‘Back to the days of land grabs’: NM state lawmakers on alert against sale of public lands

BY: AUSTIN FISHER
Courtesy of Source NM
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Rep. Patricia Roybal Caballero (D-Albuquerque) attended a watch event for a court hearing in the Yazzie/Martinez education equity case on April 29, 2025. (Photo by Danielle Prokop / Source NM)

Even though the Republican tax and spend bill that cleared the United States House of Representatives last month no longer authorizes the sale of thousands acres of public land, state lawmakers in New Mexico say they will continue to monitor how the federal government’s actions toward public lands could impact Native nations.

As the interim legislative Indian Affairs Committee on Monday planned its work for the rest of 2025 at its first meeting since this year’s legislative session, two members said the U.S. government’s plan to sell public lands could threaten tribal sovereignty and economic development in New Mexico, which is home to 23 Indigenous nations.

Rep. Patricia Roybal Caballero, an enrolled member of the Piro Manso Tiwa Tribe and an Albuquerque Democrat, said she anticipates the federal government’s sales of public lands may affect tribal sovereignty, and she wants to know what legal mechanisms are available to the state government to “push back against those land grabs.”

“I envision us going back to the days of land grabs,” Roybal Caballero said.

U.S. Rep. Gabe Vasquez (D-N.M.), who co-founded the Bipartisan Public Lands Caucus earlier this year, last month applauded the removal of a provision in the budget bill that would have authorized the sale of thousands acres of public land in Utah and Nevada.

At the time, Mark Allison, executive director of conservation advocacy group New Mexico Wild, said this is the first of many fights in coming days to stave off efforts to privatize public lands.

​“The same forces that tried to sneak this land grab through would love nothing more than to come after New Mexico’s public lands next time,” he said.

​Rep. Charlotte Little, an Albuquerque Democrat from San Felipe Pueblo, said on Monday she wants the committee to receive a report on the impact of the federal government’s proposed actions toward the Chaco Canyon and Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks national monuments, and how those actions could also affect economic development in the surrounding areas.

New Mexico’s federal delegation, led by U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), in April asked the federal government to leave intact Tent Rocks along with Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument and Rio Grande del Norte, which they said were “under consideration for  reduction or elimination.”

Roybal Caballero also said she wants the committee to discuss issues related to sustainable management of tribal lands including water rights, resource extraction and environmental protection.

By the end of the year, the committee is expected to endorse legislation for the 2026 legislative session.