“If they’re going to be wilderness, let’s have them be wilderness. If they’re not going to be wilderness, let’s take them off of there, because right now they are managed as if they were wilderness,” Chadwick told the other commissioners.

The newly formed group would decide what should happen to the areas and make a recommendation to Wyoming’s Congressional delegation.

Under WPLI guidelines all the working group meetings would be open to the public, and citizen comments would be taken in every session. Commissioner Rob Hendry, meanwhile, emphasized the need for balance on the committee.

“If we go ahead with this, our main deal is we need to come up with names of people—and we need good names that are fair, that are both ways, that are not going to say ‘absolutely not, no way’, and we don’t want people that say ‘all right’ and just rubberstamp anything,” Hendry said. “We’ve got to have a serious conversation about it, so I think that’s where the main goal is, to have good people on the board.”

Vice-Chairman John Lawson said the working group could provide compromise, not limited to an up or down decision on a wilderness designation. Some places could become conservation areas, for example.