Grand Junction Daily Sentinel
Public land sales scuttled for now
It’s a bird; it’s a plane; it’s ... the Senate parliamentarian?
A Republican strategy to use the budget reconciliation process to bypass Senate filibuster rules and approve the One Big Beautiful Bill Act with a simple majority requires the parliamentarian to determine whether certain provisions are eligible to be included under something called the Byrd Rule.
Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough has ruled several parts of the tax and spending legislation must be taken out, including Utah Sen. Mike Lee’s plan to sell off millions of acres of public lands.
For conservation-minded Americans of all political stripes who decried the proposed sell-off, MacDonough has taken on the dimensions of a superhero — able to stop crummy legislation in a single bound.
Lee’s plan was part of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee’s bill text and would have required the Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service to offer up millions of acres of public land across 11 western states (Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming) for sale.
Before the parliamentarian’s ruling late Monday, the Wilderness Society released an analysis of Lee’s proposal that said about 9.4 million acres of Forest Service land and 5 million acres of Bureau of Land Management parcels in Colorado would be eligible for disposal. Places such as the Book Cliffs — including part of Mount Garfield — Grand Mesa and its slopes, the Bangs Canyon area and the Uncompahgre would have been eligible for sale.
“The nationwide backlash sparked by Senator Mike Lee’s proposal to sell off millions of acres of public land shows just how universally unpopular his idea is,” Scott Braden, executive director of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, said in a news release. “While we’re glad to see the sell-off plan removed from the Budget Bill, we know Lee’s underlying goal remains the same: to sell off America’s public lands using any excuse or legislative opportunity he can find.”
Indeed, Lee reacted to the parliamentarian’s ruling by posting on the social media platform X that he would revamp the plan — though it’s not clear if he intends to take another run at getting a reformed proposal into the budget bill.
The new legislation will still sell off land owned by the Bureau of Land Management — but not that owned by the Forest Service.
He also said he would “SIGNIFICANTLY REDUCE” the amount of land in the bill, limiting it only to lands within 5 miles of a population center.
Lee added he would seek to establish “FREEDOM ZONES to ensure these lands benefit AMERICAN FAMILIES” and “PROTECT our farmers, ranchers, and recreational users. They come first.”
Lee has steadfastly insisted that he wants to sell public lands for affordable housing, but as SUWA noted before the parliamentarian’s ruling, “There is no requirement that any housing built in response to this bill be affordable or meet any affordable housing requirements. There is no provision to prevent lands sold under Lee’s bill from being developed into high-end vacation homes, Airbnbs, or luxury housing projects, which would be especially desirable near scenic or high-demand areas.”
As we’ve noted previously, there’s already a process to dispose of public lands for public purposes, undermining the seriousness of Lee’s proposal. A plan to put as much public land in private hands as possible has to start somewhere and Lee has made housing affordability the Trojan horse to get the ball rolling.
The sell-off is scuttled for now and we hope members of the Senate see the folly of selling public lands through legislative shortcuts like the budget reconciliation, which bypass public input, environmental review and accountability — and betray the public’s trust.