The 119th Congress’ Antiparks Caucus: Tracking the Assault on Public Lands

As the United States approaches its 250th birthday, the country is reflecting on its history, traditions, and democratic ideals. One of Americans’ greatest sources of pride and national unity is a legacy of conserving public lands and waters to ensure that future generations can enjoy these natural resources. This summer, millions of Americans will celebrate the nation’s 250th by visiting national parks, wildlife refuges, forests, seashores, and monuments. Yet despite overwhelming public support for conserving the nation’s shared resources, these lands and waters are at risk.

As the Trump administration initiates sweeping overhauls of popular conservation measures, certain members of Congress are proposing parallel, supporting, and, often, more extreme bills that would affect public lands across the country. A small cohort of the most extreme anticonservation members, referred to in this analysis as the “antiparks caucus,” is championing and backing bills that weaken or strip away protections altogether from public lands. This caucus has backed detrimental policies, including removing protections from sacred Tribal lands, removing a president’s ability to designate national monuments, and selling out sensitive lands and waters to corporate polluters. One of the most high-profile members of the antiparks caucus is Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), who as chairman of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources has introduced numerous bills threatening public lands protections, including his failed proposal in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act of 2025 to sell off large swaths of public lands.

This analysis highlights the agenda, members, and range of conservation attacks advanced by the 119th Congress’ antiparks caucus, a term coined by the Center for American Progress in 2016. The antiparks caucus is made up of 25 members who have introduced or co-sponsored 65 antiparks bills in the 119th Congress. These congressional proposals are clear attempts to advance an unpopular agenda for a set of issues that has historically been bipartisan. If enacted, these policies would have serious long-term effects on communities and wildlife. As the United States approaches its 250th anniversary, policymakers should be focused on conserving public lands and waters and enabling more Americans to enjoy them, rather than opening up the nation’s most beloved areas to development and damage.

The antiparks caucus has played an active role in creating and perpetuating threats to public lands through bills that advance an antiparks agenda. This analysis defines the 119th Congress’ antiparks agenda as legislation that seeks to:

• Sell off or relinquish management authority of public lands, including by allowing the transfer, sale, or change in management of public lands for a purpose outside of the U.S. Department of the Interior and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s agency missions and without appropriate guardrails or limitations
• Recklessly sell out public lands and waters to dirty energy corporations, including by opening up lands to oil, gas, coal, and mining companies for development and incentivizing the expansion of resource extraction on federal lands through financial handouts
• Remove or decrease protections to treasured landscapes, including national monuments, wilderness areas, wildlife refuges, and mineral withdrawals
• Weaken or undermine bedrock conservation policies, such as by attempting to rewrite the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) or Endangered Species Act (ESA) to remove crucial public lands protections, gutting the Antiquities Act, and undermining conservation requirements and stewardship plans for public lands

For this analysis, authors reviewed bills introduced by the 119th Congress within the policy areas of “public lands and natural resources,” “energy,” and “environmental protection” as categorized on Congress.gov from January 21, 2025, through March 31, 2026. Bills were independently analyzed and evaluated to determine whether they fall within the scope of the antiparks agenda. In total, 81 bills were identified as antiparks legislation. Many of these bills would have serious and long-term consequences for communities and wildlife but are so extreme that they are unlikely to receive committee hearings, let alone votes. Still, more than 25 of the bills analyzed received committee hearings or votes, and three passed into law.

The authors deemed members of Congress who have sponsored or co-sponsored six or more antiparks bills in the 119th Congress members of the antiparks caucus. These members have demonstrated a trend of support for a significant number of antiparks bills. The caucus is responsible for introducing or co-sponsoring 65 of the 81 bills identified as antiparks legislation. Figure 1 lists leaders of the antiparks movement in the 119th Congress.

Despite the popularity of national parks, wildlife refuges, forests, and other national public lands, policymakers have introduced seven bills that threaten to sell off or transfer management of public lands. Sen. Lee has led the charge on these policies. In July 2025, he introduced an amendment to the Big Beautiful Bill (BBB) that would have put 250 million acres of public lands across 11 states at risk of sale and mandated the sale of more than 2 million acres of those lands to support tax cuts predominantly for wealthy Americans. In the House, Reps. Mark Amodei (R-NV) and Celeste Maloy (R-UT) proposed a similar amendment, requiring the sale of half a million acres of land. These proposals were met with strong public backlash, highlighting the deep unpopularity of antiparks policies. Republicans, including antiparks caucus members Reps. Ryan Zinke (MT), Dan Newhouse (WA), and Cliff Bentz (OR), joined a chorus of Democratic opposition and publicly denounced the land sell-off, ultimately ensuring that the provisions did not make it into reconciliation.

In addition to his land sell-off proposal, Sen. Lee also introduced the Border Lands Conservation Act (S.B. 2967), to significantly curtail the management control of federal land management agencies such as the National Park Service (NPS), the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), and the U.S. Forest Service (USFS). The bill would allow the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), an agency with no conservation expertise or mandate, substantial authority over public lands within 100 miles of the United States’ southern and northern borders, including iconic recreation areas such as the Boundary Waters. The bill would also give DHS the power to build roads and other “tactical infrastructure,” potentially fragmenting habitats and increasing human disturbance in vulnerable natural areas. Additionally, it could clear the way for projects such as the proposal to construct a border wall in Big Bend National Park, which has been met with significant bipartisan backlash. By constraining the power of agencies that have conservation expertise to manage the land, the bill would ultimately weaken protections for more than 9.5 million acres of wilderness.

Another example of legislation that would transfer ownership of public lands out of public hands is the No Net Gain in Federal Lands Act of 2025 (H.R. 775). Introduced by Rep. Harriet Hageman (R-WY), this legislation is designed to prohibit the federal government from acquiring acres of public lands or waters without selling off a similar acreage. The bill’s restrictions on net gain would mandate the transfer or sell-off of other public lands in the event of any increase in federal land assets, such as the donation of a parcel of land to expand a national park.

According to CAP analysis, the 119th Congress has introduced 26 bills that recklessly auction off federal lands and waters for dirty energy development. Contrary to politicians’ claims, these policies will not actually lower prices or protect the United States from global oil price shocks. Instead, they serve to sell out precious landscapes for energy development, eliminating places of recreation and cultural importance.

For example, the Offshore Energy Security Act of 2025 (S.B. 109), introduced by Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), would require at least two 74-million-acre oil and gas lease sales each year in the Gulf of Mexico. Just one of these sales puts an area bigger than Colorado at risk of development. This massive, unnecessary expansion of offshore oil and gas would threaten some of the country’s most sensitive waters, coastlines, and marine ecosystems. It could lead to the extinction of some marine species—including sea turtles and whales—while also creating disastrous consequences for coastal economies. The bill would also weaken the power of lawsuits to challenge lease sales related to compliance with basic environmental requirements, thereby giving a polluting and profit-seeking industry significant leeway to damage sensitive ecosystems.

This Congress has also targeted national public lands in Alaska, attempting to turn beloved landscapes into oil fields. H.J.Res. 131, a resolution from Rep. Nick Begich (R-AK), was recently signed into law and will reinstate a 2020 plan initiated by the first Trump administration to open up all 1.5 million acres of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge’s Coastal Plain for dirty energy development. Another recently passed joint resolution from Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK)—S.J.Res. 80—will similarly restore a 2020 Trump plan for Alaska’s Western Arctic, opening up more than 18 million acres to oil and gas leasing and development.

In addition to oil and gas, the antiparks caucus is giving handouts to coal industry executives. Under the COAL Act of 2025 (H.R. 280), introduced by Rep. Hageman, the Department of the Interior would be required to expedite the approval of pending applications for coal leases to revive a dirty, inefficient, and expensive industry. As a source of electricity, coal consumption is no longer economically competitive and has been declining steadily since 2008. Yet the COAL Act would reinstate federal support for coal production, augmenting actions by the Trump administration to reverse the industry’s decline by using millions of taxpayer dollars to subsidize coal over other cleaner and cheaper alternatives.

Some bills also explicitly force the expansion of dirty energy production on public lands, despite the oil industryalready sitting on 10 years’ worth of unused leases. Moreover, new leases will not increase supply in the short term. Rep. Andy Biggs’ (R-AZ) Strategic Production Response and Implementation Act (H.R. 92) prohibits, with limited exceptions, the U.S. Department of Energy from accessing the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, the country’s emergency oil supply, unless it implements a plan to increase the percentage of federal lands leased for oil and gas production. Tying oil and gas leasing to the use of the reserve creates an unnecessary mandate to sell out public lands.

Public land protections are often the result of years of community organizing and advocacy, on top of scientific study, to preserve sites of cultural, historical, ecological, and recreational importance. Yet the 119th Congress is seeking to remove or decrease protections for specific public lands—including national monuments, wilderness areas, wildlife refuges, and mineral withdrawals—through the introduction of 15 bills. These proposals generate some of the loudest opposition since they most often target rich ecosystems, cultural and historical sites, or landscapes in a community’s backyard.

Among antiparks bills within this category, a few stand out as particularly damaging and unpopular. For instance, contrary to its name, Rep. Paul Gosar’s (R-AZ) Southern Arizona Protection Act (H.R. 5393) seeks to remove 128,917 acres of protections from Ironwood Forest National Monument, an area of the Sonoran Desert with significant biological, geological, and archeological diversity, which has been protected since 2000. Meanwhile, Gosar’s Northern Arizona Protection Act (H.R. 5392) seeks to remove protections from the 917,618 acre Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni-Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument, a site of profound Indigenous cultural value and sensitive ecological resources. Both bills would also restrict the designation of future national monuments—which are some of the most popular, bipartisan conservation areas—in the region.

In northwestern New Mexico, Chaco Canyon recently won a long-term fight for protection through a 2023 mineral withdrawal designation, only for it to come under fire by the 119th Congress. From 850 to 1150 A.D., Chaco served as a center of trade, ceremony, and politics; today, it is a sacred place for Tribal communities that hosts more than 4,700 archaeological sites. However, Rep. Eli Crane (R-AZ) introduced the Energy Opportunities for All Act (H.R. 606), which would nullify the 336,404 acre Chaco Canyon mineral withdrawal. Rolling back this mineral withdrawal, as the Trump administration is also pursuing, would open the Chaco landscape to new, reckless oil and gas development, posing an extreme risk to the ecological, cultural, and historical value of the region.

Another example is Rep. Pete Stauber’s (R-MN) Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution (H.J.Res. 140), which was recently signed into law by President Trump. The new law revokes protections from the watershed surrounding the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. In 2023, the Biden administration conserved 225,504 acres of public landssurrounding the Boundary Waters watershed in Minnesota through a mineral withdrawal that prohibited mining for a period of 20 years to protect the region’s fragile natural resources, ecological integrity, and wilderness value. In contrast, Stauber’s resolution threatens one of the nation’s most visited wilderness areas with nearby mining.

Using the CRA to revoke mineral withdrawals creates a reckless precedent that would allow Congress to target virtually any public land action as a rule, invalidating years of scientific study, ignoring public input, and potentially blocking similar protections from being reinstated. Public land orders such as the Boundary Waters mineral withdrawal have never been considered a rule subject to the CRA; yet this antiparks caucus has also proposed or passed legislation to target other landscape protections using the CRA, including resource management plans in Alaska, Wyoming, Montana, and North Dakota. Most recently, Sen. Lee and Rep. Maloy proposed using the CRA to revoke the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument’s Resource Management Plan through S.J.Res. 109/H.J.Res. 151, which would eliminate the conservation priorities on the ecologically, geologically, and archeologically rich landscape.

In addition to directly removing protections from cherished public lands, the 119th Congress has introduced 33 bills that seek to weaken or create loopholes in bedrock environmental and conservation laws. These bills include attempts to rewrite NEPA or the ESA to remove crucial public lands protections, gut the Antiquities Act, and undermine conservation requirements and stewardship plans for public lands.

One such bill is Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) and Rep. Maloy’s WEST Act of 2025 (S.B. 530/H.R. 1206), which aimed to revoke the BLM Public Lands Rule that had put conservation on equal footing with other priorities in the management of BLM lands. The Public Lands Rule was strongly supported by outdoor businesses and recreation groups as it promised to prioritize long-term landscape health through conservation requirements across BLM’s 245 million acres of land. However, the WEST Act was rendered unnecessary when the Trump administration repealed the rule in May 2026, effectively rigging the management of public lands to favor short-term, extractive development over the sustained health of those lands and waters.

Another companion effort by the House and Senate is Rep. Maloy and Sen. Lee’s Ending Presidential Overreach on Public Lands Act (H.R. 521/S.B. 220), which seeks to remove the president’s authority to designate or expand national monuments through the Antiquities Act. The Antiquities Act has been used by 18 presidents across party lines in the past 120 years, acting as the first line of protection for 32 of America’s national parks, including the Grand Canyon, Olympic, Joshua Tree, and Acadia. Revoking this authority would subject communities to the longer timelines that come with lobbying for congressionally designated national monuments.

Another bill that aims to shake bedrock environmental policies is Rep. Bruce Westerman’s (R-AR) ESA Amendments Act of 2025 (H.R. 1897), which would substantially weaken the Endangered Species Act, pushing at-risk species closer to extinction and threatening vital wildlife habitat. One of America’s most popular environmental laws, the ESA has helped prevent the extinction of 99 percent of listed species and enabled populations of iconic species such as bald eagles and green sea turtles to rebound. While U.S. endangered species policy needs reform and expanded investment, H.R. 1897 would only weaken implementation and worsen the biodiversity crisis.

The antiparks caucus and the Trump administration have weakened and reversed protections for public lands and waters, and the antiparks caucus’ proposals have served as a blueprint for executive action by the Trump administration. Donald Trump’s first presidential term solidified his place as the most antinature president in American history, removing protections from at least 35 million acres of U.S. public lands. In just four years, he repealed deeply popular protections for more than a dozen areas, including Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments, the Arctic Refuge, and the Boundary Waters. While the Biden administration reversed some of these actions, the fights to safeguard these places are still ongoing. Now, a little more than a year into his second term, Trump has already initiated actions to strip protections from nearly 88 million acres of public lands across the country—an area nearly the size of the state of Montana.

Through executive orders and other administrative actions, the Trump administration is enacting harmful policies that are deeply unpopular among the American public and may not have otherwise passed in Congress. Many of the administration’s policies specifically implement provisions proposed by the antiparks caucus, including initiating the revocation of the Chaco Canyon mineral withdrawal, leasing Alaska’s Arctic Refuge, and rescinding the Public Lands Rule. The administration has also announced plans to eliminate protections from 39 million acres of land safeguarded by the USFS’s Roadless Area Conservation Rule, mirroring action proposed by Rep. Hageman in H.R. 7695.

The administration’s harmful attacks go beyond antiparks caucus proposals, including gutting public lands agencies’ staff, proposing to cut budgets by more than one-third, and proposing the transfer of national park units to states. In addition, the administration has appointed many antiparks allies into key leadership positions, such as former Rep. Steve Pearce (R-NM), a former member of the antiparks caucus. Pearce, who has previously supported efforts to sell off federal lands, was recently confirmed to oversee 245 million acres of public lands as the director of the BLM.

Public lands and waters are shared resources, and federal conservation policies have long preserved valuable culture and history, ensured protection of habitats and ecosystems, and provided opportunities for recreation. America’s Semiquincentennial calls for public servants, including members of the antiparks caucus and President Trump, to honor and respect this nation’s relationship with its natural wonders, rather than pursue a harmful agenda that will cause irreversible damage to public resources.

The authors would like to thank Drew McConville, Jenny Rowland-Shea, Kendra Hughes, Alia Hidayat, Cathleen Kelly, Devon Lespier, Steve Bonitatibus, Mona Alsaidi, Nicole Piper, Christian Rodriguez, and Anh Nguyen for their insights and contributions to this report, as well as the local and national conservation leaders who are building impactful and equitable conservation solutions every day.