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# Lee waves the white flag on public lands sale
- URL: https://utahpolitics.news/lee-waves-the-white-flag-on-public-lands-sale/
- Published: 2025-06-30T13:58:56.000Z
- Updated: 2025-07-09T15:51:26.000Z
- Author: Bryan Schott
- Tags: Morning Memo

## Monday, June 30, 2025

## ⏰ Tick Tock

Days to Utah's 2025 municipal primary elections (8/12/2025) - **43**  
Days until Election Day (11/4/2025) - **127**  
Days until the 2026 midterm elections (11/3/2026) - **491**  
Days until the 2028 presidential election (11/7/2028) - **1,226**

## 👀 Here's what you need to know for Monday morning:

### UTAH AND THE WEST

Podcast: Mike Lee runs into some roadblocks. \[[Utah Political Watch](https://utahpolitics.news/podcast-mike-lee-hits-some-roadblocks/)\]

Sen. Mike Lee pulled his plan to sell off millions of acres of public lands from the massive reconciliation bill. \[[Los Angeles Times](https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2025-06-29/senator-mike-lee-scraps-plan-to-sell-public-land-fierce-backlash?ref=utahpolitics.news)\]

Inside Utah's PR campaign to seize public lands. \[[Grist](https://grist.org/politics/inside-utahs-pr-campaign-to-seize-public-lands/?ref=utahpolitics.news)\]

How a Utah charter school company split a Wyoming town. \[[WyoFile](https://wyofile.com/how-a-wyoming-town-agreed-it-needed-a-charter-school-but-ended-up-fiercely-divided/?ref=utahpolitics.news)\]

Two firefighters dead, one hospitalized, after a sniper opened fire in Idaho. \[[Coeur d'Alene Post Falls Press](https://cdapress.com/news/2025/jun/29/breaking-news-shots-fired-in-response-to-canfield-fire/?ref=utahpolitics.news)\]

What the end of the "roadless rule" could mean for Utah's national forests. \[[Utah News Dispatch](https://utahnewsdispatch.com/2025/06/30/roadless-rule-impact-on-utah-national-forests/?ref=utahpolitics.news)\]

Here's how a BYU graduate's research is helping to optimize wildfire modeling. \[[Deseret News](https://www.deseret.com/utah/2025/06/29/byu-graduates-research-is-helping-to-optimize-wildfire-modeling/?ref=utahpolitics.news)\]

Utahns' ability to get a leg up decreased between two generations, with a big exception. Here's what has worked in that community. \[[Salt Lake Tribune](https://www.sltrib.com/news/2025/06/30/millennial-latino-utahns-have/?ref=utahpolitics.news)\]

### NATIONAL

The Senate is set to begin voting on its version of the massive reconciliation bill that will add an estimated $3.3 trillion or more to the deficit over 10 years. \[[New York Times](https://www.nytimes.com/live/2025/06/29/us/trump-news?ref=utahpolitics.news)\]

- The bill has $1.1 trillion in health care cuts and would result in nearly 12 million Americans losing health coverage. \[[New York Times](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/29/us/politics/trump-policy-bill-health-insurance-cuts.html?ref=utahpolitics.news)\]

House Republican leadership is discussing new ways to restrict the classified information available to all members of Congress. \[[CNN](https://edition.cnn.com/2025/06/29/politics/house-republicans-classified-information?ref=utahpolitics.news)\]

When she was governor of South Dakota, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem supplemented her income by secretly taking a cut of the money she raised for a nonprofit organization. \[[ProPublica](https://www.propublica.org/article/kristi-noem-political-donations-income-dark-money-dhs-ethics?ref=utahpolitics.news)\]

### INTERNATIONAL

Intercepted communications between senior Iranian officials reveal them were discussing how the U.S. military strikes on nuclear facilities were less devastating than expected. \[[Washington Post](https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2025/06/29/trump-iran-nuclear-damage-intercepted-call/?ref=utahpolitics.news)\]

The International Atomic Energy Agency says Iran's nuclear capabilities suffered "severe damage" from the U.S. airstrikes, but the country could restart operations in a matter of months. \[[CBS News](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/iran-nuclear-enrichment-iaea-rafaeal-marino-grossi-face-the-nation-interivew/?ref=utahpolitics.news)\]

### TECHNOLOGY

The Trump administration has built a searchable national citizenship database. \[[NPR](https://www.npr.org/2025/06/30/nx-s1-5450364/the-trump-administration-is-building-a-national-citizenship-system?ref=utahpolitics.news)\]

U.S. energy companies are pouring record sums into building power plants infrastructure to meet demand from data centers. \[[Financial Times](https://removepaywalls.com/https://www.ft.com/content/051f2361-de09-4744-814f-0de4b9b6c0d0?ref=utahpolitics.news)\]

President Donald Trump says he has found buyers for TikTok. He will disclose their identities "in about two weeks." \[[New York Times](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/29/us/politics/trump-tiktok-buyer.html?ref=utahpolitics.news)\]

### ENVIRONMENT

The numbers of gray whales migrating along the California coast continue to plummet. \[[Los Angeles Times](https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2025-06-25/feds-report-alarmingly-low-gray-whale-count?ref=utahpolitics.news)\]