Federal Policy

RENAISSANCE MEETS REALITY

Posted on by Max Owens


Will advanced nuclear technology usher in a clean energy utopia — or deepen existing problems?

LATE ON A WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON in a nondescript conference room in Casper, the people filling rows of plastic chairs lean forward in their seats. Reporters lining the back wall raise cameras and audio recorders, straining to catch every word. The air hums with tension as one after another, members of the public speak into a microphone and address the lawmakers seated before them.

The people have traveled here, to the July 2025 meeting of the Wyoming Joint Minerals, Business, and Economic Development Committee, to voice their opinions on a draft bill that would help clear the way for a first-of-its-kind nuclear manufacturing facility near Bar Nunn. The proposed facility would build “microreactors,” which are portable nuclear reactors — sort of like a shipping container-sized diesel generator, except with nuclear fuel — that would aim to provide reliable power for military installations, hospitals, and remote towns.

Murmurs of approval and frustration rise from the crowd as nearly 40 people share everything from heartfelt pleas for caution to hopeful portraits of economic prosperity. At times the tension boils over. “You’re shoving it through!” one commenter shouts, amplifying what several others have declared: that a speedy approval of the measure would disregard the concerns of community members. The chairman’s gavel cracks over the woman’s shouts. The proceedings continue.

Finally, long after afternoon has turned to evening, the last comment has been heard. What happens next is something of an anticlimax: The legislators agree to table the bill — effectively suspending it from consideration, while leaving the door open to discuss the topic at a future meeting.

But they never get the chance. In October, amid the regulatory uncertainty and public outcry, Radiant Nuclear, the company behind the project, pulled the plug on its plans in Wyoming, announcing that it would build its facility in Tennessee instead.

Some people breathed a sigh of relief. Others lamented what they saw as a missed opportunity. But for everyone, this is just the beginning of a much bigger conversation.

The proposed Bar Nunn facility may be off the table, but interest in advanced nuclear technologies is only growing, and industry has its eyes on Wyoming. In 2025 the Trump administration issued four executive orders to expedite licensing and build nuclear power generation capacity. And Wyoming’s favorable tax environment, plentiful open land, and skilled energy workforce make it attractive for nuclear development. Which is why, advocates say, it’s time for Wyoming to make a comprehensive plan governing nuclear energy.

The problem is, there are still a lot of unknowns when it comes to advanced nuclear energy. The technologies on the horizon are largely untested, and important questions remain about their safety and affordability. These unknowns could have serious consequences for Wyoming, for generations to come. And policymakers need to carefully consider the consequences as they weigh how much — and what kind of — nuclear development to allow in the state.

INTEREST IN NUCLEAR ENERGY IS SURGING in part because it’s seen as a way to meet rising energy demands, driven largely by the growth of AI and data centers, without contributing to climate change.

Traditional nuclear energy, with its high price tags, burdensome waste, and painful history of catastrophic meltdowns, has had a rocky past. But the advanced designs coming to the fore these days, proponents say, could power America’s future in an affordable and safe way, while also curbing fossil fuel emissions.

“Advanced nuclear technology” can mean a lot of things. But what’s garnering the most attention from both industry and the public are “small modular reactors,” or SMRs.

Proposed SMR designs vary wildly in their fuel, cooling systems, and power output. The most basic SMRs are scaled-down versions of traditional reactors, of which there are currently 94 in operation across the country, supplying 19 percent of America’s electricity. But their designers say SMRs have important advantages over traditional reactors: They will produce less waste, for one. And because components would be manufactured in a central facility before being assembled at a power plant site — sort of like Lego building blocks for nuclear energy — they could theoretically be deployed much faster. (Microreactors, like the ones Radiant hoped to build, are even smaller than SMRs; while microreactors are designed to be portable, SMRs are not.)

SMRs are also being touted as eminently affordable. Once SMR designs have made it over research and development humps, their size and modularity will lead to great cost efficiencies, Erik Funkhouser, executive director of the nuclear advocacy organization Good Energy Collective, says. That means they are more likely to be built: A large reactor costing $12 billion may be very difficult to fund, for example, but $1–2 billion is comparatively easy. SMRs would be more similar to the energy output and cost of a natural gas plant, Funkhouser says, “and we fund those day in and day out.”

Nuclear proponents hope such advanced designs will usher in a “nuclear renaissance” that will reshape the way we supply electricity to the grid while solving climate change. But other experts caution that nuclear’s economic problems aren’t going away and that commercial deployment of advanced technologies is still a distant dream. Moreover, they worry a “renaissance” could deepen problems around safety and disposal of radioactive waste.

In 1951, Experimental Breeder Reactor 1 near Arco, Idaho successfully powered four light bulbs, becoming the world’s first nuclear reactor to produce electricity. It suffered a partial meltdown in 1955. Later, EBR-1’s reactor design gave way to more reliable alternatives.

DR. ALLISON MACFARLANE speaks with the measured, patient air of someone who has explained nuclear energy policy thousands of times. And she has: From 2012 to 2014, Macfarlane, a geologist by trade, headed the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the federal agency that licenses the country’s nuclear energy projects.

Macfarlane sees many problems with a potential nuclear renaissance — starting with economics. The financial promises being made about SMRs simply aren’t realistic, she says. In her tenure as NRC chair, she oversaw licensing for three different SMR projects. Two of these projects failed in early stages because of concerns that they wouldn’t be economically viable. The third, developed by a company called NuScale, made it further along. But in 2023, this project also collapsed for economic reasons.

Traditional reactor projects have long suffered from construction costs that balloon far beyond initial projections, and SMRs are susceptible to these cost overruns, too. But they also have another issue to contend with: what experts call economies of scale. While an individual SMR might be cheaper to build than a large nuclear power plant, Macfarlane explains, you’d need several of them to generate the same amount of power. In the end, it would be cheaper to build one big plant than five small ones.

The bottom line for Macfarlane? Traditional nuclear power plants haven’t been cost-effective, and smaller reactors won’t be either. Other advocates fear that if they are built despite this, electric utility customers — homeowners, renters, and businesses — will be the ones to suffer as utilities look to recover their inevitable losses.

The problem is, there are still a lot of unknowns when it comes to advanced nuclear energy. The technologies on the horizon are largely untested, and important questions remain about their safety and
affordability.

IN 2024, TERRAPOWER, A BILL GATES-FUNDED VENTURE, broke ground on its experimental nuclear power plant near Kemmerer — Wyoming’s first. The theoretical power output of TerraPower’s reactor is just above the threshold for what many consider to be an SMR. But its design, which uses molten sodium as a coolant instead of the water that traditional “light water reactors” use, is a perfect example of the advanced technology that proponents think will power a zero-emissions future.

The problem, Macfarlane says, is that these kinds of advanced nuclear facilities take a very long time to become operational. And we don’t have much time to curb the worst impacts of climate change.

“When you engineer anything — a fighter plane, or bridge, or nuclear reactor — you design it on your computer and then you have to build a scale model,” Macfarlane explains. As a design is scaled up and into three dimensions, aspects will shift and adjustments must be made, and then more adjustments must be made when moving from scale model to commercial scale. “With small modular reactors, we are at the computer model stage.”

There are only two SMRs being demonstrated in the Western world, according to Macfarlane: the Kairos reactor in Tennessee and the GE Hitachi BWRX in Ontario. Neither have completed construction. And the rest, she says, are so far from commercial deployment that they are basically figments of imagination.

Even TerraPower’s project in Kemmerer fits into this category, she says. While the project has cleared important hurdles, it has not yet received its construction permit from the NRC. And the gap between the design phase and large-scale commercial deployment for it and other advanced nuclear technologies could be on the order of three decades.

That’s why Macfarlane loses her patience when proponents laud advanced nuclear technologies as the silver bullet to combat climate change. “I’ll try not to be too colorful in my language…. If we had 20 years to fart around and perfect this technology, great,” she says. “But we don’t have endless time. We have to address this problem now.”

AT THE JULY MINERALS COMMITTEE MEETING IN CASPER, much of the opposition to Radiant’s facility had to do with waste. High-level radioactive waste, an unavoidable byproduct of nuclear power generation, produces fatal doses of radiation and could lead to far-reaching impacts on people and the environment if leaked into ground or surface water. Radiant’s plan involved storing waste from its microreactors onsite in Bar Nunn.

Wyoming law prohibits spent nuclear fuel from being stored within the state. But the company was asking for an exception. (A similar exception was given to TerraPower years earlier.)

In the short term, we actually have pretty foolproof ways to store nuclear waste, Macfarlane says. The current storage standard is within “dry casks,” or large steel canisters surrounded by thick concrete. And these work well: Even dry casks tipped over and inundated during the Fukushima disaster, for example, were undamaged.

But people are correct to worry about the long term. High-level waste remains radioactive for tens of thousands of years. While dry casks will hold waste safely for decades, perhaps even for a century, there’s no way to avoid their eventual degradation, Macfarlane explains. That means someone must always be monitoring them, and someone must foot the bill when it’s time to change them out. “The question of who’s going to pay for this 100 years from now is not answered at all,” Macfarlane says.

Another source of uncertainty is the lack of a federal site for permanent disposal of high-level waste. In TerraPower’s case, the company is allowed to temporarily store waste from their operations onsite, until a national repository is established. But such a site doesn’t yet exist. And the prospect of establishing one in the foreseeable future is bleak, meaning that waste would likely be stored within the state for far longer than “temporary” might suggest.

Wyomingites have good reason to be cautious about radioactive waste. From 1958 to 1963, the Susquehanna-Western uranium mill near Riverton processed uranium ore on land seized from Wind River Tribal members through eminent domain. When it shut down, a 70-acre pile of radioactive tailings was left behind.

Without a lining to keep it contained, waste soon seeped into the groundwater. Local families began experiencing cancer at alarming rates — an apparent impact of the radioactive plume that continues to this day.

When remediation efforts began, tribal members were often excluded from the decision-making process. “We were stymied at every turn,” says Gary Collins, a Northern Arapaho member involved in the discussions. He describes an atmosphere of broken promises and disregard for the people bearing the waste’s cancerous brunt.

Today, decades later, the waste has been removed. But the danger of contamination lingers, unseen by the people who live nearby. Collins rattles off a handful of local families impacted by cancer. “When you drive by here, you don’t see anything different,” he says. “You see a vast open field. You see somebody’s cows out there grazing away.” Collins pauses. “Are you eating those cows?”

Uranium processing is not the same as a nuclear power plant or nuclear manufacturing facility. But the story of the Susquehanna mill tailings offers a troubling lesson: When radioactive waste isn’t given the diligence it deserves, the impacts, which can last for generations, often fall on the most vulnerable communities.

A uranium mill operated by Susquehanna-Western, Inc. in Karnes County, Texas. When another Susquehanna mill near Riverton, Wyoming closed in 1963, it left behind nearly 1.8 million cubic yards of radioactive waste.

How to store radioactive waste safely, in both the short and long term, is an important question. But what about other safety concerns? After all, nuclear energy still carries the stigma from catastrophic meltdowns at Chernobyl and Fukushima. Would advanced nuclear technologies be, as some of their proponents claim, less prone to dangerous accidents?

In the years since those notorious meltdowns, the industry has made important safety advancements. But Dr. Edwin Lyman, a nuclear physicist and director of nuclear power safety at the Union of Concerned Scientists, thinks that many of the advanced nuclear technologies in the spotlight today are not likely to be much safer than nuclear power plants from earlier eras.

“We don’t have endless time. We have to address this problem now.“

— Dr. Allison Macfarlane

Part of the problem, according to Lyman, is that many of these technologies aren’t as “advanced” as industry would have you believe. “Most of the so-called advanced reactors are really repackaged designs from decades ago that were attempted but didn’t succeed,” he says. Today’s “innovative” technologies have designs similar to flawed projects from the 1950s and 60s: There was the Experimental Breeder Reactor 1 in Idaho, which in 1951 was the world’s first reactor to produce electricity — before an accidental meltdown damaged half its fuel in 1955. And there was Fermi 1 in Michigan, which suffered a partial meltdown of its reactor core in 1966.

Unlike the well-known meltdowns of history, these accidents didn’t result in any major release of radioactive material. But the technologies were discarded in favor of safer, more reliable reactors — which are what’s operational today.

Now industry is returning to those older, experimental designs, as the basis for some of the “advanced” technologies of today. To Lyman, that’s risky. He’s concerned that when it comes to some advanced designs, there are still questions without answers backed by rigorous data — such as the risk of fire posed by sodium coolants, and how well physical containment structures would work in the event of an accident. Security is another concern, with some designs increasing the risks associated with nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism.

MORE CLEAN ENERGY IS NEEDED TO POWER AMERICA’S FUTURE, and even many critics of advanced nuclear technology, like Macfarlane, aren’t advocating shutting down existing nuclear plants. “We definitely need that carbon-free electricity,” she says.

But nuclear isn’t the only zero-emission energy source on the table. Renewables such as wind and solar are quickly becoming cheaper. And while nuclear industry proponents have long scoffed at the reliability of these sources, this is far from the problem it’s made out to be, Dr. Amory Lovins, a Stanford University energy efficiency researcher, says. Wind and solar may be variable, but “variable does not mean unreliable,” he says — especially as modern wind and solar forecasting, significant improvements in battery technology, and other advancements are shoring up the reliability of renewable-heavy grids.

Unlike advanced nuclear projects that won’t come online commercially for years, renewables are adding valuable capacity to the grid right now. “There’s no way nuclear can address climate change in any timely fashion,” Macfarlane says. But renewables, by being cheaper and quicker to deploy, give us a chance.

In the long term, nuclear may well be part of the puzzle that helps the U.S. meet growing energy demands. It may even make sense for Wyoming to host new nuclear projects. But bringing nuclear energy to Wyoming isn’t something we should rush. Even if we speed ahead with advanced nuclear technologies, it’s not likely to add enough clean energy capacity fast enough to solve the climate crisis — and it is likely to expose Wyoming communities to unnecessary risks.

As Lyman, the nuclear physicist, says, speed isn’t the friend of safe nuclear energy. And asking important questions — about how industry and government plan to build projects responsibly, deal with waste, keep communities safe, and pay for it all — takes time.

It will take even more time, and surely many more public meetings stretching late into the night, to build a comprehensive state policy around nuclear energy.

But slowing down and making well-informed decisions could yield clarity. In a world of unknowns, that clarity may offer the strongest foundation for moving forward, on Wyoming’s terms.

Header image: An artist’s rendering of TerraPower’s planned Natrium nuclear power plant near Kemmerer, Wyoming. (Courtesy TerraPower)

THE LAND PAYS THE PRICE

Posted on by Max Owens


Federal employees are the heartbeat of public lands stewardship.
What happens when they’re gone?

A giant downed tree and wreckage of limbs block the trail. Peggie dePasquale considers the obstacle in thoughtful silence, calculating the angles. Finally she nods. “If we cut here, and get a little lucky, we may be able to roll it off the trail — no need for a second cut.” She pauses to wipe the sweat from her forehead. “But we definitely need to get a little lucky.”

My colleague Gabby Yates and I have joined Peggie here in Wyoming’s Gros Ventre Range — an amorphous group of mountains in designated wilderness between the Continental Divide and the Tetons — to see firsthand what’s happening to public lands as the Trump administration culls the federal workforce. For much of the morning we’ve been inching up a forested ridgeline, stopping frequently to clear deadfall.

Gabby lops off limbs with the Pulaski, a modified axe, while Peggie and I sever branches with handsaws. Then it’s time for the giant log, and the crosscut saw. The tinny rasp of the five-foot saw, commonly used in wilderness areas where mechanized equipment isn’t allowed, rings through the forest. Fifteen minutes of steady, sweaty back-and-forth later, the log finally splits and crashes to the ground.

Until recently, Peggie roamed this area as a wilderness ranger for the Bridger-Teton National Forest, where she not only did trail upkeep but also collected vital data and educated visitors. But in February, she was terminated from her position, joining thousands of other federal employees suddenly out of work. Now, months later, the cost of having fewer people to steward public lands — people who maintain campgrounds and trails, protect wildlife habitat and cultural resources, manage wildfire risk, and respond to emergencies — is becoming clearer and clearer.

Gabby Yates and Peggie dePasquale pause their trail work to enjoy views of the Gros Ventre Range.

Peggie had worked in and around the Bridger-Teton National Forest for more than a decade, first as a field instructor for the Teton Science School and later as an organizer for the Wyoming Wilderness Association. But she was relatively new to the Forest Service, with just two field seasons as a ranger under her belt.

In late January of this year, while spending the off-season in France for her husband’s job, Peggie received the infamous “Fork in the Road” email pressuring federal employees to resign. She had been looking forward to the upcoming season in the Gros Ventre: Her work plan was finalized, and a promotion to crew lead was on the horizon. Leaving her post was the last thing she wanted. She ignored the email.

But on Valentine’s Day, while skiing with friends, she received a text: The district ranger needed to speak with her immediately.

“I found a way to give them a call and received the news that the leadership at the Jackson district of the Bridger-Teton Forest were instructed as of that morning to terminate all probationary staff based on performance,” Peggie tells us. “Leadership had been given a day to make these calls to people who they wanted, more than anything, to keep on their team. Their hand was forced.” The call was followed up with a letter that said that she had not performed up to par and that’s why they were letting her go, despite her excellent performance reviews.

Peggie was among at least 2,400 Forest Service employees with probationary status (which includes new hires and recently transferred or promoted employees) who were fired that weekend. In the weeks and months that followed, chaos within federal agencies reigned, with further mass layoffs and the shuttering of dozens of federal offices. As of June, in the Forest Service alone, the number of employees fired or who took the government’s “deferred resignation,” a buyout designed to downsize the federal workforce, totaled 7,500 — more than 20 percent of the Forest Service’s workforce.

A month after Peggie was fired, a federal judge ruled some of the layoffs unlawful, and Peggie was told she could return to her post. But by that point, she had already accepted another job offer.

She faced a dilemma: Should she stick with the new position, or return to the job she’d been heartbroken to lose? And if she did return, would she lose the job again just as easily? As one current Bridger-Teton National Forest employee (who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation) described, the atmosphere within the agency for those who remain has been turbulent, in large part due to ever-shifting directives. “Sometimes it seems purposefully chaotic, but I think a fair amount of it is sheer ineptitude,” they said. “In the meantime, agency personnel are getting ping-ponged back and forth with no context, no clarity, and no real actionable direction.”

Ultimately, Peggie decided not to return to the Forest Service, opting instead to stay in the role she’d just accepted: National Forest Wildlands Director for the Wyoming Wilderness Association, her previous employer.

We traverse flower-filled meadows bordered by red rock outcroppings and hike higher into the mountains. Peggie literally wears a different hat now — an orange cap emblazoned with WWA’s logo — and the trail work we’re doing with her today is not part of her typical job duties. But she’s the kind of person who can’t visit the forest without pitching in: When Gabby and I asked her to show us around, there was never any question that we’d load up the saws.

As we hike, Peggie points out examples of the work she and her former colleagues did here in past years. Some, like the sturdy bridges that span creeks and streams, are obvious displays of labor. Others, like the drainage ditches dug to mitigate rutted trails, are less obvious. Peggie shares that because of staffing cuts, it’s unlikely that a Forest Service crew will make it to this trail this year — meaning the hard work that keeps trails accessible and safe just won’t happen.

Because of staffing cuts, it’s unlikely that a Forest Service crew will make it to this trail this year —
meaning the hard work that keeps trails accessible and safe just won’t happen.

— Peggie dePasquale

Rutted trails and deadfall may seem like a minor inconvenience for many visitors. But for others, like horsepacking outfitters, the impacts can be far greater. “There are people that rely on these trails for their livelihood, and who don’t necessarily have the capacity in the pre-season to spend whole days clearing trail,” my colleague Gabby, who has a background leading horsepacking trips, explains. And with fewer Forest Service staff, the backlog of trails that need clearing will continue to grow.

The impacts of staffing cuts don’t stop with unmaintained trails. Fewer backcountry crews means less data on wilderness visitorship, which forest managers use to make sound management decisions. Cuts have also halted studies of invasive weeds, which Peggie says represent one of the most pressing threats to the Gros Ventre. “At the end of last year, we were working with our GIS specialists to create a survey that would allow us to track infestations,” she shares. From there, managers would work with an invasive species specialist to find a solution. “But now, a program that had so much potential and energy and enthusiasm is just no longer.”

Then of course there’s wildfire: Wilderness crews, like the crew Peggie was on, reduce fire risk by educating visitors about campfire safety, ensuring campfires are properly extinguished, and reporting newly started blazes in the backcountry. Other Forest Service employees play vital roles, too. Without adequate staff for fuels mitigation or trail maintenance, catastrophic burns are more likely, and firefighting personnel may struggle to get where they need to go. Without administrative staff, fire crews face travel delays. And with fewer support staff trained to aid in fires — red card carriers — crews on the frontlines carry a heavier burden.

The Bridger-Teton National Forest, though it encompasses an enormous 3.4 million acres, represents only a fraction of the 30 million acres of federally managed public lands in Wyoming — nearly half the state. I ask Gabby, who is in charge of the public lands program at the Wyoming Outdoor Council, how the impacts from layoffs that we’re seeing here fit into the larger picture of public lands across the state and the West.

She says she’s less worried about unmaintained trails or bathrooms and more concerned with, “What’s going to happen to these ecosystems? We’re talking about wildlife resources. We’re talking about watershed resources. If there’s no one there to manage these issues, the problems we have are just going to be exacerbated.”

Indiscriminate firings of land stewards are a devious part of a much larger effort to transfer public lands to state control, Gabby continues. “With these layoffs, there’s a slippery slope: If we’re not properly staffing these places, we’re not properly managing them, and when that occurs, they become more of a liability than an asset, and there’s more of an excuse to sell them off.”

Although the push for public lands transfer has a long history, it was brought into sharp focus this summer, when Congress tried to include the sale of millions of acres in the federal budget reconciliation bill. If there’s anything to learn from the past, it’s that transfer of public lands to states is a direct pathway to sale and privatization, as states eventually realize they have nowhere near the resources needed to manage lands, let alone turn a profit.

If there’s anything else to be learned, it’s how fervently Americans want to see their public lands protected, not sold off. With the recent sell-off attempts in Congress, for example, the backlash was swift and enormous, and showed just how disconnected many politicians are from the lands they seek to sell off. “Decision makers aren’t seeing places that people care about, or rely on for clean water, or cultural values, or recreation,” Gabby says. “They’re seeing something that you can extract value from.”

Places like the Gros Ventre are ground zero for such attempts: It’s Forest Service land that doesn’t have the recognition of, say, a national park, and therefore means little to distant politicians. Yet for those nearby — people like Peggie, Gabby, and countless others — such places are more than just land. They’re cherished parts of their backyards, places whose true value defies measurement.

Clearing trails is difficult, time-consuming work. With fewer Forest Service employees, the backlog of trails in need of maintenance is growing.

We clear tree after tree as the heat of the afternoon builds. Peggie patiently explains to Gabby how to avoid getting the crosscut saw stuck; she hands me the axe and tells me to enjoy some “wilderness therapy.” The work feels good, and the results are immediately tangible — one of the things Peggie loved most about this work.

On a small scale, there’s no doubt we’re making a difference. And we’re not the only ones, either: From individuals to organizations, there’s no shortage of people stepping up to fill the gaps left over from staffing cuts. The Friends of the Bridger-Teton, for example, recently launched the FBT Forest Corps, an initiative that lends a hand on vital trail infrastructure projects. WWA, Peggie’s organization, helps fund this new initiative, and also regularly trains volunteers to conduct solitude monitoring surveys that would otherwise go undone.

On the other hand, Peggie is clear that our work today is but a drop in the bucket. Nothing, she says, can replace the work done by a full wilderness crew.

“… Our work today is but a drop in the bucket. Nothing can replace
the work done by a full wilderness crew.“

— Peggie dePasquale

We stay past our agreed-upon turnaround time to clear one last log. Finally, though, we turn our backs on whatever awaits up the trail and begin the hike down.

Our talk turns to what gives us hope, for the Gros Ventre and places like it. “For me, it’s the community of people who care for wild places,” Peggie says. “Which is interesting — this idea that it’s people who are bringing us to this point of conflict, and it’s also people who give us hope that we’re capable of finding a solution.”

As we pass the wooden sign marking the wilderness boundary, Peggie gives it a pat like it’s an old friend. With it, she seems to say goodbye. And — I’ll be back.

Have you noticed impacts on public lands from federal layoffs?
Let us know! Fill out our form at our Federal Layoff Hotline below.

FEDERAL LAYOFF HOTLINE

BIG AND BAD FOR WYOMING: HERE’S WHAT’S IN THE SENATE RECONCILIATION BILL

Posted on by WOC Staff

Update: The House of Representatives passed the budget bill and President Trump signed it into law on July 4.

Late Tuesday morning the Senate narrowly passed its budget reconciliation bill in a 51–50 vote, with Vice President JD Vance breaking the tie. The bill is now back in the House, where representatives have to resolve differences with the Senate version, which they hope to do before the 4th of July.

Public land sales were removed from the Senate bill after immense public outcry, which is a huge win. Thank you to all that raised your voice and championed these shared landscapes.

But the legislation would still have horrific impacts on many Wyoming Outdoor Council priorities, including public lands, tribal conservation, and energy and climate. Here are a few of the most troubling provisions.

Oil and Gas Free-For-All

The Senate bill would cut the public out of having a say in oil and gas leasing on our public lands. It would also cost Wyoming a lot of money in lost royalties.

Royalty rates for oil and gas drilling had been raised during the Biden administration. This bill would lower them back down to 12.5% — the rate they had been since 1920 — which by some estimates cost Wyoming up to $3.6 billion in lost revenue between 2013 and 2022.

The bill also strips the Bureau of Land Management of its discretion to say no to proposed oil and gas lease sales. It doesn’t matter if local communities, hunters, anglers, or ranchers have concerns; the BLM would be required to lease any eligible parcel of public land nominated by industry — an outright affront to multiple use.

Clean Energy Tax Credits Axed

The good news: The Senate bill removed a harmful excise tax that would have unfairly targeted solar and wind projects.

The bad news: Both the House and the Senate have opted to eliminate home energy efficiency tax credits for projects that go into service after the end of 2025. As a result, rooftop solar, residential heat pumps, and home insulation or weatherization upgrades will cost everyday Wyomingites up to 30% more than they would have otherwise.

Businesses, nonprofits, communities, and tribes would have a little more time to take advantage of existing tax credits: they would have to begin construction within a year after the bill’s passage. Still, both the House and Senate versions of the bill include a rapid phase-down of these tax credits, which would drastically harm the clean energy industry and eliminate good paying jobs.

Tribal FUNDING GUTTED

The bill cuts over $700 million from the Bureau of Indian Affairs — basically one-quarter of BIA’s budget — including programs for economic development and land consolidation. This is a flagrant disrespect of treaty rights and tribal sovereignty, and the impacts for tribal members will be massive.

“These cuts are being carried out without any tribal consultation whatsoever, in plain violation of our trust and treaty responsibilities. This is not just a moral question of what we owe Native people — it is also a question of the law.”

– Senator Brian Schatz

For decades, tribal communities were made promises in exchange for the land that created states like Wyoming — including that they would receive housing, health care, and infrastructure development services, as well as access to safe drinking water. With this bill, the federal government would be reneging on those promises.

Locally, the BIA’s Wind River Agency in Fort Washakie manages 2.2 million acres of land, including mountain ranges, river and stream corridors, and a vast landscape of sagebrush within the Wind River Indian Reservation. This is an already underfunded agency, which handles everything from oil and gas permitting to Environmental Policy Act analysis to water on tribal lands. Losing that capacity at BIA would effectively stymie vital projects in tribal communities.

The bill would also cut $617 million from the Indian Land Consolidation Program, which was developed to help right historical wrongs surrounding land ownership. The program has made it possible to return millions of acres of lands to tribal ownership. With the proposed budget bill, Congress would be unilaterally deciding that the program would end — absent tribal consultation or understanding of the implications it poses for tribes and their communities.

Tribal Energy and Water Programs Slashed

The budget bill cuts funding from multiple loan programs that were aimed at financing energy infrastructure projects in tribal communities, including solar. The Tribal Energy Loan Guarantee Program in particular has been crucial for advancing energy self-determination and creating economic opportunities in Indian Country. Without these programs, tribes will find it substantially more difficult to develop their energy resources, improve grid reliability, and transition to cleaner, more affordable energy.

The Senate bill would also cut a drastic 90% of funding from a program that helps states and tribal communities access safe drinking water. The Drinking Water State Revolving Fund provides funding for water infrastructure and safety projects. Tribal nations would go from receiving $22.5 million collectively in the current fiscal year to a mere $2 million next year.

This catastrophic reduction would jeopardize the ability of each tribe’s water departments to provide safe and clean drinking water. With significantly constrained resources, critical functions like well water testing and maintaining drinking water facilities in communities like Fort Washakie, Ethete, and Arapahoe would be impacted. The proposed cuts could lead to layoffs of essential workers responsible for water quality oversight, jeopardizing public health and the long-term sustainability of water infrastructure on tribal lands.

Assault on the Land and Water Conservation Fund

The Great American Outdoors Act, passed in 2020, allocated $900 million annually to increase public access and protect the nation’s public lands. Congress is now seeking to divert roughly 43% of that money away from conservation, recreation, and sportspeople access and towards deferred maintenance of infrastructure instead, even though other federal funds have been allocated for deferred maintenance.

In a Nutshell

Although some of the provisions in the Senate bill dampen some of the worst impacts of the earlier House version, we anticipate that the bill’s overall impact will increase energy costs for Wyomigites, make diversification of our energy sector more challenging, and increase the emissions that science is clearly telling us need to go down in order to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.

THE GOOD AND BAD OF CONGRESS’ BUDGET BILL

Posted on by Alec Underwood

What the heck even is reconciliation — and how it could impact the things we care about?

It’s hard to get legislation through the U.S. Senate because of the filibuster: Senators can literally kill bills by talking them to death. To get around this, Congress often relies on something called “reconciliation,” which lets budget-related bills pass with a simple majority.

In recent years, we’ve seen the process of reconciliation used more and more frequently due to congressional gridlock and polarization in the Senate. Congress is in the midst of the budget reconciliation process right now, and the resulting legislation could have major impacts on Wyoming’s landscapes and communities.

The House of Representatives fiercely debated various spending changes, including investments in clean energy, energy efficiency, and the sale of public lands to help fund the cost of tax cuts. As the Senate develops its version of the bill, we’ll be keeping a watchful eye on what transpires. We are here to keep you informed on what’s happening and how it may impact our lands, water, wildlife and communities here in Wyoming.

Public lands sell-off narrowly avoided … for now

Throughout this spring, Congress toyed with the idea of selling public lands in order to help pay for tax cuts. This threat was taken seriously by several public lands champions in the Senate, who introduced an amendment in early April that would have prevented the sale of public lands from being included in the budget reconciliation process. This amendment unfortunately failed (both Wyoming senators voted against it) and shortly afterward the House Natural Resources Committee added the sale of roughly a half million acres in Nevada and Utah to the House reconciliation bill.

Though this sale dealt with neighboring states, Congress could have just as easily included the sale of hundreds of thousands of acres in Wyoming. The use of the budget reconciliation process to sell off public lands is unprecedented. It disallows public input and testimony, the cash from the sale would not go to conservation (as typically occurs with land sales), and it sets an ugly precedent for selling our national public lands to pay for the whims of politicians.

Outraged public lands enthusiasts from across the country spoke up and demanded Congress not use this means for balancing the budget. Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-Montana), Rep. Ryan Vasquez (D-New Mexico), and other representatives from outside our state drew a hard red line and were able to have these sales removed.

Land management plans in the crosshairs

The Bureau of Land Management’s Rock Springs Resource Management Plan, which would provide significant protections for important areas of the Northern Red Desert, has been in the crosshairs of some lawmakers as of late. Fortunately, a provision that would block its implementation was stripped out of the House reconciliation bill. Although it’s unlikely that the provision will be included again in the Senate version, we expect to see ongoing efforts to scale back the protections in the plan through administrative processes.

Clean energy tax credits on the chopping block

Longstanding clean energy tax credits that make solar, wind, and battery storage more affordable were removed in the House reconciliation bill. These incentives have driven investments in technologies like carbon capture and clean hydrogen and have helped Wyoming businesses and families afford rooftop solar and energy efficiency upgrades. The House bill would eliminate many of these credits with significant consequences to Wyoming communities and tribes.

If enacted, clean energy projects could become 30–40 percent more expensive. The bill also targeted residential energy efficiency tax credits that were established in 2005 under the Bush Administration. These credits have helped Wyoming homeowners afford energy efficiency upgrades like insulation, windows, and HVAC systems.

The timing for these cuts couldn’t be worse. Utilities in Wyoming are already proposing double-digit rate hikes while warning of rising demand and grid challenges. Cutting these credits now will increase costs for families, make it more difficult to invest in local clean energy projects like rooftop solar, and weaken Wyoming’s energy resilience.

While the future of many federally funded programs that promote clean energy and energy efficiency remains uncertain, several key initiatives the Wyoming Outdoor Council has been monitoring appear to be making progress. For example, some programs funded through the Inflation Reduction Act have had their funds “obligated,” making them much harder to eliminate entirely. Although certain funds have been temporarily frozen — causing frustration — they now seem to be becoming more accessible.

Help protect Wyoming’s clean energy future: Send a message to our senators and tell them to maintain clean energy and energy efficiency tax credits.

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Nuclear energy emerges as a winner

The nuclear energy industry would continue to qualify for production tax credits under the House reconciliation bill. It would also make the nuclear industry the only energy sector to maintain the “transferability” of tax credits — a benefit that gives project developers the ability to sell their tax credits to others. For those tracking the active discussion around nuclear energy in Wyoming, it’s clear that this industry is emerging as a favorite for the Trump Administration as a way to meet new energy demand and remain competitive with other countries developing new kinds of reactors. We’ll be carefully watching these developments to better understand how these incentives translate into more proposals around nuclear energy in Wyoming.

What’s next for WOC’s public lands and clean energy priorities?

The removal of public land sales from the House reconciliation bill was a big sigh of relief for public lands users. However, bad public lands provisions could still be included in the Senate version of the bill. Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), who heads the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, has long advocated for the privatization of public lands.

On the clean energy side, now is the time to let our senators know that you support clean energy and longstanding common-sense programs designed to encourage energy conservation and efficiency like the residential energy efficiency tax credits.

As the reconciliation process continues through the summer, we’ll be keeping a watchful eye on the Senate. Wyoming has an important role to play. As one of the largest energy exporters in the country, the Cowboy State will find itself in the crosshairs. We will continue to keep you updated as we have more news.