Letter to the editor: Keep our public lands public and reject the sale bill

Dear Editor,

I would like to share some needed facts regarding the Energy and Natural Resources budget bill S. Res 70, which is sponsored by Senator Mike Lee from Utah, also known as the “Land Sale Bill.” This bill was introduced 2/11/2025, and the last edits that I found were from 6/14/2025. What that means is this is currently being reviewed by the committee. It is important to note, as well, that our Senator John Barrasso is on this committee. 

The very short of this bill that I would like to address is the proposed sale of “not less than 0.50 percent and not more than 0.75 percent of Bureau of Land Management land” and “not less than 0.50 percent and not more than 0.75 percent of National Forest System land.” According to the Wyoming County Profile from 2023, 17.4% of Big Horn County is Forest Service land and 57.5% is BLM land. This comprises 74.9% of our county that could potentially be up for sale to absolutely unknown buyers.   

From the comments I have heard and seen about this bill, the majority of concern has been about recreation and hunting. Please know that this is a valid concern, but I do not see it as the most important concern nor the one that we should be focusing on in order to get our lawmakers to hear us. We need to be focusing on what happens economically if that 75% becomes private land.

Much of that land is leased out by our ranchers to graze their cattle in the summer, and to the bentonite companies to mine. There are provisions in the bill stating that current leases will be honored, but those are time sensitive. Many of the cattle leases are 10 years, which means as those leases come up they could not be renewed as the ground could then be sold. I have reached out the Wyoming Stock Growers Association, and they are aware of and are opposing the bill with the language that is available currently. We run into the exact same problem with our bentonite leases. What happens to our communities financially if we lose our ranchers and/or the bentonite plants.

I have seen standard email replies from Senator Barrasso, Senator Lummis and Representative Hageman, all of which are making me less than confident that they are truly hearing what we have to say, nor are they looking to alternative solutions to the problems they are seeing as a country. 

Senator Barrasso said, “The proposal under discussion impacts less than one percent of our federal lands. It gives states and local governments a voice in the decisions.” I do understand that their intent is to potentially only sell 1%, but with such a large proportion of our state being federal lands, that means more of our land is potentially on the chopping block. As it reads now it is an open-ended sale, where we are told what the intentions are to be but where there are no actual guarantees that these will always be the intentions. This is why we need the laws to be exact in the language they choose to use -- specifically choosing parcels of land that fulfil the desired results, not just blanket percentages and unknowns. 

Senator Lummis explained why she feels the sales are justified: “Under the Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA), the agency may dispose of lands on a case-by-case basis and deemed in the public interest. FLPMA outlines the criteria for these land dispositions, allowing the sale of lands that are difficult and uneconomic for BLM or other agencies to manage, are no longer needed for the purpose it was acquired for, or would serve important public objectives such as establishing parks or schools.” Looking at the land around us, I cannot begin to see how it any of these reasons would fit. If this is the intent, then they should hand choose plots of land that would be suitable for these uses and not vague percentages with no specifics for the public to review. 

Representative Hageman states in her “WY It Matters” section of this email response: “There is a nationwide shortage of at least 4.5 million houses and a shortage of 7.1 million affordable and available homes. … The Senate Committee’s proposal … strikes a responsible balance to address local needs while protecting the beautiful landscapes. …” I personally live at the end of Road 18 outside of Lovell and have been fighting for over five years to get water from the highway down to my house with no luck. I am told it is not cost effective and not possible. If an existing home cannot gain access to such a basic utility, how in the world can we expect it to be cost-effective to build more homes on property that has no utilities. A quick google search says that there are currently 15 million vacant homes in the U.S., according to the Census Bureau.  Also, according to the Wyoming County Profile, we have 39,135 vacant housing units in Wyoming, and according to a Cowboy State Daily article written 07/2022 Wyoming has a total of 612 homeless individuals here, which at the time made us the second lowest homeless rate in the nation.

Why not focus on programs that could bring incentives to buying and/or fixing these up to use as low-income housing, rather than selling our precious public lands? I am assuming that cities across the country could find use for such programs, rather than making their problems now Wyoming’s responsibility to solve. 

As you reach out to Senators John Barrasso and Cynthia Lummis, as well as Representative Harriet Hageman, please be sure to let them know that this could very well mean the end of our communities as we know them with such blanket statements which are currently included. Financially, this could be detrimental to those of us who call this home, and the benefits that are said to be gained by this sacrifice would be largely outweighed by the costs. I have read that there are adjustments coming due to the pushback, so it is more important than ever that we keep pushing. This is not something we can quietly sit by and let happen. We need every single voice, because we are small in numbers but not in heart.

Make sure they hear each and every one of us very loudly that this is not OK now, nor any time in the future. We want our public lands to remain public.

Carmen Dickson

Lovell