Don’t Believe a Word from Utah Senator Mike Lee

Senator Mike Lee, the famous “konztitooshunal skolar” from the state of Utah, is making a strong run at the long-vacant throne of Rick Santorum as the most colossal dick in American politics. Last week, he decided to make a ha-ha funny about an episode of domestic terrorism that claimed the life of a Minnesota state legislator, her husband, and her dog and nearly took the life of another member of the state legislature. No, he’s stanning for a provision in the Big Plug Ugly—one that already was stripped from the House bill that would open up 250 million acres of public lands across the West to eventual despoilment and waste. From Rolling Stone:

A provision unveiled this week would open roughly 250 million acres of public lands in the West, for sale to the highest bidder. The legislation would require that at least three million acres—an area roughly half the size of Vermont—be privatized in the next five years. The ugly provision was introduced by the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, chaired by Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), who recently made himself notorious for shitposting about a political assassination in Minnesota. Lee’s committee touts this “mandatory disposal” of federal lands as a way to “fulfill President Trump’s agenda” by “unlocking federal land” to “increase the supply of housing,” while generating at least $5 billion. Speaking to fellow conspiratorial loon Glenn Beck, Lee defended the initiative as a “common-sense solution to a national problem.” Lee’s provision has the support of The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board which alleges that “Uncle Sam” is “typically a poor steward of the land.”

Good God, he means it. Feel trapped by the high cost of housing in New York or Boston? Come to our new construction at Ravaged Mountain Estates in Otter Sputum, Wyoming. And I would point out to the senator that it is Uncle Sam’s “stewardship” that is the reason we have any public lands in the first place. Lee is, of course, not fronting for affordable housing but, rather, for timber and mining and other extraction industries, as well as some high-end luxury tourist Xanadus. The environmental groups, as well as members of Congress who are not Mike Lee, certainly can see through the smoke screen.

The Wilderness Society decries the Senate provision, insisting it would spark “the largest single sale of national public lands in modern history” and sacrifice “ordinary Americans’ access to outdoor recreation for a short-term payoff.” It has produced a map of federal lands that would be available to private developers under this land grab. The group writes that the provision “masquerades as a way to provide more housing, but it lacks safeguards to ensure land is used for that purpose.” It nominally requires consultation with the states and calls for an exclusion of lands with “valid existing rights”—a provision that appears to apply to extractive industries like mining and drilling. ... Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) has called the proposal “insane” and a “non-starter,” adding: “Hell no.”

Wyden’s condemnation is seconded by, of all people, Rep. Ryan Zinke of Montana, the failed secretary of the interior in Trump I. It was Zinke who pushed to have the provision stripped from the House bill, only to have it reappear in the Senate, where that sweet corporate cash flows more freely and in greater abundance.

This Senate provision creates a direct conflict with the House version of the Big Beautiful Bill. Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-Mont.) successfully fought to strip a similar provision from the House bill. The former Interior Secretary described privatization of public lands as his “red line,” noting: “Once the land is sold, we will never get it back. God isn’t creating more land.”

Unfortunately, She keeps creating Republican senators. I will have to speak to Her about that.