PEAK TO PEAK – We may have just been rescued from the loss of our outdoor heritage by an unlikely savior.
Elizabeth MacDonough, the Senate parliamentarian, has ruled on the admissibility of a number of items in the “Big Beautiful Bill” if it is to voted on via the reconciliation process. She has declared a number of them—including killing off the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, exploiting our natural resources, attacking immigrants, and cutting Medicaid—unable to be included.
Among these issues, the bill also mandated the sell-off of millions of acres of public land in the West. Among all these other proposals by the MAGA folks, this hits closest to home. But on Tuesday, this, too, was rejected by MacDonough.
The original draft of the BBB required the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service to sell up to 3.3 million acres, or 5,100 square miles of land they currently control. Not surprisingly, much of that land is in our back yard.
Approximately 14 million acres of public land would be eligible for sale in Colorado, according to The Wilderness Society. Various sources have mentioned likely sell-offs as including Forest Service land along the eastern borders of the Brainard Lake Recreation Area and Indian Peaks Wilderness.
Popular trails including Lefthand, Gold Lake, West Magnolia, and Winiger Ridge are on the list. Adding more insult to our current injury, camping areas west of Gross Reservoir may also be included.
Caribou Ranch and East Portal are also at risk, as are climbing areas across Boulder Canyon, St. Vrain Canyon, and along the Peak to Peak Highway.
A little further away are such gems as Durango’s beloved Animas Mountain Recreation Space, and U.S. 550 between Durango and Silverton, the incredible “Million Dollar Highway.” (Disclosure: I drove that magnificent route about 12 years ago – even published a photo of my husband and me reading The Mountain-Ear in Silverton, for “Everybody’s Reading It!”)
The creator of this proposal is Utah Senator Mike Lee, who has been trying to privatize public land in his state since taking office. The bill states that the land to be sold is to generate revenue and make more land available for housing—possibly a laudable idea, although nothing is said about that housing being affordable.
I mean—look at which land was being proposed for sale: not flat, road-accessible, subdivision-generating, buildable land—but rather scenic, mountainous, road-resisting, mostly vertiginous land suitable only for bespoke custom homes. Mansions for millionaires, in other words.
Can you imagine an affordable subdivision built along the Million Dollar Highway? More to the point, can’t you just see exclusive mountain properties being marketed near Brainard Lake? That would turn Ward into Crested Butte….
According to Lee, "We're opening underused federal land to expand housing, support local development and get Washington, D.C. out of the way of communities that are just trying to grow." (I don’t know anyone in Ward who wants it to grow; do you?)
Unsurprisingly, Colorado’s Democratic representatives in Washington are opposed to this federal land grab. Senator Michael Bennet, in an online press conference on June 20, said that “no matter your party, auctioning off our children’s and grandchildren’s inheritance is the last thing that we’re going to do. We’re going back to Washington and we’re going to continue to fight this.
“Once these lands are sold, it’s nearly impossible to get them back,” he added. “Public lands make Colorado, Colorado,” Bennet said. “They make the West, the West. They’re the foundation of our economy, and they represent treasured parts of our culture, our geography and our history.”
Senator Hickenlooper recently said on Colorado Public Radio, "Our public lands are an heirloom—something to hand down to our children,” he said. “No one asked my opinion or Michael Bennet’s opinion," he added,
Together with our Congressman, Joe Neguse, Bennet issued a statement earlier this month: “Colorado, like so many Western states, is proud to be home to millions of acres of treasured public lands—places people from across the country and around the world flock to for outdoor recreation and to experience the natural beauty of the outdoors.
“Auctioning off these lands to pay for President Trump’s radical agenda, including the prioritization of tax cuts for billionaires and big corporations, is an affront to our core values. We must continue to stand in firm opposition to any provisions that would put a for sale sign on our nation’s treasured public lands.”
And it’s not just Democrats, or Westerners, who have been opposed to this. A recent national Co/efficient poll found that 75 percent are against permanently selling millions of acres for development, including 65 percent of Republicans and 88 percent of Democrats.
When I originally wrote this article, I asked, “At what point do we put our collective foot down and say “NO!” to this administration’s vast overreaches? If it’s not at DOGE’s blind slashing or bombs falling in Iran, will it be the threat of the loss of our glorious outdoor beauty to oligarchs’ private property?”
But it didn’t have to be “our” foot. Elizabeth MacDonough put hers down first.
After all, whose land is it, anyway?
