Despite vigorous opposition from Congressional Democrats and conservation groups, the House Natural Resource Committee early this morning approved a budget bill that includes a provision to sell thousands of acres of federal land in Nevada and Utah.
The amendment, offered by Republicans Mark Amodei of Nevada and Celeste Maloy of Utah, would sell about 11,000 acres of BLM and Forest Service land in Utah and potentially hundreds of thousands of acres in Nevada. The land-sale amendment was offered at nearly midnight in a marathon committee meeting, in which Democrats offered some 140 amendments to soften some of the provisions of the budget bill. Each of those amendments was voted down by the Republican majority, which declined to debate any of the provisions.
Republican members were apparently under orders from House leadership not to engage in public discourse over the budget bill’s controversial elements, observed Democrat Joe Neguse (D-Colorado), who repeatedly tried to get his GOP colleagues to explain their stance or to debate the merits of various provisions in the legislation.
The bill, one part of the House budget reconciliation package, would require nearly every acre of federal land to be available to mineral leasing, approves a controversial mine in Minnesota’s Boundary Waters, requires energy leasing in much of Alaska’s North Slope, and forbids lawsuits challenging public-land development. The bill claws back funding from land-management agencies while requiring them to approve logging, coal mining, and creation of a controversial water project in California that critics say would impair one of the state’s last free-flowing rivers.
The House bill is a critical key to realizing President Trump’s pledge to “drill, baby, drill,” as his administration accelerates domestic energy production. Ranking committee Democrat Jared Huffman (D-California) called the bill “the most extreme, anti-environment bill in American history.”
But committee chair Bruce Westerman (R-Arkansas), says the bill, which would produce about $18.5 billion in savings, delivers “on the American people’s mandate to restore common sense to the federal government and stop the fiscal bleeding.”
Public Land Sales Approved
The land-sale amendment was the only addition to the bill and was offered, and accepted by the committee after more than 12 hours of debate. Sale of federal land to help balance the budget has been a priority for a number of Western Republicans, most notably the chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Utah’s Mike Lee.
The amendment from Amodei and Maloy would offer for sale about 11,000 acres of federal land in several counties in Utah. The Nevada acreages around Carson City, Reno, and Las Vegas are fairly modest, but a resolution detailing the disposal of some checkerboarded federal lands in Pershing County could result in the trade or sale of roughly 335,000 acres. The parcels, identified in the amendment, had already been identified for disposal by the counties. Some would be sold with the express purpose of alleviating housing affordability. But other parcels, including those in southern Utah, don’t have a designated purpose.
Conservation groups worry that the amendment establishes a dangerous precedent that could result in wholesale sales of federal land elsewhere in the country.
“This was a very dark night for the American people,” said Chase Huntley, vice president of federal policy at The Wilderness Society in a prepared statement. “The House Natural Resources Committee just approved a budget reconciliation bill that will dramatically expand drilling and sell off public lands to fund tax cuts for the richest people in the country. It also dramatically expands mining and logging, strips protections for iconic places, and crushes NEPA, a bedrock environmental law.”
Huntley notes that committee Republicans “spent nearly all of Tuesday with their mouths shut, playing games with the legislative process and avoiding debate on substantive concerns. Then tonight, when they thought nobody was watching, they offered a provision to sell off public lands, an idea that has continually proven wildly unpopular.”
Indeed, a poll released earlier this week by the National Wildlife Federation indicates overwhelming opposition to congressional and administration proposals to push oil and gas development without adequate review. The poll of about 3,200 Westerners also indicates strong opposition to efforts to reduce community input on land-management decisions.
This story was updated to include additional details on the specific acreage earmarked for sale, which is larger than the 11,000 initially reported.
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