Wyoming’s former top wildlife official is now the nation’s top wildlife official.

It’s a post that puts Brian Nesvik in charge of achieving the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s mission, which is to “conserve, protect, and enhance fish, wildlife, plants, and their habitats for the continuing benefit of the American people.”

Confirming Nesvik was a protracted process, not unusual for the Trump administration’s other political nominees in the opening half year of the administration. At around 1 p.m. Friday, however, a vote materialized and Congress’ upper chamber voted mostly along party lines 54-43 to confirm the nomination.  

Two western state Democrats defected from the pack and voted to confirm Nesvik: Sen. Jacky Rosen of  Nevada and Sen. Martin Heinrich of New Mexico. 

All Republican senators who were present for the roll-call vote submitted an aye, which was not surprising. In many circles, and especially in Wyoming, Nesvik’s appointment was received favorably. 

“There simply has never been a more qualified Director for the agency,” Gov. Mark Gordon said in a statement issued shortly after the Senate’s vote on Friday. “He brings decades of wildlife expertise, a collaborative approach to addressing complex issues, and exemplary leadership to the role.”

Gordon named Endangered Species Act reform and grizzly bear delisting as top issues he’s eager to take on with his former Game and Fish director at the helm of the federal agency. 

Sen. Cynthia Lummis, Wyoming’s junior senator, also broadcast her praise, calling Nesvik a “breath of fresh air.” 

“Brian brings a proven track record from Wyoming, where he effectively collaborated with federal, state and local partners to achieve important conservation goals,” Lummis said in a statement. 

Praise for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife’s new director isn’t universal. Around the time of his first confirmation hearing, where Nesvik fielded little criticism, a coalition of 125 organizations signed onto a letter opposing his nomination. The oppositional parties included the Wyoming-based organizations Wyoming Untrapped and Wyoming Wildlife Advocates.

“In 2024, Nesvik faced major national blowback after his agency failed to take strong action against a man who ran over a young female wolf with his snowmobile,” the letter stated. “Mr. Nesvik’s lackadaisical response to the tormenting of the young Wyoming wolf speaks volumes about his lack of care for wildlife and is a foreshadowing of the attitude he will bring to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.” 

A development in that case came just this week: Sublette County law enforcement officials are convening a grand jury to consider a felony animal cruelty indictment of the wolf captor, Cody Roberts. 

A longtime member of the Wyoming Army National Guard, Nesvik rose through the ranks at the Wyoming Game and Fish Department after being hired as a warden in 1995. After wardening stints in Casper, Elk Mountain and Pinedale, he took a post supervising the state agency’s Cody Region in 2010. He also spent many years working as Game and Fish’s lead mounted horse patrol instructor. 

A promotion to chief warden brought Nesvik to Cheyenne in 2011, and in 2019, he was promoted by Gordon to direct Game and Fish. He retired last fall. 

The U.S. Senate delayed its summer recess this week to make progress on reducing a long list of appointees — more than 100 positions  — who lacked confirmation. The sluggishness of the approvals has been a source of frustration for the Republicans who hold the majority. 

Nesvik is joined by another Wyomingite at the Trump administration’s Fish and Wildlife Service. Josh Coursey, a co-founder of the Muley Fanatic Foundation, was named senior advisor to the director in April. That position did not require a Senate confirmation. 

The duo will have their work cut out for them in running a federal agency that struggled mightily with a lack of resources even before Trump’s friend-turned-foe, Elon Musk, slashed into the staff through his Department of Government Efficiency. A recent inventory from within the Fish and Wildlife Service found that out of 573 national wildlife refuges around the country, not a single property had adequate staff and funding to “fully achieve administration, management and mission goals and objectives.”

The post Trump’s pick Nesvik confirmed as Fish and Wildlife director with some bipartisan support appeared first on WyoFile .

Lea este artículo en español.

Immigration arrests have quadrupled in Colorado and almost tripled in Wyoming since President Donald Trump took office in January with a significant shift in who is being targeted, new data from the federal government shows.

Most people arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents between Jan. 20 and June 26 of this year in Colorado and Wyoming did not have any criminal convictions, according to ICE data released over the last few weeks. Among those arrested who had a conviction at the time of their arrest, the most serious crime is most often noted by ICE as drunken driving in both Colorado and Wyoming, the data shows.

The data, obtained from ICE and published by the Deportation Data Project, is the most detailed, publicly available picture of who is being swept up by ICE’s dragnet arrest tactics in the two Western states this year. The University of California, Berkeley School of Law, which is behind the project, published the data, and The Colorado Sun and WyoFile analyzed arrests made under the jurisdiction of ICE’s Denver field office, which covers both states.

The ICE arrest data contradicts the purported goals of the Trump administration to target the “worst of the worst.” Increasingly, ICE is arresting immigrants with no criminal history, the data shows. Advocates who work with immigrant communities said the tactics, which include arresting people who appear for their immigration court proceedings, are unlike anything they’ve seen before.

Laura Lunn, director of advocacy and litigation at Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network, said in her 15 years of working with immigrants, she has never seen ICE arrest people with pending asylum cases and no criminal history. Now, she said, that is common in Colorado.

“People are being picked up from their homes, workplaces, people are being picked up as they’re walking their dogs,” she said. “This is ruthless and I’ve never seen anything like it before.”

The arrest dataset is imperfect, and The Colorado Sun and WyoFile analysis required reporters to make inferences. For example, some arrests were noted as having occurred in the Denver field office area, but the data entry did not include whether the arrest took place in Colorado or Wyoming.

In these cases, reporters used an arrestee’s unique ID number to search for the state in which they were arrested in another data file, the detentions or detainers datasets. When the arrest entry referred to an obvious state landmark, such as the city of Casper in Wyoming, the reporters assigned the arrest to that state. When such an inference could not be made, the reporters removed the arrest from the dataset and did not include it in the analysis. In total, the analysis included 556 arrests from 2024 and 2,162 arrests in 2025 and discarded fewer than 100 arrests. 

Some of those arrested had a criminal conviction listed in one of the datasets, but not in another. The Colorado Sun and WyoFile only counted criminal convictions in the arrest data, which UC Berkeley and other news organizations have determined is the most reliable dataset.

Given the need to infer certain information, this analysis may differ from analyses made by other newsrooms. For example, The New York Times reported that immigration arrests in Wyoming had doubled, not tripled. But The Colorado Sun and WyoFile’s analysis found more arrests attributable to the state than The Times did.

ICE officials declined to respond to questions about the data and The Colorado Sun and WyoFile’s analysis, even though the data was produced by their agency.

Reporters sent questions to Steve Kotecki, ICE’s spokesperson for the two-state region. Kotecki told reporters he forwarded that request to ICE’s national media office. Reporters then received a response from a generic ICE email account declining to verify the agency’s own data. ICE refused to provide a statement from a named official, and instead sent a brief, unsigned statement that echoed national talking points. 

ICE’s response to WyoFile and The Colorado Sun’s request for information about local arrests reflects a growing effort by the agency to make its officials faceless and nameless in the public eye. ICE agents have worn masks during operations around the country and declined to share their names with the people they’re detaining and members of the public. Some attorneys prosecuting detained immigrants have reportedly sought anonymity. 

ICE’s increased focus on immigrants with no criminal history comes as the administration attempts to reach its goal of 3,000 immigration arrests per day. The tactics have spurred protests across the country in recent months, including in cities in Colorado and Wyoming.

Colorado and Wyoming are very different politically and demographically. Colorado is run by a Democratic governor and legislature, while Wyoming is overseen by a Republican governor and legislature. Nearly 10% of Colorado residents are foreign-born while just 3.6% of Wyoming residents were born in other countries, according to the latest U.S. census figures.

The data shows the immigration crackdown in Colorado has been more aggressive than in Wyoming.

Immigration activists and attorneys told WyoFile and The Colorado Sun that in Wyoming the increase in arrests appears built on a system that relies on local law enforcement to alert ICE when officers detain immigrants suspected of committing local crimes. The high-profile, heavy-handed ICE raids and mass arrests seen in other states in the West have been rare. 

A growing number of Wyoming sheriffs have signed agreements to facilitate cooperation with ICE. Such agreements would likely violate Colorado laws prohibiting significant cooperation between local law enforcement agencies and ICE. Activists say that even in Wyoming counties where there isn’t a more formal arrangement, deputies are now more likely to call ICE when they jail someone they suspect is unlawfully in the country. At the same time, ICE is more actively responding to sheriffs’ reports and is more likely to come pick up people from jails than they were under President Joe Biden’s administration. 

“They’re here,” Bianca Infante, program director of the Cheyenne-based statewide immigration advocacy group Juntos, said, referring to the growing number of arrests. “The way they’re acting is more strategic, it’s less visible. But just because we’re not seeing it as much doesn’t mean that they’re not here.”

In Colorado and Wyoming, most people arrested by ICE during the first five months of the Trump administration had no criminal conviction, the data shows. That’s a reversal from the same time period in 2024, when most people arrested by ICE had been convicted of crimes, the data shows.

Of those who had criminal convictions when they were arrested this year, most were for nonviolent crimes, according to the FBI’s definition.

Among those arrested in Colorado and Wyoming are people whose convictions are decades old, although the dates are not always included. Three people arrested this year have convictions ICE says date from 1992 to 1999, and 10 people have convictions from 2000 to 2005.

Very few people in the data appear to have been deported to countries where they don’t have citizenship. But the list includes nine Venezuelan men arrested in Colorado since Jan. 20 who were sent to El Salvador on March 15. At least three other Venezuelan men arrested under the Biden administration were also sent to El Salvador that day, according to the arrest data.

The data does not include names. But the departure date indicates these men may be part of the group of nearly 300 people the Trump administration deported to the Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT, in El Salvador. They were deported without an opportunity to challenge the federal government’s allegations that they are gang members, according to lawsuits filed over the CECOT imprisonments.

None of the men from Colorado, who range in age from about 22 to 35, had criminal convictions when they were arrested by ICE, according to the data. One had an aggravated assault conviction associated with his ICE detention file. El Salvador is still holding the men with no opportunity for release.

Republicans in Congress voted earlier this month to increase ICE’s annual budget from $8 billion to about $28 billion, making it the highest funded law enforcement agency in the country.

The cash infusion will continue to increase arrests, detentions and deportations, said Julia Gelatt, associate director of the U.S. immigration policy program at the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank. And, she said, more of those arrested, detained and deported are likely to be people whose only offense is entering the country illegally. 

“If they want to keep up the pace of arrests they’ve been conducting,” she said. “They’ll have to widen their gaze beyond people with criminal convictions.”

The post Most people arrested by ICE in Wyoming and Colorado this year did not have criminal history appeared first on WyoFile .

Federal officials are undoing a Biden-era rule that ended new coal leasing in the prolific Powder River Basin spanning northeast Wyoming and southern Montana.

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management, at the direction of President Donald Trump, will file a notice this week to amend its resource management plans for the region to reopen federal coal leasing — just six months after the Biden leasing ban was finalized. The public will have 30 days to review and comment on the proposed action, setting a deadline of Aug. 7.

The agency on Monday reiterated the action complies with multiple Trump executive orders, including Unleashing American Energy and Declaring a National Energy Emergency.

“The BLM does not intend to hold any public meetings, in-person or virtual, during the public scoping period,” according to a preliminary notice published Monday in the Federal Registry.

What does it mean?

Though the BLM’s Buffalo and Miles City, Montana field offices had identified vast areas in the region it would consider for new leasing, coal companies here hadn’t nominated a major new coal lease in more than 10 years, which, in part, prompted the agency under Biden to initiate ending the leasing program, officials said at the time.

In justifying the lease ban, the Biden BLM noted that it did not apply to existing leases, which still include enough Powder River Basin coal reserves to maintain current production levels until about 2040, it said.

Aside from the stark swing in coal politics from Biden to Trump, speculation has been mounting over the past year about whether skyrocketing demand for electricity might entice Powder River Basin coal producers to finally nominate new major leases. That hasn’t been the case, so far. But both Congress and the Wyoming Legislature have been trying to further entice them.

Wyoming lawmakers earlier this year passed House Bill 75, “Coal severance tax rate,” which reduces the severance tax for surface-mined coal from 6.5% to 6%. The congressional budget reconciliation bill — One Big Beautiful Bill Act — signed into law Friday, reduces the federal royalty rate on coal from 12.5% to 7% through 2034, which will make “the coal royalty structure more representative of today’s market and mining conditions and helps get the industry closer to a level playing field among energy commodities,” the Wyoming Energy Authority said in a statement.

Those tax reductions, along with a slew of Trump administration measures to slash regulations on both the coal-mining and coal-burning sides of the equation are intended to finally make good on Trump’s promise during his first administration to revitalize the industry.

Critics have referred to the Trump and congressional actions as the “biggest coal giveaway in history.”

“Just last year, the Bureau of Land Management found it impossible to justify continued coal leasing in the Powder River Basin considering the abundant coal already under lease, shrinking demand, and the imperative to phase out fossil fuel development to address the climate crisis,” Earthjustice Northern Rockies Managing Attorney Jenny Harbine said in a prepared statement Monday. “The administration’s efforts to expand coal mining on our public lands are no more justified now and will sell out our communities to further enrich coal industry executives.”

Coal production in Wyoming, the largest supplier in the nation, has declined by nearly half since its peak in 2008. Though the industry is still shedding hundreds of jobs, output increased slightly during the first quarter of this year compared to the same period in 2024, according to Wyoming Public Radio.

How to comment

To review the BLM’s proposed resource management plan amendments, visit the agency’s Miles City Field Office website here and the Buffalo Field Office website here. 

To comment, click the “participate now” button.

Comments may also be mailed to:

BLM Buffalo Field Office
1425 Fort St.
Buffalo, WY 82834
For more information, contact Project Manager Tom Bills at tbills@blm.gov or (307) 684-1133.

BLM Miles City Field Office
111 Garryowen Road
Miles City, MT 59301
For more information, contact Project Manager Irma Nansel at inansel@blm.gov or (406) 233-3653.

The post Trump pushes to resume coal leasing in Wyoming’s Powder River Basin appeared first on WyoFile .

CHEYENNE—Standing outside a women’s restroom in the Wyoming State Capitol, Rihanna Kelver gazed downward, clasped her hands and took a deep breath. 

Like countless times before, Kelver, 27, was about to use a public restroom. But today was different. A new law had just gone into effect. 

Starting Tuesday in Wyoming, “in each public facility, no person shall enter a changing area, restroom or sleeping quarters that is designated for males or females unless the person is a member of that sex,” according to the statute.

In other words, the new law requires people to use the facility that corresponds to the sex they were assigned at birth, regardless of their gender identity, physical appearance or what appears on their legal documents. While it does not impose criminal or civil liability on anyone who violates the law, it leaves governmental bodies on the hook if they fail to enforce the restriction. 

Kelver, a transgender woman, had driven from her home in Laramie, accompanied by a small group of friends and supporters, to test the bounds of the new law. 

“That’s the thing. We’re showing up to the state and asking them to put their money where their mouth is,” Kelver told WyoFile outside the capitol building. 

In the days and weeks leading up to this moment, Kelver had felt anxious, she said. 

She’d made public statements before. In high school, she came out to her peers in her campaign speech for student body president. And when she was 18, Kelver ran for Albany County School Board as an openly transgender candidate. 

“This one, the ‘what ifs’ are a lot more diverse,” Kelver said. “They’re a lot more unknown. And there’s more severity to some of those ‘what ifs’ for today.”

And yet, Kelver said she felt compelled to go through with it. 

“I want to be here today because I know the fear and anxiety I felt with these laws and within the national conversation,” Kelver told WyoFile outside the Capitol. “I want to be here so [others] know they don’t have to feel alone, and that’s the biggest message.”

Ahead of her demonstration, Kelver gave the Wyoming Highway Patrol and governor’s office a heads up about her plans to use a women’s bathroom in the capitol. 

In case she got arrested, Kelver gave her keys, wallet and phone to her fiancé before walking into the building. She tucked her ID card into the front pocket of her black jeans. 

“I do not inherently believe in the state’s interpretation of my own identity, nor will I willfully be silent in the enforcement of where and how I can exist in public as who I am. I mean no one else harm,” Kelver said in a short speech before ascending the capitol steps. 

“Today, I am about to enter [the Capitol] with a couple of my friends, to use the women’s restroom in accordance with my gender identity and legal identity,” she said. “I don’t know what’s about to happen, but I’m ready for whatever happens.”

Outside the bathroom doors, a friend, who’d been recording Kelver on a phone, stopped while Nichol Bondurant, Kelver’s former English teacher, walked in ahead of Kelver to make sure it was empty. (Kelver later said she “didn’t want to throw anybody in the middle” of her decision.)

When it was all clear, Kelver walked in, used the facility, washed her hands and exited. That was it. 

“Have a good day,” Kelver, in passing, told the highway patrolmen at a nearby desk. 

“Same to you,” he responded. 

How we got here

Wyoming’s new bathroom restrictions were just one of a slate of measures lawmakers passed in the 2025 session to restrict the rights of transgender people. 

A second bathroom-related bill puts the onus on public school students to use restrooms, locker rooms and sleeping quarters that align with their sex at birth. And an extension of the 2023 sports ban now applies to collegiate athletics in Wyoming. 

While LGBTQ+ advocates hope to use the legal system to defeat the new laws, no such legal challenge has yet to be filed. 

Meanwhile, the legislation’s sponsors have said the new laws are not about restricting rights, but safety and privacy. 

As Tuesday’s demonstration unfolded uneventfully, the Wyoming Freedom Caucus took to social media. The group, which represents the Legislature’s further-right flank, has been outspoken in its opposition to transgender rights.

“We call on Governor Gordon to utilize the good men and women of the Wyoming Highway Patrol on site at the People’s House to defend House Bill 72, now House Enrolled Act 48,” the caucus posted on X. 

The governor’s office declined to comment to WyoFile. 

Jessie Rubino, the Wyoming state director for the State Freedom Caucus Network, was at the Capitol to watch the demonstration, but declined to comment. 

In April, a transgender woman was arrested in Florida after washing her hands in a bathroom at that state capitol. The woman was protesting a law that criminalizes using restrooms in public buildings that don’t match one’s sex at birth. The case was dropped this week. 

Decision

Outside the capitol building, Kelver returned to the rest of her supporters, standing in the shade of a cottonwood tree, who cheered her return. 

“As some of you know, I ran away from Laramie and Wyoming for a little bit because I got scared,” Kelver said, referring to a recent year-long spell in Colorado. 

“But I made my decision. I’m back. I’m gonna be loud. I’m gonna be obnoxious for the state, not out of volition, but just because of who I am. 

“So I love you all,” she concluded. “Thank you for coming.” 

The post Transgender woman protests new law with visit to a Wyoming Capitol bathroom appeared first on WyoFile .

In the face of a backlash, Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee has revamped his public land sell-off measure to target only Bureau of Land Management holdings while also declaring, “we’re just getting started.”

A reconciliation budget proposal revised by Lee’s Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee targets BLM land within five miles of undefined “population centers.” It puts checkerboard BLM holdings back on a priority list for his “mandatory disposal” measure and takes lands under permit for grazing off the auction block.

The revision would shift 15% of revenue to local governments and conservation. The bill would appropriate $5 million to carry out the mandatory sales, which are designed to be offered within 60 days of passage and regularly thereafter.

Lee has not said or mapped how much land must be sold, ostensibly for affordable housing.

“Folks like Elon Musk …  will make money off the public lands that should belong to the American people. That’s horseshit.”

Martin Heinrich

“We haven’t put out maps because there are a whole bunch of criteria established by the legislation, and those criteria are very difficult to reduce to a map,” Lee told conservative radio host Charlie Kirk in a video posted on X.

But opposition to Lee’s measure comes from “all walks of life,” said Land Tawney, former president and CEO of Backcountry Hunters and Anglers. That includes “Democrats, Independents, Republicans, hunters, anglers, bird watchers, kayakers, ranchers [and] loggers,” he said Wednesday at a roundtable hosted by Democratic U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich of New Mexico.

Heinrich excoriated Lee’s measure.

“Eighty-five percent of the money from these sales would go to pay for tax cuts,” Heinrich said. “That means that folks like Elon Musk, who already own[s] 4,400 acres of land in Texas [worth] some $3.4 billion, will make money off the public lands that should belong to the American people.

“That’s horseshit,” Heinrich said.

A spectrum of opposition

Lee’s plan to include U.S. Forest Service land in the “mandatory disposal” provision flunked a parliamentarian’s rules test that limits reconciliation budget measures to relevant budget matters. The revised provision must undergo the same scrutiny, Democrats say.

Heinrich poo-pooed the notion that Lee’s measure would result in affordable housing. “An out-of-town billionaire can show up, buy a 100-acre parcel and throw a trophy home on it,” he said.

Powell resident Mike Tracy criticized Lee’s linking of public land and affordable housing.

“If you put those two concepts in the same sentence,” he said of Lee’s proposal, “it makes them seem somehow related, maybe even somehow causal.

“It makes people not feel comfortable speaking out against it because who wants to be against affordable housing?” he said at the roundtable. “I don’t think it’s proper to say that they’re related.”

U.S. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, a Democrat from Nevada, had a message for Lee. “Don’t come into our states and dictate what should be done.

“It is clear they’re trying to sell this public land to pay for this reconciliation package, which gives tax cuts to billionaires,” she said. “That’s what this is about.”

“Right now, we are pissed,” said hunting advocate Tawney, who represented American Hunters and Anglers. “They want to defund, dismantle and then divest,” he said of President Donald Trump’s administration.

Native American tribes are upset, too, said Hilary Tompkins, former solicitor for the Department of the Interior.

“The Southern Ute Indian tribe in southwestern Colorado is concerned because they have off-reservation hunting and fishing rights on an area that includes BLM lands,” she said. “They have not heard from anyone who is advocating for this proposal about the impact on those off-reservation treaty rights.”

Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon sees opportunities to resolve the state’s challenges with the checkerboard land ownership pattern along the Union Pacific Railroad line, said Jess Johnson, government affairs director with the Wyoming Wildlife Federation.

“I want to figure out how we do this in a Wyoming way,” she said of the checkerboard conundrum. “This budget reconciliation is not it.”

Not sensitive lands?

Wyoming’s U.S. Sens. John Barrasso and Cynthia Lummis, Republicans who continue to support Trump’s agenda, did not respond Wednesday to requests for comment about the backlash. “It is clear that our congressional delegation isn’t in it for Wyoming,” the state’s Democratic Party chair, Lucas Fralick, said in a statement.

Lee, however, explained some of his thinking.

“I’m working closely with the Trump administration to ensure that any federal land sales serve the American people — not foreign governments, not the Chinese Communist Party, and not massive corporations looking to pad their portfolios,” he said in a post. “This land must go to American families. Period.”

In the radio interview, he said opposition was ginned up.

“The left is working overtime to dupe conservatives about my federal land sale bill,” he said. “This is just basically surplus land that’s suitable for housing because it’s right next to where people live.”

He characterized critics as having an agenda. “What I’ve heard is that people on the left generally want people moving from rural areas into urban areas, more suburban areas and from single-family housing into multi-family housing, higher density housing units,” he said. “They believe that that’s good for them, perhaps for Mother Earth, or whatever their reasons might be.

“These are not sensitive lands,” Lee said of the targeted BLM parcels. “They are not lands that are out there, that are part of an environment that’s appropriate for hunting, for hiking, for fishing, etc.”

Wyoming’s Johnson challenged that notion at the roundtable. She said she arrowed her first mule deer on public land near town.

“I was on this amazing parcel of public land — tiny,” she said. “It’s little. It’s one to three miles from Lander. It’s BLM. It’s really nothing special to look at, except it is everything to me.”

The post As Wyoming protests, public land sell-off ‘just getting started’ appeared first on WyoFile .

” width=”224″ height=”168″ align=”right” hspace=”10″ alt=”Crowds train eyes and iPhones on Old Faithful in Yellowstone National Park” title=”Crowds train eyes and iPhones on Old Faithful in Yellowstone National Park” />Trump administration announces proposed 2026 budget cuts to NPS as Yellowstone sees busiest May on record.

Read More

Over 3 million acres of public land could be sold in the next five years, after Senate Republicans on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee reintroduced land sales into the party’s major spending bill. 

Released on Wednesday night, the megabill text includes a proposal for extensive transfers of U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management lands, supposedly for housing but with leeway for other uses. The new bill text escalates a recent GOP push to sell federal land. In May, the House Natural Resources Committee passed a version of the spending bill that called for 500,000 acres of public land sales in Nevada and Utah.

The Senate bill instructs the Secretaries of Interior and Agriculture to dispose of .5%-.75% of all BLM and Forest Service lands, respectively. While the percentage appears small, each agency manages huge swaths of land, mostly in the Western U.S. The BLM oversees 245 million acres, equating to 1.23 million to 1.84 million acres for sale under this proposal. The Forest Service manages 193 million acres, which would mean 970,000 to 1.45 million acres would be sold off if the bill passes.

In all, the total amount of public lands for sale could be as high as 3.29 million acres. The bill text would allow sales in all western states, except Montana.

“This Senate version is just open season on public lands.”

“It’s a travesty that Senate Republicans are putting more than 3 million acres of our beloved public lands on the chopping block to sell at fire-sale prices to build mega mansions for the ultrarich,” Patrick Donnelly, Great Basin director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in an emailed statement. He noted that the proposal’s broad language differed from the House version that focused on lands already identified for disposal in resource management plans. 

“This Senate version is just open season on public lands,” Donnelly added. 

If passed into law, the new proposal would create a process for states, local governments and tribes to have a “right of first refusal” on public land sales — suggesting that if these entities did not want to purchase these parcels, private buyers would be considered. The proposal also prohibits the sale of national parks (which are not managed by the BLM or the Forest Service), national monuments, wilderness areas and national recreation areas, as well as land with mining claims, grazing permits, mineral leases and right of ways. 

Local governments near parcels that sold would get 5% of the proceeds “for essential infrastructure directly supporting housing development or other associated community needs,” while the public land agency would get 5% for deferred maintenance.

Attempts to sell public land are not new. But during President Trump’s second term, opponents of federal land management have couched transfers as a solution to the housing crisis. The Senate committee’s one-page summary of the plan blames the federal government for “depriving our communities of needed land for housing and inhibiting growth.” 

A recent analysis by Headwaters Economics found that public land transfers offer little promise as a housing solution.

“Our findings show that opportunities are limited to a few states, and are complicated by wildfire and drought risks, as well as other development challenges,” the researchers wrote. They found that less than 2% of Forest Service and Department of Interior land is close enough to population centers to make sense for housing development.

The only viable chunks of Forest Service land — defined as 5,000 acres or more — near towns are in Arizona, Utah and Oregon. Department of Interior parcels that could work for housing development are primarily in Nevada, Arizona, California, New Mexico and Utah, according to the analysis. Economists also found that more than half of federal lands within a quarter-mile of towns needing more housing and a population of at least 100 people had high wildfire risk.

Research also shows that creating more housing in scenic resort towns and gateway communities doesn’t usually result in more affordable housing. “If you build more housing and your community is a very popular place to visit, then often that housing gets consumed by short-term rentals” or second homes, Danya Rumore, founder and co-director of the Gateway and Natural Amenity Region Initiative at Utah State University, told High Country News last year. 

A broad bipartisan coalition opposes selling public land, especially among Western voters. Some members of the committee, like Steve Daines (R-Mont.), have specifically said they would not support disposing of federal land. “Sen. Daines opposes public land sales,” spokesperson Matt Lloyd told the Montana Free Press on June 4. Idaho Senator James Risch (R) has also publicly opposed such sales. Montana Republican Representative Ryan Zinke — also Trump’s former DOI secretary — was instrumental in removing land sales from the House spending bill. 

“Our findings show that opportunities are limited to a few states, and are complicated by wildfire and drought risks, as well as other development challenges.”

Chairman Mike Lee (R-Utah) has long championed attempts to sell federal land or transfer it to the states. Other Energy and Natural Resources Committee members represent Wyoming, Idaho, New Mexico, Utah, Washington, Oregon, Nevada, Colorado, California and Arizona and Alaska — all states with thousands of acres of public land. 

If the committee passes this version of their megabill, a vote on public land sales would go to the entire Senate, and then, the House of Representatives. If this becomes law, it could “establish a model for members of Congress to liquidate America’s lands at any time to pay for their pet projects, with little benefit to local communities,” said Michael Carroll, director of the BLM campaign at The Wilderness Society, in a statement.

The post Senate Republicans want to sell 3 million acres of public land appeared first on High Country News.

The Trump administration announced Wednesday plans to repeal “all ‘greenhouse gas’ emissions standards for the power sector,” as well as Biden-era Mercury and Air Toxins Standards “that directly result in coal-fired power plants having to shut down,” the federal agency said.

“These Biden-era regulations have imposed massive costs on coal-, oil- and gas-fired power plants, raising the cost of living for American families, imperiling the reliability of our electric grid and limiting American energy prosperity,” the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said in a press release Wednesday afternoon.

Wyoming politicians and coal proponents cheered the news.

“Today, I welcome the proposed repeal by the EPA of the so-called Clean Power Plan Version 2 that [EPA] Administrator Lee Zeldin and I have discussed over the past several months, and I encourage him to proceed with it with all due urgency,” Gov. Mark Gordon said in a prepared statement. “The lopsided and misguided policies of the Biden administration have already wreaked enough havoc on our nation’s power supply and delayed our progress providing the beautiful clean coal President Donald Trump recognizes as essential to having a reliable, affordable and dispatchable energy supply for our nation.”

Wyoming is the nation’s largest coal producer, and more than 90% of the commodity is shipped to coal-burning electric generating plants in the U.S. The state’s coal mining industry has declined precipitously since 2008, while many communities that rely on mining — as well as coal power plants — have struggled to chart an economic future.

Electric utilities have cited federal regulations limiting greenhouse gas emissions, as well as emissions of toxic metals, for retiring coal power plants. But they’ve also pointed to cheap natural gas as an alternative at the same facilities and the fact that most coal plants in the nation are simply too old to affordably operate.

If utilities still choose to close down a coal-fired power plant due to aging facilities or to cater to customer preferences for renewables and other cleaner forms of energy, “that’s on them,” EPA Region 8 Administrator Cyrus Western told WyoFile. But they will no longer be forced to shut down coal plants due to federal emissions regulations.

“This [repeal] gives those utilities the ability to turn around and say, ‘We now don’t have to deal with the regulations that were putting us in these really difficult situations,’ where they’re having to increase these utility bills by 20%, by 30% you know, which, obviously, we saw in Wyoming,” said Western, a Republican and former Wyoming lawmaker. “These regulated, required shutdowns are no longer a fact. That is a priority of [EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin] and the White House — to ensure that we keep these open. And if [some are] shutting down purely for economic reasons, it’s not because it’s the EPA breathing down their necks and forcing them to introduce early shutdowns.”

The repeal

EPA intends to repeal what’s commonly referred to as the “power plant rules” first established under the Obama administration. The original rules were based on the premise that greenhouse gases that contribute to the climate crisis are a pollutant, and the Obama administration admitted that the more stringent standards would require existing and new coal-fired power plants to employ carbon capture technologies to meet them.

The power plant rules were immediately mired in lawsuits, while the EPA oscillated in imposing the rules between the first Trump and Biden administrations. The U.S. Supreme Court in October declined to halt the EPA rules in the last months of the Biden administration, making Wyoming officials nervous right before the November presidential election.

Now, under President Donald Trump, the EPA is challenging the long-held notion that greenhouse gas emissions from power plants should be considered a pollutant under the Clean Air Act, according to the agency.

“EPA is proposing that greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel-fired power plants do not contribute significantly to dangerous air pollution within the meaning of the statute,” the agency said.

Western added, “The people of Wyoming want affordable, reliable electricity — and they deserve it. Protecting access to low-cost, dependable power ensures families can keep the lights on without breaking the bank.”

The post Trump to axe power plant emission rules, a potential boon for Wyoming coal appeared first on WyoFile .

When a task force of lawmakers and appointed citizens decided last summer where best to locate a state-funded destination shooting facility, they chose a picturesque 3-square-mile tract of state land nestled into the Absaroka Range foothills. Their rationale, in part, was that the site evoked wild Wyoming. 

Rolling hills blanketed in sagebrush, the location is home to elk, mule deer, pronghorn and sage grouse, among other species. It boasts spectacular views of high peaks leading to the Yellowstone plateau and, off to the east, the Bighorn Basin. Bisected by Sulphur Creek, the site feels like it’s in the middle of nowhere despite being just an 8-mile drive from Cody. 

Those same attributes concerned Wyoming’s wildlife managers, according to an agency review of the proposal acquired by WyoFile through a Wyoming Public Records Act request. 

Seven days before the 12-member task force voted 8-4 in favor of the location, the Wyoming Game and Fish Department issued a memo that effectively recommended the complex go elsewhere. Specifically, Habitat Protection Supervisor Will Schultz asked that it be moved outside of “core” sage grouse habitat and “crucial” range for struggling mule deer, which exhibited “high use” of the site throughout the year according to GPS collar data. Pronghorn and elk also used the 2,036-acre property, which is slated for development into a world-class shooting operation, and is expected to draw gun enthusiasts from far and wide.

“Ground-disturbing activities and extensive human presence can result in the disturbance or displacement of wintering big game and loss of habitat, potentially impacting the viability of local populations,” stated the July 15, 2024 letter signed by Schultz.

One week later, the state agency’s concerns surfaced as the task force voted.

“Is this cleared for that wildlife aspect?” Republican Rep. Pepper Ottman of Riverton asked her fellow members. “It looks to me as though that is still a concern. What would that look like, to alleviate that concern? I’m not sure. That is of grave concern.”

Nobody attempted to answer the questions.

‘Of grave concern’

Ottman, who’s no longer on the task force, voted with the minority for the runner-up site, near Gillette. She told WyoFile in an interview that she asked about the wildlife concerns because she wanted to get ahead of them — and wants the Wyoming State Shooting Complex to be successful. 

“I’m going to support the decisions that were made,” Ottman said. 

No one other than Ottman, including the agency itself, raised Game and Fish’s wildlife concerns with the Cody site to the committee. Nor did the state agency’s review of the alternative Campbell County site, which detailed far fewer concerns with wildlife, make much of an appearance in the debate. Publicly, there has been little to no discussion about requests to avoid the crucial mule deer range and the Oregon Basin sage grouse core area, or of any other wildlife-friendly guidance that’s been issued for the Park County shooting complex site, where construction crews could break ground as soon as July. 

Powell resident Greg Mayton, who spent 14 years working for Wyoming Game and Fish, said that the wildlife concerns were minimized because of a “top-down push” that has kept the agency’s Cody Region personnel muzzled. 

“It wouldn’t look good,” Mayton said, “if Game and Fish was against this site.”

WyoFile’s attempts to talk with regional personnel were not successful — an in-person inquiry at the Cody office in early May prompted a phone call from the agency’s Cheyenne headquarters.

An avid hunter, Mayton is among the few Park County residents who’ve spoken out against the shooting complex. The former aquatic invasive species biologist has spent ample time hunting elk and mule deer and looking for shed antlers on the selected state land, which abuts a much larger expanse of Bureau of Land Management property west of Highway 120 between Cody and Meeteetse. He feels local residents have to unfairly subsidize a commercial enterprise they might not want in the first place. 

“We have to pay for it three times,” Mayton said. “Through county money I’m paying to build the road, through Game and Fish dollars, and then through all the state tax dollars.” 

Wildlife managers were more forward about their concerns earlier in the Park County site-selection process, according to Andy Quick, a former Cody town councilor. 

“They were going to pursue a different area north of town [near Skull Creek] that was really a bad idea,” Quick said. “That was a designated elk partition area. The Game and Fish was a little more vocal about that one.” 

Like Mayton, Quick isn’t a fan of planned commercial operation, which the Wyoming Legislature funded to the tune of $10 million last session. The allocation required some last-minute maneuvering after the supplemental budget, which included funding for the complex, unexpectedly died. 

“It’s just going to fracture more habitat and it’s just one more step in the wrong direction, as far as I’m concerned,” Quick told WyoFile. “I think recreation and hunting are also going to lose out. I know that the state land can be managed as de facto private land, which is inherently a problem in and of itself.” 

“It’s just going to fracture more habitat and it’s just one more step in the wrong direction.”

Andy quick

There’ve been several more visible scuffles of late over industrial and commercial use of state lands. Those include opposition to a gravel pit just outside of Casper, a lawsuit over a commercial wind farm in Converse County and a fight over a glamping operation at the foot of the Tetons that has spurred calls for reform and possibly legislation. 

The Wyoming State Shooting Complex has so far advanced with comparatively little controversy, at least in public. Quick, the former Cody town councilor, said that he was well in the minority among local elected officials. 

“I was probably the only one that was against it,” he said. 

A defense

Former Park County Commissioner Lee Livingston, who works as a big game outfitter, championed the project. He helped shepherd it through the county board, and was a part of the county working group that helped prepare a 241-page proposal pitching a complex south of Cody. Livingston told WyoFile in May that Game and Fish gave the location the “green light.”

“I think anywhere you go in Wyoming, you can call it habitat,” Livingston said. “Overall, I think it’s probably about the best location it can be in that Cody area.” 

Other project proponents made similar contentions. Nephi Cole, a Sheridan-based lobbyist for the National Shooting Sports Foundation, said it’s hard to find a location in Wyoming that doesn’t have wildlife impacts. He also expressed hope that species would adjust to the gunfire, infrastructure and human activity likely soon to be added to the Absaroka foothills.

“Other large ranges, they’re typically fairly non-invasive, believe it or not, for wildlife,” Cole said. “They accustomize to it, they don’t view it as a hindrance. You end up getting deer, antelope and elk all over ranges, to the extent you have to move them for competitions to make sure that they’re not around targets.” 

Baggs Republican Sen. Larry Hicks, whose 2023 legislation spearheaded state planning and funding for a Wyoming State Shooting Complex, said he has witnessed the harmony between wildlife and recreational shooting at Colorado’s Cameo Shooting Complex. 

“They got bighorn sheep, mule deer on the shooting range,” Hicks said. “Chukars all over the place.” 

Hicks expects something similar in Park County. Long-range shooting on the state site’s west end — there are plans for mile-long targets — are “probably going to have almost no impact” on wildlife, he said.   

“That’s not going to be an everyday, ongoing type of activity,” he said. “Seasonal use makes a difference. We can work around some of that just by event scheduling. We’ve got to put together a mitigation plan.” 

Glenn Ross, who chairs the Wyoming State Shooting Complex Joint Powers Board, said that Wyoming’s concerns about wildlife impacts have been considered from the get-go and baked into the plans. 

“Our planning with our site has been making every attempt to be wildlife friendly,” Ross told WyoFile.  

Wildlife impacts, he said in a follow-up email, were a “primary consideration” in selecting the more southern Park County site before the local working group submitted its formal application to the state in June 2024. That proposal does include some wildlife-focused plans. 

For example, core sage grouse habitat, which covers about a square mile of the site, would receive “minimum development” to avoid exceeding the 5% threshold authorized by Wyoming’s policy for the embattled bird, which is particularly sensitive to noise. 

Mule deer, whose designated “crucial” range covers almost the entire 2,036-acre site, would be accommodated by adjusting management west of a ridgeline during the winter, “minimizing the overall impact.” 

“Mule deer, although quite adaptive to human presence, still need areas of shelter and forage in the critical winter months,” Park County’s application stated.

Elk and pronghorn, meanwhile, would be encouraged to stick around. “Because having these species on site can be of tremendous value to our customers, the complex will recognize that value and work to operate the facility in harmony with these species,” the planning document reads. 

Next steps unclear

A month before a likely groundbreaking — Ross expects to receive the $10 million authorized by the Legislature in July — it’s unclear what actually will be required to minimize harm to wildlife along 3-plus square miles of the Absaroka front. 

Although wildlife managers’ site review of the Park County location is printed on Wyoming Game and Fish Department letterhead and addressed to an outside legislative task force, the document was described as “internal department correspondence” when it was conveyed to WyoFile via a records request. It’s not considered an “official project letter,” Game and Fish officials said. 

“We have not submitted any formal comments on the Cody shooting complex,” Wyoming Game and Fish Chief Warden Dan Smith told WyoFile. “And we haven’t been requested for any [comments].”

The Office of State Lands and Investments will decide whether Game and Fish formally comments, he said. 

“It’s up to them,” Smith said, “whether they request us to make comments on their project.” 

Because the Wyoming State Shooting Complex is set to occupy state trust land, the permitting authority is the Office of State Lands and Investments. Its oversight board, the State Board of Land Commissioners, has already approved the Cody complex, according to Melissa DeFrantis, a public information officer for the state agency. 

“They’ve approved going forward with it,” DeFrantis said. “We will take the lease to them once it’s complete.” 

The State Board of Land Commissioners consists of Wyoming’s five statewide elected officials: Gov. Mark Gordon, Superintendent of Public Instruction Megan Degenfelder, Secretary of State Chuck Gray, Treasurer Curt Meier and Auditor Kristi Racines.

Until the board approves the lease, the draft version and its contents — such as wildlife stipulations — are not considered public information, DeFrantis said.

“We don’t know what the negotiations may be,” she said. “A draft, it really wouldn’t benefit you right now.” 

The Office of State Lands and Investments had a different interpretation of what triggers a formal Wyoming Game and Fish Department project letter. Those are typically prepared by default for state land leases, DeFrantis said. 

But DeFrantis also said she was unaware if Game and Fish would formally review the Wyoming State Shooting Complex’s lease near Cody. 

“I can’t say, I’m not drafting the lease,” she said. “But I can say that that’s generally the process, and I don’t know why we would avoid that.” 

The Office of State Lands and Investment’s lead on the project, Cody Booth, did not return a phone call requesting an interview. 

If Wyoming Game and Fish does proceed with a formal review and the requested stipulations mirror those in its existing site review, the Wyoming State Shooting Complex could be saddled with significant restrictions that inhibit its construction and operations. 

Because the project isn’t being moved outside of the core sage grouse area, construction and development “should not occur” between March 15 and June 30 in that designated core habitat and within 2 miles of a nearby non-core area lek, according to Game and Fish’s existing guidance.

Furthermore, Game and Fish asked shooting complex proponents to develop “a noise mitigation plan” so gunfire doesn’t compromise an occupied core-area lek that’s three-quarters of a mile south of the complex.

“Research has indicated that the declines in male lek attendance in response to increased noise are immediate and sustained,” the state’s letter stated. “Further, sage grouse do not appear to habituate to increased noise levels over time.” 

Crucial year-round range used by the Upper Shoshone Mule Deer Herd could impact shooting complex operations even more if requested wildlife stipulations are heeded. The herd has struggled mightily: The estimated 6,850 deer in the herd fall more than 40% short of the herd’s 12,000-animal population target, according to Game and Fish’s latest assessment. 

Because the complex wasn’t relocated outside the “crucial” deer range, which overlapped almost the entire site, Game and Fish’s instruction was to “avoid ground-disturbing activities and extensive human presence” from Nov. 15 to April 30. Mule deer-friendly practices, in other words, could theoretically shutter the destination shooting complex nearly six months a year.

The post State biologists warned of wildlife conflicts at proposed shooting complex site. Wyoming approved the location anyway. appeared first on WyoFile .