CODY, Wyoming (ABC4) — After a year-long legal battle, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints broke ground on the Cody Wyoming Temple on Friday, Sept. 27.

The temple was announced in the Oct. 2021 General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, headquartered in Salt Lake City. This will be the state’s third temple. Other temples include the Casper Wyoming Temple and Star Valley Wyoming Temple.

This groundbreaking comes after a citizen challenge was appealed and dismissed earlier this month in Wyoming District Court, putting an end to a year-plus-long legal battle. Last year, the group “Preserve Our Cody Neighborhoods” decided to sue the city over the permit being given to the Church to build the temple with a 101-foot spire.

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Wyoming Public Media reported that the group “felt the Planning and Zoning board had violated city codes. [The neighborhood group] said the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints’ plans to build the Temple… presents several issues.”

Earlier this year, the same group sued for a second time, claiming the city was “stonewalling” the process. The Cowboy State Daily reported the neighborhood group stated that the now-former city planner Todd Stowell manipulated Planning and Zoning Board members. Stowell resigned earlier this year amidst the controversy, he cited different reasons for leaving his position that didn’t pertain to the Cody Temple.

The outlet reported members of the Cody Planning and Zoning Board suspected the city planner and attorney had conflicts of interest with the church that influenced the advice they gave. The filing further accused Stowell showed bias toward the church to gain approval for a temple being considered by the board. Stowell is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Several filings were made in the year-plus legal battle between residents and the church.

At the end of August, the courts ruled in favor of the Church.

“In late August, the court ruled in favor of the city’s zoning process, and the citizen challenge was dismissed, preliminary construction work is now underway,” the church said in a statement earlier this month.

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One of my favourite things to do in Deadlock is to read up on each hero’s lore. Some are as simple as “Jacob Lash is an asshole,” while others give a detailed description of a hero’s journey and the tragedies they’ve overcome, like Bebop turning to a life of crime to pay for his creator’s medicine. And Deadlock’s latest addition is no different. 

Mirage is the newest hero Valve has added to Deadlock. He’s a bodyguard for the Djinn ambassador Nashala Dion, who is currently in New York City on a diplomatic mission: Finding a safe home for their kind and, for some reason, the best candidate for a new sovereign land is Wyoming. I’ve never set foot in the US, so I can’t speak on what Wyoming is like compared to the rest of the States, but it does seem like a random choice for a new utopia.

But other than having Wyoming in his sights, Mirage seems to be pretty useful on the battlefield. Tornado is his primary attack, transforming him into a whirlwind that can launch enemies into the air and deal damage. Mirage’s other abilities are Fire Scarabs and Djiinn’s Mark. One launches bugs that drain enemy life force, and the other is a passive ability that increases the multiplier on your chosen target. Finally, his ultimate lets him teleport to allies or enemies, giving him a speed boost for a short time after.

Others are also having just as much fun as I am learning the story behind Deadlock’s most specific real estate agent, as well as other heroes: “I hope they keep it random,” one player says. “It’s so much fun to sift through the lore when you suddenly get blindsided by ‘Is it cannibalism to eat werewolves?’ My only hope for Deadlock’s story is that it doesn’t stay in lore purgatory like Overwatch when they can’t have anything happen, so it’s just constantly alluding to future and past events that will never get expanded upon.” 

I’m not sure where Deadlock’s story is going, but I’d like it to keep an easy-going attitude as it progresses. I’m having great fun discovering more weird tidbits as I explore the map, read heroes’ lore, and browse the papers available on the newspaper stands. 

In the first full year since President Joe Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act, clean energy jobs in the U.S. grew at a faster clip than jobs across the rest of the economy, according to a new report by a business nonprofit. But there are few signs of that expansion in Wyoming, long the nation’s largest purveyor of coal and a hotbed of fossil fuel development, where clean energy job growth has been halting. 

E2, a business policy organization and the report’s author, compiled its Clean Jobs America report using data it helped collect for the U.S. Department of Energy’s most recent U.S. Energy and Employment Report, which detailed economic trends for the calendar year 2023. The group found that clean energy jobs grew by 4.5 percent and accounted for one in every 16 new jobs added, bringing the total number of clean energy workers in the U.S. to almost 3.5 million. The rest of the economy grew jobs by 1.5 percent. 

“Thanks to the game-changing policies and incentives created by the IRA, clean energy companies are leading an American economic revolution the likes of which we haven’t seen in generations,” said Bob Keefe, executive director of E2, in a statement accompanying the report’s release.

One of the largest onshore wind farms in the country is being developed in south central Wyoming. But none of the “330 major clean energy projects” announced after the IRA was signed in August 2022 are scheduled to be completed in the state. According to E2’s report, Wyoming has the second-fewest clean energy jobs, behind only Alaska.

Measured per capita, the state’s clean energy job growth rate actually ranked second from the top. But this was more a function of its low population skewing the data. With a paltry number of clean energy workers in Wyoming to start with, adding just a few hundred new jobs registers as substantial growth.  

With so much federal money available and some high-quality renewable energy resources, Wyoming’s low participation in the clean energy economy is conspicuous.

“Wyoming is missing out and could really be capitalizing on clean energy as a growth sector,” said Kate Groetzinger, the communications manager for the Center for Western Priorities. She added that growing its clean energy sector did not necessarily have to come at the expense of fossil fuels, though the Center for Western Priorities would still like to see the state ramp down its production and use of coal, oil and natural gas.

The Wyoming Energy Authority, the state entity responsible for implementing and overseeing energy policy, did not respond with a comment for this story. 

Wind has long been Wyoming’s most developed renewable sector, accounting for the vast majority of its clean energy projects—there are 35 wind projects and more than 1,000 turbines in the state—even as state legislators routinely threaten legislation that would create a less friendly business environment for the industry. 

“Wyoming is one of the eight remaining states with more fossil fuel jobs than clean energy jobs.”

— Michael Timberlake, E2 spokesperson

Solar has followed a different trajectory in Wyoming. The state is home to only two utility-scale solar farms, one of which environmentalists say has been detrimental to wildlife since it came online in 2018. But there are signs the industry is poised to grow in the state: There are four new utility-scale solar projects in Wyoming’s permitting pipeline, and the Bureau of Land Management’s recently updated Western Solar Plan makes almost 4 million acres of public land in Wyoming available for development.

Though the Cowboy State had one of the highest rates of clean energy jobs per capita, placing third behind Vermont and Massachusetts in E2’s report, those jobs made up a smaller portion of its total energy and motor vehicle jobs than most other states.

“Wyoming is one of the eight remaining states with more fossil fuel jobs than clean energy jobs,” said Michael Timberlake, a spokesperson for E2. Wyoming’s clean energy jobs made up only 18 percent of all energy and motor vehicle jobs in the state, a much lower ratio than also-sparsely-populated Vermont, where clean energy jobs make up over 70 percent of all its energy and motor vehicle jobs.

For a state with such a staunch energy reputation, Wyoming’s rank toward the bottom of most clean energy job metrics caught Groetzinger by surprise. “This report is a good reality check” for Wyoming, she said, and it “shows that Governor Gordon should be paying at least as much attention to clean energy generation as he is to carbon capture.”

Gov. Mark Gordon, a Republican, has sought to make Wyoming a hotbed for carbon capture projects, mainly as a lifeline for the state’s fossil fuel industry. Under his administration, the state legislature has passed laws mandating that fossil fuel-fired power plants add carbon capture technology, even as the costly technology threatens to raise electricity rates in the state.

In a blow to the nascent industry, Project Bison, a large carbon capture plant planned in the state, announced earlier this month it had “paused” construction because it was unable to acquire enough access to clean energy. 

Gordon’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

Despite Wyoming’s low clean energy job growth, the rest of the West added green jobs at the second-highest rate in the county. The region trailed only the South in both jobs added and total clean energy jobs, with a 4.2 percent growth rate.

Businesses in the U.S. are “just getting started,” taking advantage of the IRA, said Keefe. “The biggest threats to this unprecedented progress are misguided efforts to repeal or rollback parts of the IRA, despite the law’s clear benefits both to American workers and the communities where they live.”