"Project 2025" aims to liquidate all public land under the guise of addressing the housing crisis.

 This wouldn't address housing issues, but it would certainly enrich them further.

 

I'm not a big fan of our current political landscape. Take from that what you will, but among the myriad of issues on the table, the one I feel compelled to address is the issue of public lands.

If you haven't guessed from my previous coverage, I'm firmly pro-public lands. I use them frequently to hike, fish, hunt, dirt bike, and ride both ATVs and UTVs, just like millions of Americans do each year.

Lately, however, we've been outmatched by developers, so-called conservation groups, and vulture mining and logging capitalists who don't care about the world's natural beauty or the importance of keeping these lands pristine and accessible to the public. These groups would rather deprive state and federal land agencies of resources and then sell off those lands to the highest bidder.

 

Recently, the architects of the 'Project 2025' Republican playbook proposed a radical idea: selling off all public land held by federal and state governments to "solve the housing crisis." This proposal, while superficially appealing, is deeply flawed.

Who wouldn't want to address an issue that has left millions of Americans struggling to find housing? It's not my intention to target Republicans specifically, as Democrats have also sold public land to dubious entities and contributed to the housing crisis. However, the core problem with the Project 2025 proposal is that it wouldn't solve anything.

In fact, it would likely exacerbate the situation, enriching those who are already extraordinarily wealthy while doing nothing to alleviate the housing shortage. It's a scam, a blatant exploitation of the American people and their legacy of preserving the environment for future generations.

William Perry Pendley, who wrote the Department of the Interior section of the Project 2025 playbook, recently shared his views on solving the housing crisis in The Washington Examiner. The article, titled "Solve the housing crisis by selling government land," attempts to present public lands as underutilized resources that could be transformed into housing.

Pendley points out that a third of the nation's land is owned by the federal government, suggesting that changing this ownership pattern could benefit housing developers and, ultimately, the American people. He references former President Trump's call to release more public land to developers to create new "Freedom Cities" in what were once public lands, presenting this as a solution for aspiring homeowners.

However, this narrative is misleading. It ignores the fact that selling off public lands wouldn't address the fundamental issues driving the housing crisis. Instead, it would likely lead to further concentration of land ownership among wealthy investors and developers, making housing even more unaffordable for average Americans.

In short, the Project 2025 proposal is a smokescreen, designed to benefit the wealthy at the expense of the public and our cherished natural heritage.

 The housing crisis we're currently experiencing isn't due to a lack of space for new developments. The primary issues are corporate buy-ups of single-family homes, inflation driven by corporate greed, and stagnant wages that haven’t kept pace with this inflation.

Other significant factors include personal, educational, and medical debt. However, the main culprits are the three aforementioned issues, which selling off our public lands wouldn't resolve.

Investors have been aggressively purchasing homes across the country, aiming to flip them for substantial profits. Approximately 26% of single-family homes were bought by investors in 2023, a trend that has remained steady since 2019, according to CoreLogic. During this period, the median home price increased by 54%.

Renting has also seen massive increases, with prices rising by 30.4% in the same timeframe. Beyond corporate buy-ups of rental buildings, there are allegations that landlords may have colluded in price-fixing schemes to raise rents, now under federal investigation.

These price hikes in both homeownership and renting have occurred while wages have stagnated and failed to keep up with inflation. Corporations have raised prices across the board, outpacing inflation, to boost their profits. As a result, not only are homes and rentals more expensive, but so is everything else, while wages remain insufficient.

Where does that leave Project 2025’s proposal? Even without considering investors buying homes to flip for profit and landlords aiming to maximize rent, the reality is that it’s becoming increasingly difficult for the average American to afford a house.

You might think building more homes would be a good solution, but the situation is more complex. Currently, 15.4 million homes are unoccupied. Some are vacation homes or need significant repairs, but many are simply being held by homeowners, investors, and flippers waiting for higher profits. It's cheaper for them to let these homes sit empty than to sell at a lower profit margin.

Unregulated housing projects wouldn't solve this problem. In fact, selling off public lands to the same investors who have caused these issues would likely exacerbate them. These investors would probably buy the new homes, leading to further inventory issues and pricing these new homes out of people's budgets.

Not only would inventory still be controlled by greedy investors, but we would also lose our public lands, worsening the situation in every conceivable way.

There are a few bills and proposals in Congress aimed at addressing vacant homes and investor-led price gouging, but given the political climate of the past two decades, it’s hard to be optimistic about their progress. Bipartisan action to help the American public seems unlikely.

Additionally, the environmental consequences of selling off public lands would be disastrous. The same proponents of this idea have previously sought to strip mine Alaska’s pristine wild areas. It’s also worth noting that Pendley was ousted from the Department of the Interior under Trump for holding the job illegally without Senate confirmation.

As I’ve expressed in previous columns, I find Pendley’s beliefs and arguments utterly reprehensible. His proposal does nothing to solve the housing crisis and would tarnish our nation’s tradition of preserving wild places.

Losing public lands would mean losing access to rivers for fishing, woods for hunting, deserts for riding, and vast open landscapes for enjoyment. Instead, we’d see more strip malls, unoccupied homes, parking lots, and toxic mining operations. The few who would benefit from this plan would see minor financial gains, while the rest of us lose invaluable natural spaces.

Regardless of political affiliation, we all stand to lose if we don't protect our wild places from exploitative interests like Pendley’s.