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Articles written by Dustin Bleizeffer


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  • Wyoming sues to stop new Biden administration coal pollution rules

    Dustin Bleizeffer, WyoFile.com|May 16, 2024

    Wyoming joined more than 20 states this week in filing two lawsuits in federal court to stop the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s new rules to reduce greenhouse gas and other harmful pollutants emitted from coal- and natural gas-fired power plants. The lawsuits allege the EPA has overstepped its authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from electrical power plants when it issued four sweeping rules in April, including one that mandates a 90% reduction of carbon dioxide at the smokestack by 2032. Although the EPA’s emission red...

  • Lawmakers float $10M 'stimulus' for enhanced oil recovery in Wyoming

    Dustin Bleizeffer, WyoFile.com|Feb 8, 2024

    A measure that would provide a $10 million "stimulus" to encourage more carbon capture for use in the oil industry will advance to the upcoming legislative session following a special hearing this week by the Joint Minerals, Business and Economic Development Committee. The stimulus, according to committee members, aims to enhance a federal tax credit program that they say favors direct storage of the greenhouse gas over pumping it into oilfields to produce hard-to-get reserves. "The intent of...

  • Wyoming officials blame Biden for coal mine layoffs

    Dustin Bleizeffer, WyoFile.com|Dec 7, 2023

    Wyoming leaders blame Biden administration coal policies as well as bureaucratic delays they claim are deliberate for layoffs at the Black Butte coal mine in southwest Wyoming. Nineteen miners were notified this week that they’d lose their jobs, and more layoffs could be in the works, according to reports. WyoFile was unable to confirm the information with Black Butte Coal. Gov. Mark Gordon’s press secretary Michael Pearlman told WyoFile, “We don’t have any concrete information, although we had heard that there may be additional layoffs...

  • Wyoming passes up federal funds to voluntarily close oil and gas wells

    Dustin Bleizeffer, WyoFile.com|Oct 12, 2023

    Gov. Mark Gordon announced this week the state will decline an invitation to apply for millions in federal Inflation Reduction Act funds aimed at shuttering low-producing oil and gas wells. The Mitigating Emissions from Marginal Conventional Wells program would pay the costs of voluntarily closing and remediating wells that produce less than the equivalent of 15 barrels of oil per day — aka “stripper” wells. Wyoming is eligible for up to $5 million of the $350 million program, according to federal documents. The funds could mostly only be us...

  • 'Environmental justice' rules may hurt Wyoming's bid for federal support

    Dustin Bleizeffer, WyoFile.com|Oct 5, 2023

    Academics and economic development officials fear that Biden administration "environmental justice" requirements are hurting Wyoming's ability to compete for billions of dollars in federal clean energy and infrastructure grants. The grants are largely intended to help communities that stand to lose the most from the ongoing transition away from fossil fuels. Under definitions of the Justice40 Initiative, however, places like Gillette and Campbell County, might not qualify as communities that are...

  • Extra releases from Flaming Gorge suspended

    Dustin Bleizeffer, WyoFile.com|Mar 16, 2023

    The Bureau of Reclamation suspended extra “drought response” releases from Flaming Gorge Reservoir Tuesday at the request of Wyoming and the other three Upper Colorado River Basin states. The reservoir, which straddles the Wyoming-Utah border, was tapped for an extra 500,000 acre-feet of water starting in May 2022 to help ensure that water levels downstream at Lake Powell don’t drop low enough to threaten hydroelectric power generation at Glen Canyon Dam this year. An estimated 463,000 acre-feet of extra water was delivered before offic...

  • Lawmakers seek deal for coal carbon capture

    Dustin Bleizeffer, WyoFile.com|Jul 7, 2022

    Despite several years and a spate of new laws designed to delay the retirement of coal-fired power generating units, the state may have to press harder to broker a deal that results in a coal carbon capture project, according to some lawmakers. “We’ll see what it’s going to take to make a business deal that will work for everybody — and everybody includes the ratepayers,” Joint Corporations, Elections and Subdivisions Committee member Sen. Charles Scott (R-Casper) said Wednesday morning. Determined to preserve coal-fired power generatio...