust. These lands belong to every American, not to the highest bidder at the whims of a political agenda. Once they’re sold, they’re gone for good–fences go up, access disappears and they are lost to the public forever.

• Lack of Transparency: 
  • Any attempts to recklessly sell public lands through legislative shortcuts like budget reconciliation, which bypass public input, environmental review, and accountability are not acceptable for the American people, going against the ideals and existing systems within our democracy. These reckless actions threaten public access, undermine responsible land management, and betray the public’s trust. 

Get Engaged on Social Media

Harness the power of social media by making your own videos/posts/stories related to public lands and why you oppose their sell off or simply start leaving comments on Rep. Kiley's pages! Social media comments are powerful as they are a public forum; your comments might inspire others to speak up and do the same. 

Make sure to tag Rep. Kevin Kiley when posting:

Twitter / X @RepKiley and @KevinKileyCA

Instagram @kevinpkiley

and Facebook Congressman Kevin Kiley

Use hashtags: #ProtectPublicLands #OurLandsOurFuture #CA03

Don't forget to tag us @friendsoftheinyo 

Donate to Friends of the Inyo

Please donate to help ensure Friends of the Inyo can continue to push back on attacks against public lands and the environment. 

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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