UPDATE | Proposal To Auction Off Federal Lands Ruled Out By Senate Parliamentarian

Editor's note: This updates with other topics the parliamentarian ruled against, and explains how the process works.

A proposal to auction millions of acres of federal lands to pay for President Donald Trump's budget proposal has been ruled out of the reconciliation bill by the Senate parliamentarian, but the measure's sponsor has promised to return with a revision that would remove national forest lands from the bill and limit Bureau of Land Management sales.

The original measure by Sen. Mike Lee, a Utah Republican, would have opened more than 250 million acres of Western lands to potential sale, although sales would be capped at about 3 million acres. It drew widespread condemnation from state and local elected officials, hunters and anglers, conservationists, and the outdoor recreation industry.

“The nationwide backlash sparked by Senator Mike Lee’s proposal to sell off millions of acres of public land shows just how universally unpopular his idea is,” said Scott Braden, executive director of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, on Tuesday. “While we’re glad to see the sell-off plan removed from the budget bill, we know Lee’s underlying goal remains the same: to sell off America’s public lands using any excuse or legislative opportunity he can find. The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, our members, and our partners will continue to work to defeat this and any future efforts to sell-off our shared public lands for private profit and exploitation.” 

About the time the parliamentarian ruled the measure out of line with the reconciliation bill Monday night the senator promised that a revision to the legislation would remove national forest lands from the acreage that could be sold, reduce the amount of Bureau of Land Management lands that would be offered by restricting for sale only those BLM lands within 5 miles of "population centers," and vowed to "protect our farmers, ranchers, and recreational users. They come first."

The job of the Senate parliamentarian, Elizabeth MacDonough, is to review amendments attached to the Senate's version of the budget reconcilliation act to determine whether they comply with the Byrd Rule, a provision named after the late Sen. Robert Byrd, a West Virginia Democrat, that requires that amendments are directly tied to implementing budget resolution policies.

Along with rejecting Lee's land sales measure, she also rejected language to permit the so-called Ambler Road, a 211-mile road that would cut across parts of Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve in Alaska to reach a proposed copper mine; and a provision that would rule that offshore oil and gas projects automatically met provisions of the National Environmental Policy Act, according to The Hill, a Washington, D.C., publication.

Lee, who chairs the Senate's Energy and Natural Resources Committee, crafted his initial measure not long after the House of Representatives dropped from its version of the One Big Beautiful Bill legislation an amendment sponsored by GOP Reps. Mark Amodei of Nevada and Celese Maloy of Utah that would have allowed for public lands sales in four Nevada counties and one in Utah — including lands near Zion National Park. 

Maps speculating (maps might not open on Chrome browsers) on public lands that might be deemed eligible to be sold under the Republiucan's initial proposal show lands close to, if not actually abutting, Canyonlands, Death Valley, Lassen Volcanic, Mount Rainier, Olympic, and Yellowstone national parks. Other units of the National Park System that on the map appear vulnerable to development include Kings Canyon National Park, Grand Teton National Park, and Walnut Canyon and Sunset Crater Volcano national monuments, with Sunset Crater completely surrounded by eligible Forest Service lands.

The maps also showed many national forest lands, which are home to ski resorts, potentially up for sale.

“This is a victory for the American public, who were loud and clear: Public lands belong in public hands, for current and future generations alike," said Tracy Stone-Manning, president of The Wilderness Society. "We trust the next politician who wants to sell off public lands will remember that people of all stripes will stand against that idea. Our public lands are not for sale.” 

At the Trust for Public Land, President and CEO Dr. Carrie Besnette said the parliamentarian's ruling "is an important victory in the fight to protect America’s public lands from short-sighted proposals that would have undermined decades of bipartisan work to protect, steward, and expand access to the places we all share. Across the country and across party lines, Americans have made it overwhelmingly clear: they do not want to see their public lands sold off to the highest bidder.

"Land sell-off proposals are deeply out of step with the will of a vast majority of Americans," she added. "But make no mistake — this threat is far from over. Efforts to dismantle our public lands continue, and we must remain vigilant as proposals now under consideration including a proposal to roll back the landmark, bipartisan Great American Outdoors Act and threaten full, dedicated funding for conservation through the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF)."