Senate to reinstate US public lands sale to pay for tax cuts

A plan to sell thousands of acres of federal land to help pay for President Donald Trump’s massive package of tax cuts will be returning in the Senate’s version of the bill, according to a key lawmaker. 

Senator Mike Lee, the chairman of the committee with jurisdiction of energy and public land, told reporters Wednesday that a version of the plan would be included in their portion of the budget bill the panel plans to make public, likely on Monday. 

House Republicans had initially sought to add the sales into their version of the bill, but the idea was thwarted amid opposition from lawmakers such as Montana Representative Ryan Zinke. The House’s proposal would have raised billions through the sale or transfer of nearly 450,000-acres of public land in scores of parcels in Utah and Nevada, but the politically charged idea has faced criticism, including from within Trump’s own party. 

Lee, a Republican from Utah, said Montana would be exempted from sales in his version of the legislation. While Lee didn’t specify which other states would be included, he did say it would involve Utah and other states “west of the 100th meridian.” The 100th meridian is a line that has historically separated America’s wet East from the dry West and runs through North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas.

The federal government owns 650 million acres of land, 90% of which is located in Western states, according to the House Western Caucus, a group of lawmakers who represent Western states. 

“Once land is taken by the federal government, it is often locked away forever from economic production,” the group said in a fact sheet. “Local governments in the West miss out on substantial tax revenues from potential energy extraction, mining, timber harvesting and other forms of economic development.”

However, the sale of public land has drawn vehement opposition from conservation groups and others.

“The American people love their public lands and want to see them protected, not sold off to the highest bidder,” said Aaron Weiss, deputy director of the Center for Western Priorities. “Once these lands are gone, they’re gone forever — that means no more hiking, no more biking, no more grazing, no more habitat for wildlife.”

Separately, the Senate’s environmental panel Wednesday released their portion of the budget bill that, similar to the House version, would delay by 10 years the collection of a fee on methane emissions from oil and gas producers and expedite federal environmental reviews of projects for a fee. The measure would also clawback a host of unused Inflation Reduction Act funding to help pay for the Republican megabill, similarly to what was passed by the House.