by Maggie Mullen, WyoFile Three strikes and you’re out.  That’s the new policy of the Wyoming Republican Party regarding meeting attendance for its elected precinct committeemen and women — the people who help craft the party’s policy vision. Any precinct committee person who misses three meetings in a year will be removed.  Supporters say the bylaw change is needed to address an epidemic of no shows across the state.  “This is not booting or kicking out people from the party,” Park County GOP State Committeeman Vince Vanata told WyoFile, adding that he’s seen members get ..read more

CASPER, Wyo. — The candidate filing period for the 2024 City of Casper City Council nomination by primary begins on May 16. Five Casper City Council seats will be filled in the November 2024 election; two seats each in Wards I and II and one seat in Ward III must be filled. The filing period for the primary election is May 16 through May 31. Prospective candidates can determine their ward from the Council Ward map available at www.casperwy.gov. All municipal offices are nonpartisan. The city clerk is the municipal elections officer and assists municipal candidates with the filing of ..read more

By Dustin Bleizeffer Gov. Mark Gordon has promised to sue over a new suite of federal rules that most observers agree will hasten the U.S. thermal coal industry’s trajectory toward extinction — an existential threat to many Wyoming communities and one of the state’s main economic drivers. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday issued four “final” rules aimed at drastically cutting coal pollution, including a mandate that existing coal-fired power plants cut or capture 90% of their planet-warming carbon dioxide emissions by 2032 or convert to natural gas or close a ..read more

By Mike Koshmrl Until a few weeks ago, Wayne Pacelle was undecided whether he’d join the fray of lawsuits challenging the federal government’s decision to allow western states to continue managing gray wolves.  Then the news cycle spun toward Sublette County, where local resident Cody Roberts is accused of running down a wolf with a snowmobile on Feb. 29, capturing the critically wounded animal, taping its mouth shut, and showing it off in a bar for hours before finally killing it — actions that have thus far only earned Roberts a $250 fine. Pacelle, a forme ..read more

CHEYENNE, Wyo. — Wyoming has joined the states of North Dakota, Montana and Texas in suing the U.S. Department of Interior and Bureau of Land Management over a new rule that they have said undermines existing state regulatory programs and harms Wyoming oil and natural gas producers. The suit was filed this week in the U.S. District Court for the District of North Dakota. The rule — commonly known as the “methane waste prevention rule,” released last month — is an attempt by the department of Interior to re-introduce a similar rule adopted by the Obama Administration in 2016. That rule was pre ..read more

CASPER, Wyo. — In 2022, Jeanette Ward joined the Wyoming House of Representatives for House District 57. Now an incumbent, Ward will face a challenger in the 2024 election in the form of Casper resident Julie Jarvis. Jarvis recently announced her candidacy for House District 57 in a YouTube video where she laid out some of her goals and her vision for Wyoming. A lifelong Wyomingite, Jarvis currently works as the Director of Teaching and Learning for the Natrona County School District. “If you’re from Wyoming, you know we value the right to make our own decisions for our families, health, pock ..read more

by Maya Shimizu Harris, WyoFile CHEYENNE—The Wyoming Republican Party voted Saturday to censure Gov. Mark Gordon following his vetoes of two bills passed by the Legislature early this year.  The full body at the GOP’s state convention adopted the censure on a consent list, meaning they approved the resolution along with several others and didn’t debate the action. However, one delegate did attempt to pull the resolution from the list. The adoption follows the state GOP resolutions committee’s narrow approval of the censure on Friday.  Wyoming’s far right has been crit ..read more

By Mike Koshmrl RIVERTON, Wyo. — From her home in the South Carolina countryside town of Six Mile, Lorraine Finazzo typically spends her weekdays managing construction projects for a New York City real estate developer.  Because of an incident involving a Wyoming wolf over 1,500 miles away, her productivity has waned of late.  “I’m at the computer crying everyday,” Finazzo said from the lobby of the Holiday Inn in Riverton. “I’m supposed to be working remotely and instead I’m like, ‘Oh my God there’s another video.’”  “I don’t know why I feel this way,” she ..read more

By Angus M. Thuermer Jr. A new Biden administration rule will make conservation one of many recognized multiple uses on the 18.4 million acres of public land overseen by the Bureau of Land Management in Wyoming, a move that frustrated Gov. Mark Gordon and unleashed a cascade of criticism from politicians and industry. The 178-page final Conservation and Landscape Health Rule would “codify conservation tools” to better meet legal requirements to “protect intact natural landscapes and restore degraded landscapes to achieve ecosystem resilience.” It will become effective in about 30 days, a ..read more

by Madelyn Beck, WyoFile After the Legislature axed $1.7 million in University of Wyoming funding and prohibited state spending on the school’s Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, a university working group is proposing possible steps forward. While Gov. Mark Gordon vetoed a portion of the Legislature’s budget that would have also barred state funding for “any diversity, equity and inclusion program, activity or function,” the UW working group examined a wide swath of DEI-related programming.   “The message from lawmakers, regardless of the welcomed line-item veto from t ..read more