By Olivia Miller, West Virginia Highlands Conservancy

Over the past two months, public lands advocates from across the country have fought back two separate attempts by Congress to sell off millions of acres of public lands in the Western United States. 

It started late on May 6, 2025, when the House Natural Resources Committee slipped in a surprise amendment during their marathon markup of the 2025 budget reconciliation. Reps. Mark Amodei (R-Nevada) and Celeste Maloy (R-Utah) introduced language that would have forced the sale of at least 500,000 acres of public lands in Nevada and more than 11,000 acres in Utah. 

This amendment had no safeguards for public use or any restrictions on what could happen after the land was sold. Imagine luxury resorts, strip malls, or worse, open-pit mining on lands that belong to all of us. The West Virginia Highlands Conservancy joined more than 100 organizations nationwide to demand congressional leaders toss out the amendment. After intense public pressure, the House pulled the language on May 21. 

But the relief was short-lived. On June 3, the Senate took another swing at selling our public lands. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chair Mike Lee (R-Utah) introduced his own proposal, ordering the sale of up to three million acres across eleven Western states: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming, with Senator Jim Justice from West Virginia serving as a member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Once again, WVHC and more than a hundred other organizations pushed back, urging Senate leadership to abandon this unprecedented sell-off.  

WVHC believes it’s crucial to defend public lands nationwide because these lands represent our shared heritage, providing essential ecological benefits, safeguarding biodiversity, and offering recreation opportunities that sustain rural economies and communities. There is no doubt that selling off public lands in the west opens up the door for more public lands sales across the country. 

The Senate parliamentarian ultimately ruled that Sen. Lee’s measure violated the Byrd Rule—a critical check authored by West Virginia’s own Senator Robert Byrd in 1990. The Byrd Rule prevents unrelated provisions like these from being crammed into budget reconciliation bills. 

That didn’t stop Sen. Lee, though, who vowed publicly to keep trying, citing affordable housing as his rationale. On June 26, Lee submitted a revised version, still targeting between 1.05 and 2.1 million acres of public lands. This time, the language focused on lands within five miles of a vaguely defined “population center,” potentially including towns as small as 2,500 residents. 

After another round of fierce opposition, at nearly 9:30 p.m. on June 28, Sen. Lee withdrew the proposal entirely, saying in a social media statement, “Over the past several weeks, I’ve spent a lot of time listening to members of the community, local leaders, and stakeholders across the country. While there has been a tremendous amount of misinformation—and in some cases, outright lies—about my bill, many brought forward sincere concerns.” 

For many Conservancy members, this fight feels like a rerun. Congress has been flirting with the idea of turning public lands into private property for decades, always following a similar script: call the land “surplus” or “mismanaged,” promise jobs or cheaper housing, and hope nobody notices. Fortunately, for our forests, rivers, and wildlife, somebody always does. I’ve personally experienced the magic of public lands not just here at home in West Virginia, but also during the years I lived and explored in California and Idaho. Those experiences have shaped who I am today, teaching me firsthand how important it is to preserve these landscapes—not just for ourselves, but for future generations. 

A quick stroll through past public-land auctions: 

1981: Reagan’s Interior Secretary James Watt tried to sell off 35 million acres—five percent of all federal lands—to pay down the deficit. Western governors, hunters, and local governments revolted, stopping the proposal cold. 

2005: A midnight rider quietly slipped into a House budget bill would have opened the door for companies to buy mining claims on up to 350 million acres. Anglers, hunters, and even county sheriffs called it the biggest land grab since the railroad days, and the Senate ultimately rejected it. 

2017: Utah Congressman Jason Chaffetz attempted to sell off 3.3 million acres of public lands identified as “eligible for disposal.” A nationwide #KeepItPublic backlash convinced him to withdraw the bill after just one week. 

As the budget bill heads back to the House for another review, the WVHC and its allies will be watching closely. We know these bad ideas rarely disappear completely—they just hibernate, waiting for another chance. 

But as long as Congress keeps trying to hang “for sale” signs on our public lands, WVHC will keep standing up and pulling them down. 

See you on the trail.