Last minute changes nixed public land sell-off and saved resource management plans, but major threats remain as the bill heads to the Senate
Public lands are caught in the crossfire as lawmakers in Washington look for ways to pay for President Donald Trump’s first-term tax cuts and push the president’s austerity agenda in one “big, beautiful bill.” The House has passed a version of the budget reconciliation bill that would be devastating for public lands, despite having slashed a handful of the most egregious provisions. Thanks to passionate advocacy by public land lovers, a midnight amendment aimed at privatizing hundreds of thousands of acres of public land in Nevada and Utah was stripped from the bill right before it passed, as were a number of other harmful provisions. But major attacks on our nation’s public lands remain in play, and with the Senate set to take up the bill next, anything could happen.
What’s out for now
A number of harmful provisions were struck from the bill just before its passage out of the House. These include an amendment that would have sold off hundreds of thousands of acres of public land in Nevada, and at least 11,000 acres in Utah. Representatives Mark Amodei of Nevada and Celeste Maloy of Utah introduced the sell-off amendment in the middle of the night, during a marathon House Natural Resources Committee meeting. While the exact amount of public land threatened by the amendment was unclear, estimates put it at anywhere from 500,000 to over a million acres. Representative Ryan Zinke of Montana and the newly-created bipartisan public lands caucus fought against this provision and successfully had it removed from the bill via the manager’s amendment.
“Clearly, selling off public lands is still a third rail for members of Congress on both sides of the aisle. While there is a housing affordability crisis in the West, looking to our public lands to solve the problem is disingenuous and will only hurt Westerners by increasing sprawl and cutting off access to the trails and public lands we all love,” Center for Western Priorities Deputy Director Aaron Weiss said about the amendment.
The manager’s amendment also struck out a provision that would have canceled five Biden-era resource management plans for Bureau of Land Management field offices across the West, including the Rock Springs Resource Management Plan in Wyoming, which was the result of 14 years of planning and public participation. The state of Wyoming and Bureau of Land Management struck an important compromise with the Rock Springs plan that balances recreation and resource extraction across 3.6 million acres of public land in the Red Desert region in southern Wyoming. Management plans for the Buffalo Field Office in Wyoming, the Miles City Field Office in Montana, the entirety of North Dakota, and the Colorado River Valley and Grand Junction Field Offices in Colorado also remain in place in the House-passed bill.
The manager’s amendment also struck out provisions that aimed to increase drilling and mining in Alaska. The National Petroleum Reserve–Alaska (NPR-A) lies to the west of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The bill text initially included a provision to remove environmental protections set by the Biden administration for drilling within the NPR-A. It also mandated approval of the Ambler Road, a 211-mile corridor on the south side of the Brooks Range intended to facilitate mining in the Ambler Mining District just south of Gates of the Arctic National Park in Alaska. The Ambler road would slice across at least 10 major rivers as well as thousands of streams, threatening salmon runs and fresh water with toxic spills and sediment runoff. It would also interrupt the migratory path of the Western Arctic caribou herd, threatening another key source of sustenance for Tribal communities. Thankfully, both of these provisions were removed from the bill before it passed the House.
What’s still in
While the manager’s amendment contained some huge wins, the bill is still one of the most damaging public lands bills in recent history. Land and wildlife in Alaska are still very much at risk thanks to a provision that mandates oil and gas leasing in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, one of the country’s most fragile ecosystems. It requires four lease sales of over 400,000 acres over the next ten years, while eliminating public input and judicial review. Previous mandated lease sales in the refuge have been financial failures, generating less than one percent of projected revenue.
The bill also turns back the clock on leasing and drilling on public lands, stripping away important reforms mandated by Congress and put into place under the Biden administration. The new provisions create a framework that heavily favors oil and gas development on public lands by mandating quarterly lease sales in most Western states, requiring the Bureau of Land Management to offer all industry-nominated acreage within 18 months, reviving noncompetitive leasing practices (such as offering parcels that don’t sell at auction for bargain-basement rates), and implementing “protest filing fees” aimed at silencing public input on lease sales and drilling permits. The bill would also hurt taxpayers — and bring in less revenue for the federal government — by reducing federal royalty rates from 16.67 percent to 12.5 percent. This is especially concerning given that the “big, beautiful bill” is already expected to increase the deficit by $3 trillion.
The bill also undercuts one of our nation’s bedrock environmental laws — the National Environmental Policy Act, which requires analyses of actions that impact national public lands — by creating a “pay to play” loophole that allows companies to pay fees for accelerated environmental reviews. It would also shield them from judicial review, prioritizing private profits over environmental protection and public welfare.
In yet another blatant attack on public lands, the bill puts the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness at risk by rescinding protections for 225,000 acres of the Superior National Forest, which includes the Boundary Waters’ watershed. It also reinstates mineral leases sought by mining company Twin Metals that had been canceled under the Biden administration and approves new leases for mineral extraction and helium production in the national forest, while simultaneously eliminating the public input and environmental review process for this nationally-treasured ecosystem.
The bill also includes a provision that threatens our national forests by vastly expanding logging. It requires the U.S. Forest Service more than double the volume of its timber sales, potentially undermining the Roadless Area Conservation Rule and targeting fire-resilient older trees while doing nothing to reduce wildfire risk. The Trump administration has already taken administrative action to increase logging in our forests through the issuance of an emergency order that makes it easier to log almost 60 percent of national forest land, or more than 112 million acres, mostly in the West.
Finally, the bill picks winners and losers when it comes to the development of renewable energy on public lands. It increases costs for wind and solar developers and cuts the public out of geothermal leasing, potentially threatening popular recreation areas and sensitive habitats.
What’s to come
The bill was passed by the House of Representatives on May 22 on an extremely narrow vote of 215 to 214. Now it heads to the Senate, where it will likely be debated and amended. Since the reconciliation bill only requires a simple majority to pass, it’s often used as a vehicle to force unpopular legislation through a closely-divided Congress. Senators Mike Lee of Utah and Steve Daines of Montana will likely try to attach their legislative priorities to the bill. Lee’s HOUSES Act, which would essentially liquidate our public lands for commercial and housing development, has so far failed to get a hearing in the Senate, as has Daines’ “Supporting Made in America Energy Act,” which would mandate that onshore lease sales include all available public lands. These unpopular bills would have a hard time passing on their own, but could make it into the reconciliation package. The removal of the land sell-off provision from the House bill shows that support for public lands still matters to lawmakers when they hear from their constituents.
(Featured image: The Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness comprises 1,090,000 acres of pristine forests, glacial lakes, and streams in the Superior National Forest. Source: Interior/Flickr)