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Why it's a bad idea, generally, to pull-out in front of a cement mixer....

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Daily Darwin: Thursday, February 6, 2025

He started to question his entire life.....

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Daily Darwin: Wednesday, February 5, 2025

Your chance of being attacked by a squirrel is low, but never zero.....

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Daily Darwin: Tuesday, February 4, 2025

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Daily Darwin: Monday, February 3, 2025

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Daily Darwin: Sunday, February 2, 2025

It sounded like a good idea at the time....

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Daily Darwin: Saturday, February 1, 2025

Always know where your spare key is.......

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Daily Darwin: Friday, January 31, 2025

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Daily Darwin: Thursday, January 30, 2025

"We're going to make sure Chris is okay......"

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Daily Darwin: Wednesday, January 29, 2025

White gloves, black uniforms, no plan.....

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Daily Darwin: Tuesday, January 28, 2025

When using a swing set, go big or go home......

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Daily Darwin: Monday, January 27, 2025

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Daily Darwin: Sunday, January 26, 2025

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

Clair McFarland

Government & Politics

Legislature

The Joint Appropriations Committee majority tried in January to defund the Wyoming Business Council, an agency that gives grants and loans to businesses and communities.

The state Senate, which ran more fiscally moderate this year than the 

, rejected the effort overwhelmingly in February. But then in March, the Legislature passed a budget that funds the Wyoming Business Council’s operations for one year instead of the traditional two-year budget allocation.

The Joint Appropriations Committee is now delving into a monthslong research project into how it can trim the business council, tether it to legislative oversight and refocus it onto what the supermajority Republican Legislature deems proper uses of government.

The committee spent around five-and-a-half hours on that topic while meeting Monday in Lander.

Its members weighed three proposed bills. They also engaged in a spicy back-and-forth with Wyoming Business Council CEO Josh Dorrell.

[{"type":"text","text":"‘Give Me A Number'"}]

“Mr. Dorrell, what do you anticipate will be your ask for the Wyoming Business Council for the supplemental budget? And 

, how much do you need to succeed?” asked Senate Appropriations Chair Tim Salazar, R-Riverton.

Dorrell said the WBC’s figures are still in flux, and he expected it to give its final budget request submission to Gov. Mark Gordon in August. But becoming “whole,” or receiving the rest of its two-year budget, would be the priority, he added.

As of now, the agency’s budget ends June 30, 2027, unless the Legislature acts to restore its second-year money.

Salazar later voiced dissatisfaction with that answer, pressing Dorrell on it again.

“Give me a number. Tell me where that fits into the supplemental budget,” said Salazar.

“I’m not going to give you a number,” 

 Dorrell. “I don’t mean to be obtuse, but I want to work it through the proper channels first.”

Besides having its funding cut to one year of operations, the WBC is slated for a potential makeover.

Both the Appropriations Committee and the Joint Minerals Business and Economic Development Committee are reviewing the WBC’s programs and underpinning laws.

Dorrell said he’s looking for information on which programs the Legislature wants to cut.

[{"type":"text","text":"He also indicated that lawmakers don’t fully understand the agency yet."}]

“I don’t think it’s appropriate for us to really discuss the exact in-and-out if you don’t understand the things that we do,” said Dorrell, adding that WBC has presented program data to lawmakers in recent months. 

“I’d advocate to at least stay whole, as a minimum, (but also) we should look at investing in our communities, and the state agency that unlocks those,” he said.

[{"type":"text","text":"Humble Ask This Time"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Rep. Ken Pendergraft, R-Sheridan, also parried with Dorrell."}]

“Honestly, I’m not trying to be confrontational, but I’m frustrated,” said Pendergraft. “You were asked what does it cost to be successful — no answer. No answer, no money.”

[{"type":"text","text":"Dorrell reiterated that he’d know the answer in August."}]

Salazar’s line of questioning is an echo of one he launched in December, but which Dorrell then handled very differently. 

At that time during the committee’s budget-planning marathon, Salazar asked how much money WBC needs to fix the economic problems facing the state.

[{"type":"text","text":"Dorrell answered $1.7 billion."}]

“Thank you for giving us the courtesy of the truth,” said Salazar at the time.

Around seven weeks later, the committee advanced two pieces of legislation — both of which later failed — that had sought to defund the agency and strip it from state law.

Ahead of next year’s January lawmaking session, the two committees are working on a plan to refocus the Wyoming Business Council and reevaluate its many programs.

[{"type":"text","text":"Neither committee has adopted any WBC makeover bills yet."}]

But the Joint Appropriations Committee on Monday discussed four in this vein.

[{"type":"text","text":"The Bill About Federal Money"}]

One of the bills would authorize lawmakers to review and appropriate federal funds seeking to pass through the WBC for capital and investment projects.  

[{"type":"text","text":"Dorrell cast that one as peculiar.  "}]

Congress authorizes federal money for governmental investments, the U.S. Treasury allocates those investments and enforces their terms, and the executive branch of Wyoming runs the program.

“And then all of a sudden, somehow the state Legislature is inserting itself into this process,” said Dorrell. “And while I am happy to report, I’m happy to bounce ideas off of, it feels like gumming up the system …  is exactly what this is going to do. It doesn’t help us act at the speed of business. I’m open to understanding why.”

House Appropriations Chair John Bear, R-Gillette, said lawmakers would consider that concern carefully so they don’t create undue burden. 

Of the 11 companies involved in this system, he said he hopes “the preponderance of them” have been traditional energy companies.

Bear referenced allegations Wyoming continues to wage in federal court litigation with other red states that large investors colluded to kill coal and other fossil fuels by banding together in green-energy compacts.

“Even though these are federal funds, they’re still taxpayer funds,” said Bear, who went on to ask about the WBC’s administration of its investment projects.

Dorrell said WBC’s investment committee can meet spontaneously to consider and authorize those projects, and 

 employee to serve as investments analyst.

[{"type":"text","text":"The Bill To Stop Feeding Airports"}]

The Wyoming Business Council’s Business Ready Community program generally involves WBC sending a grant or loan to a community entity, which then works on economic development and business infrastructure projects.

But WBC doesn’t call it that anymore. The agency rebranded the controversial program this year as the Building Resilient Communities program.

The Appropriations Committee is considering a bill that would ban airports from benefitting from the program, as well as recreational and convention facilities, and infrastructure projects of the WBC’s choosing.

That would leave the program free to fund or invest in land, buildings, facilities, telecommunications infrastructure, rights of way, sewer and water projects, roads and landscaping.

The bill also seeks to add a requirement that the WBC can’t grant or loan money for assets that the applicant owns or will own.

A lawsuit between Gunwerks and the Cody-based economic development group that secured funding for it has been 

over the allegedly dismal state of a building Gunwerks doesn’t own, but which the economic development group arranged to be built for the company with WBC money.   

The bill pertaining to the BRC program would also require WBC to send grant and loan plans to two lawmakers — one state House representative and one senator — for review and comment before sending them to the executive branch for final approval.  

The biggest bill the committee considered would eliminate 13 Wyoming Business Council programs, 

Others Dorrell hopes to keep, he indicated to Rep. Jeremy Haroldson, R-Wheatland.

He asked why the Wyoming Partnership Challenge Loan program is on the chopping block. That’s a loan program in which WBC partners with banks to secure loans for businesses.

Dorrell insisted the WBC is not competing with banks, but is helping businesses get loans on components on which banks aren’t authorized to lend, like the more speculative success prospects called “blue sky.”

Disaster loans are “a challenge,” but outside disaster loans, the program is at industry-standard or higher rates of success, Dorrell said.

[{"type":"text","text":"Pendergraft raised an ideological roadblock."}]

“My problem with this is ideological. Essentially, it sounds to me like you’re not in competition with the banks,” said Pendergraft. “But if a business goes to a bank and the bank turns them down — presumably because of risk — why is it justifiable to take public moneys and … risk public funds, which to me should be, probably, more cautiously invested?”

Dorrell said banks have to refuse certain investments due to other reasons besides risk.

Pendergraft countered again, asking why the government should be involved in the fate of businesses that don’t provide essential public services.

[{"type":"text","text":"Sen. Mike Gierau, D-Jackson, rebutted Pendergraft’s logic."}]

On the Select Water Committee, he said, lawmakers are willing to “dole out” significant 

“You want to talk about blue sky?” asked Gierau. “Oh my Lord. And we do it. And we do it because it’s right.”

Haroldson said he’d be happy to put a “question mark” next to this program, and he emphasized that this is only a draft bill set for more contemplation later this year.

[{"type":"text","text":"Here Bear answered Gierau’s rebuke."}]

“As you’re forming that ideology in your mind as to how you’ll approach this, I hope you’ll also not compare water infrastructure to helping mom and pop shops have a successful program,” said Bear. 

Small business success is “quite different from water infrastructure,” he added.

Water infrastructure serves small family farms, which are businesses, said Gierau.

“Water infrastructure,” countered Bear, “would be much similar to the road in front of the small mom and pop shop. ... It’s got a common usage.”

[{"type":"text","text":"The County Infrastructure Bill"}]

One of the bills contemplates a revival of the old budget appropriation called the County Consensus Funding program by which counties, if at least half of the governing boards of the local governments within them agree, could receive construction and infrastructure grants through the State Loans and Investment Board.

The Wyoming County Commissioners’ Association has asked the Legislature to send $75 million per year into that program. The draft bill says “XX” where the appropriation would go.

Three-quarters of the allocations to counties would hinge on population, and one-quarter on how poor their property values are.

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

<title>Wyoming Business Council Chief Spars With Committee That Tried To Kill Agency | Cowboy State Daily</title>

The head of the Wyoming Business Council sparred Monday with the Joint Appropriations Committee, which has tried to kill it. "No answer, no money," was the reply CEO Josh Dorrell got when he said he won't know the WBC's budget ask until August.

Wyoming Business Council Chief Spars With Committee That Tried To Kill Agency

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<title>Daily Cartoon 2: Tuesday, June 23, 2026 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Daily Cartoon 2: Tuesday, June 23, 2026

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's Feature Reporter, Andrew Rossi.

Andrew Rossi

Around Wyoming

Despite an influx of moisture-laden weather in June, data from the National Weather Service (NWS) show that the last three months have remained historically dry.

For many communities, the period between March 21 and June 20 was one of the driest in recorded history.

Riverton got 1.01 inches of total precipitation between March 21 and June 20, only 28% of its historical average. That’s officially Riverton’s driest spring since 1996.

Buffalo didn’t fare much better, with 1.91 of the 6.18 inches of precipitation it usually gets. It was Buffalo’s driest spring since 1998.

With the wettest months of Wyoming’s year in the past, meteorologists are anticipating an exceptionally dry summer.

“I'm not surprised,” Cowboy State Daily meteorologist Don Day said. “March was so bad, April was not great, May was really bad in places, and June has been a bust. Those months are so critical, and they didn’t come through for us.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Confirmation Bias"}]

None of Wyoming’s meteorologists were surprised the 2026 spring season was so dry. It’s comparable to confirming how a murder has been committed when the murderer has already been tried and convicted after a thorough confession.

“Weather systems have been going around the fringes of Wyoming all season,” meteorologist Joshua Rowe with the NWS office in Riverton said. “It affected every region differently, but it was dry across the board.”

The reason for the dry season was the same phenomenon that made the 2025-2026 winter season historically dry. A series of stubborn high-pressure ridges set up in the Arctic Circle, funneling cold, wet weather away from the western U.S.

“The same story is pretty much true everywhere you look,” Day said. “There’s no getting around that this has been a severe drought across Wyoming.”

However, even this bleak outlook has a brighter perspective. Both Day and Rowe noted that spring precipitation wasn’t that bad when looking at communities with older records.

For instance, Lander got 3.25 of the 6.21 inches it typically receives between March 21 and June 20. That’s only 52% of their seasonal average, but it's only the 19th driest spring since 1891.

Casper had its 17th-driest spring since 1939, receiving 2.99 of its average 4.93 inches.

“This is ranking high on the list of driest winters for many places, but we’ve been down this road before,” Day said. “We’ve had some very dry years in the past, and people don't necessarily realize how prone we are to drought.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Prognosis Not Positive"}]

If the wettest months of Wyoming’s year were a bust, that doesn’t bode well for the hotter, drier summer ahead. Drought begets drought, as Day described it.

“It's really, really hard to erase or take big chunks out of drought as you get into early summer,” he said. “It’s already a dry climate, and the drier the ground gets, the harder it is to get rain. It takes a while for anything to bust that cycle.”

, most of Wyoming is experiencing Severe or Extreme drought. That’s actually an improvement from a few months ago, but isn’t saying much.

Rowe sees the possibility of drought relief on the horizon, but not for a few more months.

“There is the potential for the upcoming monsoonal season to be active, but it's not a certainty and won’t happen until late summer and early fall,” he said. “We would need a prolonged period of that moisture, with thunderstorms and rain showers developing every day for several weeks, for most of Wyoming to see any real improvements.”

 can change the game in a big way, in either direction. Unfortunately, that won’t have any impact in the short term.

“The Climate Prediction Center is calling for slightly above-average moisture for the next three months,” Rowe said. “That could give us more monsoonal moisture as we get into late July, August, and September, but it would take quite a lot to make a significant change.”

[{"type":"text","text":"Day was aware of that outlook, but “wouldn’t put any money on it.\""}]

“I’ve seen years where active tropical storms in the eastern Pacific Ocean during an El Niño summer drift into the Rockies and create some really wet weather in July, August and September,” he said. “I don't want to give any impression that it's coming or that this would end the drought conditions, but there’s a historical precedent for it.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"It’s On Josh Allen"}]

Astronomical summer started with the summer solstice at 4:24 a.m. Sunday. Meteorological summer, however, started June 1.

Either way you look at it, it’s summer in Wyoming. That’s when people must be careful about what they wish for regarding moisture.

Even if there isn’t much precipitation over Wyoming, even a small amount can be enough to generate thunderstorms in the atmosphere. And with the thunder comes the lightning.

“If we're going to get rain, it's going to be likely coming from a thunderstorm,” Day said. “But thunderstorms could also cause lightning-induced fires. If you have wind coming in behind those storms, it’s a real concern.”

Day called summer thunderstorms “Catch 22s.” They’re the best chance for moisture but come with a higher risk of turning a drought-stricken landscape into an inferno.

“Do you want it to stay dry with no lightning, or do you want to take the chance to get wet and have lightning? I don’t have an answer for that, because thunderstorms are a blessing and a curse at the same time,” he said.

Now that summer’s here, the best course of action is to assume, and behave as if, the ongoing situation isn’t going to improve.

“Drought conditions are probably not going to improve much through the rest of June and into July,” Rowe said. “It'll really all depends on the monsoon as it develops later this summer. If it really sets up favorably for us, that would be very beneficial. We’ll have to see how that plays out.”

That said, there’s been a lot of active weather in Wyoming in the latter half of June. While the odds are low, Day said it's possible for June to make a noticeable dent in Wyoming’s drought.

“Getting that tropical storm activity in the Pacific and above-average precipitation in late July would be like 4th and 25 in a football game,” he said. “If you know we're going to go for it on fourth down, you have to hope Josh Allen’s our quarterback.”

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<title>Wyoming Records Driest Spring In Decades, Forecasters Expect Exceptionally Dry Summer | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Data from the National Weather Service reveals the last three months have been the driest spring on record for most of Wyoming. That's following one of the driest winters on record. And now meteorologists say they are expecting an exceptionally dry summer.

Wyoming Records Driest Spring In Decades, Forecasters Expect Exceptionally Dry Summer

Mac Watson

Daily Video News

It’s time to take a look at what’s happening around Wyoming for Monday, June 22nd.  I’m Mac Watson

Wyoming needs tens of thousands of new homes, but only a fraction of the need is under construction because builders say the math doesn’t work. Cowboy State Daily’s Renee Jean reports that even middle-class wages aren’t high enough to afford to buy houses while home-building costs just continue to rise.

“They're building homes that are 400,000 and up, and so why not any affordable units for regular working class people who have a median income of 75,500. When I went to developers about why aren't people building homes in this range, that would be the affordable range for Americans, and they basically can't pencil out below $400,000. So we have this huge gap, between $300,000 and $400,000. They can't make the numbers work.”

Scott Hoversland, who heads up the Wyoming Community Development Authority, puts the number of homes the state needs somewhere between 28,000 to 38,000 by 2030 — roughly 2,070 to 3,680 homes annually to keep up with population growth and aging infrastructure.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"–"}]

A Cheyenne judge Friday ordered the Wyoming Board of Equalization to apply a law capping residential property tax increases at 4% annually, for now, despite the board’s claim the cap violates the Wyoming Constitution. Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports that Gov. Gordon sued the board last week.

“Gordon's office, through the Attorney General's personnel, asked Judge Hibben, ‘Hey, make the tax board follow the law real quick while we sort through these tax values.’ And Judge Hibben granted that request. The judge basically said, ‘Look, we're going to sift through the constitutional issues. The court's going to look at those and decide, but for now you just follow the law.’ So, this is what we call a temporary restraining order. It's generally a very quick court order telling people what they're supposed to do while the controversy is going on in court.”

The Wyoming Constitution calls for equal and uniform property taxes within each tax category, and this tax cap creates stark disparities in how some homes, despite being nearly identical, are taxed in different regions, the report says.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"},{"type":"italic"}],"text":"–  "}]

A tornado made a rare appearance in Sublette County on Saturday, bringing with it more than 700 power outages. Cowboy State Daily’s Andrew Rossi reports that Meteorologist Don Day calls it a “landspout” tornado.

“It's not a true tornado in the sense that it comes down from the clouds, rather it's a spinning closer to the surface that winds its way up to the clouds, and it lasted probably no more than 30 minutes, and even that's really long. They tend not to be long-lived, and they're not as destructive as tornadoes. So it was literally just a perfect storm of circumstances as thunderstorms and a cluster of thunderstorms was moving through Wyoming on Saturday that brought rain to some places and thunderstorms to others.”

Meteorologist Don Day tells Cowboy State Daily that landspouts tend to be more common in the spring and summer, especially when Wyoming’s area gets humid. When summer thunderstorms carry moisture into Wyoming, the likelihood of landspouts increases.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"},{"type":"italic"}],"text":"–"}]

A Casper man says his wife is making him sell his beloved Bigfoot-hunting rig. Cowboy State Daily’s Kolby Fedore reports that the car is a lifted, 1984 AMC Eagle wagon with 150,000 miles that owner Austin Griess says attracts too much female attention. 

“Griess posted the car online last week, and it got a lot of attention, especially from males who commented that maybe he should keep the car and get rid of something else. According to gearhead Ron Gordon in Sublette County, who spent a lifetime admiring station wagons, this AMC Eagle would have been the perfect family car. It is all-wheel drive, so it was made to go camping, especially lifted.”

Griess found the 1984 AMC Eagle 4X4 Wagon on Facebook Marketplace during the dead of winter. During the cold months he worked on it, installing a lift kit, tuning it up and making it reliable enough to serve as a daily driver. Then he said he turned it into a true “chick magnet” by adding a modern stereo.

I’ll have more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.

Cowboy State Daily News continues now….

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"– "}]

Laramie's Erika Babbitt-Rogers considers herself to be a professional “worm wrangler.” Cowboy State Daily’s Mark Heinz reports that she says anglers and pet owners are regular customers, but the real demand is for worm poop. 

“She has discovered that really worm castings, which is just a fancy way of saying worm poop, is a huge seller, and the reason is that it makes really good, highly nutritious, slow release fertilizer for plants or lawns and whatnot. She says sells mass amounts of worm poop to people, and she said some people turn it into tea, and don't get the wrong idea, it's not tea you drink. What they do is they make like a tea mixture that they can spray on their plants or spray on their lawn, so it's tea for plants, not for people.”

Erika Babbitt-Rogers grew up in agriculture and always figured livestock would be part of her life, but she didn’t expect that “livestock” would be worms. Around 2009, she got the idea to raise worms on a larger scale and sell them for fishing bait and food for people's pet reptiles and, of course, worm poop for gardening. 

The American Dream in Powell is Wyoming’s last operating drive-in theater and has survived since 1949 as a retro experience for movie-goers. Cowboy State Daily’s Renee Jean reports that the current owner, Kathleen Heny, bought it in 2004 just to save it. 

“One day her husband came home from the hardware store, and, ‘Oh, honey, our drive-in theater is for sale.’ They kind of had a soft spot for this theater, and they just decided that they were afraid that somebody's going to buy this and, you know, knock it down and build something else, and they didn't want that, and so they bought it themselves. They operated themselves.There are 370 drive-in theaters left in America. These guys are the Iron Man of an era that is long gone, the 1950s and 60s. These were fueled by the post-war boom. Everybody had their automobiles with their flashy chrome fenders. They needed places to show it off. The drive-in theater was perfect.”

Some of the locals go so far as to bring full-size couches in their pickup beds and camp stoves to make s’mores and other snacks as the overhead sky darkens and a sweep of stars begins to shine.

Wyoming’s prisons have 109 vacant positions, despite years of recruiting. Cowboy State Daily’s Kolby Fedore reports that now, the Wyoming Department of Corrections is turning to a certain group of people because of their training. 

“Former retired director of the WDOC, Bob Lambert, said that these positions are incredibly hard to fill. It's a demanding job. There are a lot of safety concerns. Inmates, as he puts it, are not usually there for singing too loud in church. Prison officials are currently recruiting active duty military members to serve as correctional officers in these prisons, so it's a pipeline that would help members who are nearing the end of their contract with the military to quickly start a new career with the Wyoming Department of Corrections.”

Through a new partnership with the U.S. Department of Defense's SkillBridge program, transitioning service members can train with the Wyoming Department of Corrections before separating from active duty, creating what officials hope will become a new pipeline into correctional careers.