Click the link to read the article on the WyoFile website (Angus M. Thuermer Jr.)

January 30, 2025

A Wyoming Senate panel is demanding that Congress give the state all federal lands and mineral rights in the Equality State, except Yellowstone National Park.

The Agriculture, State and Public Lands and Water Resources committee voted 4-1 for a resolution that demands Congress confirm by Oct. 1 its intent to turn over the property. Senate Joint Resolution 2, “Resolution demanding equal footing,” covers some 30 million acres “that derive from former federal territory.”

That amounts to about 47% of the state’s land area, the resolution’s lead sponsor Sen. Bob Ide, R-Casper, told the committee. The property in question includes Grand Teton National Park, Devils Tower National Monument, the Bridger-Teton, Shoshone, Targhee, Black Hills, Bighorn and Medicine Bow-Routt national forests, plus the Thunder Basin National Grassland and Bureau of Land Management acreage.

In addition to seeking property belonging to all Americans, the resolution demands federal mineral rights in Wyoming, which amount to 69% of the rights in the state.

Citing the Constitution, Ide said “Congress shall have the power to dispose,” of the land. He interpreted what that means.

“It’s a mandate to dispose,” he said. “They don’t have the authority not to dispose.

“You can’t do the opposite of something that’s specifically directed in the U.S. Constitution,” Ide said.

He agreed with Scott Brown, who told the committee during public testimony that, “by virtue of your oath [to uphold the Constitution] you are required to vote in favor of this resolution.”

Sens. Tim French, R-Powell; Troy McKeown, R-Gillette and Laura Pearson, R-Kemmerer, backed the resolution. Sen. Barry Crago, R-Buffalo, voted against it.

Misreading

The resolution claims two violations of the U.S. Constitution, including that federal ownership puts Wyoming on an unequal footing compared to other states and that federal control of land in Wyoming violates the Bill of Rights.

Those arguments have been part of the foundation of a revived Sagebrush Rebellion that most recently culminated in the U.S. Supreme Court’s rejection of a petition by the state of Utah. The Beehive State sought 18.5 million acres of Bureau of Land Management property.

But Utah’s arguments are based on “wrong-headed assumptions,” made by an advocate who misreads and misinterprets the Constitution and cherry picks definitions, according to a widely cited article by John D. Leshy, a professor at UC Law in San Francisco.

Alec Underwood, program director for the Wyoming Outdoor Council, agreed. The Supreme Court’s rejection “is based on over 100 years of case laws showing that this is impossible legally,” he said.

Ide saw the Supreme Court rejection differently. “They sent it back to district court and told them to kind of work their way up the ladder,” he said of the court’s 12-word order that reads only: “The motion for leave to file a bill of complaint is denied.”

If Congress acquiesces to the resolution’s demands, Wyoming would be willing to negotiate turning some property back to the federal government, Ide said. The resolution states that Wyoming would create a new designation — state public lands — that’s different from school trust lands where camping, fires and other activities are restricted.

Aside from constitutional questions, the Senate committee heard worries about the fate of mineral rights, the cost of managing the lands, the prospect of Wyoming selling the acreage, the cost of grazing, potential loss of access, response to wildfires, the loss of $30 million in annual federal payments in lieu of taxes and more.

100 years of lawsuits

Ide couldn’t say whether mineral rights would belong to Wyoming or overlying landowners should the panel get its wishes. “How do we figure out where that goes without creating 100 years’ worth of litigation,” Crago asked him.

Ide, who said he was formerly “a mineral title land man,” agreed the proposal “could get very messy on the mineral estate.

“I’ve had a 40-acre parcel,” he said, “that had 200 different mineral owners on it, and you try to track them all down and you can spend a month of work … and still not find half of the mineral owners.”

Crago also warned that grazing costs could increase if the state comes to own federal lands. Outdoor council representative Underwood said grazing leases on state land cost $5.52 an animal-unit month versus $1.35 on federal property.

Crago said Wyoming is restricted by its own constitution on how little it can charge for grazing, and “we’re probably at the bottom of that number right now.”

Noting that outdoor recreation accounts for $2.2 billion and 15,000 jobs annually in Wyoming, Underwood posed an overarching question.