Big Beautiful Bill could threaten national forest land in Central California

Kate Nemarich Image
Saturday, June 21, 2025
Big Beautiful Bill could threaten national forest land in Central California
The president's Big Beautiful Bill could come with a big land sale.

FRESNO COUNTY Calif. (KFSN) -- The president's Big Beautiful Bill could come with a big land sale.

The bill was presented in the U.S. House with a provision that would have authorized the sale of public lands, but the item was removed after strong opposition from various groups and lawmakers.

But a provision was added back in by Senator Mike Lee, a Republican from Utah.

Lee chairs the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.

He said the sale of public federal land would promote economic growth and housing as well as generate billions of dollars for the federal government.

Opponents from Unite 4 Parks said they don't want to see that land lost for public use.

"Essentially, who would lose is hunters, ATV users, jeep users, bird watchers, hikers, runners," said Deanna Wulff, Unite4Parks. "I mean, all of us are going to lose if we lose access to this landscape that we're used to camping in and so forth. It's really hard once a landscape becomes private to bring it back into the public realm."

258 million acres across the Western U.S. could be up for bid, and 16 million acres are right here in California.

The land is managed by the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service and does not include national parks or monuments.

According to the bill, federal lands chosen to be sold must be nominated by local or state governments, and be adjacent to existing developed areas, among other requirements.

Any interested party could purchase the land.

It remains unclear where those acres would be sold, but a map published by the Wilderness Society, a nonprofit land conservation organization, reveals which parcels of land across 11 states would be up for grabs.

Of the more than 250 million acres, the bill allows for a total of 3 million acres to be sold, but Deanna Wulff said to be careful about using the word "only" and used an area, not all up for sale, as an example of how large that is.

"So if you took Yosemite, and the Sierra National Forest, and then the Sequoia/Kings Canyon range, which is just above Fresno, that whole stretch, that's 3 million acres," said Wulff. "That is huge!"

Wulff encourages people to call their federal elected officials and the White House, urging them to vote no on the bill.

U.S. Senator Adam Schiff said he intends to fight the bill "tooth and nail."

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