One of the most alarming provisions of the Republicans’ Big Bad Bill is its proposed sale of Western public lands. Senator Mike Lee of Utah has proposed selling off 250 million acres of land held by the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management, with a mandatory sale of 2 to 3 million acres in the next five years.

At stake is a really wide swath of the Western United States. As a climate hawk, you know that public lands aren’t just pretty places. They’re biodiversity hot spots. They’re carbon sinks. They’re recreation opportunities, and thus revenue-generators for states and local governments.

Ostensibly, the sale of public lands is to promote housing. Climate hawks know that we do need more dense, infill housing in cities. What we don’t need are McMansions built high in the hills in flammable chaparral. And, because the language is less than ideal, there’s nothing to stop a corporation from buying public lands “for housing” and then leasing the mineral rights to fossil fuels, or even flipping the land outright for golf courses or worse.

The good news is that there’s been a really huge, bipartisan outcry over Senator Lee’s proposal. He’s trying to whittle it down to make it more acceptable, but it’s only adding to the general mess that is the Big Bad Bill. The Big Bad Bill is unacceptable, ever, and one of the many reasons is the proposed sale of public lands by an anti-public lands zealot. No public lands for sale. Not one acre.

Tell your Senator to vote NO on this bill.