Wyoming

Federal Grant Complexity Stymies the Energy Transition in Wyoming Coal Country, New Report Finds – Inside Climate News

Published

3 days ago

December 31, 2024

Federal Grant Complexity Stymies the Energy Transition in Wyoming Coal Country, New Report Finds – Inside Climate News

A report released this month by Resources for the Future found that the complexity of federal grant applications for energy transition projects hinders Wyoming coal communities’ ability to access funds that could prove critical to the transformation of local energy economies.

While the report by the Washington, D.C.-based nonpartisan, nonprofit research firm also found that local stakeholders and federal officials have been able to form productive working relationships despite political differences and varying degrees of commitment to clean energy, it found a variety of factors suppressing the state’s coal communities’ appetites for federal funding to transform their economies.

Wyoming’s coal industry has endured a turbulent decade with tax-revenue from the industry plummeting to record lows. This year has been even more difficult: In May, the Bureau of Land Management ended federal leasing for coal mining in the Powder River Basin, a geological formation spanning northeast Wyoming and southeast Montana.

On Dec. 12, Gov. Mark Gordon announced in a press release that Wyoming and Montana were suing the BLM over that decision, which he called “narrow-minded” for its focus on reducing the burning of coal for electricity to cut the planet-warming greenhouse gases without appropriately considering the “economic impacts” of that change.

The transition from fossil fuels to cleaner sources of energy is deeply unsettled in Wyoming. And the state’s coal communities’ fraught relationship with federal support for the energy transition could be further strained by political whiplash during the incoming Trump administration, which could impact federal assistance for navigating the changing energy market.

Ian Hitchcock, a consultant for Novi Strategies, a clean energy and climate consulting company, and the report’s primary author, grew up in Dubois, Wyoming, a rural town halfway between Jackson and Lander, and has been interested in the state’s energy communities for years.

Wyoming’s extractive industries, which includes coal, oil and gas, offer Wyomingites “access to a kind of income—albeit in a bit of a boom and bust cycle—that they might struggle to come up with in the absence of that industry,” Hitchcock said.

That dynamic partially explains the state’s cultural and economic affinity for fossil fuels, he continued. But it also highlights the complexity of the state’s energy economy, as Wyoming’s booming gas industry has been primarily responsible for coal’s declining market.

Now that the world is broadly shifting to clean energy, he wanted to study “those communities whose economies have been dependent on fossil fuels and, in the absence of a lot of intentional support, are going to be devastated by the implications of that transition.”

After interviewing residents of the Powder River Basin, the epicenter of Wyoming coal production, and state and federal energy officials, Hitchcock found that access to federal grants was oftentimes hamstrung by a complex, time consuming and financially demanding application process.

In Wyoming, which has the fewest residents of any state, “the county clerk or … the town treasurer might also be doing three other jobs,” Hitchcock said. That strains a municipality’s resources when it comes to filling out applications that can require dozens, sometimes hundreds of pages of paperwork and data.

Such convoluted applications, “privilege the powerful,” Hitchcock said, because those with more money and staff will have an easier time applying.

Even the most powerful state officials in Wyoming have cited burdensome application processes as a reason to forgo federal assistance. Last November, Gordon decided not to pursue federal funding to reduce greenhouse gases, both to preserve Wyoming’s “‘all-of-the-above’ energy development,” and because spending millions developing an application did not make “fiscal sense” for the state.

Wyoming’s Grant Assistance Program helps local governments, businesses and nonprofits pursue funding opportunities available to their communities, and the state’s Energy Matching Funds have, in many cases, provided money to projects receiving or pursuing federal grants.

Many of those interviewed for the report also expressed dismay that, although Wyoming produces 41 percent of the nation’s coal, federal money has so far gone primarily to coal communities experiencing more significant job losses. Wyoming, with such a small population and a still-viable coal industry, would not necessarily register as struggling under that criteria.

“There was a sense—and not entirely inaccurately, I think—that many of the federal programs that were designed to support coal communities specifically were largely created with an Appalachian context in mind,” Hitchcock said.

Local stakeholders offered a few suggestions in the report for how to fix these issues. First, they wanted to streamline the federal grant application process by standardizing application criteria across different departments or allowing federal agencies to store information like names and addresses for future applications. They also suggested that current coal production should be taken into account so that federal policy more proactively responds to communities before they experience drastic job losses.

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“One of the things that would help is if there was more of a regional aspect” to grants, said Rusty Bell, the director of Gillette College’s Office of Economic Transformation. He would like to see money allocated by region first, so communities in every coal basin are guaranteed to see some funding, he said. From there, competition for grants would be more local. “We’re all in the same boat,” he said.

There were bright spots in Hitchock’s research, too. “I found myself very pleasantly surprised and impressed by the perhaps overdue but necessary acknowledgment by local officials in Wyoming that, whether they liked it or not or agreed with it or not, the energy markets were in a period of transition, and they would need to engage in some economic energy transformation of their own to keep.”

That recognition helped the Interagency Working Group on Coal and Power Plant Communities and Economic Revitalization, a federal initiative composed of officials from a dozen other federal agencies, form “Rapid Response” teams in counties across the country, including three in Wyoming. These teams assist places dealing with a diminishing fossil fuel economy by helping them access federal resources to maintain or revitalize their community’s quality of life. In 2022, Wyoming became the first state to test a Rapid Response, Hitchcock said.

In his report, Hitchcock called this type of government-to-citizenry engagement “promising.”

As part of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act, the Interagency Working Group on Coal and Power Plant Communities and Economic Revitalization has made over half a trillion dollars available to fossil fuel energy communities.

“There may be fewer resources to play with but I suspect the work will continue.”
— Ian Hitchcock, Novi Strategies consultant

A place like Campbell County, where Bell works, wouldn’t be eligible to apply for every program that gives out that money, he said, but “just the fact that there are some opportunities out there, it is a good thing.”

Like other parts of President Biden’s energy policy, federal funding for energy transformation in coal communities may prove difficult for President-elect Donald Trump to undo. Hitchcock wouldn’t rule out Trump and congressional Republicans attempting to claw back federal funding for coal communities, but said that could prove politically difficult with much of that money benefiting staunchly Republican communities.

“There may be fewer resources to play with but I suspect the work will continue,” with or without federal funding, he said.

Hitchcock suggested that philanthropic organizations could create connections and opportunities for Wyoming’s coal communities if federal money were to dry up. But given the impact the federal funding is having in communities dependent on fossil fuel industries, any loss or lapse in government investment could still disrupt the pace and magnitude of Wyoming’s energy transformation, he said.

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Wyoming

Experts say immigrants are important in state, Jackson Hole economy

Published

6 hours ago

January 2, 2025

Press Room

Experts say immigrants are important in state, Jackson Hole economy

The Jackson Hole Chamber of Commerce isn’t reacting yet to a second election of President-elect Donald Trump.

Rick Howe runs the chamber and told Jackson Hole Community Radio in December that three chamber businesses had reached out to him with immigration-related concerns. Howe does not soon anticipate the chamber taking a stance on immigration policies. But he said his policy teams are preparing to discuss changes as they come, such as mass deportations.

“We want to make sure that we have access to the workers that we need as a community to help us continue to do what we do on a daily basis,” Howe said. “Economic viability is key for us.”

He said he doesn’t have up-to-date data on the community’s number of working immigrants — documented or otherwise. But he said immigrants mostly work in the tourism and service industries, Teton County’s economic engine.

For Teton County and surrounding communities, how many immigrants would be targeted in a second Trump administration is still unknown.

But as Trump prepares to return to the White House, the question of how many will be impacted by his policies has become increasingly relevant for immigrants from many walks of life.

Trump’s administration promises the largest mass deportation in the country’s history, after the Biden administration’s deportations already hit a 10-year high. As summarized by the Niskanen Center, a potential policy playbook for the second Trump term, Project 2025, proposes cutting protections for holders of Temporary Protected Status, young adults known as Dreamers, more than 175,000 Ukrainians, in addition to restrictions for H-2A and H-2B temporary worker visas.

For unauthorized immigrants and migrants, part of what makes the population hard to track is obvious: They aren’t documented in the U.S. census. The census doesn’t separate documented and undocumented residents — it just totals.

University of Wyoming Professor Roger Coupal researches the economics of community developments across the state, with a focus on the agricultural sector. He has some rough estimates, putting the state’s number of undocumented migrants at 5,000.

Teton County, according to the U.S. census, is home to 2,900 residents born outside the U.S., or 12.5% of the county’s population. Just under a third have become naturalized citizens, according to the state’s Chief Economist Wenlin Liu.

Coupal noted that many who come to the U.S. are fleeing “extreme situations” when they come to Jackson in search of work or safer living conditions. As more immigrants settle and become part of the community and economy, many ski towns in the West, including Jackson Hole,could be devastated by mass deportations, he added.

Until new policies or deportation practices exist, though, Howe said his organization would be proactive. It’s a lot of “wait and see” until January, he said.

Howe envisions the chamber’s role as a source of information and connection.

He mentioned other nonprofits like Voices JH and One22, with whom the chamber could facilitate conversations, correct misinformation and be a source to which individuals and businesses alike can turn.

To start, the chamber is planning a Feb. 6 “Business Over Breakfast,” a monthly networking event for members, to address questions businesses may have a few weeks into Trump’s second administration.

Coupal said a loss of migrant workers and Trump’s impending tariffs could thrust the country into a recession.

“You could see a reduction in output on the industry side because we don’t have workers,” Coupal said.

There’s no research, he said, that supports Trump’s previous claims that immigrants hurt the economy.

A recent report by the American Immigration Council said mass deportation would cost the U.S. $315 billion initially, with long-term costs potentially tripling.

Jeremy Robbins, executive director of the American Immigration Council, said in a recent press release that mass deportation would come at an “extraordinary cost” to the government while hindering the economy. He warned of “tens of billions of tax-payer dollars lost, already-strained industries devastated, millions of people locked up in detention, and thousands of families torn apart.”

The study also indicates that national GDP could shrink 4.2% to 6.8%. For comparison, the economy decreased by 4.3% during the 2007 to 2009 recession, according to the study.

“We’re making the assumption that somehow Americans are going to replace all these people,” Coupal said, “and they won’t.”

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Wyoming

Former Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney among those to receive Presidential Citizens Medal tonight

Published

14 hours ago

January 2, 2025

Press Room

Former Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney among those to receive Presidential Citizens Medal tonight

CASPER, Wyo. — Former Wyoming Representative Liz Cheney and 19 other people will receive the second highest civilian medal from President Joe Biden in a ceremony Thursday afternoon.

According to the Associated Press, President Biden is also giving a medal to Bennie Thompson, who alongside Cheney oversaw the congressional investigation into the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021.

“President Biden believes these Americans are bonded by their common decency and commitment to serving others,” the White House said in a statement, according to the AP. “The country is better because of their dedication and sacrifice.”

Last year, Biden honored the people who helped defend the Capitol from the mob of angry supporters of Donald Trump, who had refused to accept the presidential election results of 2020 and repeatedly tried to overturn them.

Once a staunch conservative and Trump supporter, Cheney became an outspoken critic of the former and now president elect. She supported his second impeachment, and eventually had a prominent role in the riot investigation. In retaliation, Republicans ousted her from her high-ranking House Republican Conference, and she later lost to Trump-endorsed challenger Harriet Hageman in Wyoming’s 2022 primary elections.

Even after winning the 2024 presidential elections, Trump has refused to walk away from lies about the 2020 election and has specifically spoken out against Cheney and Thompson. In an Interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press,” he said, “Honestly, they should go to jail.”

According to the AP, other honorees include Frank Butler, who set new standards for using tourniquets on war injuries; Diane Carlson Evans, an Army nurse during the Vietnam War who founded the Vietnam Women’s Memorial Foundation; and Eleanor Smeal, an activist who led women’s rights protests in the 1970s and fought for equal pay.

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