Senate Budget Update--Parliamentarian Rules Public Land Sales + Other Energy Provisions in Draft Violate Byrd Rule

The Trump draft budget bill moving in the Senate contains numerous anti-public land provisions that need to be removed to comply with Senate rules that skirt the 60-vote Senate threshold.

The Senate Parliamentarian issued yet another ruling on the draft Senate budget reconciliation package yesterday (June 23, 2025), ruling that numerous anti-public land and energy provisions in the legislation violate the Byrd Rule. Budget reconciliation rules allow the Senate to pass budgets under a simple majority (50% + 1) rather than the normal Senate 60-vote filibuster threshold for most legislation. To determine what is relevant and allowed under the specific budget rules, the Senate Parliamentarian issues an opinion assessing budget relevance to specific provisions within proposed legislation.

Public land and energy provisions in the Senate draft that the Parliamentarian says violate the Byrd Rule include:

• Mandatory sale of 3 million acres of public land.

• Limiting the Secretary of the Interior’s discretion to reduce fees for solar and wind projects on Bureau of Land Management land.

• Changing National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) rules to make offshore oil and gas drilling automatically compliant with federal law, nullifying environmental reviews for offshore projects.

The list also includes the unresolved issue of the draft Senate budget bill’s mandate to force controversial oil and gas lease sales in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska.

These Parliamentarian findings join the list of SNAP state matching funds, zeroing out the budget of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), and other provisions that will likely be removed from the Senate draft before it is put on the Senate floor for formal passage.

The current Senate Parliamentarian is Elizabeth MacDonough. She has served since 2012 under the leadership of both parties.

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