A new bipartisan initiative called Ground Shift is bringing together an unusually broad coalition of voices to rethink how the United States manages its public lands and waters for the decades ahead. The advisory council spans ideological and political lines, including Democratic climate heavyweight John Podesta, former Biden-era Bureau of Land Management director Tracy Stone-Manning, and senior Interior and Agriculture officials from the George W. Bush administration. The goal, according to participants, is not to fight today’s regulatory battles but to step back and reassess policies and statutes that are often 50 to 100 years old, as first reported by Axios.
Unlike traditional advocacy groups, Ground Shift describes itself as an “ideas hub” rather than a lobbying force. Its founders argue that the overlapping pressures on public lands — from climate change and wildfires to wildlife protection, tribal collaboration, and clean-energy development — have outgrown the frameworks governing agencies like the Bureau of Land Management and the Forest Service. Stone-Manning says the fundamental question driving the project is simple but overdue: what public lands are for today, and what Americans want them to be in the future. The answers, she argues, cannot simply be inherited from decisions made generations ago.
The group’s advisory council also includes conservation, recreation, and market-oriented voices, such as Rue Mapp, founder of Outdoor Afro, and Brian Yablonski, head of the Property and Environment Research Center. That mix reflects Ground Shift’s ambition to broaden the conversation beyond entrenched camps. According to the group, outdated processes and legal mandates frequently slow everything from renewable-energy projects to habitat restoration, even as land-management agencies face staffing shortages and budget constraints.
Seed funding for Ground Shift comes from The Wilderness Society, where Stone-Manning is president, though organizers stress the effort operates independently. The initiative will begin with a series of essays and host national convenings tied to the 50th anniversary of the Federal Land Policy and Management Act. Over the next three to five years, Ground Shift aims to surface ideas that can support cleaner energy, more resilient landscapes, abundant wildlife, and more equitable access to public lands — without taking formal positions on hot-button issues like oil and gas drilling. As former Interior official Lynn Scarlett put it, the project is meant to create space to think beyond the political trenches.