Members of the U.S. Senate this month proposed a major sale of federal land as part of the “Big, Beautiful Bill” proposed by Republicans to fund the U.S. government.

If adopted, the proposed sale could be significant for Alaska, where the federal government owns and manages 61% of all land in the state.

Under language proposed by the U.S. Senate’s Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service would be required to sell between 2.2 million and 3.3 million acres of public land across 11 Western states, including Alaska.

The committee plan requires the Bureau of Land Management to sell between 0.5% and 0.75% of eligible land and for the Forest Service to sell 0.5% and 0.75% of its eligible land.

National parks and monuments would be off-limits to sale, but wide swaths of Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management land would still be available.

The proposed language states that the sold land “shall be used solely for the development of housing or to address associated community needs,” and that the Secretary of the Interior or the Secretary of Agriculture can determine whether the sold land is being used for an appropriate purpose.

The land-sale provision is being boosted by lawmakers who say it could alleviate high housing prices in Western states. Since 1998, for example, the BLM in Nevada has operated a successful land-sale program that has created thousands of homes in and around the Las Vegas area.

Staff for Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski said the land-sale language would allow a similar effort nationwide.

But environmental groups, including the Wilderness Society, are opposing the sale provisions.

For the moment, the Energy and Natural Resources Committee proposal is only a draft, but it’s one of a number of ideas with potentially major impacts in Alaska.

While the Senate’s proposed cuts to Medicaid and food stamps have been widely discussed, the energy and lands components of the bill may be just as significant.

It would affect policies related to oil development in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge and the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska, as well as other resource development, he said.

If the Energy and Natural Resources Committee’s text is adopted, the federal government would be required to hold four oil and gas lease sales in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, east of Prudhoe Bay, between 2025 and 2035.

The language of that section mirrors a section proposed by Murkowski in the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which resulted in two lease sales that drew minimal interest from bidders.

The federal government would also be required to hold six lease sales in Cook Inlet by 2035. Again, bidders have shown little interest in prior sales.

More significantly, the federal government would be required to hold six lease sales in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, to the west of Prudhoe Bay, by 2035. Development restrictions imposed by the administration of former President Biden would be lifted.

Oil companies have been interested in NPR-A development, with ConocoPhillips’ Willow Project being the largest recent effort in the area.

The committee’s proposal also would approve a right-of-way permit for the proposed Ambler Road, which would connect the Dalton Highway to a mining district in Northwest Alaska.

The Biden administration opposed the project.

The Ambler Road remains in litigation, with lawsuits by environmental groups opposing it, and lawsuits by the state and Alaska’s state-owned investment bank supporting it.

One section of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee concept would significantly increase the amount of logging required on federal land. The U.S. Forest Service would be required to significantly increase the amount of timber sold to loggers, and the Forest Service would be required to sign at least 40 long-term timber sales contracts involving national forests.

Those kinds of long-term sales contracts contributed to the establishment of Southeast Alaska’s pulp mills, which relied on harvests from the Tongass National Forest.

The land eligible for sale doesn’t include national parks, preserves, landmarks or land that’s already subject to a “valid existing right.”

For example, land already earmarked for transfer to an Alaska Native corporation, the state of Alaska, or the University of Alaska isn’t available for sale. Land that’s being leased for timber sales, mining or oil and gas drilling also isn’t available for sale.

In Alaska, the language requires that local Alaska Native tribes be consulted before a land sale, and it states that the sold land “shall be used solely for the development of housing or to address associated community needs.”

In Southeast Alaska, many communities have high home prices and are surrounded by Forest Service lands.

Municipal officials in Ketchikan have asked for the release of some federal land, particularly on nearby Gravina Island, for homebuilding.

In Juneau, city officials are looking for available land, but city manager Katie Koester expressed skepticism that Forest Service land is buildable. “That land is mostly mountains and ice fields … and if it were flat and easy to develop, it’s also far away from utilities,” she said.

“I just don’t see a lot of easily developable land that is owned by the federal government,” Koester said.

Ordinarily, a bill would need 60 votes in the Senate to bypass its filibuster rule. But Republicans are advancing the “Big, Beautiful Bill” under a complicated process called reconciliation.

If successful, the process means that a bill can pass with 51 votes, or 50 if it’s supported by the vice president’s tiebreaking vote.

Reconciliation starts when the Senate and House adopt a resolution that says how much they want to spend on the federal budget or change taxes.

Then, the Senate directs its various committees to come up with ways to make spending fit within that resolution, reconciling what the federal government is doing with what Congress planned.

Each Senate committee drafts a proposal for the federal departments that it oversees.

Once the Senate is done with its work, its version of the budget must be combined and compromised with a different version that has gone through a similar process in the House.

Once the House and Senate have agreed on the same version of the budget, it goes to the president for his signature.

The Alaska Beacon is an independent, donor-funded news organization. Alaskabeacon.com.