Public Land Sales Return in Scaled-Back Form in Trump Tax Bill

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: Bloomberg

June 28, 2025 at 8:23 AM EDT


A new version of a plan to sell vast tracts of public lands to help pay for President Donald Trump’s massive package of tax cuts has been added back into the Senate’s latest version of the package.

The plan, which would mandate the sale of as much 1.2 million acres of Interior Department land for housing or “community development” across 11 western states, represents a blow to conservationists staunchly opposed to the measures.

It could also complicate the path forward for the $4.2 trillion tax and spending package. The plan has been opposed by Western Republicans, who said earlier they have the votes to strike the measure from the bill. “I don’t support selling public lands,” Senator Steve Daines, a Montana Republican, said in an interview earlier this week. “I think it’s shortsighted.”

Senator Mike Lee, a Utah Republican leading the land sales effort — which dovetails with a Trump administration plan to use federal land to address a housing crisis — has said the step is needed to address a nationwide shortage of millions of affordable homes.

Read more: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-06-28/public-land-sales-return-in-scaled-back-form-in-trump-tax-bill?srnd=homepage-americas

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Those lands are almost COMPLETELY undeveloped. The amount of money needed to bring in electric, water (whether as wells and septic tank or through a water/sewer distribution system), and other utilities like telephone/cell/internet service, let alone roads/bridges for access, will definitely NOT make homes built there "affordable" (unless the land is used for RV or trailer parks with electric hookups and honeypot service ).

[CrispyQ]

1. Here's an excellent article explaining why more land than just the Parks is needed to support the Parks.

'No recovery from this': Grand Teton National Park advocates sound alarm bells over possible sell-off
A GOP bill puts public lands for sale. Its effects on Grand Teton National Park could be irreversible.
By Kylie Mohr,
Big Sky Country Contributing Parks Editor
June 20, 2025

snip...

Protected areas like national parks can’t function in isolation, as wildlife move in and out of the park for habitat and food, crisscrossing between the national park and the public lands that surround it. Streams flow across land boundaries. Fragmenting habitat and migration corridors by selling public land and developing it as private land would hurt pronghorn antelope, bison, elk and other large mammals, Fitzgerald said.

“The land around Jackson is pretty darned important to a lot of wildlife,” Gregg Servheen, board president of the Jackson Hole Wildlife Foundation, agreed. “These are the lands of grizzly bears, wolverines, mountain lions, migrating pronghorn, vast herds of elk that are all just dependent on these habitats.”

Selling these lands for housing or other development, Fitzgerald said, would “unwind decades of conservation at a time that we are already environmentally taxed.”

“I fear there would be no recovery from this,” Fitzgerald said.

[Karasu]

2. What. The. Fuck. Let that fucking psychotic idea DIE already. Republicans are batshit and deserve no respect.

There is no defense for this.

[Bayard]

3. More trump bullshit

We value these lands for their environmental and aesthetic impact. He thinks developers are going to come in and build tract houses on land that is no where close to where people work, no towns. It may interest people for weekend cabins/vacation homes, but that's about it.

Selling off this country's national treasures to satisfy oligarchs. If I believed in hell, I'd hope he rots in it. This is OUR land!

[pecosbob]

4. The Senate Parliamentarian struck this just the other day...what chicanery are they using?

Bloomberg has a paywall.

[BumRushDaShow]

5. They revised the language and scope of the line items after the original version was struck

I ran out of Bloomberg gift links (they only allow 5 per month).

msn didn't have a wire version of the article when I posted yesterday but they have one now!

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/public-land-sales-return-in-scaled-back-form-in-trump-tax-bill/ar-AA1HB8ck