Mike Lee Flails As His Public Land Sale Triggers Firestorm

The Utah Senator says he is rewriting his controversial bill to narrow the scope of federal land sales. It is unlikely to appease his growing number of critics.

U.S. Senator Mike Lee of Utah speaking at the 2015 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, MD. Photo by Gage Skidmore.

Republican Utah Sen. Mike Lee couldn’t help himself, not with a GOP trifecta in Washington offering such a rare opportunity to advance his ideological crusade against America’s public lands.

On June 11, the notoriously anti-federal lands lawmaker swung for the fence, introducing to the GOP bucket reconciliation package a proposal to force the sale of up to 3.2 million acres of federal public land in 11 Western states, under the guise of promoting affordable housing.

The public backlash was swift and ferocious, with public land users of all political stripes condemning Lee’s effort as a tone-deaf giveaway of shared public resources. Lee spent days defending his plan, both on social media and in an interview with right-wing radio host Glenn Beck, arguing the “far left” had exaggerated the impact of his proposal while simultaneously continuing to advocate for wresting control of public lands from the federal government. Multiple posts on his X account were slapped with community notes detailing how he had misrepresented his own legislation, which contains few guardrails to ensure that any land sold would be used for affordable housing.

The hits just kept coming for Lee. Over the weekend, four Republicans — Idaho Sens. Jim Risch and Mike Crapo and Montana Sens. Steve Daines and Tim Sheehy — all publicly opposed the bill as written. And late Monday, the Senate parliamentarian ruled that Lee’s mandated firesale of federal land violates the Byrd Rule, which requires provisions included in the budget reconciliation process to be directly tied to the budget.

“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,” Scott Braden, executive director of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, said in a statement Tuesday responding to the parliamentarian’s ruling. “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.”

In a series of posts to X shortly before the Senate parliamentarian’s ruling, Lee announced plans to scale back his proposal. He credited hunters and others for voicing their concerns, while vowing to press ahead with some version of a public land sell-off.

"I’ve listened and made substantial changes to the lands proposal to accommodate their concerns," he wrote, noting that the forthcoming version would limit sales to within 5 miles of population centers and exclude all Forest Service land. “Stay tuned. We’re just getting started.”

Unsurprisingly, Lee’s announcement did little to temper public outrage. In a video posted to Instagram, Cameron Hanes, a celebrity bowhunter and Republican, said the only change hunters and public land advocates want to see is “every reference to public land sale taken out of this proposal.”

“Anything besides that, we’re not okay with, even if it’s one acre,” Hanes said.

If Lee’s flailing in recent days is any indication, he is unlikely to back down entirely. In an interview Tuesday on The Charlie Kirk Show, Lee continued to argue that many have exaggerated what his bill would do before claiming that "the vast majority" of America's federal land has "zero recreational value" and "a lot of it doesn't have any conservation value."

Lee has yet to release the amended text of his land sale proposal. PunchBowl News’ Samantha Handler reported midday Tuesday that Lee is expected to soon send his revised bill back to the Senate parliamentarian for further review.