The sell-off of Colorado’s public land was thwarted — for now
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Monday, June 30, 2025 update: Utah Senator Mike Lee withdrew his plan to sell over half a million acres of public land in the western United States.
DENVER — The Senator behind a plan to sell millions of acres of public land changed course late Monday, June 23, after pushback from constituents, legislators and the Senate’s top rules arbiter.
"Because of the strict constraints of the budget reconciliation process, l was unable to secure clear, enforceable safeguards to guarantee that these lands would be sold only to American families — not to China, not to BlackRock, and not to any foreign interests," read the Republican's statement.
Over the weekend, Politico reported the GOP may not have enough votes to pass President Trump's "One Big Beautiful Bill Act." The public land sale was a sticking point for some congressional Republican representatives, such as Mike Simpson of Idaho and Dan Newhouse of Washington state.
Senator Michael Bennet, a Colorado Democrat, celebrated the removal of public land sales from the bill on social media, saying "This is a huge victory for Colorado and the West. Thank you to everyone who made their voice heard and fought back against this dangerous provision. "
Today, the Senate is voting on amendments to the megabill, as Republicans race to meet the President's July 4 deadline. Voting could take all of Monday.
You can read our original reporting below:
You can read our original reporting below:
DENVER — The Senator behind a plan to sell millions of acres of public land changed course late Monday, June 23, after pushback from constituents, legislators and the Senate’s top rules arbiter.
Senator Mike Lee, a Utah Republican, had proposed an amendment to the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” that would have mandated the sale of 3 million acres of Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service land. Lee framed the sell-off as a solution to the housing crisis across the western United States.
In a post on X (formerly Twitter) Monday night, Lee said Forest Service land was no longer part of his plan, and the amount of BLM land in the proposal would be limited to land within five miles of population centers.
Prior to Lee’s social media post, the Senate parliamentarian — a nonpartisan advisor who enforces Senate guidelines — barred the amendment’s inclusion in the budget reconciliation bill because it was not relevant enough to the fiscal concerns.
The future of Lee’s sell-off plan is uncertain. In his post on X, he acknowledged the limits of what can be included in the reconciliation bill, but that he’s doing everything he can to “move this forward.”
Under Lee’s revised proposal, about 15 million acres of Forest Service-managed land is no longer at risk in Colorado. The BLM manages 8.3 million acres of public land in Colorado, significantly less than other Western states like Utah (22.8 million acres) and Nevada (48 million acres).
It is unclear at this time exactly how much of Colorado’s public land is at risk under Lee’s revised proposal. The new plan would target land within five miles of a population center, but Lee hasn’t specified how population centers would be defined.
Spaces like the Salida Mountain bike trail, the Hartman Rocks hiking trails near Gunnison and the Bangs Canyon OHV trails — next to Colorado National Monument and a beloved spot for rock-crawling Jeeps, custom side by sides, and dirt bikers — could be at risk.
“We're talking about the areas that people access most, which that sounds crazy to me,” Nelson Holland said. Holland, who lives in Aurora, has more than 300,000 followers on social media, where he posts about exploring Colorado’s outdoors.
Holland moved to Colorado from New York 12 years ago and fell in love with the state’s natural spaces. He said he recreates outdoors — hiking, camping, swimming, fishing and, most recently, hunting on federally owned land — at least 300 times a year.
Since he learned about the initial proposal to mandate the sale of public lands, Holland, along with other outdoor content creators, has urged his audience to call their representatives and oppose the amendment.
“It seems like it's just a longer fight that we're going to have to fight. I think we are making a difference. But I don't think this is a problem that is going to go away in the next weeks or the next few months,” Holland said.
Lee chairs the Senate Natural Resources Committee. If the amendment is not included in the budget reconciliation bill — which Republicans hope to pass by July 4 — it could be brought up again in the future.
The federal government has sold public land in Colorado before. In 2016, Summit County bought 44.8 acres from the Forest Service to use the land for much-needed affordable housing in the area. That sale was 16 years in the making.
The existing process for selling public lands includes a dedicated period for public comment and community input to decide if developing the land is the best choice for the people who live there.
“That public process is really important because it helps all of us come to an understanding as to which specific pieces of property might be appropriate for development,” said environmental law attorney Chris Winter, executive director of the Getches-Wilkinson Center at the University of Colorado.
Under the most recently available language in Lee’s proposal, private parties or local governments can nominate parcels to be listed for sale — and the federal government can list any eligible lands up for sale, even without a nomination.
The law currently requires revenue from the sale of public lands to be reinvested into conservation, recreation or other public interests, Winter said. Lee’s proposal would instead send that money to the U.S. Treasury to be used for any purpose.
Lee’s proposal requires sold-off federal land to be used for housing and “infrastructure to support local housing needs,” though specifically require affordable housing. But even in Colorado ski towns where the lack of housing is most noticeable, developing public lands is a nonstarter.
“There's also no meaningful restrictions that would prevent the uses of that land from changing over time and becoming something totally different than what was originally included in the proposal to sell the land,” Winter said.
Colorado Representatives Jeff Hurd, a Republican, and Joe Neguse, a Democrat, released a joint statement June 24 that celebrated the removal of Lee’s proposal from the bill. The congressmen said decisions about public land should be made by the people, not by mandates from Washington.
“As consideration of the budget reconciliation bill continues, we must remain united in ensuring that its text excludes provisions that would permit the widespread sale or transfer of these treasured places,” the statement read.
Soren Jespersen, director of Colorado Wildlands Project, an advocacy group focused on BLM land in Colorado, said in 20 years of working with public lands, he has never seen an outcry as big as the reaction to Lee’s plan.
“You know, we should actually thank Mike Lee a little bit, because what he's done here is unified a lot of diverse voices to show that Westerners love our public lands and that we strongly oppose any proposal to sell them off through legislative shortcuts like budget reconciliation,” said Jespersen.
Though the current proposal to put public land up for sale has lost steam because of pushback and the Senate parliamentarian’s ruling, Jespersen is still concerned for the future of special places in Colorado.
According to the Colorado Wildlands Project’s analysis of the proposal — accounting for the ambiguous provision that land has to be within five miles of a population center — popular mountain biking trails like the Red Hill system near Carbondale, and the Lunch Loops trails, which is blocks from the heart of Grand Junction, could be sold if Lee is successful.
Jespersen said the land beneath the Animas Mountain trails near Durango would also be included.
Those are all examples of recreation management areas, which don’t have the same protections as a national conservation area — such as McInnis Canyon on the Western Slope — or a national monument. Those types of land excluded from the sell-off proposals.
“This entire episode has really highlighted exactly why we need permanent legislative protections for public lands, designations like wilderness areas, national conservation areas, national monuments,” Jespersen said.
Thursday, Representative Ryan Zinke, a Montana Republican, said he’ll vote against the megabill because of the proposal to sell public lands.
“I agree with my colleagues that the federal government has mismanaged federal lands for decades. But I don’t agree with their solution,” said Zinke in a post on X.
Type of story: News
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.
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