The federal government owns 45.8 million acres of property in California, approximately 46 percent of the state’s total land area. Soon after President Trump took office in 2017, his administration began to threaten widespread rollbacks of protections on federal public lands. The State of California drafted California Senate Bill 50 (SB 50) in response to signals after the 2016 election that the Trump administration and Republican-controlled Congress were contemplating expansive sales of federal public lands, including national parks, wilderness areas, and monuments, to private parties.
