Overview

• Sen. Mike Lee’s updated budget reconciliation proposal directs the mandatory sale of up to 3.3 million acres of Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service holdings across 11 Western states to fund tax cuts.
• A detailed Wilderness Society map released June 18 underscores that grazing lands, popular trails and parts of ski resorts in Utah would be at risk under the plan.
• Conservationists and Republicans such as Benji Backer and former Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke have denounced the plan for lacking safeguards against over-development.
• A recent national poll found that 75 percent of Americans oppose permanently selling millions of acres of public land for development.
• With Republicans holding a narrow Senate majority, a handful of defections could determine whether the land sale provision survives the final reconciliation vote.