Even as the United States approaches its 250th birthday, it is a young nation compared to many in the world. Throughout its brief history, the United States has often been conceived of, or proclaimed, exceptional. The notion started well before nationhood. In 1630, John Winthrop, the second governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, spoke of a shining city on a hill, a city that would serve as a model and beacon for the whole world. Later, the French aristocrat and political philosopher, Alexis de Tocqueville, writing in the first half of the 19th century, popularized the notion that American society is unique in, among other things, its democratic spirit, its commitment to equality, and its civic activism. Many American presidents including John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan have returned to the notion of American “exceptionalism.” Donald Trump’s motto, “Make America Great Again,” is understood by his supporters to be a call to a return to a singular American greatness.
Today, however, mentions of American exceptionalism will, for many people, likely give rise to a raised eyebrow or worse. Homeownership, “the American Dream,” is out of reach for many Americans. Healthcare is broken. Our politics are deeply polarized and there is substantial concern that our representative democracy is floundering as our founders’ constitutional system of a separation of powers and checks and balances yields to an increasingly powerful presidency.
But there is an aspect of American exceptionalism that remains and garners bipartisan support: Our public lands. One third of the nation’s lands are owned and managed by the federal government. These lands include our national parks, national monuments, national forests, national wildlife refuges, and lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). Most of these lands are in the western United States, but they also include iconic lands in the East like Acadia National Park, White Mountains National Forest, and southern jewels like Great Smoky Mountains National Park and Everglades National Park.
Some of these lands, including many national parks, are spectacular and iconic American landscapes, but even the less well-known lands are loved and cherished. The Grand Canyon, Glacier Bay, and Yosemite National Parks are all easily described as extraordinary places, but what truly makes them exceptional is they have remained in public hands. They are lands that belong to all Americans. As the preeminent public lands scholar, John Leshy, has observed, the persistence of these lands as public is notable. Americans venerate private property and often distrust government and yet these lands have remained in public hands.
Public lands now more than ever require the thoughtful attention of our lawmakers.
This essay argues that these public lands now more than ever require the thoughtful attention of our lawmakers. They face new challenges from climate change, from extraction and development, from intense and competing recreational interests, and calls for new housing. They play and will continue to play an important part in renewable energy transmission and development. Issues around the role these lands play in the religious, cultural, and subsistence lifeways of Native peoples persist, and underscore demands for tribal co-management of these resources. These lands have benefitted from robust democratic attention in the past and now is the time to engage again. Specifically, as explained below, in 1964, Congress created a commission to examine future management of public lands in detail. It is time to again take a detailed look at public land management. It is time for a new public land law commission.
The Many Continuing Debates around Public Lands
In 1976, Congress concluded that the overwhelming policy of the United States would be continued public ownership of federal lands. The decision was controversial at the time and remains controversial. Today there are many voices seeking the divestment and sale of public lands. These voices occupy positions on either end of the political spectrum, with some on the left suggesting that divestment of public lands might advance solutions to the housing crisis while many voices on the right see the sale of public lands as, among other things, an opportunity to generate revenue for the treasury and shrink the government.
But recently, major efforts to divest these lands led by Senator Mike Lee of Utah have failed, and they failed in the face of bipartisan opposition. As Maxine Joselow of The New York Times reported last June, many MAGA supporters strenuously objected to Senator Lee’s plan to sell millions of acres of federal lands as part of President Trump’s tax and spending bill. A bipartisan House Public Lands Caucus was formed in 2025. The goal of this Caucus is to promote policies that advance conservation and access to public lands.
This bipartisan effort comes at an inauspicious time for public lands. Both Congress and the Executive Branch have been active in this area. Congress has recently set aside plans that governed land management in three states to hasten extractive development. The Trump Administration has moved to repeal a public lands rule advanced by the Biden Administration that would have furthered conservation on lands managed by the BLM and proposed rescinding the Forest Service’s roadless rule which applies to 58 million acres of national forests. Most notably, the Administration has significantly reduced the number of employees in the land management agencies including substantial staff reductions at the National Park Service.
Politics and policies can, of course, adjust. More difficult is the relentless pressure on public lands from climate change. Climate change exacerbates wildfires. The warmer thirstier air caused by heat trapping pollutants worsens drought conditions. But it is not just wildfires and drought. Recent flooding caused by Hurricane Helene coupled with strong winds has catastrophically harmed the Nantahala and Pisgah National Forests of North Carolina. Evidence shows that the heavy rains were made more likely by climate change. Forests are also more susceptible to pests like beetles in a warming world. In addition, natural pests like beetles can worsen the risks posed to lands by invasive species.
In addition to these burdens, many debates about the use and governance of these lands have surfaced. Should these lands be available for livestock grazing and at what cost? Should predators like wolves be restored to the landscape? Should wild horses and burros be removed from these lands? What kind of recreation should be permitted and where? Are off-road vehicles and mountain bikes appropriate? Skiing on public lands is increasingly dependent on snowmaking technology. What role should the federal government play in subsidizing this increasingly costly activity?
Finally, an important movement has emerged to return public lands to the Native peoples of the United States who were dispossessed from their ancestral territory or, at least, to pursue co-management of these lands with tribal nations. This movement has gained greater urgency as the threats to tribal cultural and religious sites on public lands have intensified and become more controversial.
Congress’s Past Leadership on Public Lands
The Trump Administration’s approach to public lands is aggressive and largely focuses on the needs of select constituents. As the Administration toys with the divestiture of public lands, it has eliminated important staff stewards of the lands, and it hastens extraction to the detriment of natural resources. But, as noted, the Administration’s approach to public lands bucks considerable public sentiment. This public sentiment is reflected in the outrage expressed at Senator Lee’s proposal to sell off lands. But also, it bucks longstanding trends in Congress.
Over 100 years ago, Congress embarked on a program of thoughtful and informed management of public lands. In the early 20th century, aggressive forestry practices on private lands denuded the landscape and caused major flooding in the East. Congress, after hearing from the public and studying this issue and others, enacted the Weeks Act in 1911, which authorized the purchase of once-forested lands in the East with the goal of reforesting them. These reacquired lands now include the iconic national forests of the southern United States and New England. The Weeks Act can be seen today as a shift by Congress away from the disposition policies of the past – for instance, the Homesteading Act that gave public lands to qualified individuals – to a system that recognized the important benefits of public ownership.
In 1916, Congress enacted the National Park Service Organic Act which created the National Park Service and charged that agency with managing these lands “in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.” In 1983, the writer Wallace Stegner famously said of the National Park system that it was “the best idea we ever had.” The parks, he said, are “absolutely American, absolutely democratic, they reflect us at our best rather than our worst.”
Even in areas of the extractive use of public lands, Congress has sought to democratize the benefits of these lands. For example, in the Mineral Leasing Act of 1920, Congress ended a national policy that had prevailed for over 50 years. That national policy conveyed full title to public lands that might contain fossil fuels or fertilizer minerals. The switch to a leasing system that included all fossil fuels (coal, oil, gas and oil shale) and fertilizer minerals (sodium and phosphate) generated royalties to states and the federal government. The retention of federal lands so that the wealth generated from these lands might benefit all Americans was increasingly important to Congress.
Likewise in the Taylor Grazing Act of 1934, Congress enacted reform legislation to better steward lands belonging to all Americans. This legislation was intended, in the wake of the Dust Bowl, to improve management of public lands used for livestock grazing. These reforms were not perfect but, here, again, Congress continued public stewardship of these lands. Congressman Taylor of Colorado immodestly claimed that the eponymous act was “the Magna Carta of American conservation.”
Thirty years later, in 1964, Congress enacted a profoundly important piece of conservation legislation, the Wilderness Act. The Wilderness Act is notable as an effort to protect wilderness, a pristine natural environment, the Act explains, “where man himself is a visitor who does not remain.” To be sure, this lofty language has garnered criticism for being high-minded and nebulous. Likewise, the fact that the Act is blind to the reality that Native people have lived on the American continent since time immemorial is innocent if not insulting. And yet, despite these flaws, the Wilderness Act is a conservation gamechanger because it established a process by which Congress, and only Congress, would use its authority to designate lands as wilderness and preserve these values for all Americans. The scholar James Morton Taylor has described the engagement of the public with members of Congress stimulated by the Wilderness Act as a win for democratic ideals.
The Public Land Law Review Commission
The Wilderness Act also prompted Congress to undertake another influential democratic initiative: The Public Land Law Review Commission (PLLRC or Commission). The PLLRC was created by legislation also enacted in 1964. It was the brainchild of Wayne Aspinall, a democratic Congressman from Colorado who worried that Congress had abdicated its constitutional duties to public lands. Although he voted for the Wilderness Act, he was by no means a preservationist. Aspinall favored the extractive use of public lands but in an ordered manner. Aspinall’s support for the Wilderness Act was conditioned on the creation of the PLLRC, to ensure a hard look at public lands policy.
The Public Land Law Review Commission directed the preparation of dozens of substantial background reports, established a thirty-four-member advisory council, and heard testimony from nearly a thousand people at sixteen public meetings. In short, a bipartisan Congress approached the future management of public lands in a remarkably thoughtful fashion.
The PLLRC, which Aspinall chaired, spent five years examining every aspect of public land law and administration. As the scholar, John Leshy, has noted, the PLLRC was bipartisan, thorough, and deliberate. It directed the preparation of dozens of substantial background reports, established a thirty-four-member advisory council, and heard testimony from nearly a thousand people at sixteen public meetings. The final report, One Third of the Nation’s Land, was issued in 1970 and contained 137 principal recommendations. In short, a bipartisan Congress approached the future management of public lands in a remarkably thoughtful fashion.
To be sure, the PLLRC has also been criticized. As several observers have noted, some of the Commission’s recommendations appear contradictory. At a base level, scholars could not always agree whether the report emphasized disposal or retention of public lands. Perhaps it is not surprising that an effort at this scale involving something as complicated as public land management was subject to conflicting interpretations. But regardless of its flaws, the effort was weighty and, six years after the Commission’s report, Congress enacted the Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA), a set of governing principles for the BLM that unequivocally stated that public lands managed by the BLM are to be retained in public ownership. FLPMA and several other public lands laws enacted in the 1970s were influenced by the work of the Commission. There is no dispute that the effort was meaningful and productive.
The Case for a New Public Land Law Review Commission
Today, disputes about the continued retention of public lands rage anew. At the same time, newfound and old debates about the use and management of federal lands simmer and boil. And now more than ever, public lands are under stress from climate change. In addition, Americans of both political parties seek recreation and solace on public lands whose stewardship is threatened by budget cuts and staff reductions. This is an ideal time to invest in a new commission.
A commission chartered by Congress to begin a new and wide-ranging inquiry into the administration of our public lands is exactly the bipartisan effort our divided country requires in this moment.
I am not the first to make this suggestion and critics of the idea have focused on the deep partisan divide in our country as a barrier to the enactment of the legislation needed to enable a commission. There is also a fear that in our polarized environment meaningful compromise is impossible to achieve. But there is ample reason to believe that most Americans love the public lands. They may not all love the lands in the same way. Some may hike and others may prefer off-road vehicles, but they all share an appreciation of these lands whose ownership is, improbably enough, still vested in the American people. The lands are exceptional. Out of this shared love, opportunities for better stewardship abound. It is also likely that a new commission will reach some contradictory conclusions and recommendations. That’s ok.
First, the history of Congress’s involvement over the last 100 years shows that when policies are subject to robust inquiry and debate, sound legislation is often produced. Neither the Weeks Act nor the Taylor Grazing Act, for example, are perfect, but they improved land management at critical junctures in our history. In contrast, blunt instruments like the Congressional Review Act, which has been used to set aside land management plans with no alternatives, offer no paths to thoughtful future management. It’s not a plan, it’s a sugar rush. Second, it is not just the result that matters. The process also matters a great deal. As the Utah writer and lands advocate, Terry Tempest Williams, has written: “The integrity of our public lands depends on the integrity of our public process within the open space of our democracy.”
A commission chartered by Congress to begin a new and wide-ranging inquiry into the administration of our public lands is exactly the bipartisan effort our divided country requires in this moment. It does not matter that we all agree now. What matters is that we commit to a process of serious examination.
What might this process look like? First, it must be bipartisan. The PLLRC consisted of members from both the House and the Senate. For this Commission, perhaps eight members from each body, with a chair to be elected from Congress by the Commission members, similar to what was done for the 1964 Commission. The key here is bipartisanship.
It does not matter that we all agree now. What matters is that we commit to a process of serious examination.
As in the PLLRC, the Commission should be supported by an advisory council of various citizen and interest groups. In addition to these citizen members, the council should include representatives from the federal agencies with expertise on federal lands, but the federal representatives should be career members of the federal civil service selected for their expertise in management issues. Different from 1964, Tribal nations must also be represented on the advisory council. The precise details of the council’s makeup can be debated, but here again, a diversity of interests should be sought. The work of the commission and council should be supported by a bipartisan staff and, as was done in 1964, by consultants selected for their expertise.
The Commission should hold hearings and take testimony from the public. Critically, the hearings should be held in both cities and rural areas. Comments on proposals should also be sought. The guiding ethos of the Commission must be that these are lands that belong to all Americans.
What topics would the Commission address? Certainly, some of the topics would be the same as or like those addressed in the PLLRC, including mineral resources, grazing, the acquisition and disposal of lands, outdoor recreation and fish and wildlife. But new topics like wildland fire, climate risks, renewable energy, energy transmission, and tribal co-management must be included.
This task will be hard, but the public lands, as Congress has long recognized, are part of what make the United States exceptional. These lands enjoy the bipartisan support of many throughout the country. There can be no better place to start to heal rifts and build consensus among Americans.
