Lee, Daines Up Public Land Sell Off To 258 Million Acres

The Senate's budget reconciliation package includes provision to sell off 40 percent of all public land

An amendment to the budget reconciliation package written by Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Steve Daines (R-Montana) authorizes the sale of 258 million acres of BLM and National Forest land across 10 western states and Alaska. The move comes after a provision exempting land used for grazing from the sale was removed.

“Over the weekend, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee quietly updated its budget reconciliation language to more than double the public lands that are eligible for disposal,” explains The Wilderness Society, in an emailed statement.

To recap, the Natural Resources Committee amendment mandates the sale of up to 3.3 million acres of public land, but authorizes the sale of much more. On Friday, in our Substack Live conversation, Wilderness Society President Tracy Stone-Manning told me that total authorization was for 120 million acres. Now, it’s 258. Total, all public land in this country spans 640 million acres.

Here’s a map of places that will be authorized for sale, should this measure pass.

Updated total by state are:

The Wilderness Society breaks down what’s at stake:

• The bill mandates arbitrary disposal of between 2.02 million-3.04 million acres of BLM and U.S. Forest Service lands in 11 states (Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming) over the next five years.

• In all, more than 250 million acres will be eligible for sale under the June 14 version of the bill (see table below). The legislation exempts certain federally protected lands like national wilderness areas from potential disposal, but it leaves many administratively designated lands on the table.

• The sell-off provision in the bill would leave tens of millions of acres of lands with wilderness characteristics, wilderness study areas, areas of critical environmental concern and inventoried roadless areas eligible for sale.

• Though national monument lands are exempted from the disposal provision in the bill, an opinion issued by the Trump Justice Department last week argues the president can revoke national monument protections. If the administration acts on that unprecedented and legally dubious finding, it could render an additional 13.5 million acres eligible for sale.

• The bill’s process for selling off lands runs at breakneck speed, demanding the nomination of tracts within 30 days, then every 60 days until the arbitrary multi-million-acre goal is met, all without hearings, debate or public input opportunities. It gives the secretaries of the interior and agriculture broad discretion to choose which places should ultimately be sold off.

• The bill sets up relatively under-resourced state and local governments to lose open bidding wars to well-heeled commercial interests. It also fails to give sovereign Tribal Nations the right of first refusal to bid on lands, even for areas that are a part of their traditional homelands or contain sacred sites.

This story is breaking, I’ll bring you updates as it develops.

Here’s some necessary further analysis and explanation.

Top photo: USFS

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