Wyoming lawmakers plan this year to reevaluate whether the Wyoming Business Council has a future, study the effect of artificial intelligence on education, the laws around pregnancy-testing cattle, and the prospect of taxing wind energy facilities.
Those are just a few items on the list of interim topics the Wyoming Legislature released Friday.
The legislative interim comprises the months between winter lawmaking sessions, and is reserved for research, listening to stakeholders and holding public meetings.
The eight-week legislative session, which is for developing and passing laws, opens in mid-January 2027.
The 19 committees slated to study interim topics have an estimated budget of $872,500 total for their work, the topics list says.
Appropriations
The Joint Appropriations Committee, which is the state’s budget-planning panel, has set reevaluating the Wyoming Business Council as its top priority.
The Wyoming Business Council is an agency that gives grants and loans to businesses and communities.
The Appropriations Committee majority sparked an effort to defund and dismantle it in January. That fizzled in the full Legislature, as other lawmakers proposed reevaluating the agency instead.
The Joint Minerals, Business and Economic Development Committee seeks to reevaluate the WBC as well, and in tandem with the Appropriations Committee.
The former is considering the laws that define the agency, while the latter is to consider the agency’s programs and what they cost.
The Appropriations Committee’s other topics for study include the Wyoming state retirement system, the State Commission for the Deaf and Blind, health and education funding mechanisms, and whether to adjust or change certain salaries cemented in statute.
Wyoming Supreme Court Justices receive an annual salary of $175,000, state law says. District court and chancery court judges receive $160,000. Circuit court judges receive $145,000. District attorneys’ salaries are the same as those of circuit court judges, the law says.
County attorneys’ salaries are capped at the circuit court judge’s salary amount.
Judiciary
The Joint Judiciary Committee’s top priority this year is researching laws governing public access to Wyoming’s court records.
After that, the committee will consider “laws concerning strategic lawsuits against public participation,” including two bills that attempted to address that topic but did not pass into law in the past two years — both sponsored by Rep. Pepper Ottman, R-Riverton.
The committee is slated to consider adopting a classification or gradation system for criminal offenses and penalties, to review issues related to people escaping from adult community or correctional facilities, traffic laws like vehicular homicide and DUI, the Wyoming probate code and other agency reports and court opinions.
Revenue
After years of seeing reforms to Wyoming’s property tax system and with a 50% residential property tax cut up for a question on this year’s general election ballot, the Joint Revenue Committee is scheduled to consider “property tax cleanup options to include more robuts long term property tax reform enhancements.”
Lawmakers plan to discuss the proposed 50% property tax cut, and alternative revenue options to replace residential property tax, as well as other changes, like anchoring property tax assessments to whatever the fair market value of a property was when it was sold.
The committee also plans to consider taxing electricity production, including a severance tax on wind energy facilities, sales tax on large electrical loads, the implementation of a choice election program, and a review of taxation of wind turbines, and whether wind farms are agricultural or industrial property under the property tax classifications.
Governmental property tax exemptions and “other tax issues” are on the committee’s docket for this year.
Education
The Joint Education Committee plans to study an array of educational services the state’s public K-12 system is required to offer students.
Wyoming’s Constitution requires the state provide a “complete and uniform” public education system.
For years, the state has weathered litigation over whether it funds education adequately, and one such case is ongoing on appeal in the Wyoming Supreme Court.
The high court paused a court order requiring the Legislature to provide one computer for every student, among other goods, but lawmakers have expressed that they’re still under some pressure to consider the court’s requirements.
The committee also plans to study if the statewide student assessment accurately measures its offerings, and ways to ensure Wyoming’s scores in a national test don’t drop between fourth and eighth grade.
The committee also seeks to consider the requirement for school districts to provide instruction for the gifted and talented; whether schools should have their funding adjusted; how schools work together with colleges for dual enrollment; mechanisms driving virtual education; how Wyoming’s education entities work together; how artificial intelligence affects education; and the laws around school discipline.
Ag Committee
The State and Public Lands & Water Resources Committee wants to study:
• The current requirements for pregnancy testing cattle and whether some people can gain an exemption from having to be certified for pregnancy testing.
• Recreation rules on state and public lands.
• The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s requirements to use electronic identification of cattle, how those work with a state confidentiality requirement and “how the committee may support agricultural producers that do not wish to use electronic identification.”
• Preventing orphaned water rights.
• Wyoming’s fence-out laws for cattle, which are within its common-law tradition.
• The state treasurer’s land leasing prices.
Minerals
The Minerals, Business and Economic Development Committee, besides reviewing the Wyoming Business Council, seeks to explore expanding Wyoming’s role and dominance in the energy industry.
Plus, the committee will study bonding requirements for industrial siting, the reuse of produced water in oil and gas operations, what will happen if the use of water in the Colorado River Basin is curtailed, where people source curing stones in Wyoming, and various agency reports.
Labor Health
The Labor, Health and Social Services committee is slated to review worker’s compensation laws, a federal health grant under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, shortfalls in maternity care.
Health care accessibility, behavioral health problems, and potential legislation prohibiting step therapy, or “fail first” insurance policies, for advanced metastatic cancer.
The Management Audit Committee is slated to review failed 2026 legislation, like a bill geared toward adding more legislative oversight to administrative agency rules development, and a bill enhancing the criminal penalty for people who fail to appear when the Legislature subpoenas them.
The committee also seeks to review special district audit processes and Livestock Board theft prevention resources.
The Techy One
The Select Committee on Blockchain, Financial Technology and Digital Innovation Technology has a detailed plan for this year.
It plans to:
• Look for ways to integrate digital asset technologies into state agencies and governmental entities.
• Examine the integration of the Frontier Stable Token into Wyoming’s commerce, taxes, and state government processes — up to considering legislation to clarify the coin’s status as a “cash equivalent for state purposes.”
• Study artificial intelligence, and its role in governance, plus the “legal status of AI-generated documents.”
• Study personal data privacy and ownership.
• Review prior legislation.
Capital Financing
The Select Committee on Capital Financing and Investments seeks to study and monitor implementation of the state’s investment policies, consider how to improve policies underpinning state and local governmental investments and pursue other investment checks and improvements, plus reconsider the Uniform Unclaimed Property Act.
Federal Natural Resources
The Select Natural Resource Management Committee seeks to study issues related to the structure of ownership of federal lands within the state, and wild horse management on the Wind River Indian Reservation, plus federal regulations governing the timber industry, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s authority for “good neighbor” enforcement on Wyoming public lands.
Other Committees
The Select Committee on Legislative Facilities, Technology and Process seeks to review various legislative efficiency reforms, as well as hear an overview of the Wyoming Public Television tower system, and what it does for the state.
That committee will also review whether it should continue to exist, and in what form.
The Select Natural Resource Funding Committee plans to review grant applications for some large projects, review ongoing projects and hear an update on the Wyoming Outdoor Recreation and Tourism Trust Fund Account.
The Select Committee on School Facilities is considering statewide school facility needs and how to prioritize them. Like the Education Committee, that panel is also considering how to respond to a judge’s order regarding the state’s provisions for its K-12 system.
The Select Committee on Tribal Relations kept most of its plans vague, saying it will discuss policy frameworks that might guide relations between the Eastern Shoshone Tribe, the Northern Arapaho Tribe, and Wyoming.
That panel also seeks to hear testimony regarding minors accessing alcohol “from locations off the reservation” and crimes associated with that.
The Select Water Committee seeks to study stormwater infrastructure around the state, including local governments’ fees to implement stormwater infrastructure and management.
That panel is also studying costs of water projects, and the Colorado River Compact’s impact on Wyoming.
It seeks to study “ways to transfer lands around reservoirs to the state of Wyoming,” and how to transfer lands with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
