Lee’s Plan to Sell Public Lands Fails to Pass Budget Rules. He Promises to Try Again

A press statement from the Senate Committee on the Budget last night stated that a controversial proposal to sell up to 3 million acres of public land in the West does not follow Senate budget rules. 

“Today, the Senate Parliamentarian again advised that several provisions in the Republicans’ ‘One Big, Beautiful Bill,’ would be subject to a 60-vote threshold if they remain in the bill,” according to the statement. One of the provisions includes Lee’s plan that would require the sale millions of acres of National Forest and Bureau of Land Management ground across 11 Western states. The parliamentarian also ruled out a host of other public-land policy provisions Monday, including the construction of the Ambler Road to access mineral deposits in Alaska, as well as changes to permitting and oil and gas leasing.

Since there is currently a slim Republican majority in the Senate (53 Republicans to 47 Democrats), it’s highly unlikely that Lee’s provision would ever pass the 60-vote threshold. That’s why he attempted to wedge it into the the ‘One Big Beautiful Bill,’ which needs only a majority vote to pass.

Lee’s provision has essentially been jammed up by the Byrd Rule, which requires budget reconciliation bills, like this one, to remain focused on fiscal issues. In other words, a non-partisan bureaucrat, known as a parliamentarian, helps ensure that policy-heavy legislation doesn’t get tacked onto a budget bill.

“That’s why Senator Lee, who’s very experienced [at politics], has tied every one of these [public-land sale] things to money to offset the budget gap, [to] money to offset tax decreases or spending increases,” hunter and public-land advocate Randy Newberg told the Outdoor Life Podcast on Friday.

Before Senate parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough advised that Lee’s bill would not pass the Byrd Rule, the Senator from Utah had announced on X that he would be revising his plan. He posted the following just minutes before the parliamentarian’s determination became public: 

Housing prices are crushing families and keeping young Americans from living where they grew up. We need to change that.

Thanks to YOU—the AMERICAN PEOPLE—here’s what I plan to do:

1. REMOVE ALL Forest Service land. We are NOT selling off our forests.

2. SIGNIFICANTLY REDUCE the amount of BLM land in the bill. Only land WITHIN 5 MILES of population centers is eligible.

3. Establish FREEDOM ZONES to ensure these lands benefit AMERICAN FAMILIES.

4. PROTECT our farmers, ranchers, and recreational users. They come first.

Yes, the Byrd Rule limits what can go in the reconciliation bill, but I’m doing everything I can to support President Trump and move this forward.

Stay tuned. We’re just getting started.

It’s unclear when a draft of Lee’s new proposal will be made public and if or when it will be submitted to the Senate parliamentarian. However, it’s crystal clear that hunters and public land advocates strongly oppose Lee’s plan, including his promised revisions. Sources say it’s unclear how those revisions might be applied.

“Note that ‘population centers’ isn’t defined, and what is a ‘Freedom Zone’ anyway?” observed one national conservation group source who wasn’t authorized to speak to the press.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-South Dakota) has indicated that he’d like to see a budget bill ready for a floor vote in the Senate as early as this weekend, and until specific language is drafted and circulated, public-land advocates aren’t yet celebrating a deal-killing victory.

“The war on public lands is far from over,” says Land Tawney, founder of the lobbying group American Hunters and Anglers. “Senator Lee is hell-bent on selling our heritage, and we must stay vigilant. Lee, [Interior Secretary Doug] Burgum, and their cronies still aim to dismantle, defund, and ultimately divest our public lands. We will not forget those who support this ill-fated idea. We stand ready for the continued fight.”

Momentum for killing the land-sale provision in the Senate accelerated late last week when Idaho’s two senators publicly announced their opposition to the bill. They join Montana’s delegation, which has said it opposes the scale of Lee’s proposal. Public land in Montana was removed from the bill, presumably to neutralize opposition from Montana’s senators.

Republicans have a three-vote majority in the Senate, and losing as many as four Western GOP votes likely doomed Lee’s land-sale bill even before the parliamentarian flagged its contents.

Still, anything could happen as the budget bill nears the finish line in the Senate, say sources. Given Lee’s career-long interest in shrinking federal control over Western lands, they expect a revision that could still put significant BLM acreage on the auction block.

“Many people didn’t think Lee’s bill, including the Montana carve-out, would survive the Byrd Rule,” said Newberg. But he observed that revisions “might make this bill even worse. On the other hand, the worse this bill looks, the easier it is to kill it.”

Even if the land-sale provision is scaled back, other threats to public land may advance in the budget blueprint, says Dr. Carrie Besnette Hauser, the CEO and president of advocacy group Trust for Public Land.

“Make no mistake, this threat is far from over,” she said in a statement. “Efforts to dismantle our public lands continue, and we must remain vigilant as proposals now under consideration include a proposal to roll back the landmark, bipartisan Great American Outdoors Act and threaten full, dedicated funding for conservation through the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF).”

Public-land advocates say it remains critical for hunters, hikers, anglers, climbers, off-roaders, and anyone who recreates on public land to keep up pressure on their congressional delegation. Backcountry Hunters & Anglers plans to mobilize a coordinated phone-in campaign Wednesday (tomorrow) to flood the offices of elected officials with demands to drop the land-sale provision from any version of the federal budget.