Wyoming took center stage on Capitol Hill this week as Senator John Barrasso introduced Micah Christensen, the Wyoming County Commissioners Association’s natural resource counsel, at a Senate hearing digging into how the federal government handles land-use decisions.

The hearing zeroed in on the Bureau of Land Management’s process for approving grazing, energy, mining, and infrastructure projects — a process Barrasso says is increasingly controlled by Washington instead of Wyoming.

“We’re seeing more and more decisions come from D.C., not from the people who know these lands,” Barrasso warned, noting that nearly half of Wyoming is federally owned. “These are places our communities rely on.”

Christensen backed that up, arguing that shifting authority away from local BLM offices undermine

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