CHEYENNE—Dalton Banks stood on the House floor Monday and argued his proposal isn’t a taking of private property owners’ rights and liberties, as some of legislative colleagues claimed.  At issue was House Bill 118, “Limitations on net land gains for the federal government,” legislation that would prohibit land deals in Wyoming that result in a net-gain of acreage for the federal government. An amendment brought Monday to the House floor would have exempted private landowners from the new regulation, preserving their rights to sell their property to whomever they see fit.  Banks, a Republican and Big Horn County rancher, didn’t like the change — nor how his bill was being characterized.  Rep. Dalton Banks, R-Cowley, during the Wyoming Legislature’s 2025 general session. (Mike Vanata/WyoFile) “We’re not limiting who you can sell to,” Banks told his fellow lawmakers. “We are limiting the federal government … we’re limiting their right to purchase. That’s what we’re doing under [this bill].”  Under the U.S. Constitution’s Supremacy Clause, federal law supersedes state laws.  The federal government regularly acquires land within Wyoming’s borders. House Bill 118 was catalyzed in part by Wyoming’s controversial, yet celebrated sale of the Kelly Parcel, a $100 million deal that resulted in 640 more acres being tacked onto Grand Teton National Park — a 0.2% expansion of that federally owned and administered tourist destination.  Rep. Karlee Provenza, D-Laramie, during the Wyoming Legislature’s 2025 general session. (Mike Vanata/WyoFile) The bringer of the amendment, Rep. Karlee Provenza, a Laramie Democrat, argued that without the change House Bill 118 could threaten to devalue private property.  “You’re infringing on individual rights to do what they want with their land,” Provenza said. “Especially … when that land is surrounded by or next to other public land parcels.”  Their land, their rights? Speaking in support of the amendment, Rep. Steve Harshman, a Casper Republican, got away from hypotheticals and alluded to a Natrona County ranchers’ sale of 35,670 acres to a conservation buyer. The land, in turn, was conveyed to the Bureau of Land Management, creating better public access to 8.8 miles of the North Platte River — and a world-class trout fishery.    “Those people that sold that land, it was their land — it was their right,” Harshman said.  A bill confined to restricting the sale of state lands to the federal government is “fine,” the former House speaker said. “But boy,” Harshman said, “infringing on private property rights, that gives me pause.”  RELATED Fresh off Kelly Parcel sale, lawmakers seek to bar similar federal land deals BLM affirms its 2022 conservation purchase of private Marton Ranch Rep. Andrew Byron, a real estate agent, saw it similarly. The issue, the Teton/Lincoln County Republican said, “goes right to the core.”  “We’re expanding the greenbook to tell our neighbors and our friends and our constituents what they can and cannot do with [their] land,” Byron said.  “We’re expanding the greenbook to tell our neighbors and our friends and our constituents what they can and cannot do with [their] land.”Andrew Byron, Members of the House who are in or aligned with the Wyoming Freedom Caucus disagreed. Rep. Ken Pendergraft, R-Sheridan, argued that it’s appropriate, at times, to restrict private property rights, such as when landowners’ seek to sell their land to an “enemy” of the United States.  Adopting limits “In my view, [they] should be curtailed at certain points,” Pendergraft said. “I don’t have a right as a private landlord to do everything that I want to do on my private land.”  Rep. Ken Pendergraft, R-Sheridan, at the Wyoming Legislature’s 2025 general session. (Mike Vanata/WyoFile) Provenza’s amendment failed, 25-34. The faction of the GOP that typically votes with the newly empowered Freedom Caucus carried the vote to retain the legislation’s restrictions for private property.  House Bill 118 requires one more reading in the Wyoming House of Representatives. If it survives that hurdle, the legislation will head to the Wyoming Senate for consideration. The post Wyoming Freedom Caucus sides with private property restrictions in land-sale fight appeared first on WyoFile .