Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Wilderness Study Areas topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Wyoming counties press Congress to resolve wilderness study areas; county-led legislation has moved in Senate
Summary
County commissioners and the Wyoming County Commissioners Association told the committee they have pursued a multi-county collaborative process to resolve wilderness study areas (WSAs); participating counties produced legislative language that passed the U.S. Senate and awaits action in the House.
County leaders told the Select Federal Natural Resource Management Committee on June 19 that a locally driven process has produced federal legislation aimed at resolving long-standing wilderness study areas (WSAs) in Wyoming, and they asked the committee to endorse and help accelerate that work.
Jeremiah Ryman, representing the Wyoming County Commissioners Association (WCCA), said the association led the Wyoming Public Lands Initiative in the mid-2010s to build local collaboratives that reviewed WSA inventories and made county-level recommendations. “We modeled it after what had been successful in other states. Collaborative process is driven locally with many stakeholders at the table,” Ryman said.
Ryman told the committee the BLM’s 1991 inventory covered 577,504 acres of wilderness study areas in Wyoming and recommended that 240,364 acres be designated as wilderness while the remainder should be released for multiple use. Until Congress acts on each WSA, BLM and other agencies must continue to manage those areas to maintain their wilderness characteristics, he said.
Several counties — Carbon, Fremont, Natrona, Campbell, Johnson, Hot Springs and Washakie — participated in the local collaborative process and forwarded recommendations to the congressional delegation, Ryman said. He and other county officials said the delegation subsequently introduced bills that mirror the local proposals; Ryman said the package passed the U.S. Senate last year and is awaiting House action.
County commissioners and coalition leaders who testified urged the committee to send a letter of support and to continue assistance with coordination and technical information. Commissioner Kent Connolly (Lincoln County) and Commissioner Eric South (Uinta County) told the committee counties that did not initially participate in the collaborative could be asked to return to the process once the first package is enacted in Congress.
Commissioners and county coalition leaders also raised related concerns about federal land designations’ fiscal impacts, including the loss of property and sales tax base and the limits of existing federal payments such as PILT (Payments in Lieu of Taxes). They urged state lawmakers to support congressional action that resolves the inventory recommendations in a locally driven way rather than leaving WSAs in perpetuity.
Ryman asked the committee to consider repeating an earlier letter of support from this committee to Congress. The committee indicated interest in continued engagement on WSA resolution and related federal legislation.
