Daily Smile

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Cowboy State Daily is Wyoming’s largest newspaper with Wyoming’s most experienced journalists. 

<title>Daily Smile: Monday, February 19, 2023 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Now, let's all watch a cockatoo playing the xylophone...

Daily Smile: Monday, February 19, 2023

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's general assignment reporter, Clair McFarland.

Clair McFarland

Crime & Courts

Courts

In response to a Cheyenne-based attorney’s claims that the Wyoming attorney general must appoint special prosecutors to decide whether Secretary of State Chuck Gray violated any laws, the AG countered Tuesday that he has already appointed two special prosecutors, and neither wanted to charge Gray with a crime.

Upon a request by President Donald Trump’s administration, Gray sent sensitive voter data to the federal U.S. Department of Justice last year, public records show.

George Powers, a semi-retired attorney based in Cheyenne, who won a past public records case, started filing requests to learn about Gray’s actions.

 complaint with the AG’s office accusing Gray of violating a state election law that makes data like the kind Gray reportedly released – voters’ partial Social Security numbers or driver’s license numbers – confidential.

Wyoming also has an umbrella statute that allows prosecutors to charge election officials who violate election law with a felony, if merited.

But Gray told the public that the AG’s office approved the release of voter data to the federal government.

So Powers, in his complaint, urged Attorney General Keith Kautz to offload the investigation onto a special prosecutor, because the AG’s office reportedly counseled Gray in this controversy. Powers suggested having a judge appoint the special prosecutor.

Kautz answered in a May 4 letter that Powers’ complaint would be handled in accordance with the AG’s office rules and state professional conduct rules for attorneys.

[{"type":"text","text":"Four weeks passed."}]

Powers filed a petition June 2 with the Wyoming Supreme Court, accusing Kautz of neglecting a clear duty and asking the court to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Gray.

Kautz parried with a Tuesday filing, which says Powers doesn’t have standing to wage that battle, and it’s irrelevant anyway, 

 the AG’s office has arranged two different, independent evaluations. And neither special prosecutor wanted to charge Gray with a crime, says the filing.

“One of those independent evaluations was conducted by a division of the Attorney General’s office – separate from the civil division – by the construction of a ‘Chinese wall',” says the AG’s Tuesday answer. “The other independent evaluation was conducted by a private Wyoming law firm in conjunction with a Wyoming county and prosecuting attorney.”

A Chinese wall is an informational barrier with an entity designed to prevent ethical conflicts.

The independent attorneys submitted reports – one before Powers asked the high court to intervene and one after – and “each independent counsel declined to bring criminal charges,” says the AG’s response.

“Mr. Powers filed his petition in this matter before the Attorney General could announce that no prosecution would be forthcoming,” says the filing.

As to the AG’s reticence toward Powers, the filing says the person reporting a crime doesn’t have a right to hear the prosecutor’s decision on it, and that Powers hasn’t shown he’s a “victim” of a crime to enjoy some rights under the state Victims’ Bill of Rights.

The AG’s filing emphasizes that Kautz didn’t involve Powers in the investigation, “but told him that investigations and charging decisions were not conducted in the public square.”

n Wyoming, prosecutors generally do not discuss their thinking publicly while they’re deciding whether to charge a crime. Often, especially in matters of high public interest, a prosecutor who decides not to charge a crime will issue a decision letter on why he made that choice.

Kautz’s office defended the reticence he displayed while the special prosecutors’ investigations were reportedly ongoing as standard practice, pointing to DOJ guidelines for keeping ongoing investigations quiet to avoid infringing the rights of the accused.

“Mr. Powers assumes the Attorney General’s lack of comment means that he is doing nothing, at best, and violating the Rules of Professional Responsibility, at worst,” says the AG’s filing. “Mr. Powers invites this Court to make the same assumptions, what is sometimes referred to as an appeal to ignorance.”

Prosecutors are required to address complaints in a “timely” manner, the AG’s filing acknowledges. But there’s no concrete deadline associated with that adjective, it adds.

As to announcing his decision to the public at the end of an investigation, the AG’s filing calls that a discretionary decision, not a requirement.

“It is obvious that Mr. Powers wants to be informed of how the Attorney General has addressed his complaint, (yet) a prosecutor has no duty to communicate with a complainant,” the filing says. “Instead, a prosecutor has discretion in deciding on whether to communicate about an investigation with the complainant or the public.”

That decision hinges on ethical considerations, such as if talking about a case publicly or with the person who reported it would botch some “eventual prosecution, should the prosecutor decide to proceed.”

In a Tuesday text message, Gray said Powers' claims and filings have been "nothing more than lawfare and weaponization of the legal system by leftists and the insider media."

Gray claimed the media have ignored the states that have complied with the DOJ's request. 

Multiple courts have ruled that the DOJ's requests for sensitive voter data unsupported by federal law. 

"Powers (sic) false claims are an effort to undermine our work on election integrity," wrote Gray. "I have and will continue to stand for the truth, and I will continue to comply with the law and advance election integrity and voter list maintenance, which is pivotal to our elections." 

Kautz gray 6 16 26

<title>AG Says Prosecutors Declined To Charge Chuck Gray With A Crime   | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Wyoming's attorney general on Tuesday said he appointed two prosecutors to investigate whether Secretary of State Chuck Gray violated any laws by releasing sensitive voter data to the federal government, but neither decided to charge Gray with a crime.

AG Says Prosecutors Declined To Charge Chuck Gray With A Crime  

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's business and tourism reporter, Renée Jean

Renée Jean

Government & Politics

Executive

Ward 1 Cheyenne City Councilman Larry Wolfe is calling for a dramatic reset in the city’s negotiations with Microsoft when it comes to a proposed 3,459-acre annexation that is roughly one-fifth the current size of Cheyenne.

During a Public Services Committee meeting Monday, Wolfe urged the committee to recommend postponing or denying annexation of the property, along with accompanying measures that change the city’s land-use map and change the property’s zoning from agriculture to business park. 

That would give Cheyenne time to negotiate a community benefits agreement with Microsoft that Wolfe proposed should be worth at least $50 million. 

Despite Wolfe’s push, the PSC voted 2-1 to recommend annexation of the 3,500-acre property to the full council, along with zoning changes and future land-use map changes. Councilman Pete Laybourn cast the lone “no” vote on these measures, which will be before the Cheyenne City Council at its next meeting June 22.

According to Wolfe’s proposal, which was sent to PSC members ahead of the meeting, the $50 million would be payable over the next five years in annual installments of $10 million, commencing July 1, 2027, and continuing through July 1, 2031. 

The funds would be for permanent improvements to the city. While the city would consult with Microsoft on the use of the funds, final decisions would be entirely up to the city.

The money could be accumulated for investment on larger, more expensive projects, but would have to be spent by July 1, 2036.

The community benefits agreement would also obligate Microsoft to use state-of-the-art technology to minimize water use and minimize or eliminate emissions, as well as set contractual guardrails on about 40 different items, including traffic, noise, wildlife, social and economic impacts, including affordable housing.

Wolfe, who is not a PSC member, said he opposed the annexation because the company’s development timeline is so far into the future it amounts to today’s city council trying to obligate a future city council, even though the same people might not be on it.

“Things change,” he said. “We don’t know, and we shouldn’t be arrogant enough to think that we know what this is going to look like 10 years from now. And we ought to defer to the city council that’s … sitting in your chairs 10 years from now, to make the annexation decision.”

Wolfe also pushed back on the idea that annexation should be considered separate from the land’s future use.

“Annexation is the battle,” he said. “It’s all one and the same, because, as the chairwoman acknowledged, it’s the commitment of resources of the city. It’s the commitment of water and sewer resources. So this is where … the battle should be fought.”

Ward 3 Councilman Mark Moody, who is not a member of the PSC either, also spoke during the 4.5-hour session. He focused on property rights, saying council members should also be mindful of the rights of surrounding property owners as far as what gets developed.

“When constituents talk to me, they really have said we need to slow down,” Moody said. “That’s from — a lot of them are not here, a lot of them are working. We have to look at that aspect there.”

Moody also suggested the gold mine opening west of town escaped protest because it went through the state’s industrial siting process. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"More Analysis Needed"}]

Meanwhile, Councilman Pete Laybourn, who cast the lone dissenting vote, acknowledged that data centers have helped Cheyenne’s business parks and have helped the city thrive for the past 25 years.

The property owners, too, are “incredibly distinguished members of our community who have done an awful lot for us,” he added.

Cheyenne has only had one other annexation of comparable size: the Sweetgrass annexation. That annexation, Laybourn noted, came with an extensive analysis of all the issues involved in bringing a major area into the city. 

“It’s very interesting,” he said. “Same property owner, same city of Cheyenne agreement, but (this time) we’re not hearing anything like that. Where are the roads going to go? What are the arrangements that are going to be made? And it’s been pointed out a few minutes ago here that we’re making a decision that’s going to be way off in the future.”

The development arc being far into the future would be OK, Laybourn suggested, if more detail was available about the property’s future.

“Where are the conditions that we need to put onto an annexation agreement, so that it’s well understood going into the future?” he said. “I know we’re going to get to the questions of the planning commission that I attended here not too long ago for five hours, and when we get to that we can take a look at why the planning commission felt so strongly that there are questions here they didn’t get answers to and that they wanted to.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Too Many Missing Details"}]

The area in question has unique considerations, Laybourn added, because it’s part residential, part agricultural, part in the county, and part in the city.

“We have all seen, if you’re driving out South Greeley Highway, a lot of activity going on in the county that isn’t directly involved in this annexation,” he said. “But it is nearby, so I want to caution us that we don’t have to hurry with this. We need to really think about this.”

The conditions of an annexation, spelled out in state law, include a requirement that the action is beneficial for the health, safety and welfare of people residing in the area. 

“Other people might interpret it one way,” he said. “I interpret that as being a broad call to us to really think about what we’re doing and the effect that it’s going to have on our city.”

Laybourn also signaled that he’s receptive to Wolfe’s idea, saying, “I just heard some very sensible language proposed by my fellow councilman from Ward One in regard to the economics of this situation, because what we’re dealing with is unprecedented and almost unimaginable corporate wealth.”

Laybourn added that an evaluation of whether the annexation is good for Cheyenne has to include a broader look at all of the factors involved.

“Our governor suggests in his recent executive order, ‘whereas Wyoming’s local towns and city councils and county commissioners have the power to protect community interests and further mitigate siting and nuisance issues that may arise from large industrial development',” Laybourn said. “These are the reasons that I’m going to be voting ‘no’ today. It’s a choice that I think we have to carefully consider.”

A forceful defense of property-owner rights came from Cindy Delancey, a large landowner in Laramie County who said she’s one of the owners involved in the 3,500-acre land deal with Microsoft.

Delancey said she hadn’t planned to speak, but felt compelled after hearing people argue that agricultural land should be preserved at all costs. The framing ignores the economic realities she and her family face.

“My family, we have our ranch for sale,” she said. “Agriculture is hard. We can’t get fertilizer. Cattle prices are high, but so is everything else … everything is expensive.”

Landowners need flexibility to partner with projects or sell if it makes sense for their operations, she said.

“Private property rights used to matter to us in this state,” she said. “We’re not serfs. We’re not bound to the land like it’s the 14th century. If we feel as large landowners that we need to make decisions for our operations, we should be able to do that.”

Many of the same objections to data centers that have been raised in previous meetings surrounding the Microsoft land deal were made again.

Residents and speakers such as Jana Tolman and Donna Presto warned that Cheyenne is “always in a drought” and questioned whether the city truly understands long-term water impacts. 

One speaker cited a neighbor whose rural well had to be deepened from 600 to 900 feet — at a cost of $120,000 — due to declining groundwater. They suggested draining local aquifers to serve industrial growth would be irresponsible.

Microsoft officials pushed back on that narrative, saying all of their new data centers will use recirculating cooling systems, which operate a little like a car’s radiator system, recirculating a mixture of water and propylene glycol, a food-grade, non-toxic coolant.

Harmony Meadows resident Heather Madrid, meanwhile, asked how it could be possible to find that annexing the land is beneficial to the city when Microsoft has no plan laid out for the parcel.

“Microsoft cannot tell this community or the council how many buildings there will be and therefore they cannot predict water usage,” she said. “They cannot predict how the grid will be impacted, and how wildlife in the ecosystem will be protected without having a plan. It is impossible to prove that this annexation is protecting the health, safety, and welfare of the community, which is not a simple suggestion. It’s one of the criteria required by law when considering annexation.”

Annexing the property now amounts to a blank check with zero guarantees, she said. 

“It’s been stated that Microsoft has been a good community partner, but corporate philanthropy does not excuse them from following the same rules and regulations as other companies,” she said. “It does not replace proper planning. If the developer cannot provide concrete numbers or even a good guess on infrastructure strain, they are not ready to be annexed. Please recommend a ‘no’ vote, or at the very least, a postponement until a complete plan is presented.”

While critics warned of water shortages, spiking electricity rates, and noise problems, a steady stream of supporters talked about how data center projects have changed their lives and the lives of their families.

One electrician said work on the west-side campus allowed him to move back to Cheyenne after years of chasing construction jobs around the region, while others described friends who went from low-end retail and food-service jobs into six-figure careers. 

“The thing I value the most about this opportunity is that it allows me to stay local,” Cheyenne resident Micah Snyder said. “I’m happy to be home every night. My wife really appreciates that. And, as a single-income household, she’s still able to stay home and raise our kids on the income from this opportunity.”

David Zook, meanwhile, came to Cheyenne from the East Coast in 2013 to help build the city’s first data center.

“I’ll be honest. Before accepting the job, I couldn’t have pointed to Cheyenne on a map,” he said. "But I took a chance, drove West, and it changed the entire trajectory of my life.”

Every new data center has a human side, he added.

“Behind every new building, every expansion, every project, there are people like me, whose lives and families are shaped by the opportunities created here,” he said. “When I moved to Cheyenne, I was a single guy starting a new chapter. In 2015, I met my wife and a year ago yesterday, we welcomed our daughter into the world.”

The family bought a home in Cheyenne in 2018. Now, this July, they’ll move into a bigger home, with more space for their growing family. 

“Cheyenne isn’t just where I work, it’s where I’ve chosen to put down roots,” he said. “I really love it here. I’ve watched Microsoft grow in this region, and I’m proud of the work we do.”

While there have been many claims that data centers don’t employ many people, they have ripple effects throughout the economy that support hundreds of jobs, Amanda August told the PSC.

“Every week, our campuses host over 267 full-time Microsoft employees,” she said. “We have 245 security and vendor-critical environment employees who show up every day and are dedicated to our sites alone. Then we have 430 to 750-plus vendors every week who show up to our data centers across Cheyenne alone. These are long-term. They’re not construction. These are jobs that bring steady economic activity into the city.”

Cheyenne city council 3 6 15 26

<title>Cheyenne Committee Backs Microsoft Annexation While Councilman Pushes $50M Deal | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Despite calls to delay or deny a 3,500-acre annexation for Microsoft data centers, Cheyenne’s Public Services Committee narrowly recommended approval Monday. A councilman urged them to postpone to give the city time to negotiate a $50 million agreement.

Cheyenne Committee Backs Microsoft Annexation While Councilman Pushes $50M Deal

Kerry Drake

Wyoming Life

Around Wyoming

Cheyenne’s new vehicle noise ordinance was unanimously passed by the City Council to stop obnoxious motorists who drive their loud cars, trucks and motorcycles late at night, disrupting people’s sleep.

 soon after it went on the books in late September was auto mechanic Geno Stecks, who was driving a fairly unassuming 2006 Subaru with a modified muffler. 

It also wasn’t in the middle of the night or in a residential section of the capital city. Stecks said it was on a main thoroughfare at the intersection of East Lincolnway and Hugur Avenue at 2:45 in the afternoon.

“Communists. Control freaks!” is how Stecks responded when asked what he thought about the City Council members who approved the ordinance after many people opposed it during public testimony at three council meetings.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"He Wasn’t Speeding"}]

Stecks was on the job when he got busted, transporting auto parts for FM Automotive when he heard the police siren.

He told the officer that he didn’t think he’d been speeding, but was informed the stop was made because of excessive noise.

This how the encounter went, according to Stecks:

“I couldn’t hear my radio for your exhaust,” the officer told him.

“I said, ‘Turn your volume knob up,’” Stecks said he replied. "I couldn’t hear my exhaust because of my radio, because I’ve got a kick-ass stereo in it.”

In hindsight, Stecks said he’s since thought of some other creative responses.

“I wish I had told him, ‘What are you going to tell the Hells Angels if they come roaring through town? Are you going to pull them over and cite them for having too loud exhaust? You probably wouldn’t live through it,’” said the bearded Stecks, wearing a T-shirt that depicted a full mug with the word “Beer – It’s What’s for Dinner.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Too Few Tickets"}]

A spokesperson for the Cheyenne Police Department said that after Stecks broke the ice as the first to be ticketed for driving too loudly, 43 other motorists were given noise violation citations in 2025, and 33 more so far this year.

Even those are way too few, said a council member who supported the noise ordinance.

“They should be writing 300 or 400,” said City Council Vice President Pete Laybourn. “The problem is immense, and I’m very disappointed with how it’s being handled. The ordinance hasn’t been effective at all.”

Laybourn said residents are purposely modifying their mufflers and making noise in all parts of the city, at all hours day and night, and also deliberately speeding.

“They tried to disrupt Friday Night at the Plaza last week, driving up Capitol (Avenue) and backfiring,” he said. “It was really, really bad.”

City Council President Tom Segrave was one of several councilmen who brought up the issue last summer because ​he was getting so many complaints from Cheyenne residents about excessive noise from motorists.

“I live off Yellowstone Road, and I can tell you it’s quite a sight to see a pack of people riding these loud little motorcycles down Yellowstone at night, often up until 1 a.m., popping wheelies,” Segrave said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Too Early To Tell"}]

He said it’s too early to know if the ordinance is making a difference. 

Segrave said he hasn’t been receiving complaints, but figures that will change during the summer when more people have their windows open.

The main difference between the new ordinance and a previous one is that it allows a police officer to use his or her judgment about whether a vehicle is too loud. 

The former regulation required a meter to be used at least 25 feet away, which Segrave said made it unenforceable.

Stecks said he paid the $100 fine, which would be increased to $200 if he breaks the ordinance again within a year. 

Possible jail time is on the books for a third offense, plus a $500 fine, but City Attorney John Brodie told Cowboy State Daily when the ordinance was passed last year that it’s 

“If anything, jail is maybe an imposed part of the sentence that would then be suspended,” he said.

“People told me, ‘You could have fought this,’” Steck said. “I said I’d be in worse trouble because I would have ended up in jail after I told the judge and the court how crooked they are. 

"There would have been F-bombs involved. When you’re a mechanic, F-bombs are the terminology of the trade.”

The ordinance requires all vehicles driven within city limits to be equipped with a muffler. It prohibits vehicles that bypass or cut out their mufflers to be louder and those that create “excessive smoke.”

Stecks said he agrees with the idea that people who drive small motorcycles known as “crotch rockets” up and down the street after 10 p.m. need to be ticketed. 

But he emphasized, “Not drivers who are just doing their job in the middle of the day.”

He said it would have made more sense if he’d received a ticket for a machine that he knows is really noisy: a fast 1931 Model A rat rod named “Clyde” that he built several years ago. 

Several of Stecks’ co-workers smiled and nodded their heads as he said this, because they know exactly how loud Clyde can be cranked it up.

Stecks said his main problem with the ordinance is that it relies on a police officer to make a judgment call about how loud the noise is.

“They need to measure it,” he said. “That’s the only way they should ever do this.”

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<title>Meet The First Driver To Get A Ticket Under Cheyenne’s New Noise Ordinance | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Mechanic Geno Stecks got the first ticket under Cheyenne’s new noise ordinance while delivering a car part in the middle of the day. When the officer told him he couldn't hear his radio because of the exhaust, Stecks said, "Turn your volume knob up."

Meet The First Driver To Get A Ticket Under Cheyenne’s New Noise Ordinance

Politics

Wyoming’s coal sector is startled at Republican political candidates who oppose the data center buildout.

Data centers are large warehouses full of servers that power parts of the internet and, increasingly, artificial intelligence (AI). Wyoming has between 20 and 30 operational data centers.

President Donald Trump has touted the sector’s expansion as part of a 

, and part of beating China in a technology advancement race.

Many Wyoming Republicans oppose data center construction due to the various unknowns associated with them, or doubts about the veracity of the companies’ promises, regarding water usage, pollution, noise, and the irreversible alteration of agricultural lands and vistas.

“It’s kind of frustrating from the coal side of things,” Travis Deti, executive director of the Wyoming Mining Association, told Cowboy State Daily on Monday. “The coal comeback right now is being – you know it’s being driven largely by the data center buildout nationally and the projected demand for energy.”

Yet, Deti added, “when you have politicians running around Wyoming, it’s easy for them to say, ‘We support coal, we support coal,’ but out of the other side of their mouths they want to stop the data centers.”

Deti attributed the anti-data center fad to a “wave of populism” by which politicians follow passing movements rather than concrete principles.

Wyoming's public revenues have depended significantly on coal mining over the years, even as the sector has suffered under pendulum politics from Washington, D.C. 

Coal production in Wyoming peaked in 2008, when the Powder River Basin produced nearly 450 million tons, and has trended unsteadily downward since. 

Wyoming surface coal production has fallen by 59.1% over the past 16 years. Thermal coal, which Wyoming produces, has seen lower demand in recent years.

That’s from coal-fired power plants either retiring or lowering their demand nationally as the market has shifted to both natural gas and renewable energy.

Calendar year 2024 marked the first time Wyoming coal production had fallen below 200 million tons since 1992.

The industry saw it as a dark year, as President Joe Biden’s U.S. Bureau of Land Management issued a 

Coal in 2025 yielded $134 million in severance taxes for Wyoming – the lowest since 2003.

That’s 19.5% of Wyoming’s severance tax haul, with oil generating 54.9% and natural gas yielding 21.9%.

The divide had surfaced in statewide Wyoming GOP primary election contests.

In the GOP race for the state’s lone U.S. House seat, candidate and Secretary of State Chuck Gray has opposed the data center buildout, while at least one of his opponents, Casper businessman Reid Rasner, has urged responsible, pro-business development in the sector.

“Thank you President Trump for your support of our big, beautiful coal industry! We must support our core coal, ranching and farming, oil and gas, and soda ash industries,” says a June 8 Facebook post by Gray. “And we must STOP (Gov.) Mark Gordon's nightmare of outrageously wrong woke wind and woke Big Tech surveillance state data centers.”

 calling for responsible, considerate and transparent data center development. In an inversion of the norm, Gordon is more in line with Trump’s agenda on this issue than Gray is.

Conversely, Gray and other anti-data center Republicans find themselves in a rare policy camp with Democratic U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, of New York, and Independent Vermont U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, who have called for a moratorium.

[{"type":"text","text":"Gray countered Deti’s point in a Monday comment via text message."}]

“I’ve consistently been coal’s #1 defender in the Wyoming 

 Legislature and as secretary of state,” wrote Gray. “I’ve worked to get access to markets for our coal and also have worked to stop woke wind projects that are in direct competition with our big, beautiful coal industry.”

Gray criticized Gordon and Deti for not backing a bill Gray had sponsored in 2019 – which Gordon vetoed.

 set up a litigation fund and authorized the Legislature to sue over coal export access. In Gray’s telling, the bill aimed to get coal export access amid the damaged industry “when the timing was right.”

, conversely, the governor said he agreed with the need for Wyoming to export coal, but the state was already litigating for access to coal export terminals.

“Giving courts the impression that two branches of Wyoming’s government might be… potentially litigating over the top of one another – would be counterproductive to our best efforts to protect Wyoming’s interests,” Gordon wrote at the time.

Gray in his Monday text message added, “AOC (

 Ocasio-Cortez) and I have nothing in common. Any suggestion that we do is patently absurd. I’ve consistently defended coal, election integrity, and our Wyoming values.”

Gray and Rasner face eight more GOP candidates: state Senate President Bo Biteman, Teton County philanthropist Steve Friess, former Superintendent of Public Instruction Jillian Balow, military veterans David Giralt and Kevin Christensen, Moran rancher Frank Chapman, former legislator Keith Goodenough, and Richard Dodson.

In her campaign for governor, Superintendent for Public Instruction Megan Degenfelder has 

 over data centers’ potential impacts on water usage and power rates, and said responsible development, rather than an outright ban, is the answer.

One of her opponents, retired Marine Col. Brent Bien

 data center development is moving too quickly to fit within “consent of the governed,” and he wouldn’t allow any to be built on agricultural ground.

And the third major opponent in that Republican race, Sen. Eric Barlow, has urged responsible development and good information, but not fear toward the centers.

The state’s primary election is Aug. 18. Because it’s a deep-red state, the primary election is considered more decisive than the general election for statewide races generally.

[{"type":"text","text":"Head Scratching"}]

David Miller is a semi-retired uranium geology specialist and former state lawmaker who represented Riverton as a Republican.

He’s also scratching his head over the data center-driven divide in the GOP.

“I’m hearing rumors that it’s, like, China and maybe some of the other competitive countries funding the (informational) opposition to the data centers,” Miller said in a Monday phone interview.

“Frankly, I think the more electricity we have being produced in Wyoming the better,” he said. More data centers mean more coal-fired plants, he added.

[{"type":"text","text":"But Miller said it’s time to end tax breaks for data centers."}]

Wyoming crafted a sales-tax exemption for large-scale data projects starting in 2010.

One Republican, then-Rep. Clark Stith of Rock Springs, tried to remove the sales-tax exemption in 2021. At that time, Gray was one of the state House Republicans who opposed Stith and 

But at that time, Gray told Cowboy State Daily on Friday, “no one had any idea where the AI revolution was heading or the massive demands it would place on our power grid and water resources.”

He noted Monday that Wyoming had fewer than two data centers at that time.  

[{"type":"text","text":"The Stakes Are Enormous"}]

State Rep. Steve Johnson, R-Cheyenne, doesn’t want to ban data centers outright. But like Miller, he believes Wyoming is being short-changed in the land-for-business exchange, and he wants to remove tax breaks and scrutinize the way state law treats the sector, Johnson told Cowboy State Daily on Monday.

Data center companies have delivered numerous promises, including that they’ll conserve water and mitigate impacts.

Wyoming’s coal sector is startled at Republican candidates who oppose data centers. Industry leaders say the revival of coal is driven by demand for energy from data centers.  "It's frustrating," said Travis Deti, of the Wyoming Mining Association.

Daily Smile: Monday, February 19, 2023

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