Hey, western Zoners! Call your Senator.
Forums:
Well actually all y'all can do this.
Our asshole senator from Utah Mike Lee is resurrecting the public lands sell off. Please consider making a phone call to your senators.
This effort by Ammon Bundy's cousin Celeste Maloy, my congresswoman, was stopped in the House. Believe it or not, Ryan Zinke helped sink it. Hunters, anglers, enviros, many spoke out against.
Here's the blurb from the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance. www.suwa.org
Last Friday when I emailed you the message below, Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) had announced his plan to bring back the Public Lands Sell-off in the Senate Budget Bill. Yesterday, he released his plan—and it’s even worse than we feared.
His plan would force the sale of millions of acres of public land across the West. It requires the Department of the Interior and U.S. Forest Service to dispose of public lands across 11 western states: AK, AZ, CA, CO, ID, NV, NM, OR, UT, WA, and WY.
Even if you've taken action before, please reach out to your senators and tell them to keep the Public Lands Sell-off out of the Budget Bill!
As a reminder: if you’re looking for other ways to fight back, reach out to one of our regional organizers. Depending on where you live, we’ve got all sorts of options: volunteering at events to get the word out, making phone calls, hosting postcard-sending parties, and more!
Thank you for speaking up for the Redrock,
Travis Hammill
DC Director
Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance
The previous e-mail;
Right before Memorial Day, the House of Representatives passed a Budget Bill that, if signed into law, would be devastating for public lands. The bill has now moved to the Senate, where a vote will likely happen later this month.
To make matters worse, Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) has announced his intent to reintroduce a Public Lands Sell-off Amendment, a version of which was rejected by the House. The House version would have forced the sale of over 11,000 acres of Bureau of Land Management (BLM) managed public land in Utah and at least 500,000 acres in Nevada.
Please reach out to your senators and tell them to keep the public lands sell-off out of the Budget Bill.
Even without Sen. Lee's sell-off amendment, the Budget Bill is deeply anti-conservation and anti-public-lands. It:
Opens up public lands across the West and Alaska to new oil and gas drilling, while creating a “pay to play” scheme that would allow companies to buy approvals for controversial fossil fuel projects, all the while insulating them from judicial review.
Attempts to kill the American clean energy economy by gutting clean energy incentives for wind and solar power; it also eliminates popular programs that protect the health and safety of communities from climate impacts and pollution.
Threatens the health of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness by rescinding a mineral withdrawal, reinstating mining leases, and prohibiting judicial review of those decisions.
Requires oil and gas leasing in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge over the next ten years, reinstates previously canceled leases, and exempts those decisions from judicial review.
All of these are on top of the many other awful provisions in the Budget Bill, which go after some of society’s most vulnerable and at-risk populations, all to pay for tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy.
Urge your senators to keep the public lands sell-off out of the Budget Bill and to vote NO on any version of the bill that threatens our nation’s public lands.
If you’re looking for other ways to fight back, reach out to one of our regional organizers! Depending on where you live, we’ve got all sorts of options: volunteering at events to get the word out, making phone calls, hosting postcard-sending parties, and more!
Thanks for any consideration.
- Log in to post comments
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Strangha
Here's a link to an
Here's a link to an explanation; https://suwa.org/what-to-know-about-senator-lees-public-lands-sell-off-p...
Part of it.....
While Senator Lee attempts to make his bill more palatable by claiming that it will create opportunities for affordable housing, it does no such thing. There is no requirement that any housing developed on sold public lands would be affordable or meet any affordable housing requirements.
There is no provision to prevent lands sold under Lee’s bill from being developed into high-end vacation homes, Airbnbs, or luxury housing projects, which would be especially desirable near scenic or high-demand areas.
After 10 years, the privatized land would face no restrictions, allowing them to be repurposed for uses other than housing, such as golf courses, resorts or industrial development.
The bill will primarily benefit real estate developers and speculators rather than addressing real housing needs.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Strangha
Hey folks, this is WAY worse
Hey folks, this is WAY worse than originally presented.
Not only is Lee an asshole when it comes to empathy, he's an unhinged destroyer of your public lands all over the country.
To e-mail a senator; https://suwa.quorum.us/campaign/126972/
Info:(Hopefully no paywall.) https://www.sltrib.com/news/environment/2025/06/18/mike-lee-heres-public...
A great writer, Jonathan P. Thompson at The Land Desk: https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/FMfcgzQbffhxXgrmkwtnQctQtqPWdJGX
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: El Nino
Here is a map that shows all
Here is a map that shows all the land they want to sell
https://wilderness.maps.arcgis.com/apps/instant/basic/index.html?appid=8...
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Strangha
I've tried a few times in the
I've tried a few times in the past couple of days and that danged link will never load.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: El Nino
Works for me on Safari. On
Works for me on Safari. On the Burningman sub Reddit they were talking about it because two big tracks right at the entrance are for sale according to the map. One person said the map isn't accurate and just shows potential sales. I don't know. Try this one.
https://wilderness.maps.arcgis.com/apps/instant/basic/index.html?appid=821970f0212d46d7aa854718aac42310¢er=-114.947;40.713&level=5&hiddenLayers=World_Hillshade_3805
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: intentionally blank
Emails sent to Padilla and
Emails sent to Padilla and Schiff.
Thanks for your diligence and passion, Slickrock.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Strangha
Just a chunk or two of Utah
Just a chunk or two of Utah and Colorado and Wyoming....
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Strangha
Is there hope??? https:/
Is there hope??? https://www.huffpost.com/entry/mike-lee-public-lands_n_6854744de4b0e5115...
Conservatives Turn On GOP Senator Over Plan To Sell Off Millions Of Acres Of Public Land
Utah Sen. Mike Lee's proposal has united the left and right -- against him.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Strangha
Lee seems to be backtracking.
Lee seems to be backtracking a little. He's slime. He's not to be trusted. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/public-lands-mike-lee-gop_n_6859a60be4b0b...
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Ken D.
The Senate parliamentarian
The Senate parliamentarian stripped the public lands sell off from the bill. Also took out that provisions that would have made it very difficult to seek injunctions against government action.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Strangha
Lee's is promising to rework
Lee's is promising to rework it. He did remove all Forest Service lands, but lots of BLM lands are still up for disposal.
This guy Jonathan Thompson is a great reporter from SW Colorado. I subscribe to him. He said it's OK to share this article.
BREAKING: Mike MAGA Lee changes public land sell off bill
JONATHAN P. THOMPSON JUN 24
Public Lands
Sen. Mike Lee, the Utah Republican and Trump sycophant, has slightly backed off on his proposal to sell-off public lands, but only slightly.
Lee posted the following on X/Twitter at 5:42 a.m. today:
Big sigh of relief? Nope. Sure, it’s great he’s removing Forest Service land from the pool of land eligible for “disposal.” This means the Hidden Valley/Falls Creek area near Durango is out of danger, as are parcels near Flagstaff and Boise and Santa Fe that could have ended up on the auction block under the original provision. The 5-mile limit from population centers will also take some remote BLM parcels out of consideration — parcels that wouldn’t have been prioritized, anyway.
The change reduces the size of the pool of available land, and presumably also reduces the amount of land that would be sold to between 1.25 million and 1.9 million acres. That’s still a crap-ton of public lands that will be privatized, cluttered up with houses and roads and cul-de-sacs and power lines and so forth, and to which the public will lose access. If this goes forward, you can plan on houses popping up on some of your favorite hiking, trail-running, or biking areas.
And it still includes places like:
Animas Mountain and upper Horse Gulch near Durango;
swaths of BLM land near Naturita and Nucla, Colorado;
BLM land, including wilderness study areas, near Moab (wilderness study areas and areas of critical environmental concern are not exempted from the sell off);
parcels that abut Zion National Park’s boundaries (within five miles of Springdale and Rockville);
the lower slopes of Jumbo Mountain near Paonia;
parcels on Las Vegas’s fringe, along with tracts around Mesquite and Moapa that the Freedom Cities folks have their eyes on;
other Freedom City-proposed parcels near Fruita and Grand Junction;
the list goes on and on. (To get an idea just check out the Wilderness Society map, ignore the green areas, and look for “population centers” around the brass-colored areas to see what might be eligible).
Freedom Cities are back!
JONATHAN P. THOMPSON APR 4
Public Lands
Read full story
Lee says he will protect ranchers, which may or may not mean his provision would again leave out land that is in active grazing allotments. He doesn’t explain what the hell he means by “FREEDOM ZONES,” except to imply that he wouldn’t let any foreigners buy the land(?). Lee once again doesn’t mention a damned thing about affordable housing, meaning he’s just fine with public lands being used for luxury developments or even multi-million dollar mansions.
Oh, and then there’s that little aside about the Byrd Rule. Yeah, that might get in Lee’s way. See, the Senate parliamentarian ruled that the public land sell off provision, along with several other sections relating to energy development on public lands, were subject to a 60-vote threshold. This means they would likely be dropped from the reconciliation bill altogether, since leaving it in could sink the entire “Big Beautiful” whatever. Still, the GOP has a thing about ignoring the parliamentarian and the usual rules, and Lee indicated he would push on with this concept in one form or another. So now is not the time to back down.
The public lands sell-off provision has generated a huge amount of outrage and public push back, which is clearly working (after all, why else would Lee make those changes?). But it’s not the only or even the worst thing the MAGA folks are inflicting on the American public’s lands.
For example, yesterday Agriculture Secretary Brooke announced that the U.S. Forest Service plans to repeal the Clinton-era Roadless Rule, which blocks roadbuilding and other development on about 58 million acres of Forest Service land. If the rollback survives inevitable legal challenges, it will open up a lot of forest to logging.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: treat island
Thanks for bringing us this
Thanks for bringing us this kind of information and never giving up, Slick.
Earth and Viva thank you.