Conservative’s plan to sell public lands faces MAGA pushback

Cameron Hanes is not a typical environmental advocate. An avid hunter and MAGA influencer, he recently boasted to his 1.7 million Instagram followers about killing a brown bear and turning its claw into a necklace.

But in recent weeks, Hanes has used his platform to denounce a plan by Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, to sell millions of acres of federal lands as part of President Donald Trump’s sprawling tax and spending bill.

The advocacy from Hanes — and several other conservative hunters and anglers — underscores a growing rift within the Republican Party over how to manage the nation’s public lands.

“I’m a Republican, and yes, I did vote for Trump,” Hanes said in a phone interview while hiking near his Oregon home. “But I didn’t vote for this. I didn’t vote for selling millions of acres of public land.”

Lee’s proposal would require the Bureau of Land Management to sell as much as 1.225 million acres of public property across the American West. Proponents have said the region has a severe shortage of affordable housing and that developers could build new homes on these tracts.

A previous version of Lee’s plan called for the BLM and the U.S. Forest Service to sell between 2.2 million and 3.3 million acres of public lands across 11 Western states. But the provision was stripped from the bill by the Senate’s parliamentarian, the nonpartisan official who enforces the chamber’s rules.

Jordan Roberts, a spokesperson for Lee, responded to questions by pointing to the senator’s social media statements.

“Hunter Nation: You spoke, and I’m listening,” Lee wrote on the social platform X. “I’ll be making changes in the coming days.” He added last week that only land within 5 miles of population centers would be eligible to be sold.

It’s not clear if the particular land where Lee’s opponents hunt and fish would be affected by the senator’s plan. But critics said they were broadly opposed to the idea of a sell-off.

Opponents include Rep. Ryan Zinke, R-Mont., who led the Interior Department during Trump’s first term. On Thursday, Zinke said he would vote against the bill if it included the provision.

“I agree with my colleagues that the federal government has mismanaged federal lands for decades. But I don’t agree with their solution,” he wrote on X. Zinke added in an interview with CNN that “affordable housing is tens of acres, not millions of acres.”

For some Democrats in Montana, a red state, Zinke and other conservative critics of land sales have become surprising allies.

“The loudest public, organized resistance is from a bunch of pretty right-wing, truck-driving, tattooed, gun-owning people,” said Ryan Busse, a Democrat and former gun industry executive who ran unsuccessfully for governor of Montana last year.

“Certainly in the West, the cultural influence of the hunting and shooting community is quite large,” Busse added. “And I’ve watched with hope and shock as these folks have been so vocal.”

Many outdoorsmen who oppose land sales — and they are mostly men — post frequently on social media about hunting bears, elk, moose, turkey and other game. They wear camouflage, eat diets heavy on red meat, and pose with massive fish and animal skulls.

And recently, they have been posting a lot about their desire to “keep public lands in public hands.” Many have also urged their followers to call lawmakers, with some sharing the phone number for Lee’s office.

Ryan Callaghan, the director of conservation for MeatEater, an outdoor lifestyle company, said that when the brand first posted in opposition to public land sales, it faced pushback from some conservatives. But the political winds have since shifted, he said.

“I’m seeing a shared love of public lands and a lot of willingness to push party politics aside for something this valuable,” Callaghan said.

Some right-wing critics of Lee’s plan have major MAGA bona fides. In 2020, for instance, Hanes spoke at a campaign rally for Trump alongside the president’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., who has recently gone on hunting trips in Hawaii and Italy.

In May, Hanes, who is also a long-distance runner, received an invitation to a White House event celebrating the “Make America Healthy Again” movement. He mingled at the gathering with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the Health and Human Services secretary.

Donald Trump Jr., for his part, sits on the board of Hunter Nation, the hunting advocacy group that helped persuade Lee to make changes to the land proposal. However, he has not commented publicly on Lee’s plan.

In 2020, during Trump’s first term, Donald Trump Jr. helped to block a key federal permit for the Pebble Mine, a proposed gold and copper mine in Southwest Alaska that could have damaged a critical breeding ground for salmon. It would be “helpful” if the president’s son spoke out again today, said Chris Wood, the CEO of Trout Unlimited, a conservation group.

“The more voices we have from people of all stripes — be they the president’s son or just rank-and-file hunters and anglers — the better,” Wood said.

A spokesperson for Donald Trump Jr. did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Lee’s revised plan still faces several obstacles.

The Senate parliamentarian has not yet ruled whether the proposal can be included in Trump’s domestic policy bill. And five House Republicans — including Zinke — said Thursday that the land sale was a “poison pill” that would cost their votes for the package. At least four Senate Republicans have also said they were opposed, although they have stopped short of threatening to derail the bill.

Whatever the outcome, the debate over Lee’s plan has shown the importance of seeking input from Westerners on public lands measures, said Randy Newberg, a host of two hunting podcasts called “Hunt Talk Radio” and “Elk Talk.”

Lawmakers in Washington “are getting advice from people who might consider a float or a day trip on the Potomac a pretty wild excursion,” Newberg said. “For Westerners, public lands are a key part of life.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.