Over 18 million acres of Utah’s public land are eligible to be put up for sale under legislation proposed by Sen. Mike Lee.
The eligible land features trails, grazing areas and even some of the state’s most popular ski areas.
Lee, the chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, released an updated draft of the bill over the weekend that calls for the mandatory sale of Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service Land. If passed, the legislation would require 3 million acres of public land to be sold — chosen from a pool of 258 million acres across 11 Western states, including Utah — over the next five years.
The Utah land that could potentially be sold under the bill covers popular hiking trails, ski resorts and backcountry ski areas in the Wasatch Front — including in Big Cottonwood Canyon, Little Cottonwood Canyon, Mill Creek Canyon and Parleys Canyon— according to a map released by The Wilderness Society, a nonprofit land conservation group.
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