CHEYENNE—Rep. Dalton Banks, a twentysomething Republican rancher from Big Horn County, was clear about his goals for a measure that could inhibit Wyoming’s ability to pull off land deals with the federal government: He wants to ensure something like the divisive, $100 million Kelly Parcel deal doesn’t happen again.  “I don’t think that it’s in the best interest of Wyoming that we let them gain more access to our ground,” Banks told fellow lawmakers Thursday. “I also think it’s in the best interest of Wyoming that we don’t allow just outright sales of state ground.”  Banks’ House Bill 118, “Limitations on net land gains for the federal government,” proposes one short addition to the current statute. “No exchange executed under this section shall result in a net gain of surface rights or mineral rights to the federal government,” the bill states. The slate of all-Republican co-sponsors includes Reps. Ocean Andrew of Laramie, Jeremy Haroldson of Wheatland, Reuben Tarver of Gillette, John Winter of Thermopolis and Sens. Bob Ide of Casper, John Kolb of Rock Springs and Cheri Steinmetz of Torrington. Banks and most of his cosponsors are counted among the hard-line cohort that includes the Wyoming Freedom Caucus and its Wyoming Senate allies.  If enacted unchanged, the bill would add a new legal directive for Wyoming land managers, who often pursue land sales and swaps with the federal government. Some of those deals are compelled by the Wyoming Constitution, which requires officials to maximize revenues from school trust lands to fund public education.  “We have rules and regulations, and we also have statutes that have been provided to us, and they’re a little bit contrary to what the intent of the bill is,” Wyoming Office of State Lands and Investments Acting Director Jason Crowder told the House Agriculture, State and Public Lands & Water Resources Committee Thursday as the panel took public comment and expert testimony on the measure.  The Office of State Lands and Investments, he explained, is charged with protecting and increasing the value of “the whole corpus” of the state’s lands and associated trust accounts.  “Land transactions are the best way for us to do that,” Crowder said.  Looking down at the Jackson Hole valley from the elevated northeast corner of the Kelly Parcel in November 2024. The state of Wyoming sold the parcel to the National Park Service for $100 million the following month. (Mike Koshmrl/WyoFile) In the case of the Kelly Parcel, the $100 million Wyoming received for 640 acres was $38 million more than the property’s appraised value. When the State Board of Land Commissioners OK’d the sale in a 3-2 vote, Treasurer Curt Meier said that, through investments, his office could turn the proceeds into $1.6 billion.  “That could be a perpetual, actually generational fund that would benefit the students and the education system of the state of Wyoming,” the treasurer said at the time.  Not all of his board colleagues agreed. Superintendent of Public Instruction Megan Degenfelder contested the sale, pushing instead for a land swap that would return fossil-fuel-rich federal land in the Powder River Basin.  Degenfelder, the daughter of an oilman, spoke in support of Banks’ bill.  “I fundamentally agree with the concept that we cannot continue to increase federal ownership of the state of Wyoming,” the superintendent told the House Ag committee. “48% of the surface is owned by the federal government, 65% of mineral acreage is owned by the federal government. We cannot afford to increase that number.”  Lawmakers echoed displeasure with federal land management inside Wyoming’s borders. Banks cited both the Bureau of Land Management’s recent revisions of resource management plans for the Red Desert region and the Powder River Basin. Rep. Reuben Tarver (R-Gillette) testifies to the House Agriculture Committee during the Wyoming Legislature’s 2025 general session in Cheyenne. (Mike Koshmrl/WyoFile) Tarver, a co-sponsor representing Gillette, wasn’t on the committee and couldn’t move to amend it, but suggested sweetening the pot for Wyoming and requiring a 10-to-1 or 100-to-1 acre requirement for any land deals.  “I don’t see where the federal government manages absolutely anything very well,” Tarver said. “Everything they touch turns into a problem for the state of Wyoming.”  Rep. Karlee Provenza, D-Laramie, asked her fellow representative if he’d be OK with the bill if it infringed on private property owners’ rights to sell their land to the federal government.  Tarver didn’t hesitate. “Absolutely,” he said. Even a 1-to-1 acre requirement — as the bill is written — could dismantle some deals in the works. Crowder, with the Office of State Lands and Investments, cited the proposed land exchange with the Medicine Bow National Forest, as a potential casualty. The deal would enable construction of a 264-foot-high dam that would benefit a few dozen irrigators.  The valley in which the West Fork dam and reservoir would be constructed. (Angus M. Thuermer, Jr./WyoFile) The Medicine Bow deal’s benefit to an agricultural community didn’t sway Kelly Carpenter, a lobbyist for the Wyoming Farm Bureau Federation, who testified in support of the legislation.  House Bill 118 passed through the House Agriculture Committee in an 8-1 vote after minimal debate, with Provenza opposed. It heads next to the Wyoming House of Representatives, where it’ll need to be read, and voted on, three times on the lower chamber’s floor.  The post Fresh off Kelly Parcel sale, lawmakers seek to bar similar federal land deals appeared first on WyoFile .