The Senate Finance Committee released this week the latest version of President Trump’s FY 2026 budget proposal, otherwise called the “big, beautiful bill.”
Tucked among proposed cuts to Medicaid and renewable-energy tax credits is a sweeping amendment requiring the sale of up to three million acres of federally managed public land over the next five years. The stated goal: Raise $10 billion by opening up land across 11 Western states for housing development.
Hunters, anglers, hikers, and conservationists are alarmed. The future of America’s public lands—millions of acres of mountains, forests, and deserts held in common trust—is suddenly uncertain.
What will go first? The jagged peaks and alpine meadows of Washington’s Chelan Mountains? The volcanic ridgelines of Utah’s Sevier Plateau? And what will replace them? Remote subdivisions? Luxury resorts? Or can we expect massive Subway/Dunkin’/McDonald’s service plazas galore?
Center for Western Priorities executive director Jennifer Rokala called the amendment a “shameless ploy to sell off pristine public lands for trophy homes and gated communities that will do nothing to address the affordable housing shortage in the West.”
Set Out to Pasture
The amendment’s introduction, shepherded by Republican Senator Mike Lee of Utah, follows the removal of a provision from the House’s version of the federal budget bill that aimed to sell off 500,000 acres of public land. That plan was blocked by Montana GOP Representative Ryan Zinke.
Notably, Montana is absent from the list of states affected by this latest proposal—likely a strategic omission to secure favor among the delegation once the bill reaches the House of Representatives.
The states included in the amendment are: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming. The lands would be selected from parcels managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and U.S. Forest Service (USFS).
The bill specifies that national monuments, wilderness areas, and national preserves would be exempt from sale. Still, according to The Wilderness Society, more than 250 million acres of public land remain eligible under the amendment for sale “for the development of housing or to address associated community needs.”
Jennifer Rokala, of Center for Western Priorities, said that the amendment’s backers, namely Utah GOP Senator Mike Lee, should be “ashamed of himself for using the housing affordability crisis as an excuse to sell public lands off to private developers. Time and time again, Westerners have made it crystal clear that they want to keep public lands in public hands.”
Wanton Vandalism?
This push to privatize public lands marks a dramatic shift in national priorities. In the early 20th century, President Theodore Roosevelt led the charge to conserve America’s natural resources by creating a national system of public lands. Roosevelt believed public lands should be preserved not only for recreation, but for the benefit of future generations.
“It is also vandalism wantonly to destroy or to permit the destruction of what is beautiful in nature, whether it be a cliff, a forest, or a species of mammal or bird,” Roosevelt wrote in 1903.
For over a century, Roosevelt’s vision has helped shape an American identity tied to the land—one where anyone, regardless of wealth or background, could fish a cold river, climb a granite peak, or camp under open sky.
Roosevelt’s efforts were later built upon by President John F. Kennedy who, in the 1960s, added myriad national parks and shorelines to the government’s portfolio of protected land. That idea, and these assets, now hang in the balance.
Today, Senate Republicans are aiming to vote on the “big, beautiful bill” by July 4, which could tarnish these prior efforts. Because the bill is being advanced through budget reconciliation, it only requires 51 votes to pass in the Senate, making its approval likely. Once it passes the Senate, the bill will move to the House, where it faces stronger opposition, as many lawmakers from both parties have already voiced their disapproval of the current version.
Center for Western Priorities; Joel Pedersen, Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership president and CEO; GreenLatinos; Outdoor Recreation Roundtable; and other conservationists have also spoken out against the proposed amendment.
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