The Wyoming Senate is set today to consider a bill that would regulate the sale of private land to the federal government, a measure critics say erodes a fundamental property right.
A Senate panel Thursday endorsed Senate File 105, “An Act to Preserve State Territorial Sovereignty,” which would require Wyoming legislators to approve any sale of property to the federal government. The Senate Agriculture, State and Public Lands and Water Resources Committee advanced the bill with a 4-1 vote over the objections of the Wyoming Stock Growers Association.
Sen. Bob Ide, R-Casper, the bill’s lead sponsor, said “if the government wanted to buy more land within the states, they need to get that consent from the state Legislature.” A critic of federal land ownership in Wyoming, Ide is a member of the ag committee and a commercial real estate developer.
Senate File 105 is based on an interpretation of the U.S. Constitution that according to Ide only allows the federal government to own property used for its enumerated powers. The Constitution lists those powers as things like imposing taxes, minting money, punishing pirates, maintaining a postal service and military, among a few others. The government has authority over 10 square miles in Washington, D.C. but must get states’ consent to own property not designated for furtherance of enumerated powers, he told the committee.
Under the bill, a person who would sell land to the federal government would submit details to the Legislature, which would then “review and see if [the sale] is constitutional or not,” Ide said. The bill requires “evidence that the federal government would be acquiring the real property in this state pursuant to an enumerated constitutional power,” for a sale to be completed, the bill reads.
“If a person fails to submit that information and goes through with their transaction, essentially, they’re jeopardized with losing the money that they had received for that sale,” Ide said.
Fundamental right
Wyoming Stock Growers Association Executive Vice President Jim Magagna said the group is “strongly opposed” to the bill as drafted.
“To say that the private landowner, who’s exercising [a] private property right that is fundamental to our state and to our nation, that they are the guilty party if they don’t get prior approval from the state — and then such an onerous penalty that they stand to lose the entire amount of the value that they receive for their property — is just something beyond what we can support,” he said.
“The private landowner is the one who pays the price,” Magagna said, “that’s not appropriate.”
The bill would also stymie simple public-access efforts — efforts to obtain easements for hunting, recreation and other things — he said.
“Even that simple step would require this onerous process under the terms that we find in this bill,” Magagna told the panel, which urged him to work on amendments when the measure got to the Senate floor.
Sens. Tim French, R-Powell; Troy McKeown, R-Gillette and Laura Pearson, R-Kemmerer, backed the bill along with Ide. Sen. Barry Crago, R-Buffalo, voted against it.
A conservation group also criticized the measure in a newsletter, saying Ide’s bill would erode the rights of landowners, damage property values and limit public access. “In effect, it would limit new public lands access and erode the rights of private landowners to sell their land to whomever they choose, including for conservation purposes,” the Wyoming Outdoor Council said in an “action alert” email.
The Senate has scheduled the measure, along with other bills, for floor debate at a session that starts at noon today.
Ide’s interpretation of the Constitution
Ide is also the lead sponsor of the resolution that demands Congress turn over 30 million federal acres in Wyoming, including Grand Teton National Park, to the state. That measure is working its way through the upper chamber with the support of 16 senators.
Meantime, the House passed House Bill 118, “Limitations on net land gains for the federal government,” that would prohibit land deals in Wyoming that result in a net-gain of acreage for the federal government. It is headed to the Senate.
A real estate agent and landman, Ide said he believes the Enclave Clause from Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution clearly prohibits most federal land ownership. That’s the same unconventional position adopted by Ammon Bundy during and after the occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon. Many legal scholars and courts disagree with this interpretation.
“I’ve studied it a lot over the last couple of years,” Ide said. “I’ve studied it extensively with a lot of experts.”
“Half of our surface is owned by the federal government, and 70% of our mineral estate,” he said.
“The actual constitutional relationship between the United States and the land within the states was intended to be limited to the furtherance of some specific delegated Article 1 purpose,” he said. “This is undoubtedly why the Enclave Clause … limited the purposes for which the lands may be acquired within the states, for its ports, magazines, arsenals, dockyards and other needful buildings.”
Angus M. Thuermer Jr. is the natural resources reporter for WyoFile. He is a veteran Wyoming reporter and editor with more than 35 years experience in Wyoming. Contact him at angus@wyofile.com or (307) 690-5586.
WyoFile is an independent, member-supported, public-interest news service reporting on the people, places and policy of Wyoming. The organization incorporated in 2009 as a Wyoming 501(c)3 nonprofit, and is a member of the Institute for NonProfit News.
The Crude Life republishes their articles, features and stories online and/or in print under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.
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