Friends,   

Thanks to your support and vocal advocacy, we won an important victory this week: the House of Representatives decided against including the sale of hundreds of thousands of acres of public lands in Utah and Nevada in a budget bill.  

Every 15 years or so, this boneheaded notion of selling our public lands re-emerges. It requires continual attention and diligence to beat them back.   

To be certain, there is a time and place to sell or trade small parcels of public land for local economic development and other reasons. But that requires a transparent, open process and public involvement—not provisions snuck into an unrelated budget bill literally moments before midnight.  

Our collective efforts to push back on this were classic Trout Unlimited. Our grassroots sent thousands of messages to their members of Congress opposing the measure. National staff worked with Congressmen Zinke (R-Montana), Vasquez (D-New Mexico), Simpson (R-ID) and other members of the newly formed Public Lands Caucus to oppose the proposal.

They came through for us.  We also had good news about the proposed Ambler Road project in Alaska. A provision to green light that industrial road, which would cross 200 miles of remote hunting and fishing habitat in the Brooks Range, was pulled from the bill.  Public lands should always remain the backyard of the little guy.

Thanks to our collective efforts, they remain so today.

Chris Wood

President and CEO

Trout Unlimited