Federal Government Attack on California Public Lands

The Trump Administration is notorious for wanting to sell off public lands and has threatened to undo federal protections of some public lands in California. For example, the federal Bureau of Land Management reversed an Obama Administration decision to withhold 1.3 million acres public land in California from mining, including areas near Joshua Tree National Park and Death Valley National Park. In Utah, Interior Secretary Zinke proposed to eliminate Bear’s Ears National Monument, a decision now in litigation by NRDC and others.

Last year, Governor Brown signed in to law, SB 50 by California Senator Ben Allen, with NRDC’s strong support. SB 50 is designed to give California a chance to keep public lands public by giving the State Lands Commission a chance to buy public lands in California that the federal government is putting up for sale. This bill does not stop the feds from selling public lands, nor will it cost them a nickel because the bill gives California a right of first refusal under whatever terms the feds set out.

Here is an example of how that would work. Suppose Alice owns a home and Bob has the right of first refusal if she sells it. She puts it on the market for $1 million (it’s a California house!). So Bob has a choice: he can pay her the $1 million she is asking, or pass on buying her house and she can sell it to someone else for the $1 million. Either way, Alice gets the same price.

But—on the same day that EPA Secretary Scott Pruitt announced a federal attack on California’s clean car standards, the federal government filed a lawsuit challenging SB 50 in federal court in Sacramento. The lawsuit asserts that SB 50 is preempted under federal law and violates the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution. Senator Allen tweeted:

People in California don’t want to see public lands sold off to oil and mining interests. NRDC stands with Californians and we urge Attorney General Xavier Becerra to strongly oppose the federal government’s claims, continuing his fight against Trump Administration violations of the law. Californians deserve no less.