Winter Wildlands Alliance celebrated summer solstice with a board meeting at Bogus Basin ski area, just up the hill from our home base in Boise, ID and the site of our flagship SnowSchool site. In true Winter Wildlands Alliance style, we marked the official start of summer with cold temps and even a few snowflakes! 

Advocating to Protect Lands North of Yellowstone

I started out the month with a quick trip to Washington D.C. with colleagues from the Gallatin Forest Partnership to pitch our proposed Greater Yellowstone Conservation and Recreation Act to the Montana delegation. This bill will permanently protect 250,000 acres in the Madison and Gallatin mountain ranges, between Yellowstone National Park and Bozeman, MT, preserving the wildlife habitat, clean water, and recreation opportunities these lands provide.

Winter Wildlands Alliance has been deeply involved in the work to craft this legislation, and we hope to see it introduced in Congress in the near future.

While in D.C. I also met with Congressional offices to share our concerns about the severe staff reductions that have affected public land agencies this year as well as our strong opposition to any efforts to sell public lands.

Congress’s “Big Beautiful Bill” Is a Big Problem

My travel to D.C. came after the House voted on its version of the big budget bill but before the Senate had released its language. Unfortunately, the Senate’s version of this major spending package (the budget reconciliation bill, or “Big Beautiful Bill Act”) strips away protections and prioritizes extractive commercial uses on public lands. It radically weakens the National Environmental Policy Act by creating a “pay to play” system that lets corporations bypass public input; claws back critical funding for land management agencies and conservation projects; and forces a radical increase in resource extraction on public lands. Worst of all, the bill proposes to sell public lands in order to pay for tax cuts for the nation’s wealthiest individuals. 

Initially, Senator Mike Lee (R, UT) originally proposed selling up to 3 million acres of Forest Service and BLM lands in this Senate spending bill. When that provision was struck down by the Senate parliamentarian, Lee introduced a new sell-off proposal. This new proposal calls for the mandatory sale of 0.25-0.5% of BLM land (up to 1.2 million acres), focusing  on lands within five miles of a “population center.” This is still absolutely unacceptable.  

Thankfully, Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle and both sides of the Capitol are standing up against Lee’s land sale dreams. Today (6/27/25), five House Republicans declared they would vote against the bill if it includes public land sales when it returns to the House. Senator Daines (R, MT) said there are enough Senate votes to kill the land sales provision before the bill makes it out of the Senate

The bill isn’t final yet, and the Senate still plans to hold a vote before July 4. This is a crucial week to take action against this really bad bill.