Wyoming officials voted Thursday to proceed with selling a spectacular, pristine piece of state property within Grand Teton National Park to the federal government for $100 million and end decades of threats to sell it to the highest-bidding private developer.
The 3-2 vote by the state Board of Land Commissioners — made up of Gov. Mark Gordon and the other top four state elected officials, all Republicans — puts the square-mile (2.6-square-kilometer) parcel with an unobstructed view of the Teton Range a step closer to becoming part of the park.
The land that has been a bone of contention between Wyoming and federal officials for decades may finally be on track to sell by the end of this year.
“There’s clearly a right decision to be made. This is a very rare opportunity for you to do the right thing for education in Wyoming,” Wyoming Senate President Ogden Driskill, a Republican, urged the board before the vote.
Conservation and sportsmen's groups have made similar appeals to keep the property out of private hands even though selling to developers could net the state the highest dollar return.
The state land surrounded by national parkland on all sides has belonged to Wyoming since statehood. However, leasing it for grazing has brought in only a few thousand dollars a year, far below what the state could get from a modest return on investing the proceeds of a sale.
As in other states particularly in the West, revenue from state lands funds public education.
The two officials voting no said they hoped to strike a better deal under President-elect Donald Trump's incoming administration, possibly involving a swap for fossil-fuel-rich federal lands elsewhere in the state.
For decades, Wyoming governors have threatened to sell the land within Grand Teton to the highest bidder if the federal government didn’t want to buy it.
The threats led to on-and-off negotiations and three previous sales of other state land within the park to the federal government totaling $62 million.
