Mike Lee reportedly trying to bring back sale of Utah public lands in ‘big beautiful bill’

SALT LAKE CITY — Utah Sen. Mike Lee is trying to to reintroduce a proposal to let the federal government sell off some public lands in southern Utah and Nevada in the federal spending bill after the provisions were stripped from the House version last month.

While on his way to a procedural vote Monday, Lee, a Republican who chairs the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, was asked by Politico’s E&E News if he plans to bring those provisions back. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act passed the House on May 22 and is expected to be considered by the Senate beginning this week, ahead of President Donald Trump’s July Fourth deadline.

“I gotta go vote, but yes,” Lee said.

“Sen. Lee remains committed to advancing Western priorities and ensuring that those who live closest to the land have a voice in how it’s managed,” spokesman Billy Gribbin told KSL.com Tuesday. “As the process moves forward, he’ll continue to advocate for solutions that reflect the needs of Utahns and other Western communities.”

The proposed sale of roughly 11,000 acres of public land in Utah was introduced by Reps. Celeste Maloy, R-Utah, and Mark Amodei, R-Nevada, as a way to offset some of the deficit increases included in the bill. Maloy drafted the proposal at the request of officials in two southern Utah counties.

“Washington County and Beaver County are landlocked and growing quickly but cannot function because of endless red tape on federal lands,” Maloy told the Deseret News last month. “At their request, I introduced an amendment to convey, at fair market value, targeted land — land needed by local governments for infrastructure.”

But the proposal drew condemnation from some environmental groups who protested the measure, saying it would open them up for development and potentially limit access to the public.

The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance promised to continue to work to oppose the measure, though Lee’s potential proposal remains unclear.

“Sen. Lee’s avowed and oft-stated hatred of public lands makes him a true outlier in the Senate,” the nonprofit’s D.C. director Travis Hammill said. “His apparent intention to include a public lands sell-off provision in the budget bill, which was fiercely opposed in the House, is wildly out of step with what Americans have made clear that they want to see: Federal public lands remaining in public hands.

“These are the places people recreate with their families, they are places to hunt and fish, and they are held in trust for the American people to enjoy for generations to come.”