Assault on Wyoming’s embattled public lands is just getting started

If you’re worried about the ongoing assault on our public lands by President Donald Trump and Congress, be prepared for a long, ugly fight. It’s only just begun.

Public land advocates scored an impressive victory in June, when their protests forced the removal of Utah Sen. Mike Lee’s provision to sell more than one million acres in the West to private interests from the obnoxiously named “One Big Beautiful Bill.” 

But MAGA-backed officials will stop at nothing until they can sell public lands that belong to all Americans to the highest bidders so corporations can build roads through pristine wilderness areas, allow the mineral industry to “drill, baby, drill,” and let the timber industry run wild in our national forests.

The good guys — the public, our environment and wildlife — won’t win until voters decide they’re fed up with elected officials who want to exploit public lands and vote them out of office. That’s a great goal but one that can’t be easily or speedily accomplished in a state as bright red as Wyoming.

These federal rules and actions that protect the environment are currently in jeopardy:

• U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins wants to rescind the U.S. Forest Service’s Roadless Rule that protects 59 million roadless acres considered vital to wildlife.

• The U.S. House passed a controversial resolution that states the Bureau of Land Management’s plan in Montana that restricted coal leasing has “no force or effect.” It’s now in the hands of the U.S. Senate.

• The BLM has opened public comment on a plan to roll back its Public Lands Rule that gave conservation an equal footing with industrial uses of property owned by all Americans.

• Interior Secretary Doug Burgum issued an order restricting use of the Land and Water Conservation Fund, which was created more than 60 years ago to buy and preserve recreation lands.

In June, hundreds of Wyomingites gathered in Cheyenne to tell the delegation how deeply opposed they are to public land sales in the state, but none of our federal lawmakers accepted invitations to attend. 

State Rep. Karlee Provenza, a Democrat from Laramie, one of the event’s organizers, saw an opportunity to call each official’s office and have the crowd leave a loud message of outrage about Lee’s provision.

I wanted my voice to be heard too, so I gave a full-throated yell to every scripted call-and-response direction from Provenza. It was a diverse, united and fired-up bipartisan crowd. I’ve covered a lot of protests in front of the Capitol, and joined a few when my days as a pawn in the corporate journalism world were over, and I’ve rarely seen one with this much energy.

Which is good, because it’s going to take enthusiastic work to preserve the sacred environment we have in Wyoming against the visions of greedy  extremists who want to privatize it. 

“Sacred” is the right word, because people use it to describe the joy nature holds when we want places to relax, recreate, regenerate our spirits, seek solitude and solace, and connect with this part of the Earth and all of its treasures.

People who want to protect public lands do it for their families, future generations and fellow Americans who are also co-owners of the public land we are lucky to live nearby. We all have a responsibility to care for wildlife by protecting their habitats and promoting conservation efforts.

The direct attacks on public lands, including Lee’s renewed attempt to win support for public land sales, are growing. Rep. Harriet Hageman, the most anti-environmental Wyoming congressperson in my lifetime, is gung-ho to keep up the fight to privatize public lands.

“We never, ever, ever talk about ever disposing of any federal lands under any circumstance whatsoever,” a frustrated Hageman said at a town hall meeting in Cody. “That absolutely makes no sense whatsoever in a growing country.”

When asked why Republicans are in such a rush to sell public lands, Hageman said it’s so the private sector can build more affordable housing. 

Of course, in the middle of nowhere with no infrastructure is obviously the perfect place to build houses the average person can afford. Just keep them far out of sight of the ultra-rich who will build second mega-mansions in Wyoming on their newly acquired former public land.

All four MAGA plans to weaken public lands protections must be defeated. “Unnecessary road development would ruin the value of these public lands for people and wildlife who appreciate them as they are,” long-time outfitter Meredith Taylor told WyoFile.

Amy Lindholm, a spokesperson for the Land and Water Conservation Fund, warned it’s not easy to understand what the changes the far-right is advocating will do. She said Burgum’s order curtailing the Land and Water Conservation Fund “may fly under the radar, but it could be as serious as selling off pieces of federal public land.”

Center for Western Priorities Deputy Director Aaron Weiss said in a statement that using the Congressional Review Act to throw out the BLM’s Montana plan for Powder River Basin coal risks unleashing “legal and regulatory chaos across the West.” 

If courts interpret the act broadly, Weiss added, management plans written in the past 30 years could potentially invalidate oil and gas leases, grazing permits, and threaten public access to trails and campgrounds.

I hope at least the BLM’s Public Lands Rule that says conservation must be considered on equal footing with other public land uses, including mining, will withstand the far right’s revocation efforts.

Alison Flint, senior legal director at The Wilderness Society, nailed how odious this move is: “The administration is saying that public lands should be managed primarily for the good of powerful drilling, mining and development interests, [but] public lands’ role in providing Americans the freedom to enjoy the outdoors, and conserve beloved places … is a second-class consideration.”

Americans have long cherished public lands, so the MAGA movement is outnumbered on this issue. Advocates need to spread the word about how close the West is to losing its public lands if we don’t fight. “Wyoming: Where public land is not for sale” should be the Equality State’s new battlecry. 

It could be a good tourist slogan, too. It shows what we value here.