With a controversial Bureau of Land Management plan for millions of acres in south-central Wyoming still on hold, Sweetwater County Commissioners hope that when things start moving again, it will be in their favor.
“From start to finish, our message was consistent in what we wanted. And, of course, the BLM kind of went in a different direction,” Sweetwater County commissioner Taylor Jones told Cowboy State Daily.
The commission late Tuesday sent a letter to the office of Wyoming’s Republican U.S. Rep. Harriet Hageman, addressing the status of the federal Rock Springs Resource Management Plan (RMP) in light of the changes under President Donald Trump.
“This (current policy) is tantamount to a stay on implementation of the Rock Springs RMP,” the letter states in part.
Trump’s U.S. Secretary of the Interior, Doug Burgum, recently pushed the pause button on RMPs across numerous states, including those for Wyoming’s Rock Springs and Buffalo offices.
Sweetwater County wants to make sure that the Rock Springs plan “is in line with the President’s and Secretary Burgum’s orders,” Jones said.
Plans Turn On A Dime
At the tail-end of former president Joe Biden’s administration, things were looking grim, from the Sweetwater County Commission’s perspective.
The BLM’s preferred “Alternative B” for the Rock Springs RMP had apparently been given final clearance.
Sweetwater County officials and others have long criticized Alternative B.
The BLM manages about 3.6 million acres of land from the Rock Springs office, the bulk of it in Sweetwater County. Alternative B would have designated 1.8 million acres, or about half, as “areas of critical environmental concern.”
Critics say that would have restricted public access in those areas for hunting, motorized recreation, cattle grazing and energy exploration.
But shortly after Trump appointed Burgum, the interior secretary announced that he’d put a halt to the Rock Springs and other RMPs, pending further review.
That’s left Sweetwater County hopeful, but still uncertain. Jones previously told Cowboy State Daily that the county would like to see the RMP revised, but not completely scrapped.
Scrapping the RMP might mean having to rebuild it from the ground up, a process that took years the first time around, he said.
Hageman Remains Supportive
Sweetwater county officials and locals previously expressed frustration, claiming that the federal government wasn’t listening to their concerns about the RMP, and how it might affect what is essentially their backyard.
How the RMP will ultimately affect life in Sweetwater County is still the big question, Jones said.
“We are asking that the RMP, in the end, follows what the citizens and industries in Sweetwater County have overwhelmingly supported,” he said.
Freedom for energy development and livestock grazing on BLM land remain big concerns, he said.
The county also wants ample access for recreational use – both for locals and for visitors because tourism makes up a significant chunk of the local economy, he added.
The difference now is that there’s a sense that the federal government is listening, Jones said.
“We never really wonder what is going on. She (Hageman) has done an excellent job of asking what we want,” he said.
In a statement emailed to Cowboy State Daily Wednesday, Hageman said she’s keeping locals’ concerns in mind regarding the Rock Springs RMP.
“I have fought alongside stakeholders to prevent the Rock Springs RMP from being implemented and will continue to seek their input as we move forward following the Secretarial Order to pause and review,” Hageman said.
Mark Heinz can be reached at mark@cowboystatedaily.com.
