Congress wants to sell your public land to pay for a tax cut. A shocking new proposal from Utah Senator Mike Lee would put up to 3.3 million acres of Forest Service or Bureau of Land Management land up for sale. The proposal is part of the ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ currently before the Senate that would give unprecedented tax cuts to the wealthiest people and corporations while cutting social services like Medicare for millions of Americans. Because of the current makeup of the U.S. Senate, calling your senator is one of the most effective ways of opposing this legislation.
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Proponents of the proposal, including Secretary of the Interior Doug Bergum, argue that selling public land could help with the affordable housing crisis. “America needs more affordable housing [and] the federal government can help make that happen by making land available to build affordable housing stock,” Bergum said in Senate testimony. However, the real reason for the proposal may be to help pay for the enormous tax cuts, which the Congressional Budget Office has estimated would add $2.8 trillion to the deficit.
The deficit number is important to understand the political fight playing out in the Republican party over the bill. For context, the Republican party controls both the Senate and the House of Representatives, rendering the Democratic party essentially powerless in this fight. Within the Republican party, there are some who are motivated by maintaining and expanding huge tax cuts passed in the first Trump term, like Senate Majority Leader John Thune. The issue is that without this tax revenue, the Federal deficit will continue to explode. There are other members of the Republican party, like Ron Johnson, who may want lower taxes, but care most about keeping the deficit as low as possible. The Medicare cuts, the spending cuts, and the new proposal to sell off public land are all part of a balance between tax cuts and keeping the deficit low. But, this policy clash opens up possibilities for the public to weigh in on the bill.
Several Senators including John Hickenlooper of Colorado and Martin Heinrich of New Mexico has voiced strong opposition to the proposal, alongside many environmental groups including the Wilderness Society, the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, and the Conservation Lands Society. One of the most effective ways legislation like this can be opposed is by calling your senators. Every week, staffers summarize contacts their office has received from their constituents and present this to the Senator. When you call a Senator’s office, you will most likely speak to a staffer, who will listen to your opinion and might be able to answer questions. This staffer then records your response to be passed on to the Senator at some point. Not very many people actually call their Senator or Representative about anything, so your opinion could hold outsized weight. Even if you did not vote for your current Senator, they still represent you, and your opinion matters as one of their constituents.
Because of the slim three seat majority the Republican party currently holds in the Senate, only a few Senators need to change their mind on a particular aspect of the bill to block it. More than ever, calling your Senator and voicing your concerns over the sale of public land could be crucial. The hard truth of the current makeup of the Senate is that if you have a Democratic Senator, there is not a lot they can do to substantially oppose the bill, but it is still worth voicing your opinion. If your Senator is a Republican, and they become aware of vast public opposition to the bill in their constituency, they may decide to break from the rest of their colleagues and block a specific proposal or vote against the bill entirely. If all of the Democratic Senators oppose the bill, only four Republican Senators need to decide to oppose the bill in whole or in part to cause serious problems.
With text released from the Senate Finance Committee, the Senate will debate the bill in the coming weeks.
Here are the phone numbers for Senators in the states with the most public land for sale. The rest can be found on the Senate website.
Alaska
Lisa Murkowski (R) – (202) 224-6665
Dan Sullivan (R) – (202) 224-3004
Utah
Mike Lee (R) – (202) 224-5444
John Curtis (R) – (202) 224-5251
Wyoming
John Barrasso (R) – (202) 224-6441
Cynthia Lummis (R) – (202) 224-3424
Idaho
Mike Crapo (R) – (202) 224-6142
James Risch (R) – (202) 224-2752
Montana
Steve Daines (R) – (202) 224-2651
Tim Sheehy (R) – (202) 224-2644
Washington
Patty Murray (D) – (202) 224-2621
Maria Cantwell (D) – (202) 224-3441
Oregon
Ron Wyden (D) – (202) 224-5244
Jeff Merkley (D) – (202) 224-3753
California
Alex Padilla (D) – (202) 224-3553
Adam Schiff (D) – (202) 224-3841
Nevada
Catherine Cortez Masto (D) – (202) 224-3542
Jackie Rosen (D) – (202) 224-6244
Arizona
Mark Kelly (D) – (202) 224-2235
Ruben Gallego (D) – (202) 224-4521
Colorado
Michael Bennett (D) – (202) 224-5852
John Hickenlooper (D) – (202) 224-5941
New Mexico
Martin Heinrich (D) – (202) 224-5521
Ben Ray Lujan (D) – (202) 224-6621
