Lynn Scarlett, former Deputy Secretary and Chief Operating Officer of the U.S. Department of the Interior and now Managing Director for Public Policy at The Nature Conservancy, and Matt Lee-Ashley, Executive Director of Ground Shift, discuss the initiative, sponsored by The Wilderness Society, that crowdsources ideas for the future of America’s public lands and waters. They cover essays published on the platform, including Brian Yablonski of PERC on private land and market-based conservation tools, Amanda John Kimsey of the Access Granted Group on class and sovereignty gaps in the conservation movement, and Martin Nie’s framing of the current period as a “Gilded Age” of concentrated power. Scarlett and Lee-Ashley discuss reviving a modern Public Land Law Review Commission, an idea raised by Andy Mergen at the Stegner Symposium, and debate how far statutes like the Endangered Species Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, and the 1872 Mining Law should be reexamined given deep staffing cuts at the Forest Service and BLM. The conversation comes as Ground Shift is in its first phase of collecting public input, with a broader vision and policy agenda expected within the next year.

Image credit Michael Ciaglo

Why this moment offers an unusual opening to rethink decades-old public lands law

Lynn Scarlett spent four years as Deputy Secretary and Chief Operating Officer of the U.S. Department of the Interior and now serves as Managing Director for Public Policy at The Nature Conservancy. Matt Lee-Ashley is the Executive Director of Ground Shift, an initiative sponsored by The Wilderness Society that is inviting scientists, advocates, agency veterans, and everyday public lands users to submit ideas for what conservation should look like ten, twenty, and fifty years from now. Both join Bill and Anders to talk about why they believe this moment, defined by deep disruption at federal land management agencies, is also an unusual opening to rethink decades-old public lands law.

Scarlett and Lee-Ashley walk through Ground Shift’s model: publish essays that intentionally disagree with each other, host convenings and symposia, and let a vision emerge from the ideas that keep surfacing rather than starting from a predetermined answer. Several essays already published on the platform test long-standing assumptions, including Brian Yablonski’s case for private land and market-based tools, Amanda John Kimsey’s argument that the conservation movement has a class and sovereignty problem, and Martin Nie’s description of the current period as a “Gilded Age” of concentrated power. The conversation turns to specifics: whether the Endangered Species Act’s ecosystem-level provisions have been underused in practice, whether a modern Public Land Law Review Commission, an idea raised by Andy Mergen at the Stegner Symposium, could ever happen in today’s Congress, and how it might instead be built through public pressure. Scarlett, who led a cooperative conservation initiative at Interior, also digs into the practical barriers to landscape-scale collaboration, from mismatched agency budgets to what happens when outside groups who weren’t part of a local agreement derail it after the fact.

The conversation closes on the tension between building genuine consensus and the outsized influence of money in politics. Both guests argue that public support for conservation cuts across party lines, pointing to the recent bipartisan backlash that pulled a proposed public lands sell-off, led by Senator Mike Lee, off the table. Scarlett and Lee-Ashley frame Ground Shift as one piece of a broader ecosystem of people and organizations trying to build enough shared momentum to outlast any single administration, with a fuller vision and policy agenda expected to take shape over the next year.

In this episode:

• What Ground Shift is Matt Lee-Ashley describes it as a crowdsourced effort, sponsored by The Wilderness Society and guided by a bipartisan advisory council and academic partners, to imagine the next ten, twenty, and fifty years of public lands and waters.
• Why now Scarlett and Lee-Ashley discuss this moment of federal agency disruption, including deep staffing cuts at the Forest Service and reduced planning capacity at the BLM, as a rare opening to reexamine bedrock public lands laws.
• Essays testing conservation orthodoxy Brian Yablonski of PERC on private land and market tools, Amanda John Kimsey of the Access Granted Group on class and sovereignty gaps in conservation, and Martin Nie’s “Gilded Age” framing of the current power dynamic.
• A modern Public Land Law Review Commission? The idea, raised by Andy Mergen at the Stegner Symposium, of reviving a commission last convened in the 1960s and early 1970s; Lee-Ashley says a congressional version is unlikely, so the public may have to build the case themselves.
• Rethinking the Endangered Species Act and NEPA Scarlett argues the limitation is often in implementation, not the statutes themselves, pointing to underused ecosystem-level provisions in the ESA.
• The challenge of local collaboration Scarlett’s experience leading Interior’s cooperative conservation effort and the recurring problem of outside groups derailing place-based agreements, using the Quincy Library Group as a historical example.
• Money, politics, and implementation A discussion of the Congressional Review Act and how recent bipartisan pushback against Senator Mike Lee’s public lands sale proposal shows conservation support cuts across party lines, even as big money shapes the underlying laws.
• Building a movement, not just a white paper Lee-Ashley on why ideas alone don’t drive policy change without sustained public pressure and diversified funding.

Links & Resources

Organizations & Initiatives:

• Ground Shift — The public lands policy initiative Lynn Scarlett and Matt Lee-Ashley discuss throughout the episode.
  • Ground Shift on Instagram
• The Wilderness Society — National conservation organization that sponsors Ground Shift. 
• PERC (Property and Environment Research Center) — Bozeman, Montana research organization where Ground Shift essayist Brian Yablonski serves as CEO. 
• The Access Granted Group — Think tank led by Amanda John Kimsey focused on building conservation movement power and bringing frontline community voices into public lands policy.
• Network for Landscape Conservation — National network developing guidelines to help place-based collaborative conservation efforts succeed. 
• Salazar Center for North American Conservation — Colorado State University center that published Lynn Scarlett’s essay on democracy and collaborative conservation. 

Government & Policy:

• Endangered Species Act (1973) — Federal law discussed in the episode as a candidate for updated implementation, particularly its underused ecosystem-level provisions.
• National Environmental Policy Act (1970) — Federal environmental review law referenced as one whose implementation, more than its underlying text, Ground Shift essayists argue could better support collaboration. 
• Federal Land Policy and Management Act (1976) — Statute governing BLM land management, referenced as one of several laws Ground Shift essays argue deserves a rethink. 
• General Mining Act of 1872 — Federal mining law referenced as one of several outdated statutes up for reexamination in Ground Shift’s essays. 
• Congressional Review Act — Federal law discussed as a tool being used, in Lee-Ashley’s view, to undermine community-built land use plans through a simple congressional vote. 

People Mentioned:

• Martin Nie — University of Montana professor whose Ground Shift essay frames the current period as a “Gilded Age” of consolidated power. Catch our conversation with Martin and Monte Mills in Episode 15.
• Brian Yablonski — CEO of PERC (Property and Environment Research Center) and author of a Ground Shift essay on private land and market-based conservation tools.
• Amanda John Kimsey — Executive Director of the Access Granted Group; her Ground Shift essay connects nature loss to household costs like groceries, housing, and energy.
• Andy Mergen — Harvard Law School clinical professor whose call for a modern Public Land Law Review Commission, raised at the Stegner Symposium, is discussed in this episode.
• Marshall Johnson — Chief Conservation Officer for the National Audubon Society
• Senator Mike Lee — U.S. Senator whose 2025 proposal to sell off public lands drew bipartisan opposition, cited as an example of durable, cross-partisan support for conservation.

Lynn Scarlett retired in December 2021 from The Nature Conservancy where she served as Global Chief External Affairs Officer. Prior to her role at the Conservancy, Lynn served at the U.S. Department of the Interior from 2001-2009, including as the Deputy Secretary. She served as Acting Secretary of the Interior in 2006. During her tenure at the Interior Department, she chaired the First Lady’s Preserve America historic preservation initiative, the federal Wildland Fire Leadership Council, the Climate Change Working Group, and the Cooperative Conservation Task Force, and she served on the executive team of the President’s Management Council. She also chaired the Science Advisory Board of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration from 2014-2019. She chairs the National Wildlife Refuge Association board and the Dean’s Advisory Council of the UC Santa Barbara Bren School of Environmental Science and Management and serves on the Advisory Council of the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis and administrative board of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. She also serves on the Boards of the Santa Barbara Foundation, the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden, and the advisory council of the Yellowstone to Yukon conservation initiative.

Lynn has authored many publications on collaborative conservation, network governance, adaptive management, climate adaptation, science and decision making, and related topics. She was co-convening lead author of the decision-support chapter of the 4th National Climate Assessment. She has spoken on conservation before the U.S. Congress and at conservation and climate events around the world. She is an avid birder and hiker.

Matt Lee-Ashley is the executive director of Ground Shift, a cross-partisan initiative to promote bold new thinking about the future of America’s public lands and waters.
Previously, Matt was chief of staff and head of policy for the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) in the Biden-Harris Administration. During his four-year tenure, Matt rebuilt CEQ into a fast-moving environmental policy office that drove landmark progress on nature conservation, environmental justice, permitting, climate resilience, federal sustainability, and toxic pollution reduction.

Matt has also served as communications director and deputy chief of staff for the U.S. Department of the Interior, policy advisor to U.S. Senator Ken Salazar, and head of the natural resources program at the Center for American Progress.

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