Dear editor:
The Wyoming Freedom Caucus has embraced a bold strategy! Being anti-free market and anti-energy at the same time!
To keep Wyoming’s economy dependent on boom-and-bust cycles, the Freedom Caucus has decided the best course of action is to start weaponizing state licensing and budget riders to shut down investments in the state energy market.
Maybe they don’t understand the urgency of diversifying Wyoming’s economy. After all, many of the Freedom Caucus legislators haven’t lived in the state long enough to know how bad the busts can be.
The Freedom Caucus claims to champion a level playing field by opposing federal subsidies, and on that point, we agree!
The federal government should not be picking winners and losers; we do not support continued subsidies and support responsible ways to get the market off the opium of the government.
However, the Freedom Caucus's adamant and selective hostility toward nuclear innovation and carbon capture — while giving coal a free pass — reveals pure hypocrisy.
Coal producers in Wyoming receive hundreds of millions in federal lease-sale revenue and production tax credits. Condemning one set of subsidies while preserving another is not free-market advocacy; it’s political favoritism dressed up as principle.
By blocking these emerging energy industries, the Freedom Caucus is punishing the people in response to the actions of the government.
Wyoming families and workers stand to lose high-wage manufacturing jobs and supply-chain opportunities. Ranchers and small businesses along the pipeline corridor will forfeit property leases and local tax revenues.
This is not conservative stewardship — it is state-sanctioned retribution against entrepreneurs who dared to seize federal grants and tax credits.
This is also deeply unfair to coal. Here is the hard truth, the people of Wyoming are overwhelmingly dependent on the carbon extraction industries.
They have been very good to the people of Wyoming, and the people of Wyoming are usually very interested in supporting them in return. No one industry should be expected to have the rewards of their labor taken without any effort to diversify the burden.
The Wyoming Libertarian Party and most sensible Wyomingites agree that federal incentives are not sound economic policies and do more harm by distorting markets than good.
Federal 45Q tax credits for carbon use/storage and DoD microreactor contracts undeniably alter price signals in the energy market. But those distortions arise at the national level, beyond Wyoming’s direct control.
It also isn’t the fault of the entrepreneurs that the federal government is providing these incentives, and once those incentives are in place, it would be bad business not to pursue them.
If the Freedom Caucus actually cared about the federal subsidies they would run legislation that would prevent all industries that receive federal incentives from operating in Wyoming, I think we all know that isn’t on the five-and-dime.
Wyoming’s future depends on embracing competition and innovation, not wielding state authority to punish certain sectors while protecting others.
We urge the Freedom Caucus to drop its agenda of picking winners and losers and stand for genuine free enterprise that empowers Wyoming’s people and unleashes the full potential of our energy resources.
The people of Wyoming want more opportunities, we want our children to stay, and we want to lead the way on energy dominance!
Sincerely,
Jeff Merkle, Libertarian Party of Wyoming
