Here’s which Colorado public lands could be sold under the latest Republican budget proposal

Over 14 million acres of U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management land in Colorado could be eligible for sale in Senate Republicans’ latest budget proposal, according to a new analysis from The Wilderness Society.

A different analysis from the Outdoor Alliance found that over 17 million acres could be sold in the state. 

Under the proposal from the Senate Energy & Natural Resources committee, the U.S. Department of the Interior and U.S. Department of Agriculture would be required to sell between 0.5% and 0.75% of the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management lands over the next five years in all Western states, except for Montana. 

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This would obligate the sale of between 1.2 million and 1.8 million acres of Bureau land, and between 811,000 and 1.2 million acres of Forest Service land. The federal agencies would be required to nominate tracks every 60 days until these targets are met. 

In Colorado, the Forest Service manages 16 million acres, and the Bureau manages 8.3 million acres.

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Republicans set up the proposal as a way to advance President Donald Trump’s housing and public lands agenda, trimming only “underused” federal public land as Committee Chairman Mike Lee, a Utah Republican, phrased it in a YouTube video. The committee estimates the sales would generate between $5 billion to $10 billion for the federal government between 2025 and 2034 and create “thousands of jobs.”  

Democrats and other critics have called it a ploy to benefit private interests and development without safeguards to ensure land is used for housing. Opponents warned of the significant detrimental impacts it could have on Western communities that rely on these lands for tourism, recreation, agriculture and more. 

At a call for reporters on Friday, Democratic Rep. Joe Neguse called it “a five-alarm fire for public lands preservation…for hunters here in Colorado, for fishermen, for conservationists, for recreationists and for every Coloradan who enjoys these lands and who is committed to preserving them for future generations.”

The bill stipulates that priority should be given to land nominated by states or local governments and to parcels near existing development areas and infrastructure, and that are suitable for housing. 

It exempts the sale of lands with certain protective designations, such as national monuments, national historic sites, national parks and more. The latest draft also precludes land with “valid existing rights,” namely parcels with oil and gas leases and mining claims. 

In its analysis, The Wilderness Society identified all Forest Service and Bureau land in the eligible states and removed any land protected by the rights and designations listed in the bill. In its map, the parcels designated as “eligible” are what remains. In Colorado, this included 9.38 million acres of Forest Service land and 4.96 million acres of Bureau land.

The highlighted parcels “cover a wide variety of recreation trails, wildlife habitat and other special places,” said Michael Carroll, director of The Wilderness Society’s Bureau program, in a statement.

The Outdoor Alliance reported that across all the eligible states, the sales could impact over 100,000 miles of trails, 8,232 climbing areas and 3,405 river miles. The advocacy group, representing outdoor recreation interests, released its analysis of the proposal, which marked over 10 million acres of Forest Service land and approximately 7.1 million acres of Bureau land in Colorado as eligible. 

In Colorado, this includes 2,067 climbing sites, 25,428 miles of trails and 328 river miles. 

Both analyses include significant recreation areas and swaths of land on the Western Slope, including on the public land surrounding Steamboat Springs, Vail, Aspen and Glenwood Springs; along with Winter Park and in Summit County. 

Both identify parcels with ski resorts on National Forest land — including Steamboat Resort, Vail Mountain, Copper Mountain Ski Resort, and more — as eligible.      

Peter Horgan, GIS advocacy manager with Outdoor Alliance, said the group’s interpretation of the bill is that “ski area permits would not constitute a valid existing right since the typical permit says that it conveys no property right and is itself subject to valid existing rights like mining claims.”

Over the weekend, Republicans reportedly introduced a new draft of the bill changing the language in a way that opened up even more public land for sale. The amended text notably removes prior language that specifically exempted lands with grazing leases, giving the appearance that these could be eligible for sale. 

This could have widespread implications in the West, including in Colorado, where the Bureau of Land Management authorizes livestock grazing on 7.8 million acres of its land with 2,400 grazing allotments used by 1,000 ranching operations. As of its latest report in 2021, the Forest Service authorized grazing for 571 permit holders on 703,787 animal unit months, where one unit equates to the amount of forage a 1,000-pound cow requires in a month. 

The changes in the draft nearly doubled the total acreage that would be eligible for sale in The Wilderness Society’s analysis. Across all eligible states, it increased its estimate from approximately 120.17 million acres to 258.67 million acres. In Colorado alone, the eligible land increased from around 3.8 million acres to 14.35 million acres under the current draft.

Outdoor Alliance’s analysis identified a total of approximately 294.64 million acres — 100 million from the Forest Service and 194.62 million from the Bureau — that were eligible across all the Western states. This analysis is based on the latest bill text, allowing for lands with grazing rights to be eligible.  

The update also tightened the language around land sales being used for housing. The initial proposal requires sales to be used to address local housing needs, “or any associated community needs,” which critics said was intentionally vague and left the door open for other interests. The draft replaces the community needs clause with “or any associated infrastructure to support local housing needs.”

Additional changes included the removal of language that required the land to be sold at fair market value and that allowed the government to enforce that the land be used for the planned use. 

In addition to the land sales, the Senate committee’s reconciliation package also proposes the repeal of unspent Green New Deal handouts, expansion of energy leasing, increases to timber production,  and more.

“The communities that love and rely on these public lands deserve a full accounting of what’s at stake and an acknowledgment that once these lands are sold off, they will never get them back,” Carroll said in a statement.