State approves Kelly parcel sale contract

JACKSON - After an acrimonious, three-hour meeting, Wyoming's top five state elected officials have approved a contract for a $100 million sale of the Kelly parcel to Grand Teton National Park.

"I believe in our office we can take the $100 million and turn it into $1.6 billion," Treasurer Curt Meier said, shortly before voting for the deal. "That that could be a perpetual - actually, generational - fund that would benefit the students and the education system of the state of Wyoming until the dollar basically no longer exists."

At the same time, the electeds directed state officials to explore using proceeds from the sale of the Kelly parcel - and three other pieces of state trust land sold to Teton park - to purchase land in the Powder River Basin that would be used for oil and gas development.

Meier, Gov. Mark Gordon, Secretary of State Chuck Gray, Auditor Kristi Racines and Superintendent of Public Instruction Megan Degenfelder oversee state land management on two boards to generate money for Wyoming schools.

The State Loan and Investment Board, which has the statutory authority to purchase land, voted unanimously to explore the Powder River purchase. It reconvened as the State Board of Land Commissioners, which can sell state land, and voted unanimously to deny an open market auction of the square mile inholding.

The Kelly parcel is the terminus of an iconic pronghorn migration route with unobstructed views of the Tetons and habitat for other sensitive wildlife species. In the fall of 2023, Wyomingites broadly opposed an open market auction of the parcel, which could lead to development in one of the state's most iconic landscapes.

But the elected officials were split over approving the contract that would authorize selling the state land to the National Park Service.

The vote was 3-2, with Gray and Degenfelder opposed. 

In the debate, Gordon and Gray, in particular, took the issue to the mat. 

Gray said he wasn't properly notified about the contract and at times challenged Gordon's record as governor. Gordon bit back, saying Gray didn't pick up when he called him about the contract. After Gray spent about 30 minutes arguing he could legally vote "no" on the deal, at the end of the meeting, as Gordon was calling the vote, the governor cut Gray off before he could speak again.

Gray was concerned that the decision would lock Wyoming into a sale and undermine efforts to pressure the federal government to give Wyoming a better deal on the controversial Rock Springs Resource Management Plan, which will govern how Bureau of Land Management land is administered in southwestern Wyoming.

Degenfelder, meanwhile, argued that voting "No" would "keep more options open" for Wyoming. 

Degenfelder has led a task force charged with evaluating a possible land swap for the Kelly parcel, and she said she is skeptical of the plan other officials have put forward because she doesn't trust the BLM to follow through with selling its Powder River Basin parcel to the state.

Instead, she has advocated for prioritizing a swap, or otherwise guaranteeing Wyoming's ability to acquire 120,000 acres in the basin adjacent to existing state trust land that can be used for oil and gas development.

"An entire horizontal play can happen with no federal intervention," Degenfelder said. "I just believe that there is a better option and the timing isn't right at this time."

The sale, however, is not finalized.

Last winter, when the Wyoming Legislature approved the $100 million sale, it did so with a condition requiring Gordon to certify that the BLM had backed off a specific conservation alternative in its controversial Rock Springs Resource Management Plan before the sale could be consummated. The BLM has issued a final plan, but not a Record of Decision. Per the legislature's direction, Gordon cannot make the certification until that record is released. 

The decision came on the heels of the U.S. presidential election, which spurred both calls to slow down and negotiate a better deal for a land swap with the incoming Trump administration as well as worries about funds the National Park Service has to buy the parcel drying up.

Of the $100 million purchase price, the park service has agreed to spend $62.5 million from the Land and Water Conservation Fund, a pool of money set aside for federal agencies to buy land that was permanently funded during the first Trump administration. $62.5 million is 62.5% of the annual congressional appropriation that fund. 

But that money could dry up, either during the transition from the Biden administration to a second Trump presidency, or by other National Park Service units gobbling up the funds for projects of their own.

"If we can't close the deal quickly, these other kinds of greedy hands are going to pull that money away and take them to their own park," said Rob Wallace, a retired Department of the Interior official who oversaw the Park Service during the Trump administration.

The decision also comes shortly after Gordon signed on to a Utah lawsuit imploring the U.S. Supreme Court to turn over "unappropriated" BLM land in Utah to the state. 

Wyoming legislators have filed a supportive brief, arguing that all federal land - parks, monuments, wilderness - should be turned over to the states. Similar efforts to acquire federal land have failed before, but some legislators argued that the state should wait until the lawsuit was resolved.

"I think it would be wrong if we sell this property and then we turn around and the Supreme Court sues and we get it back," said Rep. Bill Allemand, R-Casper, one of the legislators who signed onto the suit.

But Wyoming Senate President Ogden Driskill, R-Devil's Tower, argued that those legislators' sentiments were tantamount to buyer's remorse - especially after the legislature approved the $100 million sale this winter, tying the Kelly parcel to the Rock Springs decision.

"We're finding buyer's remorse from people that either voted against it or voted for it, and now want to change their minds," Driskill implored board members Thursday. "Respect the legislative process."