Land Sell Offs Removed from Spending Bill, But It’s Still Bad

Photo credit: Alex Moliski

This morning, the House passed a massive spending bill, and thanks to outreach from the outdoor community, both your letters and our meetings with lawmakers, public land sell offs were removed from the package.

In addition, the final bill removed attacks on BLM land use plans that protect thousands of miles of trails, 975 climbing sites, and hundreds of miles of whitewater paddling, and removes a provision to build the Ambler Road in Alaska to facilitate extraction.

The land sell offs, comprising more than 500,000 acres of public land in Nevada and Utah, would have set a frightening precedent of using public lands to pay for government spending and tax cuts. Outdoor enthusiasts sent nearly 100,000 letters to lawmakers in recent weeks about their concerns, and our policy team and national coalition met repeatedly with key lawmakers to share our concerns about land sales and other issues with the spending package. It was outreach from the outdoor community, and strong advocacy from Montana Rep. Ryan Zinke and the newly-formed Public Lands Caucus, led by Reps. Vasquez and Zinke, that got those land sales out of the bill—a significant win and, more importantly, a sign that outreach makes a difference. 

Unfortunately, the rest of the spending package will still devastate public lands and waters. The bill includes some pretty radical changes to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), including giving developers the ability to pay to expedite reviews and bypass judicial review. It cuts funding for staffing at the Park Service, for forest conservation, for old growth protections, and for conservation and restoration. And it opens up the Boundary Waters for development, among other things.

Louis Geltman, our VP of Policy & Government Relations said, “This bill is very bad for public lands and waters. But at the same time, it’s really encouraging that a growing group of lawmakers are standing up for public lands, and that doesn’t happen without our community showing up. We can continue to make a difference as this conversation shifts to the Senate.”

The package goes to the Senate next, and they could take a substantially different approach than the House. This means there's still room for the outdoor community to raise its concerns about what this will mean for public lands and waters.