U.S. Sens. John Barrasso and Cynthia Lummis voted this week to advance sweeping federal permitting reforms, backing a bipartisan push meant to clear decades of bureaucratic red tape for Wyoming energy projects.
The Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act of 2026 (BAAJA) would set deadlines for federal environmental reviews and establish a 150-day deadline for certain legal challenges to federal energy and mineral authorizations.
The bill also would make it easier to build certain interstate power lines and protect some federal permits and authorizations once they’re issued. For Wyoming, where nearly half of the land is federally managed, supporters say that could mean faster approvals for projects that now wait years in federal review.
In an email to Cowboy State Daily, Barrasso said America needs to build faster, cheaper and smarter as demand for energy grows, and that Wyoming has the coal, oil, natural gas and uranium to meet it.
“Wyoming energy workers are ready to produce the energy America needs,” Barrasso said. “The federal permitting process is standing in their way.”
Barrasso said he will keep fighting to fix the permitting process, bring down energy costs and create jobs.
“We need permitting reform that ensures strong investment in energy and mineral production and responsible use of our resources on federal lands, while encouraging reasonable environmental review,” he said.
Lummis told Cowboy State Daily in an email that the reform is long overdue for Wyoming families and energy workers.
“Wyoming’s coal miners, uranium producers, and energy workers have spent too long waiting on Washington for permission to work,” Lummis said. “Every year that a project sits in federal review or in courts, costs soar and Wyoming families watch their electric bills increase.”
Lummis said BAAJA would cut through the red tape holding back Wyoming’s energy industry and let the country’s nuclear fuel supply chain grow at home.
“Wyoming has the resources and the workforce to lead,” Lummis said. “This bill lets them thrive.”
The bill cleared two procedural votes Monday and Tuesday, and is expected to face amendments and a vote on final passage next week.
‘Big Step Forward’
Ryan McConnaughey, vice president of the Petroleum Association of Wyoming, told Cowboy State Daily that, if the bill passes, it will clear long-standing hurdles for oil and gas projects in the state.
“This is a big step forward,” McConnaughey said.
In Wyoming, about 67% of the subsurface mineral estate is federally owned. Because of that, a large share of oil and gas development in Wyoming has what’s known as a “federal nexus,” meaning the project involves federal land, federally owned minerals or a federal permit and has to go through federal review.
McConnaughey said the only way to avoid that is if both the surface rights and mineral rights are state-owned or privately owned.
But because Wyoming allows split estate, meaning the surface and the minerals beneath it can have different owners, that’s rarely the case.
The bill would remove the requirement for a federal application for a permit to drill for certain oil and gas wells on nonfederal land, including some wells involving split-estate minerals.
“This bill is really about permitting reform, which is a game-changer for a state like Wyoming where we’re so heavily reliant on the federal mineral estate for drilling operations,” McConnaughey said.
Under current rules, an operator drilling a well on private land over federal minerals generally needs approval from both the federal Bureau of Land Management and the Wyoming Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, and has to work out terms with the surface owner, too.
‘Red Tape’
Rusty Bell, CEO of Energy Capital Economic Development in Gillette and a former Campbell County commissioner, told Cowboy State Daily that doubling up on approvals can stretch out projects before a well gets drilled.
“It can take years,” Bell said. “The development companies are looking at permitting and leasing those minerals and it can take a long time when you have split estate.”
Bell said the longer a project sits in the approval process, the more exposed it becomes to changes outside a company’s control.
“That’s the risk you run,” Bell said. “Companies are looking a long ways in advance but political landscapes change, markets change, all those kind of things change.”
McConnaughey said an example of that is the Converse County Oil and Gas Project in Converse County.
The project, which energy companies first proposed in 2013, authorized up to 5,000 wells across about 1.5 million acres after the BLM approved it in December 2020. Then, environmental groups sued in 2022.
A federal judge halted new drilling permits in 2024 over flaws in the groundwater analysis and threw out the approval this year, though drilling continues under a different plan.
McConnaughey said permitting reform also needs to come with litigation reform, so a lengthy permitting process isn’t followed by an equally lengthy legal fight.
“Going through a decade of review only to be challenged in the courts is slowing development of American energy resources,” McConnaughey said.
But both Bell and McConnaughey said BAAJA is a good first step for Wyoming energy, with Bell saying that the permitting process with the federal government always comes with “red tape.”
“Any way to help streamline permitting and make it quicker and more efficient would really help and it makes sense,” Bell said.
‘Can’t Undo That Harm’
But, for some opponents of the bill, that red tape exists for a reason.
Andi LeBeau, a Northern Arapaho tribal member and former Wyoming House minority whip, wrote in a Wednesday Facebook post that the same streamlining that might move energy projects along faster could also make sacred sites more vulnerable for the Northern Arapaho and Eastern Shoshone tribes.
With less federal review and oversight, LeBeau said the tribes would have less time to raise concerns about projects like pipelines and power lines.
“It could also MAKE IT HARDER to get a court to PAUSE CONSTRUCTION while a federal agency corrects a flawed review,” LeBeau wrote. “Once a burial ground is disturbed, another review can’t undo that harm.”
Over the past three years, LeBeau said she’s worked alongside the Tribal Historic Preservation officers and seen firsthand how much care and dedication goes into consulting with elders and tribal citizens to protect sacred sites.
She called for an amendment that would remove Division B, Title III, which rewrites how the federal government reviews projects that could affect historic and sacred sites.
"Those provisions matter when Tribes seek a route change or a pause in construction to protect a sacred site or ancestral landscape, including outside reservation boundaries,” LeBeau said.
Katie Warbinton, Lummis’ communications director, told Cowboy State Daily that the senator values her relationship with Wyoming’s tribes and takes their concerns seriously.
“She welcomes continued conversation with the Wind River tribes as the bill moves forward,” Warbinton said.
Cowboy State Daily also asked Barrasso how tribal concerns factored into his vote, but his statement did not address the question.
Emma Jane Jackson can be reached at emma@cowboystatedaily.com.
