Five state agencies have filed formal protest letters with the Bureau of Land Management seeking broad changes in the administration of 3.6 million acres of public property in southwest Wyoming.
Publicized in a press release from Gov. Mark Gordon, the protest letters came from the Wyoming departments of Environmental Quality, Game and Fish and Agriculture, along with the Wyoming Oil and Gas Conservation Commission and Wyoming State Parks. The expected appeals echoed dissatisfaction voiced by the governor and Wyoming’s federal delegation with the BLM’s proposed Resource Management Plan for the Rock Springs Field Office, recently outlined in a final environmental impact statement.
The conservation-heavy draft of that plan, released in summer 2023, ignited a political firestorm in Wyoming. Fueled by misinformation and hysteria, displeasure in the draft plan was acute — federal employees were even subjected to “veiled threats.” The BLM released a final plan in August that sought more of a balance between landscape protection and the kinds of industrial development that southwestern Wyoming has depended on economically.
The protest letters from the five state agencies show that Wyoming officials believe the plan is still too protective of the environment at the expense of the economy and other interests.
The Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, for example, described the BLM’s planning document as “woefully inadequate.” State Oil and Gas Supervisor Tom Kropatsch, who signed the agency’s protest letter, charged that the BLM “wholly ignored” analysis related to carbon sequestration and violated legal standards for designating new “areas of critical environmental concern,” among many other grievances.
Kropatsch’s letter culminated in a request that the BLM “rescind” its final plan and start anew.
The current resource management plan for the Rock Springs Field Office dates to 1997. Its update has been 13 years in the making.
The Department of Environmental Quality, meanwhile, alleged that federal officials “blatantly ignored” its comments and “wholly disregarded DEQ’s primacy” over environmental regulation.
“The state of Wyoming, acting through WDEQ, has primacy over water (with the exception of drinking water), air, solid and hazardous waste, abandoned mine land reclamation, and coal mining within Wyoming,” DEQ officials wrote in a letter signed by Director Todd Parfitt. “Because Congress has not authorized the BLM to regulate the same matters, BLM must defer to Wyoming’s WDEQ on all primacy subjects and matters.”
Comparatively, the Wyoming State Parks’ protest letter was more decorous in tone. Chris Floyd, the agency’s deputy director, wrote “we recognize that the BLM did respond to and address many of our comments and recommendations.”
Still, State Parks voiced concerns that the final Rock Springs plan will negatively impact recreation, specifically limiting access for off-highway vehicles. The letter also took issue with the lack of non-motorized trails in the final plan.
Game and Fish’s protest included a grievance about the “excessive” acreage of areas of critical environmental concern. “Scientifically unwarranted blanket restrictions” in those areas, the agency’s letter contended, could “negatively impact sensitive wildlife populations” in areas outside of designated ACECs.
New Game and Fish Director Angi Bruce, who signed off on the letter, specifically took issue with the expansion of the Steamboat ACEC and creation of the Upper Wind River ACEC, which would effectively impose a high level of protection on “substantial portions” of the Sublette Mule Deer Migration Corridor.
“The protections afforded by [Wyoming’s migration policy] are sufficient for ensuring maintained functionality of this migration corridor,” Bruce wrote.
Agriculture Department Director Doug Miyamoto’s protest letter pushes back on some of BLM’s plans for expanding and creating new livestock grazing exclosures. Grazing is now permitted on 99.97% of the Rock Springs Field Office, but the final plan reduces the land available to cattle, sheep, horses and other livestock to 99.95%.
Wyoming state agency heads offered various changes for relief and suggested remedies in their respective protest letters.
Whether or not their requests will be granted is up to BLM officials at the agency’s Washington headquarters.
“The state office will assist headquarters, but that will be for them to … respond to [protests] accordingly,” said Micky Fisher, BLM-Wyoming’s lead public affairs specialist.
As of Wednesday afternoon, Fisher did not know the final number of protests BLM received in response to the proposed Resource Management Plan for the Rock Springs Field Office. Other parties, like nongovernmental organizations or individuals, also have the latitude to submit protests, which are a standard part of the National Environmental Policy Act process required when changes are proposed to federal land.
BLM officials expect to release a “protest resolution report” in about a month, Fisher said. Major changes to the final plan are still possible, he said.
“Anything within the whole range of alternatives remains on the table,” Fisher said.
WY is as WY does, has done and continues to do. Forward is backward and change is a dirty word.
The federal government is always the enemy and if you can’t mine it, drill for it, pipe it, burn it or in the case of wildlife protection only marginally mean what you say, then your not full throated Wyoming.
How many years and studies of the mule deer migration or the path of the pronghorn is necessary? How many wolves are a sustainable number?
Does it ever CHANGE?..Oops there is that dirty word!
Hang tough BLM. The governor could always open up his ranch for oil drilling if he needs to see more rigs and Wyoming.
I hope BLM shows they have a backbone! Very few changes are warranted.
“Grazing is now permitted on 99.97% of the Rock Springs Field Office, but the final plan reduces the land available to cattle, sheep, horses and other livestock to 99.95%!!!!!” Good heavens! A reduction of 0.02 percent! That’s 0.128 acres per section. BLM is clearly trying to kill Wyoming agriculture.
Come on, Wyoming state government. Grow up.
I’m amazed and so disappointed in this state and their attitude towards public lands. The Wyoming Game and Fish, in the past would fight long and hard for designations such as ACECs to provide protection for important wildlife habitats. Corporate enterprises are controlling the state, the governor and state agencies. It’s sad to see how far backwards we have traveled!
Agreed Dan. For some reason, the State of Wyoming thinks “identifying” migration routes will protect them. Political BS that started when the G&F director became part of the Governor’s Cabinet.
Even quirkier, State parks protests “limiting access for off-highway vehicles” while at the same time taking issue with the lack of non-motorized trails.
It’s all part of the Free Dumb movement to take control of public lands.
All the entities who have been given handouts over the last 50 years (oil & gas, agriculture, hunting guides; trona, uranium, etc) are all lining up against any use besides ones that promote their industry. This is offensive and does not offer any protections to an area of the USA that has given, given, and given more to the detriment of the land and wildlife native. It is way past time for some protections of individual species and the critical lands necessary for continued life in this arid desert. Magagna (Agriculture) and all the other industries should be told to take a hike and the Red Desert and surrounding lands adjacent to the Wind River corridor to the state border need serious protection and saving from starvation after the sheep and cows strip all the new vegetation, leaving none for the native species. Go BLM. Keep to your plan and even expand protections for horses and sage chickens, mulies and elk. BLM; stick to your guns.
Stick to your guns, BLM.
The State couldn’t kill this sensible and much needed rewrite of the regulations of public lands so now they are protesting. It’s my hope that the BLM sticks to its guns. My bet is that if the plan is eventually challenged in court, the State will lose.
I agree that would be a bad bet for the state, a waste of Wyoming dollars by suing. Corporations want any thing left in the whole country that they have not already depleted and ruined in the name of the almighty dollar. Hopefully, BLM will stick to their original plan.