The nation’s 573 national wildlife refuges are at risk and not a single refuge has the resources it requires, according to a recent U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service inventory. 

Put together, the national wildlife refuge system encompasses 96 million acres, an area larger than Montana, and includes everything from the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge’s 19 million acres in Alaska to the diminutive Bamforth National Wildlife Refuge — a springtime pitstop for migrating waterfowl — on Wyoming’s Laramie Plains. Created 122 years ago under President Theodore Roosevelt, the system now lacks the workforce and other resources necessary to fulfill its mission — “to administer a national network of lands and waters for the conservation, management and, where appropriate, restoration of the fish, wildlife and plant resources and their habitats within the United States for the benefit of present and future generations of Americans” — National Wildlife Refuge System Chief Cynthia Martinez shared on Wednesday.                         

“Capacity right now is at a tipping point that puts both the economic and the conservation vitality of the National Wildlife Refuge System at risk,” Martinez told members of a call hosted by the National Wildlife Refuge Association. 

The inventory, Martinez explained, sorted all 573 refuges into four categories. The first group of refuges was those that have “full required resources” — units that have adequate staff and funding to “fully achieve administration, management and mission goals and objectives” and provide public uses. 

“We acknowledge that we have no units or field stations that currently meet this standard,” Martinez said. 

Meanwhile, 57% of national refuges fall into the second category, defined as having “limited resources” and operating with “a portion of the required staff and funding.” These units can only “partially achieve goals,” she said. 

“This is where we begin to see limited visitor center hours and stations heavily supported by volunteers,” Martinez said. 

The third category of wildlife refuges are those with “insufficient resources.” Some 35% of the agency’s properties fall in this camp, and they “lack sufficient staff and funding” needed to achieve their goals and receive “little or no maintenance or management.” 

A fourth and final category of refuges, 8% of all sites, are those agency leadership considers “shuttered.” The classification means that the federal properties lack “staff and funding necessary to achieve any goals,” Martinez said. 

“Shutter doesn’t mean that the refuge isn’t still providing some level of habitat for species,” she said, “but it is just not receiving the staff or the funding that’s necessary to achieve [its] goals.” 

Martinez’s hour-long briefing with advocates, former staff and “friends groups” that support the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service was carefully apolitical. She never named President Donald Trump or Elon Musk, the billionaire leading the Department of Government Efficiency, which has been gutting federal workforces and exacerbating conditions for refuges and other federal lands in Wyoming and around the country. 

“We’re still at the beginning of a new administration,” Martinez said. “We’re going to be getting more direction on our priorities of this administration as our new director is voted in.” 

The likely incoming director is Brian Nesvik, a former Wyoming Game and Fish Department director who’s cleared his first two hurdles in the U.S. Senate confirmation process. 

“He has identified refuges as one of his top five priorities for the Fish and Wildlife Service,” Martinez said. “I’m expecting that we’ll see Brian sometime, hopefully in early, mid-May.” 

If confirmed, Nesvik will be joined by Josh Coursey, a southwestern Wyoming big game hunting advocate who just announced an appointment to the Fish and Wildlife Service.

What about Wyoming’s refuges? 

Although Martinez outlined the status of the National Wildlife Refuge System’s properties in broad strokes, the status of individual refuges remains undisclosed to the public. The list detailing which refuges fall into each category has not seen daylight, according to Desiree Sorenson-Groves, president of the National Wildlife Refuge Association.

“There is no way that’s getting leaked out until I’m sure Brian [Nesvik] has a chance to get in and see it,” she said. 

WyoFile was unable to ascertain which categories Wyoming’s seven federally managed refuges have been assigned to. Agency employees reported that they were unauthorized to talk with the media about the topic.

Wyoming’s refuges include: the 1,166-non-contiguous-acre Bamforth National Wildlife Refuge on the Laramie Plains; the 1,968-acre Cokeville Meadows National Wildlife Refuge along the Bear River; the 1,928-acre Hutton Lake National Wildlife Refuge on the Laramie Plains; the 1,968-acre Mortenson Lake National Wildlife Refuge on the Laramie Plains; the 24,700-acre National Elk Refuge in Jackson Hole; the 16,807-acre Pathfinder National Wildlife Refuge surrounding the reservoir; and the 26,210-acre Seedskadee National Wildlife Refuge that winds along the Green River. (Refuges located on the Laramie Plains are included in the Service’s new Wyoming Toad Conservation Area — a complex that provides habitat for the endangered amphibian.)

WyoFile was unable to file an interview request with the Fish and Wildlife Service’s Mountain-Prairie Region, which includes Wyoming and seven other states. Its regional communications team has been eliminated and contact information has been scrubbed from its website. Most if not all 12 members of the team accepted a recent buyout offer — the second round of the Deferred Resignation Program — in anticipation of an upcoming “reduction in force,” according to a federal employee familiar with the situation. WyoFile is granting the person anonymity for fear of retaliation.

Part of the reason the entire regional communications team took the buyout is because Interior Secretary Doug Burgum has signaled in a secretarial order that he’s consolidating communications teams throughout his department and dedicated Fish and Wildlife Service teams will cease to exist. 

Other programs within the agency are also being eliminated, according to the source. Earlier this week, members of Fish and Wildlife’s “Science Applications” program showed up to work and were told to go home. 

“They were told the program is being dissolved — I would guess it’s because of the climate work — but they don’t really tell us why,” the source told WyoFile. 

In the wake of the second round of buyouts, the Fish and Wildlife Service as a whole is “pretty gutted,” according to the source.

“Moving ahead with even more cuts, I can’t imagine,” the employee said. “It’s going to be incredibly difficult to function.” 

In Wyoming, cuts have affected many different Fish and Wildlife Service programs: There are plans to close the agency’s tribal office in Lander, a hollowing out of the staff of the Saratoga National Fish Hatchery and blows to black-footed ferret recovery programs. The lack of communications and publicly available information makes it difficult to know if any other programs have been impacted. 

In shambles across the agency

During the National Wildlife Refuge Association call, one attendee asked Martinez about overall reductions in the workforce during the first three months of the Trump administration. Until the second round of buyouts are processed and contracts are signed, “we’re not going to know the true number,” she said. 

But Sorenson-Groves, the association president, has come up with some ballpark numbers for the National Wildlife Refuge System portion of the agency. At the end of 2024, she said, there were roughly 2,350 employees. Although the system manages more acreage than the National Park Service, she pointed out, its workforce was only about a tenth of the size. 

The cuts, she said, are expected to reduce the workforce down to 1,800-1,900 by the end of May — when people who are taking early retirements will leave.

“The refuge system will have lost at least 20% of their staff, and it could be more,” Sorenson-Groves told WyoFile. “Other agencies, they’re dealing with that too — like the Forest Service or the BLM or the Park Service, but the refuge system was in a different place already.” 

Wildlife refuges, she said, haven’t been prioritized by Congress or presidential administrations of either party for the last 15 years. During that period, the system lost 30% of its staff, while public visitation throughout the system climbed by 50%.

“People have found refuges and discovered them, which I think is wonderful, but they don’t have the capacity,” Sorenson-Groves said. 

It’s not just the rank-and-file biologists and workers being hemorrhaged. 

A third of Fish and Wildlife’s regional directors have quit, according to the federal employee who WyoFile is granting anonymity. In the Southwest Region, only two of eight members of the leadership team are still on the job, the source said, and the communications leadership and headquarters office are “pretty much wiped out.”

The loss of leadership is an especially painful blow, Sorenson-Groves said. 

“Those are people who have the institutional knowledge and, frankly, the political acumen to work through really complicated issues, whether it’s water or mineral extraction or habitat in highly urbanized areas,” she said. “These are complicated issues. And they’re all leaving.”

The post Report: Wildlife Refuge System ‘at risk’ with no units fully resourced amid DOGE uncertainty appeared first on WyoFile .

A dismayed Chris Servheen is raising the alarm about what’s become of federal scientists who have kept watch over the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem’s grizzly bear population for the last 55 years. 

The group of research biologists and technicians, known as the Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team, are being hamstrung at best and arguably dismantled, he told WyoFile. For decades, until his retirement in 2016, Sevheen worked closely with the study team while coordinating grizzly bear recovery for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. 

“It’s functionally destroying the organization,” Servheen said Thursday. “The study team has been in place since 1970 — over 50 years of work and experience and knowledge. It’s going to just disappear and die.” 

Servheen’s perplexed about what the Trump administration has to gain. 

“How could anybody be so negligent and vile that they’re trying to destroy something that has brought grizzly bears back from the edge of extinction?” he said. “Why would you do that? It’s just so destructive.”

Led by Elon Musk, the Department of Government Efficiency’s dismantling started with a hiring freeze. Longtime supervisory wildlife biologist Mark Haroldson retired, and his position is not being filled, according to Servheen. Then, the team’s longtime leader, Frank van Manen, announced an earlier-than-desired retirement. 

“He didn’t want to leave,” Servheen said of van Manen, who declined to comment. 

According to Servheen, van Manen’s departure was related to the federal government’s ongoing upheaval.  

“They’re putting fear into people,” Servheen said. “That’s basically evil, to do that to hard-working people who have been civil servants for decades.” 

The Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team is part of the U.S. Geological Survey, and its website lists four other employees. Three are technicians, which are often seasonal, entry-level employees. The remaining staff biologist has been in the job about three years.

“They’re putting fear into people. That’s basically evil, to do that to hard-working people who have been civil servants for decades.” 

Chris servheen

If any of the study team’s employees opt to stick it out amid a second wave of buyouts, they’re likely to be out of an office space come fall. The Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center, described by its director as “one of the nation’s key laboratories to study the ecosystems and species of the Northern Rockies,” is one of hundreds of federal facilities being shuttered by DOGE. 

Although located in Bozeman, many of the federal facility’s researchers do work in Wyoming. 

“They do all kinds of other stuff: brucellosis and chronic wasting disease and aquatic species,” Servheen said. “It’s a huge science center.” 

The planned closure has elicited protests. According to Yellowstonian.org, 42 retired or active biologists petitioned Montana’s congressional delegation to use their influence to “protect [the science center] and its employees from these unwarranted attacks by DOGE.”

Federal offices located in Wyoming have not escaped the closures. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s tribal-focused Lander conservation office and a USGS Cheyenne water science station are among those that have been marked for the chopping block. 

WyoFile could not officially confirm impacts to the Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team. Federal agencies under the Trump administration have declined or not responded to WyoFile’s requests for more information on downsizing and office closures. An inquiry to a USGS public affairs officer on Thursday yielded no information about the matter. 

The Center for Biological Diversity has been pressing the federal agency for details as well. On Thursday, the environmental advocacy organization publicized a Freedom of Information Act request to gain more insight into the future of the federal grizzly team. 

Both recently departed veteran study team members — van Manen and Haroldson — are staying engaged in grizzly science in pro-bono emeritus roles, according to a source familiar with the situation. 

Nevertheless, Servheen worries that the hit to the science team could trickle down to the grizzly population — estimated at 1,000 or so bears in the Greater Yellowstone — that it’s charged with studying.

Over the decades, federal researchers have played a pivotal role in improving understanding of the region’s bruins, including completing studies that have helped make the case that grizzly bears are fully recovered and no longer require Endangered Species Act protection. They’ve also amassed mortality and other demographic datasets and compiled an annual report. 

“The foundation of Yellowstone grizzly bear recovery has been built on science,” Servheen said. “Removing that science eliminates our ability to maintain Yellowstone grizzly bears.”

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The six-person staff of Wyoming Humanities got word early this week that President Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s DOGE was examining the National Endowment for the Humanities — the 60-year-old federal organization that funds a network of humanities councils in every state.  

Then a strange email arrived in the inbox of Wyoming Humanities Executive Director and CEO Shawn Reese. His email service even flagged it as dangerous spam and “quarantined” the missive as a phishing attempt. 

On Friday morning, he retrieved the email out of its quarantine hold and read it. “Basically it says our federal funding is cancelled as of April 2,” Reese said.  

“NEH has reasonable cause to terminate your grant in light of the fact that the NEH is repurposing its funding allocations in a new direction in furtherance of the President’s agenda,” the letter reads.

NEH funding makes up some 80% of Wyoming Humanities budget, Reese said, and pays for operating expenses at the nonprofit, which promotes and supports humanities programs across Wyoming. These include grants for traveling theater performances, community conversations with authors on Wyoming topics or celebrations like the Teton Powwow and Native American Showcase in Jackson. 

The cut may mark the end of a five-decade affiliation Wyoming Humanities has enjoyed with the National Endowment for the Humanities. And while Reese says his organization will be able to continue awarding grants through at least June 2026, other financial headwinds related to state support are combining with this one to force the nonprofit to rethink its future.

“It’s a scenario that we’ve been thinking about even before any of these federal changes,” he said. “We’re trying to imagine, how do we as an organization continue to move forward and advance a very important mission and support this network of community organizations that are doing important work for the state of Wyoming?”

It’s still too early for all the specifics, but Reese expects Wyoming communities to feel impacts. A popular traveling exhibit program affiliated with the Smithsonian will end, he said. The cuts also will affect direct federal grants to other initiatives unrelated to Wyoming Humanities — such as a grant the Meeteetse Museums secured to install a solar array that was also just terminated. 

Reese hopes the challenge will galvanize creatives to find innovative ways to keep the arts alive. 

“We all know that arts and culture are important in our communities,” Reese said. “They’re intrinsically important. So we can’t wallow in despair. We have to harness our creativity, and that’s what this sector is about.”

Humanities organizations

The National Endowment for the Humanities was founded in 1965, under the same legislation as the more well-known National Endowment for the Arts. The Humanities Endowment is the only federal agency dedicated to funding the humanities and has awarded more than $6 billion in grants to museums, historical sites, universities, libraries and other organizations, according to its website.

A significant piece of its overall funding, 40%, goes to state humanities councils like Wyoming’s. Those councils act as umbrellas, partnering with other organizations to support cultural events or awarding grants to projects. 

Those federal funds cover the staff expenses, travel, marketing and other operational costs for Wyoming Humanities. Since 2012, the nonprofit also has secured about 10% of its funding from the state. 

That source is how Wyoming Humanities funds grants. These include the “Community Culture” grant, which awards up to $10,000 for oral histories, publications and community initiatives aimed at shedding light on histories or ideas that bring a community together. 

Wyoming Humanities also awards smaller “Spark Grants” of up to $2,000 for short-term cultural projects such a storytelling circle at the Big Horn Folk Festival or a panel discussion with tribal members and Wyoming lawyers to discuss the Apsaalooke religious connection to Heart Mountain near Cody. 

Grants won’t be impacted in the short term, Reese said, because the organization has secured state funding through June 2026, and it has socked away enough reserve funds and has enough additional revenue from other supporters to be able to pay for administration and staffing for now. 

What will be affected by federal funding changes, Reese said, are events that Wyoming Humanities co-sponsors and things like a partnership with the Smithsonian Institute to bring traveling exhibits through the state. “We’re going to have to discontinue that,” Reese said.

When Wyoming Humanities received the notification, Reese said, he quickly submitted a drawdown for March expenses, though he isn’t sure it will be honored. 

“I’m not sure who is left at NEH to process those requests,” he said. Agency staff were notified late Thursday that they were being placed on paid administrative leave effective immediately, NPR reported.

In addition, Reese isn’t confident Wyoming lawmakers will continue state support. Had the 2025 supplemental budget been approved, Wyoming Humanities would have become part of the regular state budget, he said. But it didn’t pass, meaning the group will need to ask the Legislature for future support.

“Based on the budget discussions during this general session, I don’t expect that funding would continue in future,” he said. 

With all the uncertainties, it’s time to huddle together with other humanities organizations, he said. “How do we reimagine the collaboration and the vision for Wyoming’s cultural sector? More than 14,000 people are employed in the sector. It’s significant, and it serves an important purpose for Wyoming. So yeah, we have [a] lot of soul searching going on.”

Direct impacts 

Meeteetse Museums, which runs three museums in a historic building in the small town of 314 people, is among the organizations that lost direct NEH funds this week. 

The Meeteetse Museum District received a $120,000 grant from NEH in 2024 to replace its roof and install solar panels. The museum raised a match to the NEH funds to replace its leaking roof and save its collections, according to the museum. But the solar installation part has yet to happen, said Executive Director Alexandra Deselms.

“We are currently in the middle of arranging to install solar panels to cut our utility costs so that we can have more financial resources to do other things,” she said Friday. She found out in a Wednesday email that the grant has been terminated. 

The museum had planned to spend about $9,000 on the final payment for the solar installation, she said, and had already submitted a downpayment and signed the contracts. Now staff is mulling a plan B.

“We do have a little bit of time to get a little more funding and approach a few donors to help save the project,” Deselms said. “But we’re kind of in limbo at the moment trying to figure out how all this is going to work.”

There’s a lot of uncertainty in the humanities sphere right now, Deselms said.

“I think we’re all really nervous,” she said. The NEH along with the Institute of Museum and Library Services  — one of the federal agencies slated to be dismantled under a Trump executive order — are the primary federal funding agencies for a number of museums and libraries across the country, including in Wyoming.

The two agencies “support arts and culture and humanities and just our communities in general,” Deselms said. “So it’s really scary to think about how that’s going to continue to impact us.”

The post Wyoming Humanities hit with DOGE funding freeze appeared first on WyoFile .

The Bureau of Land Management’s contentious plans to remove all free-roaming horses from vast reaches of southwest Wyoming’s “checkerboard” region could begin as soon as this summer, although a legal appeal to stop roundups remains in limbo. 

On Monday, the federal agency released a 47-page environmental assessment outlining plans to gather and permanently remove several thousand wild horses from 2,105 square miles — an area nearly the size of Delaware — managed by BLM’s Rock Springs and Rawlins field offices. Horses would come off an additional 1,124 square miles of private land within the checkerboard. A public review period is underway with comments due by April 30. If the BLM greenlights the round-ups, they could begin within the next three months and continue for a couple of years, possibly longer. 

First to go would be the estimated 1,125 free-roaming horses in the Salt Wells Creek herd and 736 animals in the northwestern portion of Adobe Town, according to BLM Rock Springs Field Office Manager Kimberlee Foster. Then in 2026, horse-removal crews would move on to eliminating an estimated 894 horses in the Great Divide Basin herd. 

“Additional gathers may be needed in future years to remove all wild horses to get to the zero-population goal, as some may be missed during the scheduled gathers,” Foster told WyoFile in response to emailed questions. 

Free-roaming horses, a nonnative species that faces scant predation, increase in population by about 20% annually. Reproduction, combined with missed animals during surveys, make estimating precise herd numbers difficult. The expectation is that 3,371 wild horses would be removed, but the ultimate number could range from 2,500 up to 5,000, according to the BLM. 

The push to rid southwest Wyoming’s checkerboard region of free-roaming horses traces back 15 years. The Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act directs the BLM to “to remove stray wild horses from private lands as soon as practicable upon receipt of a written request,” the environmental assessment states. In 2010, the cattle and sheep-centric Rock Springs Grazing Association, which owns and leases about 1.1 million acres of private land in the checkerboard, revoked consent to allow horses to roam on its property. 

There’s been a legal battle ever since. Lawsuits from both the Rock Springs Grazing Association and wild horse advocacy groups have targeted the BLM’s planned actions, but U.S. District Court of Wyoming Judge Kelly Rankin, a Biden appointee, ruled in the federal government’s favor in both lawsuits last August. 

Soon thereafter, a coalition of pro-horse petitioners — the American Wild Horse Campaign, Animal Welfare Institute, Western Watersheds Project, Carol Walker, Kimerlee Curyl and Chad Hanson — appealed. 

“This is just the latest lawsuit in a 12 or more year battle to save these horses,” American Wild Horse Executive Director Suzanne Roy told WyoFile. “We’ve litigated four or five times about this issue.” 

Attorneys for the federal government and horse advocacy groups exchanged arguments before the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in March. A decision is pending, but horse advocates are optimistic about their chances. 

“We have prevailed in the 10th Circuit previously on this issue,” Roy said. 

The BLM, she contended, has never before fully eliminated a herd of free-roaming horses without having demonstrated there are ecological reasons for doing so. 

“This would be the first time in the 54-year history of the Wild Horse and Burros Act that the BLM eliminated a herd management area and eradicated entire wild horse herds — two of them — when the agency itself concedes that the area has sufficient habitat for the horses,” Roy said. “It has implications for wild horse protection across the West, because if private landowners that have land adjacent to or within herd management areas are allowed to dictate the presence of wild horses on the public land, that’s a very dangerous precedent. So we are anxiously awaiting the court’s ruling.” 

Meanwhile, the BLM is staging resources necessary to move forward with its plans. The Adobe Town/Salt Wells Creek herd roundup is the largest on the BLM’s tentative wild horse and burro gather schedule for 2025. It’s scheduled to take place from July 15 through Sept. 15. In regions of the Adobe Town herd area where horses are being allowed to persist, there are related plans to remove 2,179 free-roaming horses — numbers that exceed the “appropriate management level.”

It’s unclear how or if the Trump administration’s slashing of the federal government workforce will impact the horse gather operations. Asked by WyoFile if the BLM-Wyoming’s horse and burro program is fully staffed right now, Foster, the field office manager, wrote “BLM is prepared to conduct the planned gathers with current staffing.”

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Wyoming’s lone congressional Rep. Harriet Hageman will no longer appear at town halls set for later this week in Cheyenne and Torrington, opting instead for virtual events, she announced Tuesday.

Her office blamed the change on “public events, credible threats to Hageman, and the related national outbursts of politically motivated violence and attempts at intimidation,” according to a statement posted to the congresswoman’s website. 

In response, Wyoming Democrats said Hageman and other conservatives were seeking to distract from widespread frustration with President Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s dismantling of some federal agencies. 

“I don’t think she expected the pushback that she received,” Democratic Party Chairman Joe Barbuto said. “In every community of every size that she visited, there were people of all political stripes there to say ‘hey, we’re really concerned.’”

Hageman had scheduled events in Cheyenne on Friday and Torrington on Saturday. Her decision to move them to a virtual format comes six days after a raucous crowd of more than 500 jeered the congresswoman during a tense town hall in Laramie. Though people in the crowd booed and cursed Hageman, no one was asked to leave or escorted out amid a heavy law enforcement presence, a Laramie police officer told WyoFile that night. No arrests were reported.

At one point during the back-and-forth, Hageman told her constituents that “it’s so bizarre to me how obsessed you are with the federal government. You guys are going to have a heart attack if you don’t calm down,” she said. “I’m sorry, you’re hysterical.”

Hageman cites other incidents 

More than 20 law enforcement officers were assigned to a town hall the following night in Wheatland, the statement from Hageman’s office said. “Despite the law enforcement presence, an attendee followed Hageman leaving the venue and initiated a physical confrontation with staff, into which local police were forced to intervene,” the statement reads. 

WyoFile has reached out to the Wheatland Police Department and is awaiting more information on the events described by Hageman. 

“I thank our wonderful law enforcement community for their willingness to support the public and myself while participating in our government process,” Hageman said in a statement. “It has become apparent, however, that the continuation of in-person town halls will be a drain on our local resources due to safety concerns for attendees.”

The congresswoman further alleged that her office received a number of credible threatening calls and emails, which are now the subject of a law enforcement investigation.

The Wyoming Democratic Party “certainly does not condone any kinds of violence or threats or harassment of any kind,” Barbuto said. Both elected officials and their staff in both political parties should be able to operate free from fears for their physical safety, he said.

“But at the same time, we have a fundamental right to protest,” he said. “The idea that protest is the same as chaos and using that to justify cancelling these public events is a disservice.” 

Hageman said she’s held 75 in-person town halls since running for Congress, with events in all 23 of Wyoming’s counties. All but the most recent two were held without incident, she said. 

The move to a virtual format for future events will continue “at least in the short-term,” her office said.

“It’s no secret that I am willing to engage with citizens on any topic, in any place. But I draw the line when organized protestors intentionally create confrontation and chaos, escalating tensions to a point where violence seems inevitable,” Hageman said in a statement.

Lawmakers often host town hall events in their communities during congressional downtime. In a conservative state like Wyoming, those gatherings often draw many supporters of the state’s all-Republican congressional delegation. 

But amid Trump and Musk’s dramatic cuts to federal programs and mass layoffs of government workers, upset constituents have been appearing in growing numbers at town halls across the country to demand answers from lawmakers. Republican leaders in Congress urged members to stop hosting town halls to avoid confrontations with angry constituents going viral. 

History of protests

After the Laramie event, some conservative politicians and pundits, citing the raucous nature of the event in a conservative state, suggested that the protesters weren’t legitimate constituents. But Laramie, one of the few blue-leaning communities in deeply red Wyoming, has a history of civil disobedience for left-leaning causes. During the summer and fall of 2020, for instance, hundreds of people marched through downtown to protest police brutality and the police shooting of local resident Robbie Ramirez.

One of the city’s House representatives, Karlee Provenza, described those making assertions about protesters flocking into town from other places as ignorant to Laramie’s civic nature. 

“Welcome to House District 45,” she said, “where we think a little different than the people who are sent to Washington D.C. on our behalf.”

In Laramie, Provenza continued, “people have continued to show up for things that matter to them. And they are fed up and they’re your constituents. And instead of acknowledging their concerns you [Hageman] were dismissive, so of course they were upset.”

To Provenza, the overarching message of Hageman’s tour through Wyoming, and the pushback she has seen in various towns and cities, is not that the state’s few Democrats are somehow unruly or dangerous. It is instead that certain actions of the Trump administration, and Elon Musk’s DOGE cost-cutting initiative in particular, are upsetting people, she said.

“Quite frankly, I think it’s lazy to say that their anger and suffering is not valid and has no place here,” she said of Hageman’s characterization of the reaction seen on her tour. “That’s what someone says who doesn’t have to work for their vote.” 

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Libby Lindsay spent 21 years working underground as a miner for Bethlehem Steel in West Virginia. She saw many safety improvements over the years, and always felt grateful that she could call the local Mine Safety and Health Administration office whenever she wondered whether a rule was being followed. She joined the safety committees launched by the local chapter of the United Mine Workers, which collaborated with the agency to watchdog coal companies. She understood the price that had been paid for the regulations it enforced. “Every law was written in blood,” she said. “It’s there because somebody was injured or killed.”

Still, she and others who work the nation’s mines worry President Trump is about to limit the agency’s local reach. As his administration targets federal buildings for closure and sale, 35 of its offices are on the list. Fifteen are in Appalachian coalfields, with seven in eastern Kentucky alone and the others concentrated in southern West Virginia and southeastern Pennsylvania. Of the remaining 20 offices, many are in the West, in remote corners of Wyoming, Nevada, and Colorado. Miners’ advocates worry these closures could reduce the capacity of an agency that’s vastly improved mining safety over the past 50 years or so and could play a vital role as the Trump administration promotes fossil fuels like coal, and as decarbonization efforts increase the need for lithium and other metals.

Since its inception in 1977, the agency has operated under the auspices of the Department of Labor to reduce the risks of what has always been one of the world’s most dangerous jobs. Before Congress created the agency, known as MSHA, hundreds of miners died each year, in explosions, tunnel collapses, and equipment malfunctions. (The number was far higher through the 1940s, often reaching into the thousands.) Last year, 31 people died in mining accidents, according to the agency’s data. Even after accounting for coal’s steady decline, that tally, while still tragic, reflects major strides in safety.

“Coal mining is a tough business. It’s a very competitive business. There’s always a temptation to compete on safety, to cut corners on safety, to make that your competitive advantage as a mine operator,” Christopher Mark, a government mine safety specialist who has spent decades making the job safer, told Grist. “And it’s our job to make sure that nobody can do that.”

Trump’s pick to lead MSHA, Wayne Palmer, who is awaiting confirmation, previously was vice president of the Essential Minerals Association, a trade association representing extraction companies. The Department of Labor declined to comment on the proposed lease terminations. A representative of the U.S. General Services Administration, which manages federal offices, told Grist that any locations being considered for closure have been made aware of that, and some lease terminations may be rescinded or not issued at all. 

Many of the country’s remaining underground coal mines – the most dangerous kind – are located in Appalachia. MSHA has historically placed its field offices in mining communities. Although the number of coal mines has declined by more than half since 2008, tens of thousands of miners still work the coalfields. Many of them still venture underground.

The dwindling number of fatalities comes even as the MSHA has been plagued by continued staffing and funding shortfalls, with the federal Office of the Inspector General repeatedly admonishing the agency for falling below its own annual inspection targets. It also has recommended more frequent sampling to ensure mine operators protect workers from toxic coal and silica dust. After decades of work, federal regulators finally tightened silica exposure rules, but miners and their advocates worry too little staffing and too few inspections could hamper enforcement. 

“There are going to be fewer inspections, which means that operators that are not following the rules are going to get away with not following the rules for longer than they would have,” said Chelsea Barnes, the director of government affairs and strategy at environmental justice nonprofit Appalachian Voices. The organization has worked with union members and advocates for those with black lung disease to lobby for stricter silica dust exposure limits.

Last month, the United Mine Workers’ Association denounced the proposed office closures. As demand for coal continues to decline, it worries that companies could pinch pennies to maximize profits — or avoid bankruptcy. ​​”Companies are completely dependent upon the price of coal,” said Phil Smith, executive assistant to union president Cecil Roberts. ”[If] it’s bad enough, they think, ‘Well, we can cut a corner here. We can pick a penny there.’”

The Biden administration made an effort to staff the agency. In the waning days of Biden’s term, Chris Williamson, who led the agency at the time, told Grist he was “very proud of rebuilding our team” because “you can’t go out and enforce the silica standard or enforce other things if you don’t have the people in place to do it.” The union worries that the Trump administration, which has pursued sweeping layoffs throughout the government, will target MSHA, where many of the Biden hires remain probationary employees. Despite the previous administration’s attempts to bolster the agency, it still missed inspections due to understaffing.

Anyone who isn’t terminated will have to relocate to larger offices if Trump shutters local outposts, placing them further from the mines they keep tabs on. In addition to inspecting underground mines at least quarterly and surface mines biannually, inspectors make more frequent checks of operations where toxic gases are present. They also respond to complaints. Work now done by people in the offices throughout eastern Kentucky likely would be consolidated in Lexington, Kentucky, or Wise County, Virginia, which are 200 miles apart. 

Field offices have been consolidated before, and mining experts acknowledged there may be a time and a place for such things, but it’s highly unusual to close so many without due process. In early March, the House Committee on Education and Workforce submitted a letter to Vince Micone, the acting secretary of labor, requesting documents and information on the closures and expressing concern that as many as 90 mine inspection job offers may have been rescinded. Their letter specifically referred to the agency’s history of understaffing that led to catastrophes like the Upper Big Branch mine explosion that killed 29 people in 2010, the nation’s worst mining accident in four decades.

“One of the lessons of the Upper Big Branch Mine disaster, according to MSHA’s own internal investigation, is that staffing disruptions at the managerial level resulted in MSHA’s inspectors failing to adequately address smaller-scale methane explosions in the months leading up the massive explosion that killed 29 miners fifteen years ago this April,” read the letter, which was signed by Democratic representatives Bobby Scott of Virginia and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota.

The impact of potential cuts stretches far beyond coal, into the mines that will extract the lithium and other metals needed for clean energy and other industries. As of last year, the nation employed almost 256,000 metal and nonmetal miners who pull copper, zinc, and other things from the earth. “It’s an agency that matters, regardless of how we’re producing our energy,” said Chelsea Barnes of Appalachian Voices.

After spending so much time in the mines, Lindsay is concerned by the direction the Trump administration is heading, even as lawmakers in states like West Virginia and Kentucky have in recent years attempted to roll back regulations. “That’s going to be the future of MSHA,” she said. “They’re going to be in name only. Miners are going to die. And nobody but their families are going to care.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Trump administration moves to shutter mine safety offices in coal country on Mar 25, 2025.

The owner of the Kemmerer coal mine laid off 28 workers on Friday, according to a Kemmerer Operations, LLC press statement. The job losses, which amount to roughly 13% of the mine’s workforce, followed months of rumors of possible cuts in the southwest Wyoming energy town.

“The workforce reduction is part of its ongoing efforts to align operations with current coal market conditions, including those caused by the pending natural gas conversions of several coal-fired power plants in the region,” according to the statement. “[Kemmerer Operations] appreciates the contributions and hard work of the impacted employees, and values its long-standing partnership with the United Mine Workers of America.”

In an email to WyoFile that included the press statement, Kemmerer Operations President and General Manager Don Crank said, “No further comments will be provided.”

Employees who received pink slips will work until sometime in April, according to Lincoln County Commission Chairman Kent Connelly, who said he received a call from Crank regarding the layoffs.

“Everybody’s been watching what they’re going to do, so I can’t say that it was a surprise,” Connelly told WyoFile by phone, noting that rumors of layoffs have been circulating in the community. “They finally admitted it,” he added.

The company also announced Friday it was moving from three shifts to two shifts, which means the mine will no longer be a 24-hour operation, according to Connelly.

The commissioner said he doesn’t know who in particular is being laid off. Though the job losses are sure to hit hard in the small towns of Kemmerer and Diamondville, many workers at the mine commute from all over the southwest region, including from Evanston, Mountain View, Lyman and even towns in Utah and Idaho.

Multiple new construction and industrial projects are planned or already underway in the region, Connelly noted, including TerraPower’s Natrium nuclear power plant and a major trona mine expansion outside Green River.

“I hope they will get on with these other new places that will be hiring staff,” Connelly said.

The mine produced 2.4 million tons of coal in 2024 and employed 215 workers, according to federal data. It produced more than 4.2 million tons in 2017 and employed 279 workers in the fourth quarter of that year.

News of the layoffs comes in the same week that President Donal Trump renewed promises to bring back “clean, beautiful coal.”

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Following the world’s hottest year on record and a series of increasingly intense and damaging environmental disasters, including a historically bad year for wildfires in Wyoming, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced Wednesday it is rolling back dozens of climate rules and fossil fuel regulations in an effort to “usher in the golden age of American success.”

The agency, as part of President Donald Trump’s “Unleashing American Energy” initiative, will eliminate or otherwise “reconsider” the Clean Power Plan, along with the landmark 2009 “endangerment finding” that greenhouse gases cause harm. Also on the chopping block are “Mercury and Air Toxics Standards” for coal-fired power plants, regulatory greenhouse gas reporting, a risk management program for oil and gas refineries and dozens of other federal pollution control measures.

“Today is the greatest day of deregulation our nation has seen,” EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said in a prepared statement that was accompanied by a video message. “We are driving a dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion to drive down cost of living for American families, unleash American energy, bring auto jobs back to the U.S. and more.”

The actions have major implications in Wyoming, where both fossil fuel extraction and a large federal land footprint play major economic roles and touch almost every aspect of life in the state.

Many industry officials, conservation groups and politicos in Wyoming were still absorbing the possible implications Thursday, noting the sprawling actions trigger myriad legal and logistical questions.

Compounding those questions is general uncertainty and chaos surrounding the Elon Musk-led federal employee purge, Trump’s freeze on federal funding and grant programs, as well as an ever-evolving tariff war. Further complicating the EPA’s regulatory rollback: How Wyoming, which maintains primacy over many federal emissions programs and sometimes implements more stringent requirements, might respond to the new initiatives.

From Zeldin’s perspective, the EPA’s efforts to undo “flawed” and “suffocating rules” implemented under past Democratic administrations that “restrict nearly every sector of our economy and cost Americans trillions of dollars” will make it “more affordable to purchase a car, heat homes, and operate a business.”

Asked whether oil and gas companies in Wyoming might respond by relaxing environmental mitigation efforts, Petroleum Association of Wyoming Vice President and Director of Communications Ryan McConnaughey said that’s not the intention of industry.

“If you look at the announcements that were made [this week] from their leadership, they did not say a word about the environment or protection of air or water or waste — nothing.”

John Burrows, Wyoming Outdoor Council

“Wyoming’s natural gas and oil producers have long been leaders in emissions reductions, and we have no intention of backing away from that commitment,” McConnaughey told WyoFile via email. “Throughout the Biden administration, PAW consistently sought to engage with the EPA, offering constructive feedback and voicing concerns that the regulatory approach could lead to unnecessary closures and significant increases in energy costs for American consumers.

“Unfortunately,” McConnaughey continued, “these concerns were repeatedly ignored. By ensuring regulations align with on-the-ground technological and economic realities, we can achieve emissions goals in a cost-effective and practical manner without imposing undue burdens on American businesses or households.”

Whatever the intention, the EPA’s regulatory rollbacks are sure to have negative impacts regarding the climate, as well as the health of Wyoming landscapes and wildlife, and “on people, ultimately,” Wyoming Outdoor Council Energy and Climate Policy Director John Burrows told WyoFile.

Zeldin’s announcement, Burrows said, appears to reveal a fundamental shift in mission at EPA, he added.

“The mission of the EPA is to protect human health and the environment — that is their mission,” Burrows said. “If you look at the announcements that were made [this week] from their leadership, they did not say a word about the environment or protection of air or water or waste — nothing.”

Reached for comment, Gov. Mark Gordon’s Communications Director Michael Pearlman lauded the rollback effort. Gordon has repeatedly sued the Biden administration over policies tied to the energy industry and climate change.

“These are highly impactful actions, particularly the endangerment finding, that could be extremely beneficial to Wyoming energy producers,” Pearlman said. “This is yet another step that the Trump administration has taken to relieve the stranglehold on industry created by the Biden administration’s regulations.”

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CHEYENNE—Rep. John Eklund thought back a half century, to an era when commercial sawmills processing Wyoming timber abounded and logging was the Equality State’s third-largest industry. 

“We should be able to get back to that,” the Cheyenne Republican said Tuesday morning in the Wyoming Capitol. 

It’d be a monumental recovery. 

Commercial logging in national forests around the country, including Wyoming, has fallen off dramatically from its heyday. Cut and sold timber has stagnated at a fraction of what it was from the 1950s through the 1980s for three decades running, U.S. Department of Agriculture data shows. 

Eklund made the remarks during the Legislature’s annual “forest health briefing,” a gathering that convenes state and federal foresters with state lawmakers to discuss the status of Wyoming’s forests. There was talk of current events, like Wyoming’s largest wildfire year since 1988, but much of the discourse Tuesday revolved around the reeling state of the timber industry — and what the second Trump administration might be able to do about it. 

Sen. Bob Ide, a Casper Republican, who has qualms with the very concept of federal land, asked the foresters in the room what they thought of Trump’s executive order dropped over the weekend intended to stimulate logging. 

The order, titled “Immediate Expansion of American Timber Production,” streamlines permitting processes and outlines steps that can “move projects on the ground faster,” Wyoming State Forester Kelly Norris told Ide.

Among other steps, the order compels new Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins to identify timber-cutting goals within 90 days for Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service property. Within 180 days, Burgum and Rollins are also on the hook to develop new “categorical exclusions” to the National Environmental Policy Act that could enable logging projects without time-consuming reviews of the impacts. 

Trump’s order isn’t the only prospective policy change afoot that could revitalize commercially cutting American forests. The “Fix Our Forests Act,” a measure from Rep. Bruce Westerman, R-Arkansas and co-sponsored by Wyoming Rep. Harriet Hageman, has passed the U.S. House of Representatives and moved to the U.S. Senate. The bill, proving divisive in big commercial timber country, would further expedite environmental reviews — and could potentially have immediate impacts in Wyoming. 

“I’m optimistic that the Fix Our Forests Act is going to pass,” U.S. Forest Service Rocky Mountain Regional Forester Troy Heithecker told lawmakers in attendance. “And we’re ready. We have projects lined up as soon as that bill passes.” 

Later, Heithecker pointed toward the Shoshone National Forest’s Dunoir area, which he called a “high-risk fireshed,” as an example.

“If Fix Our Forests [Act] goes through, all those high-risk firesheds have a whole bunch of exemptions where we can streamline work,” he said. “And we have funding through the Wildfire Crisis Strategy … to help fuel reductions in that fireshed.” 

Still, reviving Wyoming’s logging industry in a place like the Wind River basin faces big headwinds. Dubois’ timber mill has been closed for decades, and, out of necessity, the community has moved on economically. 

“It is more challenging in that part of the state, because the infrastructure is already lost,” Norris, the state forester, told lawmakers. 

Today, only two mills hang on in Wyoming: One in Saratoga, the other in Hulett. The farther geographically a timber-cutting project is from those mills, the tougher it is to pencil out.

Representatives for both Wyoming’s mills attended the Legislature’s forest health briefing on Tuesday. 

“I think all sawmills in [Forest Service] Region 2 are at a crossroads, at the tipping point,” testified Jim Neiman, president and CEO of a company that operates mills in the Black Hills region. “We can’t be arguing about how many trees we’re going to cut. We need to focus right now [on]: ‘Do we want to retain industry in Region 2, or not?”

Neiman, who’s the cousin of the Legislature’s speaker of the House, said he believes the industry’s hit the bottom and that “emergency action” is needed to keep mills running. Wyoming, he told WyoFile, once housed 11 or 12 sawmills and even the Black Hills region alone had seven as recently as the late 1990s. 

“Now we’re down to two, and they’re both running one shift,” he said. “Ponderosa [pine] has low value. You can’t survive on one shift. It’s got to run two shifts.”

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