No Park-ing: The Great American Sell-Off

By Rob C.

Art by Pat Bagley

TL;DR: The “Stable McGenius” and his corporate handlers are putting a “For Sale” sign on your national Parks and Monuments. You know those places we want to go but can’t afford to because of gas prices. From the “Big Ugly Bill” that mandates oil leases in our backyard to Senator Mike Lee’s crusade to liquidate 3 million acres of federal land, the Department of the Interior has been turned into a clearance rack for the “Epstein Class.” While they gut the National Park Service staff and prepare to strip-mine the deep sea, they’re also logging the very old-growth forests that keep our climate stable. It’s not just a land grab—it’s a move to “own the weather” itself. But the mid-terms are coming, and the “No Parking” signs are about to be torn down.

Good morning. If you were planning on taking the family to a National Park this summer, you might want to check if it’s been replaced by a fracking rig or a strip mine.

The Department of the Interior (DOI) is the custodian of our collective soul—managing over 500 million acres of federal land, including the wildlife refuges and parks that define this country. They oversee 1.7 billion acres of the Outer Continental Shelf and the water that keeps 17 western states from turning into dust bowls.

But under the current regime, the DOI isn’t a protector; it’s an auctioneer.

The Big Bogus Energy Emergency

Remember when Trump said he’d “drain the swamp”? Turns out he meant drain the national parks and sell the land to oil companies.

On day one, Trump declared a phony “energy emergency”—despite the U.S. being the world’s largest oil producer and completely energy independent—as an excuse to hand over public lands to his fossil fuel donors. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum immediately started rubber-stamping drilling permits like he was getting paid per approval. (Spoiler: he probably is, just indirectly through the revolving door.)

Here’s the scam in one perfect example: During the October-November 2025 government shutdown, tens of thousands of park rangers and land managers were furloughed. Parks operated with skeleton crews. Trails went unmaintained. Wildlife went unprotected. But guess what didn’t stop? Doug Burgum approving drilling permits. Over 600 permits and 37 new oil and gas leases while park staff sat at home unpaid.

That’s not stewardship. That’s a protection racket. Shut down the government, fire the cops, let the burglars have the run of the place.

Then came H.R. 1, or what we’re calling the “Big Ugly Bill.” This legislative nightmare: Mandates at least 28 oil and gas lease sales every year across nine states, regardless of demand. Slashes National Park Service funding while reducing federal royalty rates for oil companies from 16.67% to 12.5%. Because we don’t need the money for schools or anything.

Will Sell Parks For Cash

Senator Mike Lee of Utah deserves special recognition for being the most brazen grifter in this whole operation. In June 2025, Lee introduced a provision to the “One Big Ugly Bill” that would have forced the sale of 3.2 million acres of public land. The backlash was so immediate and bipartisan that even Trump pretended he’d never heard of it. Burgum claimed “nobody is really spending much time thinking about it.”

Except emails prove Interior staffers were helping Lee write the sales pitch. They provided talking points. They offered guidance. They coordinated on how to sell America’s birthright to corporate polluters. Then they lied about it.

Lee, undeterred by pesky things like “public opinion,” tried again in December with Amendment #3972—a provision that would strip language requiring national parks to remain federal land. Read that again: he wanted to remove the legal requirement that Yellowstone, Yosemite, and the Grand Canyon stay public.

After two days of outrage, Lee withdrew it and claimed he “categorically opposes selling national parks.” Sure, Mike. You just keep accidentally proposing it. Oopsie.

Deepwater Horizon: The Sequel

The destruction isn’t limited to dry land, Trump wants to drill under the ocean too. In April 2025, Trump signed the Executive Order “Unleashing America’s Offshore Critical Minerals and Resources”. This is a play to jumpstart Deep-Sea Mining (DSM)—a process so expensive and ecologically devastating that no commercial-scale operation exists anywhere on Earth.

Let that sink in: No one is doing this. Anywhere. Because it’s expensive, untested, and scientists say it will devastate ecosystems we barely understand. But Trump sees untapped profit, so he’s giving away our oceans to mining companies willing to destroy the seafloor for rare earth minerals. He sees the ocean floor as the next frontier for the “Epstein Class” to loot.

The Metals Company—a Canadian corporation—submitted the first-ever application to mine the Clarion-Clipperton Zone in the Pacific. That’s an 18-million-acre area that borders national marine sanctuaries set aside for unique biodiversity. American Samoa’s governor opposes it because it would destroy fisheries central to Samoan culture and economy.

Trump doesn’t care. He’s got minerals to extract and oceans to ruin. What’s the worst that could happen? I mean, besides another Deepwater Horizon-style disaster that kills workers, devastates coastlines, and costs billions in damage.

Oh wait. That did happen. And now Trump’s genius squad wants a redo.

The Quiet Part Out Loud

Trump’s 2026 budget proposal is where the grift gets explicitly stated. The White House wanted to cut $1.2 billion from the National Park Service—a cut so deep it would have forced the elimination of more than 300 national park units.

The justification? These sites are “not ‘national parks’ in the traditionally understood sense” and should be “transferred to state-level management.”

Translation: We want to sell them, but “national park” makes that politically difficult. So let’s call them something else, dump them on broke states, and wait for those states to sell to developers.

It’s the same playbook as charter schools and privatized prisons: defund the public option, let it collapse, claim government doesn’t work, hand it to corporations.

Meanwhile, national monuments like Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante—areas with sacred Indigenous sites and unique geological formations—are being “right-sized.” That’s corporate-speak for “shrunk so oil companies can drill on the parts we’re cutting.”

The Project 2025 Endgame

None of this is secret. It’s all in Chapter 16 of Project 2025, written by William Perry Pendley—a man who does not believe public lands should exist and who served illegally as acting BLM director during Trump’s first term.

Pendley’s vision: Strip Interior down to the studs. Fire everyone who protects land. Keep just enough staff to rubber-stamp permits. Let oil companies, mining corporations, and cattle ranchers run wild. Privatize everything.

And it’s working. Staffing at the Park Service is down 25% after mass layoffs. The Roadless Rule protecting old-growth forests like the Tongass—the largest intact temperate rainforest in the world—has been rolled back. Logging companies are clearcutting forests that took thousands of years to grow so they can sell timber now.

The Tongass alone absorbs massive amounts of CO2. It’s a carbon sink fighting climate change. But Trump’s letting it get clearcut because timber profits matter more than a livable planet.

This is the Epstein class endgame: privatize everything, extract all value, externalize all costs. They want to own the parks. The forests. The oceans. The minerals. The water. As I wrote in Democracy for Sale, they even want to own the weather through privatization and climate tech.

Nothing is sacred. Everything is for sale.

Here’s the thing: Republicans know they’re losing the midterms.

That’s why they’re rushing to approve drilling permits during shutdowns. Why Mike Lee keeps trying to sneak land sales into must-pass bills. Why Trump is fast-tracking deep-sea mining for an industry that doesn’t exist.

They have until November 2026 to loot as much as possible. After that, a Democratic Congress will stop the grift, restore protections, and investigate the corruption at Interior.

Over two-thirds of Americans oppose selling public lands. National parks had 332 million visitors in 2024. Outdoor recreation on BLM lands generates $250 billion annually. These lands are wildly popular and economically valuable as public resources.

But they’re even more valuable to oil executives, mining CEOs, and timber barons if they can buy them cheap and extract everything.

So Republicans are having a fire sale. Everything must go! National parks! Old-growth forests! The ocean floor! Get it before the voters notice!

But here is the ray of hope: they are getting desperate. They know that as soon as they lose the mid-term elections, this “Great American Sell-Off” hits a brick wall. They are trying to loot the vault before the lights come on, but “We the People” are still standing guard.

F*CK ICE, RELEASE ALL THE FILES!

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— Robert Cain, author of Democracy for Sale: How Corporate Greed Is Corrupting Democracy and Endangering the Planet.

Visit us at: democracy4sale.substack.com / democracy4sale.com