U.S. Sen. Micheal Bennet, along with other Democratic senators from Utah, New Mexico and Idaho, introduced a bill Thursday that would protect public lands against future mass sell-off attempts.
In 2025, Utah Sen. Mike Lee proposed legislation that would allow the federal government to sell off millions of acres of public land in Utah, Colorado and other Western states.
Thousands of acres of public land in La Plata County would have been eligible for sale, including large swathes of the La Plata Mountains and the San Juan National Forest.
“Sen. Lee’s proposal was a radical idea, but he’s been clear ever since that he’s not giving up the fight to sell off our treasured public lands, and we aren’t done either,” Bennet said during a news conference Thursday. “Public lands must be off the table to pay for short-term partisan spending.”
The proposed Public Lands Integrity Act would ensure that any measure that results in the sale, transfer or disposal of public lands cannot be passed through reconciliation – the fast-tracked budget process that needs only 51 votes in the Senate.
It would amend the Byrd rule, which says lawmakers can’t stuff non‑budget “policy” items into budget reconciliation bills just to take advantage of the 51‑vote threshold, Bennet said. The rule sets six different exceptions; this measure would make public land sell-offs the seventh.
Instead, any proposed sales would be required to go through the regular process, which usually requires 60 votes and bipartisan support.
It would “shut the door” on that tactic permanently and force any future attempt to sell public lands into a more transparent, bipartisan process, he said.
The bill has the backing of legislators, elected officials, ranchers and environmental groups across the Western states, including Melvin Baker, chairman of the Southern Ute Indian Tribe.
In a letter expressing his and the tribal government’s support for the bill, Baker said the previous attempts to sell off public lands gave no consideration to the fact that much of the land that would have been impacted are subject to tribal treaty rights with the federal government. It included lands wherein the Southern Ute Indian Tribe still has federally protected treaty rights, Baker said.
La Plata County Commissioner Marsha Porter-Norton also voiced support for the bill. She called the previous sell-off attempt “economically offensive.”
“Why do we have millions of people coming to Southwest Colorado in the Western Slope? It’s to experience public lands,” she said. “They’re not coming here to tour industrial areas. They’re coming here because of our iconic public lands.”
While debates over land management, like where drilling, development and grazing should be permitted are important and should continue, blanket sell-offs to finance a partisan president’s agenda are unacceptable, Porter-Norton said.
Bennet is optimistic about the bill’s success, and said he believes it will pass. The issue is not a partisan one, he and other supporters – including Porter-Norton and Colorado House Speaker Julie McCluskie – said.
Porter-Norton said she could not offer the same confidence in the bill’s passage.
“I have no idea,” she said. “… With the current federal administration and a seemingly lack of ability to really do the old-fashioned compromise and try to integrate everybody’s values, I have no idea.”
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