Montana Sen. Steve Daines on Thursday insisted his public lands talks with Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chair Mike Lee of Utah are to minimize any potential broad sales in the GOP’s megabill — not greenlight them.
Daines’ comments came one day after he told reporters he was working on language with Lee, who is trying to reinsert land sales into the Senate’s version of the bill to advance President Donald Trump’s domestic agenda. Roughly 500,000 acres of proposed land sales in Nevada and Utah were stripped from the House’s version.
Daines said on Thursday that his talks with Lee do not mean he is supporting public lands sales. Even so, he did not explicitly rule out that some select lands provisions could end up in the Senate bill.
“I oppose the sale of public lands,” Daines said. “Senator Lee has a provision that he wants to put in the bill, I’m trying to work with him [to get] something in there that’s … narrow in scope.”
