Lubnau: Children might die without Wyoming coal exports

— May 23, 2013

In his testimony to a legislative committee last week regarding the coal mining industry’s ambition to boost exports to Asia, Gillette attorney and Wyoming Speaker of the House Tom Lubnau made several bold claims.

Dustin Bleizeffer

Coal companies in Wyoming badly want more access to the growing global coal market as coal loses favor in the U.S. to a flush supply of natural gas. No disagreement there. But Lubnau said that not only will the global use of coal continue to grow no matter what the United States does with its own supply, but coal will serve as a lifeline to millions of impoverished people who currently live without reliable or affordable electricity.

“So when you say, ‘don’t use energy and the cheapest available energy,’ what you’re saying is, ‘decrease your lifespan and let your children die,’” Lubnau told the Joint Minerals and Economic Development Interim Committee.

Lubnau added that the pathway to cleaner technologies requires increased access to energy. He said, “Cleaning up the environment will take more energy, not less.”

There’s some small truth to these claims. But there’s more to the story.

It’s true that Powder River Basin (PRB) coal has an advantage in its lower sulfur content, but it certainly doesn’t mean that children will die for failure of exporting more Wyoming coal. And the environmental advantages we can gain through access to energy do not rely specifically on burning more coal.

The impoverished regions of the world that desperately need electricity for clean water and better agriculture are going to get it in small packages of native renewable sources of energy — yes, solar and wind. If you believe that China is going to connect poor, rural areas of the country to a fleet of shiny new emissions-controlled Powder River Basin coal-burning power plants, then I have a power plant right here in Wyoming that I want to sell you. It’s called The Third Elk.

And take, for example, the fact that BP America equips a lot of its natural gas production facilities in Wamsutter with solar panels. I’ve even seen solar panels attached to Halliburton equipment in Wyoming. They would much rather rely on small, mobile sources of electricity than tap into the electrical grid.

Some cities in Shanxi Province China — a major coal-producing region — are often shrouded in pollution. (Courtesy Olivia Meigs)

Cutting through the PRB fog

While PRB coal has a low sulphur content compared to other U.S. coals, that environmental and human health advantage is mostly lost due to its lower Btu — or heating value. Power plants that burn PRB coal typically burn more tons of coal to get the same energy output as plants that burn higher Btu coals. While PRB coal has fewer SO2 emissions per-ton, you get about the same SO2 emissions as you do from other coals because you burn more PRB coal.

Asian utilities already have access to low-sulfur coals from Indonesia and Australia. Besides, SO2 emissions are not much of a factor in the human health and environment equation, here. Most modern coal-fired power plants in Asia have SO2 controls, and the growing fleet of coal-fired power plants in that region of the world — especially in China — generally emit fewer pollutants than the aging fleet in the United States, according to the International Energy Agency.

Perhaps cutting PRB coal from U.S. plants and sending it to Asia would be an environmental improvement after all! But that’s not the whole story, either.

While PRB coal has a so-called low sulfur content advantage (which turns out isn’t much of a factor these days), it is higher in mercury. Much of the mercury deposition in the Western United States comes from burning coal in Asia. Getting Asian power plants dialed-in to high-mercury PRB coal without assurances of mercury scrubbing controls would further pollute our waters and poison our fish and our citizens.

Coal dependency

The bigger issue is greenhouse gas emissions and climate change, which has much more serious and far-reaching environmental and human health implications.

It doesn’t matter where PRB coal is burned because nobody is capturing CO2 from it. Those few signature facilities in China that do capture CO2 are negligible on the world scale of coal combustion. The overriding criticism of PRB coal exports is the same as the argument against the Keystone XL pipeline: it perpetuates reliance on an infrastructure that burns fossil fuels without greenhouse gas emission controls.

This plant in Jincheng China is the largest methane gas-fired power plant in the world. The methane is harvested from local underground coal mines. (Courtesy Olivia Meigs)

Getting Asia hooked on cheaply produced PRB coal would delay the development of more efficient and lower greenhouse gas emission energy resources. From a climate change standpoint, why would the world’s most influential nation encourage developing countries to repeat our own Victorian Age model that built the American industrial revolution? That’s only a tantalizing prospect if you’re not concerned about climate change and you have access to vast amounts of cheap coal. In other words, if you’re Arch Coal, Peabody Energy and Cloud Peak Energy, or an elected official indebted to Arch, Peabody or Cloud Peak.

When I first heard of the prospect for PRB coal exports a few years ago I thought of a more dangerous scenario for coal-based carbon emissions: What if Union Pacific and BNSF Railway helped China build a PRB-style rail system from coal-rich inner China to the highly populated coastal regions? China would have plenty of home-based coal to burn for decades, likely boosting greenhouse gas emissions, and it would come from underground mining districts that frequently kill dozens of workers.

But a colleague of mine who is familiar with China and energy matters reminded me that China will sooner develop hydraulic fracturing to unlock its own massive shale gas reserves before that high-capacity coal rail scenario might play out.

So where does that leave coal mining-dependent Wyoming? For those of us who are concerned about climate change and about greenhouse gas emissions from coal, it’s not enough to only poo-poo PRB coal exports. At $1 billion in annual revenue to state and local governments, Wyoming is dangerously reliant on a commodity driven by policies and markets outside our state’s borders. Perhaps our 400 million tons per year mining industry is living on borrowed time — 10 years, perhaps 25 years — even if coal proponents do manage to increase exports to Asia.

We should take seriously Gov. Matt Mead’s freshly-printed Wyoming energy plan and his promise to promote all forms of Wyoming energy — fossil fuels, nuclear and renewable — while maximizing energy efficiency and curbing emissions. This plan, if Wyoming officials are forced to be genuine about what’s printed in it, is a far more reasonable approach than to suggest that children will die for lack of burning more PRB coal.

But the plan, so far, is lacking one critical initiative if Mead is genuine about preserving our assets in wildlife and outdoor recreation: Wyoming should concern itself with greenhouse gas emissions as it relates to climate change. That would require admitting that, maybe, our 400 million tons of coal per year mining industry isn’t sustainable. Our current slate of elected officials do not have the courage to imagine a coal industry that produces only 300 million tons or 250 million tons annually, and that’s why we will continue hearing statements of denial about coal’s role in climate change from those who are supposed to be leaders.

— Dustin Bleizeffer is WyoFile editor-in-chief and a former Powder River Basin coal miner. He has written about Wyoming’s energy industries for 15 years. You can reach him at (307) 577-6069 or email dustin@wyofile.com. Follow Dustin on Twitter at @DBleizeffer

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Aftermath of a Drilling Boom: Wyoming stuck with abandoned gas wells

This coal-bed methane gas well in the Powder River Basin leaked water, which caused some erosion. The facility was abandoned by its operator, and the state later plugged the well and reclaimed the area. (Courtesy of Jill Morrison — click to view)

The Powder River Basin coal-bed methane gas industry that drilled at a pace of 2,500 wells annually for a decade has been in sharp decline in recent years. Operators have mostly stopped drilling and are now idling thousands of wells, and perhaps thousands more have been abandoned —  “orphaned” — by operators struggling financially.

Last week, Wyoming lawmakers heard testimony that the number of orphaned wells likely exceeds 1,200 — and more will be added to the list of liabilities to the state.

The Powder River sometimes runs dry in this arid region of northeast Wyoming, yet only a small portion of groundwater associated with coal-bed methane gas development was put to beneficial use. (Dustin Bleizeffer/WyoFile — click to view)

State officials say they’re having difficulty measuring the exact scope of the problem due to complex record-keeping among multiple agencies. Ryan Lance, director of the Office of State Lands and Investments, told WyoFile that his staff is working through stacks of files to try to determine which operators owe money, and how much.

In some cases, the orphaned wells devalue ranch properties, and in other cases they complicate a promise that the industry made at the onset of the play: that some wells would be transferred to ranchers for use in watering livestock on the arid high plains.

Coal strata are often aquifers in the region. In some areas, the production of coal-bed methane gas has substantially drained the coal aquifer because operators had to pump large volumes of water from the coal to get the methane gas also contained there to flow to the surface. By 2010, the industry had pumped 783,092 acre feet of water from the coals, according to the Wyoming State Geological Survey. That’s enough water to fill Lake DeSmet three times.

Only a small percentage of that water was put to beneficial use.

“There’s concern from land and mineral owners who are not getting surface use and damage payments anymore. … Money is spent on attorneys trying to recoup surface use payments,” as well as royalties, said Jill Morrison of the Powder River Basin Resource Council, a landowner advocacy group based in Sheridan.

Morrison testified before the Joint Minerals, Business and Economic Development Interim Committee last week in Gillette.

Committee member Rep. James Byrd (D-Cheyenne) said that for years he and others on the committee have heard warnings about the potential for orphaned wells and unpaid bills in the coal-bed methane gas play, “and now it is happening.”

While some operators, such as Anadarko Petroleum Corp., are financially sound enough to plug wells that are no longer commercial, a handful of smaller operators flirt with bankruptcy and fail to conduct required maintenance on the wells, creating potential hazards to human health and the environment. Some operators have simply walked away from their coal-bed methane properties in the basin.

That leaves the job of plugging wells and reclamation to the state, which will rely on an industry-funded orphan well account to cover the cost. The task of plugging and reclaiming orphaned coal-bed methane facilities, and collecting unpaid user fees and royalties, is divided among state agencies and the Wyoming Bureau of Land Management. So far, the state agencies do not have a complete picture of the scope of the problem and the resources available to address it.

The clean-up job

The state’s orphan well fund comes from a “conservation tax” mill levy imposed on all oil and gas producers in the state. “There are no citizen tax dollars paid to plug these wells,” Wyoming Oil and Gas Conservation Commission supervisor Grant Black told the commission.

The state legislature allocates $2 million per biennium from the fund to the Oil and Gas Conservation Commission. A portion of the money is also used to operate the commission’s operations. The commission’s board can vote to increase the mill levy if it appears in danger of being tapped dry.

The state has plugged and reclaimed about 100 wells per year on average, so it could take more than a decade to fix the current orphan well liability. “So if you’re a rancher or landowner, and you have wells on your property, you may be a decade or more out on getting these wells plugged,” Morrison told committee members.

Black was noncommittal about a timeframe for plugging and reclaiming the current count of 1,200 orphaned wells and many more wells that will likely become orphaned in years to come. That didn’t satisfy members of the minerals committee. Sen. Chris Rothfuss (D-Laramie) said, “I’d like to see that,” referring to a timeframe for completing the job.

Sen. John Hines (R-Gillette) is a rancher in Campbell County. He said he and his neighbors live with idle and abandoned coal-bed methane gas wells. He told Black, “To wait 10-12 years to get a mess on your property cleaned up that you had nothing to do with is unacceptable.”

Ownership of surface and minerals involved in coal-bed methane gas is divided between fee (or private), state and federal. It’s unclear how many wells fall under jurisdiction of the state and how many fall under jurisdiction of Wyoming BLM.  Unlike the state of Wyoming, BLM doesn’t have an orphan well fund.

Wyoming BLM officials said that at the start of fiscal year 2013, there were 196 idle coal-bed methane wells on federal minerals, and no orphaned wells on federal minerals. “The bonds that are in place on the idled CBM wells range from $0 to $300,000 depending on the operator,” Wyoming BLM spokeswoman Lesley Elser told WyoFile via email. “There have not been any actions at this point that would require us to step in and collect the bond.”

Oil and gas bonding

Before the state dips into the industry-funded orphan well account, it collects bonds posted by oil and gas operators responsible for the abandoned facilities. But the amount of bond posted usually covers only a small fraction of the liability. The state allows operators to post a minimum “blanket bond” of $75,000 for an unlimited number of wells, but it can ask for a higher amount.

In recent years, as the orphan well problem became apparent, the Wyoming Oil and Gas Conservation Commission began identifying operators at risk of abandoning coal-bed methane wells, and demanded additional bonding. The agency also aided at-risk operators in finding potential buyers in hopes that more financially-solvent companies would maintain the properties.

But the effort has yielded limited success. For example, the Oil and Gas Conservation Commission was able to get California-based USA Exploration & Production to increase its bonding level for its holdings of nearly 150 coal-bed methane gas wells at risk of being orphaned. When the commission revoked USA Exploration’s bonds earlier this year for failure to meet testing and reclamation requirements, it collected a total $154,000. Yet the total cost to plug and reclaim the properties could cost an estimated $1.4 million.

(Courtesy of U.S. Energy Information Administration.)

“This is probably one of the most important things before the commission right now that we have to address,” said Black.

The state’s assurances that it will rectify the problem fall flat with some landowners in the region who, at the onset of the coal-bed methane gas play more than 10 years ago, warned that the state and federal bonding requirements were too low to ensure proper de-commissioning and reclamation.

Contacted by phone, Johnson County rancher Steve Adami said a coal-bed methane operator abandoned some facilities on state sections of his ranch about five years ago, and the facilities still have not been properly reclaimed. “It’s so frustrating. We just shouted from the rooftops — from 10 years ago until now — that ‘the bonding is inadequate, the bonding is inadequate,’ and their attitude was, ‘Leave us alone you whiny snots,’” Adami said.

During public comment before the minerals committee last week, Campbell County rancher Marge West said the state needs to fundamentally change its bonding rules for the oil and gas industry. West, and the Powder River Basin Resource Council, say the state ought to follow the federal model applied to the coal mining industry, which requires mining operators to post bond for 100 percent of the reclamation liability.

A 2009 University of Wyoming study suggested a new formula for setting reclamation bonds in the oil and gas industry. Primarily, the state should link bonding rates to production, and account for loss of suface land value. The study pointed to weaknesses in the current system. “One of the big shortcomings of the current bonding system is that it does not properly handle  the time value of money,” according to the study’s authors. “The average life of an oil and gas well can be decades, and the value of  having a small bond returned at the end of the production period is negligible from the operator’s standpoint. … At an annual rate of inflation of 3 percent, $25,000 in reclamation cost today will cost the state $45,553 in 20 years.”

Shifting from CBM to shale oil in the PRB

Ever mindful of maximizing returns for shareholders, oil and gas producers constantly shed marginal properties and replace them with what’s hot on the commodities market, and what can deliver quick returns.

The resulting migratory pattern of drilling rigs followed by production is making a complete circle in Wyoming’s Powder River Basin. Anadarko Petroleum Corp., for example, is shifting from dry gas (coal-bed methane) to liquids, plugging some 1,100 coal-bed methane gas wells last year while tapping deep shale oil in the basin.

The Powder River between Gillette and Buffalo runs through the center of Wyoming’s largest coal-bed methane gas field. (Dustin Bleizeffer/WyoFile — click to enlarge)

Anadarko has drilled 15 horizontal shale oil wells in the basin since 2011, and it plans to drill up to 17 more this year, according to company officials. In some instances, Anadarko will drill for deep oil on the same properties where it used to produce coal-bed methane gas.

“So we see (the Powder River Basin) moving from a gas province into an oil province,” said Ryan D. Helmer, subsurface manager of coal-bed methane for Anadarko.

Helmer and Anadarko general manager, Nichols W. Schoville, both testified before the Joint Minerals, Business and Economic Development Interim Committee in Gillette last week. Anadarko, one of the biggest coal-bed methane gas players in the basin, plans to continue plugging hundreds of its coal-bed methane gas wells each year.

The decision to switch from coal-bed methane to oil stems from a combination of low natural gas pricing, strong oil prices, and the fact that coal-bed methane gas is mostly played out in the basin.

“The play is maturing. The best spots have been drilled,” said Helmer, adding that the industry may still continue to drill some new coal-bed methane wells in the basin’s remaining sweet spots.

One of the sweet spots is in the Fortification Creek area between Gillette and Buffalo where the industry wants to drill some 500 wells. But that full development scenario has been on hold while the BLM considers special protections for prime wildlife habitat in Fortification Creek. The area is home to a rare high plains elk herd — a prime hunting resource.

Anadarko officials asked Wyoming lawmakers for assistance in convincing federal land managers to allow the industry’s drilling plans to move forward.

Wyoming lawmakers asked if overly burdensome federal regulations were to blame for the demise of coal-bed methane in northeast Wyoming. No, said Helmer. The coal-bed methane is simply played out — at least beyond the hayday decade when the industry averaged 2,500 new wells per year.

Helmer said Anadarko has already developed primary production from about 95 percent of its coal-bed methane fairway  properties along the Powder River. There are still limited opportunities in the fairway he said, where the resource looks to be commercially viable in the $4 to $6 per thousand cubic feet (mcf) range. But other coal-bed methane properties in the region won’t reach commercial viability until prices climb to the $7 to $9 range, he said.

“A large part of this is the field is maturing. … We would not expect to get back to 2,500 wells per year even if prices got back up,” said Helmer.

The Powder River Basin was once Wyoming’s largest natural gas producer at more than 1 billion cubic feet per day, due to the boom in coal-bed methane gas.

Anadarko expects the national average price of natural gas to remain in the $4 to $5 range for the next eight to 10 years, citing forecasts from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. “That’s primarily driven by the amount of the gas supply we have in the U.S. right now,” said Helmer.

That $4 to $5 per mcf stability depends on the nation maintaining a normal annual cycle of filling natural gas storage during the warm season and drawing it down in the cold season. Natural gas is still prone to slipping below $4 per mcf — a particular concern in Wyoming because natural gas is the state’s single largest source of revenue. “It’s very winter dependent and very weather dependent at this point in time,” said Helmer.

“There are better oil and liquid opportunities to invest in,” added Schoville.

Lawmakers asked whether some existing pipeline gathering systems for coal-bed methane could carry natural gas that’s associated with the current shale oil play in the basin, helping to curb the need to flare, or burn, that gas, for which there are no immediate gathering systems tied to new oil well drilling locations — a major economic, human health, and environmental concern.

Anadarko officials said that’s not likely, because the existing coal-bed methane gathering systems were built for low-pressure, dry gas, as opposed to the gas that’s associated with deep oil, which is wetter and under higher pressures.

— Dustin Bleizeffer is WyoFile editor-in-chief. Contact him at 307-577-6069 or dustin@wyofile.com. Follow Dustin on Twitter @DBleizeffer

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Study: Decline of cutthroat trout forces grizzlies to eat more elk

An elk calf follows its mother down a hill south of Cody, Wyoming. (Teresa Hooper/Flickr — click to view)

A study published last week in biological sciences journal, Proceedings of The Royal Society B, links the decline of native cutthroat  in Yellowstone National park to a decline in elk calf recruitment.

The study shows that as native Yellowstone Cutthroat trout — an important food source for grizzly bears — have declined, the bears have shifted their diet to elk calves, which are born at the same time of year Yellowstone Cutthroat normally spawn in streams and are easily available for grizzly bears.

A cutthroat trout in Yellowstone National Park. (Scott Michaels/Flickr — click to view)

Non-native lake trout have decimated Yellowstone Cutthroat trout. Lake trout spawn in the lake so they don’t replace the trout as a food source in streams.

Researcher Arthur Middleton contributed to the study as part of his Ph.D. project at the University of Wyoming. Middleton was interested in studying the Clark’s Fork elk herd near Cody and inside Yellowstone National Park. The migratory herd was going into the park and coming out with fewer calves than normal.

Middleton originally thought wolves, drought and bears were causing the decline in calves. All still do play a role, according to Middleton’s research, but grizzlies specialize in killing elk calves in the first few weeks of life, whereas wolves usually hunt them in the fall and winter. That means the grizzly predation can pre-empt the impact of wolves on elk calves, the study found. Wildlife agencies in Wyoming, Montana and Idaho have observed declines in some elk herds that summer in high-elevation areas in Yellowstone migrate outside the park for winter. Cow-calf ratios in these herds have dropped significantly, according to the study.

The research is novel in that it shows the human impact on the ecosystem. Lake trout were introduced into the area by humans in 1890 and later into Yellowstone Lake.

“This is about the ecosystem consequences of a major event that is sometimes viewed as a fish issue, but really is an ecosystem-wide issue,” Middleton said.

Middleton’s study was primarily synthetic, pulling together the results of other studies, including research published in February 2013 in the “Journal of Wildlife Management,” which showed bears were eating less Yellowstone Cutthroat trout. According to the study, grizzly bears consumed 20,190 cutthroat trout a year in the late 1980s. That figure dropped to 302 per year in the 2000s. The study suggested the bear’s increased dependence on elk calves could change herd demographics, reducing the number of elk available to predators and for sport hunting outside the park.

While the linkage of lake trout to the Yellowstone Cutthroat, to changing bear behavior, to migratory elk is now documented, there is still uncertainty in the magnitude of the linkages and what it will mean for elk herd numbers long term, Middleton said.

If efforts to restore Yellowstone Cutthroat populations  are successful, it could have a broad reach in the ecosystem, including helping migratory elk populations, Middleton said.

Yellowstone Cutthroat trout are known as a keystone species in the ecosystem, according to Scott Christy, Wyoming Coordinator with Trout Unlimited. Trout Unlimited has been working with Yellowstone National Park in culling lake trout to help restore the Yellowstone Cutthroat population.

A grizzly bear protects its bison meal from a coyote on the Lamar River. (Bryant Olsen/Flickr – click to view)

While it’s known the decline in the fish had ecosystem-wide implications, there hasn’t been concrete data showing the fish having an impact on species such as elk, Christy said.

There are likely other species affected by the decline of Yellowstone Cutthroat. However, it’s hard to guess which species those are, Christy said.

“It does seem like common sense to me that (the decline in Yellowstone Cutthroat) is going to have farther reaching impacts in the park,” Christy said. “It really just makes us want to redouble our efforts to save the fish.”

The study is a solid piece of research that shows the shift in both the landscape and food sources for bears, said Christine Wilcox with the Natural Resource Defense Council. How grizzly bears are adapting to changing food sources is an important part of the conservation about removing grizzly bears from the endangered species list.

But it’s important to remember getting food in the form of a cutthroat trout is a different endeavor than getting food from elk and that could impact bears, she said. About 60 to 80 bears fed on Yellowstone Cutthroat, which is only segment of the area’s bear population.

What Wilcox said was most important was that the study did not blame declining elk populations on bears, that there are still other factors making an impact, such as drought and management.

The study demonstrates the diversity in grizzly bears diets, but it might not lead to major changes in bear management, said Mark Bruscino, a large carnivore biologist with Wyoming Game and Fish.

“This is just a little piece of the puzzle on the dynamics of grizzly bear biology in the Yellowstone area,” he said. “It was certainly known that grizzly bears had to be eating something else because of the decline in Yellowstone Cutthroat Trout. We knew they shifted to other things. Shifting to mammals to make up some of the calories of the Yellowstone Cutthroat Trout makes complete sense.”

Bruscino said it was important to note that a reduction in elk calf recruitment does not mean a decline in the elk population. Calf recruitment is how many make it to adulthood, but overall population is also driven by the adult cow population.

It is valuable management information, especially as the Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Teams compiles research on the bears’ diets. Showing how adaptive bears are in their diet could be one of the last steps before trying to remove the animals from the endangered species list.

The decline in the fish, which has been happening for years, has not hurt the bear population, Bruscino said.

A grizzly walks along the road in Grand Teton National Park. (Mark Hintsa/Flickr — click to view)

“We’ve seen the bear population continue to increase, both in numbers and distribution,” he said. “And body fat levels remain high and reproduction remains strong.”

The study only further proves what researchers have already known – bears have a dynamic diet, he said. Research shows they utilize at least 200 different species of plants, animals and insects.

“They are opportunistic omnivores,” Bruscino said. “They are very dietary adaptive. They take advantage of whatever is on the landscape.”

Kelsey Dayton is a freelance writer based in Lander. She has been a journalist in Wyoming for seven years, reporting for the Jackson Hole News & Guide, Casper Star-Tribune and the Gillette News-Record. Contact Kelsey at kelsey.dayton@gmail.com. Follower her on twitter @Kelsey_Dayton.

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Eastern Shoshones to pay in-state tuition at Idaho colleges

Orville St. Clair and Harmony Spoonhunter at the Eastern Shoshone Cultural Center in Fort Washakie, with an exhibit detailing the terms of the 1863 treaty between the Eastern Shoshone Tribe and the US government. (Ron Feemster/WyoFile — click to view)

The Idaho state board of education acknowledged late last month that members of the Eastern Shoshone tribe have the right to pay in-state tuition at all public colleges and universities in Idaho.

A historical map of tribal lands at the time the 1863 treaty was signed. (Courtesy Utah American Indian Digital Archive — click to view)

By state law, the board of education must allow students from Native American tribes to pay in-state tuition if the “traditional and customary tribal boundaries” were at one point within what is now the state of Idaho, according to Tracie Bent, chief planning and policy officer for the board. Idaho became a state in 1890.

The Eastern Shoshones became the sixth tribe to be granted in-state tuition under the Idaho law, but the first with nearly all of its tribal members living outside the state of Idaho.

“They just had to provide the proof,” Bent said.

The proof of Shoshone tribal boundaries that mattered was a 150-year-old treaty between the U.S. government and the tribe, which ceded most of southeastern Idaho, in addition to parts of present-day Utah and Wyoming, to the tribe as part of an agreement to cease hostilities.

“This was a peace treaty,” said Orville St. Clair, a former member of the tribal business council. “Not all tribes have that. The treaty showed that maybe a third of Idaho was Shoshone territory. It’s the recognition of our people being original residents of that area.”

Darwin St. Clair, Jr., the current chairman of the Eastern Shoshone Business Council, called the new agreement a victory for tribal sovereignty. “It’s a big step in our government-to-government relationships,” he said. “I’m really glad that they helped provide affordable education for Shoshone people.”

Darwin St. Clair, who attended Valley City State University in North Dakota, among other colleges, said he wished he had known about the in-state tuition in Idaho when he was starting college in the 1980s. “I would have gone to Idaho State if I had known it was that cheap,” he said.

The relative size of tribal territories in 1863 and today. The green field is the 2.2 million-acre Wind River Indian Reservation in central Wyoming. The white field within the red is the present-day Shoshone-Bannock Tribes Reservation, also known as the Fort Hall Indian Reservation, near Pocatello, Idaho.

Orville St. Clair and Harmony Spoonhunter, education director of the tribe, traveled to Idaho to present their case to officials. Both St. Clair and Spoonhunter are graduates of Idaho State University. Both paid in-state tuition under a separate agreement with ISU that lapsed sometime after Spoonhunter graduated in 2002.

St. Clair, who earned an ISU business degree in 1974, remembers being part of an American Indian club on campus that put on powwows and educational events. He credits former ISU president Bud Davis with extending in-state tuition to tribal members attending the university.

It is unclear exactly when or why the agreement allowing Eastern Shoshone members to pay in-state tuition was set aside. But St. Clair says he became aware that students from the tribe were paying out-of-state tuition while serving on the business council about seven years ago.  A tribal member complained that her son was paying out-of-state tuition at Idaho State. That is when the discussions with the university began.

Spoonhunter said the discussions became fruitful when the tribe contacted Johanna Jones of the university’s Native American academic services office and Laura Woodworth-Ney, the provost and vice president for academic affairs.

“Woodworth-Ney was the one who suggested contacting the state legislature,” St. Clair said.

Jones declined to comment because she did not have her superiors’ permission to speak to the press. Woodworth-Ney referred questions to the state board of education.

New Opportunities

The tribe graduated 26 students from local high schools, boarding schools and other institutions off the Wind River reservation in 2012. The count for 2013 is not final, Spoonhunter said, but all except one of the 2012 graduates would have paid out-of-state tuition in Idaho if the new agreement had not been reached.

“It gives us more options for our students,” Spoonhunter said. “It gives us more opportunity with those universities to choose from: Idaho State, Boise State and the University of Idaho.”

The new agreement will cut tuition costs for Eastern Shoshones by about two-thirds. At the University of Idaho, in-state tuition is $6,524 per year, according to the university website, while out-of-state students pay $19,600. At Idaho State, resident tuition is $6,070 per year while non-residents pay $17,870.

“In-state tuition gives us more options for our students.” – Harmony Spoonhunter (Ron Feemster/WyoFile — click to view)

To qualify for in-state tuition, students must present proof of tribal membership when enrolling in an Idaho college or university, Bent said.

“This change maximizes our tribal educational dollars,” St. Clair said. The tribe makes educational funds available to students in good academic standing, according to their financial need. Each student can receive up to $5,000 per semester for Bureau of Indian Affairs colleges and $7,500 per semester for other universities, under tribal law.

“That money will go much farther if we are paying in-state tuition,” St. Clair said.

Although students can attend any college or university in Idaho, many Eastern Shoshone students are likely to choose Idaho State, in Pocatello.

“The Shoshone-Bannock reservation is part of Pocatello,” St. Clair said. “The Shoshone-Bannock tribe, which is our brothers and sisters, literally, is located about eight miles away. We have a lot of relatives there. That makes it basically a home away from home.”

St. Clair said it was often easy for students to make the transition to ISU, in part because they could make connections in a welcoming Native community.

“In Laramie, that is not always the case,” said St. Clair, who also attended the University of Wyoming briefly for summer-school classes.

Merceline Boyer, of the tribal education committee on the Shoshone-Bannock reservation near Pocatello, said the tribe puts on events that may help Eastern Shoshone students feel at home.

“We have powwows and stuff like that,” Boyer said. “And they may have relatives here. There was a lot of intermarriage between Eastern Shoshones and the Shoshone-Bannocks.”

The five other tribes whose members enjoy in-state tuition under the same Idaho statute are the Coeur d’Alene, the Kootenai, the Nez Perce, the Shoshone-Bannock, and the Shoshone-Paiute.

— Ron Feemster covers the Wind River Indian Reservation for WyoFile in addition to his duties as a general reporter. Feemster was a Visiting Professor of Journalism at the Indian Institute of Journalism & New Media in Bangalore, India, and previously taught journalism at Northwest College in Powell. He has reported for The New York Times, Associated Press, Newsday, NPR and others. Contact Ron at ron@wyofile.com.

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How much does it cost Wyoming to hate Obama?

Many Wyoming politicians sharply disagree with the president’s policies and preach to their constituents that he’s hurting the state. That’s not a productive use of time for anyone, but at least it’s not really costing us any money.

But showing voters that hating Barack Obama means so much to them that they would rather turn down federal funds than use the money to help a segment of the population that desperately needs it — that takes partisanship and stupidity to entirely new lows.

Kerry Drake

How much does it cost Wyoming to hate the president so much that the extreme right-wing of the Republican Party is actually willing to sacrifice the quality of residents’ lives just to send the White House a message? It’s not difficult to quantify at least some of the state’s losses.

My analysis includes three categories to consider: stimulus money, the extension of federal unemployment funds, and health care reform.

Criticism of the stimulus package that Obama and the Democrats pushed through in the early days of his administration is an example of the type of reaction that may be wrong-headed, but not actually very harmful. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act brought $664 million to Wyoming and, according to Recovery.gov, a federal website that tracked stimulus funds, 1,017 new jobs between April 1 and June 30, 2009. The majority of the money went to construction projects and helped municipal and county governments fix critical infrastructure at a time when their economies were imploding.

Of course, there was much carping about the stimulus from our all-GOP delegation in Congress and the Republican-controlled state Legislature. Sen. Mike Enzi called it “bailout baloney,” but that certainly didn’t keep him from writing six letters seeking funding for a carbon capture and smart grid projects in Wyoming funded as part of the stimulus by Obama’s clean energy program.

But Wyoming received its fair share of stimulus money, it was used for good projects, and no one suggested we give any of the funds back. All Republican House members voted against Obama’s stimulus bill, but they were only testing the waters for when the president launched other initiatives they would find even more offensive.

By February 2011, the Wyoming Legislature was ramped up enough to tell the feds to give other states the $38 million we were offered to extend unemployment benefits for those who had been jobless for a long time and needed retraining.

Some state lawmakers argued that in addition to their desire not to add to the national debt, they did not believe that unemployed people were looking hard enough for jobs — otherwise they would have had them, right? — and the House voted 34-25 to tell the feds to keep their dirty money. It certainly wasn’t needed here.

Except, of course, it could have greatly benefited residents already down on their luck because they lost their job and couldn’t find another one. After this outrageous decision, Wyoming State AFL-CIO executive secretary Kim Floyd noted there were more workers than jobs in many sectors, including construction, which had an unemployment rate of 22 percent.

The extra funds could have helped about 5,600 Wyomingites remain on unemployment for another 13 weeks, and do those little things people like to do for their families, like feed and clothe and shelter them. It must be a difficult concept to grasp for the extreme right, whose cluelessness matches its lack of compassion. In March 2011, WyoFile reported that many of the state lawmakers who voted to turn down the federal unemployment benefit extension were unabashedly collecting tens of thousands of dollars in federal agriculture subsidies.

The travesty over unemployment benefits was merely a training ground for even more foolish actions that many state lawmakers had been gearing up for since the passage of “Obamacare.”

Even though Wyoming was given ample time to develop a state-run health exchange that would enable residents to obtain affordable health insurance once such coverage is mandated next year, the Legislature’s leadership and Gov. Matt Mead balked at the idea, though it would mean that the federal government could come into Wyoming and run our exchange however it sees fit. The governor and lawmakers were counting on either Obama being defeated in his re-election bid or losing the landmark case over the constitutionality of federal health care reform — but neither scenario transpired.

While the GOP kept up its prattle about needing to find a “Wyoming solution” to reduce the high cost of health care and insurance premiums, the states that did opt to follow the new law gained a distinct advantage in their ability to ensure their residents would be insured.

It’s difficult to say what the exact cost of this folly will be to Wyoming in monetary terms, but the state will definitely pay for its mistake. It’s still possible for Wyoming to develop and administer is own health exchange at some point, unless the officials who were too stubborn to do so in the first place stay in power.

Could it get worse? It did. Despite the testimony of physicians and the support of most hospitals in the state, the Senate rejected a bill that would have expanded Medicaid to nearly 18,000 low-income adults, and decreased the state’s uninsured population by 50 percent by 2016.

A Wyoming Department of Health report estimated that by expanding Medicaid to include these adults, the state would actually save $47.4 million in its general fund budget between fiscal years 2014-2020 through program offsets.

Then there are the societal costs: Legislators who voted against Medicaid expansion actually increased the costs of everyone’s health care. Without Medicaid, poor people will have to use hospital emergency rooms to get treated, thus pushing up the cost for hospitals that won’t be reimbursed for charity care. Since somebody has to pay for the services, it will naturally drive up the cost of health insurance premiums for everybody else.

The DOH report also noted that people without health insurance are likely to die sooner than those who are insured, because their health problems are diagnosed later in life or not at all. The report estimated that within five years Wyoming would have 111 fewer deaths per year by expanding Medicaid.

Sure, I realize that spending less money, lowering health care costs and saving lives sounds good, but how could our legislators live with themselves if they actually allowed Obamacare to work?

Why did our state turn down the extension of unemployment benefits, the opportunity to run its own health exchange, and to expand a program that helps sick, poor people? The ones who made those decisions trotted out these explanations, in order:

• People without jobs are lazy and don’t want to work, and if given a chance will just stay on unemployment.
• They were so certain Obamacare would be overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court and that Mitt Romney would be elected president, they didn’t even pretend that they wanted or needed a state health exchange.
• Yes, the feds would pick up 100 percent of the Medicaid tab for the first three years, and at least 90 percent after 2020, but we just can’t trust them to keep their word. (The federal government, however, said Wyoming could opt out at any time.)

I think a fourth option — that they hate President Obama so much, they are willing to throw their most vulnerable constituents under the bus to keep him from winning any battle — is the root reason behind this madness.

Consider that every session, there are brand new attempts to pass bills and meaningless resolutions by the lunatic fringe that essentially claim the state can just ignore federal laws and do what it wants on nearly every issue, from gun control and health care to abortion and the basic safety of its citizens. If we lose federal funds, fine.

Wyoming’s congressional delegation used bipartisanship to secure federal mineral funding in the 1970s, but today’s all-GOP members have bought wholeheartedly into their party leaders’ strategy to fight Obama on every issue at every turn. It’s not a smart move. Congress has taken away a huge chunk of Wyoming’s Abandoned Mineral Land funds — $700 million — as well as dropped its share of federal mineral royalty payments by about $53 million. Our extremely partisan delegation’s only answer is to cry foul, effectively arguing, “You can’t do that, we need that money to live.”

So did the people on unemployment and those who can’t afford health insurance.

I wondered if Wyoming has ever hated an administration so much before Obama that it gave back federal funds. I posed that question to University of Wyoming history professor Phil Roberts, who is vacationing in Sweden but was kind enough to respond to my email.

“Wyoming officials never were as destructive to the interests of the people as they have been at this point,” he wrote. “But there was one time when we came close.”

In order to get funds for interstate highway construction, Roberts explained, the federal government — in exchange for paying essentially 95 percent of the costs of building the interstates — insisted on uniformity, and that included white stripes on the roadways.

“Some Wyoming legislators balked, asserting that they would rather turn down the federal money than to have to change from yellow to white stripes,” the historian noted. “Cooler and saner heads prevailed, however, and we have interstates through Wyoming!”

In another instance, in 1932, newly elected Gov. Leslie Miller was so at odds with a fellow Democrat, President Franklin Roosevelt,that he planned to refuse federal assistance, cut the state budget and have Wyoming “work itself out of the Depression.”

Progressive Democrats who controlled the Legislature compromised with Miller and paid for a commission to investigate how much had to be cut in order to do what the governor wanted. The recommendations made by the Griffenhagen company from Chicago included these gems:

• Eliminate all school districts and make one big district statewide.
• Merge all law enforcement functions from the county sheriffs to the game wardens and city police into a statewide police.
• Have just a one-house Legislature consisting of nine members elected statewide.
• Get rid of the governor and have the Legislature hire a public administrator to run the state’s affairs.

Those changes made FDR’s New Deal programs like the Work Projects Administration  and Civilian Conservation Corps look much better to Miller, who decided to accept the federal funds after all.

“Other than those times, we’ve never been so stupid as we’ve been now,” Roberts concluded. “As one Stockholm friend put it when I was trying to explain why Americans don’t want universal health care, etc., ‘You Americans would do anything to keep from being called socialists!’ I think he had that right and then some for Wyomingites.”

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Wyoming Indian High School says farewell to 19 graduates

Stephen Headley rushes to receive his diploma and shake hands with Superintendent Michelle Hoffman as Principal Phil Garhart reads the names of the 2013 Wyoming Indian graduates. (Ron Feemster/WyoFile — click to view)

Tianna Redman, the salutatorian: “Never give up.” (Ron Feemster/WyoFile — click to view)

At Wyoming Indian High School on Sunday afternoon, the community celebrated more than the 19 graduates and the promise of their unfolding lives. From the opening fancy dancer to the closing drumbeat, it was a tapestry of rituals in the tribal and ceremonial way of life that sustains the school.

The festivities began with Eagle Drum, a group of players from the ages of about 10 to older than 60, pounding out the beat as Keegan Her Many Horses, a rising senior in feathered fancy-dance regalia, danced his way into the gymnasium. He was followed by flag bearers who marched the American, Northern Arapaho and state flags into the gymnasium accompanied by the high wailing notes of the Flag Song.

The festivities were opened with a formal prayer and what one might call a grateful, good-natured homily on the virtues of perseverance.

“Some of you made it through a lot of obstacles to get where you are today,” Phil Garhart, the Wyoming Indian High School principal told the 19 graduates seated before him in their tribal regalia. “You will meet naysayers who say you won’t make it. Remember who you are and where you come from.”

Garhart went on to call out individual students whose achievements included academic survival, seemingly against the odds. To Alvin Spoonhunter, a state champion on the basketball court and the 1600 meters, he offered a final reminder that you have to do the work in class if you want to play. To Stephen Headley, he spoke as to the prodigal son: “You made my day when you came back.” And to Joey Aragon, another anchor of the outstanding basketball team, “You and I have had a lot of heart-to-hearts.” Aragon’s head drooped for just a moment. Then he sat up straight. A graduate.

Donald Clifford, Jr. “Always remember to come back and help your tribe.” (Ron Feemster/WyoFile — click to view)

There was no shame, no finger pointing. But the message was clear. You made it. You met expectations. We hope you learned from doing it the hard way.

The festivities lightened when Tianna Redman, the salutatorian, ascended the podium to give her speech. She thanked several generations of her family and congratulated her friends and classmates. But the heart of her speech was a lesson she learned from her grandfather, Alfred Redman: “Never give up.”

After he thanked his family and mentors, valedictorian Donald Clifford, Jr. echoed the hopes of many tribal elders in the gymnasium, who wait to see if the students will succeed in higher education and become the next generation of leaders on the reservation.

“Always remember to come back and help your tribe,” he said in the briefest speech of the day. “Never be a burden on your family.”

The keynote speaker was Debra Parker, vice chairwoman of the Tulalip Tribes in northwestern Washington. Active in the drive to pass the Violence Against Women Act, she recounted standing next to President Barack Obama when he signed the historic bill.

Each graduate’s chair is draped before the ceremony with a Class of 2013 jacket, personalized with his or her name embroidered on it. Well-wishers place gifts in the baskets behind each graduate’s chair.

But at the center of her speech was more encouragement to bear up under hard times. Adversity, she told the graduates, can make you stronger.

“Everything you have ever witnessed, both good and bad, has helped to bring you to where you are today,” she said. “Life is not perfect. It wasn’t for me, your parents, grandparents, and it will not be for you. But either way, we will get through this together and definitely have some fun along the way.”

An audio slide show presented eight or 10 photographs of each senior from baby and toddler pictures to sports shots and senior photos. Rousing cheers and shrill whistles greeted the name of every student flashed on the screen.

After scholarships were presented to outstanding graduates and the class presented gifts to Parker and a tribal elder, the students finally marched across the stage to receive their diplomas. The school district also gave every graduate a laptop computer. Parents and grandparents stood in the aisle to snap pictures of the big moment.

The ceremonies ended as they began, with the drum group singing. This time it was the Honor Song for the graduates.

As friends, family and well-wishers gathered to walk the receiving line and congratulate the new graduates, Donald Clifford, Jr., the valedictorian, was asked what advice he could give to the classes behind him.

“Do the work,” he said with a shrug. “Stay in school.”

— Ron Feemster covers the Wind River Indian Reservation for WyoFile in addition to his duties as a general reporter. Feemster was a Visiting Professor of Journalism at the Indian Institute of Journalism & New Media in Bangalore, India, and previously taught journalism at Northwest College in Powell. He has reported for The New York Times, Associated Press, Newsday, NPR and others. Contact Ron at ron@wyofile.com.

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Climbing toward diversity

At 20,230 feet, Mt. McKinley, often called Denali, is North America’s highest peak.

On June 7, 1913, four men reached the summit for the first time. On the 100^th anniversary this year, another group of mountaineers hope to make history.

Kelsey Dayton

Expedition Denali is a group made up of African American mountaineers, brought together by the National Outdoor Leadership School, to raise awareness about the lack of diversity in the outdoors and inspire people of all races and ethnicities to get outside. The project is the biggest and most far reaching campaign in the school’s history, said Aparna Rajagopal-Durbin, Diversity & Inclusion Manager at NOLS.

The Outdoor Industry Association’s 2012 report showed that 78 percent of those who say they participate in outdoor recreation are Caucasian. It’s a proportion that doesn’t reflect the country’s demographics, as the nation continues to become more ethnically and racially diverse, Rajagopal-Durbin said.

NOLS wants everyone to have the opportunity to find a connection with the outdoors — to unplug from screens and observe the natural world. But encouraging diversity is about more than recruitment for future NOLS courses. Rajagopal-Durbin said that if future policy makers don’t spend time in the outdoors and understand the value of keeping places wild and pristine, they won’t fight to protect them.

“The future of these wild spaces is in jeopardy unless more people in the U.S. discover these places and fall in love with these places,” she said.

About a year and a half ago NOLS staff started brainstorming projects that would inspire people of all races to get outside. NOLS wanted to create an opportunity to raise awareness about diversity in the outdoors and honed in on the African American community, which has the lowest participation in outdoor recreation, Rajagopal-Durbin said. Staff at NOLS then further narrowed it down to focusing on mountaineering an area with some of the lowest participation by minorities.

“Mountaineering, of all outdoor sports, seems most dominated by that white male privilege group,” Rajagopal-Durbin said. “We hoped we would be able to sort of rewrite that narrative.”

Denali came up as a top choice for the expedition because of NOLS history with the mountain — it runs two courses a year there — and because of its prestige as the highest point in North America.

The challenge next was finding a team of African American mountaineers. The team includes nine participants and four NOLS instructors. The goal was to keep the instructors diverse as well, but when one had to drop out last minute, the only replacement was a Caucasian man, Rajagopal-Durbin said.

“That’s the issue, we couldn’t find a group of African American NOLS instructors to lead this,” she said. Out of about 700 instructors, only two are African American. “Our staff doesn’t reflect the diversity of our students right now and definitely does not reflect the diversity of our society right now,” she said.

“Young black kids in urban areas are not looking at mountaineering as the cool thing to do. They have basketball heroes and track heroes, but in outdoor pursuits there are few and specifically in mountaineering- well there are very few,” said Rajagopal-Durbin.

Billy Long, a member of Expedition Denali, climbs in Sinks Canyon. (Photo Courtesy Brad Christensen/NOLS)

Assembling the team started with a Google search. It yielded a team of African Americans working to climb the seven summits (the highest mountains on each of the seven continents). Other participants were recruited by reaching out to former NOLS students and students of other outdoor programs.

Rosemary Saal, 20, who is particpating in climb, heard about the expedition from an outdoor group she was involved with growing up in Seattle. The group, aimed at empowering girls, introduced her to rock climbing and mountaineering.

Spending time in the outdoors has given her confidence.

“When I completed my first mountaineering course, I thought, ‘Wow, I really can do anything I want to,’” she said. It’s a feeling she wants other people to experience. She wants African Americans — and people of all races — to understand they can get outside, and that public lands belong to them, too.

“These outdoor areas — the parks, the mountains — these are our areas too,” she said.

Saal’s instructors in Seattle were women of all ethnicities. She said she was lucky to have made friends in the group who share her love of climbing, hiking and being outside. But she also has friends who don’t understand the lure of outdoor recreation.

A recent Facebook post by a friend asked, What’s with white people and skiing? Saal responded, asking, What’s with people of color not skiing?

There isn’t a definitive reason why the outdoors is so dominated by Caucasians, Rajagopal-Durbin said. But there is the aspect of privilege. Spending time outside for the sake of recreation is sometimes seen as a luxury people can’t afford because of the distance to outdoor space, the cost of equipment or time. Historically, for some groups, the outdoors represents danger or manual labor. But at least one reason is likely a lack of role models.

Saal agrees. She said that if a group is diverse it’s not as intimidating because everyone is different. It’s harder to break into something if everyone looks exactly the same, but you look different, she said. Someone has to set the example and be the role model. She hopes she can be one of those people.

“I’m so thrilled to be the person to inspire the next generation,” she said. “I believe just bringing up the topic and talking about what the mission is of the climb has already changed some people’s mindset.”

The expedition is slated to start climbing June 9. Depending on weather, the climb can take up to three weeks.

While they are climbing, communities around the country will participate in a program called “10,000 Steps to Denali,”  where groups are pledging to get outside and walk or recreate to acknowledge the climb. After, members of the expedition will speak at historically black colleges and in cities with large minority populations.

— “Peaks to Plains” is a blog focusing on Wyoming’s outdoors and communities. Kelsey Dayton is a freelance writer based in Lander. She has been a journalist in Wyoming for seven years, reporting for the Jackson Hole News & Guide, Casper Star-Tribune and the Gillette News-Record. Contact Kelsey at kelsey.dayton@gmail.com. Follower her on twitter @Kelsey_Dayton

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Rock Springs events top Gov Mead’s public schedule

The following is Gov. Matt Mead’s public schedule for the week of May 21-26. Unless otherwise noted, events on this schedule are open to the public and the media is welcome to attend.

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

7:00-7:45AM - Governor attends the Boys and Girls Club’s Back-a-Kid breakfast, Little America, Cheyenne.

12:00-12:30PM – Governor signs the Memorial Day/Recognition of Korean War Veterans proclamation, Capitol Rotunda.

2:00-2:15PM – Governor and Auditor Cloud attend the event to promote financial literacy among Wyoming’s young people, Governor’s Formal Office.

2:30-2:50PM – Governor attends the Dad’s Making a Difference graduation ceremony, Capitol Rotunda.

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

8:00-9:00AM - Governor arrives in Sweetwater County. Capitol for a Day events start, Rock Springs-Sweetwater County Airport.

9:00-11:40AM - Governor participates in tours of Rock Springs as part of Capitol for a Day events, Rock Springs.

1:00-1:30PM - Governor attends the Workforce Training Center Groundbreaking at Western Wyoming Community College, Rock Springs.

1:30-2:25PM - Governor participates in tours of Green River as part of Capitol for a Day events, Green River.

2:25-3:30PM - Governor attends the Union Pacific Depot Open House, the dedication of a historic building and flag presentation, Union Pacific Depot, Green River.

3:30-4:20PM - Governor tours HydraFab Industries and meets with Green River Chamber Businesses, HydraFab, Green River.

6:00-7:00PM - Governor attends a public reception for all elected officials, Sweetwater County Events Complex, Rock Springs.

Thursday, May 23, 2013

10:00-11:30AM – Governor attends the Oath of Office Ceremony for Thomas Rumpke, District Courtroom, Gillette.

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Playing Games

Two bison calf face off in a plain outside of Hot Springs State Park. (Mary Gordon/Flickr – click to view)

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Wyoming: Where independent people rely on federal funds

Landowners working cattle on a conserved property in Wyoming. The people here value a strong work ethic, independence, and small government, while the state gets billions in support from federal funds. (Wyoming Land Trust/Wikimedia — click to view)

In the wake of President Obama’s reelection last November, more than 9,000 people signed an online petition for Wyoming to secede from the United States.

Regardless of whether you consider the petition serious or silly, Wyoming budget experts say seceding is not a good idea from a fiscal standpoint.

Federal money made up 41 percent of Wyoming’s budget for the 2011-2012 biennium. (Gregory Nickerson/WyoFile — click to view)

Wyoming is significantly dependent on federal money. WyoFile’s calculations show that the state relied on federal money for 41 percent of the state’s spending for the 2011-2012 biennium.

State and local government budgets draw more than $2.356 billion from Washington annually. Wyoming receives an additional $3.855 billion in support for things like federal mineral royalty payments, federal land management programs, and payroll to approximately 13,626 federal employees in Wyoming who account for 5 percent of all people employed here.

The total for all federal expenditures to Wyoming state government — and its private residents — amounted to $6.211 billion in 2010, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Other states may get more total dollars, but because Wyoming’s state spending and population are small, few other states are more dependent on federal funds.

Bill Mai is administrator for the Economic Analysis Division at the Wyoming Department of Administration and Information. He said Wyoming would go into a “tailspin” without federal funds.

“To think you can walk away from all that federal money — absolutely not. It’s not possible,” Mai said.

“If you turn your back and say, ‘We don’t want your money, and we’re not going to follow your rules,’ the state can’t afford to do that, plain and simple,” Mai continued. “It’s just not economically feasible.”

Getting more than we pay in

In the background of Wyoming’s independent Western ethos is the fact that the state benefits enormously from its connection to the federal government.

“We get a lot of federal money, and a lot of our income is generated by other states,” said Rob Godby, economist at the University of Wyoming.

Godby said the country runs on a system of fiscal transfers in which large, economically advantaged states like New York and California help support states with less money. In fact, most states in the country receive more federal money than they pay in.

According to figures compiled for all states by the Economist  magazine, from 1990 to 2009 Wyoming paid in about $51.3 billion in federal taxes, and received about $70.4 billion in federal spending. That’s comes out to roughly $1.37 of federal spending in Wyoming for every $1 Wyoming pays in federal taxes.

On shorter time horizons, the Tax Foundation found that Wyoming receives $1.11 in federal funds for each dollar paid in federal taxes.

On a per-capita basis, the average Wyoming resident paid about $6,795 in federal taxes in 2010. In return, each resident received, or benefited from an average $11,019 in federal spending, with a large chunk of that coming from the federal stimulus bill.

Federal mineral royalties

None of these calculations so far take into account the non-tax revenue that goes to Washington D.C. in the form of royalties for energy production on land within Wyoming. Each year, the federal government gets about $1 billion in royalties for coal, natural gas, and oil production in Wyoming.

Adding those federal mineral royalties to the 20-year numbers tallied by The Economist might come close to balancing out the federal revenue and spending for Wyoming. But the fact remains that Wyoming’s individual residents carry a light tax burden in comparison to what they receive.

The federal ‘strings’ factor

Rancher and state senator Charlie Scott (R-Casper) said he isn’t surprised Wyoming gets more in spending than it pays in, even with royalties included in the revenue tally. “I think overall, because we are such a small state, we probably do take in more,” Scott said.

Despite this net-positive arrangement, Wyoming leaders, including Scott, are critical about how that federal money gets spent. Much of the money comes with strings attached, or flows to programs that the state of Wyoming had no role in creating.

“There is a conflict because the feds insist you do things that just don’t make sense here in Wyoming,” Scott said.

As an example, Scott said he believes Affordable Care Act requirements that health insurance exchanges be self-financed may not work for Wyoming’s low population.

“You’re seeing one-size-fits-all regulations, and I think a lot of them aren’t going to work for a small state like Wyoming,” said Scott.

Still, it can’t be ignored that Wyoming has seen some federal outlays as good news.

“Even though people speak against the federal government, the state legislature has opted-in to a huge number of federal programs because they benefit the residents of the state,” Mai said.

One example is money from the Clean Drinking Water Act that flows to the state Department of Environmental Quality. The agency uses the federal money for municipal drinking water projects.

Federal funds for Wyoming state and local government

How much does Wyoming government really get from the feds?

Wyoming state and local governments received $2.356 billion in federal aid in 2010, the last year for which data was available.

In 2010, Wyoming was No. 2 in federal aid per capita, behind only Alaska. Observers note that Wyoming’s small population always skews per capita data. (U.S. Census Bureau — click to view)

For the state’s population of 563,000, that comes out to $4,180 per-capita in federal aid to state and local governments, ranking second in the nation behind only Alaska, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Alaska’s state and local governments received $4,682 per person, or $3.3 billion for 710,000 residents. (See chart.)

Notably, in 2011 Wyoming took the No. 1 spot in federal spending per-capita, according to an article by the Pew Charitable Trust.

Of course, it’s a little unfair to compare Wyoming to other states on a per-capita basis since the state’s low population is widely distributed, making it a statistical outlier. Mai noted that the basic structures of government require a minimum amount of spending, and Wyoming’s long highways between small towns do a lot to increase the cost of providing service.

But the fact remains that Wyoming’s state government is one of the most federally supported in the nation. From 2008-2010, Wyoming ranked in the top ten states for federal aid to its budget, according to State Budget Solutions.

“That (federal) money is critical to the function of this state,” Mai said. He estimates that all federal funds, plus state-collected ad valorem taxes and severance taxes for minerals produced on federal lands, account for 60 percent to 70 percent of the state’s total mineral revenue.

Following the money

In the current 2013-2014 biennium, Wyoming’s budget looks like this:

• General Fund Appropriations – $3.22 billion
• Federal Fund Appropriations – $1.6 billion
• Other Funds (includes some federal money) – $3.35 billion
• Total appropriations in the 2-year budget bill – $8.17 billion

Many of Wyoming’s largest government agencies, such as the Department of Health and the Department of Family Services, get a substantial amount of their money from the federal government. Out of the $1.6 billion listed above, the Department of Health accounts for about $761 million. (See pie chart.)

The Medicaid Program in the Department of Health took up nearly half of the $1.4 billion in federal funds budgeted to state agencies in the 2013-2014 budget bill. Lawmakers later raised the federal funds appropriated to $1.6 billion. Not shown in this tally the $1.897 billion in federal mineral royalties that support the Budget Reserve Account and K-12 Education. Direct federal appropriations to G&F and WyDOT are also excluded. The DEQ budget is inflated in this graph due to a one-time increase in Abandoned Mine Lands Funds.(WyoFile/Gregory Nickerson — click to view)

Federal revenue isn’t evenly distributed across all programs. Some key state agencies receive very little in federal funds. For example, the state pays $324 million for the Department of Corrections, $261 million for the Community College Commission, and $78 million for the Wyoming Business Council. Federal money that goes to those agencies amounts to about $10 million total.

The $1.6 billion in federal funds doesn’t tell the full story, because part of the $3.35 billion in “Other Funds” also comes from the federal government. The “Other” category includes federal mineral royalties and federal coal lease “bonuses” that contribute about $1 billion each year.

A projected $558 million in federal mineral royalties will go to the School Foundation Program in 2013-14, helping to pay for K-12 education. Another $458 million is projected to flow to the School Capital Construction Account. If those monies were to dry up, education money would have to come from the General Fund, which also draws a significant amount of mineral royalties.

Significant amounts of federal funds go straight to agencies without going through the legislative appropriation process:

• In 2013, the Wyoming Department of Transportation expects to get about 47 percent of its $588 million annual budget from federal aid. That’s $278 million in federal funds for maintaining Wyoming’s roads.
• The Game and Fish Department relies on federal revenue for a significant portion of its budget. In 2012, federal funds and grants accounted for $10.8 million of the department’s $68.2 million in total revenue. Only license fees contributed more, bringing in $32.2 million.

Still other funds flow into the state via federal grants to specific projects. The University of Wyoming received about $49 million in federal research and development funds in 2011, according to the National Science Foundation. (More detailed information about Wyoming’s federal spending data is available at the U.S. Census website.)

Federal spending on individuals and federal agencies

Outside of federal aid to Wyoming’s state government, a host of other federal programs pay out an additional $4 billion in grants and direct payments to individuals, programs, and federal agencies like the Forest Service and the BLM each year.

That put total federal spending in Wyoming at $6.2 billion for fiscal year 2010. Recall this is that big number mentioned at the top of this article.

If you receive social security payments or disability assistance, earned income tax credits, unemployment compensation, student loans, or an agricultural subsidy, some of that $6.2 billion ended up in your bank account. You also benefit if you drive on interstate highways, or send your kids to public schools.

Wyoming’s non-governmental federal expenditures for 2010 went primarily to disability and social security programs ($1.64 billion), direct payments ($1 billion), procurement ($560 million), and salaries for government jobs ($709 million).

Federal employment

It’s also worth noting the impact of federal government employment in Wyoming. Wyoming had 13,626 federal workers in 2012. The top categories included:

• 5,481 federal retirees
• 2,590 in the Department of Interior (BLM, National Park Service, Bureau of Reclamation, Bureau of Indian Affairs etc.)
• 1,329 in Veterans Affairs
• 1,266 for USDA (includes Forest service)
• 1,200 at the Department of Defense
• 1,200 at the Postal Service

By contrast, Wyoming state government employed 7,697 people in 2012.

Government employment is an important sector in Wyoming’s economy — the largest workforce sector in the state, in fact. When government-funded public school, college, and hospital workers are counted, along with the state employees and federal employees noted above, about 64,000 Wyoming residents worked in government-funded jobs of one kind or another.

All told, the government employed more than 20 percent of Wyoming’s 2010 workforce of 290,000 people, according to a 2010 report from the Wyoming Department of Employment.

Stimulus

If Wyoming does so well at getting federal funds under normal circumstances, you might wonder how the state made out in the federal stimulus program of 2009-2010. As might be expected, Wyoming exceeded the national average for American Relief and Recovery Act (ARRA) money received after the recession of 2008.

The Wyoming Department of Transportation Commission will get about half of its 2013 revenue through a direct appropriation from the federal government. As a commission, the agency gets most of its money without going through the legislative appropriations process. (WyDOT — click to view)

The ARRA granted Wyoming $1,928 in per-capita spending, compared with a national average of $1,691 per-capita. Those numbers come from data compiled by ProPublica, an independent investigative news organization.

Laramie County got a whopping $344 million in federal stimulus money. Natrona County pulled in $85 million while Albany County (home of the university) received $82 million. Fremont County (home of the Wind River Indian Reservation) received $70 million in stimulus money.

Park County, home to one of the state’s largest federal reclamation projects (not to mention Yellowstone National Park) pulled in $57 million from ARRA.

Economist Rob Godby said that much of the stimulus money went toward road building that helped support the state’s construction industry after the 2008 recession.

“That cushioned the blow. As the stimulus funds went away the construction industry has declined significantly because that was a major portion of the highway funds in the state,” Godby said.

The cowboy way

When it comes to Wyoming’s relationship with the federal government, some see Wyoming as the net beneficiary of federal largesse, while others think the state suffers from unfair fiscal treatment at the hands of Congress.

The difference is essentially an argument over how much Wyoming and the federal government should each benefit from the immense energy resources in the state.

”We have 50 percent of our land controlled by the federal government, and we produce about 10 percent of the Btus for the country. There is a lot of money involved,” said state Rep. Steve Harshman (R-Casper), adding that he thinks Wyoming is pulling its weight.

“If you look at the amount of energy and the dollars produced, and the revenue sent to the government, it’s probably the largest per-capita,” he added.

The difference is that other states with larger populations don’t have as much federal land, like Texas, Pennsylvania, or North Dakota, or they legally get to keep a larger share of their mineral wealth, like Alaska, which sends only 10 percent of royalties to Washington D.C.

Yet some states produce far more federal royalty revenue than Wyoming. Louisiana sends about $3 billion in royalties to the Washington D.C. each year, and receives only about 5 percent of the royalties granted to the Western states.

The Pew Charitable Trust reported Wyoming to be No. 1 in federal funding per capita for 2011. (Stateline.org/Mary Mahling — click to view)

What’s certain is that federal ownership of land and minerals in Wyoming has directed the course of development.

“They have a big influence on how well this state does,” said Sen. Charlie Scott. “I can remember 50 years ago, Governor Milward Simpson introduced the Secretary of the Interior as ‘the governor of the other half of Wyoming’ and there is a certain amount of truth in that.”

Scott said the federal ownership of lands is a problem for Wyoming’s economy, because regulations can restrict economic activity or make business more expensive.

“The fact that we have so much federal land is one of the reasons you see so much federal tax money coming here,” said Scott. He noted some of the money goes back into management of federal lands.

Harshman said he believes Wyoming is right to receive the share of federal money that it gets. “A lot of those funds, those taxes we pay the federal government, we should get them back,” he said.

But others say Wyoming’s revenue structure has created a sense of entitlement in the state.

“We have the ‘it’s nice to have someone else pay the bills’ mentality that comes from having extractive industries,” said Erin Taylor, director of the Wyoming Taxpayers Association, which lobbies for energy producers and utilities.

That’s not a new perspective. In 1998, Wyoming author Sam Western argued in The Economist that Wyoming residents are used to having someone else pay their way:

“… Wyoming coasts along on federal largesse and the trust fund, its citizens barely contribute to the running of government. They pay no state income tax, a five-cents-on-the-dollar sales tax, rock-bottom cigarette, alcohol and fuel taxes, and some of the lowest property taxes in the country,” Western wrote.

Western and others say Wyoming’s cowboy mythology has helped its residents ignore the dynamic of federal reliance.

A chart showing the Pew Charitable Trust’s report on the allocation of Wyoming’s federal funds in 2011. (Stateline.org/Mary Mahling — click to view)

“Our (cowboy) symbol is romantic, independent, self-determining, not answering to anyone,” said economist Rob Godby. “It’s a good metaphor for how we would like to deal with the federal government.”

Western pointed out the cowboy myth did not mesh with historical reality of the 1880s cowhand: “In real life, the famous Wyoming cowboy was an itinerant, landless, poverty-stricken soul, dependent upon the rancher for bread and shelter.”

To some, Wyoming still is that hungry cowhand, while the federal government is the cattle baron who controls the land, its products, and the wages.

“Maybe we are more like the cowboy than we like to admit sometimes, that we do depend on the help of others,” Godby said.

Some observers take the view that Wyoming has come out ahead in its dealings with the federal government.

“If you want to call it a partnership, we are certainly the biggest beneficiaries in the partnership,” said Dan Neal, director of the Equality State Policy Center, which keeps close tabs on state policy, including how taxes are spent in Wyoming.

“The reaction of the state to the federal government is like a teenager who depends on the parents for money. There is some resentment about how things are done,” Neal said.

But unlike a youth who quarrels with a parent, Wyoming doesn’t have the option of running away from the higher authority.

“It’s pretty hard to separate yourself from the federal government when they own half of your land,” Mai said. “The bottom line is those guys have a lot of control over what [Wyoming] is going to do.”

— Gregory Nickerson is the government and policy reporter for WyoFile. Originally from Big Horn, he holds an MA in history from the University of Wyoming and currently lives in Laramie. Contact him at greg@wyofile.com.

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