We Beat the Public Land Sell-Off, but It Can Come Back

Opinion. I'm HuntBank's founder and I've hunted northern Utah since I was a kid. Sources are at the bottom.

In June 2025, hunters got a U.S. senator to pull a land sale plan before the first vote. That's rare.

What happened

Utah Sen. Mike Lee put a provision in the Senate budget bill that would've forced the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management to sell up to 3.3 million acres. It also made more than 250 million additional acres eligible for sale. After the backlash, he cut it back to BLM land only, up to 1.2 million acres, within five miles of a population center, to be developed for housing.

It didn't survive. Republican senators from Montana and Idaho said they opposed it, the Senate parliamentarian ruled it couldn't ride in the budget bill without 60 votes, and Lee pulled it right before the first vote. Devin O'Dea of Backcountry Hunters & Anglers called it the biggest threat he'd seen, with record public engagement.

The loophole is still open

Three things keep this alive.

• Lee has said he'll keep pursuing changes to federal land ownership.
• Utah asked the Supreme Court to hand it about 18.5 million acres, roughly 34 percent of the state. The Court declined in January 2025 without ruling on the merits, so Utah can try again in a lower court. The state's media campaign and legal fees reportedly cost taxpayers more than $1 million.
• On April 30, 2026, four Democratic senators introduced the Public Lands Integrity Act. It would let any senator strike a land sale from a budget bill, and keeping it in would take 60 votes. The release names no Republican cosponsors. Until something like it passes, a future budget bill can try this again. I haven't followed it past its introduction.

I'd like to see Republican names on that bill. Montana and Idaho Republicans already showed in 2025 that they listen to hunters.

Never sell any

Don't sell any of it. Once a parcel is sold it's gone, and no election gets it back.

The 2025 version argued against itself. As Field & Stream described it, most of the proceeds would've gone to the Treasury instead of back into conservation, and nothing in it kept private equity from buying the land. If the goal is housing, make that case in a housing bill, in public. Hunters and anglers across the West agreed a budget bill is the wrong place to get rid of public land.

Corner crossing

Four elk hunters crossed from one public parcel to another at a corner in Carbon County, Wyoming, without touching the private land between them. A jury acquitted them of criminal trespass. The landowner took it to civil court and lost every time. In March 2025 the 10th Circuit ruled that corner crossing is allowed in Wyoming, New Mexico, Utah, Colorado, Oklahoma and Kansas. The Supreme Court declined the landowner's appeal in October 2025.

Right now that right rests on one appeals-court ruling, so hunters have to keep defending it. A mapping analysis cited by Field & Stream says the ruling opens about 3.5 million acres of checkerboard public land inside the 10th Circuit, and more than 8 million acres sit outside it. A Wyoming bill to put the rule in state law died in March 2026. I want it in statute, in Wyoming and every state with checkerboard ground, so no hunter has to risk a trespass charge on a court ruling.

Hunt the land

Call your senator. It takes five minutes. I didn't find a new federal sale proposal moving right now, so check what's current first. But land that hunters use has a constituency, and land nobody uses is easy to call surplus.

So hunt it, and hunt it on a plan. That's what HuntBank is for. It takes your points and builds a year-by-year plan across Colorado, Wyoming and Utah, so you aren't guessing where to apply or letting draw years slip by. Put in every year, follow the plan, and spend your seasons in the field. Yes, that's a plug.

HuntBank doesn't show how much of a unit is public land yet, so check ownership with the state wildlife agency before you plan a trip around it. And take someone new with you.

The case against me

Housing costs are real, and the sale plan's backers pitched it as a way to put land near population centers toward housing. Lee said Senate rules kept him from adding protections against sales to foreign buyers, and gave that as part of his reason for pulling it. Utah argues states could manage this land better and the BLM shouldn't hold it indefinitely without a formal designation.

On corner crossing, the Wyoming Stock Growers Association says the federal ruling doesn't appear to cover state trust or county and municipal land. The Farm Bureau wants a stakeholder process with ranchers, public land users and law enforcement. The Wyoming sheriffs' association says corner-crossing complaints aren't a persistent problem. If they're rare, a clear law costs little.