Wyoming
Town hall on nuclear development reveals tensions over waste, state control in Gillette
GILLETTE, Wyo. — An informational town hall meeting in Gillette tonight drew sharp debate over the future of nuclear development in the state, with community members and officials weighing the economic promise against long-term waste and sovereignty concerns.
The meeting, one of the latest in a statewide series on nuclear energy, featured guest speaker Chuck Hope, a businessman and City Council member from Oak Ridge, Tennessee, a city deeply connected to the Department of Energy and now considered a national model for nuclear reindustrialization. Also speaking was Wyoming Rep. Christopher Knapp, chairman of the state’s Corporations and Management Audit committees and a member of the Minerals Committee, who urged caution as nuclear companies show increasing interest in Wyoming.
Hope described Oak Ridge as a “nuclear renaissance” city that has attracted nearly $20 billion in private investment from a dozen companies over the past two years. He said the city’s success stems from deliberate planning, investment in infrastructure and clear expectations for industry partners.
“Oak Ridge has a rich nuclear history, but we’ve learned that community engagement and long-term responsibility are critical,” Hope said. “We require that companies be part of the community — live here, pay taxes here, and ensure they don’t leave us with cleanup problems later.”
He explained that Oak Ridge’s City Council mandates that nuclear companies cannot become their own interim waste storage facilities. “We have no interest in storing waste on-site indefinitely,” he said. “There’s no national repository yet, but that doesn’t mean cities should take that burden on themselves.”
Hope spoke about several projects under development in Oak Ridge, including the Tennessee Valley Authority’s small modular reactor project, Centrus Power’s pilot reactors Hermes 1 and 2, and Radiant’s R-50 microreactor at the former K-25 site. Radiant had been trying to build in Natrona County, just north of Bar Nunn by Casper, but announced the move to Tennessee this week because of regulatory uncertainty in Wyoming. He also said Tennessee’s governor created a $50 million Nuclear Strategy Development Fund to help recruit nuclear firms to the state, supported by reliable low-cost energy and access to Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
While Hope focused on economic opportunity, Wyoming officials and residents raised concerns about the implications for waste management and state control.
Knapp warned the type of highly enriched uranium fuel used in newer small modular and microreactors — enriched up to 19.72% — could produce extremely radioactive waste that remains dangerous for centuries.
“We don’t yet know how this level of radiation will affect dry-cask storage over time,” Knapp said. “We could be looking at cracking or weld failures in 50 years, and no one knows who will be responsible then.”
Knapp also cautioned that despite Wyoming’s law prohibiting nuclear waste from being brought in from other states, federal agencies like the Nuclear Regulatory Commission can override state statutes by contracting with private companies for so-called “intermediate storage.”
“That’s the federal word game,” Knapp said. “They call it 100-year storage, but that’s effectively permanent. Once that material is here, it’s not leaving.”
He cited a case in Texas where a private company was permitted to store nuclear waste despite state opposition, calling it “a warning shot” for Wyoming’s ability to maintain control over its land and energy policy.
Knapp also criticized what he called a lack of transparency between Wyoming leadership and the public. “There are nondisclosure agreements flying around, private meetings with nuclear vendors, and the Legislature is being left out,” he said. “If we can’t even have an open conversation about what’s being proposed, how can people trust the process?”
Both speakers agreed that nuclear development must come with robust emergency response systems and environmental protections. Hope pointed to Oak Ridge’s cross-trained response teams and new 50,000-square-foot training facility as models for preparedness. He said the city’s water systems and environmental safeguards meet stringent federal and state standards, adding that wastewater from the city’s plant is “cleaner than the water we pull in.”
Still, Knapp argued that Wyoming should focus on reinforcing its traditional energy strengths instead of pivoting toward nuclear.
“We already export 70% of our energy,” he said. “Let’s use our low-cost coal and gas to power data centers and AI operations rather than competing to replace them.”
He also took aim at past state policies, such as House Bill 200, which required coal plants to pursue carbon-capture pilot projects. “That law did nothing but drive up power bills — we’re talking $500 million to $1 billion per plant,” Knapp said.
The next town hall in the series is expected to take place in Wright in early November.
Related
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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Gallery Credit: David Settle, WyoPreps.com
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