BURSTA day after Trump announced that the U.S. had renamed Lake Ontario “Lake America,” a change Canada said it would not adopt, new reports say the Trump administration is considering a controversial land arrangement involving Yosemite National Park and a private developer.
Since last year, the Trump administration has been exploring whether the National Park Service could give up a quarter-mile strip of land inside Yosemite, potentially through an easement, to provide private access to an 83-acre property owned by companies controlled by Kingsbarn Realty Capital. In exchange, the Park Service would receive land of equal value somewhere in California, although that replacement property has not yet been determined.
Kingsbarn CEO Jeff Pori wants to build a short road connecting his property to one of Yosemite’s main roads. The property, purchased for $4 million in 2024, is about five miles from one of the park’s ancient sequoia groves and currently has a much longer route through Forest Service land. A new road through Yosemite would give the property unusually direct access to the park and could facilitate its future development as a hotel, resort or private residence.
The proposal has reportedly created tension within the National Park Service, with sources describing unusual political pressure from the Interior Department to accommodate the developer. “The political pressure being brought to bear is very unusual,” one person told NOTUS. The Park Service has rejected similar requests for more than two decades. The property’s previous owner, California developer Lewis Geyser, unsuccessfully sued the federal government after the Park Service refused to allow a new private road.
Courts ruled that while the government must provide an exit for private property completely surrounded by federal land, it was not required to create a new road when an existing access route already existed. “We got an email from the new owner, reopening this issue that we felt was long closed,” former Yosemite superintendent Cicely Muldoon told NOTUS. “Whoever bought the land hadn’t done their due diligence and realized that this was not a possibility by law, to build a new entrance essentially into Yosemite National Park for private purposes.”
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said during his 2025 confirmation hearing, “The national parks, absolutely we need to support and protect every single inch of those.” Trump similarly said on Aug. 24, while announcing the beginning of National Park Week, “My Administration is committed to protecting every acre of our lands.”
Muldoon, a 40-year Park Service veteran, said the proposed arrangement cuts against the fundamental purpose of the national park system. “Our basic purpose in the national parks is to preserve these places unimpaired for future generations, not letting go of that for the purpose of private profit,” she said.
The National Park Service says no final decision has been made. Sen. Adam Schiff called Yosemite “one of California’s natural wonders” that “must be protected from further development,” while the National Parks Conservation Association accused the administration of pursuing a “secretive, backroom deal.”
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