Sen. Mike Lee’s megabill plan to sell off millions of acres of public lands drew negative reactions from some Republican lawmakers Thursday, but it’s not clear how hard they’ll fight on the matter.
Lee, a Utah Republican who chairs the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, has long sought to turn federal lands over to state control. Now, he’s seizing the opportunity.
His committee’s proposal for the Republican tax and spending bill would mandate the sale of up to 1.5 percent of federal lands across 11 states. In releasing text, summaries and a FAQ on Wednesday, the committee said the land sales were aimed at building “millions of affordable homes,” though the bill text also allows the sales to “address associated community needs,” seemingly opening the lands up to a wide range of uses.
Chief among the opponents of the plan is the Montana delegation. Public lands are especially popular in Montana — a likely factor in Lee’s decision to exempt the state from the land sales.
Crucially, both of the state’s senators did not explicitly draw a red line on the provision when asked about it Thursday.
“I don’t like it — I oppose the sale of public lands. The only part that I like about it is that it exempted Montana,” said Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) in an interview after working with Lee in an attempt to pare back or nix public lands sales in the proposal.
“I pushed back strongly. I guess he heard me in terms of exempting Montana, which still doesn’t make me happy with the overall bill.”
When asked, Daines did not say he would tank the whole bill if the land sales remained in it. However, he did say he’s planning to introduce an amendment to strip the sales.
“I’m gonna be pushing for an amendment vote, so we’ll see,” Daines said. “But the text is out, and I oppose it.”
Daines’ fellow Montanan in the Senate, Republican Sen. Tim Sheehy, also opposes the land sales, his spokesperson said.
But Sheehy similarly did not explicitly threaten to vote against the bill if the land sales weren’t removed.
“Senator Sheehy believes public lands belong in public hands and opposes the sale of public lands. He is pleased to see Montana exempted,” a Sheehy spokesperson said.
Should Daines, Sheehy or any other Republican senator threaten to withhold their vote over the land sales, they would have significant leverage.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) is eager to pass the Senate’s version of the bill by Independence Day and has little wiggle room with many senators already expressing displeasure over various sections of the bill, like steep cuts to Medicaid or the $2.4-trillion-dollar hole the bill is projected to open in the federal deficit.
The bill is being passed using budget reconciliation to skirt the Senate’s 60-vote filibuster threshold.
“You need everybody’s vote to pass the bill,” Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.) said Wednesday, while speaking about the public lands sales.
‘Remember who won San Juan Hill?’
It’s not the first time public lands sales have proven a thorny issue in Republicans’ quest to pass the bill that would boost President Donald Trump’s domestic agenda.
The House stripped a proposed sale of public lands from their version of the bill, which was inserted as an amendment from Reps. Mark Amodei (R-Nev.) and Celeste Maloy (R-Utah) and would have sold off roughly 500,000 acres in Nevada and Utah — a fraction of Lee’s proposed sales.
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) pulled the provision from the bill after protests from Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-Mont.), who threatened to withhold his vote unless the provisions were removed.
Zinke could prove to be a problem for congressional leaders once again if the bill comes back to the House with land sales in it, and he vowed in an interview Thursday to fight Lee on the issue.
“Remember my comment that it was ‘my San Juan Hill?’” Zinke said, referring to a famous charge by future President Theodore Roosevelt, a hero in the eyes of public lands defenders.
“I understand [Lee] said it was his, too, but remember who won San Juan Hill? Teddy Roosevelt,” Zinke said.
‘We’re coming after you’
Democrats, though left out of the GOP’s party-line budget reconciliation process, also vowed to fight the sale of public lands. Senate ENR ranking member Martin Heinrich said in an interview with POLITICO’s E&E News that they plan to stir up public outrage to pressure Lee to back down.
“We need to engage the American people, because that’s what worked in the past,” Heinrich said, noting a failed effort in the House to sell public lands that was led by former Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), who was forced to withdraw his measure after public outcry.
“I think this is a direct attack on our Western identity,” Heinrich said. “This is an attack on every Westerner who owns a hunting license, a fishing license, a backpack or a mountain bike.”
Indeed, outdoor groups are already speaking out. Land Tawney, co-chair of American Hunters and Anglers, said the bill is “worse than the dog shit under Mike Lee’s polished shoes,” and an “in-your-face selloff of America’s best idea—our public lands.”
“Any politician who supports this language is an enemy of public lands, and we’re coming after you,” Tawney said.
Heinrich said he would support the Montana delegation should they push for an amendment to kill the land sales.
He also suggested they could have another, more procedural, way to fight it since the bill is being passed via reconciliation — a process that allows the Senate parliamentarian to ax provisions of the bill that are not related to the budget, which is required by the rules.
Democrats could argue that the land sales are not germane to a reconciliation bill. ENR said they expect the sales to net between $5 billion and $10 billion over a 10-year period.
“We’re gonna fight it through the process,” Heinrich said. “This is clearly policy masquerading as a budget item, so we will engage the parliamentarian on this.”
