Wyoming
Feds Reject Railroad Mega Merger That Threatened Wyoming Coal
Every day, long trains loaded with Wyoming coal snake across the American heartland, eventually arriving at Plant Scherer north of Macon, Georgia — the most powerful coal-fired electricity generating plant in North America.
The massive facility, owned by Georgia Power, boasts four coal-fired units totaling roughly 3,500 to 3,720 megawatts, making it the largest operating coal plant in the U.S. for many years.
Right now, BNSF Railway hauls Powder River Basin coal across the West before handing off the shipments to Norfolk Southern, which pulls the coal cars down the final stretch to Georgia. If Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern have their way, that arrangement would change dramatically — and Wyoming coal producers would be left with fewer options and potentially higher shipping costs.
That’s according to critics of the proposed UP-NS rail merger.
On Thursday, the federal Surface Transportation Board delivered a unanimous decision that put the brakes on what appears to be the largest rail merger ever proposed. The federal agency rejected the merger application filed by Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern, finding it incomplete and ordering the railroads back to the drawing board.
Decision Details
The STB found that the nearly 7,000-page merger application failed to include required information, including projected market share data and the complete merger agreement between the two railroad giants.
According to the decision, the application “does not contain future market share projections showing the combined effects of merger-related growth, diversions, and merger-influenced and other changes to market conditions that Applicants anticipate.”
The Board also noted that Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern withheld a key schedule from their merger agreement — known as Schedule 5.8 — which describes conditions that would allow Union Pacific to walk away from the deal.
A spokesperson for Union Pacific told Cowboy State Daily, “Union Pacific will provide the additional information requested by the Surface Transportation Board.”
The railroads have until Feb. 17 to inform the Board whether they plan to refile, and until June 22 to submit a revised application.
Competition Concerns
Zak Andersen, BNSF chief of staff and vice president of communications, spoke with Cowboy State Daily from the railroad’s headquarters in Fort Worth, Texas, explaining why his company has opposed the merger from the beginning.
“We applaud the STB’s decision to reject the UP-NS merger application based on the application lacking core information critical to determining the proposed merger’s impact on competition,” Andersen said. “We also appreciate the STB’s willingness to consider the views of all stakeholders as part of the regulatory review process.”
Andersen spelled out BNSF’s fundamental opposition to the deal: “We view it as anti-competitive. It’s a threat to the resilience of the supply chain, simply because it results in the unprecedented consolidation of market power in our industry.”
He pointed to the already concentrated nature of the rail industry.
“There are really only four primary companies handling 90% of the freight today in the U.S.,” Andersen said. “And so we think for any given customer, you know, a shipper on rail, that you’re essentially, today you have four options.
“If this merger goes through, you got two. And anytime you go from four to two, that’s probably not a good thing for the competitive landscape.”
Wyoming Impact
The implications for Wyoming coal producers are stark, according to Andersen. Using Plant Scherer as a prime example, he explained the current competitive dynamic that benefits Wyoming energy companies.
“Today, the plant is captive to NS, right? NS is the only railroad that directly serves it,” Andersen said. “So either UP or BNSF can move that coal to a handoff and interchange point with Norfolk Southern. And we do.”
Currently, BNSF handles the shipments to Plant Scherer, and post-merger, that would likely change.
Andersen was blunt about where he believes this merger originated: “I’ve been convinced from day one. This merger did not begin by customers asking for it. It began by Wall Street asking for it.”
He predicted that when projected growth from the merger fails to materialize, Union Pacific will turn to captive customers to pay the bills.
“We think that UP goes back to what they’ve always done, which is to rely on charging captive customers, right? So we think rates go up. So therefore, prices for consumers go up. I don’t see that as a good thing for coal.”
Regulatory Hurdles
Andersen explained that this merger is being evaluated under stringent rules adopted by the STB — rules he said have never been tested because they raised the bar so high.
“A big piece of that is how you’re going to enhance competition,” he said. “Whereas in the past, you had to show where you’re going to preserve competition. So now they have to somehow show they’re going to improve it. And I don’t understand how a railroad with that much market power is going to prove that it enhanced competition.”
Andersen also raised concerns about service disruptions that have historically followed major rail mergers.
“After every major rail merger, there have been pretty serious service repercussions,” he said. “After the UP-Southern Pacific merger in the late ’90s, I mean, they had a full on meltdown, where the STB had to intervene.”
“With a network industry like ours, when one railroad starts to have trouble, it spreads pretty quickly to the others,” Andersen explained. “Because if all of a sudden we’re not getting the connections from one of the other ones, then we’re late.
“It just starts to metastasize. And so we worry about that quite a bit too.”
Economist’s View
Rob Godby, a natural resource economist at the University of Wyoming, has been watching the merger proceedings with interest. He told Cowboy State Daily that the STB’s decision reflects the complexity of evaluating such a massive transaction.
“As I understand it from reading reports from industry newsletters, the issue is as outlined, there was not a complete analysis of how this would affect regional rail-shipping market concentration in the future,” Godby said. “This is a complex merger, so it is likely to take quite a while to administrate and for a decision to be rendered.”
Godby noted that rival railroads and shippers have filed concerns about the merger’s potential effects.
“Other rail companies who fear a much larger and more consolidated competitor, and shipping rates or access to alternative shippers as well as effects to service,” he said.
The economist also flagged a potential domino effect.
“There is also a general concern in the industry that this could cause other rail companies to consolidate, having unintended effects on markets with respect to service and/or rates,” he said.
As for direct impacts on Wyoming mineral shipments, Godby offered a more measured assessment.
“I don’t expect any effects from the merger,” he said. “UP and BNSF operate jointly in a partnership to serve the PRB and as far as I can tell this would not affect the partnership between UP, or the newly consolidated entity if approved, and BNSF to operate access into the PRB.”
Godby suggested that any disruption to Wyoming operations could itself doom the merger.
“In fact, if it were to affect access, that would be another reason for the STB to potentially disapprove or request changes in the proposed merger, so I suspect the merger planners are working hard to avoid any disruption to Wyoming, especially coal shipments from the PRB, given the Trump administration’s elevated concern for maintaining coal production and use,” he said.
Merger Arguments
Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern have argued their merger would create America’s first transcontinental railroad, transforming the nation’s supply chain.
Union Pacific CEO Jim Vena said at a recent shippers meeting: “This is a transformational merger that will inject more competition into the railroad industry and force them to enhance their service, reduce their price, or do both.”
The companies contend that single-line transcontinental rail service will provide stronger competition with long-haul trucking.
According to a study cited by Union Pacific, interline merchandise traffic moving 1,000 to 1,500 miles costs on average 35% more than comparable single-line service.
The merger application included what Union Pacific described as a record-setting 2,000 letters of support from customers, public officials, industry associations and unions.
For now, Wyoming coal producers and the customers they serve — including that massive power plant in Georgia — will continue to have options when it comes to moving their product across the country.
Andersen, reflecting on what the merger battle means for the broader industry, returned to his central concern about consolidation.
“We’ve seen this before with both BNSF and UP, when we’ve struggled with service, what the impact is on the mines in Wyoming,” he said. “And so we worry about that quite a bit too.”
David Madison can be reached at david@cowboystatedaily.com.
If the Wyoming House and Senate approve its budget changes, then the chambers’ Joint Conference Committee will have helped the University of Wyoming dodge a $40 million cut, while also limiting the Wyoming Business Council to one year’s funding instead of the standard two.
The Joint Conference Committee adopted numerous changes to the state’s two-year budget draft, but didn’t formally advance the document to the House and Senate chambers. The committee meets again Monday and may do so at that time.
Then, the House and Senate can vote on whether to adopt that draft by a simple majority.
First, UW
Starting in January, the Joint Appropriations Committee majority had sought to deny around $20 million in exception requests the University of Wyoming made, while imposing a $40 million cut to the university’s block grant.
That’s about 10% of the state’s grant to UW but a lesser proportion of the school’s overall operating budget.
The Senate sought to restore the $60 million.
The House sought to keep the denials and cuts, ultimately settling on a bargain to cut $20 million, and hinge UW’s retention of the remaining $20 million on its finding and reporting $5 million in savings.
The Joint Conference Committee the House and Senate sent into a Friday meeting to negotiate those two stances chose to fund UW “fully,” Senate Majority Floor Leader Tara Nethercott, R-Cheyenne, told Cowboy State Daily in the state Capitol after the meeting.
But, $10 million of UW’s $40 million block grant won’t reach it until the school charts a “road map” of how it could save $5 million, and reports that to the Joint Appropriations Committee, she added.
“A healthy exercise, I think, for them to participate in, while the Legislature still allows them to receive full grant funding,” Nethercott said.
“I’m hopeful people feel confident the University is fully funded,” she continued, as it’s “on the brink of receiving a new president, having the resources he or she may need to continue to steer the leadership of the University, our state’s flagship school into the future.”
Hours earlier in a press conference, House Speaker Chip Neiman, R-Hulett, said the Legislature has been clear that UW should avoid “diversity, equity, and inclusion” or DEI programming, and that it’s the position of the House majority that the school should tailor its programming to Wyoming’s true business needs – so UW graduates will stay in the state.
Within an earlier draft of the budget sat a footnote blocking money for Wyoming Public Media — a publicly funded media and radio entity funded through UW’s budget.
That footnote is gone from the JCC’s draft, said Nethercott.
Wyoming Business Council
The Wyoming Business Council is set to receive roughly $14 million, confined to one year, for its internal operations, said Nethercott.
“Both chambers have decided to only fund the operations,” Nethercott said, “not all the grant programs.”
She said that’s to compel the Legislature to revisit the concerns it has with the agency, then return in the 2027 legislative session with a vision for its future.
The Business Ready Communities program is “eliminated,” she said.
JCC member Rep. Ken Pendergraft, R-Sheridan, elaborated further.
Of the appropriation, $12 million is from the state’s checking account, plus the state is authorizing WBC to use $157,787 in federal funds and nearly $1 million from other sources.
“We’re going to take it up as an interim topic in appropriations (committee) and how to rebuild it and make it work the way we think it should work,” said Pendergraft. But the JCC opted to fund the Small Business Development Center for two years, along with Economic Diversification Division for Manufacturing Works, and the Wyoming Women’s Business Center, Pendergraft noted, pointing to that language on his draft budget sheet.
Pendergraft made headlines last year by saying he wanted to eliminate the Wyoming Business Council altogether.
But Nethercott told the Senate earlier this month, legislators have complained of that agency her entire nine-year tenure.
She attributed this to what she called communications shortfalls that may not be intentional. She cosponsored a now-stalled bill this year that had sought to adopt a task force to evaluate WBC.
The Wyoming Business Council’s functions range from less controversial, like helping communities build infrastructure, to more controversial, like awarding tax-funded grants to certain businesses on a competitive application process.
Wyoming Public Television
Wyoming Public Television, which is not the same as Wyoming Public Media, is slated to receive the $3 million it lost when Congress defunded the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Nethercott said.
It will also receive its usual $3 million from Wyoming.
The entity will not receive another $3 million it had sought to upgrade its emergency-alert towers, said Nethercott, “because we received information from them… they have another source to pay for the replacement and maintenance of the towers.”
Like the Wyoming Business Council, the Wyoming Public TV’s functions range from less controversial to more controversial.
The entity operates, maintains and staffs emergency alert towers throughout Wyoming.
Wyoming Public TV also produces entertainment and informational movies. Its state grants run through the community colleges’ budget.
State Employees
Nethercott noted that the JCC advanced to both chambers an agreement to pay $111 million from the state’s checking account to give state employees raises.
Those raises would bring them to 2024 market values for their work, she noted.
Because that money is coming from the state’s checking account, or “general fund,” and not its severance tax pool as the House had envisioned, then $111 million won’t impact the $105 million investment another still-viable bill seeking to build an “energy dominance fund” envisions.
That bill, sponsored by Senate President Bo Biteman, R-Ranchester, seeks to lend to large energy-sector projects.
Biteman told Cowboy State Daily in an interview days before the session convened that its purpose is to counteract “green” compacts investors have adopted, and which have bottlenecked energy projects.
Wyoming’s executive branch is currently suing BlackRock and other investors on that same assertion.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
It’s Week 11 in the 2026 Wyoming prep girls’ basketball season. That means it’s the end of the regular season. 3A and 4A schools have their final game or games to determine seeding before the regional tournament, or if a team is locked into a position, one last chance to fine-tune before the postseason. Games are spread across four days.
WYOPREPS WEEK 11 GIRLS BASKETBALL SCHEDULE 2026
Every game on the slate is a conference matchup. Several rivalry contests are part of this week’s schedule, such as East against Central, Cody at Powell, Lyman hosting Mountain View, and Rock Springs at Green River, just to name a few. Here is the Week 11 schedule of varsity games WyoPreps has. All schedules are subject to change. If you see a game missing, please email david@wyopreps.com.
CLASS 4A
Final Score: Laramie 68 Cheyenne South 27 (conference game)
CLASS 3A
Final Score: Lyman 40 Mountain View 26 (conference game)
CLASS 4A
Final Score: Evanston 41 Riverton 39 (conference game)
Final Score: Natrona County 42 Kelly Walsh 38 (conference game) – Peach Basket Classic
Final Score: #4 Thunder Basin 64 Campbell County 32 (conference game)
CLASS 3A
Final Score: #1 Cody 77 Worland 33 (conference game) – 5 different Fillies with a 3, and Hays led the way with 34 points.
Final Score: #2 Lander 49 Lyman 34 (conference game)
Final Score: #4 Wheatland 51 Douglas 40 (conference game)
Final Score: #5 Powell 48 Lovell 42 (conference game)
Final Score: Burns 56 Torrington 43 (conference game)
Final Score: Glenrock 78 Newcastle 30 (conference game)
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CLASS 4A
Rock Springs at #2 Green River, 5:30 p.m. (conference game)
#4 Thunder Basin at #5 Sheridan, 5:30 p.m. (conference game)
#1 Cheyenne East at #3 Cheyenne Central, 6 p.m. (conference game)
Jackson at Star Valley, 6 p.m. (conference game)
CLASS 3A
#3 Pinedale at Mountain View, 4 p.m. (conference game)
#1 Cody at #5 Powell, 5:30 p.m. (conference game)
Buffalo at Glenrock, 5:30 p.m. (conference game)
CLASS 3A
Newcastle at Buffalo, 12:30 p.m. (conference game)
Glenrock at Rawlins, 3 p.m. (conference game)
Torrington at #4 Wheatland, 5:30 p.m. (conference game)
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4A Boys State Swim Meet for 2026 in Cheyenne
Gallery Credit: David Settle, WyoPreps.com
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