JUNE 16, 2025: PUBLIC LAND SELL OFF IN SENATE TAX BILL
Senate Tax Bill Would Sell Off Public Lands Surrounding Searchlight, Avi Kwa Ame.
Up to 3.2 million acres of America's public lands are now included in the Senate tax bill to be sold off, including the potential sale of the land surrounding Searchlight and Nelson, NV, and a number of areas adjacent to Avi Kwa Ame National Monument. These lands, if sold at auction over the next 5 years, will be gone forever.
Here is a map of the 120 million acres of BLM and Forestry Service land that can be chosen for the sell off. If you zoom in on the map you can see how much of the Searchlight and Nelson area would be available to be sold in as few as 60 days after the bill passes, with no planned public input process. We the people don't get to pick and choose what is sold.
According to Bobby McEnaney, director of Land Conservation at NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council): “This is a fire sale of America’s public lands and waters. The Senate’s proposal includes the worst parts of the House bill, with expanded drilling, logging, and mining, but goes even further by mandating the sell-off of more than three million acres of public lands, an area larger than Connecticut...as currently proposed, Americans will soon lose permanent access to the public lands close to home, their favorite trails, their parks, and their favorite recreation areas. Once these lands are sold, and the no-trespassing signs go up, there will be no going back."
This sell-off had previously been included in the House tax bill, but was voted down, largely due to the work of Rep. Zinke (former Sec. of the Interior), representatives from Nevada and bipartisan cooperation from a number of western states. Now this addition to the bill is back with even more acres to be sold, and very few guardrails to make sure it is thoughtfully done. Here is a link to an article with more details in Yahoo!News.
“Don’t take the bait that this is about ‘affordable housing,’ as its proponent claims,” says David Willms, associate vice president for public lands with the National Wildlife Federation. “It isn’t.”
An attorney, Willms has parsed the bill’s language and concluded that, in both its wording and intention, it intends to remake the map of the Western United States by allowing the sale of public lands that could be used for nearly any purpose under an expansive “associated community needs” definition. He says that could include AI data centers, ski areas, golf courses, or consolidation of large ranches.
“The term ‘community’ isn’t defined,” notes Willms. “We know the administration has called for building data centers on public land. Maybe that’s considered a ‘community need’? It could be a business park. Or maybe a golf course. It’s public land sale under the guise of affordable housing but it’s really for economic development for any use. And land can be nominated for sale by state and local governments, but the bill also says land can be nominated for sale by ‘interested parties.’ That could include corporations, foreign governments, we just don’t know.”
We at Friends of Avi Kwa Ame are VERY concerned about how this bill would affect the monument and Searchlight, Nelson and the other rural communities in the area, and also tribal cultural lands (there is no tribal input included in this part of the bill), Nevada’s outdoor recreation economy, and the many locals and visitors who enjoy hiking, camping, bird-watching, OHVing, hunting, picnicking and many other activities on our local public lands. We are especially concerned that there is a mandate to sell-off public lands without involving the local public in the decision-making process. If you are also concerned, please join us in demanding that our representatives take this amendment out of the tax bill.
What can we do about this?
It is imperative that we communicate with our representatives immediately—it doesn’t matter what state you live in, it will help put pressure on them. Here is an easy site where you can send an email to your congresspersons, with a form letter about this topic that you can easily personalize.
Call and leave a message, send a postcard, and tag your representatives on social media posts to get attention for this issue. You can find all of the contact info for the representatives of Avi Kwa Ame National Monument and its surrounding communities on our website here. We recommend letting all of your representatives know how you feel about this issue, not just those in the Senate.
Get more informed and share information about this issue with friends and family, especially through phone calls and emails with personal messages. If you love public lands, now is the time to be willing to be an ambassador to help others understand the current threats to these lands across America. The more people who know about the potential loss to millions of acres of our public lands, the more community we can create around them, and the more we will have power together to save them from thoughtless and irreversable harm.