An influential seven-member industrial siting group in Wyoming plans an early July meeting to sort out a legal mess that could determine the future of the $500 million Rail Tie wind farm development in Albany County.

The industrial siting group will likely head into a closed-door executive session July 10 to determine the “financial adequacy” of the former owner of the wind farm project and whether it was done legally by a Nov. 1 deadline, as well as whether the deep pockets of the new owner from Spain are sufficient to get the project built, according to sources involved in the meeting interviewed by Cowboy State Daily.

The cornerstone of the special meeting is to review financial adequacy statements of the wind farm development’s sponsors, according to an announcement issued by the Department of Environmental Quality’s Industrial Siting Council, which is tasked with the job of examining new energy projects in Wyoming.

Dusty Spomer, chairman of the Siting Council, could not comment on the matter at press time.

The 504-megawatt Rail Tie project, which is located to the southeast of Laramie, is expected to benefit Albany County by generating $130 million in new tax revenues, according to figures provided by the new owner of the project to Cowboy State Daily.

The dust-up over the future of Rail Tie is the result of the Fish Creek Preserve Homeowners Association, which had filed a lawsuit to halt the development. The group claims that the bureaucratic mess on whether to build the project has been upended because of the Industrial Siting Council’s missteps.

“They don’t know what they are doing,” said John Davis, a homeowner in the Fish Creek Preserve area and a retired accountant and lawyer involved in the lawsuit to halt the wind farm development.

Ruins View

The Fish Creek Preserve homeowners oppose the development of the Rail Tie wind power project near Highway 287 outside of Tie Siding because it “diminishes the value” of the association’s properties in “the view scape” of the area, according to Davis.

Davis has an important role in the July 10 meeting.

He will participate because of his designation as an intervenor in the litigation filed against the project. He also signed a nondisclosure agreement to not discuss the financial muscle of Rail Tie’s developers.

However, Davis said that the previous owner could not have gotten the project built without the “credit enhancement” of its private equity parent.

As background, the special meeting July 10 relates to a Dec. 4, 2023, order by the Industrial Siting Council that approved the so-called Rail Tie wind project.

But Davis and his group said that the council approved the “financial adequacy” of the previous owner by not sharing the financial resource information with his group, which is an intervenor in the case. This was done outside of the legal bounds of how power projects are supposed to be approved, Davis said.

The legal mess has grown murkier because of the entrance into Wyoming of a new owner of the project. Davis claimed that the new entrant may have to start the Rail Tie permitting process all over because of his claim that the ConnectGen “financial adequacy” process wasn’t done properly last fall.

Spanish Connection

Last fall, Spanish energy giant Repsol broke into the U.S. market for onshore wind power with a $768 million deal to buy Houston-based renewable energy firm ConnectGen from private equity firm Quantum Capital Group. This is how Rail Tie came into the hands of Repsol.

Quantum’s renewable energy arm, 547 Energy, owned ConnectGen.

The deal to buy ConnectGen closed with regulators in March.

ConnectGen, founded in 2018, operates 278 megawatts of solar energy projects in Arizona, California and Nevada.

Its nationwide development pipeline features more than 20,000 megawatts of wind power, solar power and energy storage projects.

Repsol told Cowboy State Daily in a recent statement that it remains committed to the Rail Tie project.

“We continue to work on the development of this project, which is an important part of our portfolio in the U.S.,” a Repsol spokeswoman said in an email statement from Madrid, Spain, where the company is headquartered.

Pat Maio can be reached at pat@cowboystatedaily.com.

WYOMING, Mich. (WOOD) — One person was injured in an off-road vehicle crash in Wyoming Saturday evening.

It happened around 8 p.m. on Longstreet Avenue SW near Alger Street, in the area of 28th Street and Clyde Park Avenue.

Wyoming police say the driver of the ORV sustained injuries that are not considered life-threatening.

Police did not provide information about what led up to the crash.

University will also end mandatory DEI statements for hiring, promotion

The University of Wyoming’s vice president for diversity, equity and inclusion has announced he is leaving the institution for a new job as UW prepares to shutter its DEI office next month.

Zebediah Hall, who was tapped for the top DEI position at UW in November 2022, has accepted a new position in a similar role at Salisbury University in Maryland.

It’s the latest development at the Cowboy State’s flagship public university, which is being forced to eliminate its Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion office due to legislative pressure, where Republicans hold a supermajority in the statehouse.

The university also announced in May it will no longer require job candidates to submit DEI statements nor evaluate employees’ commitment to DEI in annual performance reviews.

Campus media affairs representatives did not respond to repeated emails and a phone call in recent weeks seeking comment from The College Fix. Hall also did not respond to a request for comment.

University President Ed Seidel and the UW Board of Trustees made the changes “in response to legislative action that removed $1.73 million from UW’s upcoming biennium budget. A legislative budget footnote also directed that no state dollars be spent on the DEI office, effective July 1, 2024,” a news release stated.

“We received a strong message from the state’s elected officials to change our approach to DEI issues,” Seidel stated.

Seidel added support programs run out of the DEI office that handled other efforts, such as mandatory state and federal nondiscrimination trainings, and ones supporting veterans, nontraditional students, and students with disabilities, will be transferred to other offices and remain intact.

As for the closure of UW’s DEI office, some argue such moves may not go far enough.

In his piece “Closing DEI Offices is Not Enough,” political scientist Samuel Abrams argued DEI is so embedded in other aspects of campus life, from student support services to libraries to residential life programs, that the dogma will continue to be heavily propagated on campuses.

“Sarah Lawrence College, where I teach, provides a straightforward case,” he wrote in his April piece. “Only a handful of administrative staff are technically in the ‘diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging’ (DEIB) office, for instance.”

“But that has not stopped the overt and inappropriate activism of many other staff members employed by SLC to theoretically help elevate all students.”

At the University of Wyoming, programs that may be considered preferential to one group of individuals but are “deemed essential to help students,” such as Women in STEM activities or the Wyoming Latina Youth Conference, will be funded by “private” sources and continue on, the news release stated.

However, the University of Wyoming this summer will not host the annual Black 14 Social Justice Summer Institute. This program is for high school juniors and seniors with a “passion for social justice,” with learning outcomes such as exploring possibilities to social problems and promoting a sense of community “amongst a diverse group of students.”

“The University of Wyoming will not hold a Black 14 Social Justice Summer Institute this year, as members of the Black 14 have chosen not to participate in a third annual institute,” the university wrote in a May news release.

“In a letter to President Ed Seidel, three Black 14 members wrote that the group is discontinuing its involvement in the institute because Wyoming government leaders have eliminated funding for UW’s Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.”

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