CONTRA COSTA COUNTY, CA (July 16, 2025) — America’s beautiful public lands are a critical part of the spectacular natural foundation that rests, lifts and sustains our country.

As part of a recent budget reconciliation bill, Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) tried to advance a proposal to sell about 3.3 million acres of public lands managed by the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management (BLM). His proposal included selling more than 200,000 acres of BLM land within Mount Diablo’s Diablo Range.

With news of this threat to our cherished public lands, Save Mount Diablo and many other organizations helped educate the public and trigger significant pushbacks against Lee’s proposal. For example, Save Mount Diablo supporters sent almost 17,000 letters to U.S. Congressmembers and their staffs as a result of our organization’s communications campaign asking Congress not to sell off our public lands in the Diablo Range and California.

Lee then tried to scale back his proposal in an effort to keep alive his misguided idea of selling off our public lands, but the public backlash and rare bipartisan outrage were too great. Thus, he had to withdraw his proposal.

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We thank everyone who stepped up to help stop Lee’s attempt to sell off our public lands. It was inspiring and reassuring to see Americans come together in a bipartisan way for the defense of our public lands that make our country great.

However, greedy, short-sighted and selfish politicians remain, so we must stay vigilant and be ready to defend our public lands.

As Republican President Theodore Roosevelt once said, “The nation behaves well if it treats the natural resources as assets which it must turn over to the next generation increased and not impaired in value.”

Save Mount Diablo is a nationally accredited, non-profit land trust founded in 1971. Our headquarters are in Walnut Creek. Thanks to our wonderful supporters, the organization successfully advances its land conservation mission to protect Mount Diablo and its Diablo Range by using land acquisition, advocacy, land stewardship and education efforts.

If you have not yet become a member of Save Mount Diablo, we respectfully invite you to join us so that we have the resources and support to remain vigilant and continue to successfully advance our land conservation mission for Mount Diablo and the mountain range it is a part of and sustained by, the Diablo Range.

Ted Clement is the executive director of Save Mount Diablo.