Wyoming Senate stalls fed land transfer bill for ‘management’ study

A Wyoming House bill demanding the transfer of vast tracts of federal lands to Wyoming could die after being assigned to a Senate committee that’s known as a graveyard for legislation. Assignment to its Journal Committee is the second indication from the Senate about how that body feels about joining an improbable Western movement to take over federal property. The Senate had rejected the “transfer” idea earlier in the 2015 legislative session when it amended its own transfer bill SF-56 — Study on management of public lands. Instead of demanding ownership of federal property, the Senate bill now would study Wyoming only managing federal lands, not owning them. The Senate’s management bill provides $100,000 for the research. Whoever undertakes that review might start with an existing example of failed state management of federal property, a Wyoming history professor said. The Senate’s bill would allocate $100,000 to the Office of State Lands and Investments for the study. Research would probe what it would cost and gain Wyoming to manage all but wilderness areas and lands administered by the National Park Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, departments of energy and defense and the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Of Wyoming’s roughly 98,000 square miles, more than 48 percent or some 30 million acres, is public land owned by the federal government. The BLM alone manages more than 17.5 million acres in Wyoming. The study would develop a plan to administer and manage federal property under a sustained-yield, multiple-use principle. Management would include “a pledge to maintain public access to the lands for hunting, fishing and recreation subject to closure for special circumstances including public safety and environmental sensitivity,” the bill says. An economic review would add up management costs and compare them to federal costs. Minerals — oil and gas and coal — would remain under federal ownership. The study would identify a source of revenue to manage the federal property “including appropriate fees to charge the federal government for management of the specified lands,” the bill says. The study also would compare what revenue state and local governments get from federal property today, compared to what they might get under state management. Talk of trying to take over federal lands stirs emotions, Rep. Marti Halverson (R-Etna) told constituents in an email about House Bill 209 — Transfer of federal lands. State representatives passed it 36-22 on Feb. 6. As a co-sponsor, she’s gotten a lot of comments, she said. “To those of you that didn’t send a civil note, or called me names, please re-think your approach,” she wrote Feb. 8. In a 3,000-word essay she laid out why it’s time for Wyoming to take over federal property. “According to the Sutherland Institute, with assistance from Dr. Tim Considine, an economist at the University of Wyoming, on average over 12 Western states, the federal government loses 62¢ per acre it manages; states earn over $6 per acre,” she wrote. “And, THAT, my friends, is how we can possibly ‘afford’ to manage the land. Whether it is energy, minerals, timber, agriculture, tourism, hunting, fishing or recreation, public lands offer vast economic opportunities that, when managed wisely, can significantly improve the economy, and the lands, of Wyoming.”...more