Republicans want 'mandatory disposal' of public lands

Nicole Blanchard, The Idaho Statesman on Jun 12, 2025

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Congressional Republicans have revived plans to sell public lands as part of ongoing negotiations on the federal budget reconciliation bill.

A draft released Wednesday by the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee detailed plans for “mandatory disposal” of Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service Land for housing. It lists several states where disposal would be eligible: Idaho, Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming.

If approved, the legislation would require agency officials to publish a list every 60 days of tracts of land that have been nominated or considered for disposal. The legislation caps the amount of land that can be sold at 0.75% of each agency’s estate, the committee said — up to 1.8 million acres of BLM land and up to 1.4 million acres of Forest Service land.

The legislation stipulates that any land sold must be used for housing or “to address associated community needs.”

U.S. Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, who chairs the energy committee, touted the legislation as an opportunity to make “housing more affordable for hardworking American families” in a committee news release. A document addressing frequently asked questions noted the project would develop “millions of single-family homes, resulting in greater housing supply and making housing more affordable.”

Lee has a history of fighting to wrest public land from federal control. He was involved when Utah officials sued the United States last year in a case the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear and has tried in the past to open up public land for housing in Utah in a bill opponents dubbed the “McMansion Subsidy Act” for its lack of an affordability requirement, the Salt Lake Tribune reported.

It’s unclear to what extent U.S. Sen. Jim Risch, R-Idaho, who is a member of the energy committee, was involved in the draft. Risch’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Idaho Statesman.

Idaho Rep. Mike Simpson helped block public land sales

The committee’s draft came just weeks after a bipartisan group of House legislators removed a section from the House version of the spending bill — dubbed One Big Beautiful Bill — to allow public land sales in Utah and Nevada. Among those legislators was U.S. Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, who in April co-sponsored a bill to prevent the sale of large tracts of public land as a means of paying down federal debt.

“Public lands were set aside for public use, and we have a responsibility to ensure that future generations will be able to enjoy the same benefits we sometimes take for granted today,” Simpson said in a statement to the Idaho Statesman.

He was met with praise from conservation, recreation and other outdoors groups — several of which have already criticized the Senate draft’s proposed public land sales.

“Idahoans and Americans cherish their public lands for recreation, hunting, fishing, camping, and more,” said Brad Smith, conservation director for the Idaho Conservation League. “These are the places we take our families camping. It’s where you catch a cutthroat trout or go hiking with your kids. These lands belong to all of us, and we must keep them that way.”

Smith noted that Montana is not named as an eligible state for land sales despite having vast amounts of federal public land like the other states on the list. He attributed that to the state’s legislators, who have been united against selling off its lands. He noted that U.S. Rep. Russ Fulcher, R-Idaho, broke with Simpson in the House to vote in favor of the bill that would have allowed sales in Utah and Nevada.

“This short-sighted proposal is nothing more than an attempt to finance tax cuts for the wealthy by selling off our shared heritage," Smith said. "If these lands are privatized, ‘no trespassing’ signs will go up — and we’ll never get them back.”

In a news release, conservation group Center for Western Priorities said the draft legislation doesn’t promise an affordability requirement for homes built on sold tracts of public land.

“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,” Executive Director Jennifer Rokala said. “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.”

The Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, a nonprofit that advocates for conservation to preserve hunting and fishing, also spoke out against the proposal.

“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 nonprofit. “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.”

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