Wyoming
Gubernatorial Candidate Brent Bien Outlines Conservative Platform at Rock Springs Meet and Greet – SweetwaterNOW
ROCK SPRINGS — Retired Marine Corps Col. Brent Bien brought his second campaign for Wyoming governor to Sweetwater County April 1 and 2. He outlined a sweeping conservative platform that calls for eliminating residential property taxes, abandoning electronic voting machines, halting wind energy expansion and overhauling public education.
Bien, a University of Wyoming engineering graduate and combat veteran, told the crowd he first entered the race after Gov. Mark Gordon shut down the state during the COVID-19 pandemic and the legislature failed to act during a subsequent special election.
“This was never a bucket list thing for me,” Bien said. “But I do understand the value and worth of our freedom, an I am willing to go to the mat for it.”
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Taxes and Spending
Bien argued Wyoming has a spending problem, not a revenue problem, and called for the states first full budget audit since 1989. He proposed eliminating the residential property tax, cutting fuel tax, and reducing the sales tax by 1%. He estimated the total combined reduction at roughly $1.1 billion annually.
He said Wyoming’s approximately $34 billion in reserves generate nearly $1.9 billion in interest annually. Bien said that the interest alone is enough to cover essential services without touching the principal.
“Everybody in here deserves to know the final resting place of every tax dollar.” he said.
Energy
Bien is sharply critical of what he described as production restrictions under the current administration, saying Wyoming oil output has fallen between 65% and 70% and mining activity has dropped 18% under Gordon. He pledged to streamline permitting for oil, gas and coal development and said he would oppose all new wind energy projects in the state.
“My answer is unequivocally no,” he said of new wind proposals.”I’ll do everything to stop all that.”
He also called for eliminating carbon capture subsides and said he wants to reorient Wyoming’s energy policy back toward the industries he said build the state, coal, oil, gas and trona mining.
Elections
Bien said he would not vote to certify a Wyoming election so long as the state uses electronic tabulation machines. He said the official vote should be determined exclusively by hand tabulation of all cast paper ballots.
“It’s the government’s job to gain the trust of the citizenry, not the other way around,” he said.
Public Lands and Agriculture
Bien raised concerns over what he called the rewilding of Wyoming, describing biodiversity conservation contracts that pay ranchers to take land out of agricultural production under nondisclosure agreements. He identified Fremont County as a focal point of those efforts.
He said he would defend Wyoming’s water rights, oppose surrendering additional allocations under an expected renegotiation of the Colorado River Compact and push for wolves to be delisted so Wyoming hunters can manage predator populations without outside intervention.
Education
Bien said Wyoming spends roughly $22,000 per student annually, about twice neighboring Idaho, yet produces test scores he called unacceptable. He called for a full audit of education spending, reinstatement of the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools by executive order and elimination of diversity, equity and inclusion curricula. He also said he wants daily physical education required through the senior year of high school.
“Until we’re number one in this nation, we should never accept anything less,” he said.
by Dustin Bleizeffer, WyoFile
State and federal officials are seeking public comment on the proposed Bridger Pipeline Expansion project to carry Canadian crude from the border in Phillips County, Montana, to a terminal near Guernsey.
The massive 36-inch-diameter pipeline would span 647 miles and move about 550,000 barrels of crude oil daily. The proposed route includes about 210 miles across Crook, Weston, Niobrara, Goshen and Platte counties in eastern Wyoming, according to developer Bridger Pipeline Expansion. The company is a subsidiary of Casper-based Bridger Pipeline LLC, which owns a network of oil pipelines, including the Belle Fourche and Butte pipelines that connect North Dakota, Montana and eastern Wyoming oilfields to the Guernsey storage and interconnect hub.
Bridger Pipeline is owned by True Cos., which has had several significant pipeline spills, including a 45,000-gallon diesel spill in eastern Wyoming in 2022 and an incident that spewed more than 50,000 gallons of Bakken crude into the Yellowstone River in Montana in 2015.
The U.S. Bureau of Management is the lead federal regulatory authority “to review potential impacts of the entire project to ensure environmental, cultural and community considerations are fully evaluated,” according to a BLM press release. The company has also applied to the Montana Department of Environmental Quality for a “certificate of compliance” required under the state’s Major Facility Siting Act, which triggers a parallel environmental review under Montana’s Environmental Policy Act.
The 30-day public scoping and comment period initiated this week will help both federal and Montana officials identify potential impacts and alternatives. The agencies will co-host one virtual and three in-person public meetings, to be announced at a later date (check here for updates), they said.
The Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality “will serve as a participating agency” in the BLM’s review, according to the department.
You can learn more about the environmental review for the project here, and choose the “participate now” tab to submit a comment.
Keystone Light?
Some locals in eastern Wyoming refer to the project as “Keystone Light,” a Niobrara County rancher told WyoFile. The name, borrowed from a beer, is a nod to the notion that the Bridger Pipeline Expansion would help fill the industry’s aspiration for the Keystone XL oil pipeline project abandoned in 2021.
Amid major opposition and protests, President Joe Biden — on his first day in office — cited his plans to address climate change by revoking a Trump-era permit for Keystone XL, which was required for the border crossing. The Bridger Pipeline Expansion will also require a presidential permit for the international border crossing, according to the BLM.
Similar to the Bridger Pipeline Expansion, Keystone XL would have transported Canadian oil-sands crude, but was larger — designed for up to 830,000 barrels per day. Its proposed route also differed, crossing in Montana and spanning portions of South Dakota and Nebraska.
One major advantage of the Bridger project, according to company officials, is that the Canada-Montana-Wyoming route follows many existing rights-of-way. About half of the route in Montana is parallel to existing pipelines, and a little more than half of the 210-mile route in Wyoming follows existing pipeline corridors, according to a project description provided by the BLM.
Additionally, the developer owns much of that existing infrastructure: “The Project would parallel Bridger‐owned infrastructure for roughly 138 miles in Montana and 100 miles in Wyoming.”
The route includes about 6 miles of BLM-managed lands in northeast Wyoming, as well as about 5 miles of Thunder Basin National Grassland, managed by the U.S. Forest Service. The federal review includes the Forest Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Construction could begin by July 2027 and would employ about 400 workers for each of four stages of development, according to a BLM planning document.
Health and environmental concerns
In 2023, Bridger Pipeline and its subsidiary Belle Fourche Pipeline Company paid $12.5 million to resolve penalties related to a series of pipeline spills and alleged violations of the Clean Water Act and federal pipeline safety laws.
The company’s track record, combined with allegedly lax oversight by state regulators, is cause for concern, said Jill Morrison, who serves on the board of the Sheridan-based landowner advocacy group Powder River Basin Resource Council.
“They’ve had a lot of spills and breaks,” Morrison told WyoFile. “Are they going to up their game to be more on top of ensuring we don’t have spills and breaks like other pipelines?”
For its part, Bridger Pipeline says it has launched an artificial leak detection company, FlowState, that monitors its pipeline systems. FlowState was awarded a $2 million Energy Matching Funds state grant in 2024.
Parent company True Cos. created FlowState because it couldn’t find a leak-detection system on the market that satisfied its needs, “so we built one,” Bridger Pipeline spokesman Bill Salvin told WyoFile.
“We have had some instances where our pipelines have leaked — that’s simply a fact,” Salvin said, adding that some of the company’s leaks were related to outdated practices that have since been improved industrywide. “Every one of those incidents is terribly unfortunate. That’s how we view it: We don’t want any [spill] incidents.
“What’s most important to us,” Salvin continued, “is when those incidents happen, that we respond very quickly and with everything we have, and that we learn from them so they don’t happen again. And that’s why we’ve got FlowState today.”
This article was originally published by WyoFile and is republished here with permission. WyoFile is an independent nonprofit news organization focused on Wyoming people, places and policy.
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Wyoming’s 2026 high school track and field season faces a bit of an abbreviated week, with most schools not in competition over the upcoming holiday weekend. That means Thursday will be a busy day, weather-permitting. There are four track meets in the state, and all of them are on April 2. Worland hosts their annual D&D Invitational, and Natrona County has its Glen Legler Early Bird in Casper. Those are the two largest competitions.
WYOPREPS WEEK 3 OUTDOOR TRACK SCHEDULE 2026
Sheridan and Wheatland also host track meets with a smaller number of teams. A handful of schools will not compete in Wyoming, but instead head to Utah, Nebraska, or Colorado. Spring Break is still impacting programs around the state. Here is the Week 3 schedule. It is subject to change.
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 1:
Out-of-State events:
North Summit Mid-Week Meet in Coalville, UT – Evanston, Lyman.
Evanston placed 2nd in the girls’ team standings with 65 points, and Lyman’s girls were tied for 4th with 47 points. In the boys’ team standings, Evanston came in 3rd with 57 points, and Lyman was 4th with 38 points.
Evanston’s Cassie Barker won the 200 meters and was 2nd in the 100 meters and long jump. Dylan Rees of Evanston won the boys’ 200 meters. Jayson Clark took 1st in the 300 hurdles. Jayden Rieker won the 400 meters. Lyman’s Whitley Bradshaw won the girls’ long jump. Lyman also had some runner-up finishes in relays.
THURSDAY, APRIL 2:
D&D INVITATIONAL at Worland HS – Burlington, Campbell County, Cody, Dubois, Green River, Lovell, Powell, Rocky Mountain, Shoshoni, Ten Sleep, Thermopolis, Worland.
Girls Team Scores = Powell 178, Worland 145.25, Campbell County 73.50, Green River 61, Burlington 40.75, Lovell 40, Thermopolis 33, Cody 26, Dubois 17, Shoshoni 14.50, Ten Sleep 11.
Boys Team Scores = Powell 165.75, Campbell County 116.75, Thermopolis 101.50, Lovell 76.50, Burlington 62.75, Worland 53, Green River 37.75, Cody 35, Ten Sleep 13.50, Shoshoni 4.50.
Worland’s Cherise Douzenis won the 200 & 400 meters. Teammate Kennedy Bassett won both girls’ hurdle races. Worland won 3 of the 4 relays. Powell’s Paige Sanders won the long jump & triple jump. Celeste Lindsay from Lovell swept the throwing events. For the boys, Lovell’s Matthew Newman won the 400 meters, 110 hurdles, and long jump. Braxton Nelson from Powell won the 100 meters, high jump, and triple jump. Anthony Cheatham of Thermopolis won both throwing events.
GLEN LEGLER EARLY BIRD at Natrona County HS – Campbell County, Cheyenne South, Douglas, Glenrock, Kelly Walsh, Laramie, Little Snake River, Midwest, Natrona County, Newcastle, Riverton, Rock Springs, Thunder Basin, Torrington, Wind River, Wright, Wyoming Indian.
No results posted yet…
SHERIDAN QUAD at Sheridan HS – Big Horn, Buffalo, Sheridan, Tongue River.
Girls Team Scores = Sheridan 273, Buffalo 115.50, Big Horn 87, Tongue River 47.50.
Boys Team Scores = Sheridan 288, Buffalo 84, Big Horn 77, Tongue River 32.
Sheridan’s Leah Lynn won the 100 & 200 meters. Teammate Trinity Johnson won the high jump & long jump. Yonah Gradinaru from Sheridan swept the discus & shot put. For the boys, Rudy Green of Sheridan won the 100 & 200 meters. Teammate Ryder Charest was 1st in the 800 & 1600 meters. Matt Brown from SHS captured the long jump & triple jump. Big Horn’s Chase Garber won the 2 throws.
WHEATLAND INVITE at Wheatland HS – Cheyenne Central, Encampment, Glendo, Lusk, Rawlins, Rock River, Wheatland.
No results posted yet.
Out-of-State events:
Bayard CD Track Meet in Bayard, NE – Burns, Lingle-Ft. Laramie, Pine Bluffs, Southeast.
Team Results = Burns was 1st in the girls’ standings with 108 points. Southeast took 2nd with 107 points. Lingle-Ft. Laramie finished 3rd with 73 points, and Pine Bluffs was 9th with 28 points. Burns placed 1st in the boys’ standings with 115 team points. LFL was 8th with 40 points, Pine Bluffs took 10th with 30 points, and Southeast was 12th with 18 points.
Addi Wilkins of LFL won the 100 meters and 300 hurdles. Brynn Bach from Burns won the 100 hurdles and pole vault. In the boys’ competition, Zane Howes of Burns took 1st in the 100 & 200 meters. The Broncs won the 4×100 & 4×400 meter relays.
Read More Track News at WyoPreps
WyoPreps Week 2 Outdoor Track Scoreboard 2026
WyoPreps Week 1 Outdoor Track Scoreboard 2026
Nominate a Track Athlete for WyoPreps Athlete of the Week
2025 Outdoor Track State Championships Girls Day 3 Recap
2025 Outdoor Track State Championships Boys Day 3 Recap
2025 Outdoor Track State Championships Recap Day 2
2025 Outdoor Track State Championships Recap Day 1
2025 Gatorade Wyoming Girls Track Player of the Year
2025 Gatorade Wyoming Boys Track Player of the Year
Nike Outdoor Nationals Recap 2025
2025 Girls All-State Outdoor Track Awards
2025 Boys All-State Outdoor Track Awards
SATURDAY, APRIL 4:
Out-of-State events:
Altitude Invite in Fort Collins, CO – Cheyenne Central.
Frank Woodburn Invitational in Grand Junction, CO – Little Snake River.
Timpanogos Alpha Invitational in Orem, UT – Cokeville, Lyman, Mountain View.
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The Bulldogs hosted the Plainsmen in a doubleheader at Lewis Park
Gallery Credit: Courtesy: Randy Bell
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