For breaking Senate rules, a contentious plan to sell off millions of acres of public lands in Western states, including sizable portions of California, was removed from Republican tax and spending legislation on Monday.
Opponents argued that the language in the provision did not guarantee the stated goal of addressing housing needs, which is why Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah) had advanced a mandate to sell up to 3.3 million acres of public land managed by the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management.
The Senate lawmaker who counsels the government body on interpreting procedural rules, Elizabeth MacDonough, concluded late Monday that the proposal failed to pass muster under the Byrd Rule, which forbids the inclusion of extraneous budgetary provisions in a reconciliation bill.
At first, the action seemed to thwart Lee’s strategy, which has since sparked criticism from both parties. On the social media site X, however, Lee, the head of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, stated that the battle was far from finished.
Lee wrote in a post on Monday night, “Yes, the Byrd Rule restricts what can be included in the reconciliation bill, but I’m doing everything I can to support President Trump and move this forward.”
He listed other modifications in the post, such as eliminating all Forest Service acreage and restricting the amount of suitable land owned by the Bureau of acreage Management to a five-mile radius around major cities. Young families are being crushed by housing costs, he argued, and his revised approach will remove these financial obstacles.
On Tuesday morning, Lee submitted a revised plan with further limits, according to Utah’s Deseret News.
Environment & Climate
According to Trump officials, the newest monuments in California, Chuckwalla and STTLA Highlands, are at risk of being demolished by presidents.
Even as they prepared for a protracted battle, environmentalists and public land defenders applauded MacDonough’s decision to turn down Lee’s plan.
Jennifer Rokala, executive director of the Center for Western Priorities, said in a statement that this is a major victory for public lands. Fortunately, the Senate lawmaker has recognized Senator Lee’s absurd attempt to sell off millions of acres of public lands as an ideological campaign against public lands rather than a viable plan to increase federal money.
The proposal’s rejection was deafening, according to Lydia Weiss, senior director of government relations for the nonprofit conservation organization Wilderness Society.
Additionally, she noted that those in the West who voiced their opposition to the idea of public land sales don’t appear to be very interested in a revised measure. It appears that they want this horrible notion to be eliminated permanently.
The Wilderness Society claims that the idea, before it was shelved, would have allowed the sale of over 16 million acres of land in California.
Roadless sections in the northern parts of the Angeles National Forest, which provide recreation options to millions of people in the Los Angeles Basin and safeguard animal corridors, were among the vulnerable locations, the group claimed. Parts of the San Bernardino, Inyo, and Cleveland national forests as well as BLM land in the Mojave Desert, like the Coyote Dry Lake Bed outside of Joshua Tree National Park, were among the other sites that were at risk.
