Yosemite Land Transfer to Developer Reported

The Guardian reports Park Service staff are exploring giving a Yosemite parcel to a private.

According to The Guardian, citing the outlet Notus, National Park Service staff have been exploring how to hand a quarter-mile parcel of land inside Yosemite National Park to a company operated by Kingsbarn Realty Capital, a Nevada-based developer. Kingsbarn already owns an 83-acre undeveloped plot immediately outside the park, which it bought in 2024, and its CEO Jeff Pori wants to build a short connecting road into the park rather than rely on an existing access route more than 10 miles from the nearest entrance. Administration officials have proposed giving up the land in exchange for equally valuable land elsewhere in California, The Guardian reports.

The report sparked immediate pushback because national parks are held in public trust, and a land conveyance to a well-connected private developer would set a precedent that other park parcels could follow. Jayson O'Neill, spokesperson for Save Our Parks, described it to The Guardian as part of a push to "sell off public lands and privatize America's national parks," accusing Interior Secretary Doug Burgum of spending a year secretly negotiating the handover. California's two senators and Rep. Jared Huffman oppose the road, with Huffman saying parks should be protected "not sold off to Trump's ultra-wealthy friends."

An Interior Department spokesperson, Aubrie Spady, rejected the reporting in a statement to The Guardian, saying there "has been no political pressure to reach a predetermined outcome" and calling suggestions that the department is secretly working to hand park land to a private developer "false." The department added that no final decisions have been reached and that any land exchange would be subject to applicable federal laws, environmental review, and public notification processes. The Guardian reported, citing unnamed sources, that the Interior Department's top political leaders support the proposal and that it has created tension inside the Park Service.

The Yosemite report lands amid other disputes over the administration's use of federal power. ABC News has catalogued a list of individuals targeted by the administration, from John Bolton's guilty plea to indictments of James Comey and Letitia James and an abandoned criminal investigation of Fed chair Jerome Powell — moves officials insist are "driven by law and not by politics" while critics call them retribution. Separately, three senior Stars and Stripes journalists sued Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, alleging their firings retaliated against critical reporting, per uPolitics. Critics frame the Yosemite proposal as another front in that pressure campaign.

The proposal's fate now hinges on the procedural safeguards the Interior Department itself flagged: any exchange or access deal would need to survive required environmental review and public notification under federal law, giving opponents a formal avenue to intervene. The Guardian reported that the situation has created tension inside the Park Service, suggesting internal resistance could shape the outcome. For Yosemite supporters, the stakes are whether this parcel becomes the "first domino" Huffman warned about; for the developer, the decades-old dream of direct road access to a resort-scale property may finally be within reach.