Utah Sen. Mike Lee’s proposal has united the left and right – against him.
Last week, the Lee-led Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee released a draft proposal, intended for inclusion in the so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill,” that would mandate the sale of between 2.2 million and 3.3 million acres of public land owned by the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service in the American West.
Lee has framed the proposal as a means to increase affordable housing, and emphasized that it excludes national parks, national monuments, and designated wilderness areas from being sold.
Critics have expressed skepticism that the bill would do much to mitigate the housing crisis, contending that it would only result in the public being barred from land they now enjoy.
Agreed. There’s lots of shit in this bill that is awful and will take decades of work to undo, but this is one of those terrible things that can’t be undone. Once the genie is out of the bottle, that’s it, goodbye public lands.