Federal Effort to Restrict Oil and Gas Drilling in Wyoming Draws Fierce Opposition, Fake News

A plan to prevent oil drilling on vast tracts of public land in southwestern Wyoming has engendered fierce opposition from residents of the northwestern state — and a groundswell of misleading information.

Misinformation on social media has claimed that the plan would restrict all public access to the protected area, with one elected official calling the plan "worse than the Civil War, Pearl Harbor and 9/11 combined."

"I urge everyone to call the governor and ask him to stop this," the elected official, Wyoming State Rep. Bill Allemand said of the plan in a livestream, according to Wyoming Public Media.

Wyoming residents opposed to the effort have sent threats to a federal official and spread false stories stating the effort will bar people from visiting the wide expanse of wild land, according to reporting from local news outlets and The New York Times.

The plan, which was drawn up by the Bureau of Land Management's Rock Springs office and involves roughly 3.6 million acres of land in Wyoming's Red Desert, has been 12 years in the making.

Not yet finalized, it would restrict oil and gas drilling, mining and highway construction on all or part of the area in question.

It does not restrict public access.

A draft of the plan said it would result in 2,900 fewer jobs in oil and gas drilling and production, according to Times, but the opposition extends far beyond economic concerns.

Officials in Wyoming's Republican-dominated state government are universally opposed to the idea, calling it an infringement on state sovereignty, and an unacceptable intrusion by the federal bureaucracy, according to High Country News.

Kimberly Foster, the field office manager for BLM in Rock Springs, has been the subject of threats over the plan, according to local news outlets.

She told Wyoming Public Media that she thinks misinformation is responsible for much of the opposition to the proposal, adding that some people incorrectly think they won't be allowed to hike or hunt on the property anymore.

"That has a lot of folks riled up because they think that we're closing public access," she said.

The plan is part of the Biden Administration's goal of preserving wild lands and reducing the country's dependence on fossil fuels in order to fight climate change.