FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:  June 28, 2026  Contact:  media@backcountryhunters.org    Washington, D.C.—Today, Backcountry Hunters & Anglers, North America’s leading public lands advocacy group, is celebrating the announcement that Senator Mike Lee’s (R-UT) controversial public lands disposal provision has been formally withdrawn from the Senate’s budget reconciliation bill. This reversal follows a wave of national opposition—led by BHA members and supporters across all 50 states—who mobilized and ...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:  June 24, 2025  Contact:  media@backcountryhunters.org    MISSOULA, Mont.—Backcountry Hunters & Anglers strongly opposes the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s recent decision to roll back the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule—removing long-standing protections for 58.5 million acres of national forest lands across 39 states. For 24 years, the Roadless Rule has provided bedrock safeguards some of America’s most remote and ecologically valuable public lands from ...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:  June 23, 2025  CONTACT:  media@backcountryhunters.org    SALT LAKE CITY, Utah—Twenty-one Utah-based sportsmen’s organizations and over 50 Utah-based businesses in the hunting and fishing industries have signed on to a coalition letter opposing the sale of federal public lands included in the current version of the budget reconciliation bill. The letter, requesting that the sale of public lands be removed from the bill completely, was addressed to Utah Senators Mike ...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:  June 19, 2025  CONTACT:  media@backcountryhunters.org    MISSOULA, Mont.—Backcountry Hunters & Anglers (BHA) today released an interactive state-by-state ArcGIS Story Map pinpointing Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service parcels eligible for sale in the latest draft of the Senate budget reconciliation bill. But this is no ordinary map: as part of BHA’s ongoing United We Stand for Public Lands campaign, the tool pairs policy with personal stories—photos and ...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: June 12, 2025 Contact: media@backcountryhunters.org   MISSOULA, Mont. — Backcountry Hunters & Anglers (BHA) is celebrating a critical victory for the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW) and the greater Rainy River Watershed following breaking news from Capitol Hill. The U.S. House of Representatives has removed harmful provisions from its budget reconciliation bill—measures that would have directly undermined existing protections for one of America’s most ...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: June 11, 2025  Contact: media@backcountryhunters.org    MISSOULA, Mont. — Backcountry Hunters & Anglers (BHA) is rebuking a sweeping new proposal released by the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee that would force the sale of up to 3 million acres of public lands under the guise of a solution to the housing crisis. This proposal—led by committee chair Senator Mike Lee (R-UT)—would apply to public lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest ...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: May 21, 2025   Contact:  media@backcountryhunters.org   Public Lands Victory: BHA Applauds Removal of Public Land Sale Amendment from House Budget Reconciliation Bill  Grassroots pressure from hunters and anglers leads to withdrawal of controversial proposal from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which still includes provisions threatening iconic public lands and waters.    MISSOULA, Mont. — Backcountry Hunters & Anglers (BHA), North America’s leading public lands ...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:  May 19, 2025    Contact:  media@backcountryhunters.org   WASHINGTON, D.C. – Backcountry Hunters & Anglers (BHA), North America’s leading public lands advocacy group, is celebrating the reintroduction of the Gunnison Outdoor Resources Protection (GORP) Act in the U.S. Senate – and, for the first time, the introduction of a companion bill in the U.S. House of Representatives. Together, these bipartisan efforts would safeguard more than 700,000 acres of federal public ...

For Immediate Release:  May 12, 2025  Contact:  media@backcountryhunters.org   Amendment bypasses public input and conservation safeguards, triggering national call to action – public lands must NOT be part of the budget reconciliation process    MISSOULA, Mont. –Backcountry Hunters & Anglers, North America’s leading public lands advocacy group, is sounding the alarm and mobilizing its nationwide grassroots network in response to a last-minute amendment to the House budget reconciliation ...

For Immediate Release:  May 7, 2025  Contact:  media@backcountryhunters.org   MISSOULA, Mont. – Less than a week after expressing cautious optimism over the exclusion of public land sales in the House Republicans’ budget proposal, Backcountry Hunters & Anglers (BHA) is condemning a late-night maneuver that sidestepped stakeholder engagement and ignored conservation impacts. Just before midnight, members of the House Natural Resources Committee advanced an amendment authorizing the sale of ...