rEpibolic president McKay Erickson walked through the Wyoming Capitol hall with a Trump 2024 pin in front of his suit jacket. Much of Erickson’s hometown in Lincoln County is under the jurisdiction of Bridge Teton National Forest and Grand Teton National Park.
Federal workers come along with that federal land. The Wyoming district appears to bear the brunt of the layoffs in US energy control, but McKay said his forested districts aren’t that lucky. He has heard from his constituents about the layoffs and he is plagued by the impact on the future of his district.
“These people have a face to me,” Erickson said. “They have their faces and places in Star Valley or Jackson, which I know well.”
Erickson is a small conservative, lamenting the bureaucracy and building on his belief that there is a need to “cut fat” at the federal level. But in his district, he foresees a lack of trail maintenance that will hurt a low-staffed park with local equipment companies and closed gates.
“This method is very indiscriminate and we don’t really dig into the real question of where those cuts are,” Erickson said. “I think the only thing we’ll lose is service.”
Erickson’s district is bound to unfold in the American West.
Wyoming has voted for Donald Trump in a row in the third presidential election with a wider margin than any other state in the country. Nearby states Idaho and Montana also shook red at the overall miles margin. All three have a high proportion of federal land (Idaho – 62%, Wyoming – 48%, Montana – 29%) and there is a thriving outdoor recreational industry that relies on public lands.
While watching the cut with anxiety, Erickson said he still supports the president, who won more than 81% of the presidential votes cast in Lincoln County in 2024.
“It’s not really shaking me. It’s worrying about me, but it didn’t shake me with my support,” Erickson said.
The layoffs of Trump and billionaire Elon Musk under the so-called “Government Efficiency” (DOGE) have come out of the Beltway and local business owners, politicians and federal employees across the country have told the Guardian they fear catastrophic consequences for their communities.
The Guardian contacted US senators from Wyoming, Montana and Idaho. No one responded to a request for comment.
Few towns represent the relationship between the economy of a small town and public land than salmon in Idaho. With a population of just 3,000, salmon are embraced in a nest on federal land, including the Salmon Charis National Forest, the Frank Church River, the Frank Church River at No Return Wilderness, and the crushing of the Bureau of Land Management’s Office of Land Management.
Dustin Aherin summons Salmon Home and is president of the Middle Fork Outfitters Association, representing 27 local businesses. He said the daily duties of forestry department employees, from river patrols to conservation permits, would be to maintain a business like him. Recent layoffs have put the future at risk.
“All but two of the field teams managing the Middle Fork and the Main Salmon River have been fired. The remaining two have been reassigned,” Aherin said. “There is no ground management at this time.”
The urgency caused by the layoffs sent Aherin to Capitol Hill, where he spoke with the Guardian during a meeting with federal officials. He had a careful optimism that he could help the federal delegation in Idaho create a solution.
100 miles southwest of salmon, Hannah, Stanley, Idaho, a fired employee of the Nauthitooth National Forest who requested anonymity, has a stern prospect for the future of a small mountain town. She said about 40% of staff have been cut, including the wilderness and the entire trail crew. She wonders who will deal with the public side, from cleaning toilets and campsites to providing visitors information, and who will be worried about the impact on Stanley, which has been hit hard by the 2024 wildfire season.
“In a small town like this, there’s only a few months of summer season. A tough year, and a really bad year for a local business, could be bad,” Hanna said.
Hannah said her health insurance would be costly a few weeks before the surgery, which would cost her, and she hopes she will have to move. Early in her career, she said the experience would likely make her and other young civil servants sour in public services.
“We’re losing the next generation of public land custodians,” Hanna said. “And our public lands are under threat.”
Similar uncertainties are creeping up the community surrounding Marquee National Park in Mountain West, the local economic engine. The 2023 report estimated that the national parks had generated more than $55 billion in economic impacts from a $3.6 billion budget. Many of these dollars went to Gateway Town in the Red State, including framing the entrance to Grand Teton National Park and Yellowstone National Park.
Dale Sexton, owner of Dan Bailey’s fly shop in Livingston, Montana, is helping to drive the revival of the Yellowstone Business Coalition, where more than 400 members work to work to deal with the impact of federal layoffs on the federal delegation in Montana. Sexton is practical about the political situation in the nation, betting that economics-based debate will drive the needle.
“Our delegation currently doesn’t want to abandon Doge’s ship,” Sexton said. “But I also hope that the protest will be very large and that will attract their attention and affect the change.”
Livingston City Commissioner Curry Carle expects trickle-down effects from layoffs.
“If we lose a federal worker first, and one of them is lost, we could lose all our family members from the community,” Karle said. “If that federal worker has a partner, is that partner a teacher or is he doing other jobs in our community? Are we going to lose our kids from the school system?”
Andrea Shiverdecker, an archaeologist at the Custer Gallatin National Forest in Montana, lost his job on Valentine’s Day. In addition to her personal life and community impact, Shiverdecker remains a potential consequence of Yellowstone.
“I don’t think people understand the amount and the amount of people that pass through our ecosystem each year, and the amount of talent they need to continue cleaning,” Shiverdecker said. “This is something we fear on public lands… we need to be stewards and raise them for future generations.”
Shiverdecker said the layoff process is disorienting. She said it ended 25 days before the end of her probation period, but she said paperwork was being made for her promotion. She said she believes in a “good person” and somehow wants to return to her job, but for now she has a lot of frustration.
“How are you fired because of performance issues while you were handling the promotion?” Shiverdecker said. “It’s heartbreaking as a dedicated civil servant, as a disabled veteran, someone who loves the fact that they served. That’s the greatest honor you can give.”
