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Revised plan sells 1.2M acres of public lands
Energy & Environment
Energy & Environment
The Big Story
GOP tries again to sell public lands in megabill
A revised plan from Senate Republicans would sell off as much as 1.2 million acres of publicly owned lands, according to legislative text obtained by The Hill.
© Jason Goode
The updated text would require the sales of between 0.25 and 0.5 percent of the 245 million acres currently owned by the Bureau of Land Management, or between 612,500 and 1.225 million acres.
Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), is spearheading the plan, which would be included in the GOP’s megabill to advance much of President Trump’s agenda.
Lee has said he would revise his original plan, which would have sold off between 2.2 million and 3.3 million acres, after the Senate parliamentarian ruled it could not go inside the party’s budget package.
Lee’s office did not immediately respond to The Hill’s request for comment.
The text obtained by The Hill only pertains to Bureau of Land Management lands, complying with Lee’s promise to ax provisions in his original bill that would have also included National Forests.
The updated version also makes further changes: It specifies that land that is sold must be used “solely for the development of housing or to address any infrastructure and amenities to support local needs associated with housing.
It also requires land sold to be within 5 miles of the “the border of a population center.”
Read more at © The Hill
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