BLM Lease Sales

 

BLM’s Eastern States Office, on September 23, 2025, held a lease sale comprising two parcels in Bossier Parish, Louisiana (on Barksdale Air Force Base); a split-estate tract (i.e., federal minerals under private surface) in Calhoun County, Michigan; and two split-estate tracts in Greene County, Mississippi.  (The Mississippi parcels had initially been deferred from consideration for Eastern States’ June 2023 sale, and then received no bids when they were offered in March 2024.)  The Louisiana parcels drew substantial bids in the September sale: $10,003/acre for one parcel, and $1006/acre for the other; while the Michigan and Mississippi parcels went for the minimum bid amount of $10/acre.

The September lease sale was the first Eastern States sale to be held under the current administration.  Before that, only two Eastern States lease sales took place during the entirety of the prior administration, following a “pause” on new leasing that was imposed under the executive order of January 27, 2021 (see the Biden Administration Policy Review link).

The most recent of the two sales under the preceding administration was held on March 26, 2024, covering three parcels of split-estate lands in Mississippi (one in Smith County, and two in Greene County) that had been deferred from Eastern States’ previous sale in June 2023.  The Smith County tract went for the minimum bid of $10/acre in the March 2024 sale, with no bids received for the Greene County tracts.

In the previous Eastern States sale on June 29, 2023, four split-estate tracts were offered: one in Kalamazoo County, Michigan; and two in Caddo Parish and one in Bossier Parish, Louisiana.  High bids were received in that sale of $3501/acre for the parcel in Bossier Parish, and $2001/acre and $251/acre for the Caddo Parish tracts, in Louisiana; while the Michigan parcel went for $14/acre.

(Prior to that, under the preceding administration, Eastern States had initially considered tracts in three areas for a second-quarter 2022 sale: split-estate lands in Covington County, Alabama; lands in the DeSoto National Forest in Wayne and Jones Counties, Mississippi; and lands in the Homochitto National Forest in Franklin County, Mississippi.  However, BLM then cancelled any further consideration of the National Forest lands in Mississippi “due to ongoing discussion between the two agencies [BLM and the Forest Service] regarding air quality analysis as required under NEPA” — and there still has been no sign of progress in that “ongoing discussion.”  Further consideration of the Alabama split-estate tract was deferred as well.)

The next Eastern States Office lease sale is scheduled for March 12, 2026.  Eight split-estate parcels will be offered in the sale: one in Lafayette County, Arkansas; one in Caddo Parish, Louisiana; one in Kalamazoo County, Michigan; and five in Amite, George, and Perry Counties, Mississippi.