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Burgum to Senate: No National Park Land for Sale; Candidate Lands Are Low-Value Parcels Next to Growing Towns

June 11, 2025 · Senate Energy Dems · 0:07:23

Embedded from the source channel — never re-uploaded. Watch on YouTube

What happened

Senator Martin Heinrich asked Interior Secretary Doug Burgum when the public will know which lands are being considered for land sales, so there can be a public process and the public can understand what is at stake, according to the hearing. Burgum said the department is at the proposal stage and has looked at the macro level at how many acres might have a high value for an alternative use such as housing while having low value for recreation or mineral resources, typically parcels directly adjacent to existing, fast-growing population centers — most likely in Idaho, Alaska, Utah, and Nevada, the states with the highest percentages of federal land and fast-growing communities bumping up against low-value federal land, according to Burgum.

Asked whether he will hold public meetings before offering potential lands for sale, Burgum said absolutely, and reassured members and the public that not an acre of any of the 63 national parks will be considered for sale — this is not about the most beautiful and sacred places, but often barren land next to highways with existing billboards and no recreational value that constrains cities, which in some cases leapfrog infrastructure at cost to themselves, according to Burgum.

Burgum also said the department’s systems make it almost impossible to get information — with 330 million visitor days across the parks, the department often lacks data on who visitors are or how often they come — and that decisions must be data-driven, citing a North Dakota site with fewer than 1,000 visitors in an entire season yet a park superintendent and federal staff, which he said could fit into a state historic society framework, according to Burgum.

Why it matters

The exchange puts the Interior secretary’s stated guardrails on the record: national parks excluded, public meetings promised, and candidate parcels defined as low-value land beside growing towns — with the department’s own visitor data admitted to be inadequate.

Sources: Senate Energy Dems, “Heinrich Presses Interior Secretary on Public Lands Sales During Committee Heating”, 2025-06-11 (official upload, embedded above; published 2025-06-11). Transcript via Supadata (private research store, paraphrased and attributed, not republished). All figures and characterizations as stated by the speakers.