Introduction and summary
As Americans face skyrocketing home prices and rising rents, some politicians are exploiting the situation to recast old and widely rejected ideas of selling off America’s public lands as a housing solution. While well-crafted transfers of federal property can help alleviate housing pressures in some circumstances, the vast majority of public lands are impractical for affordable housing development or otherwise inappropriate for privatization.
The Trump administration is promising a measured and careful approach on this issue as it launches a new task force aimed at transferring some federal lands for housing development. But the most prominent proposal in Congress from Trump ally Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) would recklessly endanger beloved public lands while failing to address America’s core housing affordability problems. Whether President Donald Trump and Congress embrace this extreme path remains to be seen.
More broadly, today’s housing affordability crisis—and the costs being felt by American families—demands a serious and comprehensive approach that includes expanded housing assistance for immediate relief along with targeted policies to increase affordable housing production. The last thing America needs are false solutions or opportunistic political maneuvers.
A rejected idea, repackaged
Calls from some politicians—particularly the same figures who rail against conservation measures that limit drilling and mining on public lands—to sell off vast swaths of America’s public lands are not new. But an aggressive lawsuit from the state of Utah last year, accompanied by a multimillion-dollar public relations campaign, has ratcheted this threat up several notches.1 Bringing its case directly to the U.S. Supreme Court, Utah tried to force the United States to dispose of more than 18 million acres of public lands in the state, pushing a legal theory that would have ultimately affected hundreds of millions of acres across the country.2 The lawsuit directly echoes the constitutional challenges to public land ownership pushed by allies of President Trump, including Sen. Lee3 and William Perry Pendley.4 Pendley, who previously oversaw the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) under President Trump, was a lead author of the extreme “Project 2025” agenda.5
The Supreme Court’s rejection of Utah’s lawsuit in January has not deterred these anti-public lands politicians. They are actively pursuing every angle to seize control of national public lands and waters.6 Moreover, a new argument behind this push appears to be rising to the top, with the same politicians increasingly calling to sell off public lands to solve America’s housing affordability problems.7
In a related development, congressional Republican leadership is reportedly eyeing the sell-off of public lands as an option to pay for expensive tax breaks for the wealthy as part of a massive budget bill currently under development.8 The American Enterprise Institute claims that selling off national public lands for housing development through such a bill could generate $100 billion in federal revenue.9 Meanwhile, selling off, commodifying, or otherwise privatizing America’s public lands may be the only plausible way the Trump administration intends to generate massive amounts of cash for the president’s proposed sovereign wealth fund.10
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Trump’s federal lands and housing initiative
Against this backdrop, on March 17, 2025, the Trump administration announced a new joint initiative between the U.S. Department of the Interior and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to use federal lands for affordable housing.11 Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum and Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Scott Turner said their agencies would work together to inventory “underutilized federal lands” in places with the most significant housing needs and to initiate streamlined transfers or leases of the lands to states, local governments, public housing authorities, or nonprofit entities.12
As discussed in more detail below, targeted transfers of federal lands can benefit the public when done well, in the right places, and with appropriate safeguards. In launching this new task force, the secretaries pledged to pursue a careful approach that would not be a “free-for-all to build on federal lands” and would focus on affordability.13
Whether the Trump administration’s actions match this reasonable rhetoric remains to be seen. Notably, the administration is pledging that HUD will play a key role in guiding this effort, but the Trump administration and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) are simultaneously gutting the agency’s core capacities. In this announcement, the secretaries claim that HUD “brings expertise in housing policy and community development” to the partnership.14 But those areas, in particular, would be drastically cut in a staffing plan submitted by Secretary Turner to DOGE that was subsequently leaked.15 By “Day 120,” the document shows HUD cutting its Office of Community Planning and Development staff from 936 people to 150 people—an 84 percent reduction—and an overall agency plan of reducing its workforce by half.16
Additionally, a major cause for skepticism and concern in the task force’s announcement was the claim by secretaries Burgum and Turner that “much of” the more than 500 million acres of public lands managed by the Interior Department is “suitable for residential use.”17 As explored below, this does not align with the fundamental realities of where these lands are located or the other value benefits they provide the American people. Also alarming is how the Trump administration’s nascent effort may intersect with reckless actions brewing on Capitol Hill.
Sen. Lee’s HOUSES Act
While the Trump administration’s new initiative remains vaguely defined and the architects of the Republican budget bill are yet to show their hand, the Senate’s leading cheerleader for public lands sell-off, Sen. Mike Lee, has already put pen to paper. Having recently assumed the powerful role of chairman of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, Sen. Lee has indicated that he intends to prioritize his Helping Open Underutilized Space to Ensure Shelter (HOUSES) Act,18 which seeks to sell public lands in the name of housing development. In fact, on the day of the Trump administration’s task force announcement, Sen. Lee took to social media to promote the administration’s new initiative in tandem with his bill.19
A ‘new Homestead Act’
Previewed initially by Sen. Lee as a “new Homestead Act” that would help wrest control of public lands from the federal government,20 the HOUSES Act, as it was introduced last Congress, gives local and state governments the power to nominate national public lands for purchase at below market rates.21 Nominations must include a residential development plan, but commercial and industrial development would also be allowed immediately on a portion of the lands. In addition, the bill’s weak measures for enforcing development restrictions on the privatized lands would no longer apply after 15 years.
Under the proposed bill, hundreds of millions of public acres managed by the Interior Department would be eligible for private sale and development.22 Moreover, the department would have little ability to deny a requested sale since the bill ensures that private development proposals would supersede “any other potential use” of the lands—including for recreation, water supply, or wildlife conservation.23 Notably missing from the bill are housing affordability requirements, requirements for public notice or comment, and financial measures to tackle the most significant affordable housing barriers.
Selling off treasured public lands
Sen. Lee’s bill would place vast amounts of valuable public land at risk of being sold and developed. While the HOUSES Act excludes national parks, wildlife refuges, and several other categories of lands, it would make more than 200 million acres of national public land available for nomination and subsequent sale.24 Among those acres are lands that are currently managed by the federal government to preserve their exceptional wildlife habitat, clean water, hunting, angling, or other recreation opportunities, as well as cultural resources. For example, unique public lands designated as areas of critical environmental concern,25 backcountry conservation areas,26 and wilderness study areas27—among others—could be nominated, privatized, and developed.
If the HOUSES Act passes, public lands that border America’s most visited national parks, and are prime recreation destinations in their own right, could soon be developed for luxury homes. Locally beloved lands and waters awaiting formal protections from Congress or a future president—places such as Great Bend of the Gila in Arizona28—could also be carved up and sold without public notice or input. And while the bill excludes national monuments from the lands eligible for sale, removing protections from monuments such as Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante—as pushed by Project 2025’s architects and Sen. Lee29—would make those national treasures available for privatization under this bill as well.
Making matters much worse, the HOUSES Act as proposed requires the sale of these public lands without consideration of their value for anything other than the proposed housing development. The bill dismantles the guardrails that require the government to consider whether a proposed public lands sale is in the public interest, including weighing recreational, scenic, or wildlife habitat values.
Pricey vacation properties, trophy homes, and real estate speculation
Despite its lack of requirements to use the land for affordable housing, Sen. Lee’s bill would sell public lands for below market value—and potentially far below.30 Offering bargain prices on remote public lands will not translate into affordable housing solutions given their general distance from population centers and existing infrastructure. However, unique public lands—particularly those in areas with high scenic or recreational value—could be very attractive to developers of vacation properties and real estate investors.
The result would be a system where treasured public lands could be privatized and developed into second or third homes for the wealthy, pricey short-term rentals, or other housing developments—with almost no guardrails. Furthermore, the system could allow real estate speculators or other investors to scoop up valuable lands under the pretense of developing housing, sit on them for 15 years,31 and then sell them for any use. That could ultimately mean public lands converted into private golf courses, members-only fishing clubs, or industrial mining operations. These examples are not random hypotheticals; they are the fate of former state lands sold off in Idaho,32 to pick one example.
A false solution
Beyond the recklessness of privatizing vast swaths of public lands without guardrails, Sen. Lee’s bill has another fundamental issue: It would not meaningfully address the housing affordability problem it purports to solve.
America’s current housing affordability crisis can make proposals such as Sen. Lee’s bill sound reasonable. After years of underproduction, the United States has a staggering lack of affordable housing units, including for-sale “starter homes” and affordable rental properties. A shortage of available, developable land—especially near jobs, schools, shopping, and transportation—is one factor in underproduction. Rising materials costs,33 an insufficient residential construction labor force,34 exclusionary zoning and land use policies,35 and financial incentives for builders to develop luxury units rather than affordable ones36 have also contributed to underproduction.
As discussed above, the HOUSES Act lacks any provision to support or incentivize the production of the affordable housing most needed today, nor does it include any affordability requirements or even mention affordability. Furthermore, most national public lands covered by the HOUSES Act are remote and could only be developed at a high price.
Targeted sales of certain federal, state, or municipally owned lands near existing infrastructure can be publicly beneficial as part of a comprehensive approach to addressing housing needs; however, with few exceptions, the public lands managed by the BLM are not near the urban and suburban areas facing the most severe housing availability bottlenecks. A new analysis by the Center for American Progress that looked at the 10 Western states with the most BLM lands37 found that much less than 1 percent of those BLM lands are located within 10 miles of the states’ significant population centers, even before considering whether those lands are appropriate for sale and suitable for development.38
In the 10 Western states with the most BLM lands, much less than 1 percent of those BLM lands are located within 10 miles of the states’ significant population centers.
The absence of nearby infrastructure needed for housing development—such as roads, water, sewage systems, and power—would drive up the cost of most public land development. Because of this, most public lands are not suited for affordable and middle-income housing and are instead more attractive for expensive vacation homes, luxury rental properties, or commercial ventures that could offset the high capital costs. Additionally, distorting the market by encouraging housing development far from existing infrastructure encourages urban sprawl—particularly when combined with the HOUSES Act’s limited density requirements39—which drives up transportation costs, among other negative outcomes.40
Speaking specifically about Sen. Lee’s home state of Utah, Stacy Young of the Southern Utah Home Builders Association recently explained: “The vast majority of federal land in Utah is kind of irrelevant to this discussion. It’s not in the path of growth. It doesn’t have any sort of intrinsic value for solving housing affordability. It’s a very tiny, tiny percentage of federal land that would ever make sense.”41
Federal land transfers that make sense
While not a broad solution to address housing needs and affordability, transferring or selling specific tracts of federal land—including for housing—can be a sensible move under the right circumstances. Through existing laws, the federal government has a long history of working with states on targeted land transfers, trades, or sales.42 For example, in 2024, before the Trump administration’s joint task force was formed, the BLM partnered with HUD on a novel project to sell federal land near Las Vegas to develop affordable housing.43
When done correctly, targeted land transfers or sales can help make land management more efficient by consolidating scattered federal and state lands, can serve important public purposes, and can benefit natural resources and future generations of public lands users. Ensuring these outcomes requires clear legal guardrails so that land transfers are limited in size and impact; do not result in a net loss for critical resources such as clean water, recreation assets, wildlife, and cultural and historic resources; deliver on other public benefits for American communities and taxpayers; and cannot be abused or gamed by private interests. Additionally, focusing on appropriate parcels of federal land—as well as state or municipally owned lands—proximate to existing infrastructure can better address housing affordability and reduce sprawl.
Whether the Trump administration’s new effort will meet these tests remains to be seen. But the current public lands seizure proposals masquerading as housing solutions—as exemplified by the HOUSES Act—clearly miss the mark.
Today’s housing affordability crisis in context
Stepping back from the narrow questions around federally owned lands, tackling America’s housing affordability crisis requires a broader understanding of the problems. Today’s housing affordability difficulties are broader in scope than past troubles. The United States lacks both affordable rental housing and homeownership opportunities in smaller “starter homes.”44
A growing number of families—particularly renters—face immediate, acute financial hardships from the monthly cost of housing. The 2023 American Community Survey found that almost 52 percent of renters spend more than 30 percent of their gross income on rent,45 a level of expense that housing experts consider “cost burdened.”46 In 2000, only 37 percent of renters were cost burdened.47
For renters and potential homeowners alike, insufficient housing supply is perpetuating an affordability gap. The adverse economic impact is particularly pervasive among Black families48 and young adults.49 Overall housing production decreased dramatically as a result of the 2007 housing bubble, with many contractors and skilled laborers exiting the residential construction industry.50 The production that did continue or rebound was concentrated in higher-margin, larger homes and luxury apartments in high-growth markets.51 By 2020, the nation faced a housing shortage of an estimated 3.8 million units, according to economists at Freddie Mac, and the gap has continued to expand.52 Notably, as seen in Figure 1, affordable housing production has suffered more than the overall housing market.
As Figure 1 shows, in the period from 1996 to 2007, the average size of a single-family home was a little more than 2,300 square feet, and almost 170,000 starter homes were built. After the housing market crash, overall production fell dramatically, with just 950,000 units built on average in each year from 2008 to 2020—a more than 40 percent drop from pre-2008 levels, when 1.6 million units were built annually. The size of the average unit increased more than 10 percent, and the average production of starter homes dropped to roughly one-third of the previous level. Meanwhile, construction of large multifamily developments—often luxury units in larger metro areas53—comprised 9 percent of all units prior to 2008 but leapt to 23 percent over the 13 years that followed. In fact, even as the total number of housing units constructed decreased after 2007, the number of units constructed in larger multifamily developments increased as an absolute number.
The supply of low-cost rentals declined by 2.1 million units between 2012 and 2022. During the same period, rental units in the highest price tiers increased by 8.4 million units.
Overall, the affordable rental supply has been shrinking. According to a report from the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University, the supply of low-cost rentals decreased by 2.1 million units between 2012 and 2022.54 During the same period, rental units in the highest price tiers increased by 8.4 million units.55
Comprehensively addressing U.S. housing needs
Instead of disingenuously pushing vast sell-offs of America’s public lands, Congress has opportunities to advance meaningful solutions for the U.S. housing affordability crisis. Expanded housing assistance payments, along with program reforms, are needed for far more households to reduce the current problem. For the supply gap, the only real relief is the production of substantial numbers of affordable rental units and starter homes.
See also
CAP has advocated a policy framework with a robust two-track solution56 that begins with providing additional monthly housing assistance now, while the nation increases production and narrows the supply-demand imbalance through housing block grant funding; Low-Income Housing Tax Credit reform; and expanded, standardized housing assistance. Housing affordability is a pressing crisis, and short-term, immediate relief is required. The root problem, however, requires expanding affordable housing production. The country must do both.
Very low-income families will likely need ongoing housing assistance, even with expanded housing supply. HUD currently provides rental assistance for 5 million households,57 almost all of which make less than 50 percent of the area median income of their respective regions. Half of this assistance comes through the Housing Choice Vouchers (HCV) program.58Given the number of renter households with such low absolute incomes, an expansion of HCV is warranted. There are, however, limits to the use of HCV,59 in part due to necessary program reforms.
Additionally, regulatory reform has a meaningful role in expanding affordable housing production. In many parts of the country, housing supply is constrained by the availability of developable land.60 State and local reform movements to relax single-family zoning and overly restrictive land use requirements represent one of the most promising trends toward expanding developable land. The New York Times found that it is illegal to build anything other than a detached single-family home on 75 percent of the residential land in many American cities.61
Finally, for the past 40 years, the United States has relied mainly on tax expenditures to entice private sector development of affordable housing. While there are certain income tiers where these policies can be effective, the volume and range of affordable housing now needed requires multiple streams of direct production investments through a combination of block grants patterned on the infrastructure of the Home Investment Partnerships (HOME) program; a fully funded Housing Trust Fund; and subsidized revolving loan funds that could use the existing mechanism of the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund.
Conclusion
As questions swirl about the Trump administration’s new federal lands and housing initiative, the extreme proposals gaining traction in Congress to sell off large swaths of public lands represent a clear and dangerous attack on America’s great outdoors. They also offer false hope for Americans facing the challenge of an unaffordable housing market. While making prime, vacant lands available for housing sounds appealing, the public lands sell-off legislation being shopped on Capitol Hill is little more than a Trojan horse for a fringe, anti-public lands agenda. It is an agenda that the American people, including those living closest to these public lands,62 have repeatedly rejected.63
If Congress and the Trump administration want to seriously address housing affordability, they must focus on meaningful housing solutions that deliver for Americans instead of reckless public land sell-off schemes.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank Jasia Smith, Nicole Gentile, Emily Gee, Carl Chancellor, Bianca Serbin, Beatrice Aronson, Bill Rapp, Cindy Murphy-Tofig, Audrey Juarez, Scott Miller, Kate Groetzinger, Heather Urban, Mark Allison, and Dan Hartinger for their contributions to this report.