Republicans on the House Natural Resources committee passed a measure that would authorize the sale of hundreds of thousands of acres of federal land in Utah and Nevada.
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Introduced by Republican Reps. Mark Amodei of Nevada and Celeste Maloy of Utah, the bill would potentially open up hundreds of thousands of acres of federal land for sale — a move aimed at boosting fossil fuel production and creating opportunities for affordable housing, NPR reported.
The committee advanced the legislation in a 26-17 vote on Tuesday night. It hadn't appeared in the original draft of the broader tax cut package that seeks roughly $1.5T in cuts to federal programs and services.
Republicans said the bill would generate roughly $18B in new revenue and savings, the Associated Press reported. Democratic lawmakers condemned the provision, arguing it was rushed and lacked transparency and input from local residents, The Hill reported.
The public land in question is primarily managed by the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management.
In Utah, about 11,000 acres of public land would go up for sale, which Maloy told NPR is needed because the large amounts of federal land in her district pose difficulties when trying to work on economic and transportation development and managing natural resources.
In Nevada, the amendment would order the sale of more than 65,000 acres of land in Clark County, 16,000 acres of public land in Washoe County, 12,000 acres in Lyon County and more than 350,000 acres in Pershing County, Nevada Current reported.
Amodel said Nevada's population centers are surrounded by federal land, making them unable to meet housing and development needs, the Nevada Current reported. Environmentalists blasted the measure as a transfer of taxpayer land to private entities and fossil fuel interests.
"Congress is considering selling off our public lands to pay for tax cuts to the wealthy," Tracy Stone-Manning, president of the Wilderness Society, told NPR.
It now faces a vote from the House and Senate once it is added to the final legislative package.
The amendment aligns with the larger moves from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, led by Secretary Scott Turner, to identify underutilized federal land where affordable housing can be built.
Building on 512,000 acres of Bureau of Land in western states like Nevada, Utah, California and Arizona could yield between 3 million and 4 million new homes, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis.
