Sierra Club: Senator Lee is Putting a Price Tag on Public Lands

WASHINGTON, D.C. -Senate Republicans are supercharging an effort to sell huge swaths of public lands to private developers.

This evening, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee released its revised portion of the sprawling GOP budget reconciliation package. The text not only reinstates language mandating the sale of public lands in multiple western states, but vastly increases the acreage of those required sales. The new language would force the sale of potentially millions of acres of public landsmanaged by the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service in Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming, far more than the approximately 500,000 acres of land sales in Nevada and Utah called for in the original House version of the budget reconciliation bill. That language, introduced by Rep. Mark Amodei, was stricken from the House version of the billin the face of bipartisan opposition in the chamber and overwhelming public outrage.

The Senate bill text revives proposals to increase drilling in the Western Arctic and to construct a private industrial road in Alaska that would cut through Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve. It also includes a harmful "pay to pollute" scheme allowing a methane gas export company to pay a fee in exchange for LNG projects being automatically deemed in the public interest. LNG exports have devastating climate impacts while diminishing domestic energy supplies and raising prices for American consumers.

For months, multiple Congressional Republicans have identified selling off public lands as one option to pay for extending Donald Trump's tax cuts for billionaires. In an April vote, a majority of senators rejected a measure that would have prevented the sell-off.

In response, Athan Manuel, director of Sierra Club's Lands Protection Program, released the following statement:

"Senate Republicans are taking a second bite at a rotten apple. The American people made it clear last month that they will not tolerate selling off our public lands to billionaires and corporate polluters. But Donald Trump and Mike Lee seem to have missed the memo. This bill would give billionaires and corporate polluters free rein to drill, mine, and log these treasured landscapes without oversight or accountability, and sell millions of acres of public lands to private developers, locking out American families forever. The American people will remind Trump and his Congressional allies that our public lands shouldn't have a price tag on them."

About the Sierra Club

The Sierra Club is America's largest and most influential grassroots environmental organization, with millions of members and supporters. In addition to protecting every person's right to get outdoors and access the healing power of nature, the Sierra Club works to promote clean energy, safeguard the health of our communities, protect wildlife, and preserve our remaining wild places through grassroots activism, public education, lobbying, and legal action. For more information, visit https://www.sierraclub.org.