When Sen. Cynthia Lummis decided to help revive the Congressional Western Caucus years ago as a House member, it was in response to learning that some members of congressional leadership didn’t know basic things about, for example, the Bureau of Land Management.
“We went to one of the members of our leadership team in the House and talked to him about BLM matters, and his response was, ‘Now remind me what BLM stands for,’” Lummis, a Wyoming Republican, told NOTUS. “That was our clue that even our own Republican leadership was not familiar with Western issues.”
More than 90% of the land the federal government owns is in 12 states, all in the West. The federal government owns 63% of land in Utah, second only to Nevada at 80%, according to the Congressional Research Service. That creates a host of policy differences that lawmakers from there say their colleagues from more densely populated states just don’t understand.