'Complete betrayal': Your favorite campgrounds and hiking trails could soon be up for auction

[justaprogressive]

Among the several controversial proposals emerging from the U.S. Senate this week as it considers the tax and spending bill that President Donald Trump has promoted as “One Big, Beautiful Bill” is one that would make parts of the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest in Washington state, the Buffalo Hills Wilderness Study Area in Nevada, and the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest in Arizona eligible for sale to housing developers.

The proposal, laid out in the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee’s draft portion of the bill, would force the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management, over the next five years, to identify and sell between 2.2 million and 3.3 million acres across 11 Western states for “the development of housing or to address associated infrastructure to support local housing needs.” In total, 250 million acres of land would be eligible for those mandatory sales — including campgrounds and other recreation sites, roadless areas, and important wildlife habitat. The bill excludes protected areas like national parks and designated national recreation areas.

In a statement, Senator Patty Murray, a Democrat from Washington state, called the proposal “a complete betrayal of future generations.” Conservation groups have likewise pilloried it as “a shameless ploy to sell off pristine public lands for trophy homes and gated communities” in order to pay for “tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy.”

The proposal expands on a failed attempt in the House version of the spending bill to sell 500,000 acres of federal lands in Nevada and Utah. That proposal was nixed due to opposition from Representative Ryan Zinke, a Republican from Montana and the former interior secretary. The new, dramatically expanded proposal came from Utah Senator Mike Lee, a Republican, who said in a YouTube video that federal land ownership is “not fair.”

“We’re opening underused federal land to expand housing, support local development, and get Washington, D.C. out of the way of communities that are just trying to grow,” he said. “We’re turning federal liabilities into taxpayer value.“ The states wherein the land sales are being proposed are Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming. Zinke’s state of Montana is notably not on the list.

https://www.alternet.org/public-lands-gop/