Public land is asked to do more, for more people, than at any time in our history, and most of us have never been asked what we think. This memo essentially asks, is this the best we can do for future generations. When we expect a visitor to leave a campsite better than they found it, what should we expect of a company that has used a thousand acres? This memo proposes a both-steps-forward plan: when a project on public land ends, the site becomes a new place for people and wildlife, designed with the people nearby and paid for by the company and by taxpayers together.
I got to know the bill. I read what the critics and supporters had to say, considered the context, and thought about how these things come about. I thought there might be room for one more voice, one more point of view, maybe even one more idea. This is Tymmber Outdoor Memo 023. Let me know what you think.
If you hike, camp, fish, hunt, ride or simply like being outside now and then, this memo is written for you. You do not need to know anything about land law to read it, and nothing in it assumes you have followed these debates before.
What is going on. About 28 percent of the country is federal land, which means it belongs to all of us [37]. Two decisions that affect it are open right now. Congress is considering a 417-page bill that would make it faster and safer for companies to get permits for energy and mining projects [1]. Separately, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has proposed ending the Roadless Rule, a 2001 rule that limits new roads and logging on roughly 44.7 million acres of national forest [27][29]. Groups on different sides of these questions have been arguing about both in recent months and in some cases for decades. The two decisions run on separate legal tracks, one in Congress and one at USDA. They appear together because both change what happens on public land and who gets heard.
Why it matters to you. What gets built, drilled, cut or closed on public land decides where you can go, what wildlife will be there when you arrive, and who pays to clean up when a project ends. Those decisions shape your next trip and the one your grandchildren take.
What happens if most of us stay quiet. A small number of organizations speak for everyone else. In the Roadless Rule public comment record, about 71 percent of entries came from 49 organizations [4]. Those organizations may be sincere, and many are, but they speak for their members and their funders. The 183.2 million Americans who spent time outdoors last year [5] are mostly not in that record.
What happens if more of us speak. A public comment is not a vote, and agencies say so themselves [48]. What counts is the reasoning and the real-world experience in it: how you use a place, what you have seen change, what a decision would cost you or your town. Agencies must respond to relevant and significant comments, and a court can send a decision back if they do not [48]. In close decisions, a few hundred clear, specific comments from people who use the land can change which way an outcome goes. That is the sense in which your involvement decides whether it goes one way or the other.
What this memo asks. It proposes that when a mine, a well field or an energy project stops for any reason, the land should become a new place for people and wildlife, designed with the people who live nearby and paid for by both the company and taxpayers. It also asks how we got here, who has been speaking for us, and what we are leaving to the people who are not born yet. You can read it in order, or use the list below to jump to the question you care about most.
Where to find what. Each line below is a question you might be asking. Select it to go straight to the section that answers it.
A few terms used in this memo.
People who care about public land use four labels that sound alike but mean different things: conservationist, preservationist, environmentalist and capitalist. You do not have to choose one. Most people hold parts of several, and knowing the difference makes it easier to see why a disagreement is happening and where agreement is possible.
| Label | The core idea | An example from history |
|---|---|---|
| Conservationist | Use natural resources, and use them in a way that keeps them available. | Gifford Pinchot, the first chief of the U.S. Forest Service and an adviser to President Theodore Roosevelt, wrote in his 1899 Primer of Forestry that "the fundamental idea in forestry is that of perpetuation by wise use" [59]. He also described conservation as "the greatest good, for the greatest number, for the longest run" [58]. |
| Preservationist | Leave some places wild and apart from commercial use. | John Muir, the founder of the Sierra Club, wanted some wild places left untouched [58][59]. The Wilderness Act of 1964 later wrote the idea into law [54]. |
| Environmentalist | Protect people and the natural world from pollution and harm, in cities and on farms as well as on public land. | The modern movement grew around the first Earth Day in 1970, when organizers say twenty million Americans took part. Congress authorized the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that December [60]. |
| Capitalist | Land and resources are best put to work through ownership, investment, prices and enterprise. | The Property and Environment Research Center says it creates "innovative conservation solutions through markets and incentives" [57]. Many outdoor businesses, including Tymmber Outdoor, are part of this tradition. |
Where they work together. Pinchot and Muir respected each other and disagreed about how to treat the land, and Roosevelt tried to honor both views [59]. The same pattern shows up in the funding record. Hunters and shooters, acting as consumers, pay the excise tax that restores habitat for game and non-game species alike [50]. A plan that returns a closed mine to a stable condition appeals to all four views for different reasons: the conservationist sees land that can be used again, the preservationist sees land returned to nature, the environmentalist sees a cleanup that was paid for, and the capitalist sees a cost that was known at the start.
Where the tension is real. These disagreements do not go away when people are well informed,.
Where do you fit? Which of these sentences sounds most like you: "use it, but don't use it up"; "some places should stay wild"; "clean air and water come first"; "people with a stake in a place take better care of it"? Most readers find that their answer changes with the place and the question. That is a good place to start a comment to an agency or a letter to your senator, because it says what you value and why.
These labels simplify. People and groups would describe themselves in their own words, and we invite them to correct how my memo describes them.
The same four views show up in the rules people follow when they visit. Three standards are in common use, and they ask different things of us.
| Standard | What it asks | In its own words | Where it stops |
|---|---|---|---|
| No footprint | Leave no human mark at all. | The Wilderness Act describes a place where "man himself is a visitor who does not remain" [54]. | It fits places designated wild. It does not describe land that has already been disturbed. |
| Leave No Trace | Keep your own impact small so the next visitor finds the place as you did. | Its seven principles include "Travel & Camp on Durable Surfaces" and "Leave What You Find" [61]. Tread Lightly! promotes "the responsible use of motorized vehicles when recreating outdoors" [62]. | It prevents new damage by visitors. It does not repair old damage or address what an industrial project leaves behind. |
| Leave it better than you found it | Repair and improve the place, not only avoid harming it. | In 1910 Theodore Roosevelt, then a former president, called the central task "leaving this land even a better land for our descendants than it is for us" [26]. | "Better" has to be judged by someone, and improving a place usually takes work that leaves a mark. |
What this shows. Each standard fits a different scale. Leave No Trace is a good rule for a weekend trip. No footprint is a good rule for a place that is still wild. Neither applies to land where the trace is already there, such as a closed mine or an abandoned well pad. For that land, only the third standard makes sense.
The gap between a visitor and a project. Leave No Trace works because it is a short, shared, voluntary code that people learn and pass on. Projects on public land have no equivalent. A hiker is asked to pack out a wrapper, and a project can leave a disturbance that is measured in acres. The proposal in Section 10 is a way to hold a project to the standard we try to hold ourselves to: a plan on file, money set aside, and a steward who is accountable for leaving the place better.
Where they conflict, and where they agree. A trailhead on a restored mine site is an improvement to a recreation user and a footprint to a person who holds the no-footprint standard. The plan for each site would need to say which parts of the land are for people and which are for nature alone. All three standards share one aim, which is that the next person finds the place in good shape. Leave No Trace and Tread Lightly! already teach versions of the second standard to non-motorized and motorized visitors alike [61][62], so the idea has a base in the people this memo is addressed to.
If we expect a visitor to leave a campsite better than they found it, what should we expect of a company that has used a thousand acres?
This memo proposes that outdoor recreation become the named beneficiary whenever a permitted project on public land ends, for any reason. The proposal has four parts: a restoration and reuse plan filed with the permit, automatic triggers when a project stops, shared funding from the sponsor and the public, and a recreation or wildlife area designated for the site. A short wildlife statement prepared by a regional university would accompany each permit.
The people who use public lands are largely absent from the decisions made about them. In 2025, 183.2 million Americans took part in outdoor recreation [5]. About 1.2 million entries were filed in the 2026 Roadless Rule docket, and organizations account for most of them [3]. Decisions are framed in terms a court can decide, such as comment deadlines, direct harm and standards of review [1][2].
The Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act of 2026 protects a project sponsor's investment in detail. It does not say what the land becomes if a project stops [1]. Wildlife recovery and abandoned-mine cleanup show that user-funded programs can work, and that bonds and taxes fall short when they are not indexed or when they lapse [9][14][15][20][21].
BlueRibbon Coalition and More Than Just Parks disagree about the Roadless Rule. Each cites recreation as a reason for its position, and this memo invites both to review it and to consider a shared table [3][27][28]. The memo closes with a question for Americans not yet born.
Projects on public land are approved for economic reasons. This memo proposes that the site's next use be judged the same way, as outdoor economic development, and that it be planned at permit time instead of after the project ends.
The memo is organized as follows. Section 1 and Section 2 describe how decisions about public land have been made and what the land is asked to provide. Section 3 and Section 4 explain how bird populations fell and how game populations recovered, and where the money went. Section 5 reviews earlier attempts to fund care for the land. Section 6 covers the decisions now open. Section 7 and Section 8 describe special interest groups, what we should be able to see about them, and how the weight of different voices might be matched to the question being decided. Section 9 introduces the two groups, Section 10 the proposal and Section 11 a New Mexico test case. Section 12 asks what we owe the people who come after us.
Decisions about public land have long been shaped by a small number of organized parties, and the process rewards those who can work in a courtroom's terms. This section traces how that came about and what the numbers show today.
The statutes. Some of the laws that govern public land date to the 1800s. The Mining Law of 1872 is still one of the statutes the pending bill names in its definition of an authorization (§2201) [1]. The National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 added review and public comment to federal decisions, and the pending bill changes how that review can be challenged in court [1].
The courts. In Sierra Club v. Morton (1972), the Supreme Court held that the Sierra Club lacked standing to challenge Forest Service permits for a resort in Mineral King Valley. The Court accepted that noneconomic harm, such as damage to scenery and wildlife, can count as an injury, but required the club to show that its members were affected [2]. In dissent, Justice Douglas wrote that people who hike, fish or sit in solitude in these places could speak for them [2]. Later cases broadened standing in 1973 and 1978, and narrowed it in 1990, when plaintiffs had to show that members used the specific lands involved [2].
The pending bill. The bill continues in the same direction. A challenger to a NEPA decision must file within 150 days, must have submitted a substantive, detailed comment, and must show direct harm. The only remedy a court may order is a remand (§111) [1]. When an agency acts to revoke or change a permit, §1401 gives the sponsor or permit holder a district court venue and places the burden of proof on the agency by clear and convincing evidence. The text provides nothing comparable for other parties [1].
The numbers.
| Measure | Figure | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Americans taking part in outdoor recreation, 2025 | 183.2 million, 59% of those aged six and over | [5] |
| Outdoor recreation share of U.S. gross domestic product (GDP), 2024 | 2.4% ($696.7 billion) | [6] |
| Entries in the 2026 Roadless Rule docket | 1,197,510 (1,018,644 after identified duplicates) | [3][4] |
| Share of entries traced to 49 named organizations | About 71% | [3] |
| Organizations and governments that filed positions | 454 | [3] |
| Docket entries per recreation participant (our calculation) | About 1 per 153, or 0.65% | [3][5] |
Docket entries are not unique people, so the last row is an upper bound on individual participation. The same sources report that people are going outdoors less often than before 2020, even as the number of participants rises [5].
Organizations do necessary work. They read 417-page bills, track dockets and bring cases. BlueRibbon Coalition asks readers to join and to donate to a legal fund [28], and More Than Just Parks built a comment tool with the Sierra Club [3]. Most users therefore reach a decision through an intermediary. That is a feature of the process, and it applies to groups on every side.
What would a process look like in which the 183 million people who use these lands could see what is proposed near them, and what the land becomes afterward?
In plain terms. For most of the last century, the rules for public land were shaped by a small number of agencies, organizations and courts, and most people who use the land were not in the room. That was rarely because they did not care. The process was hard to enter and nobody explained it. It does have open doors, such as public comment periods, but very few people use them. If you use them, you are speaking on behalf of a large group that has so far been mostly silent.
Public land is asked to do many jobs at once. It holds wildlife, supplies energy, minerals, timber and forage, pays for rural governments, and gives most of the country a place to walk, hunt, fish, ride and rest. This section sets out each of those demands as they stood roughly a century ago and as they stand now. The question that follows is whether the care we give the land has kept pace with what we ask of it.
People. The Census Bureau counted 76.2 million residents in 1900, 151.3 million in 1950, 203.3 million in 1970, 281.4 million in 2000 and 331.4 million in 2020 [36]. The federal government manages about 640 million acres, roughly 28 percent of the country, and New Mexico holds 24.58 million of them, 31.6 percent of the state [37]. Holding today's acreage constant for the sake of comparison, that is about 8.4 federal acres per resident at the 1900 population and about 1.9 at the 2020 population. Federal acreage has changed over the century, so the figures show the direction of the change and are not a precise historical series. The land base has not grown with the population, and the people using it have more than quadrupled.
Wildlife. The table below keeps the population record from the earlier draft: what the land held 100, 50 and 20 years ago, and what it holds now.
In the figures below, wildlife that had a dedicated, user-paid funding program recovered over the last century, and several open-land species declined. The table gives the numbers at roughly 100, 50 and 20 years ago, as far as the sources allow.
| Group | About 100 years ago | About 50 years ago | About 20 years ago to today | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Elk | 41,000 in North America (1907) | — | More than 1 million (2018) | [7] |
| White-tailed deer | No more than 500,000 (1900) | More than 15 million (1970s) | Nearly 30 million (2011 estimate) | [8] |
| Wild turkey | About 30,000 (1930s) | — | More than 7 million | [9] |
| Bald eagle | — | 417 known nesting pairs, lower 48 (1963) | 71,400 nesting pairs and about 316,700 birds (2020); roughly four times the 2009 population | [10] |
| Ducks and waterbirds | — | 1970 baseline | Ducks up 34% and waterbirds up 18% since 1970 (2022 report) | [12] |
| All North American birds | — | 1970 baseline | About 3 billion fewer birds, more than a quarter of the total; grassland birds down 53%; shorebirds down more than a third | [11] |
| Greater sage-grouse | — | 1966 baseline | Down 78.8% by 2021, and down 41.2% from 2002 to 2021 | [13] |
By our calculation, elk numbers grew about 24 times, white-tailed deer about 60 times, wild turkeys about 230 times, and bald eagle nesting pairs about 170 times from the low points in these sources. The 2022 State of the Birds report also identified 70 species that lost half or more of their populations in 50 years [12].
What recovered. The recoveries in game birds, game animals and waterfowl came alongside specific funding programs. The Pittman-Robertson Act of 1937 taxes firearms, ammunition and archery equipment to fund state wildlife work [9]. The Federal Duck Stamp, begun in 1934, has protected more than 6 million acres of wetland [14]. The State of the Birds report credits waterfowl gains to hunters, landowners, agencies and corporations working through the Duck Stamp, the North American Waterfowl Management Plan and wetlands grants [12].
What declined. Grassland birds, shorebirds and sage-grouse are tied to open land. The U.S. Geological Survey attributes sage-grouse decline to the loss and fragmentation of sagebrush, along with other stressors [13]. These are the landscapes where grazing, energy, mining and recreation overlap.
Limits of the comparison. The figures come from different organizations, methods and years, and are not directly comparable. The deer source credits hunters, but the author notes that regenerating forests and abandoned farm fields also provided habitat [8]. Several figures come from hunting and conservation groups, and the elk and turkey numbers are round estimates. New Mexico species counts from the Department of Game and Fish would strengthen this section.
The pattern is that populations can change by an order of magnitude, upward or downward, within a lifetime.
Energy and the economy. Federal land and water now carry a large share of national energy production. Onshore federal land produced a record 1.7 million barrels of crude oil per day in 2024 and federal offshore waters produced 1.8 million, against 13.2 million for the whole country, and onshore federal land supplied 4.2 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, 11.0 percent of U.S. dry gas [38]. Almost half of U.S. coal comes from federal land, and federal coal revenue was $446.3 million in 2024 [39]. In New Mexico, a chart in the Legislative Finance Committee's royalty report suggests the federal land share of state oil production rose from 52 percent in 2017 to 65 percent in 2022, and the federal government returns half of the royalties from New Mexico production to the state; federal royalties totaled $2.257 billion in fiscal year 2022 (FY22) [46].
Timber has moved the other way. The Forest Service cut more than 12 billion board feet a year in the early 1980s and 2 to 3 billion since FY2004, which is about 2 percent of U.S. wood and paper products as of 2011 [40]. Grazing is a quieter use that touches food supply. In fiscal year 2016 (FY2016) the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) administered 17,830 grazing permits and leases held by 15,852 operators, with 8.7 million animal unit months authorized, and the Forest Service had 6,211 active permits held by 5,779 operators and 6.9 million head-months authorized. About 154.8 million BLM acres and more than 95 million Forest Service acres were available for grazing [41].
New demands are arriving on top of the old ones. Berkeley Lab estimates that data centers used about 4.4 percent of U.S. electricity (176 terawatt-hours, TWh) in 2023 and could use 6.7 to 12 percent (325 to 580 TWh) by 2028 [42]. The bill examined in Section 6 is built to move generation, transmission and mining projects through permitting faster. Minerals and product innovation sit behind much of this demand, and this draft does not quantify them. Their land footprint is a gap to fill before publication.
Communities. Rural governments depend on land they cannot tax. Payments in Lieu of Taxes (PILT) sent $644.8 million to more than 1,900 local governments in 2025 [43]. Mineral royalties are a second channel, and the New Mexico committee describes federal royalties as the most volatile general fund revenue source after severance taxes [46]. Gateway towns depend on visitors, and ranching communities depend on grazing permits. Each of these communities has a stake in what happens on a site after a project ends, and none has a standing seat in the permit that starts it.
Recreation and wellness. The Outdoor Foundation counted 183.2 million participants in 2025, 59 percent of Americans age 6 and older [5]. The National Park Service (NPS) reported 323 million recreation visits in 2025, down 2.7 percent from a record 2024 (about 331.9 million by our arithmetic from the NPS figures) [44]. Outdoor recreation is 2.4 percent of GDP, or $696.7 billion [6]. A study by White and colleagues found that people who spent at least 120 minutes a week in nature reported better health and well-being [47]. Recreation is the one demand on this list that serves nearly every household, and it is the one with the least formal role in land-use decisions.
The table sets a demand indicator beside a care indicator for each use. It is a screening comparison, and each row has caveats noted in the sources.
| What we ask | The demand | The care | Reading |
|---|---|---|---|
| Visits to national parks | 323 million in 2025; record in 2024 [44] | $24.237 billion maintenance backlog at end of FY2025; staffing down 6% FY2017 to FY2025, with a further 13% decline estimated for FY2026 [45] | Use is at historic highs while upkeep trails it |
| Oil and gas from federal land | Record onshore federal crude, 1.7 million barrels a day in 2024 [38] | Federal bond minimums unchanged since the 1950s and 1960s; the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found 84% of sampled bonds likely too small [21] | Cleanup guarantees lag production |
| Hardrock and coal mining | Almost half of U.S. coal from federal land [39] | Coal cleanup funded after the harm through fees that were cut 20% and extended to 2034 [15][16]; hardrock fund proposed in the bill, no restoration standard found [1] | Cleanup is paid for after the harm occurred |
| Wildlife | Habitat shared with 331 million people | Sage-grouse down 78.8% since 1966 [13]; roughly 3 billion fewer birds since 1970 [11]; dedicated funding comes mostly from hunters and shooters [9][14] | Game recovered where funding was dedicated; many open-land species did not |
| Rural communities | PILT reaches more than 1,900 governments [43] | Royalty income is volatile [46] | Dependence is high and income is uneven |
| Recreation | 183.2 million participants [5] | No formal role in the permit or the end-of-life plan (Sections 6 and 10) | The largest user group has the smallest voice |
The pattern across rows is consistent. Where a dedicated, user-paid funding stream exists, as with Pittman-Robertson and the Duck Stamp, the land base and the species it serves have recovered. Where the funding is an annual appropriation or a bond set decades ago, the care has fallen behind the demand. The land is being asked to do more, for more people, with a care budget set for a smaller country. That gap is the case for the proposal in Section 10.
In plain terms. We ask public land to be a home for wildlife, a source of energy and food, a paycheck for rural towns and a place to rest, all for far more people than a century ago. The numbers above do not say that any single use is wrong. They say the care we pay for has not grown with what we ask. The next two sections look at what happened to wildlife when we paid attention and when we did not.
Section 2 reported that North America has about 3 billion fewer birds than in 1970 [11]. Reporting on the 2019 study in Science puts the loss at about 29 percent of the birds in the United States and Canada, and says more than 90 percent of the loss came from 12 groups of common species, including sparrows, warblers, blackbirds and finches [49]. These are mostly not rare birds. They are the birds people see in backyards, fields and roadsides, and each year there are fewer of them.
Cornell ornithologist Ken Rosenberg, quoted in that reporting, and the study's authors point to several causes, and no single one explains the loss [49]:
Grassland birds are down 53 percent since 1970 and shorebirds more than 33 percent [11]. Greater sage-grouse, a bird of the open sagebrush West, fell 78.8 percent between 1966 and 2021 [13].
Where birds came back. Two groups recovered, and both recoveries have a clear cause. Bald eagles and other raptors rebounded after the pesticide dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) was banned. In 1963 there were 417 nesting pairs of bald eagles in the lower 48 states; by 2020 there were about 71,400 pairs [10]. Ducks and geese recovered through wetland protection and restoration [49], and waterfowl are also the birds with a dedicated habitat fund, the Duck Stamp, which has protected more than 6 million acres [14].
What this means. The birds that came back are the ones where someone identified a specific cause and acted on it, and in the waterfowl case also paid for it year after year. The birds still falling are the ones where the cause is spread across millions of small decisions about land, with no single decision-maker and no dedicated payer. The question for this memo is how many of those decisions are about to be made again. Open grassland, sagebrush and shrubland are where many declining species live. We have not found a map that shows how much of that habitat overlaps with land the bill would speed toward development, and a map like that would help everyone involved.
Where projects fit in. Many things reduce bird numbers, and energy and infrastructure projects are one of them. For wind turbines, published estimates range from about 4 to 18 birds killed per turbine per year and 6 to 20 bats, with the numbers varying by location and species and with birds of prey and bats among those most affected [63]. Outdoor cats and cars kill more birds in total than turbines do [49][63]. Every project type changes habitat in some way, including wind, solar, transmission lines, wells and mines.
A permitting bill does not set bird or wildlife populations. What a permit can do is decide whether anyone writes down what is known about the wildlife at a site before the permit is issued. We found no bird, eagle or migratory bird language in the draft of the bill reviewed [1]. Section 10 proposes a short, plain-language wildlife statement for every permit, whatever the project type.
In plain terms. Birds are not disappearing because of one villain. They are disappearing because of many ordinary decisions about land, farming and development, none of which has an owner. The ones that recovered did so because someone took responsibility for one cause and paid to fix it. When a permit is approved or a road is built, those are the kinds of decisions that add up. You have a say in a few of them.
Around 1900, elk had fallen to about 41,000 animals and white-tailed deer to 500,000 or fewer, and wild turkeys numbered about 30,000 in the 1930s [7][8][9]. Today elk are over a million, deer are about 30 million and turkeys are over 7 million [7][8][9]. The recovery had four parts.
The sources reviewed name deer, elk, turkey and pronghorn as species that grew with this funding [50]. They do not separate how much of each increase came from habitat work, legal limits on harvest, or other state actions, and those probably worked together.
What this means. The success was not an accident of nature and it was not only about money. It combined a legal rule (no selling wildlife), a principle (wildlife belongs to everyone), a predictable payer (the people who benefited most) and a plan for spending the money on land and research. It also applies mainly to animals people hunt. Birds and other wildlife that nobody pays to protect did not receive the same attention, which is part of the story in Section 3. In the sources reviewed, we have not found a comparable dedicated funding stream paid by hikers, campers, birders or other recreation users, who number in the tens of millions [5].
In plain terms. The animals that came back did so because for 90 years there has been a steady, dedicated source of money tied to a clear job. Nothing about it was fast or flashy. The proposal in Section 10 borrows that design: a steady source of money, a clear job, and public ownership of the result.
Most of the tools this memo proposes already exist somewhere in federal or New Mexico law, and each has a record of what worked and what did not. The table lists eight, with the lesson each offers.
| Program (year) | How it is funded | Result | Lesson | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Federal Duck Stamp (1934) | Waterfowl hunters aged 16 and over buy an annual stamp | More than $1.3 billion raised; more than 6 million acres of wetland protected; over 98% goes to habitat | A narrow, user-paid fee with one purpose can run for 90 years | [14] |
| Pittman-Robertson Act (1937) | 11% excise tax on long guns, ammunition and archery gear; 10% on handguns | A record $1.2 billion to states in 2023; over $16.9 billion invested in total | Automatic receipts avoid yearly appropriation contests | [9] |
| Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act (1977) | Per-ton coal fee: 22.4 cents surface, 9.6 cents underground, 6.4 cents lignite (2022-2034) | $14.2 billion collected and $6.6 billion granted to states and Tribes through Sept. 30, 2025; the 2021 infrastructure law added $11.3 billion; fee rates were cut 20% | Cleanup is paid for after the harm occurred | [15][16] |
| Railbanking (1983) | Amendment to the National Trails System Act keeps inactive rail corridors intact for interim trail use | More than 26,000 miles of rail-trails | A legal hold on a corridor lets recreation inherit it when the first use ends | [17] |
| Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF, 1964) and Great American Outdoors Act (2020) | LWCF: $900 million a year, mostly from offshore oil and gas fees. Legacy Restoration Fund: $9.5 billion over five years | Senator Heinrich led the 2020 Act; it targets maintenance backlogs at existing sites; the Legacy Restoration Fund is not permanent | Extraction revenue has funded recreation, and temporary or maintenance-only money leaves a gap for new places | [18][19] |
| Superfund taxes (lapsed 1995) | Excise taxes on chemical and petroleum industries | The tax lapsed in 1995 and cleanup lacked funding for much of the next 26 years; chemical taxes were reinstated by the 2021 law, estimated at $14.45 billion over 10 years | If a dedicated source lapses, the public pays | [20] |
| BLM oil and gas bonding | Operator bonds | Minimums of $10,000 per lease, $25,000 statewide and $150,000 nationwide had not changed since the 1950s and 1960s. GAO found 84% of bonds likely too small and an average bond of $2,122 per well in 2018. A 2024 rule raised the minimums to $150,000 and $500,000. A June 2026 proposal would return them to $10,000 and $25,000 | Bonds that are not indexed lose value, and a rollback moves the cost back to the public | [21][22] |
| New Mexico Mining Act (1993) | Operators file a closeout plan and financial assurance large enough for the state to hire a third party to finish reclamation | Reclamation toward a self-sustaining ecosystem, unless it conflicts with an approved post-mining land use or is not feasible | New Mexico already uses a plan-plus-assurance model, and it already allows an approved post-mining land use | [23] |
An advocacy group estimates the potential taxpayer liability from federal oil and gas wells at about $6.2 billion if bond coverage fell back to 2023 levels [22]. That figure is the group's own calculation, not a BLM estimate. The 2021 infrastructure law also set aside $4.7 billion to plug orphaned wells, and reporting in 2025 described the program as paused for review [34].
Abandoned projects on public land are not ignored. Cleanup programs run today, and some of their work shows what a restored site can do.
The scale of the need is larger than these projects. In 2007 the agencies reported an estimated 100,000 abandoned hardrock mine sites on BLM and Forest Service land, an estimate the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found problematic [65]. The same testimony reported about $982 million in bonds in place against about $1.009 billion required on BLM land, and GAO put the shortfall at about $61 million [65]. For oil and gas, GAO estimated that 84 percent of bonds were likely too low to cover reclamation [21].
These programs and this memo answer different questions.
| What happens today | What this memo adds | |
|---|---|---|
| When the plan is made | After a site is closed or abandoned, often years or decades later | With the permit, updated at the midpoint of the term |
| What the work aims for | Safety and a stable site, with wildlife benefits where funds allow | A stable baseline, then a new recreation or wildlife area |
| Who helps decide | An agency program, with specialist surveys | Residents and users help write the reuse plan |
| Who pays | Annual appropriations, a coal-mine fee, one-time infrastructure money, and bonds that GAO found often fall short | Indexed assurance posted at permit time, then a shared sponsor and public cost for the new area from dedicated receipts |
| If the sponsor walks away | The public pays, when money is available | A backstop funded from dedicated receipts on that project type |
| How success is measured | Features closed, acres treated | Recovery monitored, and recreation use and local spending reported |
| What the site contributes locally | Not measured or reported | The reuse plan estimates local spending and jobs at permit time, and the steward reports them afterward |
The original project was approved for its economic return: jobs, revenue, energy or materials. The cleanup programs above measure whether a site is safe. None of them ask what the site earns for the county afterward. This memo treats the follow-on use as outdoor economic development, and that is what gives outdoor recreation a seat at the table when the permit is written. Section 10 sets out how.
Section 3 and Section 4 showed why the timing matters. The birds and game animals that recovered did so after someone named a cause and paid for it on a schedule. A reuse plan filed with the permit names the end state before the first disturbance and gives the work a payer from the start.
Lessons carried forward
What is missing is a mechanism that ties the end of a project to a new place for people. New Mexico's post-mining land use provision and railbanking suggest the pieces are already in the statute books.
In plain terms. Looking back, funding that is tied to a clear job and comes in on a schedule has tended to last and work. Funding that relies on yearly budget fights, or that pays for cleanup only after the damage is done, has tended to fall short. That matters because the proposal in Section 10 is built on the first kind.
The Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act of 2026 is a 417-page permitting bill sponsored by Senators Capito, Lee, Whitehouse and Heinrich [1]. Its text protects project sponsors in specific detail and addresses restoration in only a few narrow cases.
| Provision | What the text says | Who it serves |
|---|---|---|
| Permit stability (§1401) | Agencies may not revoke or change a permit except for a court order, material breach, fraud, a request from the holder, or a specific, urgent, substantial and proximate harm based on new information. If an agency loses, the sponsor recovers 25% to 50% of its costs from the Judgment Fund without appropriation | Sponsors |
| Disparate treatment claim (§1402) | Cause of action for 47 project types. Damages of 50% to 100% of expected construction cost | Sponsors |
| Judicial review (§111) | 150-day window, substantive comment required, direct harm required, remand as the only remedy | Agencies and sponsors |
| Accelerating claims (§2201) | 150-day filing limit, expedited court review and a 180-day cap on remands for energy, mineral and wildfire-protection fuel projects | Sponsors and fuel-treatment projects |
| Permitting Tracker (§1132) | Public database with location, purpose and need, schedule status and litigation status | Public |
| Historic Preservation Fund (§2302) | $200 million per year | Heritage and Tribal resources |
| Abandoned Hardrock Mine Fund (§2215(d)) | Mill-site fees and hardrock lease receipts pay for cleanup of past mines, spent without further appropriation | Past-mine cleanup |
| Geothermal test projects (§2221) | Temporary roads remediated "as close as reasonably practicable to original condition"; site restored within 3 years unless later used for energy development | Restoration, with an exit |
The documents I reviewed do not appear to contain a restoration or decommissioning duty for wind, solar, storage or transmission projects. They have no financial assurance for these projects, no build-by date after which a permit lapses, and no recreation field in the Tracker. A permit holder may ask the agency to end a permit, and the text attaches no cleanup duty to that request (§1401) [1]. The bill amends existing law, so federal and state requirements already in place continue to apply. This memo attempts to address what the bill adds.
The Roadless Rule. In August 2026 the Forest Service proposed rescinding the 2001 Roadless Rule in its entirety [29]. The rule limits new roads and timber cutting in inventoried roadless areas. About 44.7 million acres remain under it, since Idaho and Colorado have their own rules [29][30]. The rule lists exceptions, including emergencies, cleanup, reserved rights, safety projects, roads for mineral leases held in 2001, and small-diameter cutting to reduce fire risk [32]. USDA says rescission "does not mandate timber cutting or road construction" [29]. The comment period closed on October 6 after an extension [31]. The proposal is not final. BlueRibbon expects a final rule in late 2026, and Pew reports 2027 [27][30].
The bill's geothermal provisions apply on National Forest System land as well as BLM land [1]. If the Roadless Rule were rescinded, the permanent-road limit in roadless areas would go with it, and the bill's language on temporary-road restoration would carry more weight.
The Senator's record. Senator Heinrich led the Great American Outdoors Act of 2020 [19]. With Senator Capito he introduced the Simplifying Outdoor Access for Recreation (SOAR) Act, which was included in the Expanding Public Lands Outdoor Recreation Experiences (EXPLORE) Act that passed Congress in December 2024 [35]. Both laws concern outdoor recreation on public lands.
When a sponsor receives certainty, what certainty does the land receive?
In plain terms. Two decisions are open. The bill in Congress could still change before it becomes law. The Roadless Rule proposal is further along: the public comment window closed on October 6, 2026, and a final decision is still ahead [30][31]. USDA says repealing the rule does not by itself require any road or logging [29]. If the rule is repealed, individual projects would be decided one at a time by each forest. If it stays, the national limit stays in place. In either case, the places where you recreate would be affected, and your contact with your senators and representatives can still matter on the bill.
"Special interest group" is often used as a criticism, but it also describes a very practical thing. It is an organization of people who share a stake in an outcome and speak to government with one voice. A ranchers' association, a mining trade group, a conservation charity, a motorized recreation coalition and a union are all examples. Most of them were formed because individual people cannot read a 417-page bill, track every hearing or hire lawyers. These groups do that work, and without them most voices would not be heard at all.
That is also the limit. A group speaks for its members and its funders, who are not always the same people, and the public usually cannot tell how closely a group's message matches what its members want. When about 71 percent of comments in one docket come from 49 organizations [4], it matters a great deal who they are.
Who the main types are.
What the public can and cannot see. Many nonprofit groups file an annual financial return with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), called Form 990, which the public can read. Since 2018, certain nonprofits organized under section 501(c)(4) of the tax code, which can lobby more freely, no longer have to report donors' names and addresses to the IRS on that form [52]. People who are paid to lobby Congress register and file reports under federal law. None of these records tells a reader of a public comment who paid for the comment, who stands to profit if it succeeds, or how many real people are behind a mass campaign.
Five questions worth asking of any group, including Tymmber Outdoor.
Tymmber Outdoor is a startup business that seeks to sell outdoor products and advocates for more people spending time outdoors. That is our core interest and you can find more across this entire website.
Transparency measures worth considering. These are areas for discussion, and we welcome any and all corrections.
In plain terms. Groups are how most people get heard, and most of them mean well. You still deserve to know who is behind a message before you decide whether to trust it. The ask here is not to silence any group. It is to give every voice, including yours, a fair way to be understood, and to make it easy to see who is speaking and why.
The law starts from a principle that may surprise people: a public comment is not a vote. Ten thousand identical comments count about as much as one [48]. What carries weight is reasoning and evidence, including personal, real-world experience, and a technical degree is not required [48]. In that sense, the rule already favors the person who knows the most about the question over the person who simply shouts the loudest.
That raises a question worth taking seriously. Some people carry far more of the consequences of a land decision than others. The federal wildland firefighting workforce is about 18,700 people across the Forest Service and four Interior agencies [53]. They are the people called when a forest burns, and in the GAO's 2023 report, entry pay started at $15 an hour, and officials said the pay did not reflect the risk and physical demands of the work [53]. Search and rescue crews, county sheriffs, emergency managers, reclamation crews and the people who live next to the project also carry risk when something goes wrong. Their first-hand knowledge is unusually direct: a firefighter knows how a road changes a fire's path, a rescuer knows how long it takes to reach an injured hiker, and a reclamation worker knows what a closed mine site really looks like.
A trail runner, a mountain biker or an off-road rider knows other things: where people go, how a route is used, what a closure takes away. Their knowledge is also first-hand, and it is the right evidence for different questions.
An idea worth testing: weight by the question, not by the person. Instead of ranking people, agencies could ask which kind of knowledge is closest to the question being decided.
Questions for discussion.
In plain terms. You do not need a title or a degree for your comment to matter, but it helps to say who you are and what you have seen. A short comment from a person who has used a place for years, or who has fought a fire there, tells an agency something a form letter cannot. The idea in this section is to make sure the people who carry the most risk are heard first on the questions they know best, while leaving the door open to everyone else.
BlueRibbon Coalition and More Than Just Parks take opposite positions on the Roadless Rule. Their published work also contains common ground. This section describes each group from its own materials and invites both to correct the description.
| BlueRibbon Coalition | More Than Just Parks | |
|---|---|---|
| Position on the Roadless Rule | Supports rescission [27] | Analyzes the docket and reports that commenters overwhelmingly opposed repeal [3][4] |
| Core argument | Access. Reopen and maintain closed forest roads, accept temporary closures for restoration or hazards, and keep tools for thinning, fuel breaks and firefighting access [27] | The public record. Over 99% of 1,197,510 entries opposed repeal, and repeal support is concentrated among industry, trade groups and local governments [3] |
| Evidence offered | A tracker of 279 projects averaging 4.2 years in NEPA review, $34.4 million in attorney fees from 2000 through 2025, and a treatment backlog of 80 to 100 million acres [28] | Positions of 454 organizations. Hunting, fishing and recreation groups split 85 to keep the rule and 13 to rescind [3] |
| Preferred outcome | A statute repealing the rule (House bill 7695 and Senate bill 140), plus the Fix Our Forests Act for forest management [27] | Not stated in the sources reviewed. The article says the final decision is still ahead: "Public comments aren't votes" [3] |
| Disclosure | Asks for members and donations to a legal fund [28] | Built a comment tool with the Sierra Club [3] |
| Stated limit | Calls its tracker an undercount [28] | Counts docket entries, not unique people [3] |
BlueRibbon's July 2026 post opens with the line "A dying and burnt forest does not conserve a forest, protect wildlife, nor allow for recreation" [28].
Where the published positions overlap
A restoration and reuse plan for every ended project could give each group something it can point to. For BlueRibbon, it could mean new recreation areas, planned with local users. For More Than Just Parks, it could mean guaranteed restoration and habitat. Both outcomes would be settled in advance, in the permit, and not in court.
This memo invites both organizations, and the 85 hunting, fishing and recreation groups in the docket, to review how their positions are described here and to meet at one table. Sierra County could host a first meeting alongside the water-node gathering proposed in Memo 018 [33].
In plain terms. The two groups described here are often cast as opponents. One is mostly about keeping access open, and the other is mostly about keeping land wild. They overlap more than the public argument suggests, and when two groups find common ground, decision-makers hear one clear message and not two competing ones. One thing you can do is tell either group that you would like to see them talk.
When a permitted project on public land ends for any reason, the site becomes a designated outdoor recreation or wildlife restoration area. A plan filed with the permit sets the end state, and the sponsor and the public fund it together. Outdoor recreation becomes a beneficiary of the project's end, in the same way the sponsor is protected during its operation.
The elements
A project on public land is permitted for economic reasons: jobs, revenue, energy or materials. The place it leaves behind can be held to the same standard. Treating the next use as outdoor economic development puts it on the same footing. Outdoor recreation is a sizeable economic sector. The Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) estimates that it added $696.7 billion to the economy in 2024, or 2.4 percent of gross domestic product, and that it grew 2.7 percent that year against 2.8 percent for the economy as a whole [6].
Cuyuna Country in central Minnesota shows what that can look like at one site. The last mine on the Cuyuna Iron Range closed in 1984. A committee formed to look at uses for the abandoned pits, and Cuyuna Country State Recreation Area opened in 1993 on about 5,000 acres. A 25-mile mountain bike trail system opened in June 2011 [70]. Local reporting counts 132 jobs added in Crosby, Ironton and Ironton Township from 2011 to 2016, a 7.7 percent increase and about twice the regional rate, and about 185,000 visitors in a recent year, more than double the count eight years earlier [70]. The Cuyuna Lakes Chamber of Commerce put visitor spending at about $421 per person in 2020 [71]. These are press and chamber figures, not an audited study, and Cuyuna is one site.
The timeline also shows what a reuse plan would change. From the last mine closure to the trail system was 27 years. A plan filed with the permit would not guarantee a result like Cuyuna's, but it would start the planning at the beginning instead of after the closure. That is our reading of the record.
The same test applies to every project type. Each reuse plan would name what the site could become and what it could contribute locally:
| Project type | An end state the plan could name | Local economic role the plan could estimate |
|---|---|---|
| Hardrock mine | Trailhead and outpost, with bat-compatible openings, native grassland and wildlife water | Visitor lodging, guiding, trail use |
| Oil and gas field | Grassland or sagebrush habitat restored around plugged wells, with access for hunting and wildlife viewing | Hunting and outfitting, viewing, access for local ranches |
| Wind or solar project | Wetland and wildlife sanctuary, or grassland under and around retained roads | Birding and wildlife tourism, outdoor classroom use |
| Transmission line | Maintained corridor used as a trail or habitat connection | Trail connections between towns |
These are examples, not requirements. The reuse plan would decide, with residents and users, and the plan could estimate local spending the way a sponsor estimates jobs at permit time.
The funding layers
| Layer | Pays for | Who pays | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Restoration to baseline | Returning the disturbed site to a stable, safe condition | Project sponsor | Financial assurance posted at permit time and released in stages |
| 2. New recreation or wildlife area | Trailhead, outpost, wetland or habitat work beyond baseline | Sponsor and the public, in a ratio set by statute | Sponsor contribution plus a dedicated share of public receipts on that project type |
| 3. Orphaned sites | Sites where the sponsor fails or cannot be found | The public | A backstop drawn from the same dedicated receipts |
This memo does not propose a ratio for layer 2. The public holds the land and will use the new area, which is the reason for a public share. A public share from dedicated receipts also keeps recreation from competing every year with other budget priorities.
Why a sponsor would take part in layer 2. A requirement to co-fund a recreation area above baseline restoration could read as a tax. The proposal is built so that it reads as a trade. In return for the plan and the contribution, the sponsor receives:
Two design options would make the trade more concrete, and both are open questions: a credit against royalties or fees for sponsor contributions to layer 2, and a faster path to permit renewal for sponsors whose plans have met their milestones.
Where each element comes from
Wildfire. A wildfire has no sponsor to pay, so the cost falls to the public. After a fire, the steward would convert the burned area into a wildlife restoration project with local users, drawing on layer 3 receipts. BlueRibbon notes that forests stay closed for years after fires [28]. A plan on file and a funded steward would shorten that period. Prevention matters as well, and the water nodes in Memo 018 are one example [33].
What each party gets
| Party | What it gets | What it gives |
|---|---|---|
| Project sponsors | A known end-of-life cost at the start, and permit protection tied to following the plan | Posted assurance and a share of layer 2 |
| Residents near a project | A voice in the reuse plan and a public place at the end | Time spent at the permitting stage |
| Recreation users | New places, in place of closed or abandoned sites | Nothing new |
| Conservation and wildlife groups | Guaranteed, indexed restoration and habitat outcomes | Acceptance of recreation reuse as part of closure |
| Access advocates | New recreation areas planned with users, including access routes where compatible | Acceptance of restoration conditions and designation |
| Taxpayers | A public asset, with the sponsor paying for the damage it caused | A share of layer 2 and the layer 3 backstop |
| Tribal governments | Consultation on reuse and on cultural resources, and the option to serve as steward | Review time |
What the proposal does not do. It does not approve or stop any project, and it takes no position on any particular mine, wind farm or solar field. It leaves permit certainty in place for sponsors who follow their plans.
Perspectives this memo does not start from. Three serious views would approach the proposal differently, and each deserves a hearing.
Open design questions
In plain terms. Today, when a mine, a well field or an energy project stops, the land is often left as it is, and sometimes taxpayers pay for the cleanup later. The proposal is that every closure becomes a chance to make something good: a new place to hike, fish or watch wildlife, designed with the people nearby. The company that benefited pays its part, and taxpayers pay their part, which in turn gives the public a lasting stake. If it is set up well, every ending creates a new park or wildlife area. If it is not, the old pattern continues. Telling your senators and representatives that you want this idea considered is the single most useful thing you can do.
Sierra County offers a place to test the proposal at modest scale, and Copper Flat shows the question it asks.
Copper Flat. The mine site is about 30 miles southwest of Truth or Consequences, near Hillsboro. It operated briefly in the early 1980s and closed after copper prices fell. THEMAC Resources Group acquired it in 2011 and has worked to reopen it [24]. In 2018 the company sought a 12-year state operations permit, an expansion of the pit from 102 to 169 acres, and water rights of about 6,000 acre-feet a year [24].
Sierra County residents have named both needs. The county manager supported the permit, citing population decline and the revenue and jobs the mine could bring. Neighboring ranches and residents raised groundwater, water supply, dust, light, noise and wildlife [24]. In August 2025 the State Engineer denied an application to transfer water rights for the mine. At that time the state Mining and Minerals Division had not yet permitted mining, a wastewater permit renewal was under review, and the company had not filed a revised plan with the BLM [25]. Status may have changed since that reporting.
This memo takes no position on whether the mine should proceed. Either outcome leaves the same question: if the project does not go forward, or when it ends, what does the site become and who pays? Under the New Mexico Mining Act, the answer begins with a closeout plan and financial assurance [23]. The proposal would add a reuse plan, written with Sierra County residents at the permitting stage, that names recreation or wildlife use as an end state. A plan filed up front serves residents who want the jobs and residents who want the land protected.
Either outcome also leaves a site that could add to Sierra County's outdoor economic development. The reuse plan would estimate what the site could contribute in visitor spending and local jobs, so the county can compare the mine's jobs with what the restored site could add on the same terms.
The water node. Memo 018 proposes a solar canopy, pump and hydrant pair on an existing pond or well. It waters cattle and wildlife day to day and supplies fire crews on a fire day [33]. It is a small, concrete example of infrastructure that serves ranchers, wildlife and wildfire response from sources already in place.
A first meeting. Memo 018 proposes a first gathering in Sierra County with a rancher, a Hatch chile grower, a cattle operation and a seat for El Paso Electric [33]. This memo proposes adding seats for motorized and non-motorized recreation users, hunters and anglers, conservation organizations, Tribal governments, county government, and federal and state land managers. BlueRibbon Coalition and More Than Just Parks would be invited. The agenda would have three items:
The meeting is not a funding request. It tests whether the idea has support, as Memo 018 does for the water node.
In plain terms. This section puts the idea in one real county, so that a reader can picture it. If it can work in one place, with the people who live there, the same approach can be copied elsewhere.
The figures in this memo show how choices made in one generation shaped the next.
In 1910, Theodore Roosevelt called the central task "leaving this land even a better land for our descendants than it is for us" [26]. In 1972, the Sierra Club argued that its case concerned the enjoyment of Mineral King Valley by future generations [2]. The question has been asked in each era.
Elk numbered 41,000 in 1907, white-tailed deer no more than 500,000 in 1900, and bald eagle nesting pairs 417 in 1963 [7][8][10]. Each recovered over decades [7][8][10], alongside dedicated funding programs and legal protections [9][12][14]. The same record shows the other direction. North America has about 3 billion fewer birds than in 1970, and greater sage-grouse are down 78.8% since 1966 [11][13]. Neither outcome happened by itself.
The people who will inherit this land cannot file a docket comment, bring a lawsuit or buy a stamp. The current process gives weight to a sponsor with a documented investment. The unborn have no sponsor, and neither do the 183 million people who use these lands today.
This memo offers three commitments as a starting point:
To Americans not yet born: what do we owe you? This memo's answer is a place to go and a plan on file that says who restores it. What would you add?
Other Sovereign Circle memos that touch the same ground.
— Mike Isaacs
Founder, Tymmber Outdoor
Sierra County, New Mexico · Nullius in Verba