by Angus M. Thuermer Jr., WyoFile
In a battle over taxes and access to Wyoming’s wide open spaces, U.S. Sens. John Barrasso and Cynthia Lummis voted against a measure that would have blocked the government from selling public land to help fund the federal budget.
Wyoming’s two Republican senators voted Friday evening against a budget amendment brought by Colorado’s Democratic Sen. John Hickenlooper that would “prevent[…] the use of proceeds from public land sales to reduce the Federal deficit.”
Democrats and conservationists have decried the GOP’s openness to sell federal land to fund the budget, saying such a divestiture of beloved public assets would be used to offset tax cuts for the wealthy.
“Republicans are saying that they need to sell off your public lands to solve the housing crisis,” said Sen. Martin Heinrich, a New Mexico Democrat who co-sponsored the failed budget amendment. “But we already have laws that allow for targeted land transfers for things like housing,” he said in an Instagram post.
“I think it’s a signal to Wyoming [that Barrasso and Lummis] are OK with selling off public lands for the benefit of America’s wealthiest people.”
Instead, Heinrich said, selling public land under budget reconciliation “means their goal isn’t housing — it’s selling your public land to pay for a tax cut for people like Elon Musk.”
Wyoming public land users should take note of their senators’ votes, said Jordan Schreiber, an Equality State native and director of government relations with The Wilderness Society.
“I think it’s a signal to Wyoming [that Barrasso and Lummis] are OK with selling off public lands for the benefit of America’s wealthiest people,” she said.
The Wyoming Outdoor Council also criticized the Wyoming senators, saying their “disappointing” votes “leave our public lands vulnerable in this budget reconciliation process.”
Their vote “completely ignores the vast benefits that our public lands in Wyoming provide for rural communities and our quality of life,” Alec Underwood, Outdoor Council program director, said in a statement.
Neither Lummis nor Barrasso responded to a request for comment Monday.
False hype?
Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah called the anti-sales budget amendment “false hype” that would only restrict use of land-sales funds. “It doesn’t stop land sales,” he said, promoting the effort.
Opposition to federal land sales “restricts our ability to do anything, everything, develop, plan, build houses, which we desperately need, even to fund our schools, our search-and-rescue, our police services,” Lee said. “This is disgraceful,” he said of the amendment just before it failed Friday.
While Republicans say sales will resolve affordable housing problems in expensive real estate markets near national parks and other desirable locations, Democrats and conservationists see the move as more insidious.
That’s because Republicans have put federal land sales on a menu of items Congress could use to pay for the budget, according to a document obtained by Politico. The menu catalogues as a “savings” any action that “increases sale of federal land.” The value of such sales to the budget is “to be determined,” the document states.
“This vote [on the amendment] is a wake-up call and part of a concerning, larger campaign being waged against public lands at every level of government,” said Wilderness Society President Tracy Stone-Manning, who served as director of the Bureau of Land Management under President Joe Biden. In a statement, she ticked off other anti-conservation actions by the Trump administration, “including mass firings of land managers and executive orders that demand more drilling and mining.
“It appears,” she said, “their ultimate goal is to destroy our conservation heritage, totally contrary to what Americans actually value.”
That conservation heritage underpins Wyoming’s outdoor recreation and tourism economies, both of which are centered around the Yellowstone ecosystem. Tourism is Wyoming’s second-largest industry and generated $4.8 billion in 2023, employing 33,000 people, according to a University of Wyoming study.
Wyoming residents and lawmakers have supported the industry and public lands in a number of ways. This year, the Legislature defeated a resolution calling on Congress to begin the process of turning over all federal land in the state, except Yellowstone, to Wyoming.
In 2024, Wyoming lawmakers also authorized the sale of the square-mile Kelly Parcel of state school trust land in Grand Teton National Park for conservation, not for development or affordable housing.
The state itself, through Gov. Mark Gordon and Attorney General Bridget Hill, also refused to back the grossest claims in a fast-track Utah petition to the Supreme Court that sought to give the Beehive State 18.5 million of federal land. Wyoming’s official filing tepidly supported Utah but stopped short of demanding federal property.
The Supreme Court rejected Utah’s effort, dismissing strong Utah backers like Wyoming’s lone U.S. Rep. Harriet Hageman and Wyoming Freedom Caucus members. Critics of Western states’ efforts to take over ownership of federal property say the states could never afford to manage the land and would end up selling it to private interests, destroying the public access to public lands enjoyed by all Americans.
Colorado’s Sen. Hickenlooper, who sponsored the anti-sale budget amendment that died Friday, said his measure would have “prevent[ed] this reckless fire sale of our campgrounds, our forests, our national treasures.”
This article was originally published by WyoFile and is republished here with permission. WyoFile is an independent nonprofit news organization focused on Wyoming people, places and policy.
