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3.3M acres of public land for sale? Nevada listed in congressional proposal

Updated June 12, 2025 - 5:12 pm

Nevada could again be caught in the crosshairs of a congressional proposal to sell off up to 3.3 million acres of public land over the next five years to boost housing.

U.S. Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, and the chair of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, added provisions to Congress’ budget that would mandate the sale of between 2.2 million and 3.3 million acres of federal land managed by the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service over the next five years.

“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,” Lee said in a statement.

Revenue from the sales would go to the Treasury Department instead of local governments. It would affect 11 Western states, including Nevada. That list notably leaves out Montana, where opposition to public land sales has been fierce from Rep. Ryan Zinke, R-Mont., who served as President Donald Trump’s Interior Secretary in his first term.

The news comes just weeks after more targeted and specific land sale proposals for Nevada and Utah were quashed in the House. Rep. Mark Amodei, R-Nev., who led the House proposal to sell off land in Nevada, didn’t respond to a request for comment Thursday.

Outcry sparked in Nevada

The announcement was met with a chorus of disappointment from Nevada leaders and environmental groups.

Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, who sparred with Interior Secretary Doug Burgum in a hearing Wednesday over public land sales, said the language was developed behind closed doors.

It didn’t include input from critical stakeholders, ignored affordable housing provisions and eliminated funding Nevada relies on for schools and water conservation projects, she said. Those projects are generally funded through the Southern Nevada Public Land Management Act, a rare law that guarantees revenue is distributed back to the local economy.

“If we truly want to support affordable housing and economic development in Nevada, everyone needs to be at the table,” she said in a statement. “Shoving lands sales in a reconciliation bill in order to pay for tax cuts for billionaires is not the way forward, and I’ll continue to fight against this misguided proposal.”

Nevada, where housing is sparse in Clark County and other urban areas, leads the nation in the percentage of land that is managed by the federal government. Where the land sales would take place would be left up to the discretion of both federal agencies, the Bureau of Land Management and the Forest Service.

Olivia Tanager, executive director of Nevada’s chapter of the Sierra Club, slammed Lee and the proposal in a statement on Thursday.

She criticized Amodei’s prior land sale proposal because it would have released land for housing on the outskirts of the Las Vegas Valley, where little water infrastructure exists. Public land sales, according to polling, remain unpopular among Western voters, including with those who self-identify as Trump supporters.

“If Senator Lee had asked Nevadans about this before proposing it, he would have heard a resounding: ‘hell no,’” Tanager said in a statement. “Trying to shoehorn this kind of unprecedented land sell-off back into a budget bill shows just how far some politicians will go to serve private interests instead of the public good. We will fight this with everything we’ve got.”

Contact Alan Halaly at ahalaly@reviewjournal.com and Jessica Hill at jehill@reviewjournal.com. Follow @AlanHalaly and @jess_hillyeah on X.

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