Mike Lee caves & withdraws his public lands sell-off scheme; NPI finds 75% of likely Washington voters oppose it [View all]
Wannabe Lorax villain Mike Lee just announced that he is withdrawing his atrocious scheme to privatize millions of acres of public lands from H.R. 1 after a massive bipartisan outcry, conceding that “many people brought forward sincere concerns.”
Lee, the senior United States Senator from Utah, had tried to insert language into Donald Trump’s ugly vulture budget that would pave the way for an unprecedented, secretive land grab by powerful, wealthy interests wanting to loot and plunder America’s natural resources. His first attempt was nixed by the Senate parliamentarian, Elizabeth MacDonough, but he soon came back with a watered down, revised, still terrible scheme that had the backing of top Republicans John Thune and John Cornyn.
Like the original, the revised scheme was widely panned, and Lee has now decided to pull it, apparently having calculated it would not survive an amendment vote.
“Because of the strict constraints of the budget reconciliation process, I was unable to secure clear, enforceable safeguards to guarantee that these lands would be sold only to American families — not to China, not to BlackRock, and not to any foreign interests,” Lee said in a statement admitting defeat. “For that reason, I’ve made the decision to withdraw the federal land sales provision from the bill.”
https://www.nwprogressive.org/weblog/2025/06/mike-lee-caves-and-withdraws-his-public-lands-sell-off-scheme-npis-research-finds-75-of-likely-washington-voters-oppose-it.html
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