06/12/2025 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 06/12/2025 17:28
Andrea Feniger, andrea.feniger@sierraclub.org
Kim Petty, kim.petty@sierraclub.org
JUNEAU, Alaska - Senate Republicans are supercharging an effort to sell huge swaths of public lands to private developers in Alaska to pay for extending Donald Trump's tax cuts for billionaires.
Last night, 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 Alaska, but vastly increases the acreage of those required sales. The bill also tries to force the disastrous Ambler Road project on Alaska and rolls back critical protections for the Arctic region.
The new language would potentially force the sale of 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.
In response, Andrea Feniger, Alaska State Chapter Director of the Sierra Club, released the following statement:
"We are calling on Senators Murkowski and Sullivan to do right by the people of Alaska and oppose selling our public lands to the highest bidder. This bill would give billionaires and corporate polluters free rein to drill, mine, and log these treasured landscapes, leaving Alaska to clean up the mess when they are done. A sell-off of millions of acres of our public lands to become private land would lock out American families forever. Here in Alaska, we will remind Senators Murkowski and Sullivan that our public lands are for the many to enjoy, not the few to profit off of. We call on them to do everything in their power to fight this bill."
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.