By Susan Saul
Republicans in Congress are working to pass a budget reconciliation bill that includes the mandatory sale of at least 2 million acres and up to 3.25 million acres of our public lands to private interests over the next 5 years. The proposal calls out Washington as one of 11 states where the required sales would occur and sets no limits on sales by state.
Specifically, the Senate’s bill includes a proposal that makes 250 million acres of public land across 11 western states, including 5 million acres in Washington, eligible for sale to private interests, with the exclusion of a few designated areas such as national parks, wilderness and the Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument. Parcels would be nominated by “any interested party” and offered for sale at breakneck speed every 60 days until arbitrary quotas are met.
If the proposal is passed, federal lands across the state could be privatized without any public process for input or engagement. “This proposal should outrage every birder,” said VAS President Tom Tinsley. “It essentially creates a backroom process with no public input, creating a massive breach of public trust. Once these places are sold, they’re gone for good–-fences go up, access disappears, and they are lost to us all forever.”
U.S. Forest Service and BLM lands in Washington support rare bird species like the Northern Spotted Owl, Marbled Murrelet, Black-backed Woodpecker, Northern Goshawk and Golden Eagle. Well-managed public lands are critically important to the protection of the state’s exceptional biodiversity. Native birds and habitats may be on the auction block, threatening the very integrity of the ecosystems on which we all depend.
National monument lands may also be at risk from this proposal, including the San Juan Islands National Monument and Hanford Reach National Monument. In a Department of Justice opinion, the Trump Administration dubiously claimed the unprecedented legal authority to revoke national monument protections. If they were to attempt to follow through on this, another 13.5 million acres of our public lands could be threatened with sell-off.
The proposal allows “any interested parties” to nominate lands for sale within 30 days, with priority given to state and local government nominations. This broad language could enable private interests—from billionaires seeking prime resort sites to developers eyeing commercial opportunities to foreign companies and governments—to influence which public lands are put up for sale. The proposal gives state and local governments first right of refusal, but this provision is largely meaningless. Most state and local governments lack the resources to compete in bidding wars for federal lands, and the language only grants them first bid rights—not the power to prevent sales. Notably, sovereign Tribal Nations are excluded from this provision and would be forced to compete in open auctions, even for tracts on their traditional homelands or containing sacred sites.
The public land sell-off provision masquerades as a way to provide more housing, but it lacks safeguards to ensure land is used for that purpose, and it sets up a system where lands could be sold or resold for non-housing uses after just 10 years. Research suggests that very little of the land managed by the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management is actually suitable for housing. Plus, land agencies already have ways to identify public lands for uses like housing if it serves community needs. Jury-rigging a new way to force such “disposal” as part of the budget reconciliation process sets up a precedent to quickly liquidate huge chunks of America’s treasured lands in the future whenever politicians have a pet project to pay for.
Make Your Voice Heard
The Vancouver Audubon Society is encouraging its members to contact their members of Congress immediately. Tell them that our nation’s public lands and waters are among our greatest assets, and they are not for sale at any price!
Contact your members of Congress at these links:
Vancouver Audubon 