Mike Lee seeks to revive public lands sale — now without forests

• The parliamentarian blocked a more expansive draft this week after finding it violated rules limiting "extraneous" measures that can be added during budget reconciliation.

What's inside: A new draft of the measure, obtained Wednesday by Politico, makes good on Lee's promise Monday to remove national forests from lands eligible for sale. It focuses instead on lands under the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.

• It also reduces the percentage of BLM land that must be sold — 0.25% to 0.5%, rather than 0.5% to 0.75%.

The intrigue: The new version also limits sales to land within 5 miles of a "population center" — though it doesn't specify what density or census count qualifies as a population center.

Zoom in: Per an analysis by the Wilderness Society, the new plan exempts lands in most of Salt Lake County, whose Wasatch canyons are overwhelmingly managed by the U.S. Forest Service.

• It includes some popular destinations elsewhere in Utah, like the Mill Creek Canyon Wilderness Study Area near Moab.

Caveat: While national forests are exempt from Lee's plan, the Trump administration announced this week that it is rescinding the Clinton-era "Roadless Rule," which blocked road development on millions of acres of U.S. Forest Service lands.

• The administration claims opening more lands to logging would reduce wildfire risks.
• Conservationists say roads introduce wildfire risks to forests and eliminate wildlife habitat.