I hope everyone’s summer is off to a good start. The 4th of July is right around the corner as I am writing this, and I am looking forward to the opportunity to again celebrate our independence and the many freedoms we are blessed with as American citizens. Unless you live under a rock, you’re probably aware that one of these freedoms, access to some of our public lands, was under threat recently.
Included as part of Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill” was a provision written by Utah Senator Mike Lee for the mandatory sale of up to 1.2 million acres of public land. The public backlash was fierce, and as a result, Lee was forced to withdraw this provision just before the Senate was set to vote on the bill. If Lee was truly as surprised as he seemed about the amount of outcry he received over this, I’ll explain from my view a few reasons why that was the case.
Here’s part of it. The text in this proposal was far too vague. It almost read as if it was inviting exploitation. You don’t get to write a bill in under 1,500 words concerning the biggest public land exchange in recent American history and not get people pissed off. If I were ever to be on board with the sale of any amount of public land, the accompanying text in going about it better be incredibly thorough and buttoned up with verbiage that prevents any level of exploitation. The fact of the matter is that most of us don’t fully trust our legislators, regardless of their side of the aisle. The best scenario here was maybe some housing was made slightly more affordable. The worst case was exploitation, no measurable change in balancing the budget, and a loss of over a million acres of public land along the way.
Here’s most of it. What kind of crazy times are we living in? Theodore Roosevelt would be rolling over in his grave right now knowing our public lands were proposed being sold at such a massive scale for such a suspect cause. He once wrote, “Our duty to the whole, including the unborn generations, bids us to restrain an unprincipled present-day minority from wasting the heritage of these unborn generations. The movement for the conservation of wildlife and the larger movement for the conservation of all our natural resources are essentially democratic in
spirit, purpose, and method.”
So how did we get from Roosevelt trying to conserve as much land as he could for us to current legislators trying to take it away? Public land is getting more crowded by the year, and we’re not growing any more of it. What little we have left, we don’t want to see go, and once it’s sold, we’ll never get it back. For many of us, access to public lands in this country is one of our most sacred rights. The freedom to recreate in these areas as we recall memories of the past all while creating new ones with the next generation will be some of the best times of our entire lives.
My hope going forward is that just because we “won” on this particular issue won’t mean complacency the next time it is brought up. I applaud everyone who took part in making your opinions known on this issue, and I hope to see even more participation and direct contact with our representatives next time. Unfortunately, the fight to maintain our public lands is something that will never die. Senator Lee said, “We need to dispel once and for all the myth that the federal land footprint” cannot be changed. Teddy and I would beg to differ, Senator, and it will be interesting to see how many of your constituents do as well in your reelection bid of 2028.