120 million acres of public lands eligible for sale in SENR budget reconciliation package

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maff
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120 million acres of public lands eligible for sale in SENR budget reconciliation package

Post by maff »

Wilderness.org Top-Line Summary & Analysis of Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee Reconciliation Bill
The bill forces the arbitrary sale of at least 2 million acres of Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management lands in 11 Western states over the next five years, and it gives the secretaries of the interior and agriculture broad discretion to choose which places should be sold off....The bill directs what is likely the largest single sale of national public lands in modern history to help cut taxes for the richest people in the country. It trades ordinary Americans’ access to outdoor recreation for a short-term payoff that disproportionately benefits the privileged and well-connected.Public lands eligible for sale in the bill encompass over 120 million acres, including local recreation areas, wilderness study areas, inventoried roadless areas, critical wildlife habitat and big game migration corridors.
The above site has a link to an interactive map where you can view the USFS and BLM lands that would be potentially available for sale: https://wilderness.maps.arcgis.com/apps ... 18aac42310

I zoomed on some familiar spots and saw, for example, that the land surrounding the trail leading up South Colony Creek to South Colony Lakes would be "available for sale." I confess that I'm not sure how Wilderness.org is classifying "available for sale" in the context of the bill - the bill directs the sale of at least 2 million acres and the headline states "120 million acres eligible for sale." So there's no guarantees that any particular highlighted plot would actually be sold. I still think the threat is serious enough to be worth discussing and monitoring.

Per a Senate one-pager summary, the proposal "requires BLM and USFS to sell a minimum of 0.5% and a maximum of 0.75% of their estates for housing and associated community needs." I think most of us who have been to many of the highlighted lands understand how ill-suited most of these lands are to meeting housing needs. It is difficult to see BLM and USFS as significant contributors to the housing shortage in this country, and there are other tools available that do not require liquidation of the country's most precious asset - its public land.

I hope I'm not breaking any rules by posting this here. I can't really say "politics aside" because this is a political decision that would have massive, potentially catastrophic and irreversible impacts on our shared hobby (14ers and the outdoors generally) for generations. I know there's a range of political views on this forum but I imagine that one place where our politics probably line up is that these public lands should remain public lands and not liquidated every time the government needs some extra cash.

As the Wilderness dot org post notes, a similar provision was removed from the House reconciliation bill previously and hopefully this shares the same fate. But I think it's worth being aware of what is being talked about and recommended by the US Senate at this moment.
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Re: 120 million acres of public lands eligible for sale in SENR budget reconciliation package

Post by seannunn »

I haven't inspected the map, not sure how much I could understand from that anyway.
I would say that the PEOPLE are our greatest natural resource; land comes after that.
I agree that this is concerning. There are definitely areas that we would do best to keep public.
However, there may be places at the margins of small towns where allowing the sale of some land to be used to build small, affordable houses (think Habitat for Humanity size) would help alleviate the current housing shortage in Colorado and the rest of the US.
Keeping that from turning into land for people to build $10M mansions on is a different can or worms.
Just my opinion. I haven't read the entire bill, but I am guessing it probably is something that was thrown in at the last minute and probably doesn't safeguard against these problems.

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Re: 120 million acres of public lands eligible for sale in SENR budget reconciliation package

Post by Jon Frohlich »

maff wrote: Mon Jun 16, 2025 12:13 pm
I zoomed on some familiar spots and saw, for example, that the land surrounding the trail leading up South Colony Creek to South Colony Lakes would be "available for sale." I confess that I'm not sure how Wilderness.org is classifying "available for sale" in the context of the bill - the bill directs the sale of at least 2 million acres and the headline states "120 million acres eligible for sale." So there's no guarantees that any particular highlighted plot would actually be sold. I still think the threat is serious enough to be worth discussing and monitoring.
I'd have to do some major digging but I'm guessing "available for sale" would be anything that's not covered under a different designation or protection. So it would exclude national parks, wilderness, national monuments, etc. The example I saw right off the top of my head was a bunch of land north of Kremmling which I know is just generic BLM land and not designated as anything else.

Selling off public land is an appallingly short sighted idea that doesn't solve anything.
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Re: 120 million acres of public lands eligible for sale in SENR budget reconciliation package

Post by catfish hank »

Was wondering when this was going to post on this website. Its just another rip off to take away anything that remotely favors the public good. When would we need to sell off another 3 million acres, then another 3 million and another for "affordable housing and hard to manage parcels". When will the sprawl ever stop. This is the beginning of a precarious slippery slope where lands that should be passed on to future generations to enjoy as accessible open space will be sold off and lost forever. All in the need to fund tax breaks for multi-millionaires and billionaires. How this sale would occur without corruption involved from the most corrupt administrations this country has ever witnessed is impossible to conceive. Hopefully Republican representatives will come to their senses and strip this measure out of this and any future bills.
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Re: 120 million acres of public lands eligible for sale in SENR budget reconciliation package

Post by maff »

I'll also add these quotes from the Wilderness.org summary, regarding the "process" being set up:
The bill’s process for selling off lands runs at breakneck speed, demanding the nomination of tracts within 30 days, then every 60 days until the arbitrary multi-million-acre goal is met, all without hearings, debate or public input.
The public lands sell-off provision masquerades as a way to provide more housing, but it lacks safeguards to ensure land is used for that purpose, and it sets up a system where lands could be sold or resold for non-housing uses after just 10 years. Research suggests that very little of the land managed by the BLM and USFS is actually suitable for housing.
Even if you believe that some public lands in certain areas could be useful for building housing, there's little reason to think that this bill will accomplish those goals on any meaningful or lasting basis. BLM and USFS already do land use planning for the land they manage, with input from the public and other stakeholders. Yes, that process can move slowly--one might argue that "slowly" is the appropriate pace for making changes to public land that can last for generations. What this bill contemplates is stripping down and selling public land for parts at fire-sale pace.
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Re: 120 million acres of public lands eligible for sale in SENR budget reconciliation package

Post by 12ersRule »

Jon Frohlich wrote: Mon Jun 16, 2025 1:21 pm Selling off public land is an appallingly short sighted idea that doesn't solve anything.
I'll just go with the areas that I know well:

Medicine Bow peak and area would be sold. I imagine that'd become someone's private ranch/resort. That land is definitely not suitable for grazing/farming or a larger community.

Looks like the best parts of Vedauwoo are on there, that part is all large rocks and is the main climbing area.

Massive amount of forest land in Larimer County, a lot of it was burnt in the fires.

Greyrock looks like it's included, nearby Hewlett Gulch certainly is.

Laughable that some people would think this would be beneficial to your average incomed person.

Also, how about the idiocy of closing popular destinations like Medicine Bow, Vedauwoo, and Greyrock to the public? Makes more economic sense to keep them open to the public!
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Re: 120 million acres of public lands eligible for sale in SENR budget reconciliation package

Post by Teresa Gergen »

Thanks for posting the map. A quick initial glance immediately left me thinking this could leave some peaks on public land public, but cut off public access routes to them when the parcels under consideration are along roads.
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Re: 120 million acres of public lands eligible for sale in SENR budget reconciliation package

Post by mtnkub »

Yuck!!!
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Re: 120 million acres of public lands eligible for sale in SENR budget reconciliation package

Post by madbuck »

Teresa Gergen wrote: Mon Jun 16, 2025 4:10 pm A quick initial glance immediately left me thinking this could leave some peaks on public land public, but cut off public access routes to them when the parcels under consideration are along roads.
Right. Just glancing up the Big Thompson Canyon, this could affect Round Mountain, Crosier Mountain, Lookout and Signal, Triangle Mountain, possibly Storm Mountain. All are popular hikes/runs/rec areas. Selling blockaded areas/"checkerboarding" of popular areas to close off access is an established technique and means the meaningfully-affected acreage will be larger than the total sale acreage.
12ersRule wrote: Mon Jun 16, 2025 2:19 pm I'll just go with the areas that I know well:
Laughable that some people would think this would be beneficial to your average incomed person.
Also, how about the idiocy of closing popular destinations like Medicine Bow, Vedauwoo, and Greyrock to the public? Makes more economic sense to keep them open to the public!
We here (hopefully) know about the economic benefits of recreation, typically thought of as the gear and spending money in gateway towns. We also have use activities like trail and mountain bike races, hunting and fishing, skiing, four-wheeling, snowmobiling. But recreators have also literally invested in these lands historically through trail building and trail/forest/river maintenance. Any money "made" by the federal government selling these lands will surely not be fairly weighed against these uses.
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Re: 120 million acres of public lands eligible for sale in SENR budget reconciliation package

Post by dwoodward13 »

One thing I haven't seen mentioned that is Montana is fully excluded from this proposal. This is 100% an attempt to appease Ryan Zinke and possibly others (R-MT, former Sec of Interior) who has been pretty unequivocal he is a no vote on any sale of public land, and who killed a similar proposal for only Utah and Nevada in the house.

Obviously this is not about building housing, otherwise the land would be much more targeted in areas where there is nearby existing infrastructure, and a need for jobs. Doesn't do anyone any good to sell away tracts of FS/BLM land in the middle of no where with no access to jobs, transportation, electricity, water, ect. Of course the target audiences are those looking for 2nd (or 3rd or 4th) houses who can carry the burden of the lack of infrastructure expenses and/or corporations to mine/drill/cut in the future. It would be laughable for anyone to think otherwise.
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Re: 120 million acres of public lands eligible for sale in SENR budget reconciliation package

Post by ekalina »

Absolutely heinous. It looks like almost all of my county's USFS land that isn't wilderness or national park will be up for grabs. My tax dollars were used to maintain those lands and now the government can just dump them off so I can never go there again. Thanks.

This is the membership of the SENR committee:
https://www.wilderness.org/articles/med ... on-package

Highly recommend calling your senator's office if you live in one of their states.
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Re: 120 million acres of public lands eligible for sale in SENR budget reconciliation package

Post by jibler »

looks like Lake Dillon primed for a new wave of development! if you don't mind steep hillside terrain?


plus they are trying to sell Devilshead ?!


that's like going for my Mecca. bad idea for everyone.
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