It’s time to take a look at what’s happening around Wyoming for Wednesday, January 14th. I’m Mac Watson.
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Nine of Wyoming’s top legislators advanced a bid Tuesday to defund and dismantle the Wyoming Business Council. Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports that opponents call the move short-sighted while supporters say it stops government from unfairly competing with private businesses.
“Last summer, Representative Ken Pendergraft told us that he wanted to get rid of the agency, and then over the intervening months, Representative Tom Kelly from Sheridan said the same…And then this all kind of erupted with the super-conservative-led Joint Appropriations Committee. The Appropriations Committee is the most powerful in the legislature, and they advance this maneuver to just gut it and shut it down, but they still have to get that past the 93 person legislature next month if they want it to last.”
If the state Legislature approves the action the Joint Appropriations Committee advanced Tuesday on a 9-3 vote, it would slash the Wyoming Business Council’s two-year budget from about $94.2 million to $2 million — just enough to close the agency.
Read the full story HERE.
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The 2026 legislative season is ramping up, and Utah lawmakers are fully embracing the nuclear industry while Wyoming legislators appear to be avoiding the subject. Cowboy State Daily’s David Madison reports that State Sen. Ed Cooper of Ten Sleep, drafted a bill titled “Advanced nuclear reactor manufacturers-fuel storage, but he has no plans to introduce the legislation during the upcoming budget session.
“He thinks that the Freedom Caucus is going to oppose it and is worried that, yeah, he wouldn't get the support. And there's a lot of other stuff to do during the short budget session. So I compared what's happening in Wyoming with what's happening in Utah, which is a little bit more open for business when it comes to the nuclear industry...there's a couple bills that would really facilitate further investment in the nuclear industry and further empower the state of Utah to perhaps perform some of some of the regulatory duties now done by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.”
The upcoming Utah legislative session begins Jan. 20, with multiple efforts focused on nuclear energy and waste management that could position the state as a western hub for nuclear fuel processing.
Read the full story HERE.
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Republican Jillian Balow, the former Wyoming Superintendent of Public Instruction, is running for the state's lone U.S. House Seat. Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports that before going to Virginia to be the top educator, she was the Superintendent of Public Instruction for Wyoming.
“The thing about Jillian Balow is she was the superintendent of public instruction when it was a very hot seat to be in. She weathered Covid in that office. She was the person in conjunction with Governor Mark Gordon, who said, ‘We're shutting down the schools around March 14, 2020,’ and she did reopen the schools fairly quickly, especially compared to other states. Which is one reason that officials commonly attribute Wyoming performing well on national tests in the years that followed.”
This pits Balow against Secretary of State Chuck Gray and Casper businessman Reid Rasner, both MAGA-style candidates, for the lone seat in the House of Representatives.
Read the full story HERE.
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A 40-year-old Russian national who plunged off a bridge after his snowmobile collided with a guardrail. Cowboy State Daily’s Kate Meadows reports that luckily, a team of emergency responders on the Scenic Beartooth Highway near the Wyoming - Montana border was able to rescue the man.
“A 40-year-old-Russian national on a snowmobile hit a guard rail on a bridge and plunged 15 feet into a creek bottom. Someone in his party went to go get help and rode to a warming hut about half a mile away, happened to find a bunch of search and rescue team members in there on their lunch break from an avalanche training, safety training…one of the search and rescue members is a trained doctor, and he is the one who rendered care and was able to notice the broken bones and the bruised abdomen, so was able to treat those as best they could before the helicopter arrived…the Russian national was airlifted to St Vincent's Trauma Center in Billings, and he is expected to survive.”
Miller said the party, which he said he believed included three snowmobilers, was playing in a meadow when the 40-year-old male rode up on the highway bridge.
Read the full story HERE.
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I’ll be back with more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.
Cowboy State Daily news continues now…
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The Joint Appropriations Committee on Tuesday voted to reduce the governor’s recommended state budget for the University of Wyoming by nearly $61 million. Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports one lawmaker calls it “spiteful and vindictive.”
“Senator Ogden Driscoll, a Republican on the Appropriations Committee, who the part, the spiteful and vindictive part, was especially about the match funds, 12 point 5 million the governor recommended the state give UW to attract other match style fundraising efforts, and that was after the $40 million proposed cut to the block-style grants. Senator Driscoll was like, ‘So you cut the Block Grant and then you take away their lever for fundraising.’ ‘That's spiteful and vindictive,’ is what he said. Whereas on the other side, UW has been at odds with the Legislature for years now, it's no secret there's occasional culture clashes.”
If both chambers of the state Legislature agree with the maneuver, that denial of funds would include a $40 million cut to the school’s state-funded block grant, the denial of $6 million UW requested to deal with spiking athletics costs in the wake of the name, image and likeness (NIL) legal shakeup – and the state-level defunding of Wyoming Public Media.
Read the full story HERE.
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The Cheyenne City Council on Monday sat through hours of residents blasting them over administrative warrants to inspect homes and businesses. Cowboy State Daily’s Greg Johnson reports that citizens are calling it “textbook overreach.”
“A lot of people spoke out about this proposed ordinance. Every single one of them spoke out against the ordinance. They say it's government overreach. Some say it's unconstitutional. Others say it's allowed, but you know, it's still not in the spirit of what people in Wyoming are about, and basically extending, giving, extending the ability to get warrants to go into people's homes, for their businesses. People are just against it. They just say, you know, people are already in our lives, too much…the vote on Monday was six to three in favor of it, so three, three council members voted against it, and some of the six who voted for it voted for it on the caveat that it gets changed. It's been made more specific that they address some of people's concerns when they bring it back, so there's no guarantee that it would pass on the third reading if they don't address some of what people were upset about.”
The council voted 6-3 to approve the ordinance’s second reading. The council got an earful for about two hours from locals against the warrants, saying they’re unconstitutional, unwelcome and, in a stand-your-ground state like Wyoming, downright dangerous.
Read the full story HERE.
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The big blue water slide at Hellie’s Tepee Pools in Hot Springs State Park has been dismantled and given away after 34 years of summer fun. Cowboy State Daily’s Andrew Rossi reports that a new water feature is on hold while the future of Thermopolis' hot spring facilities is tied up in court.
“Hellie’s Tepee Pools tore down their multi-story Big Blue slide recently, and the pieces were distributed throughout the community, everything from new dog houses to ways of keeping rain off the ground. What had been at T the slide had been at heli's TVs for 30 years, but it was at least 50 years old…I was told that there will be a new water feature there. What's and when that's up to what and when. Nobody knows exactly. Though, nobody has answers for those right now, but the manager at heli's tepees wanted people to know this is a sign that there's a bright future ahead for the pool. The slide coming down is not a sign that the quality is sliding downhill.”
William Moriarty, the manager of Hellie’s Tepee, said the slide coming down isn't a sign that the pool is going downhill. It’s a necessary step toward a better visitor experience that will be replaced with something better in the not-too-distant future.
Read the full story HERE.
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Canada geese sometimes hog elevated nesting platforms from ospreys in Wyoming. Cowboy State Daily’s Mark Heinz reports the ospreys don’t fight to take back their nest, they move on to try to build nests on powerline poles instead with deadly consequences.
“So I ran it past, you know, some of the bird experts. and they said, ‘No, that does actually happen.’ Canada geese, if they have the opportunity, they will nest up in old eagle's nest in trees, or they'll nest on cliff faces in other up high places. Some Canada geese nest on the ground, or in old wheelbarrows. Others with more of a taste for heights will build nests on outcroppings along cliff faces and hatch their young, called goslings, up there…what will sometimes happen is the geese will either be here already. They stay the entire winter, or they'll come in before the Osprey and they'll take over these platforms and build their nests there before the Osprey have a time to get back from Mexico or wherever they've been. And subsequently, the Osprey will go, ‘Well, heck, that one's occupied. So they'll go over and they'll start building nests elsewhere.’ Oftentimes that elsewhere happens to be on power line poles, which can lead to Osprey being electrocuted and or causing power outages.”
Some Canada geese nest on the ground, or in old wheelbarrows. Others with more of a taste for heights will build nests on outcroppings along cliff faces and hatch their young, called goslings, up there.
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And that’s today’s news. Get your free digital subscription to Wyoming's only statewide newspaper by hitting the Daily Newsletter button on Cowboy State Daily Dot Com - and you can watch this newscast every day by clicking Subscribe on our YouTube channel, or listen to us on your favorite podcast app. Thanks for watching - I’m Mac Watson, for Cowboy State Daily.
