Sens. Mike Lee and Mitt Romney don’t only oppose federal land protections in Utah. They’ve taken their fight to Wyoming.
On Wednesday, Lee and Romney announced that they’d joined Wyoming Sens. John Barrasso and Cynthia Lummis in condemning what they call an “outrageous” Bureau of Land Management proposal in Utah’s neighboring state. The four Republican senators sent a letter dated Oct. 12 to BLM Director Tracey Stone-Manning expressing their concerns.
In August, the BLM released its draft resource management plan for the Rock Springs Field Office, which covers 3.6 million acres in southwestern Wyoming.
The proposal designates 1.8 million acres as Areas of Critical Environmental Concern, which, according to the BLM, are “areas within the public lands where special management attention is required.” Lands with this designation are closed to oil and gas leasing, mining, motorized vehicle and grazing on a case-by-case basis, as delineated in the draft resource management plan.
It’s this designation, and the resulting curtailment of those activities, that Utah’s senators most strongly protest.
“Land in Utah — and throughout the American West — is best managed by communities and the people closest to it — not unelected, federal bureaucrats,” Sen. Romney said in an email to The Salt Lake Tribune. “The Bureau of Land Management’s Rock Springs Draft Resource Management Plan will have major repercussions for Utah’s ranchers in the Uintah Basin, who utilize the land for grazing, as well as many of Utah’s communities who rely on natural gas power coming from Wyoming.”
Romney pointed out that nearly two-thirds of land in Utah is owned by the federal government. The only state with a higher percentage of federal land is Nevada.
Lee’s office expressed similar concerns.
“The BLM’s unilateral decision to disregard local input and lock up 1.8 million acres threatens the livelihood of Utah ranchers who have depended on grazing allotments in this area for generations,” Billy Gribbin, Lee’s communications director, wrote in an email to The Tribune. “This plan will also hinder electric transmission and natural gas supplies that Utah depends on for its energy needs. It is a flagrant violation of the BLM’s multiple-use mandate and yet another example of the Biden Administration’s contempt for hardworking communities across the West.”
In May of this year, Sens. Lee and Romney wrote a letter opposing the Biden administration’s proposed “Public Lands Rule,” which stands to treat conservation as a use of public lands just like grazing, mining and recreation.
The senators’ opposition to the BLM’s Rock Springs Field Office draft resource management plan echoes many of their issues with Biden’s Public Lands Rule.
“It’s clear that anti-grazing and anti-development organizations would abuse this tool to attempt to halt ranching and block access to our nation’s abundant energy reserves located on public lands,” the letter from May read.
Sens. Barrasso, Lee, Lummis and Romney ask the BLM to revise its resource management plan for the Rock Springs Field Office, specifically the Areas of Critical Environmental Concern.
The letter argues that the BLM has used these designations to “restrict recreational demands, obliterate grazing rights, and hinder economic development in lower-income communities” without a standardized format.
The senators call for a new proposal that “takes into consideration stakeholders and local partners in Wyoming and Utah.”
And the BLM seems to be listening.
On Thursday, the BLM announced that it was extending the public comment period for the Rock Springs Field Office draft management plan until Jan. 17, 2024. Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon asked for the extension so that Wyoming residents and other stakeholders would have more time to give feedback.
“A lot of work happens between a draft plan and a final plan, and that work is best informed by people who roll up their sleeves to work together,” Stone-Manning said in a statement. “We are committed to doing that work to finalize the final plan.”
