As leaders and advocates, we know that public participation is essential to transparent decision-making, and it’s what builds trust. Public process — especially when it comes to decisions affecting our public lands and property rights — is not bureaucracy for its own sake, but something that helps catch mistakes, improves terms in lease agreements, protects water supplies and cultural sites, and avoids conflict. The agency manages some 57 million acres of these “split estate” lands, which means a private landowner holds the rights to the surface property while BLM controls the minerals beneath it. It is fundamentally un-American to undermine basic property rights, reduce public comment periods to mere days, hand corporate responsibility off to taxpayers and impose fees on using your voice. The concept of public process is as old as this country’s founding and was codified in 1946 under the Administrative Procedure Act, giving the public a formalized say in government decisions that affect and directly shape our communities.