A Utah representative wants to sell off thousands of acres of public land in the state, a move environmentalists say is just the first in a forthcoming Republican-led effort to ease the national debt and pay for tax cuts by selling federal land.
Rep. Celeste Maloy, whose district spans most of western Utah, proposed an amendment to a budget bill Tuesday night that could result in the sale of about 11,500 acres of Bureau of Land Management land in fast-growing southwestern Utah, including parcels in St. George and Washington and Beaver Counties.
The House Natural Resources Committee passed the amendment, which will now head to a full House vote. The land, Maloy said in the committee hearing Tuesday night, could be used to build affordable housing and address water concerns in arid, growing St. George, which is in her district.
“Not all federal lands have the same value,” Maloy said in committee. “Some should not be available for disposal. We all agree on that. However, in both Democratic and Republican administrations, for decades, we’ve been disposing of appropriate lands in a manner that’s consistent with what I propose to do here.”
A spokesperson for Maloy on Wednesday said that the amendment “impacts only a third of a percentage of federal lands in the state. It conveys targeted land at fair market value to local governments for their infrastructure needs.”
“The net impact,” the spokesperson continued, “will be to reduce our national debt and deficit through fair market value sales of targeted land.”
The federal government owns 35 million acres in Utah, over 64% of the state’s total land area. Of that, that BLM manages 22.8 million acres.
Public lands advocates say the amendment is part of a bigger attempt to sell off public lands to pay for President Donald Trump’s agenda.
“Rep. Maloy is hell-bent on selling off and privatizing public lands,” said Travis Hammill, the Washington, D.C. director for the nonprofit Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance.
“This plan was cooked up behind closed doors, and Utahns and Americans aren’t going to let her get away with this…her actions will be seen for what they truly are: a sell-off of public lands to pay for billionaire tax cuts,” Hammill continued.
Some of the land that could be available for sale surrounds St. George, one of Utah’s fastest-growing cities.
The city thanked Rep. Maloy for introducing the amendment, saying in a Wednesday statement that it would “assist the City of St. George in securing properties that will be critical to our water infrastructure needs in the future.”
The city said that, if the land is sold, it could be used to preserve well sites, expand a water reclamation facility and expand the St. George airport.
“In addition, a small percentage of our request would be a federally owned parcel within the city to be used for the construction of attainable housing,” St. George’s statement said.
Nevada Rep. Mark Amodei joined Maloy in proposing the amendment, which would also allow the sale of over 90,000 acres of public land in Utah’s neighboring state.
