Wyoming lawmakers unmoved by Gray’s calls to reexamine electoral maps

As the earliest stages of Wyoming’s 2032 redistricting process get underway, state lawmakers showed little interest in calls from Secretary of State Chuck Gray to immediately reexamine electoral boundaries. 

The Wyoming Legislature’s Joint Corporations, Elections and Political Subdivisions Committee declined to take action at its Friday meeting in Lander. 

“I think we’re better off to not poke the dog, the sleeping dog. And just let it go,” Rep. Steve Johnson, R-Cheyenne, said at the meeting. 

In recent letters to the Fremont County Commission and Gov. Mark Gordon, Gray pointed to a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision, which narrowed states’ ability to use race as a determining factor in creating election districts. Gray argues that certain maps that overlap with the Wind River Indian Reservation ought to be reexamined now in light of that ruling. More specifically, Gray is taking aim at the Fremont County Commission’s district maps and House District 33, which is represented by the sole Indigenous member serving in the Legislature, Rep. Ivan Posey, D-Fort Washakie. 

Business councils for the Eastern Shoshone and the Northern Arapaho tribes have since denounced Gray for what they call a “direct attack on Native voting.” Some attendees at the meeting held up signs, pushing back on the secretary. 

Gray has stopped short of demanding the governor either suspend the primary election or call a special legislative session — two things southern GOP-controlled states have done in response to the ruling. Instead, Gray has criticized the governor for not taking action. He can now criticize lawmakers for that, too. 

“My recommendation would be: take a deep breath. For all of us to think about this. Weigh it. Have lots of public input,” Senate Corporations Committee Chairman Cale Case, R-Lander, said at the meeting. “It took us a year or more to redistrict the state of Wyoming.”

Case, who represents Senate District 25 and the Wind River Indian Reservation, said the committee had several options, including waiting to sort things out during the next redistricting process. 

Like Case, Rep. Mike Yin, D-Jackson, pointed out that changing the boundaries of one House district would upend the rest of the Legislature’s map. Besides, Yin said, he’d already completed the task Gray had requested. 

“To answer the secretary’s letter directly, I examined [the U.S. Supreme Court ruling] and I examined our maps. And I find them to be in compliance,” Yin said. 

“I would suggest that we just put this topic to bed and leave it as is because we have plenty of other bills to work on,” Yin said, referring to the topics the committee has been tasked with during the legislative off-season. 

Pointing to another discussion surrounding the constitutionality of the Legislature’s maps, Rep. Johnson said, “I would tend to agree with my colleague from the other side of the aisle that we need to just let this go.” 

With one exception, the public testimony was either explicitly against Gray’s proposal or encouraged the committee to proceed with caution. 

Rep. Nina Webber, R-Cody, asked that the topic be carried over to the committee’s next meeting, “just as a ‘let’s revisit it.’” Otherwise, the committee put the discussion aside. 

Meanwhile, the process for refreshing the state’s legislative maps in 2032 is beginning. The Legislative Service Office updated the committee Friday on its work with the federal government to create census blocks, which function as the smallest geographical unit collected by the federal government. 

When it comes time for lawmakers to begin drawing maps in 2030, census blocks function as the building blocks. And as roads and developments are built and people move around the state, those census blocks must be updated to give lawmakers greater flexibility in drawing maps that accurately reflect their communities. 

The county commission

Wyoming law gives county commissions the latitude to use a district, at-large or hybrid system. Under a district system, commissioners represent certain areas within a county. In comparison, at-large commissioners represent the entire county. 

Since 2010, when a federal court judge ruled in favor of five enrolled Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho members, the Fremont County Commission has used a district system. 

In Large v. Fremont County, the plaintiffs argued that the at-large system diluted Native American voting strength and violated the federal Voting Rights Act. Ultimately, the court ruled in their favor. 

However, Gray is asking the commission to revert to an at-large district, arguing that the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent ruling in Louisiana v. Callais makes the district system unconstitutional.

After receiving Gray’s letter, the commission referred it to the Wyoming Attorney General’s Office for guidance. In the meantime, at least one lawmaker at the meeting made it clear they were uninterested in revising the statute. 

“I have no interest in changing that statute, nor do I have any interest in telling the county commission what they have to or have to not do,” Yin said.

Doug Thompson, a former county commissioner and a defendant in Large v. Fremont County, spoke at Friday’s meeting. He urged caution. 

“My counsel for all who will listen is: Take your time,” Thompson said. “Don’t jump one way or the other. Don’t say no districts. Don’t say at-large. Don’t do either one. Because this is a complex issue.” 

Northern Arapaho Business Council Chairman Keenan Groesbeck and Eastern Shoshone Councilman Clinton Glick both told the committee not to take action to remake the commission or the legislative electoral map. 

The Legislature

The other electoral map Gray takes exception to is House District 33, which stretches across Fremont County and encompasses the tribal towns of Fort Washakie, Ethete and Arapahoe, as well as the small non-tribal communities of Atlantic City, Crowheart and Hudson. 

Several of the district’s constituents, including non-tribal members, attended the meeting and spoke in favor of the current maps, arguing that the boundaries weren’t simply drawn with consideration to race but also — and officially — to keep communities of interest, such as sovereign governments, intact. 

“To suggest that this very narrow [U.S. Supreme Court] decision has this broad brush that requires you take some immediate action is not quite accurate,” Mark Harris, former Sweetwater County lawmaker, told the committee. 

Harris served in the Legislature as it shifted from strict adherence to county boundaries and toward population, and as such, has direct knowledge of the 2001 legislative session “that essentially created House District 33 as it is today.”

“This district is based on community of interest and always has been,” he said. 

The shift away from county alignment was spurred by a 1991 federal court ruling that Wyoming’s legislative maps violated the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution — also known as “one person, one vote.”

Friday, Gray told the committee he doesn’t “think we should wait for a lawsuit to engage” in the examination of the state’s electoral maps. 

Whether the Wyoming Attorney General’s Office agrees remains to be seen. The governor’s office previously told WyoFile it sent Gray’s letter there to be reviewed. Gordon himself has not offered an opinion about Gray’s call to reexamine electoral maps.

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Endangered Species Act protections for pygmy rabbits? Groups sue Trump administration over missed deadlines.

Environmental advocates want the courts to force federal wildlife officials to decide whether pygmy rabbits ought to be protected under the Endangered Species Act. 

Pygmy rabbits, the world’s smallest rabbits, dwell in southwestern Wyoming and parts of seven other western states. Like the declining sage grouse, pygmy rabbits depend on sagebrush-steppe — an ecosystem also in sustained decline — for their diets, den building and survival. 

In early 2024, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, while still operating under the Biden administration, issued a “90-day finding” indicating there was “substantial information” that indicated listing pygmy rabbits “may be warranted.” 

The Endangered Species Act requires that decisions come within a year — the next step in the process is known as a “12-month finding.” With that resolution still in limbo, Western Watersheds Project and WildEarth Guardians sued on May 13.

“With deadline lawsuits, you either met the deadline or you didn’t,” said Greta Anderson, deputy director at the Western Watersheds Project. “It’s pretty straightforward, and there’s not any dispute over the facts. Hopefully, our lawsuit will compel them to address pygmy rabbit populations sooner rather than later, and certainly before it’s too late.” 

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Brian Nesvik is listed as the defendant in the groups’ 15-page complaint, which asks a judge to require a 12-month finding by an undefined new date. 

Fish and Wildlife spokesperson Christine Schuldheisz told WyoFile in an email that the agency has no comment on active litigation. 

The agency has 60 days to respond to the lawsuit, Anderson said. 

A “listing workplan” suggests Fish and Wildlife will decide on pygmy rabbits in fiscal year 2028. Nearly 100 other species — from the Yellowstone bison to the Rio Grande shiner — are slated for fiscal years 2026 and 27 and are ahead of the pygmy rabbit in the workplan. 

Anderson argued that there’s an urgent need for federal wildlife managers to make a decision. The emergence of rabbit hemorrhagic disease in Nevada — there was a “rapid decline” of pygmy populations near Jiggs — presents a new threat to the species, she said. 

“We want to really light a fire under the wildlife agencies to try to figure out what’s going on,” Anderson said. “Nothing would make me happier than to find out that the states think pygmy rabbits are secure and flourishing and in more places than we thought. I just don’t think that’s the case.” 

There are some bright spots. 

In Wyoming, where pygmy rabbits are a “species of greatest conservation need,” biologists say that populations have fared pretty well relative to other parts of the animal’s range. Earlier this year, biologists searched for pygmy rabbits in 108 different locations and found signs of them at about half those sites. The species has been documented in Wyoming’s southwest corner, with observations in Uinta, Lincoln, Sublette, Sweetwater, Fremont, Carbon and Natrona counties. 

Still, threats to pygmy rabbits are many. They’re thermally sensitive and could potentially lose parts of their range as the West heats up. Energy development and sagebrush treatments intended to help other species can also reduce their habitat. When the Fish and Wildlife Service found that listing pygmy rabbits “may be warranted” in 2024, the agency cited “the compound effects of fire, cheatgrass, and climate change. ”

“They are an indicator species for the health of the whole ecosystem,” Anderson said. “If pygmy rabbits aren’t there, it’s a sign that something’s wrong with the sagebrush-steppe — much like the sage grouse.” 

Environmental groups previously petitioned to list pygmy rabbits in 2003. Although the Fish and Wildlife Service forwent protections for the broader species, the agency did assign an “endangered” status for an isolated, genetically distinct population in Washington.

Judges intervene in Endangered Species Act deadline disputes with some regularity. 

In December 2024, for example, U.S. District Court of Wyoming Judge Alan Johnson gave the Biden administration’s Fish and Wildlife Service 45 days to decide on the status of grizzly bears.

The resulting proposal intended to keep grizzlies listed as threatened in the Yellowstone region and across their Lower 48 range, though the Trump administration has delayed finalizing that plan and was granted an extension to make its final decision by Dec. 18. 

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Feds greenlight Wyoming’s plan to spend $205M on healthcare initiatives

Federal administrators with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services have given final approval to Wyoming’s $205 million plan to fortify its precarious rural healthcare network. 

The money is for the state’s Year 1 application to the Trump administration’s Rural Health Transformation Fund. Wyoming stands to receive hundreds of millions more through 2030 from the $50 billion initiative. 

“This $205 million investment gives hospitals and clinics across Wyoming new opportunities to improve the healthcare services our communities rely on,” Wyoming’s U.S. Sen. John Barrasso said in a press release from Gov. Mark Gordon’s office. The Wyoming doctor and Republican majority whip championed the Rural Transformation Fund as a sensible solution while railing against the expansion of Affordable Care Act subsidies that expired in December. “I look forward to seeing the innovative ways Wyoming uses these resources to recruit and train health providers and strengthen healthcare across our state.”

Wyoming’s final application outlines an array of proposals to prop up hospitals, build workforce and bolster preventative health. They include regionalizing emergency medical services, establishing clinical workforce training grants and creating financial incentives to persuade small designated “Critical Access Hospitals” to focus on essential community services of an emergency department, an ambulance service and a delivery facility for babies.

However, the final application that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services approved omitted two significant proposals from the original application: a state-operated public insurance plan for healthcare emergencies and a system of investments that could generate revenue for the measures in perpetuity.

The state ditched the health insurance plan, dubbed “BearCare,” after legislators frowned on the idea. The so-called “perpetuity” was dropped, meanwhile, after it did not pass muster with federal administrators and certain “esoteric federal regulations,” Wyoming Department of Health Director Stefan Johansson told the Legislature’s Labor, Health and Social Services Committee last week. 

Even without these two components, Wyoming’s plan focuses on providing and sustaining basic care in its rural and frontier communities, Johansson said in a press release, which was the No. 1 priority that emerged from providers, public and stakeholder groups. “We are excited to begin implementing this program, which is a unique opportunity to transform the economics of basic care and incentivize the services we know our rural constituents need.”

How we got here

The Rural Health Transformation Program was created by President Donald Trump’s 2025 One Big Beautiful Bill Act. 

Wyoming Department of Health staff gathered input and drafted an 84-page application, outlining the state’s priorities: building the state’s healthcare workforce; improving residents’ metabolic, cardiovascular and behavioral health; and using technology to improve chronic disease management and bring care closer to home. Some of the initiatives proposed to address those include:

• Build cooperative agreements for EMS agencies to work together on a regional basis.
• Stand up a grant process for technology to improve care delivery.
• Fund annual awards to cover educational costs for individuals interested in joining one of four clinical pipelines: nursing, EMS, behavioral health and physician. 
• Add more slots to Wyoming’s existing accredited programs for postgraduate medical education, likely in new sites. 
• Implement the Presidential Fitness Test in Wyoming’s primary and secondary schools. 
• Limit the state’s SNAP benefits to healthy food purchases, not including things like sodas and candy. 

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced in December that all 50 states will receive awards in 2026 under the program. Wyoming was awarded $205 million.

That kicked off a deeper scrutiny of the application by federal administrators, who took issue with the perpetuity fund as an allowable cost, Johansson said.

The state’s application identified the perpetuity as core to Wyoming’s sustainability plan. Similar to Wyoming’s Permanent Mineral Trust Fund, this “perpetuity” would use investments to continually generate revenue for healthcare programs, the application said.

When Johansson told the legislative committee last week that the feds would not allow the perpetuity, he urged lawmakers to keep the concept on the table for a future federal opportunity or even a state-driven initiative. 

“It’s just a very unique and Wyoming-specific financing vehicle that I think could be very productive and fruitful for the state,” when it comes to sustaining basic healthcare services in Wyoming, Johansson said.

What’s next

Though Wyoming leaders are celebrating the approval, it will also require a lot of work in a short timeframe. Wyoming must obligate Year 1 program funds by the end of October. That means drafting contracts, hiring staff, requesting proposals, making approvals and obligating funds. State workers, contractors and healthcare providers will have to hustle to lay the groundwork for programs they hope will shore up healthcare for the long term.

Future funding under the program will be based on the state’s implementation process and performance, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

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Another electric rate hike in Wyoming: Rocky Mountain Power asks for $71M increase

Some 150,000 Rocky Mountain Power customers in Wyoming may see their monthly electric bills increase — again — pending approval of the company’s request for an extra annual $70.5 million.

The permanent addition to customers’ “base rate” charge represents an increase of about 8.8% and is necessary “to recover prudent investments and updated cost forecasts,” according to the company.

The utility filed its general rate hike request on Tuesday to the Wyoming Public Service Commission, citing some $4.5 billion in new capital projects across six states, higher operations and maintenance costs, inflationary pressures and a projected $10 million to create a “Wyoming wildfire liability self-insurance reserve fund.”

“Rising costs across the electric utility industry affect every energy provider,” Rocky Mountain Power President Dick Garlish said in a prepared statement Wednesday. “We work hard to manage the costs within our control, and our track record shows that Rocky Mountain Power remains among the lowest cost electric utilities in the nation.”

Excluding annual fuel cost adjustments, Wyoming regulators have allowed Rocky Mountain Power to increase its rates nearly 16% in recent years. A 5.5% hike hit monthly bills in 2024, and rates increased another 10.2% in 2025.

Pending approval, Rocky Mountain Power — a division of Warren Buffett’s northwest electric utility giant PacifiCorp — proposes to implement the increase in two phases: Imposing most of the increase ($68.3 million) in March 2027, then $2.2 million in April 2027 when the company expects to finalize the sale of PacifiCorp’s assets in Washington.

PacifiCorp recently dumped wind and solar energy from its future planning.

The request triggers a review by the Wyoming Public Service Commission, which typically includes a detailed vetting — including public comment and public hearings — as well as from groups that may challenge the company’s assertions rationalizing the increase.

The company has faced intense criticism in Wyoming for its rising customer costs. To soften the blow, Rocky Mountain Power also pointed to another Public Service Commission filing this week to refund Wyoming customers for lower-than-expected fuel costs in 2025. The annual fuel-cost adjustment — which would amount to a one-year 4.2% rebate, or about a $4.49 monthly bill reduction — would be credited, if approved, on monthly bills beginning in July.

The company also noted its recent move to join the new Western Energy Imbalance Market — a network of regional utilities to orchestrate power supplies with power demand to achieve savings via daily power trades. The program will help Rocky Mountain Power “further improve how energy resources are scheduled and dispatched,” the company said.

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Here’s how Wyoming communities cooperate with ICE

More Wyoming counties and towns are signing agreements to perform federal immigration duties as the Trump administration and Congress spend billions to intensify immigration arrests, detentions and deportations nationwide.

The towns of Wheatland, Shoshoni, Pine Bluffs and Moorcroft all inked new pacts — known as 287(g) agreements — with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in April. They’ve signed onto what’s called the “Task Force Model,” which allows local law enforcement to carry out some immigration enforcement duties under ICE during routine policing. In 2025, the Trump administration revived the Task Force Model, which the Obama administration had phased out in 2012. Since its renewal, the approach has rapidly expanded nationwide.

ICE’s website touts the agreements with calls to action like “How Can I Convince My Chief or Sheriff to Participate in 287(g)?” While the partnerships come with financial rewards, immigration advocates warn local law enforcement risks losing community trust.

The agreements have sparked protests in Rock Springs and Cheyenne. Rock Springs resident Dana Ward, who helped organize an anti-ICE Sweetwater County protest last fall, said the Obama administration had discontinued the task force and hybrid agreements in 2012 with a memo explaining that other programs were more efficient. Those models also led to racial profiling, harmed community relations with law enforcement and triggered lawsuits alleging civil and human rights violations, Ward said. Critics contend that such agreements effectively make local law enforcement an arm of ICE.

Still, Wyoming sheriffs and police departments are signing on. While some view the agreements as unnecessary and a community disruptor, others see them as a useful tool or the best way to have a say in enforcing a federal priority.

“It was very important for the sheriff that we had a seat at the table,” said Jason Mower, spokesperson for the Sweetwater County Sheriff’s Office, which has a partnership with ICE. “If this was going to be a federal priority, regardless of whether or not we were on board, what we didn’t want to have happen was the federal government to come into Sweetwater County, unannounced and unbeknownst to us, and basically do whatever they want without our oversight.”

Wyoming sheriffs have worked with ICE for decades. But more Equality State communities have reached agreements with the agency since President Donald Trump returned to office last year, bringing with him a high-profile push for immigration enforcement and deportations. Now, with last year’s passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, Congress has allotted $75 billion through 2029 to ICE, making it the highest-funded U.S. law enforcement agency. Some of the federal funding is making its way to Wyoming sheriffs through their agreements to cooperate with ICE.

Currently, seven Wyoming counties, the Wyoming Highway Patrol and four towns have one or more 287(g) agreements with ICE, which allows local and state law enforcement to work with federal agencies to enforce immigration rules. Even when participating in the same type of agreement with ICE, local and state agencies have some discretion over how they implement those pacts. As a result, immigration enforcement across different counties in Wyoming is a diverse tapestry.

What is a 287(g) agreement?

The 287(g) program is named for Section 287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act. Put simply, the program, which became law in 1996, expands local and state law enforcement’s authority to undertake some immigration duties under ICE’s supervision. ICE has three 287(g) program models: Jail Enforcement, Task Force and Warrant Service Officer.

The Jail Enforcement Model gives officers authority to find and process people who are in the country without legal permission when they are already in a detention facility and facing criminal charges.

The Task Force Model enables officers to conduct some immigration enforcement during routine policing.

The Warrant Service Officer Model allows local officers to serve and execute administrative warrants on people who are in the country without legal permission and already in a local or state agency’s custody.

Under all three models, local and state law enforcement work alongside federal ICE officers. Some ICE agents live in Wyoming communities, though it’s unclear how many. The ICE Denver field office spokesperson, Steve Kotecki, said in an email that the agency doesn’t release personnel numbers because of “operational security.” ICE officers may also come from out of state to perform immigration enforcement.

Crook County 

Crook County Sheriff Jeff Hodge sees his office’s formal ICE agreement, in effect since Jan. 7, as another law enforcement tool.

Crook County deputies aren’t seeking out immigrants lacking permanent legal status, Hodge said, but if deputies respond to an incident and encounter someone they suspect may be in the country illegally, deputies can follow through with a criminal inquiry under the 287(g) program. A deputy can ask about immigration status and transfer the suspect to ICE custody for deportation if they meet certain criteria.

“We’re focusing on criminals,” Hodge said. “You’re just not arresting every illegal out there.”

His deputies prioritized arresting criminals suspected of human trafficking, regardless of suspects’ immigration status, during one weekend operation this past winter with federal ICE agents, he said.

“They had indicators of human trafficking,” Hodge said. “That’s all I’ll say.”

Federal agents have collaborated with Crook County’s 287(g)-certified officers to crack down on noncitizen truck drivers traveling U.S. Highway 212, a 949-mile route with only about 20 miles in Crook County. The highway doesn’t have ports that require commercial vehicle inspections like interstate routes, Hodge said.

During the weekend operation, four ICE agents and deputies stopped 50 trucks and found 21 immigrant drivers lacking permanent legal status. The agents and deputies arrested four of them. Unlike the other 17, the four didn’t show they were trying to comply with U.S. immigration laws, such as renewing a work visa or applying for citizenship, Hodge said.

The operation was more ICE’s priority than his office’s, Hodge wrote in an email.

“Moving forward, policy is very pointed towards enforcing and arresting higher risk and criminal illegal immigrants,” Hodge wrote.

Crook County has two ICE agreements and is working on a third.

Crook County may get a significant sum of money for agreeing to work with ICE. Hodge’s department has received a $100,000 one-time stipend from the federal government and $15,000 per trained officer for IT and equipment every quarter. The $100,000 will pay for another patrol vehicle for deputies, he said. Nine Crook County deputies have been trained for ICE operations under the Task Force Model.

But payment has been delayed with the Department of Homeland Security’s record-breaking partial shutdown. Federal delays also have slowed Crook County from finalizing the Jail Enforcement Model agreement.

Natrona County 

The Natrona County Sheriff’s Office, overseen by Sheriff John Harlin, entered into a Task Force Model agreement last May. WyoFile asked for interviews with Harlin regarding the 287(g) agreement but didn’t receive one.

The Natrona County Sheriff’s Office is currently the only sheriff’s office in Wyoming that participates exclusively in the Task Force agreement. That’s because there are ICE agents based in Casper who already perform the duties that fall under the other two models, according to Natrona County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Kiera Hett.

“It may benefit other sheriff’s offices who don’t have an ICE office in their jurisdiction to do so, but the ICE agents here in Casper conduct those duties,” Hett wrote in an email.

The Natrona County Sheriff’s Office doesn’t have a formal internal policy for implementing the Task Force Model, according to Hett.

Asked why Harlin had opted for the Task Force Model, Hett wrote that the agreement allows deputies “to further their roadside investigations during routine patrol and traffic stops.” In a 2025 interview, Harlin told Oil City News that deputies certified to do immigration enforcement under ICE also get access to federal databases that provide more resources to conduct investigations into crimes such as human trafficking.

It’s unclear whether ICE actively courted the Natrona County Sheriff’s Office to join the agreement, as the federal agency has with other Wyoming sheriffs’ offices. When asked, Hett said that the “agreement came through mutual discussion as part of our longstanding partnership with ICE.”

The Natrona County Sheriff’s Office has received stipends totaling $137,500 to date to cover IT and equipment costs, according to Hett. “This helps ensure that the Natrona County Sheriff’s Office does not incur additional expenses related to participation, ultimately preventing any financial burden on our local community,” she wrote in an email.

Though the office doesn’t participate in the Jail Enforcement or Warrant Service Officer agreements, the Natrona County Detention Center, which the sheriff’s office operates, holds ICE detainees — sometimes for long periods. The federal government reimburses the Natrona County Sheriff’s Office at a rate of $95 per day for immigration and other federal detainees under a U.S. Marshals Service intergovernmental agreement, Hett said.

Immigration detainees from other states are sometimes housed at the Natrona County Detention Center. In July, for example, ICE transported 44 people booked on immigration holds from the ICE detention center in Aurora, Colorado, to Natrona County, Oil City News reported.

Some of those detainees remained at the Natrona County Detention Center for several months. One person from Sudan, who stayed at the detention center for about six months, was released after a judge granted his habeas corpus petition, which places the burden of proof on the detaining agency to justify detention. By that time, the man had been held in various detention centers for about two years, according to court documents. Another person from Haiti remained in Natrona County for about eight months before being transferred to another facility.

Sweetwater County

The Sweetwater County Sheriff’s Office has cooperated with ICE and other federal partners for the past two decades.

“We’ve always been a team player,” said Jason Mower, the office’s public affairs director, of longstanding relationships with federal partners.

Mower has worked for the Sweetwater County Sheriff’s Office for 17 years. The department began holding federal detainees a few years before he was hired, he said. That arrangement, however, is not part of a 287(g) agreement.

Since 2006, the federal detainee housing reimbursement rate under that agreement was $61.57 per adult detainee per day, he said. The federal government bumped the rate to $120 per day for adults after a renegotiation in 2025.

Any county jail in Wyoming can house ICE detainees, but most are limited to 48 or 72 hours, Mower said. Sweetwater County has one of the few county correctional facilities in Wyoming certified to hold federal detainees, including ICE holds, for more than 72 hours.

Mower clarified that the holds are still temporary, however, and usually intended to keep detainees until ICE can take them to a different facility. Sweetwater County deputies have been transporting detainees from Teton County, where community members launched a petition objecting to extended holds without judicial warrants and transferring people to immigration custody after arrests for minor offenses.

Sweetwater County also has a transportation contract with ICE for moving detainees between its jail and other locations. The contract reimburses wages and vehicle mileage for those transports.

In 2020, the Sweetwater County Sheriff’s Office signed onto the Warrant Service Officer Model. Under that pact, the agency has two or three specially trained deputies at the detention center who are authorized to work with ICE on requests to hold immigrant detainees for up to 48 hours beyond the time they would ordinarily be released. This gives the Department of Homeland Security time to assume custody of detainees under federal immigration law.

In 2025, Sweetwater County added the Task Force Model, becoming the first local law enforcement agency in Wyoming to do so. When it became clear that illegal immigration would be a focus of the Trump administration, Mower said, it was important for the sheriff’s office to update and finalize its agreements with ICE.

“From our perspective, it made sense seeing the writing on the wall to formalize our agreement and cooperation, so that we kept a seat at the table,” Mower said.

Under the 287(g) Task Force Model, Sweetwater County received an initial $100,000 transportation stipend, restricted to transportation-related costs, plus an equipment stipend of $7,500 per task force officer.

“We are also eligible for a quarterly stipend of $15,000 per task force officer for equipment and IT support,” Mower explained. “In addition, wages and benefits are reimbursed at 100% for actual hours worked on ICE cases, and those personnel costs are billed separately every month.”

The transportation and equipment stipends have been placed in a designated fund for future use, Mower said.

While the Task Force Model gives the sheriff’s office more authority and money, Mower said Sweetwater County mostly continues to house detainees, as the agency has always done.

“I think by and large our direct involvement under the Task Force Model has been very limited,” Mower said.

He did admit, however, that there are generally more ICE arrests now.

“The notable difference is the number of individuals,” Mower said. “That has certainly increased.”

Laramie County 

Like Sweetwater County, Laramie County Sheriff Brian Kozak was among the first Wyoming sheriffs to pursue all three 287(g) models and complete training after the Trump administration revived the Task Force Model.

Laramie County obtained its jail enforcement agreement in May 2025, with Task Force and Warrant Service model agreements following a month later. The first 23 certified officers were announced in October, and the number of deputies participating has increased to 27 since then.

Facing criticism for working with ICE and claims that officers are stopping drivers to confirm status without cause, Kozak has continued to reiterate the department’s strict policies regarding racial profiling and discrimination.

Task Force officers aren’t supposed to ask about an individual’s immigration status unless officers made “lawful contact” with the person after a lawful stop, detention or arrest based on reasonable suspicion of criminal activity, according to department policy. Stops for minor traffic violations, and the investigation of other individuals who are in the same vehicle, home or on the same job site qualify as “lawful contact,” should the officer have “reasonable suspicion.”

Each of Kozak’s deputies completed training in cultural diversity, profiling, naturalization process, document identification, visas and constitutional standards, Kozak said.

“I guarantee racial profiling will not be an issue,” Kozak wrote in an email. “I value the U.S. Constitution more than anything.”

The department has used the certification both during day-to-day enforcement duties and during large-scale targeted operations enforcing broader issues, such as trucking and transportation.

During those operations, deputies work with ICE to arrest commercial drivers and any passengers with them who have been determined to be in the U.S. without up-to-date or proper documentation.

Kozak frequently promotes these trucking operations on social media, giving them nicknames like “operation safe haul” and “truck around and find out,” a slogan which now adorns a trucker hat that Kozak shows off in his most recent video.

In some cases, deputies have contacted ICE to come to the scene to pick up individuals. Although Laramie County was involved in the arrest, the offender never enters the county jail for the initial violation.

Laramie County is paid for its efforts. The federal government has paid the sheriff’s office $100,000 for vehicle reimbursement, $180,000 for an equipment stipend and $32,388.97 for salary reimbursement as of Feb. 28.

Kozak has repeatedly assured the public that partnering with ICE is not done to subsidize the income of his employees or make up for a lack of funding, but to “uphold the rule of law.”

“We are not housing criminal aliens to make money,” Kozak said while announcing in October the first 23 deputies to complete their 287(g) certification. “We are doing it for national security, public safety and upholding the rule of law.”

Kozak does not want the department to end up reliant on these contracts for operating expenses. Instead of subsidizing employee income or operating expenses, the reimbursement funds will go to programs that will benefit the community, Kozak has said. This year, ICE funds will pay for human trafficking education campaigns.

Ultimately, Kozak sees the contract as a benefit to the community, fitting well within existing duties and speeding along arrests when deputies do encounter people whose documentation they suspect is invalid.

Community advocates, however, have warned that the contracts have cost the department community trust, especially among the families and friends of those who have been picked up by ICE.

Birgitt Paul works with Friends of Immigrants Responding Ethically, a volunteer group associated with the Unitarian Universalist Church of Cheyenne and in partnership with Highlands ​Presbyterian Church.

Not everyone in Laramie County is aware of 287(g), according to Paul. That said, she and her peers are watching the mixed-status families learn first hand that they can’t trust law enforcement. This includes agencies — like the Cheyenne Police Department — that don’t have a direct agreement with ICE but will call local sheriffs that do when they suspect someone is undocumented, she said.

“It is important to me that we maintain that trust,” Paul said. “It is how we continue to help people as teachers and health workers, and I hear from people how sad they are and how untrusted (the) police are becoming and the sheriff are becoming.”

Paul said that even people who are actively in the process of updating papers, or receiving proper documentation through federal programs like Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, are scared to go out, scared to send their children to school and even scared to stay home.

On Tuesday evening, Paul was preparing to go sit with a mother who is waiting on DACA paperwork.

“She doesn’t want to drive in a car or be a passenger in a car, because without that paperwork, her kids don’t have a mother,” Paul said.

Paul’s group is working with several community members who have reported they’ve been pulled over for no apparent reason, and had loved ones detained because of it.

According to Laramie County Sheriff’s Office, there have been no such reported incidents.

“We are aware of concerns raised by activist groups about potential impacts on community trust,” Undersheriff Chance Walkama wrote in an email. “To date, LCSO has not received reports indicating decreased trust tied to 287(g). We continue to monitor community feedback, engage in outreach, and maintain transparency about our policies and how reimbursements are used to support community programs.”

Wyoming Highway Patrol

Gov. Mark Gordon announced the Wyoming Highway Patrol’s 287(g) Task Force contract in July.

Because WHP does not operate a jail or have jail or warrant service agreements, they can only complete task force operations in counties that have a corresponding agreement between ICE and the jail, according to Lt. Col. Karl Germain, the department’s operations commander.

“If the jail isn’t participating, we don’t have the resources to transport for ICE,” Germain said. “In that case, you would try to make arrangements with ICE, if they want to come pick this person up.”

“Making arrangements” can vary, depending on the individual, reason for contact and location. If the individual has committed an arrestable offense, Germain said that WHP would still arrest them on non-immigration related offenses and inform ICE so that ICE can come and take the individual. Troopers, like participating deputies, can also contact ICE and have federal agents pick up an individual.

WHP has approximately 12 troopers certified for the task force, but that could change as more counties decide to join 287(g).

“Now, it is a volunteer program,” Germain said. “We don’t force people to go through the 287(g) training, but that’s going to be dependent on if more counties come on board.”

Unlike many of the county agencies participating, WHP is not taking financial compensation for its work, though reimbursement is available, according to Germain.

“There’s money for overtime and money for equipment, but since we’re not doing anything that is a burden to the WHP, there isn’t a need to reimburse for anything,” Germain said.

The agency did not draft any policies specific to 287(g), though existing anti-discrimination policies and policies that mandate the adherence to the Fourth Amendment still apply to 287(g)-certified troopers, Germain said.

“All of those protections are organically already in place within law enforcement,” Germain said. “When you go through the 287(g) training, which I have been through, there is extensive emphasis put on discrimination, Fourth Amendment rights, developing reasonable suspicion, and what you can and can’t do on a traffic stop.”

Germain emphasized that constitutional rights apply regardless of legal status.

Campbell County 

Campbell County Sheriff Scott Matheny said his office gets $80 per night for every ICE detainee the jail holds. The jail sometimes holds detainees from neighboring Crook County, which is working on its own jail agreement with ICE.

Campbell County participates in ICE’s Warrant Service program. But Matheny said he doesn’t see a need for an added and more extensive agreement with ICE.

“We don’t really have the population here,” Matheny said. “I think everything we have right now covers what we need.”

Uinta County 

Last summer, Uinta County Sheriff Andy Kopp secured pay raises for his entire department based on revenue from ICE for holding immigrant detainees on a short-term basis at the Uinta County Detention Center.

But Uinta County’s agreement isn’t a 287(g) with ICE. It’s a separate agreement with the U.S. Marshals Service to hold an estimated 31 federal detainees: 25 men and six women.

Kopp negotiated a per diem increase from $66 to $120 per inmate last fall for that existing agreement at a time when his department was facing budget cuts due to the Wyoming Legislature’s property tax relief measures.

“If you took a 25% hit from your annual business and you wanted to make that up the quickest way possible … ICE just kind of hit us at the right time with the numbers they could [offer],” Kopp told the Uinta County Herald last month. “We knew we’d have that steady stream of revenue.”

Even with money from ICE, his office cut positions to afford the raises. Kopp has declined to sign onto any 287(g) agreements with ICE despite the potential financial benefits.

Like Campbell County, Kopp doesn’t see a need for joining the program.

“We don’t have a criminal illegal immigrant issue,” Kopp said of Uinta County, describing a 287(g) contract as a “community disruptor.”

“But we’re still looking at other options,” Kopp said, suggesting he plans to take in more state and federal inmates, being held for crimes not related to immigration enforcement, once deportation efforts begin to dwindle.

The contract to house inmates for the state, however, remains at an outdated $65 per detainee, per day.

“That doesn’t even cover operation costs,” Jail Administrator Lt. Brendan Morrow said.

Other agencies 

Carbon and Lincoln counties have had Warrant Service Officer agreements with ICE since June and November respectively. The towns of Wheatland, Shoshoni, Pine Bluffs and Moorcroft signed Task Force Model agreements with ICE in April.

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Judge temporarily blocks Wyoming’s newest abortion ban

Natrona County District Judge Dan Forgey on Friday temporarily halted enforcement of Wyoming’s newest anti-abortion law while a legal challenge against it proceeds. 

The law in question, which was passed by the Wyoming Legislature during the 2026 session and took effect in March, bans abortion in all but the earliest days of pregnancy. More specifically, the “heartbeat” law makes abortion illegal beyond approximately the sixth week of pregnancy, when it’s first possible to detect fetal cardiac activity. 

The plaintiffs in the case, which include the few providers who perform abortions in Wyoming, argue the law is unconstitutional due to language in the state constitution that protects an individual’s right to make their own health care decisions. 

Those protections were also the basis for the Wyoming Supreme Court’s January decision to strike down two previous abortion bans. 

Wyoming Attorney General Keith Kautz argued at a Wednesday hearing that the new law fits within the bounds of the Wyoming Constitution and the high court’s decision. He also pushed back on the plaintiffs’ argument that the law was too ambiguous and that detection of a heartbeat was an arbitrary point to enforce restrictions.

The plaintiffs, however, “made a sufficient showing of irreparable injury,” Judge Forgey wrote in his Friday decision temporarily halting the law’s enforcement. 

“The state defendants did not persuasively argue otherwise,” he wrote. 

Forgey also pointed to the high court’s January ruling, known as the Johnson case.  

“The plaintiffs have on this record made a sufficient showing of probable success that justifies their request for temporary injunctive relief, particularly when the statues at issue are evaluated and considered according to Article 1, [Section] 38 of the Wyoming Constitution, and how the Wyoming Supreme Court applied it in Johnson.”

This is a breaking news story and may be updated.

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TerraPower breaks ground on a rarity: A nuclear reactor, Wyoming’s first

KEMMERER—Because of high winds, Andy Chrusciel joked that he kept his construction helmet cranked so tight it gave him a headache. Walking around the site of the Natrium nuclear power plant, even that painful setting wasn’t enough to keep the hat atop his head — the construction manager raised a hand to pin it down.

Vulnerable headgear wasn’t the only casualty of Wyoming gales that ripped across the Green River Basin on Wednesday.

The winds were also temporarily complicating a much-anticipated construction project that’s now officially underway. Specifically, crews have started to prep the site where Wyoming’s first nuclear power plant is going — at the tip of the Wyoming Range just south of Kemmerer. The crane and the smaller lifts had even been lowered for the day because of the wind, explained Andrew Stockett, a senior project manager. If crews kept working with gusts breaching 30 miles per hour, the siding the lifts were hoisting risked turning into sails, he said.

Proponents say the frontloaders and heavy haulers shaping the earth at the nuclear portion of the TerraPower facility outside of Kemmerer are cause for celebration.

“It’s really historic,” TerraPower CEO Chris Levesque told WyoFile over the phone. “Wyoming is really the center of this. It will have benefits for Wyoming: cheap electricity and jobs.”

Levesque’s appearance at a groundbreaking ceremony was another casualty of the wind. His plane couldn’t land in Salt Lake City because of it.

The 345-megawatt Natrium nuclear plant is expected to take 42 months to build, putting its expected completion date in 2031. If that timeline comes to fruition, the nuclear demonstration plant will be completed — from announcement to contributing electrons to the power grid — in almost exactly one decade.

Nearly five years ago, the Bill Gates-backed Bellevue, Washington company selected a site near the Naughton natural gas-fired power plant for its nuclear plant because of the availability of land, water for cooling and electrical transmission infrastructure. The project was billed as a way to address climate change while helping to meet the nation’s energy demands.

Permitting was a major hurdle. By early 2025, however, the Natrium plant received a Wyoming Industrial Siting Council permit. Then in March, the facility was awarded a U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission construction permit.

A ton of work went into that, Levesque said.

“We had about 1,000 engineers working on the design for over three years,” he said. “That’s really what enabled us to get the approval from the federal regulators.”

The Natrium nuclear power plant is named after the Latin word for sodium, which is the cooling agent. That’s part of what makes it “next generation” technology — because the plant’s cooling doesn’t require water, which builds great pressure, it requires less steel and concrete to make it safe. In turn, Natrium will take much less labor and time to build to completion.

“We say it’s not your grandfather’s power plant,” Levesque said. “It’s a totally different design.”

The nuclear reactor is also being built underground. Those modifications differentiate the Natrium plant from the 94 existing nuclear reactors distributed at 54 power plants around the country.

It’s also supposed to be cheaper. Shortly after Kemmerer was picked to host the plant, it was billed as a $4 billion community-changing project that would generate about 1,300 construction jobs and another 250 long-term positions.

That price tag has risen. The expense of construction labor and steel has “changed a lot,” said Levesque, who declined to specify the new estimate. Regardless of the cost, the new technology is expected to compete economically, he said.

“The Natrium reactor will be competitive with combined-cycle natural gas plants,” Levesque said, “which are seen as the cheapest electricity out there.”

Bringing a new nuclear plant online is no small feat. Since the 1979 Three Mile Island nuclear reactor partial meltdown, the industry’s been lethargic, with more plants being decommissioned than built. Only three reactors have come online in the 21st century: In 2016, the Tennessee Valley Authority finished the Watts Bar Unit 2 reactor and two reactors were added to Georgia’s massive Plant Vogtle in 2023 and 2024.

“It’s a big deal for the industry,” Levesque said. “This is America’s next commercial nuclear power station.”

TerraPower also has big plans. By the time the Natrium demonstration plant is supposed to be wrapped up in 2031, the plan is to have construction on multiple other reactors underway. Between two and eight of those could be providing power for Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram.

“We plan on being at 10 to 12 units delivered per year by the end of the 2030s,” Levesque said.

Construction of the very first is now underway in Wyoming.

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Wyoming’s road safety faces ‘significant’ funding shortfall, report finds

Be it sports teams traveling to tournaments, long-haul trucks traversing Interstate 80 or workers heading across the state for meetings, long drives are as much a part of life in Wyoming as the wind. 

And yet, Wyoming faces a significant funding shortfall that poses steep challenges in maintaining and improving highways, bridges, overpasses and other infrastructure. Without the ability to make needed repairs now, the state will likely face larger and more costly reconstruction projects in the future. 

That’s the conclusion of a new report released Wednesday by TRIP, a national transportation research nonprofit. 

“Due to a lack of adequate funding, [Wyoming officials] are anticipating to see some deterioration of major roads and bridges,” said TRIP’s Director of Policy and Research Rocky Moretti. 

The report also identified the top 25 projects that Wyoming needs to tackle to improve safety. “Unfortunately, the resources for the actual construction of those projects currently are lacking,” Moretti said Wednesday during a virtual press briefing. 

Flat revenue streams coupled with inflation in construction costs have exacerbated the issue, Wyoming Department of Transportation Director Darin Westby said. The situation forced the department into a “preservation-only” mode years ago, Westby said, which inhibits planning, designing and implementing crucial projects. 

That approach is unsustainable, he added. 

“We can’t keep putting lipstick on that pig and thinking that it’s going to last forever,” Westby said.

Unfunded needs 

Local, state and federal governments fund Wyoming’s transportation projects. Compared to the national average and relative to surrounding states, Wyoming is heavily reliant on federal funding. 

State-level highway user fees, including fuel taxes, vehicle registrations and driver license fees, contribute to the funding streams. Wyoming’s state fuel taxes for gasoline and diesel are the lowest of the six surrounding states, the report states.

As of 2019, WYDOT’s unfunded needs were estimated at $400 million a year, Westby said during the Wednesday press event. Fast forward to today, he said, “we’re sitting at about $600 million.” Road needs comprise roughly half of that, he added, with the other half related to administrative duties. 

TRIP continually monitors funding conditions across the country, Moretti said, and initiates research projects when it identifies significant funding gaps. That’s what led to the latest report. 

“It was clear that the state was really challenged to move forward with a number of projects, and so we offered to prepare this report,” he said. 

The report drills down on the state’s needs and challenges. Some of the takeaways include: 

• In 2025, 33% of Wyoming’s state-maintained roads were in poor condition. WYDOT estimates that by 2028, that will grow to 37%, with nearly 250 additional miles of roadway falling into poor condition.
• WYDOT estimates that under current funding constraints, between 2024 and 2028, the number of state-owned bridges in poor condition is projected to increase by 54% (from 80 to 123).
• After spiking in 2022 and 2023, the state’s traffic fatality rate fell in 2024 to 1.12 fatalities for every 100 million miles traveled — lower than the national average of 1.2. 
• Approximately 148,000 full-time jobs in Wyoming in industries like tourism, retail sales, agriculture and manufacturing are dependent on the state’s transportation network.
• With $61 billion of goods shipped annually to and from sites in Wyoming, the state’s economy depends heavily on the reliability of the transportation system. 

Renny MacKay, director of the Wyoming Business Alliance, echoed transportation’s role in the state’s business landscape.

“It impacts all of our members,” MacKay said, “and they all know how important roads are to their business and to the safety of their employees, to the safety of their families and the safety of their customers.”

Top 25 list

The report lays out the 25 projects it deems as most important to improve safety, reliability and condition of Wyoming’s transportation system. Regular drivers in the state will no doubt recognize familiar bottlenecks, constraints or dangerous stretches in this list — from tight curves in Wind River Canyon to commuter traffic jams into Jackson. 

No. 1 on the list is to reconstruct and redesign the interchange between I-80 and I-25 in Cheyenne, a $500 million project. No. 2 is widening U.S. Highway 287 from Laramie to the Colorado state line, a $59 million project. No. 3 entails improvements along 200 miles of I-80 — including truck climbing zones, variable speed limit zones, truck parking and chain-up areas. It is estimated to cost $270 million. 

“I think that top 25 list … really does show us something else, and that is how much safer our roads could be with adequate funding,” MacKay said. 

WYDOT has been working with the Legislature for several years to increase funding, Westby said. With the enormous price tag of many projects, the agency is also searching for other funding sources, such as federal grants. The TRIP report, he said, will continue to help lay out the case for finding transportation funding. 

The Legislature’s Transportation, Highways and Military Affairs Committee will examine the issue over the legislative off-season. Its top interim priority entails a study of how WYDOT is funded and an exploration of ways to reduce the department’s budget shortfalls. 

That committee meets May 4 in Cheyenne to discuss interim topics.

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Executive order ensures summer food assistance for Wyoming kids

In 2024, Wyoming became one 15 states to opt out of a new federal program to supplement the meals of needy children during the summer months. In 2025, the Legislature opted out again when it killed a bill to sign up the state for the SUN Bucks program. And in March, lawmakers once again declined — this time quashing the governor’s $1.8 million budget request to administer it.

Citing a “vital” need for healthy meals all year round, Gov. Mark Gordon on Wednesday announced one-time funding secured to implement SUN Bucks in Wyoming this summer.

“While the Legislature was unwilling to make sure our young children get food throughout the summer months,” Gordon said, “we have stepped up to ensure it happens.”

The governor signed Executive Order 2026-02, which directs the Department of Family Services to develop and implement a Wyoming SUN Bucks program starting in June.

The federal grocery benefit loads a debit card with $120 per child to buy groceries during the three-month summer, the idea being to fill the gap when free and reduced-price lunches aren’t available because school isn’t in session.

Critics of SUN Bucks — who in Wyoming have included Superintendent of Public Instruction Megan Degenfelder and Wyoming Freedom Caucus lawmakers — have likened the federal assistance to a welfare program in disguise.

Supporters, meanwhile, say it can add one more layer of crucial support for hungry children in a state where one in six people experience food insecurity. 

Summer supplements

The Biden administration launched the USDA-funded summer program in 2024. The program requires states to pay 50% of administrative costs. School-aged children whose families receive SNAP or other income-based benefits are automatically enrolled when a state participates.

Summer electronic benefit transfers reduce child hunger and improve diet quality, according to evaluations of a multi-year demonstration project cited by the agency. The project decreased the number of kids with very low food security by about one-third and supported healthier diets, USDA said.

Degenfelder, however, said she preferred to improve Wyoming’s existing program rather than sign on.

“I will not let the Biden administration weaponize summer school lunch programs to justify a new welfare program,” Degenfelder told WyoFile in early 2024. “Thanks, but no thanks. We will continue to combat childhood hunger the Wyoming way.”

Along with participating in the National School Lunch Program, a federally assisted program that provides low-cost or no-cost lunches to children living in eligible areas each school day, Wyoming also participates in the federally assisted Summer Food Service program.

The summer program feeds kids by opening meal sites — hosted by sponsors like schools or camps — where children can get a meal. Meal sites are located in areas where the local school or census block has a population with greater than 50% eligibility for free and reduced lunches.

In 2025, there were 88 Wyoming summer sites in 32 communities across 18 of the state’s 23 counties under the program, according to the Wyoming Department of Education.

Due to distance, working parents’ schedules or other factors, not all children can reach those meal sites, food security advocates say.

“The reach of such programs is limited, and the program does not allow for choice in the same way as the SUN Bucks program, which is intended to supplement — not replace — the summer feeding program,” according to the American Friends Service Committee, which advocates for nationwide SUN Bucks participation.

The number of states participating in SUN Bucks has grown to 38.

Lacking legislative support 

After the Wyoming House killed House Bill 341, “Summer nutrition assistance for children,” in 2025, First Lady Jennie Gordon appealed to lawmakers to reconsider. Gordon has made food security a top priority in recent years with the Wyoming Hunger Initiative.

“Here’s the reality: 35,000 of our kids who face food insecurity will do so in the summer,” First Lady Gordon told members of the Legislature’s Joint Education Committee. “It’s not their fault, their families are struggling and can’t pay bills, and we can debate why that is or how we can get those families back on track, but in the meantime, those children should not be left [hungry].”

When Gov. Gordon unveiled his original budget proposal in November, it included a request for $1.8 million of state funding for SUN Bucks. He reiterated the request in his February State of the State address, asking: “What kind of people are we if we won’t feed our kids?”

Though it spurred rigorous debate, the request did not gain enough support to pass.

Representing common opposition stances, Rep. Scott Smith, R-Lingle, questioned the role of the government to take care of people from cradle to grave and wondered where social safety net expansion ends.

“I think there’s an element where communities have already taken this up,” Smith said during House debate on the budget request in February, referring to school programs and food banks. He also warned about the consequences of entitlements growing too generous.

“There’s an element of pride that comes when a parent can go to work, take care of their child, feed their child,” he said. “When they get a handout, we take that away from them.”

After the Legislature declined to fund his request, Gordon went to work on an alternative for implementing SUN Bucks. The executive order he signed Wednesday directs the Department of Family Services to develop a plan consistent with federal guidelines that will reach all 23 of Wyoming’s counties.

The program will allow participants to purchase foods based on SNAP purchasing rules, according to Gordon’s order. It will run from June through August.

“We have been able to cobble together a one-time-only, bare bones effort, using current Wyoming Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) data and Department of Education data, to ensure current eligible children will be fed,” Gordon said in a press release.

Gordon’s staff did not supply WyoFile with an estimated cost and source of the funds by press time.

First Lady Gordon championed the effort in a release. “Expanding access to nutritious food for families in our rural communities makes our entire state stronger,” she said.

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Feds order Flaming Gorge drop to save imperiled Lake Powell from potential structural failure

Federal officials formally announced Friday they will draw an extra 660,000 to 1 million acre-feet of water from Flaming Gorge Reservoir on the Wyoming-Utah border over the next 12 months to prevent downstream Lake Powell from dropping below “minimum power pool” the point at which it could no longer produce power. 

The desperate move is in response to projections that show Lake Powell, “without major intervention,” could drop below 3,490 feet in elevation by August, which would kill hydroelectric generation at Glen Canyon Dam. If it drops even further, the dam is in danger of structural failure.

With extra releases from Flaming Gorge and by reducing flows from Lake Powell by about 1.5 million acre-feet of water through September, the Bureau of Reclamation hopes to prevent such a catastrophe.

“Together, these actions are expected to increase Lake Powell’s elevation by approximately 54 feet to at least [an] elevation [of] 3,500 feet by April 2027,” the agency said in a press release Friday afternoon.

“Given the severity of the risks facing the Colorado River system, it is imperative that we take action quickly to protect a resource that supplies water to 40 million people and supports vital agricultural, hydropower production, tribal, wildlife and recreational uses across the region,” the Bureau of Reclamation’s Assistant Secretary of Water and Science Andrea Travnicek said in a prepared statement.

The extra releases at Flaming Gorge, which has a maximum capacity of 3.8 million acre-feet, are in line with recent warnings from Wyoming water officials. Earlier this month, Wyoming Senior Assistant Attorney General Chris Brown braced stakeholders for a release of potentially 1 million acre-feet of water, maybe more.

Still, the draw on the southwest Wyoming reservoir — a popular destination for fishing and other recreation — is sure to cause some pain. Now at about 83% capacity, according to federal estimates, the extra release will drop Flaming Gorge by about 35 feet over the next year.

“Boating access may be reduced earlier in the season than normal,” the bureau said. “In the Grand Canyon, lower flow rates will affect rafting conditions and fishing may be more challenging.”

The bureau noted that it’s not planning to tap other “backup” reservoirs above Lake Powell. It will not draw extra releases from Blue Mesa in Colorado and the Navajo Reservoir in New Mexico due to their already low water levels and forecasted inflows.

But drought response plans are still in flux, the agency warned, and it will exercise “as much operational flexibility as possible.”

Flaming Gorge also played a vital backup role for Lake Powell in 2023 when Colorado River authorities released an extra 465,000 acre-feet of water.

Wyoming, like other Colorado River headwater states, suffered an historically warm winter along with alarmingly low snowpack in the mountains that feed the Colorado River. 

All the while, Wyoming and the other Colorado River Basin states have missed multiple deadlines to agree on a new drought response plan for the system — a situation that portends a tangle of lawsuits and more federal actions that are unlikely to please any of the stakeholders.

“With time running out, there is a need for extraordinary collaboration for 2027 and beyond,” the bureau said.

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