Committee advances bill to bar land purchases by federally defined foreign adversaries; assessors, homeland security flag data concerns

A Wyoming House committee on Thursday approved a bill aimed at preventing land ownership by entities the federal government designates as foreign adversaries, while adding amendments to align definitions across related bills and to trigger the measure only if a companion constitutional amendment is approved by voters.

The Agriculture, State & Public Lands & Water Resources Committee voted to “do pass with amendments” on House Bill 224 by a 7–1 vote with Chairman Winter excused. Representative Davis moved the bill out of committee; Representative Otman seconded the motion.

Committee members and a range of industry and agency witnesses described the bill as narrowly targeted to entities listed under the federal foreign-adversary definition in 15 CFR 791.4 and to state sponsors of terrorism. Jody Levin, representing the Trona industry, said the bill’s definitions were revised to avoid unintentionally restricting extractive-industry employers: “So what all that language does is then say that the entities that are being defined as a foreign adversary that are prohibited from owning land would be those defined by the federal government as an adversary in 15 CFR 791.4 or entities that are state sponsors of terrorism.”

Why it matters: committee members and witnesses said the…