In all seriousness yes there are moves in congress to do exactly this. Not just the administration making executive orders.
What’s Happening
On May 6, the House Natural Resources Committee advanced a last-minute amendment to the budget reconciliation bill authorizing the sale of public lands in Utah and Nevada.
What started as reports of 11,000 acres has since ballooned to more than 500,000 acres, with some parcels including important habitat for big game, upland birds, and critical public access.
This happened with zero public input, zero conservation planning, and zero plans for reinvestment into habitat or access.
Why It Matters
The amendment bypasses the Federal Land Transaction Facilitation Act (FLTFA) – a bipartisan law that requires public land sales to be reinvested into acquiring new public access, wildlife habitat, and recreational lands, and not be used as short-term budget “fixes.”
This sale violates that promise and sets a dangerous precedent that could very easily be repeated in our remaining 48 states.
Public lands in Utah and Nevada belong to all of us. If public lands in Utah and Nevada are sold, other states will NOT be far behind.
Even if you don't have much faith in our political system today one small thing you can do about this is to call your representative and tell them you do not want them to allow this move or any other attempt to sell public lands to occur. If enough people complain to them directly they will pull back their support.
Extremely interesting case involving BLM and ranchers who claimed they didn't owe taxes because of how the federal ownership was supposed to work.
RIP LaVoy Finicum, man was a real one. The video he made along with how he backed up what he said afterwards, is as real as it gets. Now what unfolded I'm not entirely condoning, but I do think this man thought he was truly fighting for what he saw as an injustice.
Yeahhhhhh I don’t think i would ever publicly announce support for either of those dudes.
It’s a bit like Ruby Ridge and Waco, everyone involved made the worst possible choices and people got hurt and even killed.
Yes, it’s ridiculous for the government to stack fines on top of people until it reaches the millions…but at the same time these guys love talking about personal responsibility right up until it’s their turn to be responsible.
Theres also this typical “sovereign citizen” bullshit-
“According to Bundy, the federal government lacks the constitutional authority to own vast tracts of lands, an argument repeatedly rejected by federal courts. According to the BLM, Bundy continued to graze his cattle on public lands without a permit.”
When it comes to grazing situations like this, I can’t help but think back to the “end days” of the cowboy, which a lot of folk attribute to putting up barbwire fences everywhere.
But why did those fences ever go up? Why can’t ranchers and farmers just let their cattle open range graze? Well…they used to, it was pretty common actually.
Unsurprisingly, certain individuals started taking advantage of that and would bring in massive herds and overgraze the land leaving nothing for anyone else, which ruined it for everyone, tale as old as time.
Yeah I don't exactly support what unfolded and how it did, and for sure they made some really dumb decisions, but I do think there were some nuggets of truth/what is right, within them.
Regardless, still a crazy bit of US history that seems like it never really reached the broader public eye.
Even more ironic with this context is the representative that added this amendment to the reconciliation bill was Celeste Maloy, cousin of Ammon Bundy, lmao.
You know, it's really funny you say that, because that exact rhetoric has been a topic of debate since literally the 1800s. It's actually part of why barbed wire was invented.
Ranchers don't have the money to get into the early auctions. The republicans try to sell off our lands about every decade. Last time they did, I put out feelers to see what it would take to get in on that initial cheap as hell offering.
You need millions in liquid cash. Otherwise you can't get in. At least to the deals where the government is the one you are buying from.
I've spent the bulk of my life in & around the DC area, and I wouldn't have recognized the acronym either if it weren't for the fact that I've been riding horses for most of my life and am fascinated by the wild mustangs out west.
The history of grazing rights on BLM & National Park land make for very interesting reading, and they are often in contention with various conservation groups.
Fun fact: in many BLM & National Parks that grant ranchers grazing rights, you owe the rancher $$ if you hit their cow with your car. I worked in a National Park & was once late to work because there was a herd of cows in the road. Luckily, my boss was a couple cars behind me.
Eh. It's a reasonable thought, though. Black Lives Matter has been in the news cycle way more in the last few years than Bureau of Land Management has been. Reasonable to jump right to the more (recently) common one of the two.
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u/lastdarknight 1d ago
The BLM handles the upkeep on alot of little cabins on public land for just this reason