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A controversial proposal to sell millions of acres of public land in the Western states, including the large strip of California, was stripped Monday for violating Senate rules from Republican tax and expenditure bills.
Sen. Mike Lee (R – UTAH) has advanced his obligation to sell up to 3.3 million acres of public land managed by the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management for the stated purpose of addressing housing needs.
Late Monday, Senator Elizabeth McDonough advised agencies on interpreting procedural rules – determined that the proposal would not be convened under the Bird Rules to prevent the inclusion of provisions unrelated to the budget of the settlement bill.
The move initially appeared to have taken away Lee Lee’s plans. But Lee, chairman of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, took him to social media platform X and said the fight wasn’t over.
“Yes, Bird Rules limits what can be done with the settlement bill, but we are supporting President Trump and doing everything we can to move this forward,” Lee posted Monday night.
In the post, he outlined changes, including removing all forest department land and limiting eligible land management departments to areas within the radius of the five-mile population center. He wrote that housing prices “crush young families,” suggesting that his modified proposal would alleviate such economic barriers.
Utah’s Deseret News reported that Lee submitted a revised proposal Tuesday morning with new restrictions.
Environmentalists and public land supporters celebrated McDonough’s decision to reject Lee’s proposal, even if they were prepared for the ongoing battle.
“This is a huge victory for public lands,” Jennifer Lokala, executive director of the Western Priority Centre, said in a statement. “Thankfully, Senators have seen outrageous attempts by Senator Lee to sell millions of acres of public land, an ideological crusade against public land, not a serious proposal to raise federal revenue.”
Lydia Weiss, senior director of government relations for the Wilderness, a conservation nonprofit, called the rejection of the proposal “deafening.”
“And it seems that Westerners who spoke up to reject the idea of public land sales do not seem particularly interested in the revised bill,” she added. “They seem interested in this bad idea disappearing once.”
According to the Wilderness Society, the proposal would have qualified for the sale of more than 16 million acres of California’s land before it fell into the Knicks.
The vulnerable areas included roadless stretches north of the Angeles National Forest, providing recreational opportunities for millions of people living in the Los Angeles Basin and protecting wildlife corridors, the group said. Other risky areas included BLM lands in the Mohab Desert, including parts of the San Bernardino, Inho, Cleveland National Forest, and parts of the Coyote Dry Lake Bed outside Joshua Tree National Park.
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