House Republicans have approved an amendment that authorizes the sale of thousands of acres of federal public land in Nevada and Utah; two states where the federal government owns most of the land that have long been at the forefront of a controversial movement to cede control of it to state or private entities.
The House Natural Resources committee approved the amendment late Tuesday night after previously indicating federal land sales wouldn't be included in a budget reconciliation bill.
Most of the proposed land sales or exchanges appear to be aimed at building affordable housing on U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management land outside Las Vegas and Reno, Nevada and in fast growing southwestern Utah around the tourist town of St. George, Utah.
"Many of the difficulties we face at a local level are of course related to the fact that the county is surrounded by federal land," said Rep. Celeste Maloy (R-Utah).
Maloy told the committee there are sixty targeted parcels amounting to about 10,000 acres in her district, totaling less than a third of a percent of all the federal land in her state.
"The high percentage of federal lands impacts the local government's ability to work on economic and transportation development, manage natural resources and fully take advantage of recreational activities," she added.
Maloy is related to the rancher Cliven Bundy, whose family led armed standoffs over control of federal land in Nevada and Oregon.
Democrats and environmentalists say the amendment is part of a broader far right push for a wholesale transfer of federal public lands.
"Congress is considering selling off our public lands to pay for tax cuts to the wealthy," said Tracy Stone-Manning, president of the Wilderness Society. "What we're seeing from this administration is no balance at all."
Stone-Manning headed the BLM under the Biden administration. The agency controls roughly a tenth of all the land in the U.S.
Environmentalists have also seized on a leaked Department of Interior plan that calls for giving more land management authority to local governments and the "release of federal holdings" to build housing. They say it's a blueprint for a looming wholesale transfer of federal land to states or private entities like energy companies.
But Casey Hammond, who was briefly acting director of the BLM during the first Trump administration, says these are small scale limited transfers that have local support.
During the last Trump administration, he says, the idea of a wholesale transfer was put to rest: "If we're effectively managing federal lands, there's no reason to turn them over to states to be managed better," Hammond says.
The amendment that passed late Tuesday authorizing the sale of federal land in Nevada and Utah still faces a full House vote.
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