DENVER—The Senate Parliamentarian has ruled that the public land sell-off plan Utah Senator Mike Lee inserted into the budget reconciliation bill does not meet the criteria necessary to be included in the bill. The Parliamentarian also advised the removal of provisions permitting the Ambler mining road in Alaska and exempting oil and gas sales from full National Environmental Policy Act review, and other provisions in the proposed Senate Energy and Natural Resources bill text.
The parliamentarian ruled that these provisions don’t comply with the Byrd Rule, which prevents extraneous matters from being included in a reconciliation bill. Reconciliation bills are used to make changes to existing laws related to spending and revenue and can be passed with a simple majority (51 votes) in the Senate, rather than the 60 votes normally required to overcome a filibuster.
The “Byrd bath” process, which is overseen by the Senate Parliamentarian, ensures that only provisions directly related to the budget are included in the bill. Any provisions that do not have a budgetary effect or have a merely incidental effect on the budget are considered extraneous and are removed.
The Center for Western Priorities released the following statement from Executive Director Jennifer Rokala:
“This is a significant win for public lands. Thankfully, the Senate Parliamentarian has seen Senator Lee’s ridiculous attempt to sell off millions of acres of public lands for what it is—an ideological crusade against public lands, not a serious proposal to raise revenue for the federal government.
“This ruling is welcome and celebrated. Western voters have made it clear time and again that they want to protect public lands and they do not support selling America’s public lands to private developers. If Senator Lee or his anti-public lands allies try to bring it back in any form, they will discover the backlash is just as severe.”
The ruling came just before Lee announced changes to his sell-off provision. Lee’s post says he plans to remove all Forest Service land from the bill and reduce the amount of BLM land eligible for sale in the bill to land within five miles of “population centers,” but he did not provide text of his proposed changes.