Open letter to Sen. Cynthia Lummis.

Senator Lummis,

Thank you for your June 18 reply to our letters opposing the FY26 budget bill provision that will make millions of acres of public lands in America available for sale. Your letter shows you are either uninformed or lying about this issue.

You assured us that the provision for selling public lands was stripped out of the House bill, but you didn’t mention the Senate’s plan. The Senate Energy and Natural Resource Committee’s plan to sell public lands would make as much as 40 percent of the nation’s federally managed public lands eligible for sell-offs to private interests – the total number of lands at risk is more than 250 million acres.

As you said, the House version of the budget bill would have sold around half-a-million acres of public land in Utah and Nevada, but it was scrapped after Americans rose up in opposition. What you didn’t say is the Senate’s version put that provision back in and expanded it. As initially crafted, the Senate version *mandated* the sale of up 3.3 million acres of public land—somewhere between .5 and .75 percent of all BLM and USFS lands in 11 western states. Then on the night of June 11, the Senate Committee added yet another amendment to sell public lands. The newest version of the Senate’s Energy and Natural Resource Committee proposal identifies nearly 14.5 million acres in Wyoming that would be eligible for sale.

In Utah, the original provision opened about 1.9 million acres of federal lands to potentially sell off, but the change expands that number to 18.7 million acres.

In Alaska, the total has grown to more than 82 million acres.

In Colorado, the total numbers of acres at risk of sale is now 14,352,632.

In Nevada, it’s up to 33.5 million.

It does so by altering previous language that exempted public lands with “valid existing rights.” That previous exemption included land with mining claims, oil and gas leases, and grazing permits. While the Committee indicates that oil and gas leases and existing mining claims are still valid, with the latest change, they determined that grazing leases do not rise to the same standard and are therefore eligible for sale or disposal in the budget bill.

Your letter said, “one of my top priorities to maintain and improve public access on public lands for activities such as hunting, fishing, snowmobiling, hiking and biking. However, I believe that the people of Wyoming are the best stewards of the land, not unelected bureaucrats in Washington, D.C.” Public land protection is one of our top priorities as well, but it looks like our ELECTED bureaucrats in Washington, D.C. are lying about their work to make public lands available for private sale. Shame on you.

Remember: You are up for re-election and this is a very unpopular proposal. Stand up for Wyoming.
OPPOSE any proposal to remove public lands from public hands.

Wyoming Rising