Congress is making more than 250 million acres of public lands available for sale.
The pronghorn antelope has one of the longest big game migrations in the U.S.
Mason Cummings/TWS
Bill is a disturbing giveaway that sets an extremely dangerous precedent
On the heels of the disastrous House reconciliation bill’s passage, Senate Republicans have unveiled their own poisonous version of the bill that will fund President Trump’s agenda—a bill that calls for the outright sale of public lands as a key element.
The provision in question mandates the disposal of between 2 million and 3 million acres of lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service across 11 states: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming. Alarmingly, the provision contains very limited exemptions—Wilderness Study Areas, Areas of Critical Environmental Concern, roadless areas and critical habitat are all considered eligible for sale. Based on those limited restrictions, more than 250 million acres of public lands will be eligible to be sold to "any interested party."
To illustrate just how much is at stake, we’ve created a map of all public lands that are now at risk of disposal.
These are not disposable places as some proponents of land sales have claimed, they are some of the most significant intact landscapes in the United States. The Arctic, Otero Mesa, the Owyhee Canyonlands, Snoqualmie forest—these places are vital not only to the human communities in and around them but also to vulnerable wildlife struggling to survive in an increasingly developed world.
This effort is in and of itself entirely destructive—especially when considered with other provisions in the bill that will mandate oil lease sales in the Arctic Refuge, force construction of a mining road through a national park and more than double the amount of logging in western national forests—but it also sets a dangerous precedent that members of Congress can simply liquidate our public lands to fund their pet projects.
There is no question that this is a crisis point; our senators and representatives now face a critical test. Will they stand for their constituents and the overwhelming majority of the American public who want to protect public lands? Or will they succumb to pressure and give our public lands away to fund tax cuts for the wealthy?
