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Boy, did Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) have himself a week last week.
First, the Svengali of Salt Lake, the Pope of Provo, the whatever of whatever other cities are in Utah, endeared himself to his Democratic colleagues in the Senate by mocking the absolute shit out of the assassination of the Democratic state speaker in Minnesota and her husband, and the attempted assassination and severe wounding of a Democratic state senator and his wife.
Lee later deleted the tweets that had offended half the known universe and even had newspapers in Utah demanding he apologize. He still hasn’t, of course, because being such a galactic piece of shit means never having to say you’re sorry.
And yet somehow this episode might have been Mike Lee’s lesser crime against human decency last week. For he also unveiled a plan drafted by a Senate committee he chairs to potentially auction off 250 million acres of federally owned land.
Two hundred and fifty million acres. That is nearly three times the amount of acreage in all of Germany. A solid four times the amount of acreage in all of the United Kingdom. It is a little better than 10 percent of the total acreage of the entire United States.
It’s a pretty staggering amount of acreage, is the point, and Lee’s proposal could open it all up to be bought by the highest-bidding developers. Does Elon Musk need another SpaceX launch facility so he can attempt to launch his doomed rockets twice as often? Then have we maybe got a deal for him!
The plan came out of the Lee-chaired Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Lee hopes to get it into the giant reconciliation bill (for dignity’s sake, we will not call it the One Big Beautiful Bill here) the Senate wants to pass by July 4. And what a birthday gift that will be to the American people. Happy 249th, America, we got you a whole bunch of new copper mines for your national parks!
Lee told Glenn Beck, who is still alive but mercifully much less of a public figure than he was 15 years ago, that selling all these public lands could be the solution to America’s housing crisis. No, he really said that:
A fact sheet released by Lee’s committee last week said that selling off government-owned land would “increase the supply of housing and decrease housing costs for millions of American families[.]”
Holy hell, no. The land at issue is spread across the mostly rural Western states, plus Alaska. Does Lee imagine we’ll solve America’s housing crisis by slapping up developments and apartment buildings in the ass end of Nowhere, Wyoming? Does he think we need greater suburban sprawl rolling out from Cheyenne? That sort of sprawl has contributed to the housing problem in the first place.
We’re not urban policy experts, so we’re not going to get into the ins and outs of urban density and infill and whatever other terms city planning nerds like to throw around. But this seems like a ridiculous plan.
Lee also tried to soft-soap all this for Beck:
“When this bill puts land in the category of eligibility for sale, it doesn’t mean for sale,” Lee said. “It just means there’s a process by which it could be transferred.”
See, the government isn’t selling the land, it’s just initiating a process that will allow it to sell the land. Totally different thing.
Another aspect of this whole deal is that it is really, really unpopular with the public. A poll earlier this year by Colorado College found that 72 percent of people in Western states favor conservation over selling the land to, say, oil and gas companies. Another poll found only 10 percent of people favor selling public lands. Even accounting for the poll having been conducted by an NGO dedicated to preserving public lands, that’s still a near-minuscule amount of support. When was the last time you found an issue that 90 percent of Americans agreed on?
If we’re lucky, even Republicans won’t go for this. Montana congressman Ryan Zinke swears public land sales are his red line, and he won’t vote for any bill that requires them. On the other hand, Wyoming representative Harriet Hageman, the wild-eyed loon who overthrew Liz Cheney for her seat, played down the plan to her constituents, claiming plan opponents are being disingenuous in saying how much land would actually be eligible for sale.
So who knows? All we know is that Republicans are claiming tax increases in the bill are cuts, Medicaid cuts are actually increases, and squashing insurance subsidies in the Affordable Care Act will make healthcare more affordable. Why anyone would trust the likes of Mike Lee or Harriet Hageman to be telling the truth here is beyond us.
On the plus side, Teddy Roosevelt might rise from the grave to beat the shit out of Mike Lee while yelling “Bully!” at the top of his lungs, so we’ve could have that to look forward to.
[Rolling Stone / Newsweek / High Country News]
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