 - A coalition of Wyoming-based organizations is celebrating the demise of a Senate Joint Resolution that would have demanded that the U.S. Congress extinguish the federal title to all public lands in the state, except Yellowstone National Park. ){kind=link}
(Cheyenne, WY) – A coalition of Wyoming-based organizations is celebrating the demise of a Senate Joint Resolution that would have demanded that the U.S. Congress extinguish the federal title to all public lands in the state, except Yellowstone National Park.
SJ 2 – Resolution demanding equal footing, failed in a tie vote on third reading in the Wyoming Senate on Monday.
“Fifteen Senators opposed this unpopular idea and voted for public lands and the economic base they provide for Wyoming,” The Keep it Public, Wyoming coalition said in a press release sent by The Wilderness Society Wyoming State Director Julie Stuble of Lander this week. “(We thank) the Senators who voted no on SJ 2 today.”
Wyoming Sen. Cale Case, R-Lander, was one of those 15 senators who voted against SJ 2 this week.
He also spoke in opposition to the joint resolution on the Senate Floor.
“People in my district love their public lands,” Case said Monday. “This is probably the most important issue to them in the whole session in a lot of ways. They really don’t feel the state does necessarily a good job of managing the lands that the state oversees, (so) they use our federal lands. They love them. They use them. They love their freedom to be able to go there.”
In an earlier press release from TWS, Brunton International Owner Lauren Heerschap said public lands are “the backbone of the outdoor recreation industry” and are “too important to risk with short-sighted and disingenuous takeover proposals.”
“The transfer of these lands to the state would inevitably lead to lost access and privatization,” Heerschap said, pledging to “stay vigilant for future efforts from the state and from Washington, DC, to take these lands away from us.”
Heerschap is a member of the Keep it Public, Wyoming coalition, which was formed in 2016 by a group of Wyoming businesses, organizations, and residents that “share the core commitment of keeping public lands in public hands and opposing state control of America’s public lands,” according to TWS.
The coalition’s petition reads, “We stand in support of America’s public lands legacy and we strongly oppose the transfer of our federal public lands to state or private control.”
On the Senate floor this week, Case also pointed out that Wyoming doesn’t have “the resources to manage these (federal) lands.”
“I look at our struggling to refill a fire account for our own lands,” he said. “Can you imagine if we had the responsibility for fighting fire across all of Wyoming? We couldn’t afford it. We don’t have the tools to manage this land. We couldn’t get the tools – we don’t have enough people, we don’t have enough money.”
Wyoming Sen. Ed Cooper, R-Ten Sleep, also voted against SJ 2 on third reading Monday, while Wyoming Sen. Tim Salazar, R-Riverton, voted “ay.”