One Republican lawmaker wants to create a new department to manage a category of land that does not currently exist in Arizona in anticipation of potential policies from President Donald Trump.

Sen. Mark Finchem, R-Prescott, sponsored a bill to establish the Department of Natural Resources to oversee state lands that are not state trust land. The only problem is, all state land is state trust land.

Finchem said the idea is inspired by indications from the Trump administration that it will return swaths of public land managed by the federal government back to the states where the land is located.

“The federal government right now has an appetite — because of many years of horrible mismanagement of land — there is an appetite to get out of the land possession business,” Finchem said during a Feb. 17 hearing. “And if that land comes to the state of Arizona we better be prepared to accept it.”

However, environmentalists say the bill is just an attempt to control environmental regulations from other state agencies that restrict natural resource extraction.

Currently, 13% of Arizona’s nearly 73 million acres of land are state trust lands. That means any money generated from those lands or their resources must be returned to 13 different beneficiaries, like the state’s K-12 education system, colleges and universities, or state buildings.

The rest of Arizona’s land is a combination of private, public and tribal lands. According to the U.S. Forest Service, 42% of Arizona’s land is public.

The State Land Department oversees and manages the state trust land, while the Treasurer’s Office oversees and invests the revenue generated from the land. Finchem said that if the federal government were to relinquish public land to the state, the Land Department would not have the authority to manage it.

Finchem told the Senate Federalism Committee on Feb. 17 that his bill, which creates the Department of Natural Resources and a Commission on Natural Resources to control the department, will ensure Arizona has an entity to manage any public lands returned to the state.

However, the bill has another provision that environmentalists say holds the true intent of the legislation. Finchem’s bill would allow the Department of Natural Resources to issue permits for extraction of natural resources, and modify or deny permits issued by other state agencies related to resource extraction.

During a floor session on March 6, Sen. Priya Sundareshan, D-Tucson, said she did not understand the need to create the new department.

“Why do we need to create this new Department of Natural Resources especially when what this would do is allow this entirely new department to override other permitting decisions made by other agencies?” Sundareshan said.

She said she is particularly concerned about the new agency’s ability to override agencies like the Department of Water Resources, the Department of Environmental Quality and the Game and Fish Department, all of which grant permits related to resource extraction.

Finchem answered Sundareshan’s question with a question of his own during the floor debate on the bill.

“Why should the Department of Natural Resources be bound by other departments when it is their responsibility to administer natural resources?” Finchem said.

“Because this department does not exist,” Sundareshan responded.

Sandy Bahr, a lobbyist for the Arizona chapter of the Sierra Club, said she believes the bill is an attempt by Republican lawmakers to get more control over public lands to use for mining or oil drilling. In recent years, Republicans have attempted to claw back public lands by suing over the designation of federal monuments and asking Congress to give land back to the state.

“This bill is intended to pave the way for more resource extraction and really limit protections, because it would be like this super agency that could amend or deny or grant permits that other agencies were working on,” said Bahr. “To me, it’s just creating more bureaucracy but in the name of loosening up regulations.”

Bahr acknowledged that the Trump administration has expressed interest in minimizing the amount of land managed by the federal government. But she pushed back on Finchem’s assertion that the state could come into possession of public land quickly or easily.

“As with a lot of Senator Finchem’s ideas, it is not very well thought out,” Bahr said. “And it is not looking at, really, how things work.”

Bahr suggested that if the federal government were to relinquish public land to the state, lawmakers should consider giving that land back to one of several Indigenous communities in Arizona. Currently, 27% of Arizona’s land is tribal land managed by the federal government for the benefit of the 22 federally recognized tribes in the state.

“If they were anybody’s lands, they would belong to the Indigenous people, and not to the state,” Bahr said.

Finchem could not be reached for comment on this story. His bill received final approval in the Senate on March 13, with one Republican voting against it. It will now move to the House.