Wyoming’s top officials promise to reckon with ever-increasing wind projects, other development

For 2.5 hours Thursday, state officials heard testimony and emotional pleas from nearly two dozen residents throughout central and southeast Wyoming about a growing “wall” of wind turbines that critics say threatens to proliferate unchecked. 

The State Board of Land Commissioners, most speakers agreed, has fumbled its responsibility to effectively engage the public, has approved state land leases for various industrial projects that it sometimes regrets and generally failed to consider cumulative impacts critics say threaten private property, ranching and small communities.

“This is no longer a series of isolated projects,” Cheyenne area resident Wendy Volk said. “It is a continuous, or near continuous, industrial corridor stretching across multiple counties and landscapes.”

Niobrara County rancher Bobby Giesse was more direct.

“Why is it when 90% of the people are saying, ‘We don’t want this. [It threatens] things like the oil and gas industry. It’s against tourism. It is in direct conflict with agriculture.’ But yet it’s getting pushed down our throats and people aren’t listening. So the question is, why?”

The board, made of Wyoming’s top five elected officials, held the special meeting in Douglas — one of the hotbeds of existing and planned large energy projects, including the controversial Pronghorn H2 wind and hydrogen energy proposal. Board members empathized with residents’ frustrations.

“One of the complaints I’ve heard about this decision is that we aren’t willing to admit we made a mistake,” Auditor Kristi Racines said, referring to the board’s decision last year to grant state land leases to the Pronghorn H2 developer. “And so me, personally, I am here today to tell you that I apologize. I apologize for the mess that this has become.”

The board has sometimes whiffed on public notices, Racines added, and failed to give the public a proper platform to engage, including a December meeting that didn’t allow for a full discussion between the board and concerned residents. “I was horrified by the way that came out,” Racines said. “It was very unsatisfying to everyone there.”

Though wind energy stood at the center of the discussion, residents and local officials alike referenced myriad new energy projects, as well as what appears to be a wave of data center proposals. Combined, the tsunami of industrial ventures threatens viewsheds, tourism, agriculture and scarce water resources without a cohesive government venue to deal with either specific projects or bigger picture impacts.

“My request today is very simple,” Cheyenne area resident Niffy McNiff Bube told the board. “Please slow down, take a broader view and fully consider cumulative impacts when evaluating, when leasing on state-trust lands, especially in the areas where development is forming continuous corridors.”

Though public testimony was emotional at times, the decorum of the hearing went smoothly — until a spat erupted between board members Gov. Mark Gordon and Secretary of State Chuck Gray. The two have frequently sparred in public forums.

While hashing out procedural matters at the end of the hearing, Gordon accused Gray of casting aspersions against Attorney General Keith Kautz, who was not at the meeting. Gray denied doing so, and things quickly escalated.

“Step outside,” Gordon said to Gray. “Do you want to step outside?”

“Are you threatening me?” Gray responded while seated next to the governor.

“No, I’m asking if you want to step outside?” Gordon said.

“Are you threatening me?” Gray said again.

The bickering de-escalated from there, with Superintendent of Public Instruction Megan Degenfelder commenting, “This has been very unproductive the last couple of minutes. I’d like to get us back on track.”

Asked for an explanation regarding the governor’s remarks, Gordon Communications Director Amy Edmonds told WyoFile, “The governor just wanted to sort of cleanse the palate. Step outside, have a conversation. And really, it was asking the secretary, ‘Do you need to go outside?'”

State board’s role

The Office of State Lands and Investments, which includes the State Board of Land Commissioners, has come under increasing public pressure for its outsized role in determining the viability of energy and mining projects.

The agency administers more than 3 million acres of school trust lands scattered throughout every county in the state. Because of that scattered pattern, energy and mining projects — if their footprint is large enough — commonly include state-owned lands, or “school sections.” If a developer acquires a state land lease, it makes their project seem much more viable to investors and other permitting agencies, several concerned residents asserted.

Some argued Thursday that developers even seek out state land leases as a fulcrum to gain leverage over neighboring landowners.

There can also be an inherent conflict between the agency’s fiduciary duty to utilize state school sections to maximize revenue for K-12 schools via mining and oil development and other, less lucrative uses, such as recreation and grazing. Sometimes priorities differ between the state and a county’s land use plan. A recent example is the dispute over a proposed gravel mining operation at the base of Casper Mountain — an ongoing episode that began with the board of commissioners approving mining leases without reviewing the applications or consulting with locals.

Responding to a rancher’s criticism of a singular focus on maximizing revenues from school sections, Treasurer Curt Meier offered empathy, but no apologies.

“I’m going to continue to live up to my constitutional duties” as a state board of land commissioner, Meier said. “I can’t do anything less. I understand the situation that you guys are in. You’re impacted.”

Still, residents said they feel like the state is failing them.

“Our regulatory framework, designed decades ago, was not intended to address development at this scale or concentration,” Volk said. “Evaluating projects one-by-one while ignoring what surrounds them creates blind spots large enough to affect entire landscapes, surface lessees and communities. Wyoming deserves better than a piecemeal process for decisions of this magnitude.”

More recently, the board has been in hot water with residents living between Glenrock and Douglas, who are frustrated that Colorado-based Focus Clean Energy, the Pronghorn H2 developer, received leases despite widespread opposition. A rancher challenged the state leases — spanning some 15,500 acres in total — in district court and won, resulting in an order to repeal the leases.

Gordon earned the ire of Secretary Gray — who voted against granting the leases — when Attorney General Kautz appealed the decision to the Wyoming Supreme Court. Gordon and Kautz have said the primary reason for the appeal was that the lower court’s ruling appears to redefine leasing language in a way that might open the state to much broader challenges.

Gordon also surmised on Thursday that other board members might want the attorney general to withdraw his appeal to the state’s high court and voluntarily rescind the Pronghorn H2 state leases. In response to a motion by Gray to do just that, Gordon noted that the board had not provided public notice for such actions and declared the motion “out of order.”

Potential solutions

Several board members appeared to concede that the agency’s narrow focus, combined with a bureaucracy of siloed institutions at the local, state and federal levels, has proven inadequate to meet the challenge of orchestrating development guided by cultural and land values.

Gordon, during the meeting, likened such deficiencies to criticism during the coalbed methane gas boom of the 2000s. He issued a statement after the meeting, noting “Wyoming has spent decades finding the ‘sweet spot’ — from the coalbed methane fields to today’s discussion on wind. 

“The broad takeaway is these are issues Wyoming has been struggling with for decades and those of us who are constitutionally entrusted with the responsibility of these lands by the people have grappled with similar issues over time,” he continued. “Getting to the perfect solution for everyone may not be possible but it’s clear everyone is working toward getting as close to that outcome as possible.” 

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One potential tool, Gordon suggested during the meeting, is to “repurpose” the rare or very uncommon provision in the Wyoming Environmental Quality Act — a tool that has been mostly neutered by the Legislature, he said.

“It allowed for a nomination to be done that could set aside portions of state land,” Gordon said while addressing Glenrock Republican Rep. Kevin Campbell. “I have been trying for at least four years to repurpose that provision so that citizens like these could say, ‘This is a very special part of Wyoming. This needs to be protected,’ which would then give this board more of an opportunity to say, ‘Here’s a reason why we shouldn’t be talking about fiduciary'” duties alone.

Campbell accepted an invitation from Gordon to take up such a measure in the Legislature.

Meantime, concerned residents pressed for a broader solution and perspective.

“I would like to emphasize that asking for cumulative corridor level review is not opposition to wind energy,” Volk told the board. “It is a request for responsible asset management. Wyoming’s trust lands are finite. Once they’re fragmented and industrialized at this scale, the loss of flexibility, productivity and landscape integrity cannot be undone.”