If you care about public lands in Wyoming, by now you’ve probably heard of U.S. Sen. Mike Lee, from Utah.
Sen. Lee is the politician who sponsored the proposal before Congress right now that would sell off millions of acres of public land that you and I and every other American own.
What you probably don’t know is that dozens of Wyoming Legislators, Gov. Mark Gordon, and Rep. Harriet Hageman have all been working side-by-side with Sen. Lee to try and sell our public lands.
They’re literally Lee’s partners in the public land grab.
This past October, Rep. Hageman, Gov. Gordon, and 26 members of the Wyoming Legislature filed a legal brief in support of a request that Sen. Lee sent to the U.S. Supreme Court to “transfer” ownership of all federal public lands to the states (see the full list of Wyoming legislators on Page 11).
This request included BLM, U.S. Forest Service land, and more.
These politicians like to hem and haw about “Oh, the states would manage the lands better.”
But after Sen. Lee’s current proposal before Congress, we can see clearly now that the end game for transferring federal public lands to the states has always been and will always be to sell them off to the highest bidder.
Wyoming does not have the money to properly manage these lands. And that’s even more obvious now that we see counties cutting services to the bone, hospitals closing their maternity wards, and the state defunding education.
Under state control, one bad fire season would bankrupt any public lands funds Wyoming had, and our public land heritage would be up on the auction block.
In fact, the Wyoming State Constitution requires the state to generate profits from the public land that it owns.
Simply put, transferring public lands to state control is one step away from selling them all, and dozens of Wyoming politicians support this.
Fortunately, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the request from Sen. Lee and his Wyoming counterparts. This is why Sen. Lee is back at work trying to sell our public lands via Congress—with the full support of Wyoming Senators John Barrasso and Cynthia Lummis, as well as Rep. Hageman.
Supporting Sen. Lee’s request to the U.S Supreme Court was not the only attempt by Wyoming State Legislators to advance their public land selloff agenda. During the 2025 legislative session, a shameful number of my colleagues at the capitol supported a proposal to transfer 30 million acres of federal public land to the state via a constitutional resolution.
Wyoming State Senator Bob Ide, of Casper, was the main sponsor of this proposal. It was co-sponsored by Senate President Bo Biteman, of Sheridan, and Speaker of the House Chip Neiman, of Hulett. It called for the state to seize control of federal lands including Grand Teton National Park, so they could be put up for sale.
Ultimately, the Senate voted down this bad idea, but only after massive outcry from hunters, anglers, and other Wyoming public land lovers.
Still, these all of the following Wyoming state senators voted in favor of the public land grab: Brian Boner (Douglas), Dan Dockstader (Afton), Tim French (Cody), Lynn Hutchings (Cheyenne), Larry Hicks (Baggs), Bob Ide (Casper), John Kolb (Rock Springs), Dan Laursen (Powell), Troy McKeown (Gillette), Jared Olsen (Cheyenne), Laura Pearson (Kemmerer), Tim Salazar (Riverton), Darin Smith (Cheyenne), Cheri Steinmetz (Lingle), and Senate President Bo Biteman (Sheridan).
Here are the representatives who co-sponsored the land grab proposal: Bill Allemand (Casper), Dalton Banks (Cowley), John Bear (Gillette), Scott Smith (Lingle), John Winter (Thermopolis), and House Speaker Chip Neiman (Hulett).
If you don’t know who your local legislators are, you can find out here.
Now that Sen. Lee’s proposal to sell public lands is back on the table in Congress, there has once again been massive outcry in Wyoming against this awful idea.
It’s not surprising the opportunistic politicians have jumped on the bandwagon to speak out against public land sale. This includes many who have previously signed on to court documents and cast votes in favor of selling public lands.
Of course, it’s sadly not shocking for politicians to say one thing and do another. But if we care about maintaining our public lands for future generations, so our children and grandchildren can enjoy the wonderful Wyoming outdoors the way we have, we must be vigilant and hold these lawmakers accountable.
Right now, our biggest priority must be speaking out as loudly as possible against Sen. Lee’s proposal before Congress right now to sell off public lands.
I hope you’ll join me at the rally for public lands at 6 p.m. this Thursday, June 26, at the Wyoming Capitol to do exactly that.
But no matter what happens in Congress, the fight will not be over. We are going to have to keep standing up for our public lands and make it clear to politicians at every level of government that we will not accept any public land grab.
House Minority Whip Karlee Provenza represents House District 45 in Laramie
Clarification - An earlier version of this column said Utah sought to gain national parks and tribal reservations. Utah's petition says it did not seek those lands, though Wyoming lawmakers left the prospect of transferring national parks to states open in their brief.
