Update, June 27, 2025: Senator Mike Lee has released a final version of his forced land sale provision that is currently included in the Senate's budget reconciliation bill. According to some reports, the provision has not yet been approved by the Senate parliamentarian, so it may still be removed from the bill before voting begins. There is also a chance it will be struck via the amendment process that will happen over the coming days. This is based on the fact that Senator Steve Daines of Montana has said he has the votes to kill the provision. The language released late on Friday is slightly different from what is referenced in the original story below. We now have more clarity on what constitutes a "population center", so we have been able to update the interactive map. We estimate that 884,000 acres in California may still be eligible to be sold, including about 93,500 acres across Kern, Monterey, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, and Ventura Counties. We continue to monitor this situation closely and will keep providing updates as we receive new information.
Original Story:
Today, Senator Mike Lee of Utah released a revised version of his wildly unpopular proposal to force the sale of federal public lands across 11 western states. The new bill language, which the senator appears to still want in the final Senate budget reconciliation package, would mandate that the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) sell a portion of its lands that meet several criteria but would not require the U.S. Forest Service to sell any national forest land.
The forced land sale provision was stripped from the Senate’s version of the megabill after the Senate parliamentarian ruled late on Monday that it could not move forward as part of the reconciliation package without meeting a 60-vote threshold. The provision’s architect, Senator Lee, vowed yesterday to revise the language in response to the parliamentarian’s ruling as well as intense public backlash to his original proposal.
In addition to excluding national forest land from being sold in the revised provision, it would still require that a substantial amount of BLM land be sold across the West, including in California. Limits to which lands are eligible to be sold include those that are within five miles of a population center, are not part of a national monument or other protected area, and which do not have a valid existing right such as grazing and presumably oil and gas leases. According to a ForestWatch analysis of public land, grazing, and oil and gas data, up to 1.5 million acres of BLM land in California may be eligible to be sold, including 128,000 acres across Kern, Monterey, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, and Ventura Counties. Due to a lack of high quality data regarding valid existing rights and the still vague, undefined terms in the revised provision language (e.g. how a population center is determined), the map below and our estimate of land that may be eligible is subject to change.
Areas across the Central Coast region that may be eligible under the new language include:
- Hundreds of acres near the Hopper Mountain National Wildlife Refuge containing important nesting and roosting sites for endangered California condors
- Two parcels adjacent to Los Padres National Forest in the Santa Ynez Mountains
- Several parcels throughout Santa Barbara County’s Purisima Hills
- Several parcels in the Temblor Range adjacent to Carrizo Plain National Monument
- Several parcels along the upper reaches of the Cuyama River
- Several hundred acres within San Luis Obispo County’s Irish Hills, adjacent to Montaña de Oro State Park
- A large parcel above Whale Rock Reservoir near Cayucos
- Several scattered parcels along the Salinas River east of Santa Margarita
- Several parcels in the foothills of the Santa Lucia Mountains in Monterey County
Clearly, public outcry has helped convince Senator Lee to scale back his proposal, but it remains just as fundamentally flawed as before. ForestWatch and other conservation groups around the country maintain that the provision should be left out of this or any legislation entirely.
What remains to be seen is whether the forced BLM land sale provision will even be allowed in the final reconciliation package. It is unclear whether the revised language has been brought before the Senate parliamentarian, Elizabeth MacDonough, or whether she has issued a ruling on whether the provision complies with the “Byrd Rule,” which limits what can be included in a budget reconciliation bill.
We will continue to monitor this legislative situation closely as it develops further.
Header photo is a satellite image depicting BLM parcels—near Santa Margarita in San Luis Obispo County—that may still be eligible to be sold under Senator Lee’s revised proposal.