By James Cummins and Simon Roosevelt, Conservation Policy Committee Co-Chairs

For the last several months, all eyes in our community have been trained on efforts to sell public lands. Two distinct proposals were considered. The Club and our partners opposed and defeated both.

These proposals differed in important ways: The House measure would have mandated the sale of all tracts identified in certain government planning documents in Nevada and Utah, while the Senate bill outlined a new program for mandatory land selection and disposal. Championed by Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Mike Lee (R-UT), the Senate proposal would have, at first, directed the Departments of the Interior and Agriculture to sell 1-2 million acres of BLM lands and another 500,000-1 million acres of Forest Service lands spread across 11 Western states. Importantly, both the House and Senate versions would have bypassed existing legislative procedures for land selection and sale, dispensed with public input, and would have sent most of the proceeds to the Treasury, rather than reinvest these dollars in our federal estate.

We strongly disagree with Senator Lee’s assessment that “the federal government owns far too much land,” and reject the idea that this is a problem in need of solving. Now that the Congress has rightfully dispensed with these proposals, however, we would be wise to turn our attention to issues that are a root cause of these recent efforts and are impeding the ability to improve the management of public lands.

We have long expressed the view that management of federal public lands could be improved to the greater benefit of wildlife and people. We believe there are identifiable land parcels that do not best serve the overall public estate because they no longer have conservation or recreational value. The sale of such parcels would yield proceeds that could be directed to the improvement of other public lands. There are existing laws for selling and exchanging such parcels and they should be available to be exercised expeditiously. Presently, they are not, and we believe this is in substantial part what has caused the present problem. The Club’s view is that in the present situation we can find common ground and chart a better path forward.

We are committed to working with the Congress and the Administration to find solutions that will advance our entire federal estate by reinvesting in federal public lands.

Please consider joining us in this effort. I'd be grateful for the opportunity to speak with you about this issue and hope you'll consider joining us for a fly-in to Washington D.C. in September (9/8-11) to work on this issue with our elected and appointed officials. Charlie Booher ([email protected]) can provide additional details to those interested.

Our public lands are our greatest treasures as a nation and are an important legacy of our Club. We must not only protect them but steward them and improve them for those who will come after us.

Yours in Conservation, Simon Roosevelt and James Cummins