Daily Smile

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

<title>Daily Smile: Thursday, June 1, 2023 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

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Daily Smile: Thursday, June 1, 2023

Coy Knobel

Don Day Weather

Sunny in most of Wyoming on Wednesday, windy, fire danger in some areas. Mix of cloudy and clear overnight and breezy. Highs mainly in the 70s to the low 80s. Lows mainly in the 40s.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":" "}]

Sunny and breezy today with a high near 81 and wind gusts as high as 28 mph. Partly cloudy and breezy overnight with a low near 46 and wind gusts as high as 32 mph.

Sunny and breezy today with a high near 85 and wind gusts as high as 30 mph. Mostly clear and breezy overnight with a low near 47 and wind gusts as high as 31 mph.

 Red flag fire warning until 10 p.m. tonight. Sunny and breezy today with a high near 79 and wind gusts as high as 35 mph. Partly cloudy and breezy overnight with a low near 45 and wind gusts as high as 30 mph.

 Sunny and breezy today with a high near 79 and wind gusts as high as 36 mph. Mostly clear overnight with a low near 44 and wind gusts as high as 33 mph.

  Sunny and windy today with a high near 84 and wind gusts as high as 40 mph. Mostly clear and breezy overnight with a low near 45 and wind gusts as high as 37 mph.

Sunny and windy today with a high near 77 and wind gusts as high as 44 mph. Mostly clear and windy overnight with a low near 43 and wind gusts as high as 41 mph.

Sunny and breezy today with a high near 75 and wind gusts as high as 32 mph. Mostly clear and breezy overnight with a low near 38 and wind gusts as high as 31 mph.

 Sunny and breezy today with a high near 77 and wind gusts as high as 25 mph. Mostly clear and breezy overnight with a low near 41 and wind gusts as high as 24 mph.

  Sunny and breezy today with a high near 78 and wind gusts as high as 32 mph. Mostly clear and breezy overnight with a low near 40 and wind gusts as high as 30 mph.

 Sunny and windy today with a high near 73 and wind gusts as high as 38 mph. Mostly clear and breezy overnight with a low near 40 and wind gusts as high as 37 mph.

  Sunny and breezy today with a high near 79 and wind gusts as high as 26 mph. Mostly clear overnight with a low near 40 and wind gusts as high as 25 mph.

Old Faithful in Yellowstone National Park

:  Sunny today with a high near 70 and wind gusts as high as 25 mph. Mostly clear overnight with a low near 34 and wind gusts as high as 25 mph.

Sunny and breezy today with a high near 80 and wind gusts as high as 26 mph. Increasing clouds and breezy overnight with a low near 49 and wind gusts as high as 30 mph.

:  Increasing clouds and breezy today with a high near 75 and wind gusts as high as 34 mph. Mostly cloudy and breezy overnight with a low near 47 and wind gusts as high as 37 mph.

  Increasing clouds and breezy today with a high near 78 and wind gusts as high as 36 mph. Mostly cloudy and breezy overnight with a low near 48 and wind gusts as high as 34 mph.

  Sunny and windy today with a high near 70 and wind gusts as high as 45 mph. Partly cloudy and windy overnight with a slight chance of rain before 7 p.m., a low near 49 and wind gusts as high as 39 mph.

  Sunny today with a high near 72 and wind gusts as high as 41 mph. Mostly cloudy overnight with a low near 44 and wind from 11-16 mph.

:  Sunny today with a high near 70 and wind gusts as high as 40 mph. Mostly cloudy overnight with a low near 44.

Sunny and windy today with a high near 71 and wind gusts as high as 41 mph. Partly cloudy and breezy overnight with a low near 46 and wind gusts as high as 33 mph.

  Sunny and windy today with a high near 71 and wind gusts as high as 41 mph. Partly cloudy and breezy overnight with a low near 49 and wind gusts as high as 37 mph.

:  Mostly sunny and breezy today with a high near 65 and wind gusts as high as 33 mph. Partly cloudy and breezy overnight with a low near 45 and wind gusts as high as 26 mph.

  Red flag fire warning until 10 p.m. tonight. Sunny and breezy today with a high near 84 and wind gusts as high as 35 mph. Mostly clear and breezy overnight with a low near 51 and wind gusts as high as 35 mph.

  Red flag fire warning until 10 p.m. tonight. Sunny and breezy today with a high near 78 and wind gusts as high as 40 mph. Partly cloudy and breezy overnight with a low near 44 and wind gusts as high as 35 mph.

  Sunny and breezy today with a high near 71 and wind gusts as high as 38 mph. Partly cloudy and breezy overnight with a low near 46 and wind gusts as high as 33 mph.

  Red flag fire warning until 10 p.m. tonight. Sunny and breezy today with a high near 84 and wind gusts as high as 40 mph. Mostly clear and breezy overnight with a low near 45 and wind gusts as high as 30 mph.

  Sunny and windy today with a high near 79 and wind gusts as high as 45 mph. Mostly clear and breezy overnight with a low near 42 and wind gusts as high as 40 mph.

  Red flag fire warning until 10 p.m. tonight. Sunny and windy today with a high near 81 and wind gusts as high as 50 mph. Mostly clear and breezy overnight with a low near 47 and wind gusts as high as 35 mph.

  Sunny and windy today with a high near 80 and wind gusts as high as 45 mph. Mostly clear and windy overnight with a low near 45 and wind gusts as high as 45 mph.

  Sunny and windy today with a high near 81 and wind gusts as high as 45 mph. Mostly clear and breezy overnight with a low near 44 and wind gusts as high as 40 mph.

  Sunny and windy today with a high near 82 and wind gusts as high as 34 mph. Mostly clear and windy overnight with a low near 42 and wind gusts as high as 32 mph.

Daycap 6 17 26

<title>Don Day's Wyoming Weather Forecast: Wednesday, June 17, 2026 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Don Day's Wyoming Weather Forecast: Wednesday, June 17, 2026

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

Renée Jean

Energy

A federal judge in Montana has thrown out more than 1.5 million acres of Wyoming oil and gas leases sold under the Trump administration, a sweeping ruling that Wyoming attorneys said will force the state to return $50 million in payments and imperil $180 million in future revenue for schools and other public services. 

The ruling also affects an additional 185,000 acres of oil and gas leases in Montana and the Dakotas.

The decision, issued by Chief Judge Brian Morris out of the U.S. District Court of Montana on June 12, is sparking outrage in the oil and gas community. It’s the third time Morris, an Obama appointee, has ruled against the U.S. Department of the Interior over the protection of sage-grouse habitat.

“The environmental group found a sympathetic venue in Montana to file their case and ultimately hurt Wyoming,” oil and gas landman Steve Degenfelder told Cowboy State Daily. “I am hopeful the State of Wyoming will appeal this decision with everything they have. Other than a successful appeal, it’s my understanding we would need an act of Congress to overturn this injustice. I wonder how Montana would feel if a Wyoming judge hurt their state to this magnitude?”

Ryan McConnaughey, with the Petroleum Association of Wyoming, said it’s just the latest example of how activists are misusing the judicial system to attack industries they dislike.

“Anti-oil and natural gas activists have a sympathetic ear in Montana, which is why they continuously file cases there,” he told Cowboy State Daily. “The hard truth is that until Congress steps in to restore the original intent of laws like NEPA and the Endangered Species Act, every land management decision will be decided out of public view by the courts. It’s further proof that permitting reform is absolutely necessary if the United States wants to be a country that harvests energy and builds things again.”

Wyoming’s Bureau of Land Management office referred Cowboy State Daily for comment about the case to Montana’s office, which did not respond. 

It was not known Tuesday afternoon whether BLM will appeal the case, or what its next step will be for the leases.

The Wyoming Attorney General’s Office was also consulted, but had not responded at the time this story was posted.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Sage-Grouse Protection At Issue"}]

At the heart of the case brought by the Montana Wildlife Federation, The Wilderness Society, National Audubon Society, National Wildlife Federation and Montana Audubon is how the BLM applied its 2015 sage-grouse conservation plans in Wyoming. 

The groups argued that leasing should have been steered first to areas outside of key habitat so the bird would stay off the federal endangered species list. 

The 2015 sage-grouse plan required the agency to “prioritize” oil and gas leasing and development outside of sensitive habitat, particularly in designated priority areas.

But, in 2018, the BLM issued a new instruction memorandum that effectively told staff to disregard those prioritization requirements when offering new “fluid mineral” leases in sage-grouse country.

Wyoming has a voluntary sage-grouse protection plan, one that guides development away from those areas without any prioritization on BLM’s part, Wyoming attorneys argued.

However, the judge ruled that the prioritization error “infected everything” that followed, making it infeasible for BLM to keep the current leases in place.

BLM offered about 1.25 million acres of oil and gas leases in Wyoming in 2019 alone, roughly 785,000 acres in its February 2019 sale and more than 493,000 acres combined in the September and December 2019 sales. 

Altogether the June 12 order affects about 1.5 million acres of Wyoming leases sold between December 2017 and December 2019. December 2020 sales were excluded because the judge found that no final agency action yet exists to vacate or remand those sales. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Wyoming Warns Of Deep Revenue Losses"}]

In court filings, Wyoming attorneys laid out what the revenue losses will mean to local and state governments providing public services. 

Federal defendants estimated that vacating Phase Three leases will require the return of more than $50 million in revenue that has already been allocated and spent. The state would also lose future severance, ad valorem, and conservation taxes on the leases, totaling at least $180 million over the life of the wells. 

Funding cuts due to losing these revenues will affect a range of public services in Wyoming, from employment, roads, IT, fire personnel, hospitals and other daily operations, Wyoming’s lawyers argued, and should prompt the court to remand without vacating the leases. 

In Campbell County, for example, oil and gas revenues help fund the senior center, homeless shelter and soup kitchen, domestic violence shelter, youth crisis and treatment home, and the Boys and Girls Club.

In Converse County, half the annual budget relies on oil and gas revenue, which helps fund senior services, the Humane Society, a youth crisis center, the Boys and Girls Clubs of Douglas and Glenrock, a domestic violence and sexual assault survivors crisis center and shelter, a mental health crisis and intervention center, and more.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"State Already Protects Sage-Grouse"}]

Wyoming attorneys also argued that the state is already protecting sage-grouse habitat — so well that it was praised by the Obama administration at the time.

Since 2008, federal oil and gas leases in core sage-grouse habitat have declined 63%, Wyoming’s attorneys wrote, and reduced production in those areas by 48%. 

The state’s plan has also reshaped development, Wyoming contended. 

“From 2006 to 2012, vertically drilled well permits declined 65%, while directionally and horizontally drilled wells from outside core areas increased by 66% and 1,337%,” the attorneys wrote. “The trend continues with 95% of wells drilled in Wyoming from 2020 to 2024 being directional or horizontal, reducing sage-grouse disturbance.”

Horizontal wells disturb up to 3.5 acres, compared with 19 acres for vertical wells. 

“Thus, deferrals are not needed to guide development away from sage-grouse habitat,” the attorneys wrote. “In sum, the state’s strategy — adopted by BLM — has shifted development away from sage-grouse habitat and changed development patterns to meaningfully reduce impacts.”

Drilling in lower conflict areas is already preferred through the state’s sage-grouse mitigation plan, which protects habitat while allowing economic opportunities, they said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Economic Harm Vs. Legal Violations"}]

The judge in the case acknowledged disruptive economic impacts caused by vacating the lease sales, but concluded that BLM’s legal violations outweighed those considerations except in cases where a lease was already producing oil and gas.

Wyoming, Jonah Energy, and Continental Resources, which intervened in the case, argued that the judge should carve out an exception for leases for wells that have already been drilled and completed.

Jonah Energy told the court it had already spent $68 million developing its leases. Continental said it had spent more than $97.6 million for nine producing wells. 

“The considerations of equity require that the court not vacate the nine already producing leases stemming from the challenged Phase Three lease sales,” Morris agreed, likening the situation to a scrambled egg that can’t be put back into its shell. “Vacatur as to the producing leases could not restore the leases to the pre-leasing condition without further disruption.”

Wyoming oil and gas drilling 2 1 24

<title>Montana Judge Tosses 1.5M Acres Of Wyoming Oil And Gas Leases, Costs State $50M | Cowboy State Daily</title>

A federal judge in Montana has thrown out more than 1.5 million acres of Wyoming oil and gas leases sold under the Trump administration, forcing the state to return $50 million in payments. “The environmental group found a sympathetic venue in Montana,” said a Wyoming landman.

Montana Judge Tosses 1.5M Acres Of Wyoming Oil And Gas Leases, Costs State $50M

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.”

Geno breaks the sound barrier 6 15 26

<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

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

Clair McFarland

Government & Politics

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.

 levels and the AI revolution remain, Johnson noted.

He said he’d like to see counties respect landowners’ property rights to lease land, but also to use responsible zoning to protect closely situated neighbors.

As for whether his caution puts him in Bernie Sanders’ camp or Trump’s camp, that’s not paramount, Johnson said. He said he’d approach the Wyoming controversy according to Wyoming’s needs, as “I think D.C. has lost their minds.”

[{"type":"text","text":"Data centers feed artificial intelligence."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"That concerns Johnson too, he said."}]

“I think that AI scares the hell out of me, and it might help us a little bit; but if it takes our younger generation’s jobs away… let’s think about the end product,” he said. “I do think we need some safeguards.”

Sen. Cheri Steinmetz, R-Lingle, gave a similar answer during an 

, on the strange political camps the data center issue is forging.

Steinmetz called earlier this month for a poll of legislators to gauge interest in having a special session to address the data center boom.

She represents agricultural communities, and many Wyoming regions face a drought, Steinmetz noted.

“It’s very concerning to me the pace at which we’re proceeding down this road without credible information,” she said, referencing a state-ordered groundwater study that is expected to take four years.

Trump has cast data centers as a piece of U.S. national security, for the tech advances they can fuel.

“But we have to recognize, our water, our food supply, our communities are a matter of national security too,” she said. “Agriculture is a huge national security issue.”

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: Thursday, June 1, 2023

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