7 ms·

US Congress is making more than 250M acres of public lands available for sale

140 points by surprisetalk 1y ago

darth_avocado 1y ago
The US is one of the few countries in the world that has such a large amount of untouched natural landscape. It’s a shame short term thinking is allowing us to trade it for not that much in return. You could give the billionaires half a percentage point less in terms of tax cuts and that would generate more revenue than this sale of public lands.
- Apreche 1y ago
  It’s not about generating revenue. It’s about intentionally transferring wealth TO the billionaires.
  - japhyr 1y ago
    It's also about seeing no value in a natural resource other than what you can extract from it, or how much you can profit if you buy it and put up a bigger gate.
vjvjvjvjghv 1y ago
This will make outdoors activities even harder. With no Right to Roam law like Britain has, it will be even more difficult in the West to navigate between public and private land. And when I look at the map, they are trying to sell off areas that have very popular hiking trails. And the money this will generate will probably barely pay for a B-2 flights.
- freedomben 1y ago
  Yep. I live in Idaho and finding places to enjoy is already painful. You can drive through gorgeous canyons and see nothing but private property no trespassing signs everywhere, with not a single page to get out and hike. I'm sure it's great for the private owners, but it sucks for all the rest of us, and it's not like some startup is going to come produce a bunch more land...
resource_waste 1y ago
[flagged]
mindslight 1y ago
The Democrats (or whatever other party emerges as actual opposition) need to make part of their "picking up the pieces and rebuilding" platform a declaration making it clear that when the looters are finally kicked out, all of these "sales" of public assets to private parties will be declared fraudulent conveyances and undone - with refunds in then-inflation-devalued dollars, and subject to deductions for any damages to the assets.
- 7e 1y ago
  Courts would never uphold the notion of a fraudulent conveyance. Your thinking is delusionsal.
  - plantwallshoe 1y ago
    If the next president decides to do it then it won’t matter. The executive has been granted near absolute authority by the courts and they have shown they are incapable of enforcing any rulings against the executive branch.
  - Glyptodon 1y ago
    If Dems get a big enough majority they can pass a constitutional amendment to undo and punish the Trump administration and their cronies. Even without that, if they can come up with a way to criminally charge them with crimes they can probably get it back with civil asset forfeiture.
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
  - mindslight 1y ago
    Those "courts" are currently rubber stamping many of the out of control "unitary" executive actions out of political expedience. It's not far fetched to think that the trend will continue for reform. In fact I think a lot of the people supporting the current administration support the autocracy because they think it is about reform (because they seemingly have no ability to analyze the administrations' actual actions beyond team sport cheerleading, but I digress) Escalating the dynamic is bad, because we ultimately need to pull out of the corruption. But continuing the dynamic of letting the looters keep their ill gotten gains having them declared as untouchable "private property" is worse. Also even if this does not end up happening, broadcasting the intent far and wide puts a chilling effect on the current looting. The point is there needs to be possible consequences on the table to balance the official policy of having a fire sale.
jjulius 1y ago
I want to preface this by clarifying that I am by no means intending to defend this at all - I backpack frequently and greatly value our public lands, and don't want to see them sold. However... As it stands now, the text of this specifically calls for only .5 to .75% of the 250M acres for both USFS and BLM lands to be sold. No more than 1.5% of the 250M acres will ultimately be sold off. Further, they need to be sold off for specific purposes, and these purposes need to be cost-efficient for the buyer. The map on the page absolutely looks scary, but that fear is diminished a fair bit when you realize that less than a percent of the lands in each color will be sold, and those that are sold are likely not going to be spaces that are deep in the forest and are expensive to reach and develop. By no means do I want to see this happen, I just wish that folk like Wilderness Society were a bit more clear on what to expect.
- detourdog 1y ago
  The maneuver seems to be to offset tax cuts this budget year. I think they need to set a precedent so they can offset tax cuts through subsequent years.
  - jjulius 1y ago
    Definitely a concern that I share, but I also wonder if it's a matter of diminished returns and to what degree that will impact things. Just because it's highlighted as sellable doesn't mean that it's easy and cost-efficient to develop.
  - bbor 1y ago
    I agree with the general sentiment, but it’s worth pointing out that this is a drop in the bucket compared to the tax cuts, AFAIK :(
  - ryandrake 1y ago
    I doubt anyone behind this legislation cares about offsetting tax cuts. This isn't about raising money--it's about transferring assets from the public into wealthy, private hands, like these guys[1]. It's always about that. 1: https://landreport.com/land-report-100 https://landreport.com/land-report-100
wingspar 1y ago
I’m sympathetic to the view that this is bad, then I recall the 80% of Nevada is owned by the federal government. 80% !!! Over 50% of Oregon, and over 60% for Utah https://ballotpedia.org/Federal_land_ownership_by_state https://ballotpedia.org/Federal_land_ownership_by_state
- partiallypro 1y ago
  The government is going to sell it to whoever is in office's buddies and they are going to strip mine and log it. Most of Nevada and Utah are uninhabitable, but perfect for corporations that don't want to abide by environmental laws. It's actually hilariously insulting that Mike Lee is saying this is to help solve the housing crisis as if someone is going to build a housing development with no water or road access. I even have libertarian diehard friends that are against this sale, if for nothing else than the fact you -can not- trust the government to sell it in a legitimate non-corrupt manner.
  - klipt 1y ago
    I guess your libertarian die hard friends didn't read about Project 2025 before voting for Trump? July 2024 article: https://www.backcountryhunters.org/what_project_2025_means_for_public_lands_and_waters https://www.backcountryhunters.org/what_project_2025_means_f...
    - shwaj 1y ago
      So smug. Unless you’re replying to someone you know (and my apologies if so), how do you know their die hard libertarian friends voted for Trump?
      - klipt 1y ago
        Just an informed guess.
        freedomben 1y ago
bfrog 1y ago
The republican playbook continues… profit for their family, friends, and donors at the expense everyone. Tax cuts aren’t needed, we already have relatively low taxes. Taxing all the ways rich dipshits work around taxes is very much needed.
nemofoo 1y ago
In Arizona we often go camping on this land. One of the best things about this state is the vast public lands that we can explore for free. This makes me sad that my children won’t be able to visit some of my favorite camp sites.
linuxhansl 1y ago
"Beautiful"... taking away Medicaid from many Americans and peddling away public land to fund tax cuts for the wealthy. This will likely also require raising the debt ceiling further; apparently DOGE did not save as much money as they told us they did. What a farce, what shameful theater.
- readme 1y ago
  Well how else are the rich supposed to buy the land, silly?
- jmye 1y ago
  > apparently DOGE did not save as much money as they told us they did. They directly cost us money to save Tesla some annoying regulations and steal our data (and give some criminals access to critical government systems). Anyone who still thinks DOGE did, or even intended to do, anything positive is hopelessly naive at best.
zzzeek 1y ago
Well I certainly hope we can clearcut a few million acres and get some new fossil fueled datacenters up and running, my Copilot has been writing shitty code lately
- canyp 1y ago
  You're gonna need a lot of water too. Stop watering your goddamn plants, max twice a week.
  - nixgeek 1y ago
    Well, your obvious choices for datacenter cooling are in some climates evaporative /or/ using a heck of a lot more energy and a closed loop system. Pick your “problem”. Water usage can also be optimized and is becoming part of the sustainability conversation at most of the hyperscalers with multi-gigawatt energy footprints: https://sustainability.aboutamazon.com/natural-resources/water https://sustainability.aboutamazon.com/natural-resources/wat...
- cvoss 1y ago
  The proposed law does not permit the land to be sold for this purpose.
  - nixgeek 1y ago
    It only enforces a restrictive covenant for 10 years. Buy land in 2026, build a few homes, repurpose to a datacenter campus in 2036. Looks like that would be entirely legal from reading the bill. If they were concerned about future redevelopment they should have put a 50-100 year restrictive covenant in the bill, not only 10 years.
  - zzzeek 1y ago
    the "law", OK well here's "law", TikTok was supposed to be banned from the US about six months ago and SCOTUS even upheld it. Arrests are supposed to be made with agents that identify themselves and even if it's a nice day out read those crusty old "miranda rights" - we now watch videos all day long of masked, unidentified men jumping out of cars with no license plates and disappearing US citizens. Or tackling US Senators to the ground and detaining them for verbally interrupting a federal employee who reports to the Senate for oversight. You know, normal stuff. None of these "laws" seem to matter at all so it will be quite trivial to make a datacenter get written off as a nature center or whatever this "law" permits
Glyptodon 1y ago
Sabino Canyon is on this map and is a very popular nature complex in Tucson relatively adjacent to a large amount of expensive real estate. I can only imagine how much controversy there is going to be if they actually try to sell it to create more luxury housing when tons of older people with money have built custom homes on large lots nearby explicitly because they want to border or be near public land.
- readme 1y ago
  The irony
emushack 1y ago
If you want to voice opposition there is a petition here: https://resist.bot/petitions/PXVZXD https://resist.bot/petitions/PXVZXD
- xtiansimon 1y ago
  Petitions and Contact your Senator forms. What’s the next step, and the step after that? I contacted my local House representative to inform them about the 100 hours of weather science live cast. (Hey, here are our Nations climate and weather scientists talking about funding cuts and what they do. What’s your position on these cuts?) No answer. Not feeling heard right now.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
readthenotes1 1y ago
Is it 2-3 million acres or 250 million acres? The article says both
- cvoss 1y ago
  It's sloppy writing (if we're being charitable). The secretary, in consultation with State and local governments and Indian Tribes, would be authorized only to sell up to 3 M acres out of 250 M eligible acres.
abeppu 1y ago
I think a basic issue here is that they're claiming this is to build housing, but this is not gonna help our housing issues: - the housing crisis isn't about a lack of land to build on really - there's a decent amount of vacant housing, but it's not meeting people's needs if it's far from jobs, schools, food, healthcare, or if it financially doesn't make sense - especially in the western states where most of the BLM land is, building more housing surrounded by/abutting wild land creates/exacerbates fire risks, which perhaps makes new housing expensive or impossible to insure, etc. So even setting aside the environmental or even ethical objections to this (did a property developer lobby for this?), it just seems like a bad way to accomplish their stated goals.
- deepsquirrelnet 1y ago
  I live in the West and have spent a lot of time on BLM land and in rural parts of Utah. The housing argument seems specious to me. BLM land is often on the extreme end of rural. A lot of it is uninhabitable - no utilities, no buildable acreage, no jobs nearby, very limited accessibility. I don’t see it as a good faith argument, but open to be corrected.
  - tstrimple 1y ago
    One less place to crash for free in a tent as well. "The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread."
- phatskat 1y ago
  > did a property developer lobby for this? Maybe not a real one but…surely there’s a way this is a scam, right? Could this be feasible: “we bought all this land for houses but oops did some market research and found out <no one would live here/it’s too far away/etc>, guess we’ll have to sell it to someone who can strip it for resources. Sorrrry teehee”
- locopati 1y ago
  Because their stated goals are lies. At what point do we accept that people who lie a lot aren't to be trusted at all?
cvoss 1y ago
All: Please consider reading the proposed text of the law [0] and pass judgment directly on that, rather than one organization's hot (and to the cursory reader, misleading) take on what they think is about to happen. The proposed law is clear and readable. The relevant part starts on p. 30. The law anticipates that the States themselves and local governments will be among the buyers, and priority consideration is given to them. State and local governments, including the sovereign Indian Tribes must be consulted regarding which land goes up for sale. Use of the sold lands must be residential or otherwise contributing to community needs associated with residential development. The land cannot be sold for less than FMV. For private buyers, sales are designed to be competitive to make it hard for a single buyer to end up with many tracts. [0] https://www.energy.senate.gov/services/files/DF7B7FBE-9866-4B69-8ACA-C661A4F18096 https://www.energy.senate.gov/services/files/DF7B7FBE-9866-4...
- harmmonica 1y ago
  Who do you think will give priority to the states and local governments? Do you think it will be people in the Executive Branch? What kind of prioritizations do you actually think they'll give to, for example, the California vs. Texas state governments and on down the line? Once those groups you mention are consulted, who actually chooses which parcels to sell? Is it someone or a group in the Executive Branch? Do you think "consulted" means more than "we're considering selling these specific lands... What do you think?" Once that consultation is done are there any restrictions, based on the feedback, about which lands can be sold? Or is it enough to have asked for comment and then it's ok to ignore those comments? RE FMV, in particular for large parcels of land, valuation is a very subjective exercise. It's not only the land itself that determines that, but the credibility of the buyer. You might get an offer that's x, but then that buyer is considered unable to perform, but this other buyer at .5x has the means to close and therefore that's the FMV? Who decides whether a buyer is able to perform? That's a simple example, but there are countless ways to massage the definition of FMV. That applies to the sale of an every day home, but for large tracts of land it's impossible to argue FMV unless there's language in the law that says "at least x appraisals, with the appraisers drawn from lottery, for each parcel, must be performed and than averaged to get the asking price. And then qualified buyers are drawn from a hat once their ability to close is vetted." Are any of these checks in place in the bill? You've read the bill. I'm begging the question(s) here, but I'm open to be surprised to find adequate checks that make the skepticism of so many comments in this thread unwarranted. If you tell me to read the bill myself I get it, but I'm interested in the dialogue if you're willing to share what you've learned about the details. edit: autocorrect
mistrial9 1y ago
the US Post Office and its properties are also in the works
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
deepsquirrelnet 1y ago
Any reason to think this will benefit the average American in any way, or are we past that expectation from our leaders?
snowwrestler 1y ago
Sen Mike Lee of Utah is behind the provision; he is Chair of the Senate committee on energy and natural resources. His stated interest is to make land available for private development around existing localities in Utah that are “hemmed in” by federal land. However, the bill is being considered under reconciliation rules so it supposed to only do things related to revenue, mandatory spending, or federal debt. So as a technical matter, the land sales are in the bill purely as a revenue raiser. A lot of folks who might be sympathetic to Sen Lee’s interest in housing are very uncomfortable with what is on paper a straight land-for-money sale. Seems like a bad precedent, like a dairy farm that starts selling its cows to pay expenses. A few Republican senators have stated opposition: Crapo, Risch, and Daines are what I’ve seen so far. With 53 GOP members, they can’t afford to lose any more. Personally I’m sympathetic to the housing needs of localities in the West. But I don’t think this belongs in a pure budget bill, and I feel like the long-standing movement to “privatize the West” has poisoned the well and makes it hard to believe this actually just a little housing thing.
- Tadpole9181 1y ago
  Quite frankly, anyone who believes this is about housing - of which this does literally nothing to address the actual issues - is a complete moron. This is pilfering in the open.
- xtiansimon 1y ago
  > “His stated interest is to make land available for private development around existing localities in Utah that are “hemmed in” by federal land.” So if it’s an Utah issue, why does this bill sell public lands from Alaska to the South (except Montana)?
hearsathought 1y ago
Congress should turn over all the "federal" land to the states. Other than DC, the federal government shouldn't really own any land. The federal government should lease the land from the states if it needs access to land. Are alaska or idaho really states when most of the land belongs to the federal government?
hnburnsy 1y ago
Thankfully someone is doing actual reporting on this instead of just passing off what the Wilderness Society released... https://cowboystatedaily.com/2025/06/18/hageman-says-vast-swaths-of-wyoming-public-lands-wont-be-sold/ https://cowboystatedaily.com/2025/06/18/hageman-says-vast-sw...
- seanp2k2 1y ago
  “”” "It's so bizarre to me how obsessed you are with the federal government," Hageman said when asked about Grand Teton and Yellowstone national parks. “”” https://youtu.be/qiyXwpbICJE https://youtu.be/qiyXwpbICJE Why would anyone trust anything she says?

140 points by surprisetalk 1y ago

The US is one of the few countries in the world that has such a large amount of untouched natural landscape. It’s a shame short term thinking is allowing us to trade it for not that much in return. You could give the billionaires half a percentage point less in terms of tax cuts and that would generate more revenue than this sale of public lands.

Apreche 1y ago
It’s not about generating revenue. It’s about intentionally transferring wealth TO the billionaires.
- japhyr 1y ago
  It's also about seeing no value in a natural resource other than what you can extract from it, or how much you can profit if you buy it and put up a bigger gate.

vjvjvjvjghv 1y ago

This will make outdoors activities even harder. With no Right to Roam law like Britain has, it will be even more difficult in the West to navigate between public and private land. And when I look at the map, they are trying to sell off areas that have very popular hiking trails. And the money this will generate will probably barely pay for a B-2 flights.

freedomben 1y ago
Yep. I live in Idaho and finding places to enjoy is already painful. You can drive through gorgeous canyons and see nothing but private property no trespassing signs everywhere, with not a single page to get out and hike. I'm sure it's great for the private owners, but it sucks for all the rest of us, and it's not like some startup is going to come produce a bunch more land...

resource_waste 1y ago

[flagged]

mindslight 1y ago

The Democrats (or whatever other party emerges as actual opposition) need to make part of their "picking up the pieces and rebuilding" platform a declaration making it clear that when the looters are finally kicked out, all of these "sales" of public assets to private parties will be declared fraudulent conveyances and undone - with refunds in then-inflation-devalued dollars, and subject to deductions for any damages to the assets.

7e 1y ago
Courts would never uphold the notion of a fraudulent conveyance. Your thinking is delusionsal.
- plantwallshoe 1y ago
  If the next president decides to do it then it won’t matter. The executive has been granted near absolute authority by the courts and they have shown they are incapable of enforcing any rulings against the executive branch.
- Glyptodon 1y ago
  If Dems get a big enough majority they can pass a constitutional amendment to undo and punish the Trump administration and their cronies. Even without that, if they can come up with a way to criminally charge them with crimes they can probably get it back with civil asset forfeiture.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
- mindslight 1y ago
  Those "courts" are currently rubber stamping many of the out of control "unitary" executive actions out of political expedience. It's not far fetched to think that the trend will continue for reform. In fact I think a lot of the people supporting the current administration support the autocracy because they think it is about reform (because they seemingly have no ability to analyze the administrations' actual actions beyond team sport cheerleading, but I digress) Escalating the dynamic is bad, because we ultimately need to pull out of the corruption. But continuing the dynamic of letting the looters keep their ill gotten gains having them declared as untouchable "private property" is worse. Also even if this does not end up happening, broadcasting the intent far and wide puts a chilling effect on the current looting. The point is there needs to be possible consequences on the table to balance the official policy of having a fire sale.

jjulius 1y ago

I want to preface this by clarifying that I am by no means intending to defend this at all - I backpack frequently and greatly value our public lands, and don't want to see them sold. However... As it stands now, the text of this specifically calls for only .5 to .75% of the 250M acres for both USFS and BLM lands to be sold. No more than 1.5% of the 250M acres will ultimately be sold off. Further, they need to be sold off for specific purposes, and these purposes need to be cost-efficient for the buyer. The map on the page absolutely looks scary, but that fear is diminished a fair bit when you realize that less than a percent of the lands in each color will be sold, and those that are sold are likely not going to be spaces that are deep in the forest and are expensive to reach and develop. By no means do I want to see this happen, I just wish that folk like Wilderness Society were a bit more clear on what to expect.

detourdog 1y ago
The maneuver seems to be to offset tax cuts this budget year. I think they need to set a precedent so they can offset tax cuts through subsequent years.
- jjulius 1y ago
  Definitely a concern that I share, but I also wonder if it's a matter of diminished returns and to what degree that will impact things. Just because it's highlighted as sellable doesn't mean that it's easy and cost-efficient to develop.
- bbor 1y ago
  I agree with the general sentiment, but it’s worth pointing out that this is a drop in the bucket compared to the tax cuts, AFAIK :(
- ryandrake 1y ago
  I doubt anyone behind this legislation cares about offsetting tax cuts. This isn't about raising money--it's about transferring assets from the public into wealthy, private hands, like these guys[1]. It's always about that. 1: https://landreport.com/land-report-100 https://landreport.com/land-report-100

wingspar 1y ago

I’m sympathetic to the view that this is bad, then I recall the 80% of Nevada is owned by the federal government. 80% !!! Over 50% of Oregon, and over 60% for Utah https://ballotpedia.org/Federal_land_ownership_by_state https://ballotpedia.org/Federal_land_ownership_by_state

partiallypro 1y ago
The government is going to sell it to whoever is in office's buddies and they are going to strip mine and log it. Most of Nevada and Utah are uninhabitable, but perfect for corporations that don't want to abide by environmental laws. It's actually hilariously insulting that Mike Lee is saying this is to help solve the housing crisis as if someone is going to build a housing development with no water or road access. I even have libertarian diehard friends that are against this sale, if for nothing else than the fact you -can not- trust the government to sell it in a legitimate non-corrupt manner.
- klipt 1y ago
  I guess your libertarian die hard friends didn't read about Project 2025 before voting for Trump? July 2024 article: https://www.backcountryhunters.org/what_project_2025_means_for_public_lands_and_waters https://www.backcountryhunters.org/what_project_2025_means_f...
  - shwaj 1y ago
    So smug. Unless you’re replying to someone you know (and my apologies if so), how do you know their die hard libertarian friends voted for Trump?
    - klipt 1y ago
      Just an informed guess.
      - freedomben 1y ago

bfrog 1y ago

The republican playbook continues… profit for their family, friends, and donors at the expense everyone. Tax cuts aren’t needed, we already have relatively low taxes. Taxing all the ways rich dipshits work around taxes is very much needed.

nemofoo 1y ago

In Arizona we often go camping on this land. One of the best things about this state is the vast public lands that we can explore for free. This makes me sad that my children won’t be able to visit some of my favorite camp sites.

linuxhansl 1y ago

"Beautiful"... taking away Medicaid from many Americans and peddling away public land to fund tax cuts for the wealthy. This will likely also require raising the debt ceiling further; apparently DOGE did not save as much money as they told us they did. What a farce, what shameful theater.

readme 1y ago
Well how else are the rich supposed to buy the land, silly?
jmye 1y ago
> apparently DOGE did not save as much money as they told us they did. They directly cost us money to save Tesla some annoying regulations and steal our data (and give some criminals access to critical government systems). Anyone who still thinks DOGE did, or even intended to do, anything positive is hopelessly naive at best.

zzzeek 1y ago

Well I certainly hope we can clearcut a few million acres and get some new fossil fueled datacenters up and running, my Copilot has been writing shitty code lately

canyp 1y ago
You're gonna need a lot of water too. Stop watering your goddamn plants, max twice a week.
- nixgeek 1y ago
  Well, your obvious choices for datacenter cooling are in some climates evaporative /or/ using a heck of a lot more energy and a closed loop system. Pick your “problem”. Water usage can also be optimized and is becoming part of the sustainability conversation at most of the hyperscalers with multi-gigawatt energy footprints: https://sustainability.aboutamazon.com/natural-resources/water https://sustainability.aboutamazon.com/natural-resources/wat...
cvoss 1y ago
The proposed law does not permit the land to be sold for this purpose.
- nixgeek 1y ago
  It only enforces a restrictive covenant for 10 years. Buy land in 2026, build a few homes, repurpose to a datacenter campus in 2036. Looks like that would be entirely legal from reading the bill. If they were concerned about future redevelopment they should have put a 50-100 year restrictive covenant in the bill, not only 10 years.
- zzzeek 1y ago
  the "law", OK well here's "law", TikTok was supposed to be banned from the US about six months ago and SCOTUS even upheld it. Arrests are supposed to be made with agents that identify themselves and even if it's a nice day out read those crusty old "miranda rights" - we now watch videos all day long of masked, unidentified men jumping out of cars with no license plates and disappearing US citizens. Or tackling US Senators to the ground and detaining them for verbally interrupting a federal employee who reports to the Senate for oversight. You know, normal stuff. None of these "laws" seem to matter at all so it will be quite trivial to make a datacenter get written off as a nature center or whatever this "law" permits

Glyptodon 1y ago

Sabino Canyon is on this map and is a very popular nature complex in Tucson relatively adjacent to a large amount of expensive real estate. I can only imagine how much controversy there is going to be if they actually try to sell it to create more luxury housing when tons of older people with money have built custom homes on large lots nearby explicitly because they want to border or be near public land.

readme 1y ago
The irony

emushack 1y ago

If you want to voice opposition there is a petition here: https://resist.bot/petitions/PXVZXD https://resist.bot/petitions/PXVZXD

xtiansimon 1y ago
Petitions and Contact your Senator forms. What’s the next step, and the step after that? I contacted my local House representative to inform them about the 100 hours of weather science live cast. (Hey, here are our Nations climate and weather scientists talking about funding cuts and what they do. What’s your position on these cuts?) No answer. Not feeling heard right now.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

readthenotes1 1y ago

Is it 2-3 million acres or 250 million acres? The article says both

cvoss 1y ago
It's sloppy writing (if we're being charitable). The secretary, in consultation with State and local governments and Indian Tribes, would be authorized only to sell up to 3 M acres out of 250 M eligible acres.

abeppu 1y ago

I think a basic issue here is that they're claiming this is to build housing, but this is not gonna help our housing issues: - the housing crisis isn't about a lack of land to build on really - there's a decent amount of vacant housing, but it's not meeting people's needs if it's far from jobs, schools, food, healthcare, or if it financially doesn't make sense - especially in the western states where most of the BLM land is, building more housing surrounded by/abutting wild land creates/exacerbates fire risks, which perhaps makes new housing expensive or impossible to insure, etc. So even setting aside the environmental or even ethical objections to this (did a property developer lobby for this?), it just seems like a bad way to accomplish their stated goals.

deepsquirrelnet 1y ago
I live in the West and have spent a lot of time on BLM land and in rural parts of Utah. The housing argument seems specious to me. BLM land is often on the extreme end of rural. A lot of it is uninhabitable - no utilities, no buildable acreage, no jobs nearby, very limited accessibility. I don’t see it as a good faith argument, but open to be corrected.
- tstrimple 1y ago
  One less place to crash for free in a tent as well. "The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread."
phatskat 1y ago
> did a property developer lobby for this? Maybe not a real one but…surely there’s a way this is a scam, right? Could this be feasible: “we bought all this land for houses but oops did some market research and found out <no one would live here/it’s too far away/etc>, guess we’ll have to sell it to someone who can strip it for resources. Sorrrry teehee”
locopati 1y ago
Because their stated goals are lies. At what point do we accept that people who lie a lot aren't to be trusted at all?

cvoss 1y ago

All: Please consider reading the proposed text of the law [0] and pass judgment directly on that, rather than one organization's hot (and to the cursory reader, misleading) take on what they think is about to happen. The proposed law is clear and readable. The relevant part starts on p. 30. The law anticipates that the States themselves and local governments will be among the buyers, and priority consideration is given to them. State and local governments, including the sovereign Indian Tribes must be consulted regarding which land goes up for sale. Use of the sold lands must be residential or otherwise contributing to community needs associated with residential development. The land cannot be sold for less than FMV. For private buyers, sales are designed to be competitive to make it hard for a single buyer to end up with many tracts. [0] https://www.energy.senate.gov/services/files/DF7B7FBE-9866-4B69-8ACA-C661A4F18096 https://www.energy.senate.gov/services/files/DF7B7FBE-9866-4...

harmmonica 1y ago
Who do you think will give priority to the states and local governments? Do you think it will be people in the Executive Branch? What kind of prioritizations do you actually think they'll give to, for example, the California vs. Texas state governments and on down the line? Once those groups you mention are consulted, who actually chooses which parcels to sell? Is it someone or a group in the Executive Branch? Do you think "consulted" means more than "we're considering selling these specific lands... What do you think?" Once that consultation is done are there any restrictions, based on the feedback, about which lands can be sold? Or is it enough to have asked for comment and then it's ok to ignore those comments? RE FMV, in particular for large parcels of land, valuation is a very subjective exercise. It's not only the land itself that determines that, but the credibility of the buyer. You might get an offer that's x, but then that buyer is considered unable to perform, but this other buyer at .5x has the means to close and therefore that's the FMV? Who decides whether a buyer is able to perform? That's a simple example, but there are countless ways to massage the definition of FMV. That applies to the sale of an every day home, but for large tracts of land it's impossible to argue FMV unless there's language in the law that says "at least x appraisals, with the appraisers drawn from lottery, for each parcel, must be performed and than averaged to get the asking price. And then qualified buyers are drawn from a hat once their ability to close is vetted." Are any of these checks in place in the bill? You've read the bill. I'm begging the question(s) here, but I'm open to be surprised to find adequate checks that make the skepticism of so many comments in this thread unwarranted. If you tell me to read the bill myself I get it, but I'm interested in the dialogue if you're willing to share what you've learned about the details. edit: autocorrect

mistrial9 1y ago

the US Post Office and its properties are also in the works

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

deepsquirrelnet 1y ago

Any reason to think this will benefit the average American in any way, or are we past that expectation from our leaders?

snowwrestler 1y ago

Sen Mike Lee of Utah is behind the provision; he is Chair of the Senate committee on energy and natural resources. His stated interest is to make land available for private development around existing localities in Utah that are “hemmed in” by federal land. However, the bill is being considered under reconciliation rules so it supposed to only do things related to revenue, mandatory spending, or federal debt. So as a technical matter, the land sales are in the bill purely as a revenue raiser. A lot of folks who might be sympathetic to Sen Lee’s interest in housing are very uncomfortable with what is on paper a straight land-for-money sale. Seems like a bad precedent, like a dairy farm that starts selling its cows to pay expenses. A few Republican senators have stated opposition: Crapo, Risch, and Daines are what I’ve seen so far. With 53 GOP members, they can’t afford to lose any more. Personally I’m sympathetic to the housing needs of localities in the West. But I don’t think this belongs in a pure budget bill, and I feel like the long-standing movement to “privatize the West” has poisoned the well and makes it hard to believe this actually just a little housing thing.

Tadpole9181 1y ago
Quite frankly, anyone who believes this is about housing - of which this does literally nothing to address the actual issues - is a complete moron. This is pilfering in the open.
xtiansimon 1y ago
> “His stated interest is to make land available for private development around existing localities in Utah that are “hemmed in” by federal land.” So if it’s an Utah issue, why does this bill sell public lands from Alaska to the South (except Montana)?

hearsathought 1y ago

Congress should turn over all the "federal" land to the states. Other than DC, the federal government shouldn't really own any land. The federal government should lease the land from the states if it needs access to land. Are alaska or idaho really states when most of the land belongs to the federal government?

hnburnsy 1y ago

Thankfully someone is doing actual reporting on this instead of just passing off what the Wilderness Society released... https://cowboystatedaily.com/2025/06/18/hageman-says-vast-swaths-of-wyoming-public-lands-wont-be-sold/ https://cowboystatedaily.com/2025/06/18/hageman-says-vast-sw...

seanp2k2 1y ago
“”” "It's so bizarre to me how obsessed you are with the federal government," Hageman said when asked about Grand Teton and Yellowstone national parks. “”” https://youtu.be/qiyXwpbICJE https://youtu.be/qiyXwpbICJE Why would anyone trust anything she says?