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Senate committee hearing spotlights Wyoming concerns about BLM director’s policies
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Summary
An unidentified committee member urged scrutiny of Bureau of Land Management Director Miss Stone Manning, arguing recent BLM plans and rules would restrict energy and grazing on millions of federal acres in Wyoming and harm local economies and school funding.
An unidentified member of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources pressed the Bureau of Land Management’s director, Miss Stone Manning, over a series of recent policy decisions that, the speaker said, would restrict energy and mineral development on federal lands in Wyoming and harm local communities.
The committee member opened by saying this was the first time Miss Stone Manning had appeared before the committee in three years and that the director’s decisions have a "profound impact on the people of my home state in Wyoming." The speaker said they had raised these concerns with the Wyoming Mining Association, the Wyoming Stockgrowers Association and county commissioners from all 23 Wyoming counties.
The committee member framed the complaints around federal land and mineral ownership in Wyoming, asserting that "nearly half of the land in Wyoming is owned by the federal government" and that "nearly 70% of the minerals in Wyoming are owned by the federal government," and argued those facts make BLM policy consequential for jobs and school funding.
The speaker criticized several specific BLM actions. They said the Rock Springs Field Office’s August 2023 resource management plan would "devastate communities in Southwest Wyoming," claiming it would "lock up over 2,000,000 acres of federal land from productive use" and prohibit future energy and mineral development, grazing and recreation. The speaker also said the Buffalo field office had proposed ending new coal leasing in the Powder River Basin and asserted the basin supplied "45% of all of the coal mined in The United States Of America," warning that coal production supports tens of thousands of jobs in Gillette and northeast Wyoming and helps fund K–12 public education.
The committee member criticized an April BLM "public lands rule," saying it "turns multiple use ... on its head" and alleged the rule would allow third parties to lease federal lands in ways that could "block the productive use of the land." The speaker characterized multiple use as "enshrined in federal law" and accused Miss Stone Manning of attempting to overturn that principle through bureau actions.
On the bureau’s oil and gas program, the speaker alleged operational failures: missed quarterly lease sales, substantially longer permit timelines and a refusal to deliver leases to winning bidders, and said a series of regulations make exploration and production on federal lands "prohibitively expensive." The speaker reiterated that they had opposed Miss Stone Manning’s nomination and said the committee would "finally call her to account." The remarks in the transcript did not include responses from Miss Stone Manning or other committee members.
The hearing’s next steps were not recorded in the provided transcript excerpt. The transcript captures sustained criticism and specific allegations about agency policy and operations; it does not include defensive remarks, clarifying answers from the BLM director, or formal votes on the matters discussed.
