Wyoming residents and businesses enjoy among the lowest rates for electricity because most of the state’s power comes from burning coal, but those cost dynamics are changing quickly, making coal a liability.

 Recently, a legislative committee advanced a bill to raise taxes on wind energy while also signaling distaste for rooftop solar and other forms of customer-generated electricity. It seems a perplexing stance in the context of other states in the West that are retiring coal-fired power plants at a rapid clip. 

 But Wyoming leaders worry little about the devastation in the West wrought by climate change, and they criticize PacifiCorp, which proposes to retire several coal-fired units ahead of schedule, for potentially harming Wyoming towns such as Kemmerer, Rock Springs and Glenrock.

 Unlike Colorado, New Mexico and Washington, Wyoming has never developed a plan to transition beyond coal. Instead, state leaders are trying to force utilities to keep aging coal plants in Wyoming burning. The state is also spending taxpayer dollars in a stealth effort to lobby against coal-plant closures outside its borders, in Arkansas, Oklahoma, Colorado and other states.

 Meanwhile, Wyoming is negotiating to take on the coal power within PacifiCorp’s operating region that other Western states are abandoning. That means Wyoming ratepayers — or a combination of customers in Wyoming and other states that might opt for more coal — would take on a larger coal portfolio. This could be risky financially, as the coal generation comes from older power plants, some beyond 40 and 50 years old. 

 Somehow, lawmakers have convinced themselves that the West’s rush to renewables is foolish and will result in a knock on the door from other states. Then Wyoming could say, “I told you so” to these states that plead for coal-fired power after wind and solar fail to meet spikes in demand.

 “Reliability is a big concern for customers,” said Bryce Freeman, Wyoming’s consumer advocate administrator in testimony before a legislative committee last fall. “The cheapest electricity in the world is no good if it doesn’t work when customers need it, and that’s exactly what’s happened in California.” 

 Well, not exactly. There were forced rolling blackouts in California last summer, but the cause was more operational shortcomings. A report by the California Independent System Operator found that power officials failed to anticipate and contract for enough backup power while also mistakenly keeping offline some of its backup from natural gas.

 It seems a shame that the state isn’t onboard with its Western neighbors to help decarbonize the grid. “The more people and states that participate, the easier it is to achieve any emissions goal,” said Jonathan Koomey, energy researcher and president of Koomey Analytics. “If you have more geographic regions contributing to the grid, it makes it easier to reduce emissions.”

 Anybody who has traveled the I-80 corridor across southern Wyoming knows that the state has an incredible wind resource. It even blows in the evening when customers in California need it most. There’s now a glut of potential Wyoming wind energy proposals from developers that would produce more than 5,000 megawatts with a capital investment of nearly $10 billion. It’s worth noting that no other industry is contemplating such an investment in Wyoming, now in the throes of a historic budget crisis. Financial backers, though, are nervous, warning that the threat of higher state taxes on wind might make Wyoming non-competitive. 

 When the state Legislature took comment from close to 100 people about the state’s coal-only agenda last month, most residents pleaded with lawmakers not to block commercial wind power development. Lawmakers weren’t swayed.

 The wind blows and the sun shines in other parts of the West, too, and the burgeoning renewable market might just blow past Wyoming. Wyoming’s stubborn reluctance won’t stop other Western states from leaving coal — and perhaps the Cowboy State — in the past.

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Gov. Mark Gordon, in his State of the State address, summoned both the swagger and the fury that characterizes the coal narrative today: “We produce better energy more safely and with more attention to the environment than anywhere else on the planet. And yet our industries are still discriminated against, maligned, and decried as dead. Well, not on my watch!”

What some in Wyoming might consider discrimination, others might cite fighting for their lives in the face of sea-level rise and deadly wildfires. Still, Wyoming is mourning a real loss, and you can hear it expressed in a coffee shop in Gillette or the state capitol in Cheyenne.

The mourning is for an industry that paid the state’s bills. Coal mining built excellent K-12 schools and community colleges, while modernizing Wyoming’s four-year university. Coal helped Wyoming amass a wealth fund with an estimated value of $20 billion. 

Coal is responsible for helping to create the term “Gillette Syndrome” — the boomtown phenomenon of acute social disruption due to rapid industrial growth — and then enabled the same town to demolish that reputation by building a thriving community with world-class amenities.

Coal gave Wyoming what few rural communities have — economic security. 

The pitfalls of a fossil-fueled economy, however, are no mystery. No other state in the nation had a more narrow economy than Wyoming, focusing on coal, oil and natural gas. Those industries were already stumbling toward new lows before the COVID-19 pandemic tightened the screws. What faces the state’s leaders now is finding a new economic base — shifting from supporting an industry to supporting its towns and counties.

So far, that doesn’t appear to be happening. New Mexico has launched an ambitious strategy to divest from coal-fired power while providing financial aid to communities to prepare for the transition away from coal. In Wyoming, lawmakers pitched legislation to penalize utilities for using renewable energy. Wyoming lawmakers passed a bill requiring utilities to install financially risky carbon-capture systems, allowing each utility to recover up to $1 billion in carbon capture capital from ratepayers.

Colorado recently established a “Just Transition” collaboration and a fund to help coal communities reorient toward a sustainable future without coal. In Wyoming, lawmakers floated a raft of bills this winter that come to the aid of the coal industry itself, offering up an estimated $48 million in benefits and expenditures while offering little in direct aid to coal workers.

“I keep wondering if all our politicians are behind the curve when it comes to public opinion,” said Larry Wolfe, a longtime energy-industry attorney and lobbyist in the state. “I think the people who live in these communities know their future is in serious doubt if they’re mining coal or operating a coal-fired power plant, or their livelihood is dependent on all the ancillary industries.” 

Ben Alexander is senior program advisor at the Resources Legacy Fund, a nonprofit conservation group with bases in California and Montana. A few years ago, he set out to find modern-day examples of energy-dependent communities in the West that are finding success in building a new local economy. 

“There were not a ton of places,” Alexander said. “But there were some in Wyoming.”

They include Sheridan County and Wyoming’s coal capital, Campbell County. Alexander said he found dozens of local leaders in those counties carefully working to expand the local tax base, invest in training, and paving the way for new businesses.

Alexander said that some local governments started planning because they didn’t have the tremendous savings that the state had accumulated. “The finality of it (coal), I think, has led to better decision making and more focus on what other options are available,” 

It’s cathartic for a state and for a community to collectively mourn a loss. But it can also slip into a kind of indulgence that doesn’t lead to good policy. If Wyoming is going to survive this historic economic transition, state leadership is going to have to realize it cannot succeed in saving the coal industry. 

What the state can do is face reality and help to save local communities.

Dustin Bleizeffer is a contributor to Writers on the Range.org, a nonprofit dedicated to spurring lively conversation about the West. He has worked as a coal miner, an oilfield mechanic, and for 20 years as a statewide reporter and editor. He lives in Casper, Wyoming. 

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