What the One Big Beautiful Bill Means for the Outdoors
Photo credit: Ethan Dow
Earlier this month, Congress passed the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” a sweeping budget reconciliation package signed into law on July 4. As the bill took shape, lawmakers including Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) proposed several provisions that would have required the sale of millions of acres of public land—a move that drew immediate and widespread opposition from the outdoor recreation community.
Thanks to advocacy from millions of people who hike, climb, ride, paddle, hunt, and fish, those sell-off proposals were ultimately removed. Over the course of the campaign, Outdoor Alliance’s community sent nearly one million messages to Congress. Supporters wrote op-eds, posted on social media, and spoke up in defense of public lands. Behind the scenes, our policy team and Grasstops Collective submitted testimony, met with key lawmakers, and provided maps showing just how much recreation access was at risk.
In the end and because of this outreach from the outdoor community, public land sell-offs were taken out of the bill—and several other harmful provisions were softened or removed. That’s a big deal. But there’s still plenty in the final package that puts public lands, waters, and outdoor experiences in jeopardy.
Here’s the breakdown of the final bill:
Public land sell-offs were stopped. Thanks to vocal opposition, none of the proposals to sell off millions of acres of Forest Service or BLM lands made it into the final bill.
Expanded fossil fuel development. The bill mandates quarterly onshore oil and gas lease sales, opens the Western Arctic to new drilling, and increases coal leasing—undermining climate and land protection goals. It also mandates extensive offshore lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska’s Cook Inlet, threatening sensitive marine ecosystems and coastal recreation opportunities.
Weakens the process for oil and gas drilling. Since 2018, Outdoor Alliance has monitored oil and gas leasing proposals and has successfully worked with BLM to defer lease sales that threaten important recreation sites, including the Slickrock Trail near Moab. The bill eliminates BLM’s discretion to make these sorts of common-sense deferrals, needlessly putting thousands of recreation opportunities risk.
Prioritizing timber harvests. The bill requires the Forest Service and BLM to increase timber production and requires 20-year logging contracts, which effectively privatize long-term management on some public lands and divert land managers’ attention from other priorities like wildfire mitigation.
Cuts to park infrastructure and staffing. Funding for National Park Service maintenance and staffing was rescinded—putting strain on already-overburdened public lands in the middle of peak summer visitation.
Copper mining in the Boundary Waters and Ambler Road were removed. Though both areas remain vulnerable, the parliamentary process ruled out threats to both Boundary Waters and Ambler Road through the bill.
NEPA rollbacks were scaled back. Another side effect of parliamentary rules, while companies can still pay to expedite their environmental reviews, they can no longer pay to bypass judicial review—a major concern in earlier drafts.
Cuts to conservation and restoration. The bill rescinds significant funding from the Inflation Reduction Act, including dollars for ecological restoration, reducing carbon emissions, and a long list of other conservation priorities.
Adam Cramer, CEO of Outdoor Alliance, said, “Our community made it clear that selling off our shared lands is a nonstarter—and lawmakers listened. But there’s more work ahead. We hope Congress will move toward better legislation that supports public lands, outdoor recreation, and the people who depend on these places.”
The outdoor community made a huge impact in this fight, stopping some of the worst provisions in their tracks. But we need to keep the pressure on. Take a moment to send a follow-up message to your lawmakers—thank them for standing up against public land sell-offs, and remind them that the outdoors deserve better.
For a deeper dive into how the bill affects public lands and waters, see Thomas O’Keefe from American Whitewater’s excellent blog post summarizing the bill.