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Mountain Gazette Story
The Push to Sell Off Our Public Lands
When the 2025 budget reconciliation bill, known as the “One Big Beautiful Bill” narrowly passed the U.S. House in May, a provision to sell off 500,000 acres of public lands was removed largely due to the outcry of public lands advocates. But when it hit the Senate, Utah Sen. Mike Lee added a new, farther reaching provision mandating the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the U.S. Forest Service to sell up to 3.3 million acres of land over the next five years. Supporters framed the move as common sense to raise revenues and build housing. Critics (74% of Americans oppose public land sales) called it a land grab.
Still, two things can be true at once:
• The current proposal is deeply flawed. If you oppose it, Outdoor Alliance has a tool to contact your lawmaker here.
• Eventually, we may need to consider limited land sales to address challenges like housing shortages.
A (Very) Flawed Proposal
Let’s start with a bit of clarity around what Sen. Lee proposed. About 250 million acres are technically “available” to be sold across 11 Western states. Those maps you’ve been seeing around social media illustrate the eligible land. Agencies would be instructed to sell between 0.5 and 0.75 percent of their combined holdings (about 3.3 million acres), and the preferred criteria for those sales are “inefficient to manage parcels” near already existing development, among other criteria.
The bill targets parcels near roads or towns and aims to reduce “checkerboard ownership”, the patchwork of public and private lands that complicates land management in the West. Any land sold must be used for housing or infrastructure for ten years. Ninety percent of proceeds would go to the U.S. Treasury to reduce the deficit, with 5% allocated to local counties and another 5% to the managing agencies. States have the first right of refusal to purchase lands put up for sale, and the process will be extremely rapid, mandating the nomination of tracts within 30 days, and then every 60 days.
But despite the appearances of guardrails, the bill is structured less like thoughtful land-use reform and more like something designed for speed and minimal oversight. Nowhere is this clearer than in the exemption granted to Montana. The exemption was not based on geography or land type. It has the appearance of a political concession, not a meaningful exemption. Montana gets a pass not because Montana does not have housing or land-use issues, but because votes are needed.
This exemption is just one issue of many. Despite the appearance of “requirements”, what actually qualifies for sale is broad and dangerously vague. What exactly does “preference for land near development” mean? Who defines “near”? How much leeway is there in that definition? The language invites broad interpretation, and in practice, decisions will be up to the discretion of the Secretary of Agriculture or Secretary of the Interior, whose tenures have been problematic at best, thus far.
While it claims to promote affordable housing and infrastructure, there is no language ensuring either. There are no limits on the type of housing that can be built, no affordability requirements, no density expectations. Would a single luxury home on five (or 5,000) acres count as “housing”? What’s to prevent a buyer from holding onto the land for ten years and then flipping it for profit or using it for resource extraction once the time limit expires? As written, nothing.
The bill includes no meaningful requirements to assess environmental significance, cultural heritage, or local use before selling public land. Local input is not prioritized. No public comment periods, environmental reviews, or tribal consultations are guaranteed.
The bill also mandates land be sold at fair market value, a requirement that runs counter to the goal of affordable housing. Selling public land at full price for housing simply pushes costs onto developers, who will then in turn pass them on to buyers or renters. It’s a direct contradiction to the stated goals.
What We Risk Losing
Public land isn’t “unused” just because it’s not part of a National Park or doesn’t have a popular trail. These lands might serve as winter range for deer, or a space for the local community to escape after work. There’s danger in defining land’s value solely by buildings, infrastructure, or scenic appeal.
When land leaves the public trust, it becomes a private asset. There’s no going back from that. Development on formerly public land brings cascading effects: increased wildfire risk, habitat fragmentation, noise, and water runoff. Roads invite invasive species. Fences block migration corridors. Adjacent public lands can suffer in the long run.
The Housing Reality
Here’s the part we can’t ignore: some towns are in crisis.
Mountain towns have become emblems of the outdoor dream. But they’re also places where service workers commute over an hour each way, teachers and medical workers can’t afford to live, and cities can’t even fill $167,000/year jobs. The housing challenges in towns like Vail, Ouray, Telluride, or Jackson are well documented. How exactly do we expect these problems to be solved? Yes, there are strategies like vacancy taxes and limits on short term rentals, but ultimately there’s a strong argument that more housing stock is needed.
My natural reaction is to oppose land sales outright. But, I have to wonder if my gut reaction to these land sales comes from a form of NIMBYism. I value open space. I’m less than excited about new buildings and sprawl. But can opposing change to protect my hobbies be viewed as a selfish stance?
I think many would shut this conversation down entirely. But eventually we may have to consider federal land sales (more considered, targeted, and researched) as one possible way to address some of these housing issues in rural communities. The idea is not just a Republican one, nor is it universally supported or panned on either side of the aisle. Notably, as part of her focus on housing, the Harris campaign previously noted that they would explore “making certain federal lands eligible to be repurposed for new housing developments that families can afford.” However, the motives must be called into question when Republican policies typically tend to eschew the concerns of affordable housing but suddenly put them at the forefront…at the cost of public land sales.
It’s not simple, even with a more well-thought-out approach. Headwaters Economics studied not just the possibility, but the feasibility of housing on federal lands. They found that “Less than 2% of the 181 million acres of Forest Service operational and Department of Interior land included in this analysis are close enough to towns with housing needs to be practical for development”. They also warn that more than half of the available land is in wildfire-prone zones, which would affect not only the viability but the logistical and safety issue with selling these parcels.
If federal land must ever be repurposed for housing, that process should be rooted in transparency, guided by ecological review, and require permanent affordability. Land could be leased rather than sold, held in trust by local housing authorities, or reserved for affordable housing.
Where We’re At
Let’s be clear. The proposal as Sen. Lee wrote it was not just controversial, it was fundamentally flawed in a way that won’t address the stated needs. It provided too much discretion, too few protections, and invited exploitation. We don’t need quick “fixes” that treat public lands like surplus inventory to be disposed of by any means necessary. We can reject this proposal and still create space for a better conversation about land use.
On June 21, the Senate Parliamentarian ruled that the public land sale provision violates budget reconciliation rules and cannot be included in the final legislative package, pausing the land‑sales mandate for now. Lee publicly stated on X that he plans to make changes, including removing Forest Service lands entirely, borrowing BLM parcels to those within 5 miles of population centers, and establishing “Freedom Zones” to ensure that lands benefit American families (although it’s unclear what that means). Too be clear, I'm not sure this changes anything about my conclusions from above, it's just phrased differently.
If we oppose development near towns, on federal land or otherwise, we also need to seriously utilize other tools: infill, zoning reform, limited term leases of public land with clear guardrails, more funding for local housing authorities, and stronger rules on speculative real estate. Too often, these approaches are blocked by local authorities and residents who prioritize preserving a particular snapshot in time over building a livable community.
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