Wyoming Republicans Move To Outlaw Large-Scale Clean Energy Production (VIDEO)

While many cities and states across the country struggle to combat climate change and reduce greenhouse gas production, Wyoming’s Republican legislature is working to prevent the expansion of clean energy and doubling down on coal-powered energy production.

A new bill in the Wyoming legislature could limit electrical companies from taking full advantage of the state’s many large-scale wind and solar energy projects by 2019.

Wyoming has long been a bastion of the fossil fuel industry. The state leads the nation in coal production and ranks fourth in natural gas production. It’s also the country’s eighth largest producer of crude oil. Revenue from the fossil fuel industry accounts for about 70 percent of the state’s budget.

But the fossil fuel industry has been in dire straits over the few years. Competition with oil production centers in the Middle East, low natural gas prices, and continuous declines in the cost of renewable energy have conspired to crash Wyoming’s fossil fuel industry.

International markets are no longer interested in buying American fossil fuels. In China, demand for coal has been flat for about five years. And developed nations continue to transition toward a clean energy infrastructure with stricter limits on pollution and greenhouse gases.

But Wyoming’s Republican leadership is trying desperately to turn back the clock on these global trends. Their new bill seeks to put the fossil fuel industry back in the saddle and prevent what they see as meddlesome competition from purveyors of clean energy.

This would not be the first time the Wyoming legislature has rigged the game in favor of the fossil fuel industry. The state imposes the nation’s only wind tax, a measure that discourages the growth of Wyoming’s wind farms.

But the new bill goes further. It demands that the state use “eligible resources” – defined as coal, hydroelectric, natural gas, net metering sources (small-scale rooftop solar or backyard wind projects, for instance), nuclear power, and oil – to meet 95 percent of all electricity production needs by 2018, and 100 percent of electricity production needs by 2019. (Electricity utilities could, however, sell energy produced by large-scale wind and solar power plants to other states, a practice they already engage in.)

Climate activists and environmentalists expressed alarm at the measure. Shannon Anderson, director of the local organizing group Powder River Basin Resource Council, said:

“I haven’t seen anything like this before. This is essentially a reverse renewable energy standard.

“I think there will be a lot of concerns about its workability and whether this is something the state needs to do… it seems to be ‘talking-point’ legislation at this point.”

Professor Rob Godby at the University of Wyoming’s Center for Energy Economics and Public Policy says that a better solution to the state’s economic woes would be to diversify the economy and move away from fossil fuel production. Watch the full interview below:

Featured image via YouTube video.