One last cry for public lands

Here we go again.

On June 13, 2025, Utah Senator Mike Lee proved once again that he really doesn’t care about the little man, the country folk, the outdoorsman, and he would rather line his – and his “friends'” pockets with more and more money.

He proposed an amendment to be added to Trump’s Big, Beautiful Bill that would allow the sale of 2.2 to 3.3 million acres of federal public land. The bill targets eleven western states, including Idaho, and when ARCGIS released the map of the lands available for sale in Northern Idaho, it is almost the whole county’s worth of protected lands including nearly all the Selkirks, The Purcells and the Cabinets.

I have provided a map of the land that is up for potential sale. (On a side note, the level-headed man with strong Christian convictions that is Mike Lee also got into hot water the same week for deliberately mocking the assassination of Former Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband Lee, which he has now deleted the tweets on.)

Now, I get why some of you reading this are grumbling to yourselves about the Federal government and how we need less of them around and how we, as a state, should have all the land. I will now try to explain that when it comes to federal control of public lands, it is a good thing that it is not all in the hands of the state.

The state of Idaho is broke, in a high amount of debt (projected to be ~$4.51 billion dollars during this year), and desperate. If we get state control of the previously federal lands, the state will make sure to sell it all off to try to counteract that debt. It isn’t hard to see that, and as I mentioned in my last piece about public lands (which you can find at 9b.news or on my website, www.jamesstandal.com), they will find the highest bidders to sell this land to.

Lee has stated that “We’re opening underused federal land to expand housing, support local development and get Washington, D.C. out of the way for communities that are just trying to grow … We’re talking about isolated parcels that are difficult to manage, that are better suited for housing and infrastructure. To our hunters, anglers and sportsmen, you will not lose access to the lands you love. Washington has proven time and again it can’t manage this land, this bill puts it in better hands.”

Now, on a personal note, I don’t necessarily believe him when he says this. No politician has ever lied, and no politician has ever withheld knowledge and ideas to the public once.

But let me explain a certain little Idaho law that will explain how the sale of public lands to the private owner can end up screwing everyone who enjoys going to the public lands as it has, sadly, happened in Idaho over the years and even to spots up here in Boundary county.

In the state of Idaho, private landowners are allowed legally to gate off roads accessing public lands if those roads run through their private property and they have not granted an easement of public right-of-way. Idaho Fish and Game has attempted to help with this issue with programs such as Access Yes! but ultimately it falls onto the private landowner having the last word.

I will provide a hypothetical now to explain this if you do not understand how scary of a situation this is (look at the map provided below while reading these next few sentences).

Say you want to have a nice day out on the waters of Brush Lake like a lot of us anglers and outdoors lovers do.

Someone has bought an acre of land that the road up to the lake falls on. They are in all legal rights to put up a locked gate on said road, and you either need to get permission from the landowner to take your vehicle through or maybe they will set up a system that charges $50 a head for a day access at what they now call the Brush Lake Outdoor Club.

This can all be legal when these federal public lands are sold off.

Or say that you are looking to fish your favorite one-mile strip of the Moyie, but your access has been gated off with a sign including a phone number under the new name of said strip of river, The Moyie River Fly Casting Association. You give the number a call, and they tell you what the membership price is.

I am not fearmongering or gaslighting here. This is what could happen to all the lands you love to fish, hunt, hike, and camp on.

We don’t want this to happen. We don’t want to have a system like in the United Kingdom where one would have to fork over a lot of money to fish a river to some syndicate or private club.

Let us discuss some of the potential reasons for this extreme push to sell off a huge portion of public lands in 11 states including Idaho.

Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance states that they believe the proposal is an attempt to help pay off the tax breaks for the wealthy, which is a good guess considering that is costing a lot of money in itself lately. It is also stated that it is an attempt to sell off our beautiful public lands for big trophy homes and gated communities, which is also a very plausible fear to have as it has happened already around here and around the west itself.

The bill itself sets up a deadly precedent that will pave the way for more public land sales in the future, which I reiterate is not a good thing, and I hope you can understand that the sales of small parcels of land can set up a gate to lock you out of even more public land than what is made private.

Another point to make here about how politicians such as Lee, Crapo, Risch and the others with this horrendous mind frame should not be entirely trusted is that Lee strategically left Montana out of this public land sales amendment.

Backcountry Hunters & Anglers CEO Patrick Berry has stated that it is a carefully crafted political ploy where “ It’s one of the most devious strategies you can employ … clearly his goal is to build the support he needs for this land grab without the Montana delegation standing in his way, since they’ve said explicitly that they won’t vote for any kind of public land sell-off liquidations in Montana whatsoever.”

While I am not a fan of a lot of what congressman Ryan Zinke has done in the past with federal lands while he was Secretary of the Interior from 2017 to 2019, he has proven to be a decent representative to his home state of Montana when it comes to shutting down plans of selling off public lands in that state. He has a backbone for the things he believes in, and I feel like a lot of the jelly-filled bodies in other western states could learn a thing or two from him in terms of wanting to keep public lands public.

He understands the potential threat of direct loss of public lands when sales like the ones proposed are looming over everyone who enjoys the outdoors being used as they should be rather than how a small group of people want them to be.

Bringing it back around to Idaho, let us look at what a few of our glorious representatives, Crapo and Risch, have said in the past about public lands.

For Crapo, he starts an article from 2009 that he wrote titled “Hunting and Fishing: An Idaho and American Heritage” with a quote from Teddy Roosevelt, which is ironic now that Crapo has spoken his mind about public lands in recent years.

But in this article, Crapo writes, “If you love wildlife, you should thank sportsmen first because they were first to advocate for wildlife…Thousands of Idahoans enjoy [hunting, fishing, and trapping] and look forward with anticipation and excitement to each season. Our state does a good job of managing all species in perpetuity as sustained and renewable natural resources…As a U.S. Senator and a hunter and fisherman, I applaud the work of sportsmen, landowners, and wildlife managers, and I will continue to work to protect our right to our hunting heritage.”

Well, I guess for one man in the government and a tax break, he is willing to give up his work towards protecting Idaho’s outdoor government.

With Risch, in a press release from 2019, he states “Hunting and shooting sports are woven into the fabric of Idaho’s history with generations of sportsmen and women passing down hunting traditions from father to son, mother to daughter. This is a legacy we must uphold and protect … This legislation will make important updates to the Pittman-Robertson Fund to ensure future generations can carry on this treasured pastime of hunting and recreational shooting while conserving wildlife for outdoorsmen and women to enjoy and experience.”

What happened to these views? What happened to conservatives, you know, wanting to conserve things such as our public lands and wildlife areas?

So, I hope to have informed at least some of you of the dangers that this new amendment to the Reconciliation bill can, and will, entail. What we all need to do is give our representatives a call before they vote on this bill. This needs to change so we can continue enjoying the public lands that we call home. This is our future at stake, and the vote is soon.

I have provided the numbers to our representatives below. If you care out about outdoors, please give them a call as soon as you can. Even better, hammer them with calls and make sure that they know how much you care about these issues. And if you feel like you do not care about this, or that it is not a big deal, please do your research. You might not be able to hunt or fish or hike or camp in your favorite spots in the near future. This is it, folks.

Tight lines out there, friends. May we never lose the wild waters to cast into.

Please call now:

Senator Mike Crapo: (208) 334-1776
Senator Jim Risch (208-342-7985)