Is Sen. Mike Lee pushing a sinister plan to sell our national parks and build “affordable housing” on them? Glenn Beck fact checks this claim and explains why Sen. Lee’s plan to sell 3 million acres of federal land is actually pro-freedom.
Transcript
Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors
GLENN: Now, let me give you a couple of things, from people I generally respect.
Chris Rufo, I really respect.
I'm totally against selling this land.
Nobody is going to build affordable housing deep in the Olympic Peninsula, which is one of the most beautiful places in the country.
I agree, it's in Washington State. It's on the coast. And it's a rain forest.
I want my kids hiking, fishing, and camping on those lands, not selling them off for some tax credit scam. This is a question I want to ask Mike Lee about.
That's really good. Matt Walsh chimes in, I'm very opposed to the plan. The biggest environmentalist in the country are and always have been, conservatives who like to hunt and fish.
We don't just call ourselves environmentalists, because the label has too much baggage.
And the practice always just means communist. Really, we are naturalists in the tradition of Teddy Roosevelt, and that's why most of us hate the idea of selling off federal lands to build affordable housing or whatever. I want to get to affordable housing here in a second.
Preserving nature is important. It's a shame we haven't -- that we've allowed conservation to become so left-wing coated. It never was historically.
No, and it still isn't.
You're right about one thing, Matt. We are the best conservatives. We actually live in these places. We use these places. We respect the animals. We respect the land. We know how the circle of life works. So I agree with you on that.
But affordable housing. Why do you say affordable housing or whatever?
Are you afraid those will be black people? I'm just playing devil's advocate? Are you just afraid of black people? You don't want any poor people in your neighborhood or your forest?
That's not what they mean by affordable housing.
And I know that's not what you mean either.
But what -- what we mean by affordable housing is, if you take a look at the percentage of land that is owned in some of these states. You can't live in a house, in some of these states, you know. Close to anything, for, you know, less than a million dollars. Because there's no land!
There's plenty of land all around.
Some of it. Let's just talk about Utah.
Some of it is like the surface of the moon!
But no. No. No.
Not going to hunt and fish on the surface of the moon. But we can't have you live anywhere.
I mean, you have to open up -- there is a balance between people and the planet. And I'm sorry. But when you're talked about one half of 1 percent, and we're not talking about Yellowstone.
You know, we're not. Benji Backer, the Daily Caller, he says, the United States is attempting to sell off three million acres of public land, that will be used for housing development through the addition of the spending bill.
This is a small provision to the big, beautiful bill that would put land in Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado. Idaho. New Mexico. Oregon. Utah. Washington, and Wyoming at risk.
Without so much as a full and fair debate by members of both sides of the political aisle.
You know, I talked -- I'll talk to him about this.
The irony is, the edition of this provision by Republican-led Senate goes entirely against conservation legacy of a conservation. President Trump made a promise to revive this legacy.
Yada. Yada. Yada.
More about Teddy Roosevelt.
Then let me give you this one from Lomez. Is Mike Lee part of a sinister plan to sell off federal land?
This plan to sell off public lands is a terrible proposal that doesn't make any sense under our present circumstances and would be a colossal political blunder. But I'll try to be fair to base Mike Lee.
And at least have him explain where this is all coming from.
Okay. I will have him do that in about 30 minutes.
Let me give you just my perspective on this.
I'm from the West. I love the west.
I don't hike myself.
I think there's about 80 percent of the people who say, I just love to hike. And they don't love to hike. They never go outside.
I'm at least willing to admit. I don't like to hike. But I love the land. I live in a canyon now. That I would love to just preserve this whole canyon in my lifetime. I'm not going to rule from the grave. But in my lifetime, to protect this, so it remains unspoiled. Because it is beautiful!
But we're talking about selling 3 million acres of federal land. And it's becoming dangerous.
And it's a giveaway. Or a threat to nature.
But can we just look at the perspective here?
The federal government owned 640 million acres. That is nearly 28 percent of all land in America!
How much land do we have?
Well, that's about the size of France.
And Germany. Poland.
And the United Kingdom, combined!
They own and hold pristine land, that is more than the size of those countries combined!
And most of that is west of the Mississippi. Where the federal control smothers the states.
Okay?
Shuts down opportunity. Turns local citizens into tenets of the federal estate.
You can't afford any house because you don't have any land!
And, you know, the states can't afford to take care of this land. You know why the states can't afford it?
Because you can't charge taxes on 70 percent of your land!
Anyway, on, meanwhile, the folks east of the Mississippi, like Kentucky, Georgia. Pennsylvania.
You don't even realize, you know, how little of the land, you actually control.
Or how easy it is for the same policies, to come for you.
And those policies are real.
Look, I'm not talking about -- I'm disturbed by Chris Rufo saying, that it is the Olympic forest.
I mean, you're not going to live in the rain forest. I would like to hear the case on that.
But we're not talking about selling Yellowstone or paving over Yosemite or anything like that.
We're talking about less than one half of one percent of federal land. Land that is remote.
Hard to access. Or mismanaged. I live in the middle of a national forest.
So I'm surrounded on all sides by a national forest, and then BLM land around that. And then me. You know who the worst neighbor I have is?
The federal government.
The BLM land is so badly mismanaged. They don't care what's happening.
Yeah. I'm going to call my neighbor, in Washington, DC, to have them fix something.
It's not going to happen.
If something is wrong with that land, me and my neighbors, we end up, you know, fixing the land.
We end up doing it. Because the federal government sucks at it.
Okay.
So here's one -- less than one half of 1 percent.
Why is it hard to access that land?
Well, let me give you a story. Yellowstone.
Do you know that the American bison, we call it the buffalo.
But it's the American bison.
There are no true American bison, in any place, other than Yellowstone.
Did you know that?
Here's almost an endangered species.
It's the only true American bison, is in Yellowstone.
Ranchers, I would love to raise real American bison.
And I would protect them.
I would love to have them roaming on my land.
But you can't!
You can't.
Real bison, you can't.
Why? Because the federal government won't allow any of them to be bred.
In fact, when Yellowstone has too many bison on their land, you know what the federal government does?
Kills them. And buries them with a bulldozer. Instead of saying, hey. We have too many.
We will thin the herd.
We will put them on a truck. Here's some ranchers that will help repopulate the United States with bison. No, no, no. You can't do that.
Why? It's the federal government. Stop asking questions. Do you know what they've done to our bald eagles.
I have pictures of piles of bald eagles.
That they'll never show you.
They'll never show you.
You can't have a bald eagle feather!
It's against the law, to have a feather, from a bald eagle!
If it's flying, and a feather falls off, you can't pick it up. Because they're that sacred.
But I have pictures of piles of bald eagles, dead, from the windmills.
And nobody says a thing.
Okay.
But we're talking about lands.
States can't afford to manage it.
Okay. But how can the federal government?
Now, this is really important.
The federal government is, what? $30 trillion in debt or are we 45 trillion now, I'm not sure?
Our entitlement programs, all straight infrastructure, crumbling.
And yet, we're still clinging to millions of acres of land, that the federal government can't maintain. Yeah, they can.
Because they can always print money.
We can't print money in the state, so we can't afford it.
Hear me out. The BLM Forest Service, Park Service, billions of dollars behind in maintenance, roads, trails, fire brakes.
Everything is falling apart..
So what's the real plan here?
Well, the Biden administration was the first one that was really open about it, pushing for what was called 30 by 30.
They want 30 percent of all US land and water, under conservation by 2030.
But the real goal is 5050.
50 percent of the land, and the water, in the government's control by 2050.
Half of the country locked up under federal or elite approved protection.
Now, you think that's not going to affect your ability to hunt, fish, graze, cattle. Harvest, timber, just live free. You won't be able to go on those. It won't be conservatives, who stop you from hunting and fishing.
It will be the same radical environmental ideologues, who see the land, as sacred, over people!
I mean, unless it's in your backyard. Your truck. Or your dear stand, you know, then I guess you can't touch that land.
Here's something that no one is talking about, and it goes to the 2030.
The Treasury right now, and they started under Obama, and they're still doing it now.
Sorry, under Biden.
And they're doing it now. The Treasury is talking about putting federal land on the national ballot sheet. What does that mean?
Well, it will make our balance sheet so much better.
Because it looks like we have so much more wealth, and we will be able to print more money.
Uh-huh. What happens, you know. You put something sacred like that, on your balance sheet, and the piggy bank runs dry.
And all of the banks are like, okay.
Well, you can't pay anymore.
What happens in a default?
What happens, if there's catastrophic failure. You don't get to go fish on that land. Because that land becomes Chinese.
You think our creditors, foreign and domestic, won't come knocking?
What happens when federal land is no longer a national treasure, but a financial asset, that can be seized or sold or controlled by giant banks or foreign countries.
That land that you thought, you would always have access to, for your kids, for your hunting lodge, for your way of life.
That is really important!
But it might not be yours at all. Because you had full faith in the credit of the United States of America.
So what is the alternative?
