Cooper: Civility 'excellent' early in session

Legislators wrapped up the first week of Wyoming's 2025 General Legislative Session early on Friday, Jan. 17 to let participants try to beat a snowstorm in Cheyenne

The Northern Wyoming News contacted Senate District 20 Sen. Ed Cooper (R-Ten Sleep) while he headed back home for his weekly report.

Cooper said, "The first week went really well. There were concerns about it, but the civility was excellent - we had one minor incident where a gentleman overstepped but he apologized for his actions the next day. Things are in good shape; we've got a real cooperative effort in the Senate. I don't know how things are in the House though; we've been so busy on our side I haven't heard how things are going over there."

He added, "We've been hitting the floor at 7 in the morning, and it's been 6 every night before we're out of there. It's been long, hard days ... There's some big social issue bills out there that'll be coming up, but we're just still doing the nuts-and-bolts work. It doesn't get as much coverage but it's important."

THOUGHTS ON STATE OF THE STATE ADDRESS

Always a highlight of the first week of the legislative session, Wyoming Governor Mark Gordon provided the State of the State Address on Jan. 15. Gordon spoke about several points of pride and progress for Wyoming over the last year, as well as drawing emphasis on supplemental budget items. Gordon proposed adding $3.5 million to the state's coal litigation fund to aid in the ongoing legal battle to protect Wyoming's coal industry, as well as $20 million in appropriations for the Mineral Royalty Grant Program to be made available for emergency infrastructure projects in the state.

Cooper summarized his thoughts on Gordon's speech, saying, "I thought it was one of the governor's better addresses. He emphasized a lot of things that are really important to us in the [Big Horn] Basin - primarily energy and water storage. For the nuts and bolts of running the state of Wyoming, those are both highly important topics. In general, I thought it was a very good address; his priorities are really similar to our [legislators'] priorities, and I'm really looking forward to working with him over the next few months."

MINERALS

The Senate Minerals, Business & Economic Development Committee met twice last week, and worked quickly to pass five bills on to the next step and begin on a sixth, passed on Monday.

The bills they've passed thus far have already been heavily vetted, making them move through committee quite fast. Cooper said, "What we're passing through committees right now are all bills that we worked with during the interim, and they've already been worked pretty hard."

He added, "We passed two bills out of Minerals committee [Friday] that are both enhanced oil recovery bills. They're pretty important for the Big Horn Basin as far as I'm concerned, because I believe we have a future in the enhanced oil recovery industry here. They bring a lot of promise across the state, but I think we can bring in some projects in the next few years. This will get us headed in the right direction."

Enhanced oil recovery makes use of a technique that involves pressurizing an oil deposit to increase the rate that oil can be extracted. Many oil wells in Wyoming that implemented previous technologies have been depleted until the yield becomes too low and they are deemed unprofitable; enhanced oil recovery can breathe new life into these wells.

Senate File 17 passed out of the minerals committee on Jan. 20, with a recommendation for amendment. This bill will provide a stimulus available to entities in Wyoming that make use of CO2 to act as the pressurizing agent in enhanced oil recovery operations. The bill has been re-referred to the Appropriations Committee. The Legislative Service Office has a fiscal note showing that there is an "appropriation of $10,000,000 from the LEGISLATIVE STABILIZATION RESERVE ACCOUNT (LSRA) to the proposed Enhanced Oil Recovery Stimulus Account (EORSA)."

Senate File 18 passed out of the minerals committee on Jan. 17 and was also re-referred to Appropriations. This bill amends an existing severance tax exemption for crude oil production to add additional exemptions for producers making use of enhanced oil recovery. The fiscal note from the Legislative Service Office shows a potential loss of revenue of $700,000 in 2027 and $1.5 million in 2028 in the general fund with losses of $1.4 million and $4 million in the budget reserve account with the additional exemptions.

Cooper said, "There are 75 depleted oil fields in the state of Wyoming that have been identified as having a minimum of 10 million barrels of oil left in the ground. Theoretically, those are great candidates for enhanced oil recovery, and you add that up, that's potentially 750 million barrels of oil we can produce through this program... In the grand scheme of that plan, we're a ways out from doing it in the Big Horn Basin because we don't have a pipeline, but if we can get some return on these projects that are closer to the pipelines, then we can see our way forward to expanding that pipeline system."

TRANSPORTATION

Cooper was newly added to the Senate Transportation, Highways & Military Affairs Committee this year, but he indicates that he's been able to get right to work there.

He said, "I had to learn what their committee bills were through the summer [was not on committee during interim], and most of them are pretty simple bills; I was supposed to present one this afternoon [Jan. 17] on the Senate Floor but they let us out early to beat this storm. It's about a new requirement for nonresident driver's licenses; all it does is make an amendment that would require a disclaimer on there that says, 'Not a United States citizen.' ... It's an election integrity bill, if you will; it easily identifies individuals holding that license as nonqualified voters, and there's nothing wrong with that, it just makes those qualifications easier to enforce."

Senate File 33 has passed on second reading in the Senate on Tuesday, Jan. 21.

Cooper also spoke about the importance of Senate File 25, which will amend legislation on vehicle registration to include means to undergo the process digitally. This bill has passed third reading Tuesday 28-1 (nay) -2 (excused).

He said, "County clerks and treasurers I've spoken to are all in favor of it; it's an amendment that modernizes our vehicle registration system quite a bit - it hasn't been updated since 1994. It brings it into modern day where everything is done on computers ... Individuals can now do it all online, or you can still go down to the courthouse if you're more comfortable with that. It'll save our counties a lot of expense, and it should cut down on lines of people waiting to register."

Cooper was also asked about Senate File 32, which will amend an existing bill outlining the process for counties to alter speed limits on unpaved roadways. The change will allow for altering speed limits on unpaved roads without going through the process of speed studies. Cooper said, "It gives control back to our local authorities. They know what kind of shape their roads are in, and they know whether it's a 55 mile per hour road or a 35 mile per hour road. It's a good example of giving control of things back to people who know what's going on with them. I like that bill."

Washakie County Commissioner Chairman Terry Wolf was also reached for comment, saying, "It'll be a good tool in the toolbox for us to utilize; it's not very often that we're looking to change speed limits, but not having to do a speed study is something that will help us address safety issues faster. We would still talk with law enforcement, [Wyoming Department of Transportation], any nearby land owners to inquire ahead of time so that we're making the right decision ... It's been years ago since we did one, but they use those traffic counters for a few weeks to get an idea of how heavy it is, they bring out engineers to look at things, and often they have the same conclusion as the local officials."

Wolf said that from what he remembers, skipping the speed study could save a couple months in implementing speed limit changes.

SPONSORED BILLS

Senator Cooper currently has four sponsored bills that have been assigned bill numbers and introduced. Only Senate File 87 has been assigned to committee – It was referred to the Corporations Committee on Jan. 17, and Cooper will be presenting it this week.

He said, "My prescriptive easement bill for REAs [rural electric administrations] will be going to corporations next week, so I'll walk that bill through there and then the next stage is the Committee of the Whole. That's a really good bill that's important to our local REAs ... as our rural electric system ages out, we need to be able to get in and work on it. Well, land ownership has changed a lot over the years, and some of them aren't as understanding as others when it comes to getting on their property to work on power lines. So these easements will take care of that."

CONSTITUENT CONCERNS

Cooper stated that over the course of the first week of the session, he's been hearing from members of his community mostly about House Education Committee bills. He said, "There's a lot more concern about some of the bills coming out in the House right now. I've heard a lot of concern especially over House Bill 100. I don't see that bill going anywhere but it's the primary one I'm hearing about right now. I'm relatively sure that bill will be dead soon, if it isn't already."

House Bill 100 would allow people without any formal training or certification in education to be employed as, "An administrator, teacher or other personnel," in schools as long as this practice is authorized by their governing board."

According to Wyoming Legislature website, wyoleg.gov, at the time of writing on Jan. 21 action has not been taken on this bill since it was received for introduction to the House

on Jan. 2.