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U.S. Senator Mike Lee of Utah says he's determined to use the budget reconciliation bill before Congress to sell off American public lands. Lee made the comment to E&E News on Monday, and his office didn't deny the plans in a follow-up statement to reporters on Tuesday.
Representatives Celeste Maloy of Utah and Mark Amodei of Nevada introduced a sell-off amendment in the dead of night during House debate on the bill last month. That provision, which would have led to the disposal of hundreds of thousands of acres of public land in Utah and Nevada, was stripped from the bill after significant bipartisan pushback from Westerners and the new congressional public lands caucus led by Ryan Zinke of Montana and Gabe Vazquez of New Mexico.
Public lands advocates vowed to keep sell-off out of the final bill. Travis Hammell of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance said that Lee's "hatred of public lands makes him a true outlier in the Senate," and that his plan for a sell-off "is wildly out of step with what Americans have made it clear that they want to see: federal public lands remaining in public hands."
On Tuesday, Lee amplified Elon Musk's criticism of the spending bill. After Musk called it "a disgusting abomination," Lee replied to a MAGA-aligned cat on Twitter, saying "we have good reason to believe the Senate will pass a more reform-heavy version of the bill."
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It was a complete betrayal of everything we’ve worked on in this state. This amendment is trying to sell off half a million acres of Nevada’s public lands in order to pay for tax cuts for billionaires. This is not going to address our housing problem. These lands are positioned to be sold off for other forms of development and extraction.”
