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During a House Natural Resources Committee hearing on the committee’s reconciliation package, which includes $18.5 billion in savings, Rep. Celeste Maloy (UT-02) spoke in support of her amendment that would allow fair market values sales of targeted land in Washington County and Beaver County.

Maloy: Mr. Chairman, the underlying bill before this committee today generates revenue from numerous federal assets, from oil and gas sale leases for both onshore and offshore, to other federal fees to be paid, all of which will bring revenue to the Treasury for debt and deficit reduction. Naturally, it makes sense to also look at federal assets that can generate revenue from other non-mineral related federal lands, and we can do this without impacting any specially designated lands or other conservation related lands.

Not all federal lands have the same value. Some should not be available for disposal. We all agree on that. However, in both Democratic and Republican administrations, for decades, we've been disposing of appropriate lands in a manner that's consistent with what I propose to do here. This has taken place in the Biden, Trump, Obama, Bush and Clinton administrations. This provision identifies specific lands where we can generate revenue in locations that are appropriate, that will also generate a strong financial yield to the Treasury due to local growth and will do so while serving community public purposes by selling targeted parcels for fair market value to local government entities for infrastructure needs.

Washington County, home to the city of St. George in southwest Utah in my district, is one of the fastest growing counties in the country. The influx of new residents, many from out of state, has significantly driven up housing demand. The median property value rose by almost 12% in just 2023. Because this is a desert region, Washington County, is also proactively responding to the increasing pressures of water resources and water use. Many of the difficulties we face at a local level, or, of course, relate to the fact that the county is surrounded by federal land. Approximately 82% of the county is federally managed, mostly BLM. The high percentage of federal lands impacts the local government's ability to work on economic and transportation development, manage natural resources and fully take advantage of recreational activities. Due to these challenges, I've offered an amendment with my colleague that selects over 60 targeted regional parcels totaling a little over 10,000 acres to be conveyed to the Water District the city of St George and Washington County at fair market value. I could run through all the parcels. I don't know that anybody wants to take the time to do that today. They've got the information in front of them, but the net impact will be to reduce the federal debt and deficit through fair market value sales of targeted lands needed by local governments for infrastructure. And the impact will be to a third of a percentage of the federal land in the state. And with that, I yield back to my colleague from Nevada.