This article has been updated.
Late Saturday, Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) withdrew his proposal to sell off federal lands from the Big Beautiful Bill, as Republicans scrambled to prevent the legislation from collapsing.
🚨 BREAKING: Senator MIKE LEE (R-UT) drops his federal lands-for-sale provision from the Big Beautiful Bill as the GOP is trying to avoid disaster. pic.twitter.com/QzikAEbRDE
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) June 29, 2025
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Five House Republicans are breaking ranks with their party over a massive GOP legislative package, threatening to vote it down unless it drops a controversial proposal to sell off large portions of public land. The lawmakers argue that the federal land sell-off would be a betrayal of conservative conservation values. In their view, handing over national lands to private interests not only risks environmental harm but also alienates voters who rely on those lands for recreation, grazing, and tourism.
GOP Reps. Ryan Zinke (Mont.), Mike Simpson (Idaho), Dan Newhouse (Wash.), Cliff Bentz (Ore.), and David Valadao (CA) have openly expressed their opposition to their party’s tax and spending bill over provisions in the Senate version that would mandate the sale of two million acres of land owned by the federal government to the general public.
“We support the OB3 passed by the House and generally accept changes to the bill that may be made by the Senate. However, we cannot accept the sale of federal lands that Senator [Mike] Lee seeks,” the lawmakers wrote in a letter addressed to House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.). “If a provision to sell public lands is in the bill that reaches the House floor, we will be forced to vote no.”
Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah) originally proposed a plan to sell public lands in the West to states or other entities for housing and infrastructure projects. He argued that this move would fulfill a longstanding goal among Western conservatives to transfer land management to local authorities, especially after a similar effort was rejected by the House earlier this year.
Under his plan, land across 11 Western states, from Alaska down to New Mexico, would be opened up for potential sale. Montana was excluded after lawmakers pushed back against the proposal. In places like Utah and Nevada, where the federal government owns a significant portion of the land, strict protections have limited development and economic expansion.
Five Republicans opposing the bill would be enough to prevent the bill from passing, since the GOP can afford to lose only three House votes if every Democrat remains opposed as expected.
Lee said that the 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 five miles of population centers could be sold.
However, the group of lawmakers remains firmly opposed to the bill as long as it includes provisions allowing the sale of federally owned land to the public.
“It is our hope that the Senate Parliamentarian strips any language from the bill regarding public lands sales, but we hope we can count on you once again to hear our concerns and work with Senate Leadership to remove the provision that will tank the entire Republican agenda,” the letter read.
Lee defended his proposal, saying that high housing prices are hurting families and pushing young people out of their hometowns. To address this, he said a revised plan would limit federal land sales, removing U.S. Forest Service land entirely from consideration and allowing only small, targeted sales of Bureau of Land Management land near existing communities, within five miles of cities or towns.
His proposal follows the Trump administration’s Monday announcement to roll back a 2001 rule that prohibited logging in national forest lands.
“Housing prices are crushing families and keeping young Americans from living where they grew up. We need to change that,” Lee wrote on X.
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