Huge Public Land Sale Stripped from Senate Bill—For Now—But Assault on Federal Land Protections Continues

On the day the Trump administration announced it was rescinding the national forest roadless rule, the Senate parliamentarian said a proposal to sell millions of acres of public lands cannot go through without 60 votes in the chamber.

Utah Sen. Mike Lee’s proposed amendment to the budget reconciliation megabill that would mandate the sell-off of two to three million acres of U.S. public lands has been ruled out by the Senate parliamentarian.

Elizabeth MacDonough, the Senate parliamentarian whose staff provides advice on rules, precedents and statutes in the Senate, said the proposal, as well as a host of others suggested by the Energy and Natural Resources committee, will require 60 votes—more than the Republican majority in the Senate can provide—to stay in the bill, according to a press release from Senate Budget Committee Democrats. The decision stems from the Byrd Rule, which prevents extraneous matter from being added to budget reconciliation bills. 

Environmental groups heralded the news, but the threat of public land sell-offs remain, and the Trump administration already this week has rolled back other rules protecting remote areas of the country. The Senate parliamentarian plays an advisory role, and their recommendations can be overruled by Senate leadership, though Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said Monday they wouldn’t move to do so. Already, Lee (R-Utah), who chairs the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said in a post on X that he would submit new language in the bill completely removing the selling off of land managed by the Forest Service and reducing the number of Bureau of Land Management acres that would be put up for sale.

“This is a victory for the American public, who were loud and clear: Public lands belong in public hands, for current and future generations alike,” Tracy Stone-Manning, president of The Wilderness Society and former director of the BLM, said in a statement. “We trust the next politician who wants to sell off public lands will remember that people of all stripes will stand against that idea. Our public lands are not for sale.”

Under Lee’s initial proposal, more than 250 million acres of public land across 11 Western states, where most of the nation’s federal land is found, would be eligible for sale, with the BLM and Forest Service mandated to sell off somewhere between two and three million acres. Some Republicans have touted the idea of using the nation’s public lands as a way to address the housing crisis, though much of the land proposed for sale is in remote areas or is otherwise inappropriate for development. The proposal drew outcry online and in public protests, with environmentalists, local leaders and hunting groups adamantly opposing any sales of public lands.

Although less federal acreage may now be on the chopping block, the Trump administration has continued rolling back rules protecting some areas of public land from development. On Monday, Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins announced at a Western Governors’ Association conference that the Forest Service would be rescinding the 2001 Roadless Rule. 

“For too long, Western states, especially those with large swaths of land administered by our incredible Forest Service, have been inhibited from innovating because of burdensome regulations imposed by our federal government,” Rollins said at a press conference announcing the decision. 

That rule, implemented at the end of the Clinton administration, prohibits road construction, road reconstruction and timber harvesting on 58.5 million acres of Forest Service land, effectively protecting them as remote wilderness areas.

“In the same breath, Sec. of Agriculture Rollins calls one of the best ideas from this century for protecting intact forests ‘absurd’ and labels the deployment of a legion of chainsaws and heavy equipment ‘sustainable,’” said Sarah McMillan, Wildlands and Wildlife Program director at the Western Environmental Law Center, in a statement. “The success and popularity of the Roadless Rule is off the charts. The proposed, unconscionable public land sales in the reconciliation bill combined with this rescission, betray a singular goal of America’s current rulers: Reap as much private profit as humanly possible in four years no matter the generational cost to the American people and the natural world.”

The conference was held in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and also featured a keynote speech from Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, who did not mention the proposed land sale being considered in the Senate’s work on the budget reconciliation bill, but did refer to the country’s public lands as a “balance sheet,” touted the steps the administration has done to aid fossil fuel and mining industries, and said climate change would be solved in the next decade or two.

Outside, locals rallied to protest, with more than 1,000 people showing up, filling the air with chants of “not for sale,” Source New Mexico reported. 

“This land is sacred, this land belongs to all of us, the water belongs to all of us,” Santa Clara Pueblo Gov. James Naranjo said at the rally, which was just one of many held to promote protecting public lands since President Trump took office. “They don’t belong to rich millionaires, they belong to the people of New Mexico and our visitors that come a long way to see our beautiful state, our beautiful culture, our beautiful ways of life.”

Mark Allison, executive director of New Mexico Wild, which helped coordinate the rally, said the state’s public lands, like those around the country, are facing unprecedented threats from the current administration. Roughly 32 percent of New Mexico’s landmass is managed by the federal government, and the state is home to numerous national parks and monuments—three of which the Trump administration is considering scaling back or eliminating, Allison said. 

The rally, he said, was a chance to have federal officials hear from the public, which overwhelmingly supports protections of public lands, polling has found. 

“People have just had it,” he said. “One of the things we can do is all get together, people of all political persuasions, and collectively say we’re not down with this, and we want you to leave our public lands alone.”

Cover photo:  Protesters gather outside of the Western Governors’ Association annual meeting to protest threats to the nation’s public lands on June 23 in Santa Fe, N.M. Credit: New Mexico Wild