Conservatives Turn On GOP Senator Over Plan To Sell Off Millions Of Acres Of Public Land

Utah Sen. Mike Lee's proposal has united the left and right -- against him.

People across the political spectrum hope Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) makes like a tree and leaves national forests — and other federally owned land — alone.

Last week, the Lee-led Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee released a draft proposal, intended for inclusion in the so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill,” that would mandate the sale of between 2.2 million and 3.3 million acres of public land owned by the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service in the American West.

Lee has framed the proposal as a means to increase affordable housing, and emphasized that it excludes national parks, national monuments, and designated wilderness areas from being sold.

Critics have expressed skepticism that the bill would do much to mitigate the housing crisis, contending that it would only result in the public being barred from land they now enjoy.

“I don’t think it’s clear that we would even get substantial housing as a result of this,” Sen. Martin Heinrich (N.M.), the energy committee’s ranking Democrat, told the Associated Press. “What I know would happen is people would lose access to places they know and care about and that drive our Western economies.”