Facing overwhelming opposition from all Democrats and a growing number in his own party, Utah Republican Senator Mike Lee tonight withdrew his proposal to sell millions of acres of public land to help balance the federal budget. While calls for the removal of the land-sale language from the mega bill was nearly unanimous, Lee kept digging in, making revisions that increased the amount of land that could be sold and adding vague language that seemed to stray from what he said was his intention: to allow Western municipalities to buy surrounding federal land in order to grow and build affordable housing for their residents. But in the most recent iteration, released by Lee’s office last night in order to satisfy the Senate’s budgetary rules, the highest priority for would-be disposed BLM lands was their appraised value. That highly valued land would likely have been bought by amenity purchasers, not cash-strapped Western cities. Read the full story by aemckean at the link in profile �...