Count among the more unexpected recent Idaho political developments a proposal from Nampa Republican State Senator Ben Adams to amend Idaho’s state constitution to create a new land trust, which would manage but not sell any lands the state receives - buys, is gifted or whatever - from the federal government.
The idea appears to be an indirect response to a federal plan earlier this year from Utah Senator Mike Lee, who proposed that millions of acres of federal lands be sold to the top bidder. “The idea of selling public land really didn’t sit well with me,” Adams said in one interview. And he said that the new trust, unlike the long-standing state endowment lands program (in which the state received lands from the federal government), would have strict limitations on land sales and use.
From the standpoint of anyone supporting keeping more, rather than less, public lands in Idaho available to the public, that sounds like a good thing. Considering the exceptionally large numbers of Idahoans who seem aligned to that, it stands a good chance of hitting the ballot and passing.
It’s no argument against doing that, though, to point out its limitations.
I haven’t been able to track down an online text of the measure (though numerous news reports said it has been released; Adams doesn’t plan to introduce it until the next legislative session), but one article said “the proposal would apply to new public lands the state of Idaho acquires or buys from the federal government. That land would be placed into a new land trust, and could not be sold.”
Were I a supporter of the Mike Lee sell-it-all approach, my reaction would be: Fine! When federal agencies want to divest their lands in Idaho, they’ll just sell them off to someone else - the highest bidder, presumably - rather than the state. It’s a pretty easy workaround and close to what Lee had in mind to begin with.
And the proposed amendment applies only to lands transferred from the federal government to the state. In recent decades that’s been a small subset.
To be fair, there’s a limit to what state officials or voters can do in controlling federal lands management. And indications, a steady stream of them from the White House headwaters, are they’re planning to do quite a lot.
The most dramatic recent instance is the Trump Administration’s published intent to scale back -- exactly how much is unclear - the roadless rule from 2001 affecting vast stretches of forested land in backcountry areas nationwide. Idaho is covered by a separate specific roadless rule, but it’s hard to imagine that one remaining intact for long if the national rule change takes hold.
Beyond that, don’t forget a pair of presidential executive orders from a few months ago aimed at increasing timber production and bypassing rules that protect critical wildlife habitat.
Over in Oregon but also affecting Idaho, the Friends for the Columbia Gorge report, “The Trump administration’s FY26 budget proposes redirecting roughly $387 million from the Land and Water Conservation Fund’s (LWCF) federal land acquisition budget to fund “deferred maintenance” - that is, repairs to trails, visitor centers, and infrastructure, in addition to logging - directly contradicting the Great American Outdoors Act (GAOA) that President Trump himself signed into law in 2020.” The Land and Water Fund is a big factor in Idaho lands protection.
The environmental battleground this year is massive. Proposals like the Adams amendment could be useful, as far as they go. But don’t expect any one single action to go very far. A comprehensive offensive on one side will require a comprehensive response, if it’s going to matter.