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

<title>You Still Here? Thursday, February 6, 2025 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

You Still Here? Thursday, February 6, 2025

 We really need Super Bowl commercials like this again.....

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

Clair McFarland

Government & Politics

Politics

Wyoming Republican Gov. Mark Gordon joined President Trump in Washington, D.C., on Thursday as the president allocated $700 million in public money for the coal industry. 

While calling Gordon a "great guy," the president invoked a Cold War-era law designed to boost energy production in the face of national security threats to allocate $700 million in public 

The announcement enters a whirlwind of increasing demand for energy from AI-driven data centers, the legal greenlight for an 

 and the global energy and development race with China.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"About Trump’s $700 Million Grant"}]

Coal leasing on federal land in the Powder River Basin — a coal trove centered mostly in Wyoming — has brought in billions of dollars in revenue to the state and its coal mining industry, as it supplies roughly 40% of the thermal coal needed by power plants owned by electric utilities in the United States.

President Donald Trump’s Thursday announcement lists three key objectives:

[{"type":"text","text":"• Allocate $425 million to bolster 13 coal plants across the country;"}]

• Allocate $75 million to boost construction of a coal export terminal in Oakland  — a project Wyoming’s coal industry has long sought to uncork the Asian buyer market;

• Send another $200 million in U.S. Department of Energy grant 

 to help build two new coal plants in Alaska and West Virginia — the first new U.S. coal plants since 2013 — and restart a Maryland coal plant. 

Companies in each of those states are expected to match that money or exceed it with their own investments, the announcement says.

The first two appropriations hinge on the Defense Production Act of 1950. The act of Congress calls U.S. security dependent on the nation’s own ability to supply materials and services for national defense “and to prepare for and respond to military conflicts” as well as disasters and terrorism.

The act authorizes the president to elevate national defense contracts over other government contracts, to interfere with the civilian market only where scarcities impede national defense, and incentivize the production of “critical components,” critical technology and other recourse needed “for the execution of the national security strategy of the United States.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Smells Like Coal"}]

When state Sen. Cale Case, R-Lander, walked into a Riverton elementary school for a tour in 2019, he sniffed aloud and said, “Smells like coal.”

Coal production in Wyoming peaked in 2008,

 when the Powder River Basin produced nearly 450 million tons of coal,

 and has trended unsteadily downward since then. 

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.

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%.

Gordon Trump and coal 6 4 26

<title>Trump Sending $700 Million To Coal Industry, Including Wyoming Coal Plant | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Trump Sending $700 Million To Coal Industry, Including Wyoming Coal Plant

Coal

Energy

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced Thursday that it is proposing a rule to change an Obama-era 2014 Wyoming regional haze Federal Implementation Plan (FIP) that would have shuttered the Dave Johnston Unit 3 power plant in Converse County.

[{"type":"text","text":"That plant uses Wyoming coal."}]

Gov. Mark Gordon in an EPA statement Thursday called the maneuver proof “that environmental stewardship and energy production can go hand in hand

and said the proposal reflects a science-driven, sensible approach that relies on real-world data and measurable outcomes rather than predetermined anti-fossil fuel agendas."

Wyoming’s senior Republican U.S. Sen. John Barrasso and Sen. Cynthia Lummis also applauded Trump’s announcement

[{"type":"text","text":"Under the 2014 rule, the plant was expected to close by the end of 2027."}]

The EPA’s new plan is for the plant to meet the emission limits it’s currently operating under, instead of what the EPA under the old rule called “the unattainable Obama-era limits which would have forced its closure.”

EPA doesn’t expect emissions to rise under this proposal, the agency added in a Thursday statement.

EPA's Region 8 administrator and former Wyoming legislator Cyrus Western told Cowboy State Daily on Thursday that this maneuver is an answer to "energy demand across the nation (continuing) to go up and up and up."

"We need to meet that challenge. We need to ensure very reliable, very affordable electrons for folks across the bar," said Western, listing uses including both residential and industrial power needs. "There's a direct impact on jobs at the unit and all the mines that unit buys coal from — this is a decisive leadership step form (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin and the president, ensuring we're following through on the promises they made." 

Thursday's announcement is an about-face from the 2024 maneuvers of President Joe Biden's EPA. 

The administration at that time issued rules designed to hit many of the coal-fired plants from Naughton and Bridger in the southwestern part of the state, to Dry Fork near Gillette and the Dave Johnston plant near Glenrock.

 in northeastern part of the state where more than 4,000 people were employed in the industry.

The EPA in 2024 reported that it sought to improve public health without disrupting the delivery of electricity, and generally push a clean air agenda of alternative forms of energy production, like wind and solar; and to reduce pollution from fossil-fuel fired power plants under 50-year-old federal laws: the Clean Air Act of 1970, Clean Water Act of 1972 and Resource Conservation Recovery Act of 1976.

The 2024 EPA gave Wyoming and U.S. coal-fired power plants specific end dates.

Cyrus Western and Dave Johnston plant 6 4 26

<title>EPA Announces Push To Rescue Dave Johnston Coal Plant Near Glenrock | Cowboy State Daily</title>

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced Thursday that it is proposing a rule to change an Obama-era 2014 Wyoming regional haze plan that would have shuttered the Dave Johnston Unit 3 power plant in Converse County.

EPA Announces Push To Rescue Dave Johnston Coal Plant Near Glenrock

Kolby fedore

Kolby Fedore

Crime & Courts

Courts

A Riverton man who admitted to slitting the throat of a Wind River Reservation man, binding his hands and feet, wrapping his body in hotel bedding and dumping it in the snow was sentenced Thursday to life in prison with the possibility of parole.

Fremont County District Judge Jason Conder imposed the sentence on John William Goodman, describing the case as a "brutal killing of a human being" and one "replete with an overwhelming abundance of aggravating factors."

The sentence comes more than three years after 37-year-old Gustave Elmer Yellowhair's body was discovered by "little kids," partially buried in snow on the Wind River Reservation, Conder said during Thursday's hearing.

Fremont County Attorney Micah Wyatt urged the court to impose the maximum sentence available, arguing Goodman had already received "substantial mercy" through a plea agreement that reduced the charge from first-degree murder to second-degree murder and dismissed a separate kidnapping charge.

[{"type":"text","text":"\"This is not a normal second-degree murder,\" Wyatt told the court."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"'Even After The Victim Was Dead'"}]

Wyatt argued Yellowhair was not killed in self-defense or during a drunken fight.

"Even after the victim was dead, the violence did not stop," Wyatt said.

Goodman attempted to decapitate Yellowhair after killing him, Wyatt argued, a fact he said demonstrated an "extreme de-valuing of human life."

[{"type":"text","text":"\"That fact matters,\" Wyatt told the judge."}]

Wyatt argued Goodman then treated Yellowhair's body as "disposable," abandoning it in a remote area before later bringing two underage girls to view the remains.

"This is not an isolated event from an otherwise peaceful person," Wyatt said before walking the court through a lengthy and violent criminal history that included multiple assault and battery convictions.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Defense Argued For Lesser Sentence"}]

Assistant Federal Public Defender Valerie Schoneberger acknowledged the gravity of the crime but argued for a lesser sentence.

"This case involves the death of a human being and it's tragic," Schoneberger said. "We don't dispute a serious sentence."

Goodman endured a lifetime of instability and hardship, Schoneberger said, noting he was arrested when he was only 14 years old.

[{"type":"text","text":"\"He has a history of being mistreated by the system,\" she said."}]

She also pointed to a family history of alcohol abuse and described a life shaped by dysfunction and trauma.

Then Schoneberger reviewed five homicide cases she considered similar to Goodman's, including one she characterized as more egregious, involving a father who killed his premature infant and attempted to conceal the child's remains.

Schoneberger argued those cases demonstrated that a lengthy prison sentence could be imposed without condemning Goodman to spend the remainder of his life behind bars.

[{"type":"text","text":"Goodman declined to address the court before sentencing."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Judge Rejects Comparison To Other Cases"}]

Judge Conder said Schoneberger was "spot on" when describing the many hardships Goodman had faced throughout his life, and that he had endured "innumerable tragedies."

At the same time, Conder noted that Goodman had inflicted tragedies on others.

Conder rejected the defense's invitation to compare Goodman's sentence to punishments imposed in unrelated cases.

"That's illogical,” the judge said, adding that what happens in "some other court" does not dictate what sentence should be imposed in a case with a different set of facts.

In addition to the life sentence, Conder ordered Goodman to pay $6,355 in restitution to victim services.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Jailhouse Boasting"}]

in March 2023 after the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs was alerted that Goodman had shown two underage girls a dead body on the reservation.

When FBI Special Agent Scott Jensen arrived at the scene, he found Yellowhair partially buried in snow, according to an affidavit filed in his case. His feet protruded from the snowpack, and investigators discovered the body wrapped in bedding with the feet bound by a cord.

Despite the gruesome discovery, it would take more than two years before prosecutors formally charged Goodman with murder.

During that time, investigators with the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation and Riverton Police Department continued working the case while Goodman sat in jail on unrelated charges.

They reviewed recorded jail calls, interviewed associates and cultivated multiple confidential informants, the affidavit says.

According to court records, several witnesses told investigators Goodman had spoken openly about killing a man at a Riverton motel, cutting his throat, wrapping the body in motel bedding and dumping it on the reservation.

Investigators also reviewed calls in which Goodman discussed a gang he called the "Maniacs" and made statements they interpreted as admissions connected to the killing.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"A Single Hair Becomes Critical Evidence"}]

While witness statements helped investigators piece together the timeline, forensic evidence ultimately provided one of the strongest links to Goodman.

When Yellowhair's body was discovered, investigators recovered a hair clutched in the victim's hand. During the investigation, Goodman reportedly told an associate he had learned his hair had been found with the remains and said that was why he cut his own hair short.

[{"type":"text","text":"The breakthrough came when FBI laboratory testing analyzed the hair."}]

Initial testing found a possible DNA association with Goodman. Investigators later collected cheek swabs from Goodman and submitted them for comparison.

Results returned in April 2025 showed it was 13 sextillion times more likely that Goodman contributed the DNA found in the hair than an unknown person, according to court records.

Investigators also found DNA on motel room keys and USB cords recovered from the crime scene that showed strong support for a mixture containing DNA from both Goodman and Yellowhair, according to the affidavit.

Combined with witness statements, jail calls and other evidence gathered during the two-year investigation, prosecutors said the forensic findings helped solidify the case that ultimately led to Goodman's murder conviction.

John W Goodman Wind River Indian Reservation sign 7 9 25 copy

<title>Riverton Man Who Slit Man’s Throat And Dumped Body Gets Life In Prison | Cowboy State Daily</title>

A Riverton man who admitted to slitting the throat of another man, wrapping his body in hotel bedding and dumping it in the snow was sentenced Thursday to life in prison. "Even after the victim was dead, the violence did not stop,” said the prosecutor.

Riverton Man Who Slit Man’s Throat And Dumped Body Gets Life In Prison

Heinz mark

Mark Heinz

Outdoors

Public Lands

President Donald Trump’s decision to lift restrictions on motorized use of federal lands dating back to the 1970s has some Wyoming motorsports enthusiasts saying the move prioritizes much-deserved public access.

Others worry that it will cause a wildlands disaster, subjecting wildlife and non-motorized users to noise and destruction of habitat.

The Trump administration on Friday rescinded Executive Order (EO) 11644, issued in 1972 by President Richard Nixon, along with President Jimmy Carter’s 1977 EO 11989, which amended and strengthened Nixon’s order.

Throughout the ensuing decades, those orders shaped how federal land agencies managed the use of ATVs, dirt bikes, snowmobiles, and other motorsports vehicles.

The orders directed the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management to designate where off-road vehicles could and could not be used.

The stated goals of the orders were to protect resources, mitigate user conflicts, and minimize environmental damage.

Trump’s move is good news for Sweetwater County Commissioner Taylor Jones.

An avid off-roader and snowmobiler, he’s been a vocal critic of the controversial BLM Rock Springs Resource Management Plan, which he argues is too restrictive for motorized use.

"Certainly, I’m thrilled,” Jones told Cowboy State Daily. “I've always been a strong proponent for public access to public lands.

“There are a lot of areas in the national forest and in the mountains that should be open for access,” added Jones, who sits on the Wyoming State Trails Advisory Council.

Jones said he understands the misgivings of hikers, birdwatchers and others who seek isolation and silence on public lands.

As he sees it, the current restrictions push off-roaders into certain areas. That increases friction between motorsports enthusiasts and other public lands users, Jones said.

Lifting restrictions could disperse motorized users across the landscape and ease tensions, Jones said, adding that it could make it easier to maintain a balance between those user groups.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"‘Terrible’ Idea"}]

Avid mountain biker, hiker and skier Amber Travsky of Laramie told Cowboy State Daily that lifting motorized restrictions is a “terrible” idea.

“There are roads and trails designated for ATVs, and I have no problem with that,” she said. “There is so much opportunity already for off-road vehicles, I don’t see why it needs to be everywhere."

Off-road vehicle use can have wide-reaching effects on other uses, Travsky said, because of noise and potential damage to the landscape, particularly fragile areas such as wetlands.

Travsky has long been an advocate for the non-motorized Medicine Bow Rail Trail in Albany County. She said she’s not sure how Trump’s rescinding of the previous executive orders will affect that trail.

However, there’s been “chronic” unauthorized motorized use of the rail trail for years, so she wonders if lifting restrictions will just make that worse.

She understands why motorized users are tempted to jump on the rail trail. A nearby route intended for motorized use is in horrible shape, she said.

“We’ve sat down with the off-road vehicle people and worked toward a solution,” she said, which could entail improving the ATV trail.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Low-Impact Dirt Bikes"}]

Jason Harris of Lyman has participated in long-distance dirt bike races and said he welcomes Trump’s decision.

“If it means that I can ride my dirt bikes in some new places, then I’m stumping for it,” he told Cowboy State Daily.

He’s also happy to see less federal control over public lands.

Harris said he’s seen vegetation “recover quickly” from dirt bike use because the motorcycles are lighter than other off-road vehicles, and cut only a single track.

As he sees it, more widespread use of dirt bikes and more freedom for riders won’t damage Wyoming’s prized landscapes.

“I’m an enthusiast for all motorsports, but my area of specialty is dirt bikes,” he said.

Relaxing motorized use restrictions could have unintended consequences for hunters, Sierra Club spokesman Nick Gevock of Butte, Montana, told Cowboy State Daily.  

“It’s going to dramatically push elk down onto private ranches where they cause fence and crop damage” while also reducing public hunting opportunities, said Gevock, the Sierra Club’s organizing strategist for Northern Rockies wildlands and wildlife.

“Large-scale use of ATVs on public lands” can also spread noxious weeds, push sediment into mountain springs and disturb delicate wildlife habitat, he said.

“This is indicative of the Trump administration’s attitude toward public lands,” Gevock said. “There was no reason to do this, other than to give a nod to the ATV crowd that we’re going to give you free rein over public lands.”

He also worries that it will lead to many more “user-created (motorized) trails” cropping up in isolated areas.

Public land should get the same level of respect that private land does, Gevock added.

“I’m a fair-chase elk hunter, and never once has a rancher who has granted access to public hunting said, ‘’Well you can go anywhere you want,’” he said.

ATV medicine bow 7 17 23

<title>ATV Riders Cheer Trump Opening Access To Federal Lands, Critics Expect Disaster | Cowboy State Daily</title>

President Trump’s lifting of restrictions on motorized use of federal lands dating back to the 1970s has some Wyoming motorsports enthusiasts cheering a move they say prioritizes public access. Others worry that it will cause a wildlands disaster.

ATV Riders Cheer Trump Opening Access To Federal Lands, Critics Expect Disaster

The Wyoming Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected the self-defense argument of a Weston County man who shot and killed his neighbor, then told police the neighbor had charged toward him while driving a skid steer.

Paul Manders is serving a sentence of 16-20 years in the Wyoming Department of Corrections for manslaughter. He was sentenced Feb. 27, 2025.

But the spat between Manders and his neighbor, Vernon Clyde, had turned deadly nearly four years earlier in the summer of 2021.

The neighbors had an ongoing dispute over Clyde’s goats escaping onto Manders’ property, and Manders shot one of the goats, the Wyoming Supreme Court’s Wednesday opinion on the case says.

On July 27, 2021, Manders called 911 to report he’d killed Clyde, the document adds.

Manders told police Clyde “came at” him with a skid steer, which prompted the shooting.

Weston County Sheriff’s Office deputies and Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation agents converged on the scene and found Clyde dead in the skid steer — which they found about 20 feet east of Manders’ home.

Clyde had been using the skid steer to move rolls of fencing to fix the fence between their homes earlier that day, says the document.

Investigators found four rolls of wire fencing to the rear left of the skid steer.

Officers also learned, reportedly, that there was a dispute over ownership of the strip of land where the skid steer was during the shooting.

Clyde believed that to be a public alley or road running between their property. Manders believed it was part of his own property and Clyde wasn’t supposed to be there due to a no-trespass warning from the sheriff’s office, says the document.

[{"type":"text","text":"A debris pile of corrugated pipe and rubble sat on the strip of land."}]

Neighbors told investigators they saw the skid steer near the fence, then heard one gunshot, a pause, then three more gunshots, the document says.

Law enforcement noticed tracks in the dirt indicating the machine was going in reverse before it came to rest. The control stick had blood spatter on it, which indicated Clyde’s hand was not on the control stick when he was shot, says the opinion.

[{"type":"text","text":"Two of the shell casings sat farther away than the other two."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Police arrested Manders at the time on suspicion of second-degree murder."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"The Self-Defense Argument"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Manders asked for a John’s hearing."}]

That’s a chance for a defendant to show that he acted in self-defense, and for the state to try to overcome that with evidence that makes the opposite look more likely than not.

Manders showed, at first glance, that he acted in self-defense, arguing that his fear was reasonable because according to him, Clyde entered Manders’ driveway and drove the skid steer toward Manders.

But the case prosecutor overcame that showing of evidence with more evidence.

The prosecutor showed that there was no evidence Clyde was entering Manders’ home, so a castle doctrine provision letting people defend their homes wouldn’t help Manders. The state argued Manders’ use of deadly force wasn’t reasonable, either.

Weston County District Court Judge James Michael Causey held a three-day hearing.

The skid steer was turned on when police arrived, but the idle was turned all the way down and the parking brake was engaged, the state’s physical evidence expert noted in the hearing.

Some bullet casings sat on top of tracks in the dirt, indicating that the casings had been put there after the skid steer came to a stop, notes the opinion.

There was also a blood pool on the left tread of the skid steer indicating the blood landed there either during the shooting or directly afterward, “and the skid steer was not in motion when the blood was deposited,” says the high court’s opinion.

The Weston County Assessor’s Office map showed the “road” as a public access point which, whether correct or not, imbued Clyde with the belief that he had a right to be there, the document says.

The judge denied Manders’ request for the case to be dismissed early on self-defense grounds, and left the matter up to a jury.

But rather than go to trial, Manders settled with an Alford plea, which is a way of pleading guilty without admitting wrongdoing.

Manders reserved the right to appeal the judge’s finding on his self-defense argument, and he did.

The evidence doesn’t show that Clyde was unlawfully and forcefully entering Manders’ home, so the castle doctrine doesn’t rescue Manders’ self-defense claim, says the opinion. 

It notes that even if that strip of land was Manders’ driveway, the law doesn’t include someone’s driveway in that provision.

“We therefore decline Mr. Manders’s invitation to extend the statutory definitions of ‘home’ or ‘habitation’ to include driveways, yards, and other areas outside of a structure or occupied dwelling,” says the opinion.

Turning to the question of who the initial aggressor was, the court noted that multiple witnesses testified Clyde was in a good mood just minutes before the shooting. 

He’d spoken with multiple neighbors about helping him fix the fence that weekend, and people saw him transporting the fencing materials just before the shooting, the document says.

“Evidence shows it is more probable than not Mr. Clyde went to the disputed area with the intention of fixing the fence, not to threaten or attack Mr. Manders,” the court wrote, adding that “The undisputed evidence showed the skid steer moved into reverse until it came to a stop.”

The physical evidence “could” support finding that Manders was the initial aggressor, the opinion says.

There was a dispute in this case about whether Clyde threatened to “smash” Manders’ home when Clyde came out to confront him about allegedly trespassing.

Even if rough words were exchanged between the two before the shooting, verbal attacks don’t make someone the initial aggressor in an altercation, the high court wrote in its analysis.

A footnote in the opinion notes that the state’s experts opined it would have been extremely difficult for Manders to hear what Clyde was saying if the skid steer was running at full throttle and moving.

Even if the court were to assume Clyde was the initial aggressor, the opinion says, the state showed it’s more likely than not that Clyde was trying to withdraw from the altercation before he was shot.

Manders could have raised his self-defense claims at trial, had he gone to trial, the opinion concludes.

Weston County vote IMG 3158 10 22 24

<title>Goat Dispute Turned Deadly: Supreme Court Rejects Self Defense Argument Over Man Who Killed… | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Two neighbors in Weston County had a longstanding dispute over goats. It escalated when one man shot and killed the other. The Wyoming Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected the self-defense argument of the man who said the neighbor charged him on a skid steer.

Goat Dispute Turned Deadly: Supreme Court Rejects Self Defense Argument Over Man Who Killed Neighbor

Jen kocher

Jen Kocher

More than 32 years after her body was found along I-80, the woman known as “Shafter Jane Doe” has been identified, officials announced Thursday. Her nude body was posed on the ground, arms extended to either side in the shape of a cross.

You Still Here? Thursday, February 6, 2025

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