Mike Lee pulls public lands sale from Trump tax bill
In a social media post on Saturday, Lee said after listening 'to members of the community, local leaders, and stakeholders across the country,' he decided to 'withdraw the federal land sales provision from the bill.'
Lee said because of the constraints of the budget reconciliation process, he couldn't guarantee the land would be sold 'only to American families — not to China, not to BlackRock, and not to any foreign interests."
Lee sounded frustrated about the campaign against the public lands provision, saying there had been 'a tremendous amount of misinformation — and in some cases, outright lies — about my bill," but said other people brought forward 'sincere concerns.'
Lee said he 'continues to believe the federal government owns too much land' and that he would continue to work with the Trump administration to 'put underutilized federal land to work for American families.'
The Senate parliamentarian ruled earlier this week that the Utah senator's proposal to sell between 2.2 million and 3.3 million acres of federally owned land would be stripped from President Donald Trump's massive tax package because it did not comply with the strict rules laid out in the reconciliation process.
Lee's team then submitted new language that was approved by the parliamentarian. But then late Saturday he decided to strip the provision from the bill entirely.
The biggest change he had made was the removal of U.S. Forest Service lands from being eligible for sale, significantly reducing how much land could be sold under his proposal.
The original proposal would have required 11 Western states to sell anywhere between 0.5% and 0.75% of all Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service lands in the next five years.
The legislation specifically applied to Utah as well as Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Washington and Wyoming.
Lee began adjusting his proposal over the weekend based on feedback from the public, his office told the Deseret News, and was nearly finalized before the parliamentarian issued the ruling.
Lee's proposal also received pushback from some of his Republican colleagues, particularly those who have long opposed selling public lands for private use.
On Saturday, Montana Republican Sen. Tim Sheehy said he would oppose the vote to move forward with the tax bill because of the public lands provision, but then later changed his mind after Senate GOP leaders gave him the go-ahead to introduce an amendment to strip the public lands language from the bill.
'I oppose the sale of public lands and will vote no on the motion to proceed if it is included,' Sheehy said in a social media post midday Saturday.
Moments later, he wrote: 'I have just concluded productive discussions with leadership. I will be leading an amendment to strip the sale of public lands from this bill. I will vote yes on the motion to proceed. We must quickly pass the Big Beautiful Bill to advance President Trump's agenda.'
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