Beware the Dangerous Lie of “Unused” Public Land

When politicians call it empty, they’re telling you what they want to take.

Mike Lee has a word he likes.

When he stood up the proposal to sell 2 to 3 million acres of public land last summer, he didn’t call it a fire sale or a giveaway. He called it the disposal of “unused, garden-variety federal parcels.” He told Glenn Beck that the federal government owns “640 million acres of land” and that “the vast majority of that land has zero recreational value.”

The Interior Secretary uses a different word. Doug Burgum prefers “balance sheet.” At his confirmation hearing he pegged the value of America’s federal land at between $1 and $2 trillion and suggested that developing public land could help pay down the national debt. At an energy industry conference in March 2025 he said if the Interior Department were a stand-alone company, it would have “the largest balance sheet in the world, bar none.” The HUD secretary calls federal land “underutilized.” The Trump administration’s joint task force was named for finding “underutilized federal lands suitable for residential…