It’s deja vu all over again.
A mere three weeks after hunters, anglers, and conservationists successfully defeated a provision in the U.S. House that would have sold 500,000 acres of public land, an even worse amendment was added to the Senate version of the “one, big, beautiful budget bill.”
Spearheaded by Utah Senator Mike Lee, a longtime opponent of federal public land, the Senate selloff could put as many as 3 million acres on the auction block.
“As a hunter, angler, and father of two young boys, I am immensely disappointed in the news coming out of Washington, D.C. this week,” said MeatEater’s Mark Kenyon. “Theodore Roosevelt implored Americans more than a century ago to never lose sight of future generations when making decisions about our public lands and wildlife and yet here we are today, with leaders in the Senate calling for the short-sighted sale of 2-3 million acres of our nation’s public lands for a quick buck.”
MeatEater’s Director of Conservation, Ryan Callaghan, called those who are proposing this legislation “not serious people.”
“Serious people do not mandate expedited public land sales that are left to broad interpretation. Serious people do not include a celebration budget of $150 million in the same bill that they cut all necessary funding for infrastructure in our park system,” he said. “It is the job of the hunter and angler to be the serious ones in this equation and educate our electorate about the ramifications of these policies.”
The proposal takes Sen. Lee’s HOUSES Act, a bill he has tried and failed to pass in Congress the last three years, and applies it to 11 western states. It purports to solve housing shortages by expediting the process of selling public land to build affordable housing.
Previous versions of the bill, which, again, failed to even be considered on multiple occasions, would have allowed any state or local government to nominate land to sell. But this one would only allow BLM and Forest Service land to be sold in Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming.
It also protects certain federal lands from disposal, including national parks, national monuments, and national wildlife refuges.
However, unlike previous versions of the bill, this one requires the sale of between 0.5-0.75% of BLM and Forest Service land. The percentages aren’t enormous, but the actual acreage–between 2 and 3 million–dwarfs the 500,000 acres in the House version.
What’s more, the bill doesn’t just prioritize small tracts of land around existing metropolitan or suburban areas (where you might consider building homes). In the list of land that should be given “priority consideration” are “isolated tracts that are inefficient to manage.” The bill does not explain which parcels count as “inefficient.”
The bill requires the party interested in purchasing the land to explain how it will address “local housing needs” as well as “any associated community needs.” These “needs,” presumably, could be anything from a new grocery store to, in the case of those “inefficient” lands, wildfire mitigation.
Cal pointed out even if the bill only incorporated semi-urban landscapes, it would still be concerning to public land users.
“If you read the Senate contribution to the big, beautiful bill and think, ‘This doesn’t affect me,’ you need to ask yourself, what happens to the backcountry when the front country goes away?” he said. “This is an assault on the easy-to-access stuff–the places we can go before or after work to run the dog, dial in our scope for the weekend, or just have some space to decompress.”
In most ways, the bill is worse for public land advocates than the House version. But it’s the same in one respect: the money generated from these land sales will go straight to the U.S. Treasury, not to conservation or expanding public land holdings elsewhere.
Sen. Lee justified these sales in a video posted to social media. He described as “not fair” the fact that 70% of Utah is federal land.
“It’s not serving the Americans who actually live here. We’re opening underused federal land to expand housing, support local development, and get Washington, D.C. out of the way of communities that are just trying to grow,” he said.
“To our hunters, anglers, and sportsmen, you will not lose access to the lands you love,” Lee continued. “Washington has proven it can’t manage this land. This bill puts it in better hands.”
Observers were quick to point out that Montana is notably absent from the list of states where public land will be sold. We reached out to Senator Lee’s office for an explanation, but the omission could be a kind of peace offering to Sens. Steve Daines and Tim Sheehy. Both senators have publicly opposed public land sales, with a spokesperson for Sen. Daines telling us previously that he “always and will always oppose the sale of public lands.”
By keeping Montana off his list, Sen. Lee could be hoping to secure support from Montana’s delegation.
Of course, Sens. Daines and Sheehy aren’t the only ones who will have to eventually sign off on this legislation. Even if it passes the Senate, it will still have to pass the House, where the Public Land Caucus includes at least 16 members from both sides of the aisle.
These representatives, like Reps. Ryan Zinke, Mike Simpson, Troy Downing, and Gabe Vasquez, have also vowed to support public lands. Rep. Zinke in particular spearheaded the effort to remove a public land sale provision from the House version of the bill. Public land advocates are urging supporters to contact these members to encourage them to stand strong and maintain their previous position.
“This is our moment,” Mark said. “It’s our responsibility to stand up and speak out as Theodore Roosevelt once did long before us, ‘The wildlife and habitat cannot speak for itself. So we must and we will,’ he said. I intend to follow his lead. I hope, and expect, that I’m far from the only one.”
There is still time to amend the bill before it passes the Senate. Public land advocates should contact their senators as well as Senate Majority Leader John Thune and ask them to remove the land sale language before it goes to the floor for a vote.
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