By Richard Garrett, Jr. APPROPRIATIONS SEEKS TO TIGHTEN DEQ’S BELT — WE RESIST As Wyoming Outdoor Council members know, we’ve been tracking (and engaging in) several wind-energy-related bills. One of these is HB 0072, sponsored by Rep. Tim Stubson of Casper. This bill, which can be seen here: http://legisweb.state.wy.us/2010/Titles/HB0072.htm, is a direct result of the […]

By Richard Garrett, Jr. WIND DEBATE STIRS WYOMING HOUSE… Taxing Wind Proves Vexing The House Revenue Committee listened to a sometimes contentious debate Monday morning regarding HB 101, the proposed state tax on wind energy production (http://legisweb.state.wy.us/2010/Titles/HB0101.htm). The bill is officially described as follows: AN ACT relating to taxation and revenue; imposing a tax upon […]

By Richard Garrett, Jr. WIND TAKES CENTER STAGE… Yesterday’s Joint Minerals, Business and Economic Development Committee heard from Rep. Tim Stubson and Sen. Drew Perkins on two of the four major wind energy related bills that will be introduced during this legislative session. The bills are the result of the efforts of the Wind Energy […]

By Richard Garrett, Jr. AND THEY’RE OFF… Governor Freudenthal’s State of the State Perhaps predictably in the time of Tea Parties, Scott Brown, and the D.C. treadmill (go nowhere, but go there fast) the governor opted for a decidedly conservative run at the biennium budget. In fact, he went so far as to suggest that […]

THE U.S. FOREST SERVICE HAS INDICATED IT INTENDS TO REVERSE COURSE on a previous decision to lease 44,000 acres in the Wyoming Range for oil and gas development. The federal agency on Thursday released a draft of its long-awaited updated analysis of contested oil and gas leases on the eastern front of the Wyoming Range […]

By Lisa McGee THE SHOSHONE NATIONAL FOREST could approve, in the coming months, a decade-old application to drill for oil near Dubois, Wyoming. If the project is given the green light, it would be the first well drilled on the Shoshone in more than 20 years. Because the drilling would be part of a larger […]

WYOMING’S NEXT ENERGY BOOM, in the form of industrial-scale wind farms, might already be here. And the sheer volume of new applications for Wyoming wind projects has taken most observers by surprise. There have been about 100 applications for potential wind farms on federal land, alone, since 2002—and most of those have come in the […]

WITH THE AIM OF BRINGING HEALTH BENEFITS to millions of Americans, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed new smog standards on Thursday. The new standards would replace Bush-era rules that experts agree are inadequate to protect people from potentially dangerous air pollution. The standards would be the strictest to date, and would be in line with […]

Photo by Linda Baker U.S. SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR KEN SALAZAR on Wednesday announced major reforms to the way the federal government manages oil and gas drilling on federal lands. The announcement immediately won guarded praise from conservation groups, including the Wyoming Outdoor Council. Citing a need to improve “certainty and order” in oil and […]

THE STATE OF WYOMING has been informed by the federal government—once again—that some of its policies related to the pumping and dumping of coal-bed methane water violate the Clean Water Act. In a letter dated Nov. 13, 2009, the Environmental Protection Agency instructed the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality that it cannot modify drainage-wide water […]