From the category archives:

Energy

June 2, 2010

Before Deepwater Horizon Disaster – Wyomingites Had Key Roles in MMS

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The federal agency cited for an overly “cozy relationship” with the energy industry, which may have contributed to the Deepwater Horizon drilling disaster, has enjoyed extensive Wyoming political and economic connections since its creation in 1982 by then-Secretary of Interior James G. Watt, a native of Lusk in eastern Wyoming.
“For too long, for a decade [...]

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March 22, 2010

Caps & Coal The Wyoming-California Connection

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In the summer of 2008, Wyoming’s governor, Dave Freudenthal, went to California for meetings with state officials and utility executives. What he brought was, quite literally, a burning question.

California was in the throes of putting together the nation’s first…

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February 7, 2010

Big Piney CO2 Storage Pilot Nears OK

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Federal regulators are nearing approval of a natural gas development project in southwest Wyoming that would serve as a testing ground for new mineral extraction technology while becoming one of the largest carbon sequestration pilot projects in the world.

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February 1, 2010

Taxing The Wind – Governor Pushes First Statewide Production Levy

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Reprinted from ClimateWire with permission from Environment & Energy Publishing, LLC. www.eenews.net. 202/628-6500
By Debra Kahn, ClimateWire
Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal (D) is determined to levy a production tax on wind power to level the playing field against mineral resources.
Speaking recently at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco, Freudenthal explained why he felt that wind power should [...]

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January 7, 2010

State Oil and Gas Regulators Are Spread Too Thin to Do Their Jobs

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by Abrahm Lustgarten, ProPublica – December 30, 2009 12:38 pm EST

Larry Parrish knew something was wrong as soon as he wheeled his state-owned pickup off the West Virginia highway and onto the rocky field where the natural gas well was supposed to be. Oak trees 18 inches in diameter looked dead as boards, and [...]

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December 22, 2009

Tilting at Windmills: Strange Politics of Wyoming Wind Power

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by Jonathan Thompson/High Country News
I first see the turbines as I speed along I-25 near Glenrock, Wyo., clutching the steering wheel as I try to avoid being swatted into oblivion by a wind-whipped tanker truck. The windmills look tiny from here, sprouting from the flat beige plain like sunflowers in a neglected field. Wanting a [...]

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December 14, 2009

Underused Drilling Practices Could Avoid Pollution

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As environmental concerns threaten to derail natural gas drilling projects across the country, the energy industry has developed innovative ways to make it easier to exploit the nation’s reserves without polluting air and drinking water.

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October 26, 2009

The Sage Grouse Report – Wyoming Ground Zero of Three Year Study

We project that future oil and gas development will cause a 7–19 percent decline from 2007 sage-grouse lek population counts and impact 3.7 million ha of sagebrush shrublands and 1.1 million ha of grasslands in the study area.

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September 16, 2009

Gov Seeks Fed Royalty Program Accounting

Gov. Dave Freudenthal has asked the federal Minerals Management Service to let the state conduct an audit of three years of natural gas royalties collected under the controversial federal Royalty-in-Kind program.

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September 16, 2009

Feds Gone Wild, Part III: RIP, RIK? New Bill Would Kill Industry’s Darling

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For more than a decade, West Virginia Democratic U.S. Rep. Nick Rahall watched powerlessly as the Bush administration and a Republican Congressional majority made Royalty in Kind the main method of collecting oil and gas royalties on federal lands.

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September 2, 2009

Gov Mulls RIK Audit

Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal  is considering an audit of the state’s share of a controversial  federal gas Royalty in Kind program that paid the state $290-million in  fiscal year 2007-08, WyoFile has learned.
According to State Lands and Investments director Lynne Boomgaarden, the governor asked her and Wyoming Department of Audit director Mike Geesey to brief [...]

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September 1, 2009

Feds Gone Wild Part II: A True Story

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When President Bill Clinton signed the Federal Oil and Gas Royalty Simplification and Fairness Act of 1996 into law in Jackson Hole, his Washington, D.C.-based Minerals Management Service director, Cynthia Quarterman, came out to attend the August ceremony.

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September 1, 2009

Feds Gone Wild

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On a cold, blustery January 28, 2009, the newly appointed Secretary of the Interior of the United States, Ken Salazar, arrived at the headquarters of Minerals Management Service at the Federal Center in the Denver suburb of Lakewood, Colorado.

With him were two men: Interior’s Inspector General Earl Devaney, a former Secret Service agent and police officer, and Salazar’s chief of staff Tom Strickland, the former U.S. attorney for Colorado.

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August 26, 2009

EPA: Chemicals Found in Wyo. Drinking Water Might Be From Fracking

Federal environment officials investigating drinking water contamination near Pavillion, Wyo., have found…

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August 9, 2009

RIK’s Wyoming Connections

Since Royalty in Kind became a priority for the oil and gas industry in the late 1990s, a handful of  Wyomingites have played key roles  in making in-kind royalties part of the nation’s policy for minerals taken from federal lands and seas.
Diemer True
Casper oilman and former legislator Diemer True, scion of the legendary True [...]

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July 26, 2009

GUEST COLUMN: How much is enough? Good Question!

Energy companies now extract over 450 million tons of coal, over 2,254 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, and over 53 million of barrels of oil from Wyoming annually. These companies pay severance taxes for the privilege. Why?

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July 15, 2009

Wyoming News Reader

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NEW: For the best, hand-picked, eclectic selection of current news about Wyoming from newspapers, magazines and websites…

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June 22, 2009

GUEST COLUMN: Bring Severance Tax Rates Into State Budget Discussions

Bring Severance Tax Rates Into State Budget Discussions
Hikes should be part of an overall review of revenues and tax investments
By Dan Neal and Sarah Gorin
No more Centennial Singers?
No more Geology Museum, in a state famed for its geology and, more to the point, its energy resources?
As the boom slides toward the bust, it’s appropriate and [...]

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June 15, 2009

Royalty in Kind vs. Royalty in Value? – The $290,024,880 Question

State Received $290,024,880 in 2008 from Troubled Royalty in Kind Program. Gov Dave Wants Review.

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June 15, 2009

U.S. Rep. Cynthia Lummis on Royalty in Kind

Wyoming’s U.S. Rep Cynthia Lummis responded to WyoFile questions on Royalty in Kind via e-mail through her press secretary Ryan Taylor.
Here are the WyoFile questions and Lummis’ responses:
WyoFile: What is Rep. Lummis’ opinion of draft legislation that would eliminate Royalty in Kind? Was she aware it was in the works?
Answer: Rep. Lummis has not had [...]

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June 15, 2009

Wyoming Governor Dave Freudenthal on Royalty in Kind

(Telephone Interview with WyoFile editor Rone Tempest, June 3,2009)
WyoFile: On October 6, 2005, the then Wyoming Board of Land Commissioners (Gov. Freudenthal; Treasurer Cynthia Lummis; Sec. of State Joseph Meyer; Auditor Max Maxfield and Supt.  Of Public Instruction Jim McBride) voted 4-1 to dedicate its 50 percent share in natural gas royalties on federal [...]

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February 23, 2009

Editorial: WyoFile Calls for Reform of Severance Tax

Get Involved! Ask Your Lawmaker for Change Here!
Wyoming has not raised its basic severance tax for oil, gas, and coal for 28 years.
WyoFile would like to see that change.
Right now, Wyoming seems to be pretending that the energy world of 2009 is the same as the energy world of 1981. It’s not.
The era of cheap [...]

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February 8, 2009

A Quick History Of American Severance Taxes

Severance tax collections evolve in stages that depend upon price, the amount of mineral left in the ground, and the shape of a state’s finances.
In America, severance taxes began in Texas in 1905, then re-appeared Michigan and Louisiana in the 1920s. The more entrenched the oil or coal industry in a state, the greater the [...]

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November 24, 2008

Misguided Midnight Madness: Interior’s Oil Shale Revival

Casper — Watching Wyoming voters line up out the polling-place doors earlier this month, in lusty support of the “drill baby drill” philosophy of natural resource management, one recalls the bumper sticker prayer from our economically stagnant 1980s and 90s: “Lord, give us one more boom. We promise not to screw it up this time.”
Well, [...]

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October 27, 2008

The Wyoming Petrocracy: State’s Biggest Strength Also Vulnerability

Sheridan — The ancient Greeks had a word, ?????? or kairos, which means an era of unique opportunity. It’s an unspecified period of time ripe for taking advantage of changing circumstances.
Wyoming and the energy-rich west have an opportunity to at least acknowledge such an era: we live in a time where change occurs at an [...]

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October 13, 2008

For Wyoming’s New Coal Power Plants, ‘Best Available Control Technology’ Seldom Best

Casper — So, you want to build a coal-fired power plant in Wyoming. How clean do you want to make it? Because it turns out, it’s largely up to you to decide — no matter how loudly state regulators and politicians insist that such a plant must be as clean as possible.
On September 29, state [...]

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May 19, 2008

How Wyoming Could Cut My Heating Bill

Sheridan – It’s the beginning of May and my furnace is running like hell. The problem isn’t my furnace, which is only a few years old, it’s my house.
It was built in 1924, a time when economic depression cast a pall over Sheridan. Builders didn’t exactly subscribe to excess in constructing a weatherproof home.
Besides, in [...]

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February 12, 2008

Showdown at Glenrock: Brad Enzi rides to rescue Two Elk Power Plant

After years of construction inactivity and several false starts, some wags in Wyoming’s coal rich Powder River Basin began to refer to the proposed billion dollar Two Elk power plant project 40 miles southeast of  Gillette as “No Elk.”
“It’s kind of like Two Elk and ‘Do you believe in the Tooth Fairy?’ ” said Christy [...]

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February 8, 2008

Does Wyoming Get Enough for Its Mineral Riches? Severance Tax Reform in the Cowboy State

In December 2007, Governor Sarah Palin gave Alaskans a nice present.
She signed legislation boosting Alaska’s severance tax. The state would now take 25 percent of taxable income derived from oil and gas production. Previously it had been 22.5 percent.
Severance or production taxes are one-time levies on oil, gas, and coal and other natural resources as [...]

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