SANTA FE, N.M. — A Republican-sponsored proposal before Congress to mandate the sale of federal public lands received a mixed reception Monday from the governors of Western states.

A budget proposal from Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee would mandate the sale of more than 2 million acres of federal lands to state or other entities. It was included recently in a draft provision of the GOP’s sweeping tax cut package.

At a summit Monday of Western state governors, New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said the approach is problematic in New Mexico because of the close relationship residents have with those public lands.

“Our public lands, we have a very strong relationship with the openness, and they belong to all of us,” said Lujan Grisham, who was announcing written recommendations Monday on affordable housing strategies from the Western Governors’ Association. “And selling that to the private sector without a process, without putting New Mexicans first, is, for at least for me as a governor, going to be problematic.”

Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon voiced qualified support for plans to tap federal land for development.

“On a piece-by-piece basis where states have the opportunity to craft policies that make sense ... we can actually allow for some responsible growth in areas with communities that are landlocked at this point,” he told a news conference outside the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in downtown Santa Fe. “There may be value there.”