SLVEC opposes recent Senate reconciliation bill language around our public lands
- Christine Canaly
- Jun 13
- 3 min read
Updated: Jun 17
PRESS RELEASE
Updated: 17 June 2025, 2:25 PM
The San Luis Valley Ecosystem Council strongly opposes the recent reconciliation bill text, released this Wednesday, from the Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee. This language includes a “long game” giveaway and general disposal of public lands. The aim is to privatize these landscapes and advance “energy dominance” at the expense of public access, wildlife habitats, and natural resources.
The mandatory disposal of up to 3.3 million acres of Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and National Forest lands in 11 states, including Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming.
More than 250 million acres of public lands are eligible for sale under the new criteria. This includes over 14 million acres in Colorado.
The bill prohibits the nomination or sale of lands designated for conservation or historic preservation purposes, such as wilderness study areas, national monuments, historic sites, and grazing and mineral leases.
Yet, this leaves the door wide open for the disposal of administratively designated areas like Areas of Critical and Environmental Concern (ACECs), Wilderness Study Areas (WSAs), and Inventoried Roadless Areas, which are some of our favorite places in the Rio Grande National Forest, and millions of acres of critical habitat.
The Secretaries of Agriculture and the Department of Interior will have 30 days to solicit nominations for lands to be sold from “any interested parties," which does not exclude international players. These agencies must publish a list every 60 days of lands eligible for sale until they’ve sold a minimum of .5 percent, but up to .75 percent, of BLM and National Forest lands. That's between 2.02 and 3.33 million acres.
The entire sell-off must be completed within 5 years. While sold lands must be used for housing or undefined “community needs,” those restrictions only last for ten years. So if someone chooses to “sit” on these lands after acquisition, they can sell or develop the area just like any other piece of real estate property.
There’s an oil and gas industry wish list, including mandated quarterly oil and gas lease sales, lower royalty rates, non-competitive leasing, requirements to offer for lease any and all parcels nominated by industry, and prohibitions on adding mitigation measures to protect resources from damage. This includes four mandated lease sales that would turn the sensitive coastal plains of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge over to big industry under highly permissive terms set by the first Trump Administration.
It’s critical to stand up now. Let's encourage our federal delegation to stand with us. We know what is at stake. We cherish our public lands, for us and our legacy to future generations.
Our public lands are not real estate.
For more details of the reconciliation bill text, please review the list compiled by The Wilderness Society below:
Multiple massive 4-million-acre mandated lease sales in the Western Arctic’s National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska again under highly permissive terms from the first Trump Administration, while bypassing the ongoing notice and comment process to repeal the 2024 management rule that protects special areas within the Reserve.
Fast-tracking the Ambler Road to facilitate a mining district in Arctic Alaska.
Mandating massive timber sales on our national forests and BLM lands – ratcheting up the amount of board feet sold each year and mandating long-term contracts with private companies to log. This could result in more than 11 billion board feet of additional timber sold over the next ten years on Western national forests alone.
Rescinding unobligated funds from the Inflation Reduction Act to land management agencies.
Establishing set acreage rates and capacity fees for wind and solar projects on public lands that differ from current rates (and likely increases capacity fees significantly) and repealing the Secretary’s discretion to reduce rates (as previously allowed by the Energy Act of 2020). Mandating at least one geothermal lease sale per year in states with pending nominations. Requiring revenue sharing for wind and solar projects (50% to federal Treasury, 25% to states, 25% to counties)
Fast-tracking coal leasing on federal lands by streamlining environmental reviews and lease approvals; reducing the royalty rate from 12.5% to 7%; and mandating that the Department of the Interior make available for coal leasing a minimum of 4 million additional acres in the Lower 48 and Alaska.
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