Conservation groups raise alarms as Senate looks to sell off public lands

Several conservation groups late Wednesday issued the following press releases on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee releasing its proposed bill text for President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act that has already passed the House and must now pass the Senate.

The OBBB once again looks to the sale of public lands in order to extend tax breaks that will mostly benefit the wealthiest Americans while stripping away critical social safety net protections such as Medicaid for lower and middle-income Americans. All four Republican Colorado House members voted in favor of the OBBB. Here’s the press release from the Center for Western Priorities:

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources committee released its proposed bill text for the budget reconciliation package that would require the sale of at least 2.2 million acres, and as many as 3.3 million acres of national public lands.

The bill requires the Interior secretary and Forest Service chief to identify up to 1,837,500 acres of BLM land and 1,447,500 acres of USFS land for sale, respectively. The land will be made available for sale to local governments and developers through a nomination process, but does not require any consultation with the American people.

The bill text includes no affordability requirement, no maximum lot size, and requires the land be sold at fair market rate. The bill would sell off public lands in every Western state except for Montana.

The Center for Western Priorities released the following statement from Executive Director Jennifer Rokala: 

“This is 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. 

“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. Clearly Senator Lee isn’t listening.

“Senator Lee might think he can buy off the support of Montana’s congressional delegation by excluding Montana’s public lands, but these lands belong to every American. Anyone who cares about hiking, hunting, fishing, or camping would lose access to the lands that they rely on for outdoor recreation.”

According to the 2025 Conservation in the West Poll, 82 percent of Western voters prefer building more housing within or close to existing communities near jobs, roads, and transit rather than selling national public lands to develop housing.

Learn more 

• The devil is in the details when it comes to building affordable housing on public lands [Westwise]
• The West has an affordable housing crisis. Can public land help? [Westwise]
• 2025 State of The Rockies Conservation in the West Poll [Colorado College]

Here’s the press release from the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership:

Today, the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership expresses serious concern with a provision in the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee’s reconciliation proposal that would mandate the sale of public land in Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming under the pretense of affordable housing. 

“Hunters and anglers have made it clear that reconciliation is not the appropriate vehicle for public land sales,” said Joel Pedersen, president and CEO of the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership. “The Senate proposal sets an arbitrary acreage target and calls for the disposal of up to six times more land than was proposed in early versions of the House budget reconciliation bill. If passed, sportsmen and women would lose access to large tracts of public land.” 

While the House version limited land sales to approximately 500,000 acres in Utah and Nevada, the Senate proposal would accelerate land disposals across 11 western states, mandating that not less than 2 million acres and not more than 3 million acres be sold. There have been no public processes that led to the conclusion that this acreage of land sales is needed to support affordable housing. Late last week, 44 hunting, fishing, and conservation organizations sent a letter to Senate leadership urging them to keep public lands sales out of the reconciliation bill.

“TRCP stands ready to work with lawmakers to address the needs of local communities to create affordable housing, but reconciliation is not the process for that kind of deliberative, transparent decision-making,” said Pedersen. “Once public lands are sold, they are gone for good. We urge the Senate to remove this provision from the bill.” 

Read the blog version of this press release HERE.

Here’s the press release from Backcountry Hunters & Anglers:

Backcountry Hunters & Anglers (BHA) is rebuking a sweeping new proposal released by the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee that would force the sale of up to 3 million acres of public lands under the guise of a solution to the housing crisis. This proposal—led by committee chair Senator Mike Lee (R-UT)—would apply to public lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service across: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming.

“This isn’t about budget reconciliation or affordable housing. This is a fraudulent scheme to swindle American citizens out of our shared legacy,” said Patrick Berry, President and CEO for BHA. “Our public lands are not disposable assets and the gaslighting campaign claiming this is somehow a solution to a housing crisis is an insult to all of us. Our lands are the physical inheritance of generations of Americans who fought to keep public lands in public hands. We owe it to those who had the vision to create this irreplaceable American ideal—and to those who stand to benefit from our stewardship—to tell our elected officials: united we stand for public lands.” 

Similar to the House of Representative’s now defunct proposal, the Senate’s language sidesteps the bipartisan Federal Land Transaction Facilitation Act (FLTFA), a law designed to ensure that proceeds from public land sales are reinvested in conservation and public access. 

Beyond the unprecedented mandate to sell off millions of acres, the proposed legislation also includes provisions strongly opposed by BHA that would: 

• Reverse prior decisions preventing the construction of the private 211-mile Ambler Road through Alaska’s Brooks Range, threatening the Western Arctic Caribou Herd and one of North America’s great wildlife migrations; 
• Require new oil and gas leasing in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge; 
• Eliminate reforms that curtailed speculative, noncompetitive leasing of public lands for oil and gas development. 

BHA is calling on Congress to reject these provisions and urges its members across the country to contact their elected officials, utilizing BHA’s dedicated Action Center here.

GreenLatinos issued the following statement:

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee has released its budget reconciliation text. It contains a section mandating the privatization of millions of acres of national public lands administered by the Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service in the states of Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and/or Wyoming.

In response, GreenLatinos issued the following statement.

“Any appeal for affordable housing tied to the sale or conversion of national public lands is a farce. If Congress wanted to build affordable housing, they would have already done so by resourcing efforts to make cities more dense and walkable, clean up urban brownfields and toxic sites, and utilize solar and wind energy. This antagonistic proposal will increase the cost of living for everyone while driving a wedge between Americans in poverty and basic built-community needs. It targets numerous Hispanic and Latino-dense states and is designed to redline poor residents out of cities and onto the projects of tomorrow–right on top of our public national grasslands, canyonlands, forests, riparian zones, deserts, and more of the most culturally, historically and ecologically important places in our nation. People deserve real, affordable housing in cities with infrastructure and resources. We will defend the one and only home of our heritage and wildlife from this fanatical pursuit to enrich land developers.” – Olivia Juarez, Public Land Program Director, GreenLatinos

WASHINGTON, D.C. — El Comité Senatorial de Energía y Recursos Naturales publicó su texto de conciliación presupuestaria. Contiene una sección que ordena la venta de tierras públicas nacionales administradas por la Oficina de Manejo de Tierras y el Servicio Forestal de los EE.UU. En los estados de Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, California, Nevada, Nuevo México, Oregón, Utah, Washington, y/o Wyoming.

En respuesta, GreenLatinos emitió la siguiente declaración. 

“Cualquier apelación a la vivienda asequible vinculada a la venta o conversión de tierras públicas nacionales es una farsa. Si el Congreso prioriza construir viviendas asequibles, ya lo habría hecho al asignar recursos para hacer que las ciudades sean más densas y transitables, limpiar las zonas urbanas abandonadas y los sitios tóxicos, y utilizar la energía solar y eólica. Esta propuesta antagónica aumentará el costo de vida para todos, al tiempo que abrirá una brecha entre los en la pobreza y las necesidades básicas de la comunidad construida. Se dirige a numerosos estados hispanos y latinos y es diseñado para sacar a los residentes pobres de las ciudades y hacia los proyectos del mañana–justo en nuestros pastizales nacionales públicos, cañones, bosques, zonas ribereñas, desiertos, y más de los lugares más importantes cultural, histórica y ecológicamente en nuestra nación. La gente merece vivienda asequible real en ciudades con infraestructura y recursos. Defenderemos el único hogar de nuestro patrimonio y vida silvestre de esta búsqueda fanática para enriquecer a los desarrolladores de tierras.” – Olivia Juarez, Director de Tierra Pública, GreenLatinos

Neguse and Bennet: “We must oppose any provisions that would stake a for sale sign on our nation’s public lands.”

 Congressman Joe Neguse and Senator Michael Bennet issued the following statement after the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources issued newly released budget reconciliation text. The bill now seeks to sell off between 2 and 3 million acres of land under the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Land Management and the Forest Service—greenlighting the sale of public lands in Colorado, Alaska, Arizona, California, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming.

“Colorado, like so many Western states, is proud to be home to millions of acres of treasured public lands—places people from across the country and around the world flock to for outdoor recreation and to experience the natural beauty of the outdoors. Auctioning off these lands to pay for President Trump’s radical agenda, including the prioritization of tax cuts for billionaires and big corporations, is an affront to our core values. We must continue to stand in firm opposition to any provisions that would put a for sale sign on our nation’s treasured public lands.”

Neguse and Bennet have long partnered on efforts to protect Colorado’s public lands, including through their championing of the CORE Act–a bill that would codify protections for 420,000 acres of the state’s public land, establish new wilderness areas, and safeguard existing outdoor recreation opportunities to boost the economy for future generations.

ORR Opposes Large-Scale Sale of America’s Public Lands in Senate Budget Reconciliation

WASHINGTON – Outdoor Recreation Roundtable (ORR) issued the following statement on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee’s reconciliation proposal that would mandate the sale of America’s public lands and threaten access to outdoor recreation: 

“ORR has long worked with the administration, Republicans, and Democrats on the bipartisan objectives of improving access and infrastructure for all recreation activities and also understands the needs of Senator Lee’s constituents for long-term affordable housing. However, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee’s reconciliation proposal is at odds with these objectives as it could threaten our $1.2 trillion outdoor recreation economy, the 5 million jobs it supports, and the thousands of businesses and communities that rely on access to public lands and water. Additionally, this provision has not been vetted through the appropriate Congressional process to ensure it meets all of the needs of the communities in the listed states. We urge Congress to keep the sale of public lands out of the federal budget reconciliation process as we saw how unpopular and out of touch it was with American businesses the public. The House of Representatives stripped selloff from this legislation just last month for these reasons. 

“There is a long-standing process in place regarding public lands selloff, leasing, and exchanges that has been successfully utilized for decades and contains necessary guardrails to protect public interest and is compliant with current laws and regulations. Existing procedure under this process stipulates that transactions must guarantee recreation access is taken into consideration, and that revenue from lands sold is reinvested directly into conservation or access improvements, or to acquire new, high-value recreational or conservation areas. However, the new proposal changes those guidelines risking reduced recreational access, redirecting revenue away from recreation to the general Treasury, and opening the door to permanent loss of multi-use public lands to private interests. What some may see as a barren lot on a map on a Senator’s desk may actually be where a community hikes after work, rides their ATV, or teaches their kids how to hunt turkey or ride a bike. And once these treasured places are sold to private industry, they are gone forever, and in the case of this proposal, can be used for any purpose after ten years.  

“Selling off public lands in this manner will not solve the real challenges our federal land agencies face—including underfunding, crumbling infrastructure, and staffing shortages. To truly sustain and grow our $1.2 trillion outdoor recreation economy, we must address these head-on through smart investments in our land management agencies, innovation, technology, partnerships, and bipartisan policy solutions. ORR stands ready to work with all policymakers and partners to create meaningful outcomes for what communities’ care about and businesses really need–certainty that public lands will remain public for recreation as well as long-term affordable housing solutions in rural areas.”  

Background:   

·       Outdoor Recreation Roundtable: Public Lands Sell Off is Removed from House Budget Reconciliation (05-21-2025) 

·       Letter to House Speaker Johnson (05-20-2025)   

·       Outdoor Recreation Roundtable Applauds Formation of Bipartisan House Public Lands Caucus (05-07-2025)   

·       The $1.2 Trillion Outdoor Recreation Economy Depends on Keeping Public Lands Public and Accessible(04-04-2025)