Don't Mess With Taxes

Fall colors and reflection on a beaver pond in Lamoille Canyon, Ruby Mountains District, Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest, Nevada. (Forest Service photo by Susan Elliott)

The cost of the One Big Beautiful Bill working its way through Congress has been problematic from the start. That’s why Republican lawmakers who've written, and rewritten, the measure are continually looking for, shall we say, creative ways to come up with money for its many, many provisions. Or to finagle the calculations.

One proposal inserted in the bill would have required the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) to sell off between 0.5 percent and 0.75 percent of their land holdings in 11 Western states. Those locations, according to the land sale sponsor Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), are where affordable housing could be built.

Lee's original proposal would have affected 3,200 square miles of public lands. But he noted that only "underused" parcels would be considered for sale.

Esri, USGS | Sources: Esri; U.S. Department of Commerce; U.S. Census Bureau; Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives; National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; National Ocean Service; National Geodetic Survey; Bureau of land Management | Esri, TomTom, Garmin, FAO, NOAA, USGS, EPA

The map above shows the potential land sale areas in Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming. The gold areas are BLM lands Lee’s proposal would have made eligible for sale. The green areas are U.S. Forest Service lands that could have been affected.

Those 11 states where public lands are no longer threatened — at least not by Lee’s proposed sale of them — earn this weekend’s By the Numbers honor.

Land sale turns out to be a hard sell: Lee offered his proposal as a way to solve the growing problem of increasing housing prices. Lawmakers at all government levels and party affiliations agree that affordable housing is a serious problem for millions of Americans.

But federal public open spaces, especially in the western United States, are a much revered asset. So, it was not surprising that Lee’s public land sale suggestion immediately encountered opposition, including from some of his GOP colleagues.

Lee, chair of the Senate Energy Committee, argued on social media that his public land housing proposal was necessary because “housing prices are crushing families and keeping young Americans from living where they grew up. We need to change that.”

While opponents of the Lee plan acknowledged the serious housing shortage across the United States, they rejected the selling of public lands as a solution.

“One of the greatest gifts we’ve ever had in America is the public lands that have been passed down generation to generation,” said Sen. Tim Sheehy (R-Montana) in an interview Saturday, June 28, before the proposal was struck from the package.

Process prevails: The ultimate no, however, came from the Senate parliamentarian.

Even though Lee reconfigured his measure over the weekend in a last-ditch effort to keep it in the one big bill, the Senate parliamentarian, who interprets the chamber’s procedural rules, determined it didn’t pass muster under the Byrd Rule.

This rule prevents provisions extraneous to the federal budget from being part of a budget reconciliation bill, which is the process the GOP is using to pass the OBBB.

Yes, I know there are lots of other provisions with more direct tax ramifications. But the removal of the public lands proposal caught my eye for a few of reasons.

First, I am a big fan of federal (and state and municipal) property where all of us can share in the beauty of nature.

Second, it’s nice to see even a handful of federal lawmakers also share that sentiment.

And finally, circling back to rules like the one named after the late Sen. Robert Byrd (D-West Virginia), it’s encouraging to see one still being applied. This tiny tap on the brakes is about all that's left to winnow components of overblown bills that Congress has in recent years insisted on ramming through to enactment.

I vaguely remember a promise on Capitol Hill that members would return to regular order, with bills going before committees for real hearings with serious discussions of what is in them and how to make them better, instead of simply being rubber-stamped.

Maybe one day that will happen again. Maybe.

You also might find these items of interest:

• National parks’ substantial economic contributions
• Axing Energy Star could end consumer savings (and some state sales tax holidays)
• Green energy tax credits, including solar options, on the GOP tax bill chopping block

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