Idaho’s two Republican senators, Mike Crapo and Jim Risch, are positioned on the ragged edge of one of the top issues in Washington right now: The potential sale of millions of acres of federal lands, nationally and in Idaho specifically.
This proposal, which seems to be at least congruent with decisions and ideas emerging from the Trump White House, is a serious effort. And it has special import in Idaho.
Back in April, John Robison of the Idaho Conservation League put it this way: “Public lands are not just lines on a map—they are the heart and soul of Idaho. They provide world-class recreation, vital wildlife habitat, and a way of life that defines who we are.” A lot of Idaho is federal land, well over half of it, and much of it is heavily used for logging, mining and much more as well as for recreation and for wilderness preservation.
Few people who have spent time traveling Idaho or experiencing its great outdoors could fail to get the point. But some people do.
In April a budget amendment intended to bar sale of federal lands as a means of budget balancing, reached the Senate floor. It failed on a 48-51 vote. Montana’s two Republican senators voted in favor. Idaho’s two senators, Crapo and Risch, voted against. The ICL said in response, “Our Senators’ failure to support this amendment essentially puts our public lands on the chopping block. By not standing up to protect our Public Lands, Risch and Crapo are opening the door for these lands to be sold to the highest bidder and for ‘No Trespassing’ signs to go up across Idaho.”
Since then, Utah Senator Mike Lee took the Senate up on its implicit message to propose requiring sales of at least two million acres of Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management lands in western states - and that would be a floor, not a ceiling. Reports have been circulating about prospective big money buyers from around the world interested in scooping up vast public acreage on the cheap, and shutting them off from Americans long accustomed to using them.
That proposal didn’t formally reach the budgeting process because it didn’t comply with Senate procedural rules. Lee has said he plans to offer an alternative proposal that would involve far less land sales, mainly limited to some BLM lands. But the issue remains: If a proposal comes down to sell off vast numbers of public acres to private buyers, who could shut off access to them or transform them, what will the Senate do? (Or the House either, though clear tests on the question have been fewer in that chamber.)
Crapo and Risch are key figures in this, since the Montana Republican seem to have staked out clear ground on mass lands sales, and the Idahoans’ votes then would be enough to stop it. On June 20, the Idaho senators did speak out on the subject, tersely.
Risch offered a statement saying, “After reviewing the Senate Energy and Natural Resources reconciliation language, I do not support the proposed provision to sell public lands.”
Crapo’s office said, “After a careful and thorough review of the legislative text in the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee reconciliation title, Senator Crapo does not support the proposed language to sell public lands.”
That appears to suggest that the senators have driven a stake through the heart of the land sale proposal.
Or does it? The statements were specific to one particular proposal before a committee at a particular time. Without contradicting themselves, Crapo and Risch could vote in favor of another land sale proposal. They have not to this point ruled in or out doing so. The pressure in both directions is doubtless considerable.
Idahoans right now really don’t know what they might do: What they would or would not accept. And their votes are pivotal on this subject that could transform the west.
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