Wyoming Range Legacy Act didn’t protect 77,000 acres of the Wyoming Range. New approach to be tried?
A lot of folks thought the tremendous victory of The Wyoming Range Legacy Act signed by President Obama last year stopping new oil or gas leasing on 1.2 million acres in the Wyoming Range and Salt River Ranges put the drilling to rest, but no. 77,000 acres in the wildlife rich NW corner of the Wyoming Range had already been leased.
Because the government creates private property rights (out of public land) when it leases, to stop drilling an oil company has to give up or sell the leases. As a result a number of conservation interests are seeking to try a buy out.
Saving these mountain ranges from drilling has been an issue that generally unites conservationists of all types, including hunting groups. May this rare success continue!
Story: Groups consider drilling lease buyouts in Wyoming Range. By Mead Gruver. Associated Press.
Ralph Maughan
Dr. Ralph Maughan is professor emeritus of political science at Idaho State University. He was a Western Watersheds Project Board Member off and on for many years, and was also its President for several years. For a long time he produced Ralph Maughan's Wolf Report. He was a founder of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition. He and Jackie Johnson Maughan wrote three editions of "Hiking Idaho." He also wrote "Beyond the Tetons" and "Backpacking Wyoming's Teton and Washakie Wilderness." He created and is the administrator of The Wildlife News.
