Effort to safeguard public lands sparks battle in Wyoming

A Biden administration proposal to safeguard swaths of public land from future mineral and fossil fuel extraction has set off a battle in southwestern Wyoming. 

“We’re out there, hiking, running our dogs, working on these lands every day,” Julia Stuble, Wyoming senior manager for The Wilderness Society, told The Hill. 

“But they’re not our lands — they’re our lands that are held in trust for all,” she said. 

Conflict began brewing over those areas in August, however, when the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) proposed revisions to the ways it administers this 3.6-million-acre swath of federal property. 

The BLM offered up a 1,350-page behemoth — a draft “Resource Management Plan” and environmental impact statement — detailing four conservation and development options for the Rock Springs Field Office in southwest Wyoming. 

What surprised activists, politicians and industry executives — in some cases for better, and in some cases for worse — was the “preferred alternative” promoted by the BLM in the two-volume document. 

This pro-conservation choice, known as Alternative B, would preserve the most land relative to the other options, while restraining activities like mining and extraction.

If Alternative B were to move forward as written, it would bar new fossil fuel or mineral extraction leases on nearly half of the land within the Rock Springs Field Office area. 

As Stuble sees it, Wyomingites will face one of two fates as the BLM solidifies its plans: the first, remaining a state in which “public lands continue to produce fossil fuels, and thus contribute to the climate crisis.” 

“Or we can have those lands be solutions to that climate crisis,” she said. 

Opponents decry ‘federal overreach,’ impact on jobs

Wyoming has long been a national bastion of fossil fuel development and resource extraction — providing a hefty supply of coal, oil, gas and the critical mineral trona.  

The biggest coal-generating state since 1986, Wyoming was responsible for about two-fifths of all coal mined in the U.S. in 2022, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported. With regards to fluid fossil fuels, the state is the eighth-largest crude oil producer nationwide and is the ninth-largest generator of natural gas in the nation. 

Wyoming also boasts the world’s largest deposit of trona — a resource it draws on to supply about 90 percent of the country’s soda ash, which is used to make glass, soap, cattle feed, paper, pool products, textiles, medicines and toothpaste, per the Wyoming Mining Association. 

Beyond the BLM’s preferred alternative, the Rock Springs Resource Management Plan contains three other potential courses of action: one that maintains the status quo, another that favors resource exploitation and a middle-ground compromise on conservation and development. 

But if the BLM does adopt its preferred alternative, the agency would classify 1.6 million acres of land — nearly six times today’s share — as Areas of Critical Environmental Concern, a strict conservation designation that generally includes all-out extraction bans. 

In total, restrictions on new oil and gas projects across Rock Springs would apply to about 2.19 million acres, representing a 305 percent jump from current conditions. The proposal would also prohibit new wind and solar energy projects, as well as “rights-of-way” corridors — for pipes, transmission lines and maintenance roads — on 2.48 million acres, or 481 percent more than those excluded today. Additionally, the preferred alternative would close 433 percent more land to new coal exploration in comparison to the status quo, while increasing the areas barred to hard-rocking mining claims by 258 percent.

Millions of acres would remain available for exploitation, however: 1.42 million would stay open for new oil and gas projects, and nearly 1 million for new wind and solar projects and rights-of-way corridors.

Grazing, meanwhile, would only face minimal effects: a 0.02 percent cut in accessible acreage.

In advocating for its favored option, the BLM touted the benefits to wildlife habitats and cultural resources. The agency also recognized, however, that “socioeconomic impacts would be the largest due to reduced mineral development.” 

Opponents of the BLM proposal, including state lawmakers and development companies, have decried this potential impact on both Wyoming’s economy and the resources it supplies the rest of the country.

“Trona in particular, that’s a fairly limited resource that we have domestically,” state Sen. Brian Boner (R), who opposes the BLM’s preferred alternative, told The Hill. 

“I’d hate to be more dependent on foreign nations for such an important resource, especially ones that may not share our values or security concerns,” Boner added. 

Reflecting on the BLM’s Resource Management Plan, Ryan McConnaughey, vice president of the Petroleum Association of Wyoming, said in an emailed statement that his organization “could live with any of the alternatives other than Alternative B.”

Citing the BLM’s analysis that this option could lead to 52-percent economic declines and a 73-percent reduction in oil and gas-related jobs, McConnaughey stressed that such development “is the backbone of Wyoming’s economy.” 

“Our stance is that the industry is constantly improving technologies and processes that both reduce the costs of production and lessen the impacts on the environment,” he stated.  

“The BLM should take those advancements into account at the application for permit to drill level rather than a carte blanche ban on development,” McConnaughey added.  

Boner echoed these sentiments, estimating about 3,000 jobs could be lost in a region with just more than 100,000 residents.  

The legislator co-chairs the Wyoming state Senate’s Select Federal Natural Resource Management Committee, which is sponsoring legislation that would empower local officials to disregard federal policies they believe don’t comply with federal law. 

The text of the bill, which is still under revision, would involve “directing the governor to cease cooperation with federal land management agencies when agencies pursue policies that harm Wyoming,” according to October committee minutes.

The legislation would also establish a full-time position within the governor’s office “to protect Wyoming’s state interests from federal government overreach,” per the minutes. 

Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon (R), too, is among the proposal’s opponents. At the end of September, he sent a letter to the BLM director, requesting the withdrawal of the draft resource management plan and decrying the agency’s preferred alternative as too restrictive. 

“As this draft stands it will lack Wyoming’s support, local community support, and will surely be challenged on rigor,” Gordon wrote. 

The governor pointed to the efforts that have been underway since 2010 to update the current Rock Springs management plan, noting the 12-year collaborative review process is “either falling on deaf ears or disingenuously being thrown by the wayside.” 

Gordon accused the BLM of pulling “a bait-and-switch” on Wyomingites and warned “existing and future partnerships are in jeopardy.”

The BLM extended the mandatory public comment period for the proposal a few weeks later — a gesture for which Gordon expressed his appreciation and that he cited as an opportunity for public engagement.  

For the BLM’s part, Wyoming state director Andrew Archuleta at the time issued a statement urging members of the public to participate in the process, noting such comment periods “make our work stronger.”

‘Open and free and wild and intact’

The selection of the pro-conservation option as the preferred alternative was shocking to environmental groups as well — although in their cases, it was largely a pleasant surprise. 

In Stuble’s mind, the preferred Alternative B is “remarkably protective of the values that we think that they should be prioritizing.”

She applauded the BLM for proposing “significant conservations” in two key landscapes — the Northern Red Desert and the Big Sandy Foothills — that are rich in habitats for wildlife such as sage grouse, migrating mule deer, migrating pronghorn and both wintering and residential elk. 

“These are places people go to recreate, to hunt and fish and camp, walk around, trail run,” Stuble said. “It’s a remarkable area. It’s open and free and wild and intact.”

As far as the potential economic impacts from slashing resource production are concerned, Stuble said certain areas that would face closures have “low to no potential for oil and gas to be found regardless.” 

She also stressed the plan would not affect existing leases, which include wells that are currently producing and those that have yet to be drilled. 

Stuble further pushed back on criticism regarding the proposal’s potential impact on employment.

The BLM’s analysis for how many jobs would be cut is based on a forecast made in 2011 and was correlated with what officials believed would be the number of wells drilled in the following decade, according to Stuble. 

But that number, she explained, was much higher than the actual quantity of wells that ended up materializing in recent years.

“One of the only benefits of having a plan take 10 years is you can actually check the work,” Stuble said. 

A vital link between conservation and hunting

Joining activist groups like the Wilderness Society in backing the conservation-focused alternative are a spectrum of groups ranging from avid hunters and recreators to members of local tribal communities. 

“I’m not sure why there’s so much opposition to what is being proposed,” Earl DeGroot, a retired management consultant and administrator of the Wyoming Sportsmen for Federal Lands group, told The Hill. 

“A lot of what is being proposed would be good for wildlife, and if it’s good for wildlife, it’s good for sportsmen,” he said. 

DeGroot voiced his support for the portion of the proposal that would grant 1.6 million acres of land the strictest conservation designation. He stressed that these restrictive classifications would enable the BLM to “evolve some wildlife specific management prescriptions,” such as protections for migration corridors and riparian areas. 

DeGroot acknowledged, however, that many people living in the area have dual concerns that revolve around their enjoyment of hunting and their livelihood from resource development.

“It’s kind of a battle between what’s good for me economically and what do I want in terms of hunting opportunities and conservation and aesthetics,” he said. 

Dan Stroud, a hunter and retired state biologist, echoed many of these sentiments, explaining that he is generally in favor of the BLM’s preferred alternative, but with some adjustments. 

“We need protection of some very important areas for wildlife and some of the other resources, whether they’re cultural or historic trails,” said Stroud, who was a wildlife habitat biologist with the Wyoming Game and Fish Department.

In Stroud’s mind, there are five or six areas within Rock Springs that warrant specific attention — particularly the Big Sandy Foothills region, also known as the “Golden Triangle.”

This region, he explained, is home to one of the longest mule deer corridors in the nation and has one of the densest sage grouse populations. 

“It’s really important from the standpoint of wildlife and their future that we pay attention to their needs,” Stroud said. 

For Jason Baldes, an Eastern Shoshone tribal member, the need for conservation protections in Rock Springs extends beyond wildlife to also include centuries of cultural history.

The U.S. government’s original treaty with the Eastern Shoshone tribe, he explained, contained the entirety of this high-desert area and included more than 44 million acres before the overlapping states were even established. 

The tribe’s cultural connections to the region include petroglyphs, pictographs, spiritual spots, burial grounds, campsites and relics of a vast trade network, according to Baldes. 

“We want to protect these places for future generations,” said Baldes, who manages the tribe’s buffalo herd and serves as executive director of the Wind River Tribal Buffalo Initiative.

“The exploitation and extractive industries and the commodification of land and resources is detrimental,” he said. “Preservation, leaving things as they are, is an important endeavor.”

Opportunities for compromise?

While it’s difficult to predict whether the various Rock Springs stakeholders will be able to find an agreeable balance, Stuble said the governor is assembling a task force to figure out if there is some common ground. 

“Time will tell in the next couple of weeks as that task force comes together, but there are shared values among people of different interests here in Wyoming,” she continued. 

As discussions continue to unfold, Boner expressed what he described as “procedural concerns” about the BLM’s surprise decision to back away from a compromise solution. 

“There was a middle-of-the-road option, which I may not agree with, but certainly wouldn’t be strongly opposed to either,” Boner said.  

Regarding the need to balance development and wildlife preservation, Boner stressed his belief that local stakeholders have been doing this successfully for years together. 

“The problem is if the federal government comes in and tries to do it their way, you’re going to lose a lot of the collaboration you need,” he said, noting this “checkerboard” region of Wyoming also includes private landowners. 

“Without their support, there’s nothing stopping them from disrupting those migration corridors, if they feel like the BLM is also threatening their livelihood,” Boner added. 

Micky Fisher, spokesperson for the Wyoming BLM, stressed in an emailed statement that “no decisions have been made at this juncture” as the process has only reached the public comment phase. Until a final environmental impact statement has been approved, he continued, the entire “range of alternatives and each component within remains on the table.” 

“We’ll compile and leverage all the substantive comments to make an informed final decision,” Fisher added.

With the public comment deadline of Jan. 17 rapidly approaching, Stuble expressed some optimism about the potential for compromise — and about the BLM’s openness to making adjustments to the plan. 

“You have folks who work in oil and gas field who are out hunting, or who are out driving around and enjoying wild spaces too,” Stuble said. 

“People who are out there recreating in wild spaces, who see themselves as conservationists, are relying on these fuels and these products for our daily life as well,” she added.

Baldes likewise said that while he is pleased with the BLM’s preferred alternative, he understands there will have to be some compromise. 

But he cautioned against making decisions based on commodifying resources and maximizing extraction.

“What I’ve grown up with is an understanding of finding common ground between Western science, Indigenous science,” Baldes said. 

“That’s often aligned around conservation values of wildlife corridors, migration and biodiversity, and those are more preferable in my perspective,” he added.