The following opinion piece is a community submission and doesn’t reflect the opinion of TRN Media, which encompasses SweetwaterNOW and The Radio Network.
Submitted by Trent Williams
In a state where more than 70 percent of its residents vote toward the “Right” side of the political spectrum, it’s uncomfortable when we have to fight AGAINST those we voted for. We have an inherit bias that we want to be the ones that are correct. We are more apt to believe them and let things slide when they are the ones that we voted for and trusted to represent us. We don’t question their reasonings, we just go with it because we believe they are aligned with us. However, there are times when we have to break from that political bias and remind these folks that we will not stand for their proposals. I believe it really holds a lot more weight when the constituents that voted for them give them pushback, then those that didn’t. It lets them know that just because this is a mostly Republican state, it doesn’t mean they can get away with whatever they want, for their own selfish reasons.
If you haven’t a clue what I’m talking about, it’s about the Senate’s portion of the “Budget Reconciliation” packed into the President Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill.” This specific proposal was brought forth by Senator Mike Lee of Utah, a repeat offender of HATING federally managed public lands. A similar proposal was brought forth and quickly shot down when the House of Representatives had their voting session.
As sportsmen and recreationalists of this great state and, around the West, fight back in this most recent round of public land grab, it’s important to get one very important thing straight. That being that the federal government doesn’t own any land. You own it, I own it, and every other American citizen owns it. It is simply managed by different agencies within the federal government.
Without getting too far in the weeds, the proposal on the table RIGHT NOW is to make it MANDATORY to sell between 2.2 and 3 million acres of federally managed land. Again, that is make it MANDATORY to sell multiple MILLION acres of YOUR public land. That’s the simple version. It’s currently under the guise of “affordable housing”. The Republican Senate has argued that it’s “only” between .5 and .75% of your public lands. They have used examples like Las Vegas needing more land to expand, and even workers in Yellowstone National Park and Jackson to have a place to live affordably.
If you think, for one second, that federal land right outside Yellowstone National Park will be sold to someone to put up affordable housing for workers and not multi-million-dollar condos and vacation rentals, you’re kidding yourself.
If you think, for one second, that federal land right outside Yellowstone National Park will be sold to someone to put up affordable housing for workers and not multi-million-dollar condos and vacation rentals, you’re kidding yourself. I’m under the impression that even though they have used the verbiage “affordable housing,” there is no language in the bill that says that has to happen. To think that the federal land outside Las Vegas doesn’t matter, I’m here to hopefully remind you that it does. How important would it be to you to find a place to recreate and escape the city? Judging by the amount of trailheads, hiking trails, riding trails, campgrounds, and other opportunities I see on the map within a short drive of that metropolis, it appears to be a very valued part of that area. Is there a reason we should sell our country’s assets and get rid of that, all to trust that the federal government will build “affordable housing” in its place? The land “right outside town” are valuable to all of us, whether that is Las Vegas or right here at home with lands outside Green River and Rock Springs. I think we can all think of places right across that city limit sign, that we think are important and are worth protecting. The short drives to open spaces is a lot of the benefit to living in this area.
The point has also been brought up that this would be an important piece in helping to repay the country’s debt. Sen. Lee’s Committee stated that these lands would generate between $5 billion and $10 billion over the next 10 years. Our country’s debt is nearing $37 trillion at the time of writing this. Selling .75% of our public lands would result in paying off .03% of our debt, on the high side. Not 1%, not .1% but .03%. I virtual drop in the bucket to the crisis our country faces. Selling our country’s greatest assets for a .03% uptick in debt does not make any sense to me.
The final point I want to make, is that the Republican side of the aisle, has made it crystal clear in what the end goal is and was for these federally managed lands the entire time. It makes a lot of people really mad that they can’t buy all that beautiful land and that it’s available to all of us! Previously, I didn’t have an argument when someone mentioned that Wyoming could manage its land better. Maybe it could. Maybe it couldn’t. I’m not smart enough to know that specifically, I just know that the funds needed for wildfire management, timber management and other things are a large chunk of change. A large chunk of change that I didn’t and don’t believe we have. Within the last handful of decades, the federal government hasn’t done a great job of managing it either, but that means we need to put a lot more pressure on congress to do a better job of this and not to simply sell it off because they aren’t willing to get it right.
I had also been told that no Wyoming politicians would ever sell the land. I had been told that we all love it equally and that they wouldn’t betray us like that. This Budget Reconciliation process has proven, concretely, that this is not the case. The end goal is to sell it off and privatize America’s West, the last home of truly wild places.
To those that say “I really don’t care if they sell .75% of public lands. It’s a meager proposal in the grand scheme of things and it doesn’t bother me.” I want to express mine and other’s apprehensiveness in setting precedent for something such as this. Currently, these federally managed lands are very difficult to sell and generally can only be exchanged with land of equal or greater value. If this goes through in this budget reconcilliation process, we have opened the door for a fast track of public land sales in the future. Sure it’s less than a percent now, but it could be 5% a few years down the road and 10% after that. Where will it end and when you will start to care?
I urge you to contact our Senators and other Representatives by any means possible and let them know that Federal land sales are a stab in the back to you, us, and our Wyoming way of life. I, for one, have vowed to never again vote for someone who is willing to sell and dispose of our public lands and I hope you will too. Let them know that you, simply, will not stand for this!
