A plan to sell thousands of acres of federal land to help pay for President Donald Trump’s massive package of tax cuts will be returning in the Senate’s version of the bill, according to a key lawmaker. 

Senator Mike Lee, the chairman of the committee with jurisdiction of energy and public land, told reporters Wednesday that a version of the plan would be included in their portion of the budget bill the panel plans to make public, likely on Monday. 

House Republicans had initially sought to add the sales into their version of the bill, but the idea was thwarted amid opposition from lawmakers such as Montana Representative Ryan Zinke. The House’s proposal would have raised billions through the sale or transfer of nearly 450,000-acres of public land in scores of parcels in Utah and Nevada, but the politically charged idea has faced criticism, including from within Trump’s own party. 

Lee, a Republican from Utah, said Montana would be exempted from sales in his version of the legislation. While Lee didn’t specify which other states would be included, he did say it would involve Utah and other states “west of the 100th meridian.” The 100th meridian is a line that has historically separated America’s wet East from the dry West and runs through North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas.

The federal government owns 650 million acres of land, 90% of which is located in Western states, according to the House Western Caucus, a group of lawmakers who represent Western states. 

“Once land is taken by the federal government, it is often locked away forever from economic production,” the group said in a fact sheet. “Local governments in the West miss out on substantial tax revenues from potential energy extraction, mining, timber harvesting and other forms of economic development.”

However, the sale of public land has drawn vehement opposition from conservation groups and others.

“The American people love their public lands and want to see them protected, not sold off to the highest bidder,” said Aaron Weiss, deputy director of the Center for Western Priorities. “Once these lands are gone, they’re gone forever — that means no more hiking, no more biking, no more grazing, no more habitat for wildlife.”

Separately, the Senate’s environmental panel Wednesday released their portion of the budget bill that, similar to the House version, would delay by 10 years the collection of a fee on methane emissions from oil and gas producers and expedite federal environmental reviews of projects for a fee. The measure would also clawback a host of unused Inflation Reduction Act funding to help pay for the Republican megabill, similarly to what was passed by the House.

A Republican attempt to block states from enforcing new artificial intelligence rules over the next decade has drawn growing bipartisan objections, exposing tension in Washington over allowing for more unchecked AI development.

The proposal, buried on pages 278 and 279 in the sweeping tax bill passed by the House last month, has drawn sharp criticism from Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene and Senator Marsha Blackburn, as well as Democratic Senators Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren. More than 200 state lawmakers from both parties also urged Congress this week to scrap the measure.

“We have no idea what AI will be capable of in the next 10 years,” Greene wrote on X on Tuesday, noting she only discovered the provision after voting for the tax bill. She has pledged to oppose the package when it returns to the House if the AI language is not removed. “Giving it free rein and tying states’ hands is potentially dangerous.”

Markey and Warren have also been forceful in pushing back against the measure, arguing that it violates Senate rules that bill language included in the budget reconciliation process must relate to spending. “This backdoor AI moratorium is not serious. It’s not responsible. And it’s not acceptable,” Markey said. Meanwhile, Senate Commerce Chair Ted Cruz (R-Texas) has said he’s “not certain if that provision will survive,” though he has expressed support for it.

Since returning to the White House, President Donald Trump has taken steps to remove constraints on AI development, including by rescinding the Biden administration’s executive order on artificial intelligence and ushering a wave of AI deals in the Middle East. Late Wednesday, House Speaker Mike Johnson said he and Trump want the AI provision to remain in the tax bill, arguing it has “national security implications” to ensure the US can compete with geopolitical rival China in AI. 

But bipartisan resistance to the proposed moratorium on AI rules highlights a fierce divide in Washington over how much to let the industry regulate itself.

Congress has yet to pass a federal framework on AI, which has effectively left the states to take the lead on figuring out how to set rules around the technology. California, New York, Utah and dozens of others have introduced or enacted AI laws in recent years, including bills to address concerns about data privacy, copyright and bias raised by the technology.

If Congress backs away from the proposal, it would mark a setback for top AI developers. In March, OpenAI asked the White House to help shield AI companies from a possible onslaught of state AI rules. “This patchwork of regulations risks bogging down innovation and, in the case of AI, undermining America’s leadership position,” the company wrote in a set of policy recommendations submitted to the White House. However, OpenAI stopped short of asking to be exempted from all state regulations, just those concerning the safety risks of building more advanced models. 

So far, the leading AI companies have largely stayed quiet as the fight over the measure plays out. Meta Platforms Inc. declined to comment. Alphabet Inc.’s Google didn’t respond to a request for comment. OpenAI declined to comment beyond its previous policy suggestions. 

TechNet, a trade group representing Google, OpenAI and other tech companies, echoed the ChatGPT maker’s concerns about the “developing patchwork” of state AI bills. “In 2025, over 1000 AI bills have been introduced in state legislatures — many containing incompatible rules and requirements,” Linda Moore, chief executive officer of TechNet, said in a statement to Bloomberg News. “A consistent national approach is critical,” she added, to address AI risks and “ensure America remains the global leader in innovation for generations to come.”

Anthropic, a safety-focused AI startup that has called for more regulation generally, has also said it prefers federal policymakers to take the lead, but the company thinks that states should serve as a “backstop” given the slow pace of Congress enacting policies.

“Ten years is a long time,” Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said at the company’s developer conference on May 22, speaking about the moratorium. “It’s one thing to say, ‘We don’t have to grab the steering wheel now.’  It’s another thing to say, ‘We’re going to rip out the steering wheel and we can’t put it back in for 10 years.'”

Some Republican senators have raised doubts that the AI provision can pass through the reconciliation process, but this camp has also expressed support for an interim ban on state rules to avoid an overly fragmented and complex regulatory landscape.

“I wouldn’t put my money on anything right now until it actually passes,” John Curtis, a Republican senator from Utah, previously said of the AI proposal. But, he added, “We’re making a huge mistake if we have 50 different policies” on AI.

State legislators, however, worry that the provision would rob them of the ability to protect their constituents from the rapidly evolving technology.

“Over the next decade, AI will raise some of the most important public policy questions of our time,” state lawmakers from 49 states wrote in a letter to Congress this week. “It is critical that state policymakers maintain the ability to respond.”

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