Note to readers • This story is made possible through a partnership between The Salt Lake Tribune and Grist, a nonprofit environmental media organization.
Public lands are in Sen. Mike Lee’s crosshairs again, and this time he appears to be targeting national park sites.
Environmental and public land watchdogs sounded the alarm this week after Lee, a Republican representing Utah, introduced an amendment nixing a parks-related provision of a Department of Interior spending bill.
The section that Lee proposes to delete makes clear that national park units are federal lands that are staffed and maintained by federal employees. The move comes just months after another unsuccessful push by the senator to sell off public lands ostensibly to build affordable housing.
Park advocates worry that deleting the language could enable the Trump administration to begin downsizing and selling off national parks lands.
“The American public is not clamoring to get rid of national parks,” said Kristen Brengel with the National Parks Conservation Association. “It’s very difficult to know who he’s speaking for in all of this.”
The park service manages not only Utah’s famed “Mighty Five” national parks in southern Utah, but also smaller units like the Golden Spike National Historic Park in Box Elder County, Dinosaur National Monument near Vernal, Glen Canyon National Recreation Area at Lake Powell and Timpanogos Cave near American Fork.
Attempts to contact Lee’s office for comment Thursday were not successful.
Lee previously sought to sell off a portion of the West’s non-park service federal lands as part of President Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” in June, asserting it would help communities build much-needed housing. The plan proved deeply unpopular, including among hunters, anglers and Lee’s own conservative base. Lee ultimately withdrew his amendment after receiving immense backlash, but blamed it on a Senate rules procedural issue.
(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) The 119 Steam Engine chugs down the track at the Golden Spike National Historical Park during one of the winter steam locomotive demonstrations, on Tuesday, Dec. 29, 2020.
“It’s kind of not surprising from Mike Lee,” said Devin O’Dea with Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, of the senator’s latest amendment. “It’s on brand, and something we will continue to oppose.”
Hunting is not allowed in most park units, O’Dea noted, but it is allowed in certain preserves managed by the National Park Service, including Craters of the Moon National Preserve in Idaho and the Grand Sand Dunes National Preserve in Colorado.
The Senate could vote on Lee’s amendment and the rest of the spending bill by the end of the week, but disputes over its provisions could push a decision into next year.
New Mexico Sen. Martin Heinrich, the top-ranking Democrat on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, which Lee chairs, blasted Lee’s amendment in a statement to E&E News.
“We are staring down another 11th-hour effort that threatens our public lands,” Heinrich said. “I encourage every American to make their voices heard again. We can and must defeat this.”
The Center for Western Priorities, a nonpartisan conservation group, said Lee’s bill shows a “lack of concern” for the residents of his own state.
“This is a blatant and tone-deaf attack on America’s public lands,” Aaron Weiss, the nonprofit’s deputy director, said in an emailed statement. “With this amendment, Mike Lee is telling President Trump and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum that even our national parks can be sold to the highest bidder.”
The senator’s amendment follows reports in the spring that Trump’s Interior department was exploring downsizing national monuments in the West, including Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante. The president’s budget proposal also called for slashing the National Park Service’s operations budget by nearly $1 billion a month later, noting several of its units are small and have low visitation consisting mostly of locals.
“There is an urgent need to streamline staffing,” the budget request said, “and transfer certain properties to State-level management to ensure the long-term health and sustainment of the National Park system.”
Public lands advocates say they worry Lee’s latest amendment is trying to keep those efforts alive.
The Trump administration’s proposal could have wiped out at least 350 park units across the United States, according to the National Parks Conservation Association’s estimates.
Utah leaders have long sought to seize at least some control of federal lands, and have supported downsizing national monuments in the state. But officials have maintained the state has no desire to wrest control of national parks. It has spent more than a decade and millions of dollars on its “Mighty Five” campaign promoting Zion, Capitol Reef, Bryce Canyon, Canyonlands and Arches national parks. The push brought soaring visitation and an economic boost to rural communities like Moab and Springdale.
“I live in D.C., and I remember a couple of years ago our buses were wrapped with the ‘Mighty Five’ advertising campaign,” said Brengel. “These places are only getting more popular, not less.”
A spokesperson for the Utah Department of Natural Resources, which oversees state parks and the Public Lands Policy Coordinating Office, said in an email that she was not aware of “anything that suggests there is any interest in selling off national parks.”
Utah remains committed to keeping its national parks “intact and avoiding any significant changes,” the spokesperson added, that would impact their operation or management.