Congress drops public land sales from ‘big, beautiful bill’ — for good
A toned-down version of a Utah senator’s bill to sell off swaths of public lands in the West for housing has died for good.
Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, announced Saturday that he was withdrawing his bid to include language in Congress’ “big, beautiful bill” that would have directed the Bureau of Land Management to sell off up to 1.2 million acres of federal land for housing.
Lee found himself in a firestorm of backlash from both Republicans and Democrats, who saw it as the first step toward the privatization of the federal land they use to recreate and hunt.
“I continue to believe the federal government owns far too much land — land it is mismanaging and in many cases ruining for the next generation,” Lee said in a statement. “President Trump promised to put underutilized federal land to work for American families, and I look forward to helping him achieve that in a way that respects the legacy of our public lands and reflects the values of the people who use them most.”
Among Lee’s critics in the GOP was Donald Trump Jr., who called the bill’s provision a “rare exception” where he disagreed with Lee.
In Southern Nevada, where the stock of available housing is sparse, building on public land isn’t out of the question with the reintroduction of the Southern Nevada Economic Development Act in March. The bipartisan bill would provide locally selected tracts of land for housing development in exchange for 2 million acres of conservation.
Public stood firm
The news comes days after Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough — an appointee of then-Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev. — declared that a prior version of the proposal was outside of the scope of what a congressional budget bill should contain. The little-known Byrd Rule allows MacDonough to toss out parts of the bill, though senators have the power to override the decision with 60 votes.
On Wednesday, Lee had reintroduced this version of his proposal that would require the BLM to sell off between roughly 612,500 to 1.2 million acres of its land, but only within 5 miles of population centers, defined as towns or cities with more than 1,000 people.
It was a noticeable change from his prior version, which included U.S. Forest Service land, didn’t specify distance to towns or cities, and had a bigger range — from 2.2 million to 3.3 million acres.
Nevada’s Democratic delegation — Reps. Steven Horsford, Dina Titus and Susie Lee, as well as Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto and Jacky Rosen — had spoken out against Mike Lee’s public land sale proposal at length.
Among their chief concerns was that the land sales wouldn’t have generated any revenue for Nevada’s municipal governments, that no land would be conserved in return and that local leaders would not be allowed to give input.
“Public lands belong to the people,” Horsford said in a post on X Saturday. “They should be protected and not carelessly sold off to the highest bidder. Glad Senator Lee came to his senses. Let’s not have this fight again. We have real work to do.”
However, public land sales are still front of mind for Rep. Mark Amodei, Nevada’s sole Republican representative in Congress, who led a similar effort when the reconciliation bill was in the House. His version of the bill would have specified portions of Nevada land that could be sold, rather than leaving it up to the BLM to decide.
In an interview on Thursday, Amodei said the issue of public lands being sold at all, even in targeted ways, has been unfairly politicized — to the detriment of communities that deserve to grow.
“If the word public land was in there, then these groups would crucify him,” Amodei said, referring to Mike Lee. “I am worried about the future of Nevada. … Whether you like unlimited growth or no growth, the fact of the matter is somewhere in between.”
Contact Alan Halaly at ahalaly@reviewjournal.com. Follow @AlanHalaly on X. Review-Journal staff writer Jessica Hill contributed to this report.
