Yesterday, January 8, 2025, the state of Utah and the Trump administration signed a 20-year agreement that gives Utah significant control over its 8 million acres of U.S. Forest Service lands.

You read that right.

Signed by Utah Governor Spencer Cox and U.S. Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz, this agreement is being sold as “shared stewardship.” Don’t be fooled by what that actually means.

In reality, it represents something far more troubling: a quiet but consequential erosion of federal authority over America’s national forests, and with it, the public’s ability to shape the future of lands that belong to all Americans—not just residents of Utah.

Although Utah has had a partnership with the Forest Service since 2019, this deal goes way beyond those older agreements.

At its core, this new deal hands Utah unprecedented influence over how millions of acres of national forest land are managed—lands that are not Utah’s to control, but the collective inheritance of the American people—including over uses like logging, grazing, and watershed management.

National forests exist because Congress made a deliberate choice more than a century ago to place certain landscapes under federal stewardship, insulating them from short-term political pressure, extractive interests, and the uneven priorities of individual states.

They were created specifically to save forests from clear-cutting and to safeguard watersheds against pollution.

That principle is now being chipped away under the guise of cooperation.

The memorandum of understanding between the U.S. Forest Service and Utah may not formally transfer ownership, but it does something nearly as consequential: it shifts power.

It allows state officials to shape priorities for logging, grazing, mining coordination, recreation infrastructure, and even wildlife and water management on federal lands—areas that federal law has long required to be managed through transparent, science-based processes with robust public involvement.

By elevating state preferences inside federal decision-making, the agreement risks sidelining national environmental standards in favor of local political agendas.

That risk is not theoretical.

Utah has spent decades pressing for greater control over federal lands, often framing national forests and Bureau of Land Management lands as economic assets waiting to be unlocked rather than ecological systems meant to be stewarded for future generations.

The state has repeatedly challenged federal authority in court, lobbied for land transfers, and aligned itself with industries that benefit from fewer safeguards and faster permitting. Against that backdrop, it’s difficult to view this agreement as neutral or benign.

Let’s not forget that Utah is the state that has spawned several vehemently anti-public-lands politicians like Representative Jason Chaffetz and Senator Mike Lee. (Current Representatives Mark Amodei and Celeste Maloy are worth keeping an eye on, too.)

What makes this move especially dangerous is how it undermines public accountability.

Federal land management is governed by laws like the National Environmental Policy Act, which require environmental review, public notice, and opportunities for citizens—regardless of where they live—to weigh in.

When decision-making authority drifts toward state governments, crucial national guardrails weaken. The public process becomes narrower, quieter, easier to bypass. What should be a national conversation about forests, water, wildlife, and climate resilience risks becoming a backroom negotiation shaped by state politics and industry influence.

“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.

“Gov. Cox is once again conducting business with the federal government behind closed doors, with little or no advance notice, bypassing meaningful public involvement. These stewardship agreements will accelerate large timber cutting projects, degrade habitats in roadless areas, and authorize other activities that lack broad national support.”

This mirrors exactly what happened in Utah on December 1 last year. On that day, state and local officials met behind closed doors with Interior Department officials to discuss giving Utah more control over national park sites.

While the results of that particular meeting remain unclear, the state has now effectively gained more control over its national forests.

Again, as this new development shows, all our public lands and waters, regardless of their designation or who manages them, have a bull’s eye on them.

Supporters of the agreement argue that states understand local conditions better and can act more quickly, particularly in addressing wildfire risk. But federal agencies already work actively and closely with states, tribes, and local governments on forest health and fire mitigation.

Collaboration is not the problem. The problem is when collaboration becomes a pretext for ceding authority—when “partnership” starts to mean federal agencies deferring to state priorities rather than upholding national laws and public trust responsibilities.

Wildfire, climate change, and forest resilience are real challenges.

They demand serious, science-driven solutions. But accelerating logging projects, loosening oversight, and weakening federal review do not automatically make forests safer.

In many cases, it does the opposite—fragmenting habitat, degrading watersheds, and increasing long-term ecological vulnerability. Roadless areas, which are among the most intact and fire-resilient parts of the national forest system, are particularly at risk when states like Utah gain more influence over management decisions.

In fact, when the Department of Agriculture, which oversees the Forest Service, announced its rescission of the Roadless Rule on June 23 last year, the first state it mentioned was Utah.

“Rescinding this rule will remove prohibitions on road construction, reconstruction, and timber harvest on nearly 59 million acres of the National Forest System, allowing for fire prevention and responsible timber production,” the announcement said.

“This rule is overly restrictive and poses real harm to millions of acres of our national forests. […] For example, nearly 60% of forest service land in Utah is restricted from road development and is unable to be properly managed for fire risk.

This agreement also sets a dangerous precedent beyond Utah. If one state can gain expanded control over national forests through executive agreements rather than congressional debate, others will follow. In fact, Utah isn’t even the first state to sign this kind of agreement with the Forest Service.

I should point out that both Montana and Idaho signed similar agreements last year, respectively on June 30 and on December 5.

The Idaho agreement, it is worth noting, will double the state’s timber production on national forest land over the next five years.

Both of those “shared stewardship” agreements flew entirely under the radar—attention was focused almost entirely on either Mike Lee’s attempted public land sales or on the face of Donald Trump on the America the Beautiful Pass.

If more states follow this example, the result would be a piecemeal unraveling of the national forest system, where protections vary from state to state, and federal stewardship becomes a hollow concept.

That’s not how national forests were meant to work. They were created precisely to ensure consistency, permanence, and protection beyond local political cycles.

National forests are not state forests.

They’re not revenue engines designed to balance budgets or appease local industries. They’re living systems that provide clean water to millions of people, store carbon, sustain wildlife, and offer places of refuge, recreation, and renewal—and yes, some timber as well.

Their primary value lies not just in what can be extracted from them, though, but in what they protect, preserve, and provide: clean air, clear water, fauna and flora, peace and quiet, mental health, and memories created with friends and family.

At a time when public lands are under mounting pressure—from climate change, political polarization, and renewed efforts to privatize or devolve federal authority—this agreement moves the country entirely in the wrong direction.

“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,” said Laiken Jordahl, national public lands advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity.

“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.”

Thanks for reading and for helping to protect our public lands and waters!

See you out there,

Bram

Share