Senate Plans To Sell 3 Million Acres Of Public Land To Fund Tax Cuts For Billionaires

Yes, that's six zeros...

Remember the halcyon days of…last week when Steve Daines (R-Montana) claimed the Senate budget would only sell a “microscopic” amount of public land in order to fund tax cuts for billionaires? Yeah, that was a lie. The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee just released its budget proposal, and it calls for selling off three million acres of BLM and Forest Service land across 12 western states. Fuck.

This is a developing story. Stay tuned to this page (here’s a link to this newsletter’s homepage if you’re reading by email) for more throughout this evening and coming days.

“This is President Trump’s agenda: cut the Green New Scam, reduce the deficit, and unleash American energy,” stated Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah), who chairs the committee, and has previously stated his goal of sell all public land. “We’re cutting billions in unused Biden-era climate slush funds, opening up energy and resource development, turning federal liabilities into taxpayer value, while making housing more affordable for hardworking American families. This is how we make government smaller, freer, and work for Americans.”

Here’s a link to a video statement Lee just released on Twitter.

The bill requires the Bureau of Land Management to dispose of between 1.18 million and 1.77 million acres, and USFS to do the same for 686,000 to 1.03 million acres of national forests, “for housing, increased timber sales, geothermal leasing, and compensation of states and localities for the cost of wind and solar projects on federal land.” As with the House reconciliation bill, the total amounts here are written in language that’s intentionally obtuse. I understand the maximum amount could be as much as 3.3 million acres.

No prices have been put on that acreage, but the bill’s one sheet claims $15 billion in total revenue across its entire impact, mostly from “expanded oil, gas, coal, and geothermal leasing.”

“Senate Republicans are taking a second bite at a rotten apple,” says Athan Manuel, director of Sierra Club’s Lands Protection Program, in an emailed statement. “The American people made it clear last month that they will not tolerate selling off our public lands to billionaires and corporate polluters. But Donald Trump and Mike Lee seem to have missed the memo. This bill would give billionaires and corporate polluters free rein to drill, mine, and log these treasured landscapes without oversight or accountability, and sell millions of acres of public lands to private developers, locking out American families forever. The American people will remind Trump and his Congressional allies that our public lands shouldn’t have a price tag on them.”

“It’s a travesty that Senate Republicans are putting more than 3 million acres of our beloved public lands on the chopping block to sell at fire-sale prices to build mega mansions for the ultrarich,” said Patrick Donnelly, Great Basin director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Republicans know this won’t do anything to address the housing crisis, but they’re cynically advancing the largest act of destruction of public lands in our nation’s history. People won’t stand for this, and we won't back down until these measures are stripped from the bill.”

Here’s a link to a form you can use to contact your Senator about this.

“Shoving the sale of public lands back into the budget reconciliation bill, all to fund tax cuts for the wealthy, is a betrayal of future generations and folks on both sides of the aisle,” says Michael Carroll, director of the BLM campaign at The Wilderness Society. “Senator Mike Lee and his anti-public lands partners are setting a dangerous precedent for fast-tracking sales of public lands, and they’re threatening Americans’ access to our outstanding outdoor spaces.”

Further reading:

• Why this isn’t about affordable housing.

• More on the background from the House budget.

• What we can do to fight this.

• Billionaires, tax cuts, and you.

Top photo: BLM

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