Dozens of environmental groups sign letter opposing return of public lands sale
People rally in opposition of Utah's lawsuit attempting to take control of federal lands at the Capitol in Salt Lake City on Saturday, Jan. 11, 2025. (Photo by Spenser Heaps for Utah News Dispatch)
Organizations from around the country signed a letter on Monday urging U.S. senators not to include a controversial proposal to sell thousands of acres of federal land in Congress' budget bill.
The letter comes in the wake of reports that Utah Sen. Mike Lee is considering reviving an amendment to the bill originally proposed by Rep. Celeste Maloy that would dispose of nearly 11,500 acres of Bureau of Land Management land in southwestern Utah, and about 450,000 acres in Nevada.
Lee, when asked by a Politico reporter last week if he intended to reintroduce the disposal, responded, 'I gotta go vote, but yes.'
Lee's office did not respond to a request for comment on Monday, and it's unclear whether Utah's senior GOP senator is considering bringing back an exact copy of Maloy's amendment, or something different.
But more than 100 organizations and nonprofits around the country are sounding the alarm, telling Senate leaders to 'heed how dramatically unpopular this idea is and reject any misguided attempt to get public lands sales back in this bill.'
'Decisions about the future of public lands should remain in public hands. Leaders in the House and Senate, extractive industry, and private developers are using the reconciliation process to sell off federal lands to pay for billionaire tax cuts. But such moves are deeply unpopular. Polling has repeatedly shown that the public — especially westerners — strongly believes in keeping public lands in public hands and, across partisan lines, rejects any efforts that would lead to the sale of these shared and cherished lands,' reads the letter, signed by Utah groups like the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, Conserve Southwest Utah, Save Our Canyons, Great Basin Water Network and Back Country Horsemen of Utah.
The letter is addressed to Lee, who chairs the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, New Mexico Democrat Martin Heinrich, the committee's ranking member, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, a South Dakota Republican, and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat.
Maloy's amendment was dropped from the budget bill after it received pushback from all sides of the aisle. That includes Montana Republican Rep. Ryan Zinke, who previously said selling public lands is a line he would not cross and rallied support from a bipartisan group of lawmakers to strip the proposal from the bill.
'The public had no opportunity to participate in the process of identifying these parcels, let alone time to understand the long-term effect of selling off these public lands,' the letter reads.
Maloy's proposal identified parcels owned by the Bureau of Land Management to sell to Washington and Beaver counties, the Washington County Water Conservancy District and the city of St. George. The land would have been used for water infrastructure (like reservoirs and wells), an airport expansion in St. George, new and widened roads, recreation and housing.
This story was originally published by the Utah News Dispatch which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network, including the Daily Montanan, supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.
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