Cooper says Senate setting a good pace

District 20 Senator Ed Cooper (R-Ten Sleep) was interviewed on Jan. 24, at the end of the second week of the Wyoming Legislature’s 2025 General Session for an update on his work.

With the House falling far behind the Senate in bills passed out of their respective branches early on, Cooper isn’t optimistic that all House Bills will have time to be considered.

He said, “The week was good on our [Senate] side. We got a total of 34 bills passed out of the Senate over to the other side, and I think the House got 18 that they’ve passed back to us. They’re running pretty slow but I think overall we’re still in pretty good shape.”

He added, “We’ve got a pretty heavy load with all the bills that are coming out of committee and headed to the floor, but we have plenty of time on our side … I’m worried the House is going to run into time constraints; they’ve got around 270 bills to get through. They’re not gonna get through them all.”

MINERALS

Cooper and the rest of the Senate Minerals, Business and Economic Development Committee had a productive last week, passing six bills on to Senate General File, with the Senate further passing three of them into the House for introduction.

Cooper highlighted Senate File 0020, Oil and gas bonding-options and bonding pools, which was passed to the House on Jan. 28. He said, “That’s a really important one. It establishes a bonding pool for small operators. The feds have increased the bonds on these little wells from $5,000 to $25,000, and increased the statewide bond from $25,000 to $500,000. That creates a lot of issues for small companies that operate on three or four wells, but that’s what makes up 30% of our production in Wyoming. So, it’s a pretty big deal that we can allow for those small operators to pool their bond money together into one fund that satisfies the federal requirements and keeps these wells in production.”

TRANSPORTATION

Cooper said work has gone similarly well in the Senate Transportation, Highways and Military Affairs Committee. Last week they passed nine bills onto General File, six of which have passed third reading in the Senate as of Jan. 28.

“They’ve been pretty small bills so far, so it’s been straightforward,” said Cooper.

He highlighted Senate File 0102, Surviving parents of gold star veterans-exemptions. The existing bill provides property tax exemptions to the spouses of veterans who were killed in their line of duty, while this amendment will allow surviving parents of the veteran this exemption instead if there is not a spouse. Cooper said, “It’s a good bill for our gold star families.”

Two bills did not pass the Senate Committee of the Whole.

Senate File 0029 failed to pass on Jan. 21 with a vote of two in favor and 26 against. It intended to provide liability for a person that returns a firearm to the owner following an agreement for them to hold it and provides exceptions for this liability. Cooper said, “Most of the people thought that it stepped too far into territory where we’re dealing with Second Amendment rights, and the liabilities it dealt with were a real concern … I voted against that bill for those reasons.”

Senate File 0031 also failed to pass on Jan. 21 with a vote of 11 in favor and 17 against. It would have installed a veteran representative of the Wyoming National Guard as an ex-officio member of the University of Wyoming Board of Trustees and the Wyoming Community College Commission. Cooper voted in favor of this bill, and said, “The National Guard talked to us about that and I supported it, but it didn’t do well on the Senate Floor. I guess the feeling was that there are already too many ex-officio members on those university boards, and as a body they weren’t in favor of it. I thought our veterans deserved a voice on that, but there it goes ... I think it’ll come back in the future though.”

SPONSORED BILLS

Cooper is now sponsoring five bills, with the newly added Senate File 0186 receiving a number and being introduced to the Senate on Jan. 28.

He said, “It has to do with the manufacturing of micro nuclear reactors in Wyoming. We’ve got two manufacturers that have been looking real hard at coming to Wyoming, and my hope is that they’ll announce that intention in the next couple weeks. This is a bill to help them with their on-site fuel storage; this is very restrictive to just advanced nuclear reactor manufacturers.”

He added, “They’re real small reactors; they continuously supply one megawatt and they fit in a shipping container. You can pick the whole reactor up and ship it where you need to use it. These manufacturers have identified both domestic and international markets for this technology … There’s a possibility for a whole new industry coming to Wyoming in the next year or two, and that’s huge for us. There’s all kinds of opportunities this will bring to Wyoming: not just for the manufacturing itself but for trucking, parts manufacturing, all kinds of business will be created … There’s nothing concrete yet, but we’re really excited about it.”

Cooper gave an update on the progress of Senate File 0087, his prescriptive easements bill to allow rural electric associations access to work on their infrastructure regardless of land ownership. He said, “We had to lay that one back. It turned out to be a much bigger bill than what we had initially thought it would be. The goal was to get something in quickly so the REAs can get to work with these easements, but there were some unintended consequences with the way it was written. I’ve got some attorneys working on it together with the Wyoming Rural Electric Association. I’m hoping we can get it fixed to bring it back forward again this session. If we can’t do it in time, I’ll bring it forward as an interim topic.”

He added that Senate File 0122, his bill to declare felony voyeurism a crime punishable by placement on the sex offender registry, and Senate File 0005, his bill to allow flashing lights on non-bus school vehicles, would appear on the Senate Floor this week. As of Jan. 28, Senate File 0122 has passed through the Committee of the Whole and Senate File 0005 passed through Transportation onto General File.