October 3, 2025 – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

SUWA Statement on Senator Lee’s Border Lands Conservation Act – 10.3.25

Contacts:
Grant Stevens, Communications Director, Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA); (319) 427-0260; grant@suwa.org

Washington, DC – Yesterday, Senator Mike Lee (R-UT), chair of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, announced new legislation, the Border Lands Conservation Act (S. 2967), which would undermine the Wilderness Act and impact millions of acres of public lands along the northern and southern United States border. It also removes any and all ability for land management agencies to limit U.S. Border Patrol activities on public lands within 100 miles of the border. Below is a statement from SUWA Executive Director Scott Braden and additional information. 

“Senator Lee’s latest anti-public lands bill would undermine the Wilderness Act and existing wilderness areas along America’s northern and southern borders. It has little if anything to do with border security and environmental protection, and everything to do with destroying wilderness areas by blanketing them with new roads, walls, and infrastructure,” said Scott Braden, Executive Director at the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA). “We’re disappointed but not surprised that Senator Lee would try a cynical stunt like this under the guise of conservation. If Senator Lee were serious about protecting public lands along the border he would be pushing for increasing funding for chronically underfunded land management agencies” 

Additional information and the bill text can be found here. 

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The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA) is a nonprofit organization with members and supporters from around the country dedicated to protecting America’s redrock wilderness. From offices in Moab, Salt Lake City, and Washington, DC, our team of professionals defends the redrock, organizes support for America’s Red Rock Wilderness Act, and stewards this world-renowned landscape. Learn more at www.suwa.org.