Top-down bill from Congresswoman Cheney would open cherished Wyoming wildlands to development

Congresswoman Liz Cheney’s Wilderness Study Area release bill, introduced late Thursday, is a top-down, one-sided measure that threatens cherished backcountry areas in the state, from iconic parts of the Red Desert in Sweetwater County to the Palisades near Jackson Hole to Rock Creek in the Bighorn mountains.

If enacted, her bill would remove existing protections on more than 400,000 acres of backcountry hunting and recreation areas, which represents more than half of all WSA acres in Wyoming. Cheney’s bill is an affront to Wyoming’s many diverse public land users, and it comes right as citizen advisory groups’ multi-year efforts to resolve wilderness study areas is wrapping up.

“This bill is dead on arrival because Representative Cheney failed to engage a diversity of Wyoming sportsmen, backcountry users, and other citizens in the state,” said Barry Reiswig of Wyoming Back Country Horsemen. “This legislation is composed of one-sided ideas, has ignited controversy, and would spoil too many of Wyoming’s backcountry hunting and camping destinations.”

The bill proposes to release 20 WSAs in three counties from their protective status without proposing a single new acre for protection. That’s in contrast to legislation passed by Representative Cheney’s own father in 1984 which protected over 800,000 acres of Wilderness in Wyoming while releasing other forest service roadless lands for multiple use management. That bill had broad, statewide support.

Cheney’s bill (it has not yet been assigned a bill number) not only disregards citizen input, but would result in:

• Release of all BLM and Forest Service Wilderness Study Areas in BigHorn, Lincoln and Sweetwater counties
• Eliminates protection for agency-designated lands with wilderness characteristics (BLM LWC and Forest Service recommended wilderness)
• Essentially eliminates the ability to designate wilderness in Wyoming in the future.

This ideologically driven, top-down approach of D.C. politicians determining land-use in the Cowboy State is not the Wyoming way. This is a one-sided hijacking of valuable public wildlands for the benefit of industry, development and motorized-use.

"Representative Cheney has once again demonstrated her allegiance to oil and gas development and ignored the people of Wyoming,” said Mike Burd, area 5 chairman of the Wyoming Federation of Union Sportsmen. “Oil and gas currently has over 11 million acres in development. Sometimes enough is enough. We need to balance development and our wildlands in this state.”

Cheney’s legislation opens 410,730 acres of both U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management lands in Lincoln, Big Horn and Sweetwater counties, popular for backcountry hunting and recreation. These counties opted not to participate in the Wyoming Public Lands Initiative, a county-led process initiated three years ago by the Wyoming County Commissioners Association (WCCA) to resolve management of Wyoming’s wilderness study areas.

Wyoming has 45 wilderness study areas, one-third of them located in Sweetwater County, which is the only county that requested public comment on whether the commissioners should offer their support of Cheney’s WSA legislation. The Commission voted 3-2 in March to advance their letter to Cheney asking for release of WSAs after one public meeting which showed an emotionally divided local public. State Legislators from the area also sent a letter to Cheney asking her not to release WSAs in Sweetwater County without a collaborative local process to engage the public. As well, the Rock Springs Rocket Miner editorialized against Cheney releasing Sweetwater County WSAs at this time.

Craig Thompson is a resident of Rock Springs who says too many people are being ignored in Sweetwater County.

“I thought Liz Cheney would be all-in for giving Wyoming people a little credibility in crafting solutions for management of BLM wilderness study areas. Her bill flies in the face of local control. It's all Washington driven, now,” he said.

This legislation also does away with efforts to identify new lands potentially suitable for wilderness designation. This would significantly limit opportunities to see any new wilderness designated on BLM or Forest Service lands in Wyoming. And it releases all BLM and Forest Service lands that have already been identified by the agencies as potential candidates for wilderness designation.

“Ideologically driven one-sided legislation doesn’t get very far in Congress,” said Dan Smitherman of The Wilderness Society. “Wyomingites have repeatedly asked Rep. Cheney to work with all the interests to develop pragmatic compromises and it’s unfortunate that she has ignored the opportunity.”

Wyoming deserves better from their elected leaders. This legislation is supported by extractive, agriculture and motorized-vehicle organizations with an obvious anti-wilderness bias and at the expense of other interests. Wyomingites who hunt, fish, hike and camp in these places were l ignored as this legislation was crafted behind closed doors.

Worse yet, this is another attempt by Cheney to repeatedly derail public involvement to advance comprehensive legislation to resolve the state’s wilderness study areas. Last December, Cheney surprised many by introducing federal legislation to dramatically increase heli-skiing and other motorized uses in Forest Service wilderness study areas absent discussions with local officials or participants of the Wyoming public lands initiative. She ignored repeated requests by county commissioners who said she was undercutting local progress.

“The Rock Creek recommended wilderness in the Bighorn National Forest came out of extensive local collaboration between stakeholders, the public, state agencies and the Bighorn National Forest,” said Buffalo resident Craig Cope. “The area has a large and active local constituency that is sidelined by this proposed act.”

CONTACTS:

• Dan Smitherman, Wyoming Representative, The Wilderness Society, (307) 609-1737, dan_smitherman@tws.org
• Chelsi Moy, Northern Rockies Communications Manager, The Wilderness Society, (406) 240-3013, chelsi_moy@tws.org

The Wilderness Society is the leading conservation organization working to protect wilderness and inspire Americans to care for our wild places. Founded in 1935, and now with more than one million members and supporters, The Wilderness Society has led the effort to permanently protect 109 million acres of wilderness and to ensure sound management of our shared national lands. www.wilderness.org.