SALT LAKE CITY— The Trump administration and the state of Utah today announced an agreement to assert Utah’s control over 8 million acres of national forests while cutting public oversight and weakening environmental reviews. The agreement sets the stage for vastly expanded commercial logging as well as state control and management over a host of national forest resources, including minerals, recreation and grazing.

Today’s announcement marks a significant escalation in Utah officials’ long-held goal of wresting control, and ultimately ownership, of public land from the American people.

“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.”

The agreement creates a “shared framework” that shifts significant decision-making power to the state, expands logging and cements state influence in federal forest management decisions while limiting public participation.

“Utahns love our national forests — from the Uinta-Wasatch-Cache to the Manti-La Sal to the Dixie — and the incredible opportunities they provide for recreating with family and friends, often right out our back doors. It’s essential that our national forests remain in public hands and are not handed over to the state of Utah for short-term gain or other forms of destructive mismanagement,” said Steve Bloch, legal director at the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance. “We fear that the new agreement unveiled today does exactly that: It sets the stage for Utah officials to have both a heavy hand and the loudest voice in how our national forests are managed, crowding out all other stakeholders. That’s not how this is supposed to work, and we’ll be watching closely to see how the agreement plays out on the ground.”

“The Shared Stewardship Agreement is nothing more than a sneaky way to clearcut roadless areas in national forests in Utah,” said Mike Garrity, executive director of the Alliance for the Wild Rockies. “Roadless areas provide clean drinking water and function as biological strongholds for populations of threatened and endangered species. ”

U.S. Sen. Mike Lee’s repeated efforts to sell off public lands have failed, uniting Americans across party lines to defend their shared national heritage. Today’s agreement shifts control of public forests toward industry and privatization.

The agreement was crafted by the Trump administration and the state of Utah without public input. It follows a closed-door meeting between Utah politicians and Department of the Interior officials last month, where Utah reportedly pressed for increased off-road vehicle use, paving a backcountry road and eliminating timed entry and other permit systems, all while attempting to maximize visitation in already overburdened national parks. It also follows the Trump administration’s June 2025 proposal to roll back the Roadless Rule, which cited Utah as a test case to justify opening wild public forests to logging, roads and industrial development.

“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 approach mirrors a familiar pattern of attempting to shift control of federal public lands — in which every American has an equal interest — to the state. We call on both the Forest Service and the state of Utah to act transparently and to engage the public in open, meaningful discussions about the future of our shared public lands.”

Montana and Idaho recently finalized similar state-federal agreements handing significant decision-making power over to the states. Utah’s agreement pushes the approach further by explicitly empowering state influence over recreation and grazing uses on national forests — a significant expansion beyond the timber-focused frameworks in Montana and Idaho.