Key Republicans Come Out Against Sale of Public Lands

The chances for success are looking increasingly difficult for a Republican proposal to sell up to 3 million acres of public lands.

See: Public Lands - Attempt To Sell Off in our Nature Under Trump tracker.

The provision was inserted by Mike Lee (R) of Utah into the Senate's version of Trump's "big, beautiful" bill.

Yesterday, both of Idaho's senators - Jim Risch (R) and Mike Crapo (R) - came out in opposition to the proposal.

They were joined yesterday by both senators of Montana, Steve Daines (R) and Tim Sheehy (R), who also said they now oppose the measure.

This shows the success of the field of the conservation in organizing and uniting broad opposition across the political spectrum against the sale of public lands.

The proposal sparked a massive backlash including from Western hunters who represent a large voting continent in Idaho and Montana.

It's hard to see how Lee's proposal survives the opposition from Western state Republicans. Nevertheless, for public land advocates, now is not the time to let the foot off the gas.

We need to continue putting maximum public focus on this issue - not just to kill the provision, but to make the idea of selling public lands so politically toxic that even Heritage Foundation sycophants know not to pursue it ever again.

View our tracker: Nature Under Trump -- tracking Trump's impacts on nature conservation.