public lands

Many in Wyoming are celebrating that a Republican-backed proposal to sell federal public land for housing development in 11 states is dead, – for now.

Senate Republicans would have mandated the sale of over a million acres of BLM lands across the West, but that proposal was axed late Saturday night. Conservation advocates are celebrating, but say the fight isn’t over yet.

Over the weekend, Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) withdrew his proposal for the Bureau of Land Management to sell parcels for the highest value. This follows several rounds of revisions and narrowing down aimed at keeping it in the bill after it ran afoul of Senate rules.

There’s a lot in flux with the public land sale proposal. Reporters debrief the latest updates, context and responses from Wyomingites.

Plus there’s no guarantee the public would maintain access.

Some local officials in the Mountain West say federal land could be used in certain cases to ease the region's housing crisis. But they view a plan from Senate Republicans as going much farther than the solutions that have worked in their areas.

The report comes as the Trump administration tries to “unleash” domestic energy supplies.

Wyoming’s Governor and Congressional representative voiced support for the proposal, which now excludes national forests but still offers up BLM parcels for housing. Meanwhile, residents are planning a statewide protest.

Amid a Republican-led push to sell millions of acres of public lands to alleviate the housing affordability crisis, some governors in the Mountain West are pushing back.

A map created by a national environmental group shows 2 to 3 million acres of federal public land that could be sold, including in Teton County.