Republicans are mulling the sale of some public lands to help pay for a massive budget reconciliation bill to advance President Donald Trump’s agenda. But just how big they’ll be able to go is an open question.
The discussion, according to lawmakers interviewed by POLITICO’s E&E News, is still in the early stages and is far from guaranteed to make it into a final package. According to one top Republican, concepts under discussion include the sale of some lands around Western cities or national parks to build more housing.
Still, the land sales could ignite a firestorm of opposition from Democrats and public land advocacy groups, and deepen fissures within the Republican Party.
“It would just be in areas where you can’t get affordable housing, like for gateway communities,” said Bruce Westerman, chair of the House Natural Resources Committee, “so you could actually have people to work in the national parks, maybe around some big metropolitan areas in the West.”
Earlier this year, House Ways and Means Republicans released a menu of possible cuts and revenue raisers for their reconciliation bill to boost energy production, cut taxes and ramp up border security. Federal land sales were included as a possibility. And the House rules package adopted in January waived budget offset requirements for selling public lands.
Nevertheless, the prospect of such sales actually moving forward is elevating concerns among advocates, Democrats and even some Republicans.
Montana Republican Sen. Steve Daines has already made his objections known to leaders. “Senator Daines has never and will never support the sale of public lands,” an aide said in a text message.
Another Montana Republican, Rep. Ryan Zinke, who served as Interior secretary in Trump’s first term, said he’s told House leadership public land sales are a red line for him.
“I have made clear: There are some things I won’t do,” he said. “I will never bend on the Constitution, and I won’t bend on selling our public lands.”
Indeed, Zinke in January reintroduced a bipartisan bill, H.R. 718, that would ban the sale of most public lands.
The budget reconciliation process allows the majority party to secure fiscal policies by simple majority. But the GOP’s thin majorities in both chambers means leaders can’t afford to alienate members.
Senate Republicans are currently working to secure enough votes to take up a blueprint for reconciliation. It will likely include different targets for the House, leaving disagreements between the chambers for later.
But deficit hawks on both ends of the Capitol are already blasting the idea saying it wouldn’t do enough to improve the nation’s fiscal outlook.
‘I think it’s a great idea’
With Republicans needing offsets for extending the 2017 tax cuts and other spending, the idea of selling government land has stayed on the agenda, along with more oil and gas leases.
“There’s been some general discussion of that, I wouldn’t say there’s been specifics at this point,” said Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.), a member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. “That’s an option looking for revenue options, as well as cost savings, in order to find the overall pay-fors we need.”
The federal government owns and manages about 650 million acres — or 30 percent — of land in the U.S. The majority of that land is in the western United States, which causes frequent tension between those states and the federal government over who can better manage it.
But keeping land under federal ownership also ensures public access, a top priority for outdoor recreationists, hunters, anglers and conservationists.
Energy and Natural Resources top Democrat Martin Heinrich of New Mexico said in a statement about Republican efforts: “If they succeed, Donald Trump and Elon Musk will sell off your right to access the places you know and love: The place you first learned to fish or harvested your first elk. The campground your family goes to on long weekends. The trail you hike to clear your head. The site that was sacred to your ancestors and is now sacred to you.”
The crown jewels of the country’s lands are the 63 national parks, which enjoy near-universal support and would likely be excluded from any sales.
Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) confirmed there’s been “some discussion” of public land sales in addition to oil and gas lease sales.
“The federal government owns a lot of lands — a lot of lands,” he said. “I think it’s a great idea. We’re looking at different options for revenue raising.”
Zinke did allow there could be small exceptions, like small land swaps that are in the public interest. “But the idea we are going to sell our public lands to pay for our debt, ain’t happening with my vote and I will use my influence,” he said.
The issue of public lands emerged last year in the Montana Senate race, with then-Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) casting Republican challenger Tim Sheehy as a proponent of selling off or transferring federal land to local control. Sheehy pushed back, saying he would expand public access and consider local voices. Tester lost to Sheehy.
Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) said Montana is different from other Western states.
“Montana is so different than the other federal lands states. Even conservative Montanans have more of a sort of — I don’t want to say conservation — but they like their federal lands [for hunting and other activities],” Cramer said. “They are less enthused about federal lands for mining or even timber. Whereas some of the other Mountain Western states, they like the natural resource exploitation a little more.”
The Mike Lee factor
Housing and Urban Development Secretary Scott Turner and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum teamed up last week to write an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal on plans for their agencies to work together to build affordable housing on federal lands. It’s unclear if this is what some Senate Republicans have been discussing.
Energy and Natural Resources Chair Mike Lee (R-Utah), whose committee has jurisdiction over such issues, said Tuesday when asked about the idea, “I’d love to have a more robust conversation about this process and my role in it,” as he was heading into a hearing. His office did not respond to several requests for comment.
Lee in the past has been one of the most staunch opponents of federal control of public lands and has called for selling it.
On Lee’s public website, he accuses the federal government of not honoring a promise “to sell federal land in Utah or most of the west.”
“They should,” it continues. “Sen. Lee is fighting to make Congress keep that promise and to mitigate the damage the federal government is inflicting on rural communities in the meantime.”
And just last week, Lee — under his personal account @BasedMikeLee — tweeted, “U.S. government = earth’s worst land manager.”
When asked, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) said discussions were “not necessarily about the sale as much as opening up areas for production and exploration that were closed by Biden.”
Westerman, the House Natural Resources chair, said his committee is looking into small land sales around urban centers in the West that are “landlocked” by federal lands to build affordable housing.
He also suggested the committee could unlock for sale some lands around national parks to build housing, so National Park Service employees could afford to live in the “gateway communities” near the park.
“I think it’s reasonable if something’s landlocked and everybody knows we’re having trouble getting affordable housing for workers in our national parks, you’ve got cities like Las Vegas, Salt Lake City, big cities in the West that are somewhat landlocked,” the lawmaker said.
Westerman ruled out any sort of mass public land selloff that public lands supporters have feared for decades. he cautioned that the sales may not make it into the final reconciliation bill.
“It would be a rounding error on the scale,” Westerman said of the size of any sales. “There’s not going to be any lots on the rim of the Grand Canyon for sale … and I’m not even sure any of that will be in the reconciliation bill we have.”
Andres Picon contributed to this report.
