Groups decry Trump deal giving Utah control of national park land
Quinn Welsch
(CN) — The Trump administration announced a deal on Tuesday that gives the state of Utah control over 8 million acres of national forest land for potential timber production, among other things.
But environmental groups in Utah and the Rockies denounced the 20-year cooperative agreement between Utah and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, saying it would weaken environmental review and public oversight of the lands while opening them up to commercial enterprise. The new agreement builds on a similar partnership from 2018.
In a release, the Center for Biological Diversity described the move as the latest effort by Utah lawmakers to sell off public lands to private businesses.
“Utah politicians have failed repeatedly to sell off public lands outright, so now they’re teaming up with their Trump cronies to push the same disgraceful agenda,” the center’s national public lands advocate Laiken Jordahl said. “This agreement strips federal protections, shuts the public out of decision-making and puts Utah’s old-growth forests directly on the chopping block. The American people will see this latest scheme for what it is, a backdoor push to privatize our public lands.”
The Center for Biological Diversity was exploring its options in challenging the partnership and that it would do everything it could to fight it, Jordahl told Courthouse News.
However, Utah and White House officials described the deal as a next-generation partnership between the state and federal government that expands commercial extraction, restores landscapes and reduces wildfire risk to communities and ecosystems in Utah.
“Utah knows how to manage land well and has done so successfully, side-by-side with federal partners, for decades,” said Utah Governor Spencer Cox in a U.S. Forest Service press release on Tuesday. “This agreement doesn’t change who owns or controls national forests. It simply lets us work together more efficiently. This allows us to combine capacity, funding and expertise so we can quickly and more effectively care for our forests now and far into the future.”
Under the agreement, the state and federal partnership will accelerate timber sales, forest thinning, prescribed burns and hazardous fuel reduction in an attempt to protect communities from wildfires. The deal also emphasized expanding the sale of timber products to support local economies in Utah.
“I applaud Gov. [Spencer] Cox for reaffirming the importance of our partnership and recommitting to ensuring healthy forests on public and private lands,” U.S. Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz said. “More importantly, our shared vision includes expansion of sustainable timber production, advancing wood utilization opportunities, accelerating landscape-scale restoration, and increasing the pace and scale of forest treatments to reduce the threat of catastrophic wildfires, while also seeking additional opportunities for cooperative management of other resources on National Forest System lands. It’s a win for people in Utah and across the nation.”
The Center for Biological Diversity worries that this partnership will also expand state control and set the stage for the management of national forest resources that include minerals, recreation and grazing.
The environmental groups took particular aim at the Utah governor for conducting closed-door meetings in December that bypassed public comment.
“Good governance means including the public in discussions about the national forests we all care about,” said Laura Welp, southern Utah director of Western Watersheds Project. “Governor Cox is once again conducting business with the federal government behind closed doors, with little or no advance notice, bypassing meaningful public involvement.”
According to the U.S. Forest Service, the new agreement follows similar deals between the state governments in Montana and Idaho. The deals fall in line with President Donald Trump’s 2025 Executive Order 14225, “Immediate Expansion of American Timber Production.”
The deal also follows the Trump administration’s goal of rescinding the Roadless Rule, a U.S. Forest Service rule that protects nearly 60 million acres of forests from timber harvesting in roadless areas of forests, as well as prohibiting road construction.
Environmentalists also swiped at Utah Senator Mike Lee for his efforts to sell off public lands in favor of industry. Lee did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“Utahns love our national forests — from the Uinta-Wasatch-Cache to the Manti-La Sal to the Dixie — and the incredible opportunities they provide for recreating with family and friends, often right out our back doors,” said Steve Bloch, legal director at the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance. “It’s essential that our national forests remain in public hands and are not handed over to the state of Utah for short-term gain or other forms of destructive mismanagement.”