Congress is reportedly considering sweeping public-land sales as part of the federal budget reconciliation process in pursuit of the Trump Administration’s goal to find $10 trillion in both revenue generation and cost savings.
As reported Wednesday morning by E&E News, congressional committees have been asked by the Republican leadership to propose ideas to generate revenue that could be included in a sweeping budget reconciliation procress. That’s the short-cut to delivering a budget that bypasses the Senate’s filibuster by requiring only a simple majority of 51 votes to pass.
Chairmen of the House Natural Resources Committee and the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee have reportedly proposed selling parcels of federal lands around national parks and in the urban interface. Their goals are to raise revenue and address affordable housing in communities where the cost of real estate and housing is driving up the cost of living. Among other objections, critics say this wouldn’t address the root cause of the affordable housing crisis: a lack of affordable units — not a lack of land.
It’s the most stark signal yet that congressional Republicans are seriously considering disposal of federal lands. Now, they’ve apparently identified the budget reconciliation process as the vehicle to achieve that goal.
“This is being framed around the idea of addressing housing, but the risk we see is that this could touch down in communities that aren’t asking for this,” says Joel Webster, chief conservation officer for the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership. “If you’re in a community that has public lands in and around it, you could be caught up in a mandate to sell lands that have nothing to do with addressing housing costs.”
The troublesome issue is that the budget reconciliation process doesn’t identify specific strategies, only general funding directives, says Webster.
“The reconciliation process allows the Senate to pass legislation with 51 votes instead of the 60 to get around the filibuster,” he observes. “The trade-off is that you can’t have policy in reconciliation, only vague guidelines that the administration can implement as they see fit. Because it would be statutorily approved by Congress, there’s a real risk of selling land that was maybe unintended by members of Congress.”
So a directive to sell public land in order to raise revenue to balance the federal budget might have sweeping impacts that result in the sale of large parcels of BLM, Forest Service, National Wildlife Refuge, and Bureau of Reclamation lands around the country.
“Right now our biggest ask is for folks who hunt and fish and care about the land to reach out to members of Congress and say ‘Regardless of who I voted for we should not be selling public land,’” says Kaden McArthur, director of policy and government relations for Backcountry Hunters & Anglers. “It’s nonsensical and not something we’re interested in. I think our community needs to stress the point that a vote like this comes at a political cost.”
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McArthur notes that close examination of the idea doesn’t pass scrutiny.
“It seems a little nonsensical to use the sale of public lands for affordable housing as any meaningful offset to spending or tax cuts,” he says. “By definition if these are going to be affordable housing units, complexes, communities, you have to wonder how much revenue gets generated from selling these public lands.”
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