GOP plan to sell more than 3,200 square miles of federal lands is found
to violate Senate rules
[June 25, 2025]
By MATTHEW DALY
WASHINGTON (AP) — A plan to sell more than 3,200 square miles of federal
lands has been ruled out of Republicans’ big tax and spending cut bill
after the Senate parliamentarian determined the proposal by Senate
Energy Chairman Mike Lee would violate the chamber’s rules.
Lee, a Utah Republican, has proposed selling millions of acres (8.300
square kilometers) of public lands in the West to states or other
entities for use as housing or infrastructure. The plan would revive a
longtime ambition of Western conservatives to cede lands to local
control after a similar proposal failed in the House earlier this year.
Lee's plan has revealed sharp disagreement among Republicans who support
wholesale transfers of federal property to spur development and generate
revenue, and other lawmakers — including GOP senators in Montana and
Idaho — who are staunchly opposed.
The proposal comes as the Trump administration said Monday it will move
to rescind a 2001 rule that blocked logging on national forest lands.
The so-called roadless rule has angered Republicans, especially in the
West where forests sprawl across vast, mountainous terrain and the
logging industry has waned.
Democrats and environmental groups roundly oppose both plans as
giveaways to private interests that will threaten clean water and
wildlife and block recreation on public lands.
“Democrats will not stand idly by while Republicans attempt to
circumvent the rules of (budget) reconciliation in order to sell off
public lands to fund tax breaks for billionaires,'' said Oregon Sen.
Jeff Merkley, the top Democrat on the Senate Budget Committee.
Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., said her constituents want to be able to
hike and hunt on public lands, as they have for generations all over the
West. "They don't want these lands to be luxury resorts or golf
courses,'' she said at a news conference Tuesday.
Republican sponsor isn't giving up
Lee, in a post on X Monday night, said he would keep trying.
“Housing prices are crushing families and keeping young Americans from
living where they grew up. We need to change that,'' he wrote, adding
that a revised plan would remove all U.S. Forest Service land from
possible sale. Sales of sites controlled by the U.S. Bureau of Land
Management would be significantly reduced, Lee said, so that only land
within 5 miles of population centers could be sold.
Environmental advocates celebrated the ruling late Monday by Senate
Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough but cautioned that Lee's proposal
was far from dead.
“This is a victory for the American public, who were loud and clear:
Public lands belong in public hands, for current and future generations
alike,'' said Tracy Stone-Manning, president of The Wilderness Society.
“Our public lands are not for sale.”
Carrie Besnette Hauser, president and CEO of the nonprofit Trust for
Public Land, called the procedural ruling in the Senate “an important
victory in the fight to protect America’s public lands from
short-sighted proposals that would have undermined decades of bipartisan
work to protect, steward and expand access to the places we all share.”
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Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, Chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural
Resources Committee, speaks during the confirmation hearing on
Capitol Hill in Washington, Jan. 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Jose Luis
Magana, File)
"But make no mistake: this threat is far from over,” Hauser added.
“Efforts to dismantle our public lands continue, and we must remain
vigilant as proposals now under consideration," including plans to
roll back the bipartisan Great American Outdoors Act and cut funding
for land and water conservation, make their way through Congress,
she said.
Parliamentarian's rulings are rarely ignored
MacDonough, the Senate parliamentarian, also ruled out a host of
other Republican-led provisions Monday night, including construction
of a mining road in Alaska and changes to speed permitting of oil
and gas leases on federal lands.
While the parliamentarian’s rulings are advisory, they are rarely,
if ever, ignored. Lawmakers are using a budget reconciliation
process to bypass the Senate filibuster to pass President Donald
Trump’s tax-cut package by a self-imposed July 4 deadline.
Under Lee's plan, land in 11 Western states from Alaska to New
Mexico would be eligible for sale. Montana was carved out of the
proposal after lawmakers there objected. In states such as Utah and
Nevada, the government controls the vast majority of lands,
protecting them from potential exploitation but hindering growth.
"Washington has proven time and again it can’t manage this land.
This bill puts it in better hands,” Lee said in announcing the plan
earlier this month.
The proposal received a mixed reception Monday from the governors of
Western states. Democratic New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham
called it problematic in her state because of the close relationship
residents have with public lands.
Republican Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon voiced qualified support. “On a
piece-by-piece basis ... we can actually allow for some responsible
growth in areas with communities that are landlocked at this point,”
he said at a meeting of the Western Governors’ Association in Santa
Fe, New Mexico.
Housing advocates have cautioned that federal land is not
universally suitable for affordable housing. Some of the parcels up
for sale in Utah and Nevada under a House proposal were many miles
from developed areas.
New Mexico Sen. Martin Heinrich, the top Democrat on the energy
committee, said Lee's plan would exclude Americans from places where
they fish, hunt and camp.
“I don’t think it’s clear that we would even get substantial housing
as a result of this,” Heinrich said earlier this month. “What I know
would happen is people would lose access to places they know and
care about and that drive our Western economies.”
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