Lawmakers look to sell 3.3-million acres of public land

A bill introduced last week before the U.S. House of Representatives aims to sell 3.3-million acres of public land throughout the West. The bill—H.R. 621—does not specify land parcels, but the acreage represents Bureau of Land Management land across 10 western states including Wyoming, Montana, Utah, Colorado, Nevada and Oregon.

The BLM manages nearly 250-million acres of public land across the United States, leasing acreage for grazing and mineral extraction and maintaining public access for all types of recreation. The bill, introduced by Utah Congressman Jason Chaffetz (R), aims to sell or transfer federal land that was identified for “disposal or exchange” by the U.S. Department of Interior in 1997 under a Clinton Administration effort to offset Florida’s Everglades Restoration.

“We’re working right now to figure out where these places are, because they’re not identified by parcel; they’re identified by acreage and county,” says Louis Geltman, policy counsel for the nonprofit conservation coalition Outdoor Alliance. “First of all, this is 3.3-million acres that they’re talking about turning over indiscriminately to states, but beyond that, these places were identified 20 years ago, and with a number of caveats, and to say that they have the same value or lack of value that they did then is a huge assumption.”

According to Chaffetz’s website, roughly 132,931 acres in Utah are in consideration, including land within mountainous areas like Wasatch, Uinta and San Juan counties.

“The long overdue disposal of excess federal lands will free up resources for the federal government while providing much-needed opportunities for economic development in struggling rural communities,” the Utah Congressman said in a statement.

Geltman says a move toward state oversight of public lands represents an effort to circumvent national management practices—like the National Environmental Policy Act—and will place an undue burden on individual states.

“Everyone in the country owns these places together and shares in the management cost for things like firefighting, in particular, which is a huge expense,” Geltman says. “So if Oregon has to suddenly pay all of the management costs on its own, there would be immediate, huge financial pressure to get money out of the public lands through user fees, more resource extraction or potentially selling public lands outright. That’s the fear that this inspires.”

More than 1,000 people rallied at Helena, Montana’s Capitol building on Monday advocating against the transferring or selling of federal lands.

According to the Billings Gazette, notable outdoor industry personalities including Trout TV host Hilary Hutcheson, CEO of Simms fishing company K.C. Walsh and mountaineer Conrad Anker were among those in attendance. Anker, the Gazette reported, paraphrased the indigenous Duwamish Tribe’s Chief Seattle when addressing the crowd, stating that land is not inherited from ancestors but borrowed from future generations.

Hilary Hutcheson at Public Lands Rally by Independent Record on Youtube.com

Montana residents also rallied on Monday outside the Billings office of Representative Ryan Zinke (R), who’s been tapped to become Interior Secretary. Zinke has spoken out against the sale and transfer of public lands, including during confirmation hearings held by the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.

“I’m starting to wonder how many times I have to tell these guys in leadership that I’m not going to allow Montana’s public lands to be sold or given away,” Zinke said in a statement following a June 2016 Congressional vote on public land transfer. “The federal government needs to do a much better job of managing our resources, but the sale or transfer of our land is an extreme proposal, and I won’t tolerate it.”

Under Chaffetz’s new bill, the Interior Secretary would be directed to sell the unspecified federal lands. Given that the bill lacks text, however, it’s unclear if the Interior Secretary would have discretion in the matter.

In other rulings set to impact public-land management and access, the 115^th Congress adopted a rules package on January 2 that would treat federal land transfers as budget neutral, which unburdens bills like H.R. 621 from budget scrutiny. And Chaffetz introduced a second bill last week—H.R. 622—that aims to transfer law enforcement duties of the Forest Service and BLM to state oversight.

“Right out of the gates, this Congress has shown their intent to pursue this idea,” Outdoor Alliance’s Louis Geltman says. “These bills are part of a broader movement to sell off our national, public lands, and we need to be extremely vigilant about this with the new Congress. It’s important that lawmakers hear from all of us across the political spectrum that protecting these places is important.”

February 2 Update: Announced this morning on his Facebook page, Congressman Jason Chaffetz is withdrawing H.R. 621, his proposed bill that aimed to sell or transfer 3.3-million acres of public lands. “Groups I support and care about fear it sends the wrong message,” Chaffetz wrote. “I hear you and HR 621 dies tomorrow.”

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Outdoor Alliance, which is comprised of nonprofits like the Winter Wildlands Alliance, Access Fund and the International Mountain Bike Association, has initiated a petition in support of the protection of public land. Find out more at outdooralliance.org.