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For Immediate Release
May, 07 2025, 09:56am EDT
Contact:
Ian Brickey, ian.brickey@sierraclub.org
Public Lands Shouldn’t Have a Price Tag on Them
After an all-day markup,the House Committee on Natural Resources advanced its portion of the Republican reconciliation package in a vote in the dead of night.
Committee members moved forward the controversial reconciliation text, which includes greatly expanding extractive industry on public lands and waters across the United States. Among other provisions, the GOP package seeks to vastly increase on- and offshore drilling, along with fast tracking mining projects like the proposed Twin Metals mine in Minnesota’s Boundary Waters, one of the last remaining true wilderness areas in the country.
Committee members also approved an amendment from Rep. Mark Amodei (R-NV) that would begin the process of privatizing public lands in the West. The amendment calls for the sale of areas of public land in Nevada and Utah to private developers and industry. Notably, Clark County, Nevada’s most populous county, opposed the measure.
The amendment is notable, as some congressional Republicans have identified selling off public lands as one option to pay for extending Donald Trump’s tax cuts for billionaires. In a vote last month, a majority of senators rejected a measure that would have prevented the sell-off.
In response, Athan Manuel, director of Sierra Club’s Lands Protection Program, released the following statement:
“Public lands shouldn’t have a price tag on them. But Donald Trump and his allies in Congress are working like mad to hand over our public lands to billionaires and corporate polluters to drill, mine, and log with the bare minimum oversight or accountability. These lands belong to all Americans, they shouldn’t be given away to pad corporate bottom lines. Congressional Republicans have made it clear that this is their plan, and our public lands, our clean air and water, critical habitat, and our communities will be threatened by unchecked industrial development. The American people will not tolerate it.”
The Sierra Club is the most enduring and influential grassroots environmental organization in the United States. We amplify the power of our 3.8 million members and supporters to defend everyone's right to a healthy world.
(415) 977-5500LATEST NEWS
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With governments "scaling back their already meager" actions to tackle climate breakdown, said one ecologist, "our present-day human culture is on a suicide course."
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Less than six months away from the next United Nations summit for parties to the Paris climate agreement, scientists on Tuesday released a study showing that even meeting the deal's 1.5°C temperature target could lead to significant sea-level rise that drives seriously disruptive migration inland.
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In terms of timing, study lead author Chris Stokes, from the United Kingdom's Durham University, said in a statement that "rates of 1 centimeter per year are not out of the question within the lifetime of our young people."
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There are currently around 8.18 billion people on the planet. The study—funded by the United Kingdom's Natural Environment Research Council—says that "continued mass loss from ice sheets poses an existential threat to the world's coastal populations, with an estimated 1 billion people inhabiting land less than 10 meters above sea level and around 230 million living within 1 meter."
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Not really a surprise We are already committed to a 12m+ sea-level rise, sufficient to drown every coastal town and city on the planet The only question is how long will this take www.theguardian.com/environment/...
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— Prof Bill McGuire (@profbillmcguire.bsky.social) May 20, 2025 at 7:50 AM
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As the Milwaukee Journal Sentinelreported Tuesday:
At the time, Bryce ran on supporting "Medicare for All" legislation, raising the minimum wage to $15 per hour, and boosting unions. He remains a member of the Ironworkers Local 853 and in the years since his first campaign, he said, has served as a union representative, worked with Social Security Works, an advocacy group seeking to expand Social Security, and more recently has helped people with disabilities find work.
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Working-class Dem Randy Bryce Takes On Trump Ally Bryan Steil For Key Wisconsin House Seat. — Bryce is the union Ironworker whose 2018 challenge to Speaker Paul Ryan went viral and, ultimately, saw Ryan decide to quit. Bryce says he’s running in 2026 to save Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security.
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— John Nichols (@nicholsuprising.bsky.social) May 20, 2025 at 8:20 AM
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