GOP plan to sell more than 2 million acres of federal lands is found to violate Senate rules
A plan to sell more than 2 million acres of federal lands has been ruled out of Republicans' big tax and spending cut bill after the Senate parliamentarian determined the proposal by Senate Energy Chairman Mike Lee would violate the chamber's rules.
Lee, a Utah Republican, has proposed selling public lands in the West to states or other entities for use as housing or infrastructure. The plan would revive a longtime ambition of Western conservatives to cede lands to local control after a similar proposal failed in the House earlier this year.
The proposal received a mixed reception Monday from the governors of Western states. New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, a Democrat, called it problematic in her state because of the close relationship residents have with public lands.
Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon, a Republican, voiced qualified support.
'On a piece-by-piece basis where states have the opportunity to craft policies that make sense ... we can actually allow for some responsible growth in areas with communities that are landlocked at this point,' he said at a news conference in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where the Western Governors' Association was meeting.
Lee, in a post on X Monday night, said he would keep trying.
'Housing prices are crushing families and keeping young Americans from living where they grew up. We need to change that,'' he wrote, adding that a revised plan would remove all U.S. Forest Service land from possible sale. Sales of sites controlled by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management would be significantly reduced, Lee said, so that only land within 5 miles of population centers could be sold.
Environmental advocates celebrated the ruling late Monday by Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough, but cautioned that Lee's proposal was far from dead.
'This is a victory for the American public, who were loud and clear: Public lands belong in public hands, for current and future generations alike,'' said Tracy Stone-Manning, president of The Wilderness Society. 'Our public lands are not for sale.'
Carrie Besnette Hauser, president and CEO of the nonprofit Trust for Public Land called the procedural ruling in the Senate 'an important victory in the fight to protect America's public lands from short-sighted proposals that would have undermined decades of bipartisan work to protect, steward and expand access to the places we all share.'
'But make no mistake: this threat is far from over,' Hauser added. 'Efforts to dismantle our public lands continue, and we must remain vigilant as proposals now under consideration," including plans to roll back the bipartisan Great American Outdoors Act and cut funding for land and water conservation, make their way through Congress, she said.
MacDonough, the Senate parliamentarian, also ruled out a host of other Republican-led provisions Monday night, including construction of a mining road in Alaska and changes to speed permitting of oil and gas leases on federal lands.
While the parliamentarian's rulings are advisory, they are rarely, if ever, ignored. Lawmakers are using a budget reconciliation process to bypass the Senate filibuster to pass President Donald Trump's tax-cut package by a self-imposed July Fourth deadline.
Lee's plan revealed sharp disagreement among Republicans who support wholesale transfers of federal property to spur development and generate revenue, and other lawmakers who are staunchly opposed.
Land in 11 Western states from Alaska to New Mexico would be eligible for sale. Montana was carved out of the proposal after lawmakers there objected. In states such as Utah and Nevada, the government controls the vast majority of lands, protecting them from potential exploitation but hindering growth.
" Washington has proven time and again it can't manage this land. This bill puts it in better hands,' Lee said in announcing the plan.
Housing advocates have cautioned that federal land is not universally suitable for affordable housing. Some of the parcels up for sale in Utah and Nevada under a House proposal were far from developed areas.
New Mexico Sen. Martin Heinrich, the ranking Democrat on the energy committee, said Lee's plan would exclude Americans from places where they fish, hunt and camp.
'I don't think it's clear that we would even get substantial housing as a result of this,' Heinrich said earlier this month. 'What I know would happen is people would lose access to places they know and care about and that drive our Western economies.'
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The Independent
a day ago
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BBC News
2 days ago
- BBC News
Superman to I Know What You Did Last Summer: 10 of the best films to watch this July
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Released from 16 July internationally I Know What You Did Last Summer In the original I Know What You Did Last Summer, which came out in 1997, a group of teenagers ran someone over in their car, fled the scene of the crime, and were hunted down by a serial killer known as the Fisherman. The film set off a craze for teen slasher films in the 1990s, alongside Scream (which had the same screenwriter, Kevin Williamson). And now that the Scream franchise is back, maybe it was inevitable that I Know What You Did Last Summer would follow. This legacy sequel has a new set of teens, and another car accident, but it's set in the same universe as the first film, and features Jennifer Love Hewitt and Freddie Prinze Jr as the two survivors of the first killing spree, Julie and Ray. "I came to this originally wanting to dig into: if this thing had happened to you, how would that shape you, and what person do you become after it?" 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Costa "explores the history of evangelism to try and grasp how its apocalyptic visions managed to capture the hearts and minds of so many Brazilians", says Jordan Mintzer in The Hollywood Reporter. "By doing so, she sheds light on a phenomenon present not only in Brazil and America, but in countries around the world where 'faith in progress and democracy' is currently being tested like never before." Released Netflix on 14 July internationally Jurassic World Rebirth Jurassic World Rebirth is a Jurassic World reset. The last film in the dino-series, 2022's Jurassic World Dominion, was a globe-trotting action caper with science-fiction and spy-thriller elements, whereas the new one goes back to basics: it's written by David Koepp, who scripted the first two Steven Spielberg-directed Jurassic Park films, and it returns to the classic concept of having a small band of intrepid adventurers (Scarlett Johansson, Mahershala Ali, Jonathan Bailey, Rupert Friend) being trapped on a tropical island with some hungry prehistoric animals. The director, Gareth Edwards, demonstrated his skill with CGI behemoths in Godzilla (2014) and his low-budget debut, Monsters (2010), but in this instance he's happy to pay loving homage to Spielberg. Jurassic World Rebirth "really does feel that it's welcoming people to celebrate the original film", Bailey said in Empire magazine. "It has that wonder and awe, while not being scared to re-inject the thrill and the fear." Released in cinemas internationally from 2 July -- For more Culture stories from the BBC, follow us on Facebook, X and Instagram.
