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Draft Barrasso bill eyes new BLM wilderness areas, motor park
U.S. Sen. John Barrasso is circulating a draft bill that’s drawing opposing reactions over its provisions to create five new Bureau of Land Management non-motorized wilderness areas in Wyoming. The...
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Wyoming’s investments: Why returns have lagged
When Wyoming got serious about saving and created the Permanent Mineral Trust Fund in 1974, nobody pictured what we have today: a Wall Street veteran, chief investment officer Patrick Fleming, weighing...
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Wyoming’s investments: Plenty of activity, but to what end?
Wyoming’s investments results have lagged for years, but no one can accuse the state treasurer’s office of idleness. In the past five years, Wyoming’s investment operation has been a whirlwind of...
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Gordon touts plans for $1.25B in CARES funds as some question pace
Gov. Mark Gordon last week defended his administration’s progress toward distributing $1.25 billion in federal CARES Act money provided to the state. “There is kind of a narrative going on that the...
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Grizzly CSI: Cutting to facts in a predator-livestock whodunit
KENDALL — After about an hour’s work skinning a fetid, fly-swarmed, half-rotted cow carcass, Zach Turnbull — a Wyoming Game and Fish biologist who investigates suspected grizzly bear killings of...
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Wyoming’s investments: Barriers to growth
Wyoming’s Permanent Mineral Trust Fund is often mentioned alongside the Alaska Permanent Fund, and for good reason: Both are in sparsely populated, minerals-rich states, where they were set up to...
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Teachers, parents question school reopenings
As parents, students, administrators and district employees nervously eye the reopening of Wyoming schools under coronavirus pandemic rules, many are uncertain that safety plans will protect them and...
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Officials: Budget cuts will make prisons, communities less safe
Budget cuts to the Wyoming Department of Corrections will make Wyoming communities and the state’s prisons less safe, and lead to people spending more time behind bars, according to Gov. Mark Gordon...
View ArticleFact-checking the state’s investment performance rebuttal
The following letter was sent to members of the Joint Revenue Committee, Gov. Mark Gordon, Treasurer Curtis Meier and Chief Investment Officer Patrick Fleming in response to a presentation Fleming made...
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Gov, EPA outline plans to boost carbon capture, delay plant closures
Wyoming is collaborating with the Trump administration to develop strategies to extend the lives of the nation’s aging coal-fired power plants — the primary customers of the state’s coal mining...
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A cautious governor confronts an ‘unprecedented time’
At Gov. Mark Gordon’s January 2019 inauguration ceremony, Sheridan musician David Munsick sang the song “Forever West.” The paean to Wyoming includes this stanza: “It’s boom and bust and hang on just...
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Wyo criticizes utility’s plans to replace coal with renewables
Wyoming’s largest electrical provider, PacifiCorp, wants to speed up its shift from coal-fired power to renewable energy. But its plan for achieving that vision lacks proper analysis, transparency and...
View ArticleStep out of the shadows Wyo, and end ‘dark money’ spending
Lumpy, a walking, talking lump of coal wearing a miner’s hat and gloves, serves as the Energy Policy Network’s mascot. “Affordable and plentiful, I keep America’s lights on and economy moving,” Lumpy...
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State’s Teton land revenue quest gets only 3 construction plans
A state plan to generate revenue by developing 18 parcels of school- and state-trust land covering 3,976 acres in Teton County has drawn only three development proposals but many conservation plans....
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For Wyo’s untaxed generations, the ‘free ride’ may be over
My neighbor Nick and I got to talking the other night about Wyoming’s budget problems. With COVID-19 and the coal industry’s collapse, the governor said the state might start abandoning small towns...
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As Legislature hems and haws, 19 counties to vote on taxes
Voters in 19 of Wyoming’s 23 counties will face local tax propositions on their General Election ballots, including 12 new revenue measures. The requests for new or continued taxing authority range...
View Article‘The People’s House’? Not the way the Legislature is acting
In his July 2019 remarks during the re-opening ceremony for the renovated Capitol building, former Gov. Matt Mead declared the building to be “The People’s House.” Current Gov. Mark Gordon stated that...
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Largest development proposal for state’s Teton parcels withdrawn
A Teton County developer last week withdrew his proposal to build a high-end subdivision on state school trust land, raising fresh questions about the state’s quest for new education revenue. John...
View ArticleWyoming voters put Legislature on path to budget disaster
Wyoming is about to see where the Legislature’s increasingly hard turn to the right will take a state that is fiscally reeling. It’s not difficult to predict what will happen when lawmakers convene in...
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State gives Aethon OK to inject Moneta pollutants into aquifer
Wyoming regulators voted 4-1 Tuesday to permit Aethon Energy to pump millions of gallons of pollutants into an underground aquifer near Shoshoni that critics say is too valuable to pollute. The Dallas...
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