Republican lawmakers in Congress have added a provision to their new tax legislation that authorizes the sale of public land in Utah and Nevada.
According to the Associated Press, the provision was accepted early in the morning on May 7. Earlier drafts of this tax legislation hadn’t included public land sale authorization, because it’s largely opposed in Congress. Even Republican representatives from Montana and Colorado oppose the sale, as does Idaho congressman Mike Simpson.
Utah representative Celeste Maloy and Nevada representative Mark Amodei added the sale provision to specifically benefit parcels of federal land in their state.
In Nevada, roughly 550,000 acres of land will be available for sale if the budget bill passes. Most of the land is in Clark County (near Las Vegas) and Pershing County, located just south of Winnemucca. In Utah, roughly 10,000 acres would be available for sale, located near St. George and Zion National Park, according to NPR.
Language in the bill makes it clear that these lands would be available for “economic development, mining and infrastructure projects such as the expansion of an airport and a reservoir in Utah. …Some sites would be considered for affordable housing, which is much needed in fast-growing parts of Nevada,” according to the AP.
The sale of these lands would help fund tax breaks that Trump and other Republicans want to deliver.
Housing affordability and availability is an issue in the fast-growing west, and the idea of using federal land adjacent to major population centers for housing development has gained traction since Donald Trump won the presidency in 2024.
Also included in this bill would be a decrease in federal royalty rates companies pay for energy extraction on federal lands. This is meant to reverse course from higher rates imposed by the Biden administration, which was a move meant to curb fossil fuel production. It also calls for four oil and gas leases to be sold in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska.
This amendment still faces a full House vote, and the entire budget bill would still need to pass the House and Senate to become law. However, the fact that a sale of public lands has been authorized has many conservation groups and politicians worried.
This comes on the heels of other questionable policy objectives targeting public lands. For more information, check out our Conservation Page for everything you should know about the state of public lands.
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