I wish I could ignore this, but I can’t.
Senate Republicans are proposing to sell off millions of acres of public lands, impacting vast areas of western states and Alaska. This is part of an effort by the Trump Administration to loot the federal government to pay for tax cuts to billionaires and dole out favors to the powerful industries that fund them.
The latest proposed public lands heist comes from Senators Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Steve Daines (R-Montana). Without any hearings or discussion, they have inserted into the Senate’s budget reconciliation package language that mandates the sale of between two and three million acres of land of public lands managed by the Bureau of Land Manage and the U.S. Forest Service, and that would authorize the sale of up to 250,000,000 acres, according to an analysis by The Wilderness Society.
PEER opposes any conveyance of public land in the budget reconciliation. We oppose all efforts to sell off our public lands and gut our public lands agencies.
In California, over 16 million acres in California would be available for sale, including lands adjacent to Yosemite National Park, Mount Shasta, Big Sur, and Lake Tahoe. The perfect location for vacation homes for oligarchs. In Alaska, the bill would authorize large swaths of land sales in Chugach and Tongass National Forests. Undoubtedly this land’s resources will be exploited–logged or opened for mining or drilling.
If this bill passes, communities could see their favorite open spaces or outdoor areas sold right out from under them with little to no warning.
An updated version of the bill has a fast track for conveyance. It states that the secretaries of agriculture and interior will have 30 days to solicit nominations for lands to be sold from ‘any interested parties’ and must publish a list every 60 days of lands eligible for sale until they’ve reached the quota of mandated sales.
The bill excludes federally protected land, such as national parks, national monuments, recreation areas, battlefield sites, national trails, and units of the Wild and Scenic River System. At the time of this writing, the bill does not exclude public lands used for grazing, which means those lands could be sold under the provisions of this bill. Lands eligible for sale in the bill encompass local recreation areas, wilderness study areas, inventoried roadless areas, critical wildlife habitat and big game migration corridors.
National Monument lands may also be at risk from this proposal. Last week the Department of Justice released an unprecedented legal opinion stating that the Executive Branch has the legal authority to revoke national monument protections. If the Trump Administration were to attempt to follow through on this, another 13.5 million acres of some of our most special places could be lost.
Supporters of the bill claim that selling off public lands would help fund the deficit and allow for the development of more affordable housing. This is just bogus. Under all Republican budget proposals, the deficit will balloon to unprecedented levels because of the tax cuts they are proposing to give to billionaires. Meanwhile, the administration’s proposed budget would gut public housing programs.
What is really happening is that this Congress and President are enacting their most extreme attack on public lands by attempting to sell off, privatize, and destroy public lands and the agencies that manage them. The Lee-Daines bill is part of this effort.
In preparation for this new reality, Secretary Burgum is gutting the workforce of those agencies responsible for managing our public lands, resulting in closures of visitor centers, cancellations of public activities, growing maintenance backlogs, and a shortage of law enforcement and firefighting capabilities.
Together, we need to fight back. The American people vigorously oppose the sale of public land. In a recent poll, 71% of Americans oppose the sale of public lands to the highest bidder. Americans of all political stripes support and appreciate the hunting, fishing, hiking, recreational, and spiritual opportunities provided by public lands.
The full Senate will vote on the Daines-Lee bill sometime between now and July 4, a deadline Congressional Republicans have arbitrarily set for completing the budget. Should it pass there, it will go to the House, where Republican representatives removed a previous provision that would have sold off about 500,000 acres of public lands due to voter pressure.
We must stop the public lands heist in its tracks.
Call your elected representative to tell them to stop this madness, and sign our public lands letter.
Chandra Rosenthal is the Director of PEER’s Rocky Mountain Office located in Denver, Colorado.
