FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 8, 2025
Contact:
Erik Molvar, Western Watersheds Project, (307) 399-7910, emolvar@westernwatersheds.org
Western Watersheds Project Condemns Public Lands Sale Provisions in House Budget Package
Amodei-Maloy amendment could force sale of nearly half a million acres without environmental review
In a late-night maneuver Tuesday, Reps. Mark Amodei (R-NV) and Celeste Maloy (R-UT) introduced a last-minute amendment to the House budget reconciliation package that mandates the sell-off of public lands in Nevada and Utah. The amendment—introduced at midnight during markup in the House Natural Resources Committee—would dispose of close to 500,000 acres of federally managed land and explicitly exempts these sales from review under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).
“This is one of the most egregious attempts we’ve seen to sell off public lands behind closed doors,” said Erik Molvar, Executive Director of Western Watersheds Project. “It’s a late-night, backroom deal to liquidate western public lands—no public process, no environmental review, and no accountability.”
If enacted, the Amodei and Maloy amendments would bypass bedrock environmental laws and transfer irreplaceable public lands into private hands—cutting off access for recreation, displacing wildlife, and extinguishing future land-based economies across the West. The targeted parcels include lands adjacent to Wilderness Study Areas, sagebrush steppe habitat, and public spaces relied upon by wildlife lovers, birdwatchers, hunters, anglers, hikers, and the American public.
In defending the proposal, Rep. Maloy told the Salt Lake Tribune that “not all federal land has the same value,” raising serious questions about how value is determined—and by whom.
“To wildlife, to all Americans, and to future generations, these public lands are priceless,” said Molvar. “Reducing them to line items on a balance sheet is an attack on our collective inheritance of recreational wonderlands, awe-inspiring vistas, and key habitats for dwindling wildlife.”
The broader 100-page reconciliation bill is equally devastating. Designed to pay for extensions of Trump-era tax cuts, the bill includes a slate of provisions that would fast-track oil and gas drilling, mandate massive increases in timber harvests, rescind protections for the Boundary Waters and the Arctic Refuge, and strip the public of its right to challenge environmental destruction in court. It would slash royalty rates for industry, gut NEPA review timelines, and create a pay-to-play system that rewards polluters and silences communities.
“These policies reflect the Trump administration’s playbook: deregulate, privatize, and extract,” said Molvar. “Interior Secretary Doug Burgum has already called for developing public lands to pay down the national debt, suggesting that ‘much of’ them are suitable for disposal. This amendment is proof that Congress is advancing this land-seizure agenda.”
Americans overwhelmingly oppose public land sell-offs, and time and again they have made clear that these lands are not for sale. Public lands support biodiversity, carbon storage, clean water, and cultural heritage—and they belong to all Americans, not just those who can buy them.
Western Watersheds Project calls on Congress to reject this amendment and the broader reconciliation package’s anti-public lands agenda.
“Don’t be fooled,” Molvar concluded. “The American people are the losers in this deal—losing land, losing access, and losing the future revenue and ecological value these places generate. Congress must step back from the brink of this land-seizure initiative.”
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