2025’s Most Dangerous Lawmaker for Public Lands

The paper trail behind a yearlong effort to force public land sales

In 2025, the United States came within inches of selling off millions of acres of its public lands through Congress.

Not through a public debate. Not through a vote anyone remembers. Through procedural language, buried in must-pass bills, written to move fast and leave no fingerprints.

That effort did not fail because it was rejected on principle. It failed because people noticed in time.

This award exists for the person who pushed that effort further than anyone else. Who kept trying different doors when the first one closed. Who treated public land protections as a solvable problem.