The plan states that the department will work to shrink federal land holdings so it can focus resources on what it calls primary federal responsibilities and nationally significant lands. It does not identify specific parcels slated for transfer or sale.

"The Department will work to decrease the size of the federal estate by offering to states, localities and Tribes the opportunity to purchase federal lands," the plan reads. "Through these sales, the Department will be able to focus its resources on primary federal responsibilities and nationally significant federal lands."

The proposal arrives about a week after Democrats won sweeping victories across the country and secured control of both chambers of Congress in 2027, setting up a likely confrontation over President Donald Trump's agenda. Under federal law, Congress can block land sales exceeding 2,500 acres, but the administration can sell smaller parcels without legislative oversight.

Kate Groetzinger, communications director for the Center for Western Priorities, told the Mountain West News Bureau that the timing felt like a lame duck move. She pointed to Colorado College's 2026 State of the Rockies survey, which found that 74% of Western voters oppose selling some national public lands for oil and gas development, an outcome she said could follow from the plan.

Although the plan says land would go to states, localities and tribes, Groetzinger and other environmentalists worry those lands could eventually be privatized for profit, partly because some local governments may struggle to budget for long-term management costs.

Some language in the plan is drawing particular scrutiny. It states that Interior will pursue strategic rights-of-way agreements, land exchanges and direct transfer of lands in support of reliable energy production and transport.

"It really, to me, reads like an open invitation to oil and gas companies, data center companies, mining companies to come to the Interior Department and say, 'Hey, give us this land,'" Groetzinger said. "And the Interior Department is saying, 'Just tell us what you want, and we'll give it to you.'"

Groetzinger said the lands most likely to be in play are those managed by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, which are subject to a wide variety of uses from agriculture to energy to recreation, rather than National Park Service lands, which focus on cultural resources and outdoor recreation.

Along with the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act, which the Senate recently approved and could make it easier to develop energy projects, Groetzinger said the plan amounts to "a death sentence for public lands." Some supporters of the permitting bill point to its potential to boost renewable energy.

The strategic plan also calls for the Interior Department to consolidate its workforce to advance operational efficiencies. That comes after 300,000 federal workers were laid off last year, with large cuts to public land agencies, including 18,998 separations at the Department of Agriculture and another 7,210 at the Interior Department, according to the Pew Research Center.

"We need more nature," Ellen Montgomery, Environment America's Great Outdoors Campaign Director, said in a statement. "Our national leaders should be focused on funding the agencies that manage our public lands. They should find more wild places to protect and add to our national parks and wildlife refuge systems not put those lands in jeopardy."

The plan has not yet prompted official responses from state governors or tribal leaders.

According to the document, a portion of proceeds from federal land sales would go back to purchasing entities for other conservation purposes, while decreasing what it describes as the federal taxpayer's financial responsibility to manage federal lands. It also says Interior will invest more in conservation and recreation easements on private lands using money from the Land and Water Conservation Fund, established by Congress in 1964 and long focused on access and protection for federal lands and waters.

"This effort will ensure that the federal estate does not continue to grow while at the same time increasing recreation access for the American public," the plan states.

The plan also emphasizes bolstering domestic energy supply, saying it will accelerate production from reliable sources including clean coal, oil, gas, hydroelectric, geothermal and advanced nuclear technologies. Wind and solar are excluded from that list.

Land use in the West has been debated for generations. In the summer of 2025, Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, led an effort to sell up to 3 million acres of federal land through an amendment to Trump's tax and spending bill, arguing the land would be used for housing or other community needs. After public backlash, the amendment failed.

The federal government often sells or leases small areas of federal land for energy, housing or other uses, but those sales are typically much smaller and rarely tied to a large partisan spending bill, according to Derek Monson of the Utah conservative think tank the Sutherland Institute.

The federal government owns more than 50% of the land in five Western states — Nevada, Utah, Idaho, Alaska and Oregon — and between 30% and 50% in Wyoming, California, Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico, amounting to about 480 million acres across those 10 states. Nationwide, the federal government owns roughly 28% of U.S. land, or about 640 million of 2.27 billion acres, according to federal data.