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After adding a late-night public land sell-off amendment to a budget bill, lawmakers are facing intensifying backlash in their home states and across the West. Earlier this week, Tribal leaders and conservation advocates held protests in Nevada and Utah, the home states of the sell-off amendment's sponsors. The commissioners of Clark County, NV, also expressed their opposition to the proposal, saying in a statement that they "are concerned that this bill does not reflect the [Clark County Commission’s] priorities to facilitate responsible future development, especially as it relates to environmental conservation, water and public infrastructure." And U.S. Senator Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada called the plan "insane."
Recent polling shows that the idea of selling off national public lands has become more and more unpopular with Western voters over time. The 2025 Conservation in the West poll found that 88 percent of Western voters support keeping national monument designations in place and 65 percent oppose transferring national public lands to states—both increases compared to when the same question was asked in the 2017 poll. And in the same poll, less than a quarter of Western voters support the idea of selling public lands to develop housing on natural areas.
Despite the unpopularity of the idea, anti-public lands lawmakers have continued to look for ways to achieve their goal of selling off national public lands. "Our two states are the test case," Mathilda Miller, government relations director for Native Voters Alliance Nevada, pointed out. "If this land grab goes through quietly, they’ll use the same exact playbook somewhere else."
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I would agree that it’s difficult to accomplish legally defensible NEPA under these timelines and with the department’s resource constraints.”
