The University of Wyoming Board of Trustees is scheduled to consider allowing the concealed carrying of firearms at it’s November 20-22 meeting.

The issue of guns on campus in Laramie has long been a contentious one. Numerous bills in the Wyoming Legislature to get rid of most gun-free zones in the state would have allowed guns on the U.W. campus. But so far none of those bills have become law.

The current university gun policy generally prohibits firearms on campus, although people can ask the UW police department for an exemption under certain circumstances, such as if they feel their lives are in danger from a stalker.

Publlic Events Planned To Discuss Concealed Carry

The UW Firearms Research Center [FRC] Which is based at the UW College of Law, plans two public events to discuss the proposed rule.

The first is a webinar “featuring Vice President and General Counsel Tara Evans, UW Police Chief Josh Holland, Branding Iron Editor-in-Chief Ven Meester and FRC Director’ George Mocsary, a law professor. This online event, moderated by FRC Executive Director Ashley Hlebinsky, will provide information about the content of the draft rule,” according to the release.

That event is slated for Thursday, Nov. 14 at 12:30 p.m.

The FRC is also planning a town-hall meeting  Monday, Nov. 18, at 12:30 p.m. in the West Ballroom of the Wyoming Union. The release says ”Panelists include President Ed Seidel, Evans, Holland, Meester and Mocsary. The in-person event will be moderated by College of Business Assistant Professor Matt Burgess and will allow participants to ask questions, glean insight and, ultimately, weigh in on this important topic.”

You can submit questions at FRC@uwyo.edu.

To RSVP for the events go to https://firearmsresearchcenter.org/events/. Zoom and WyoCast links will be sent upon registration.

Opponents of banning guns on campus generally argue that gun-free zones don’t really stop anyone who is intent on breaking the law. They say that an armed public is better able to protect themselves from armed assailants, saying that a good-guy with a gun can often stop a bad guy with a gun.

But supporters of banning guns on campus say that while someone who plans out a mass attack with a firearm may indeed ignore gun-free zone laws, it’s still one more barrier. They also say the easy availability of firearms is a factor in many heat-of-the moment shootings and even suicides.

So what do you think? Should people be allowed to carry concealed firearms on the UW campus? Take our poll and give us your opinion!

Hackneyed phrases that were part of the public lexicon in the West for years, like the so-called “war on coal” and promise to “drill, baby, drill!” are back with a vengeance. So are federal land swaps, gutting environmental regulations, and other proposals that will make Wyoming officials and the minerals industry salivate, and conservationists cringe.

No, we’re not trapped in a time warp. It’s just preparation for Donald Trump’s return to the White House, the 2.0 version that wants to strip all of President Joe Biden’s federal public lands protections to spur huge corporate profits at the expense of public access.

It’s a trade-off many Wyoming politicians are willing to make to keep mineral tax revenues flowing to state government, while communities hope to preserve jobs and improve the local economy. I understand the motivation to protect what’s “ours,” but federal lands belong to all Americans, and aren’t meant to only benefit the states where they are located.

The new Trump administration will likely resemble his first. He promised to save the coal industry, but only oversaw its rapid decline because it failed to compete with cheaper wind and solar energy and natural gas. There was never a federal war on coal, just a natural free market response to a dying industry. 

In this year’s presidential election, there was a clear public policy choice to address climate change by lowering greenhouse gas emissions through increased renewable energy use. Trump continues to call climate change a hoax and never listens to scientists who say it’s the biggest existential threat to the planet. 

I won’t pretend Biden’s energy policies were perfect, or that Democratic nominee Kamala Harris would make them so. Her flip-flop on fracking dismayed supporters and wasn’t believed by critics, and was a detriment to her failed campaign.

But Harris promised that as president she would “unite Americans to tackle the climate crisis as she advances environmental justice, protects public lands and public health, and increases resilience to climate disasters.”

Trump, in sharp contrast, pledged to “unleash” domestic fossil fuel production, slash royalties that corporations pay to drill on federal lands, expedite oil and gas permitting, and withdraw the United States from the Paris climate agreement.

To understand the dark days ahead, read the section on public lands proposed by Project 2025, the blueprint for Trump’s second term published by the ultra-conservative Heritage Foundation.

Trump back-pedaled as fast as he could when people condemned the agenda written by key members of his first administration. He put so much distance between himself and the 900-page document, that it was largely forgotten in the final days of the campaign.

After Trump’s victory, advisers like recently released felon Steve Bannon bragged that Project 2025 is precisely what his old boss has in store for the nation. It spells out a forthcoming disaster for our public lands, giving extractive industries nearly unfettered access to them while gutting the Department of the Interior and severely restricting the power of the Endangered Species Act.

Republicans have long sought to turn ownership of federal lands over to the states, under the specious claim state governments have more expertise to manage them. In reality, states like Wyoming have nowhere near the financial resources to take on such responsibility and would sell the lands to private developers as fast as they could.

It speaks volumes that the Project 2025 chapter on the Interior Department was written by William Perry Pendley, Trump’s former acting director of the Bureau of Land Management. Pendley’s entire career has been focused on defending land grabs like the infamous Sagebrush Rebellion in the 1980s, which sought — but fortunately failed — to either outright transfer federal lands to states or privatize them.

Unbelievably, Pendley simply turned writing the section on energy production on federal lands over to Kathleen Sgamma, president of the Western Energy Alliance, an oil and gas trade association, and two industry allies. It’s a perfect example of what to expect from Trump’s administration on this and other vital public matters: let industry write the rules.

Pendley’s enemies list includes environmentalists, whom he has compared to communists and Nazis, and the Interior Department itself. He claims the latter has grown beholden to radical environmentalists and now abuses U.S. laws “to advance a radical climate agenda.”

Expect a deluge of conservation lawsuits that will hopefully tie up many of Trump’s most egregious proposals in court for years, so they can be overturned by judges or voters in 2028.

Speaking of litigation, there’s no doubt Wyoming officials view Trump’s win as a huge plus in their efforts to persuade the U.S. Supreme Court — with its conservative supermajority, thanks to the president-elect — to rule in favor of Utah in its federal public lands lawsuit. Utah claims the federal BLM shouldn’t be able to own land in the state without giving it a designation, like national park or national monument status.

Utah’s lawsuit has separate friend-of-the-court briefs filed by U.S. Rep. Harriet Hageman (R-Wyoming), Gov. Mark Gordon, and 26 members of the Freedom Caucus, which will take control of the Wyoming House next year. If Utah wins its suit, it could pave the way for 17 million acres of federal land in Wyoming to be transferred to the state.

During her career as a lawyer, Hageman carved out a reputation as a fierce opponent of federal environmental laws. Her participation in the suit, which is a disservice to her constituents, at least makes political sense. So does the support of the anti-federal government zealots in the Freedom Caucus.

But what is Gordon’s excuse for joining this sinking ship? In a 2022 interview with the Keep It Public Wyoming Coalition, the governor said large-scale federal land transfers were “a fool’s mission … before we ever gave up those lands [to the federal government], our act of admission required that of us.”

Gordon added he supports public lands and access to sportspeople, so he would oppose such federal transfers. So what’s changed, governor? It’s certainly not Rocky Mountain residents’ broad and bipartisan support for protecting federal public lands, which has been consistent for many years.

Hageman has joined other Republicans in a scheme to get control of federal lands: use it to build affordable housing. In a Washington Examiner op-ed in June, Pendley agreed with the proposal and wrote that Westerners’ future is now “impeded unnecessarily by vast swaths of federal land largely unused, unnecessary, and exorbitantly expensive to maintain.”

Vice President-elect J.D. Vance concurred during his debate with Democratic opponent Tim Walz. He said Trump believes we have a lot of federal lands that aren’t being used for anything, and “they could be places where we build a lot of housing.”

Naturally, Vance and Trump don’t see the value of public lands for hunting, fishing, and recreation, or keeping natural landscapes intact to safeguard clean air, water and wildlife habitat. 

Aaron Weiss, deputy director of the Colorado-based conservation group Center for Western Priorities, told HuffPost the GOP realizes selling off federal lands wholesale is a political third rail, so now they’re trying to frame it as a housing solution.

“But what they’re actually proposing is just more sprawl and McMansions,” Weiss said. Of course, that’s not what the vast majority of Wyomingites want, but I suppose the 75% of Wyoming voters who supported Trump weren’t thinking about the mess states like ours would be left to clean up when they cast their ballots.

The trashman will no longer pick up people’s used, stained, smelly or otherwise funkified mattresses in Sweetwater County.

The Rock Springs Landfill won’t bury them anymore, either. The used, gnarly, sweaty, unwanted giant cushions of coil and memory foam simply take up too much space.

Instead, mattresses are being sent to Utah for recycling instead of taking up space in a Wyoming landfill. It’s part of a long-term goal to save space and material, and has already exceeded expectations.  

The drawback: It’s up to county residents to bring their mattresses to the local drop-off point themselves. And that’s what residents will have to do if they want to get rid of them.

Sweetwater County Solid Waste District No. 1 is no longer burying mattresses in its landfill, and Wyoming Waste Systems — which collects trash throughout central and southern Wyoming — is no longer collecting them.

“We started on Oct. 1, and we’ve already diverted 178 mattresses,” said Dan Chetterbock, general manager of the Rock Springs Landfill. “And we can already see the benefits.”

Too Much Fill

The new no-mattress policy was given the green light to save space and hassle at the Rock Springs Landfill.

“The idea behind the landfill is to pack everything in until there’s no airspace,” said Michelle Foote, site manager for Wyoming Waste Systems in Rock Springs. “A mattress does not compact or decompose. They don’t want them in the landfill.”

Chetterbock said mattresses are particularly problematic for the machinery constantly compacting the perpetually growing layers of trash.

“I’ve seen mattresses wrap around compactor wheels and break machinery,” he said. “Mattresses do not compact. We wanted to extend the lifespan of the landfill and give the community a different avenue to get rid of their mattresses.”

Spring Back

Spring Back Recycling is a nonprofit organization with programs in Utah, Colorado, North Carolina, Tennessee and Washington. It recycles or repurposes up to 95% of mattresses’ components for various uses, repurposing materials that would otherwise be squandered in landfills.

“We work with residents, municipalities, landfills and transfer stations to create as much landfill and waste diversion as we can,” said Peter Conway, president of Spring Back Colorado. “We extract the cotton, foam, steel and wood from each mattress and ship those materials to our recycling partners.”

Conway added that Spring Back Recycling employs “disenfranchised” people who are in drug and alcohol recovery centers, recently released from incarceration or “just trying to find footing in society.”

“Redemptive employment helps these folks find stable employment, get long-term housing, and become tax-paying members of society,” he said. “And, in the process, we’re diverting millions of pounds of materials from landfills each year.”

Same Place, Different Destination

When a Sweetwater County resident wants to dispose of a mattress, it still goes to the Rock Springs Landfill. It just doesn’t end up inside it.

Spring Back Utah drops an empty Convex container at the landfill for people to drop off their mattresses. When it’s full, usually around 60-70 mattresses, the container is transported to the recycling facility in Salt Lake City.

Storing the discarded mattresses keeps them in a good enough condition to be recycled. That’s why Wyoming Waste Systems no longer takes them out with the trash.

“The mattresses have got to stay dry,” Foote said. “The company must do certain things with them to make them reusable or whatever they do to recycle them. The landfill still accepts mattresses. We just don’t mix them with the trash when we pick it up.”

Cost Sharing

Spring Back Recycling pays trucking companies to pick up and drop off the containers and passes those costs to its partners and customers. That means Sweetwater County is paying to keep the landfill mattress-free.

Chetterbock said Sweetwater County Solid Waste District No. 1’s mill levy covers the cost of transporting the mattresses from Rock Springs to Salt Lake City. However, residents outside the district incur some additional costs.

“If you live in or are a district resident, there’s no cost to you,” he said. “That cost was absorbed in the mill levy. We charge $35 per mattress for anyone outside our district and for in-district businesses.”

The cost of transporting mattresses out of the landfill is offset by the benefits of eliminating mattresses from ending up inside. Landfills don’t want them, and Spring Back Recycling is ready to take them.

Less Space, Better Space

After one month of the new mattress recycling program, Chetterbock is impressed with the results. Mattresses occasionally show up in garbage trucks, but none make it into the landfill.

“We’re seeing the benefits in airspace right away,” he said. “Our software is showing greater compaction between what we had before and what we have now.”

Chetterbock anticipated Spring Back Utah would make one trip a month to the Rock Springs Landfill to pick up and replace the mattress container. Since Oct. 1, they’ve already made three trips and are getting close to needing a fourth.

“It’s better air space utilization and better utilization of the mattresses,” he said. “I think it’s going really good, and we’re happy with the results so far.”

Do It Yourself (For Now)

While the occasional mattress still ends up in a garbage truckload, no mattresses are going into the Rock Springs Landfill. The challenge for Sweetwater County residents is that they’ll have to find their own way to get their mattresses there.

“Customers are asked to transport mattresses to the landfill directly,” she said. “All of our drivers have specific routes that they go out on every day, so we don’t have the manpower or the time to pick up mattresses.”

Chetterbock said that hasn’t been an issue so far.

“Other than some commercial loads and roll-off bins from waste haulers, everybody that hauls mattresses here hasn’t had a problem putting them where they need to go when they get out here,” he said.

Cycling Upward

Sweetwater County isn’t the only Wyoming community that’s expressed an interest in recycling mattresses. Conway said he’s been approached by other Wyoming communities about starting their own mattress recycling programs.

“I advised them that if they could figure out a way to get them to us, we can definitely recycle them,” he said.

Andrew Rossi can be reached at arossi@cowboystatedaily.com.