America’s public lands are back in the crosshairs as Senate Republicans work on their own version of Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” which recently passed the House and encapsulates the president’s policy agenda. After legislators were forced to drop a provision from the House bill that sought to sell off half a million acres, GOP senators now intend to mandate the disposal of between 2 million and 3 million acres of land across 11 Western states belonging to the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service.
This is the latest effort by a group of Western legislators and lobbyists to sell off public lands to states and business interests, and increase the leasing of them for mining, drilling and logging. The provision has found a champion in Interior Secretary (and former North Dakota Gov.) Doug Burgum, and leaked documents from the agency have revealed the intention to exploit public lands as convenient, disposable assets. Experts and advocacy groups warn that land near Yosemite and Tahoe in California, Sabino Canyon and Mount Lemmon in Arizona and large parcels of Arapahoe, San Juan and Rio Grande National Forests in Colorado could potentially be threatened under the current bill’s very limited exemptions for wilderness areas and lands of environmental concern.
