If you’ve followed Senator Mike Lee for more than 5 minutes, his latest stunt won’t surprise you. The man has built an entire career out of trying to dismantle America’s public lands.
Selling them off didn’t work. Handing them to states didn’t work. Gutting their funding didn’t work. So now, he’s getting creative.
His newest masterpiece is called the Border Lands Conservation Act. It sounds nice, which is always how bad ideas start. The bill would rewrite parts of the Wilderness Act to allow roads, surveillance towers, motorized vehicles — and just about anything else the Department of Homeland Security wants to build within 100 miles of our northern and southern borders. That includes national forests, wildlife refuges, and designated wilderness.In other words, if Mike Lee can bend “border security” into an excuse to bulldoze wilderness, consider his new personal theme song, Ice Ice Baby.
Security as a Scapegoat
Lee swears this is all about keeping cartels and illegal activity out of our protected areas. He says park rangers are too busy picking up trash to do their jobs. He says the Border Patrol’s hands are tied by environmental protections.
That’s nonsense. Homeland Security already has waiver authority to act when there’s a legitimate security threat. Agencies already cooperate across borders. Lee isn’t solving a problem. He’s manufacturing one to justify rewriting the most important conservation law in American history.
The Wilderness Act of 1964 was created to preserve lands “untrammeled by man.” Lee wants to trammel them with bulldozers, drones, and tactical infrastructure. It’s not about security. It’s about control.This isn’t Lee’s first rodeo. He’s been swinging at the idea of federal land management for years. He’s proposed everything from selling off millions of acres to “transferring” management to state governments, moves that conservationists, sportsmen, and rural residents alike have shot down time and again.When that didn’t work, he started dressing his attacks in softer language. He’s backed bills about “access,” “recreation,” and “multiple use.” Every one of them reads like an invitation for bulldozers and corporate developers. He’s a master at disguising land grabs as public service.
Now, with the border as his prop, he’s trying to sneak in what he’s wanted all along: a weakened Wilderness Act.