{"id":21703,"date":"2025-06-24T17:01:49","date_gmt":"2025-06-24T23:01:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/gop-plan-to-sell-more-than-3200-square-miles-of-federal-lands-is-found-to-violate-senate-rules\/"},"modified":"2025-06-24T23:01:49","modified_gmt":"2025-06-24T23:01:49","slug":"gop-plan-to-sell-more-than-3200-square-miles-of-federal-lands-is-found-to-violate-senate-rules","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/gop-plan-to-sell-more-than-3200-square-miles-of-federal-lands-is-found-to-violate-senate-rules\/","title":{"rendered":"GOP plan to sell more than 3,200 square miles of federal lands is found to violate Senate rules"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"A
A few thousand people rally outside the Eldorado Hotel to protest against the sale of public lands by the Trump administration, during the Western Governors Association meeting in Santa Fe, N.M., on Monday. (Eddie Moore\/The Albuquerque Journal via AP)<\/span>dur-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

WASHINGTON \u2013 A plan to sell more than 3,200 square miles of federal lands has been ruled out of Republicans\u2019 big tax and spending cut bill<\/a> after the Senate parliamentarian determined the proposal by Senate Energy Chairman Mike Lee would violate the chamber\u2019s rules.<\/p>\n

Lee, a Utah Republican, has proposed selling millions of acres of public lands in the West to states<\/a> or other entities for use as housing or infrastructure. The plan would revive a longtime ambition of Western conservatives to cede lands to local control<\/a> after a similar proposal failed in the House earlier this year.<\/p>\n

\"Sen.
Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, speaks during the confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Jan. 16. (Jose Luis Magana\/Associated Press file)<\/span>dur-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Lee\u2019s plan has revealed sharp disagreement among Republicans<\/a> who support wholesale transfers of federal property to spur development and generate revenue, and other lawmakers \u2014 including GOP senators in Montana and Idaho \u2014 who are staunchly opposed.<\/p>\n

The proposal comes as the Trump administration said Monday it will move to rescind a 2001 rule that blocked logging<\/a> on national forest lands. The so-called roadless rule has angered Republicans, especially in the West where forests sprawl across vast, mountainous terrain and the logging industry has waned.<\/p>\n

Democrats and environmental groups roundly oppose both plans as giveaways to private interests that will threaten clean water and wildlife and block recreation on public lands.<\/p>\n

\u201cDemocrats will not stand idly by while Republicans attempt to circumvent the rules of (budget) reconciliation in order to sell off public lands to fund tax breaks for billionaires,\u201d said Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley, the top Democrat on the Senate Budget Committee.<\/p>\n

Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., said her constituents want to be able to hike and hunt on public lands, as they have for generations all over the West. \u201cThey don\u2019t want these lands to be luxury resorts or golf courses,\u201d she said at a news conference Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Republican sponsor isn\u2019t giving up<\/strong><\/div>\n

Lee, in a post on X Monday night, said he would keep trying.<\/p>\n

\u201cHousing prices are crushing families and keeping young Americans from living where they grew up. We need to change that,\u201d he wrote, adding that a revised plan would remove all U.S. Forest Service land from possible sale. Sales of sites controlled by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management would be significantly reduced, Lee said, so that only land within 5 miles of population centers could be sold.<\/p>\n

Environmental advocates celebrated the ruling late Monday by Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough but cautioned that Lee\u2019s proposal was far from dead.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a victory for the American public, who were loud and clear: Public lands belong in public hands, for current and future generations alike,\u201d said Tracy Stone-Manning, president of The Wilderness Society. \u201cOur public lands are not for sale.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carrie Besnette Hauser, president and CEO of the nonprofit Trust for Public Land, called the procedural ruling in the Senate \u201can important victory in the fight to protect America\u2019s public lands from short-sighted proposals that would have undermined decades of bipartisan work to protect, steward and expand access to the places we all share.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut make no mistake: this threat is far from over,\u201d Hauser added. \u201cEfforts to dismantle our public lands continue, and we must remain vigilant as proposals now under consideration,\u201d including plans to roll back the bipartisan Great American Outdoors Act and cut funding for land and water conservation, make their way through Congress, she said.<\/p>\n

Parliamentarian\u2019s rulings are rarely ignored<\/strong><\/div>\n

MacDonough, the Senate parliamentarian, also ruled out a host of other Republican-led provisions Monday night, including construction of a mining road in Alaska and changes to speed permitting of oil and gas leases on federal lands.<\/p>\n

While the parliamentarian\u2019s rulings<\/a> are advisory, they are rarely, if ever, ignored. Lawmakers are using a budget reconciliation process to bypass the Senate filibuster to pass President Donald Trump\u2019s<\/a> tax-cut package by a self-imposed July 4 deadline.<\/p>\n

Under Lee\u2019s plan, land in 11 Western states from Alaska to New Mexico would be eligible for sale. Montana was carved out of the proposal after lawmakers there objected. In states such as Utah and Nevada, the government controls the vast majority of lands, protecting them from potential exploitation but hindering growth.<\/p>\n

\u201cWashington has proven time and again it can\u2019t manage this land. This bill puts it in better hands,\u201d Lee said in announcing the plan earlier this month.<\/p>\n

\"Gov.
Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham of New Mexico, center, watched by Governors Larry Rodin of South Dakota, right, and Jared Polis of Colorado, talks about priorities for affordable housing and public lands in Santa Fe, N.M., on Monday at a meeting of the Western Governor's Association. (Morgan Lee\/Associated Press)<\/span>dur-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The proposal received a mixed reception Monday from the governors of Western states<\/a>. Democratic New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham called it problematic in her state because of the close relationship residents have with public lands.<\/p>\n

Republican Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon voiced qualified support. \u201cOn a piece-by-piece basis \u2026 we can actually allow for some responsible growth in areas with communities that are landlocked at this point,\u201d he said at a meeting of the Western Governors\u2019 Association in Santa Fe, New Mexico.<\/p>\n

Housing advocates have cautioned that federal land is not universally suitable for affordable housing. Some of the parcels up for sale in Utah and Nevada under a House proposal were many miles from developed areas.<\/p>\n

New Mexico Sen. Martin Heinrich, the top Democrat on the energy committee, said Lee\u2019s plan would exclude Americans from places where they fish, hunt and camp.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s clear that we would even get substantial housing as a result of this,\u201d Heinrich said earlier this month. \u201cWhat I know would happen is people would lose access to places they know and care about and that drive our Western economies.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Hundreds
Hundreds of people protest efforts to privatize federal public land in Santa Fe, N.M., outside a meeting of governors from Western states and top Trump-administration officials, as Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins announced plans to rescind a decades-old rule that blocked logging on national forest lands, in Santa Fe, N.M., on Monday. (Morgan Lee\/Associated Press)<\/span>dur-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Proposal revealed sharp disagreement among Republicans<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21704,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,193,1566],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-21703","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-land-use","tag-u-s-senate"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21703","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21703"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21703\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21704"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21703"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=21703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}