Dear editor:
Harriet Hageman built her political career claiming to be a “defender of Wyoming’s lands and way of life.” But her recent support — tacit and overt — for the proposed sale of millions of acres of public land across the West, including right here in Wyoming, shows just how far she’s strayed from the values she claims to represent.
Let’s be clear: this isn’t about trimming government waste or selling a few useless scraps of federal land.
The proposal currently circulating in Congress could put 15 million acres of Wyoming’s public lands on the chopping block — lands that include pristine wildlife corridors, sacred tribal areas, hunting grounds, and access routes for working families and outdoor recreationists.
And instead of standing up for Wyoming, Hageman is playing along.
When confronted, Hageman dismissed public concerns as “misinformation.” She claimed that only “small, fragmented parcels” would be sold and that the bill is aimed at increasing affordable housing.
But the bill she supports has no affordability requirements, no environmental review, and no guarantee of public transparency or local control. In fact, it hands sweeping authority to Washington bureaucrats to sell off our heritage to the highest bidder.
Hageman should know better. She grew up on a ranch. She’s walked this land, ridden across it, hunted on it. So how can she now pretend that auctioning off Wyoming’s future is somehow pro-freedom or pro-Wyoming?
Ask any hunter in Sublette County or any conservation-minded rancher in the Bighorns: this isn’t a solution—it’s a sellout.
Across Wyoming, people of all political stripes agree on one thing: our public lands are not for sale. They are part of who we are. They feed our economy, protect our wildlife, and give our children a place to run wild and free.
By aligning with a radical land transfer agenda pushed by out-of-state interests and D.C. power brokers, Hageman has shown us whose side she’s really on — and it isn’t ours.
If Harriet Hageman won’t stand up to protect Wyoming’s land, Wyoming should stand up and protect itself from Harriet Hageman.
Sincerely,
Trevor Neilson, Jackson
