"After a plan to sell public land faced bipartisan backlash, the Interior Department appears to be making a bid to halt the expansion of federal public lands."
"Trump officials are seeking to divert money from a fund dedicated to purchasing wilderness areas in a bid to halt the expansion of federal public lands, according to three people familiar with the matter.
The Department of Interior is drafting an order that would take money from the Land and Water Conservation Fund, which has an annual budget of $900 million primarily to buy land and easements, and use it for maintenance of existing national parks and federal lands, the people said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the order was under internal discussion and not public. The order could be announced as soon as Monday, they said.
There is a hint of the administration’s aims in the Department of Interior’s budget, which reads: “Instead of adding more land and infrastructure to the Federal Government’s already bloated real property portfolio, the Budget proposes to repurpose $276.1 million for a new deferred maintenance program within LWCF.”"
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