Public Lands

Republican representatives in Nevada and Utah this week were successful in getting an amendment to sell public lands in federal budget legislation. In Nevada, the idea is already facing strong opposition.

Democrats said the bill was anti-public lands and anti-environment, even before Utah and Nevada representatives introduced an amendment to sell public lands in their states.

An amendment introduced late in the evening includes over 10,000 acres in Utah and identifies nearly 450,000 acres in four Nevada counties for sale or exchange.

The Trump Administration is directing federal agencies like the Department of the Interior to ramp up mining operations on federal public lands. The order singles out copper, uranium, potash, and gold.

Freshman Representative Jeff Hurd (R-Colo.) is sponsoring a bill that would require Bureau of Land Management field offices across the West to adopt plans to open more lands to oil and gas drilling.

Politicians and environmentalists are sounding the alarm on the impacts of federal job cuts in land management agencies like the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management. They say services like firefighting, recreation management, and access to permits for extraction will be affected.

The 15th annual Conservation in the West Poll also found strong support for maintaining national monument designations and for addressing climate change as a serious problem.

A bipartisan team of researchers is leading Colorado College's annual "Conservation in the West" poll of about 3,300 voters in eight western states: Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico.

Sen. Bennet (D-Colo.) is pledging to fight for public land protections and funding for agriculture, and is looking for more support from the federal government in Colorado River negotiations.

A hearing on the multiple-use policy for public lands on Tuesday was repeatedly trumped by politics. Multiple-use allows public lands to be used simultaneously for different purposes, including hiking, logging, hunting and fishing, wildlife conservation, watershed protection, and more.