The Wyoming Migration Initiative is presenting an awe-inspiring photo exhibit, on display at the University of Wyoming Berry Biodiversity Conservation Center through April 25.
It depicts the longest mule deer migration ever documented—the extraordinary annual journey from the Red Desert to the Hoback!
The public is invited to a reception and presentation of the exhibit on April 22 from 5-9 p.m.
Click this image to view a large, printable poster.
The Wild & Scenic Film Festival comes to Lander, April 25, 2014
The Wyoming Outdoor Council and Wild Iris Mountain Sports are hosting the Wild and Scenic Film Festival Tour on Friday, April 25, at the Pronghorn Lodge Monarch Hall Conference Center in Lander.
EVENT DETAILS:
Time and Date: Doors open at 5:30 p.m. and films start at 6:15 p.m., Friday, April 25, 2014
Location: The Pronghorn Lodge Monarch Hall Conference Center, 150 East Main St, Lander, Wyoming
Advanced tickets: Are available at a reduced price compared to the same-day door charge—and can be purchased in Lander starting April 1 at Wild Iris Mountain Sports at 166 Main Street, or at the Wyoming Outdoor Council office at 262 Lincoln Street.
The Wild and Scenic Film Festival On Tour is a selection of films from the annual Wild and Scenic Film Festival held the third week of January in Nevada City, CA.
The Nevada City festival is a four-day event that features more than 100 award-winning films and more than 100 guest speakers, celebrities, and activists.
The national tour of the festival features selected films from the larger festival and goes out to more than 100 communities nationwide, including Lander.
“Films featured at Wild and Scenic give people a sense of place,” said Jenna Bregar, Wild and Scenic Film Festival tour manager. “In our busy lives, it’s easy to get disconnected from our role in the global ecosystem. When we realize that the change we need in this world begins with us we can start making a difference. Come watch and see!”
The tour venue in Lander will feature films about outdoor adventure, water and fish conservation, energy and climate change, as well as a few “just for fun” films.
Free Admission with a discounted first time Wyoming Outdoor Council membership of $15.
For more information contact: Linda Sisco, linda@wyomingoutdoorcouncil.org, 307-332-7031 x. 10
Ticket Prices for Advanced Purchases:
Adults $8;
Children 12 and under $4.
Ticket Prices at the Door:
Adults $10
Children 12 and under $5
Students $5 (includes a one-year Wyoming Outdoor Council membership!)
Tickets can be purchased in Lander starting April 1 at Wild Iris Mountain Sports at 166 Main Street or at the Wyoming Outdoor Council office at 262 Lincoln Street.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 12, 2014
Media contact: Lisa McGee, Wyoming Outdoor Council, 307.733.3845, lisa@wyomingoutdoorcouncil.org
“We are pleased with the Supreme Court’s decision,” said Lisa McGee, an attorney with the Wyoming Outdoor Council. “We believe the public has the right to know which chemicals are being injected underground during fracking, and we look forward to having the opportunity to further make this case in the district court.”
According to Wednesday’s decision, a company that wishes to keep fracking chemicals a secret has the burden of proof of showing that it meets the definition of a trade secret.
“This decision errs on the side of public disclosure, which we believe is the right decision.” McGee said.
The Wyoming State Supreme Court decision (S-13-0120) is available at: http://www.courts.state.wy.us/Opinions/2014WY37.pdf
The Wyoming Outdoor Council, along with the Powder River Basin Resource Council, Earthworks, and the watchdog group OMB Watch, originally filed suit in March of 2012. We asked the court to require the state of Wyoming to disclose information about the chemicals used during the oil and gas development process known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.
The nonprofit environmental law firm Earthjustice filed the petition on behalf of our coalition.
We received an adverse—and we felt incorrect—ruling on this case from a district court in 2013 and we appealed to the Wyoming State Supreme Court in April of that year.
We argued that the Wyoming Oil and Gas Conservation Commission should be required to reveal the identities of the chemicals that are pumped underground during fracking because Wyoming citizens and landowners have a right to know what chemicals are transported across the landscape, stored on or near their homes, and injected underground.
We argued that public disclosure is required by the Wyoming Public Records Act and the Commission’s 2010 disclosure rule pertaining to hydraulic fracturing chemicals.
It is our position that disclosure would help protect the people of Wyoming by allowing them to know what chemicals to test for in baseline water tests prior to fracking.
Under the 2010 regulations, Wyoming became the first state in the nation to require well operators to disclose the identities of chemicals that are mixed with water and sand and injected into the ground to break up rock during fracking.
But since the regulations were adopted, the Commission has approved more than 50 secrecy requests, shielding identifying information of more than 190 different chemicals that are being used by Halliburton and other oil and gas service companies in fracking.
“Wyoming’s groundbreaking fracking chemical disclosure rule amounts to very little if companies can shield information as ‘trade secrets’ nearly at will,” said Earthjustice attorney Laura Beaton, at the time of the appeal. “We are asking the Wyoming Supreme Court to enforce the broad public disclosure mandate of the Public Records Act and the fracking chemical disclosure rule.”
We argued that when it comes to fracking chemicals and the potential harm to people and groundwater sources, the interests of public health and the public good far outweigh the interests of protecting companies’ so-called trade secrets.
“Groundwater belongs to the people of Wyoming,” said Bruce Pendery, chief legal counsel with the Wyoming Outdoor Council. “While water rights can be granted for its use, we all have an interest — and a responsibility — to ensure that groundwater is protected and kept clean not only for those of us living here today but for the people who might need it after we’re gone.”
Thankfully, today’s ruling errs on the side of public disclosure and gives the district court good guidance for rehearing the case. We’re looking forward to the opportunity to achieve better transparency and advocate the public’s right to know under this new guidance.
By Richard Garrett, Jr.
The Wyoming Outdoor Council has one core objective during every session of the State Legislature: to support actions that will improve and protect Wyoming’s air, water, wildlife, and quality of life—and at the same time work to modify or discourage legislation that would threaten these values.
It is this simple premise that underpins all of our efforts in Cheyenne. We apply this principle as we analyze every bill that the Legislature considers.
In recent years, the Outdoor Council has worked hard to cultivate and carry out a collaborative and respectful approach to advocacy—both in terms of the rhetoric we use and the way we conduct our interpersonal communications with legislators—as a way to earn greater success with companion groups and organizations, interested citizens, legislators, and the governor. We believe that this approach best serves our members and our mission.
By my estimate, this session was one of our most successful ever. Our board members engaged directly with the legislative process and found time to host a reception early in the session, too. Meanwhile our members played a critical role in one of the most important bills that the Legislature considered—a proposed measure to improve the funding model for the Wyoming Game and Fish Department (details below).
And finally, we had the opportunity to work in coordination with other organizations, some of which are not typically engaged in the lawmaking process.
This year—the Wyoming State Legislature’s 62nd session—we identified no fewer than two dozen bills that deserved our close attention.
One of the most important bills of the session was the funding measure for the Wyoming Game and Fish Department. You can read more about that bill here.
We are happy to report that Governor Matt Mead signed this bill into law on Thursday.
This bill’s success is particularly noteworthy in that we collaborated with many others for its passage, we worked to ensure that it wasn’t amended, and we engaged you, our members, and our board, in the process. The bill gained momentum throughout the session in no small part because of our collective efforts.
We also worked hard for the passage of the large project funding measure for Wyoming’s Wildlife and Natural Resource Trust. The important projects and easements that this bill approves, which are paid for via the trust, will restore habitat, revitalize riparian areas, remove invasive species, and preserve thousands of acres of important open space from development. The Wildlife and Natural Resource Trust is one of the best tools available to the state to protect the greater sage-grouse and help keep it from the brink of extinction.
We will continue to encourage the Legislature in years to come to fully fund the corpus of the trust.
Another bill that the Outdoor Council endorsed was the formalization of the Sage-Grouse Implementation Team, which is a fundamental component of the governor’s executive order for the protection of sage-grouse. We helped achieve inclusion of two members from the conservation and sportsman communities on the team.
During this session, the Legislature faced the question of whether to continue to fund an effort where state lawmakers would actively pursue, as they have during the previous two interim sessions, the “transfer of public lands”—that is, they would work to achieve an outcome where the state of Wyoming would somehow wrest control of federal lands and minerals within its borders—in what some have called the Sagebrush Rebellion, or the Sagebrush Rebellion redux.
We followed this bill through the legislative process and managed to help convince the members of the Senate’s Minerals, Business, and Economic Development committee to vote 3-2 against the bill.
Success seemed short-lived though when the House gutted another bill that had already passed the Senate and inserted the language of the bill that the Senate Minerals Committee had voted down. This meant that the bill had to go to a special committee of six legislators to resolve the differences between the two versions.
We were able to successfully engage with the committee and moderate the bill in a way that will reduce the Federal Natural Resource Management Committee’s focus on the so-called transfer of public lands.
Though this is a modest accomplishment, it’s also an important one because the legislative process is mostly incremental and in this case the Legislature seems to be moving in a more reasonable direction. (And I am particularly grateful to our board member, Terry Jones, for working in Cheyenne on this issue.)
The Council worked against passage of bills and a resolution that will add funding to the state’s attorney general’s office to support its legal battles with the Environmental Protection Agency.
Many of our board members helped in this effort early in the session and although one of the bills passed, we were able to use the process to remind legislators of the destructive consequences of climate change and the critical role that the EPA plays in trying to combat it.
Even though Senate File 75 and SJ 1 passed, it is uncertain that the attorney general needs or will use the funds allocated. And members can be assured that we will pay close attention to what the state may (or may not do) in terms of trying to hamper the EPA.
I’m proud that throughout this session we were able to engage, once again, in a respectful and productive way with legislators on a broad range of issues, including the important issue of climate change.
Just yesterday, Senator Jim Anderson (Senate District 2) approached me and, without prompting, said that the Wyoming Outdoor Council is of vital importance to the state and its legislative process. He personally thanked me for our collaborative approach and our tireless efforts to make sure that with balance, Wyoming’s environment is safe for future generations.
Thank you to our members, supporters, board, staff, friends, and other organizations for giving me the chance to work with you and on behalf of Wyoming’s environment and quality of life. I am looking forward eagerly to the interim committee activities and the next phase of the process.
Contact: Richard Garrett, energy policy analyst and legislative advocate, Wyoming Outdoor Council. 307.332.7031 x18, richard@wyomingoutdoorcouncil.org
By Richard Garrett, Jr.
With Friday’s vote in the Wyoming House of Representatives, Senate File 45—a bill intended to help the Wyoming Game and Fish Department achieve a better funding model—is now headed to Governor Matt Mead’s desk for his signature.
If signed into law, this stopgap bill will provide the Legislature an opportunity in its next budget session to shift the burden of employee benefits and grizzly bear management away from hunters and anglers and into the general fund.
This would not only create an important opportunity to change the way employee benefits are funded—but it could also help the agency avoid more cutbacks and further reductions in programs, services, and wildlife management.
And if the Legislature exercises this option in two years, it would bring the Game in Fish Department in line with the way many other state agencies pay for similar employee benefits.
This is an important bill for many reasons, but particularly since the Legislature has failed in each of the last two sessions to authorize the department to increase license fees.
We are grateful to all of our members and friends for your support of this bill. We note that the final vote achieved at least nine more favorable votes than it did on introduction—this is proof that our advocacy (together with that of others) not only helped the bill pass but did so with room to spare.
Stay tuned for additional developments and in particular the time and date of the governor’s signature . . . if there is sufficient notice, perhaps you can make it to Cheyenne for the signing!
And as always, if you have any questions or expect to be in Cheyenne, please be in touch. It would be an honor to have you join me in advocating on behalf of all of our members in Wyoming’s capitol.
Contact: Richard Garrett, energy policy analyst and legislative advocate, Wyoming Outdoor Council. 307.332.7031 x18, richard@wyomingoutdoorcouncil.org
By Richard Garrett, Jr.
The Wyoming State Legislature continues to trundle through its month-long 62nd assembly—this one a condensed, biennial budget session, which will establish the state budget for 2015-2016.
By the end of the first week, legislators had introduced 297 bills (179 in the House, 118 in the Senate) and seven resolutions (five in the House, two in the Senate).
Taken together this is an average of nearly 3 ½ bills or resolutions per legislator. And remember, most of the bills are co-sponsored, which further inflates the average bills per legislator.
On the other hand, some legislators seldom—if ever—introduce legislation. I’ve heard more than one say that introducing legislation is not their job, and more importantly it’s not what their constituents want.
As of February 25, 123 bills have already died and more will surely die in the days to come. Not one bill has yet made it to the governor’s desk.
The Wyoming Outdoor Council, at the outset, identified 22 bills and resolutions to follow closely during the session (about 7 percent of all of those proposed). Of the 22, five have either failed introduction or not received the votes necessary to move through either the standing committee or Committee of the Whole.
One of the most important issues that we are working to influence during the session (as we did during the 2013 interim) is improved funding for the Wyoming Game and Fish Department.
During the interim, the joint Travel, Recreation and Wildlife committee endorsed two bills that if passed would help the agency better fulfill its obligation to manage all of Wyoming’s wildlife.
One of those bills, Senate File 45 (SF 45) Game and Fish Department, general fund requests, is still in play.
If successful this bill will shift the funding of employee benefits and grizzly bear management away from hunters and anglers and into the general fund. Taken together, this general fund request will total about $6 million annually.
This is an important bill for many reasons, but particularly since the Legislature has failed in each of the last two sessions to authorize the department to increase license fees.
The well-being of Wyoming’s wildlife is fundamental to our quality of life; we have a profound cultural ethic of responsible stewardship and wildlife management.
Additionally, our big game animals, birds, fish, and other species—and all the recreational opportunities they provide—help bring in more than $1.1 billion to Wyoming’s economy annually and contribute significantly to the state’s $3.1 billion annual tourism industry.
Governor Mead said it best in his state of the state address: “We must recognize the value of game and fish not only to sportsmen but to each of us. If Wyoming wildlife is worth the watching, it is worth the supporting.”
Instead of allowing the Game and Fish Department to raise its license fees in recent years—a move that a broad range of hunters and anglers groups supported—the Legislature directed the Game and Fish Department to reduce expenses, streamline its efficiency, limit or eliminate programs, and trim staff.
The department has been responsive to each of these directions. Its budget is now down by about $6 million dollars annually.
Unfortunately these cutbacks have also meant reduced hunter access, reductions in the fish stocking program, and the loss of important human resources for the management of wildlife in Wyoming.
Senate File 45 will be heard three times in the House of Representatives over the next few days.
We hope that you will show your support for the bill, your support for science-based wildlife management, and your support for our mission by calling your representative and asking for a positive vote on SF 45.
Click one of the following links to locate your representative: Representative Locator or Legislator Information.
And as always, if you have any questions or expect to be in Cheyenne, please be in touch. It would be an honor to have you join me in advocating on behalf of all of our members in Wyoming’s capitol.
Contact: Richard Garrett, energy policy analyst and legislative advocate, Wyoming Outdoor Council. 307.332.7031 x18, richard@wyomingoutdoorcouncil.org
Photo by Jeff Vanuga
By Lisa McGee, program director
The U.S. Forest Service has released its final revised Shoshone forest plan, a document that will guide management of the country’s first national forest for 20 years or longer.
Although the agency is calling the plan “final,” in reality, there is still an opportunity for us to help improve it before it is published as a record of decision.
As many readers know, the Wyoming Outdoor Council has consistently engaged in this plan revision process for the better part of a decade with the overarching goal of protecting the wild, backcountry character of the Shoshone.
Specifically, we have focused our efforts on safeguarding the forest from future industrial oil and gas development.
The Shoshone has very little acreage currently leased for oil and gas development and there are no active oil and gas wells on the forest. We seek to keep it that way. There are many places where oil and gas development is appropriate. The Shoshone National Forest is not one of them.
We are pleased that the final plan reduces the amount of land where oil and gas surface disturbance can occur by 84 percent: down to 129,000 acres total from roughly 800,000 available in the previous plan.
This change is important because it ensures greater compatibility with the management of adjacent BLM and tribal lands. It also safeguards open space and wildlife habitat on the forest’s front country lands, maintaining recreational access and contributing to the high quality of life that people in surrounding communities enjoy.
Thanks to our members, concerned citizens, tribal leaders, local government officials, and Governor Matt Mead for supporting this change.
Although the plan’s direction for future oil and gas development is great news, there’s one facet of the plan we think can be improved.
Even though the Shoshone has incredible potential wilderness areas, the Forest Service chose not to recommend any new wilderness areas in its final plan.
The Forest Service’s own evaluation highlighted the four highest quality backcountry areas on the Shoshone: Wood River, Francs Peak, Trout Creek, and the Dunoir.
Short of a wilderness recommendation, we urged the Forest Service to achieve a good compromise: to protect the wilderness character of these areas by managing them for backcountry, non-motorized use.
The final forest plan, however, as written recommends no new wilderness and allows expanded motorized use in two of the four highest quality areas: Francs Peak and Wood River. We are seeking to change this.
We are asking the Forest Service to either recommend some or all of these four backcountry areas as wilderness or to return to the sound compromise it outlined in its draft preferred alternative: namely, the year-round, non-motorized prescription, and in the case of the Dunoir, a non-motorized and non-mechanized management prescription.
Such a decision would help ensure the backcountry character of the Shoshone is retained and improved over the life of this new plan.
Concerned citizens who have already participated in the plan revision process can file objections by March 24.
The Outdoor Council will object to the proposed management of three of the highest quality backcountry areas, and we are hopeful that we will see some important improvements.
The Shoshone National Forest is hosting public open houses in communities around the forest next week.
If you are interested in learning more, please consider attending. The schedule is below.
They will each begin at 5 p.m. and end at 7 p.m.
Thank you for your years of support for our work to keep the Shoshone wild!
By Amber Wilson, environmental quality coordinator
Exploring for oil and natural gas is a tough and competitive business, one with many risks.
It can cost a company $10 million or more to drill and hydraulically fracture a well in Wyoming, with no guarantee of any returns on that investment. And there are risks to the environment, too—including the potential contamination of water resources.
The life cycle of an oil or natural gas well includes three primary phases: drilling, production, and plugging. Normally a production company will set aside adequate funding for the costs associated with plugging, which is to say filling the entire well bore (often measured in thousands of feet) with cement.
If a company fails to plug its wells, it will forfeit a bond that it posted with the state prior to production. That bond is intended to provide the money necessary for the state to plug the wells. Unfortunately, the bond is often not enough to cover the cost and the wells go unplugged. And an open well bore creates the risk of groundwater contamination.
Properly plugging a well before abandonment is necessary to protect groundwater—it prevents leaving behind an open conduit that could serve as a path for contaminants to get into groundwater.
When an operator doesn’t take responsibility for plugging a well, it becomes known as an orphaned well. At present there are more than 1,200 orphaned coalbed methane wells on state and private minerals in Wyoming, most of which are in the Powder River Basin. Anywhere between 1,000 and 4,500 additional coalbed methane wells could become orphaned in the coming months.
The state is required to find funding and resources to plug these orphaned wells. Not surprisingly, plugging a production well comes with an expensive price tag. The cost can vary widely, but it’s never cheap. An average cost of $10/foot adds up quickly when a well bore is thousands of feet deep.
Bonds, then, are essentially intended to be insurance policies for reclamation and cleanup at well sites. Often companies will pay what’s called a blanket bond of $75,000 to the Oil and Gas Commission, which can cover more than one well. But the problem is, at today’s costs, $75,000 is only enough, on average, to pay for the plugging of approximately 7,500 cumulative feet of well depth. It’s not unheard of for a single oil or gas well in Wyoming to have that depth.
And after paying a blanket bond of $75,000, a company can drill a number of wells with cumulative depths adding up to much more than 7,500 feet—say 100,000 feet—without paying additional bonds as long as those wells are producing.
It isn’t until a company temporarily removes any of those wells from production without plugging them (called “idling” the well) that the Oil and Gas Commission asks for additional idle well bonds. These additional bonds are requested partially because the longer a well is idled, no longer generating income for the company (or revenue for the State), the commission must hedge against the risk that the company won’t have the funding to eventually plug the well.
Too often, operators fail to plug their wells, some filing bankruptcy before they complete payment of the additional bonds they owe the state. This leaves Wyoming with the responsibility not just to plug those orphaned wells, but also to find the additional funding to get it done.
The longer orphaned wells remain unplugged, the greater the environmental risk. Well casings weaken with age. Any contaminants—such as high-pressure chemicals and gases from nearby unconventional well operations—that find their way into the unplugged wellbore will have direct access to any exposed, intersected aquifers.
There are additional risks: accidental surface spills can also occur from unplugged wells. Operators hydraulically fracturing new wells—an operation that involves injecting water, sand, and chemicals at very high pressure underground to break up tight rock formations—can inadvertently send those chemicals and/or gases up an orphaned well to the surface.
Until recently, the state has not aggressively addressed these problems—only 183 orphaned wells have been plugged since 2004. Recently however, Governor Matt Mead’s administration, in recognition of the severity of the risk and as an initiative within his Energy Strategy, proposed a plan for plugging Wyoming’s orphaned gas wells.
The plan, if adopted, requires the Legislature, the Office of State Lands and Investments, and the Wyoming Oil and Gas Conservation Commission to take action to plug the state’s orphaned gas wells over the course of the next four years.
In the plan, the governor has requested a budget authorization from the Oil and Gas Commission’s account of an additional $3 million (versus the typical authorization of an additional $1 million) to work in conjunction with forfeited operator bonds to fund the plugging program.
It is important to note that the Oil and Gas Commission’s account is not funded by taxpayer money.
The account generally holds funds acquired from (1) the conservation tax (paid by operators on each barrel of oil and thousand cubic feet of gas produced for sale); (2) bonds held by the Commission that will be returned to operators once they have properly plugged their wells; and (3) forfeited bonds from those operators who have orphaned their wells, which can only be used on the specific wells for which those bonds were paid.
Governor Mead’s office estimates the cost for plugging the 1,220 currently orphaned coalbed natural gas wells to be around $7.7 million. Add to that 912 wells that were drilled by Luca/Patriot—a company in the midst of bankruptcy—and the anticipated total orphaned well count climbs to 2,132, with an estimated cost to the state of more than $13 million. Luca currently has $3.2 million bonded, which the governor’s office estimates is approximately $2 million short of what those 912 wells will cost to plug.
There are additionally 2,270 coalbed methane wells “of concern”—belonging to companies currently out of compliance in some form with the Oil and Gas Commission. Should these companies also choose to walk away, the governor’s office estimates the total cost of plugging orphaned gas wells to reach approximately $32 million.
The bonding and the additional $3 million that the governor is calling for should cover—or go a long way toward covering—the existing 1,200 orphaned wells. So the governor’s plan is certainly a good down payment on this very important issue. But additional funding in the future will likely be needed to cover the total cost if more wells are orphaned, as expected.
Additional measures must be taken to ensure the necessary funds are available to address the whole problem. And we believe this should be accomplished while continuing to keep the state’s general fund off the table.
Industry must step up to the plate to cover these costs. This is something the Petroleum Association of Wyoming has spoken favorably of doing through an increase in the conservation tax—and something the Outdoor Council supports.
And to prevent this from happening in the future, we are urging state regulators to see to it that operators are required to post adequate bonds prior to development to ensure the state does not continue to be short-changed on plugging and reclamation costs.
It is also important to note that the governor’s plan only considers orphaned coalbed methane wells, but the state has other types of orphaned oil and gas wells and they also need to be plugged to safeguard our groundwater.
Orphaned wells are a longstanding problem in Wyoming. If fully implemented, the governor’s plan can begin to solve the problems of the past, but what do we do to make sure this doesn’t happen again?
The boom/bust cycle of commodity development has often left the state vulnerable to economic and environmental risks imposed by the developers who might be here one day and gone the next.
We believe the state can more effectively mitigate its risk in the future by implementing sound bonding regulations that both fully account for the actual cost to plug wells and also include an additional labor charge—enough to incentivize operators to plug their wells and have their bonds returned rather than leaving it up to the state.
We encourage the state to consider increasing the cost of a bond on a per-foot basis and apply that cost in its calculation for bonding requirements prior to development. For example, the Wyoming Oil and Gas Conservation Commission could require an operator to report all anticipated well depths in a development and use the sum of the depths to increase (or even refund a portion of) the bond. By charging a bond that meets and slightly exceeds the actual cost of well plugging, operators will have incentive to plug wells at a lower cost themselves.
A reformed bonding regulation, if properly administered, could sharply reduce the number of orphaned wells in our state. A fair, equitable system of bonding regulation—one regularly updated to reflect new costs, techniques, and technologies—will benefit operators, the state’s economy, and Wyoming’s water resources now and for future generations.
By Richard Garrett, Jr.
On February 10, the 62nd session of the Wyoming Legislature will convene in Cheyenne. Since 2008, I have attended the Legislature full time representing the members of the Wyoming Outdoor Council and advocating on their behalf.
For this post, I thought it might interest readers to learn a little bit more about the process of how a bill becomes a law and get a glimpse into what it takes to be a legislator.
While some might think the session in Cheyenne is both the beginning and end of the Legislature’s work for the year, that would be a misconception. The session caps a year’s worth—and often more—of sometimes intense, sometimes casual activity.
For almost the entire year legislators put in long hours on behalf of their constituents, many times at great personal sacrifice. It’s easy to estimate that a legislator will spend 1,000 hours or more in a year working to shape and influence Wyoming’s legislative landscape.
The Wyoming Outdoor Council works year round too—and just as tirelessly—to make sure that laws protect our state’s clean air and water, open spaces, wildlife, and healthy communities now and for generations to come.
Our goal always is to develop productive and lasting solutions for managing natural resources through collaborative engagement with stakeholders, decision makers and Wyoming’s elected officials. We’ve been doing this since 1967.
The legislative session is all about ideas and the effort to transform those ideas into bills, and those bills into laws. Ideas are born in a number of ways, and gain momentum in a process—one that is well defined by custom, rules, law, and the Wyoming Constitution.
The purpose of this post is to provide a basic (and admittedly simplified) insight into a process that might seem arcane and even convoluted. In truth, the process is well designed to make sure that an idea doesn’t become a law (good or bad) if it has little merit or support.
An idea might come from an individual, a group, a business, an association, or even just an individual legislator. However germinated, ideas are the easy part—making ideas into laws requires stamina, willpower, relationship building, and compromise.
Let’s say a legislator is approached by a constituent. That person has an idea that she/he imagines should be a law. The legislator likes the idea—let’s even pretend it’s one that helped him/her win the election. The legislator might email the Legislative Service Office, asking it to research existing law (to make sure something is not already on the books). If it is not, the LSO will draft a bill that conforms to the Wyoming Constitution, which is to say it can’t be more than one subject and it cannot benefit only one person or small group of persons.
Armed with a draft bill, the legislator starts circulating it among fellow friendly legislators, looking to gather support. The legislator also signals an intention to his/her committee—and most importantly its chair—that this idea has become a draft bill, one that the committee should consider.
At this point, the bill is in a critical phase, one of many on its path to becoming a law. If the committee chair declines to let the bill be heard at an interim committee meeting (more on this later), the draft bill will be more difficult to pass since it would have to be an individually sponsored bill rather than one sponsored by a committee. On the other hand, if the chair likes the bill, the chair will direct that it be placed on the committee’s agenda thus enabling it to be heard by as many as 14 legislators (9 House members and 5 Senators) during the interim.
Having reached this perch, the draft bill now has a target painted on it—lobbyists, concerned citizens, state agencies all might be called to comment on the bill. In all probability, like most bills, it’s in for a rough ride.
The time between legislative sessions is known as the interim. It is the time when committees meet in various places around the state three or four times to discuss all of the issues/topics that have been assigned to it by the Legislature’s Joint Management Council. Generally, committees are not prohibited from considering anything outside of these assignments.
Fortunately for our draft bill, it is a topic that the committee was assigned to pay attention to by the JMC. Even better, it’s one that the committee chair has become fond of. The draft bill is gaining momentum.
During the first committee meeting of the interim, the bill will be introduced to the committee by its sponsor. He/she will offer compelling reasons for the bill’s adoption, and in support the constituent with the original idea might show up too and testify to the committee. One thing is likely: there will be a lot of people (lobbyists, contrarians, etc.) who will show up too, armed with all kinds of reasons as to why the draft bill should be either amended or killed outright.
With luck, and a little finesse, the committee will vote favorably to hear the bill again at a subsequent meeting. The amendments proposed, if successful, will be incorporated into a second draft of the bill by the LSO, and the bill will be heard again by the committee in another of its interim meetings in a month or two.
If all goes seamlessly, the (second) draft bill will gain the committee’s approval at that next meeting and the committee (on either the House or Senate side) will sponsor it during the Legislature’s next session in the winter of the following year.
(Note, this year the Legislature meets for 30 days in what is known as its budget session. In alternate years the Legislature meets for 60 days. Both are marathons regardless of the number of days.)
Our little bill is now on the Legislature’s agenda. During the first several days of the session, the Committee of the Whole (the full membership of the house or senate) hears a very brief synopsis of all bills that have been placed on its agenda. They will then vote to affirm that the bill be sent to a committee within the session. During budget years, a bill must achieve a ⅔ vote to be sent to committee (note there are 60 House members and 30 members of the Senate). During alternate years, a bill only needs a simple majority to win assignment.
If the bill has been assigned to a committee, it will be placed (or not!) on its agenda by the committee chair.
Once it has been assigned a hearing, the usual suspects—last seen during the interim committee meetings—will show up to sing its praises or bemoan its failings. The committee having heard all this before, is likely to vote its approval of the bill.
That said, if an amendment has changed the bill, it could change its entire prospect for success or failure. A simple change of a word—for example ‘may’ to ‘shall’—can doom a bill.
Another way to kill a bill is to talk about its unintended consequences. A skilled lobbyist might even recommend that the committee ask for an interim study of the bill(!) as a way to kill it. Legislators are generally cautious by nature—they can be very susceptible to these artful persuasions.
If the bill makes it out of committee, it still has a long way to go.
The bill now goes back to the Committee of the Whole for general debate. It gets three readings each of which is followed by a vote. If it fails a vote, the bill has died. And in all likelihood it died because lobbyists worked hard to kill it. Lobbyists will often work to convince every one of the 60 or 30 legislators to vote ‘nay.’ How do they do this? They make their best quantitative and qualitative arguments, they present facts, they provide additional information and analysis, they might bring constituents to the table, they persuade, cajole, smile, party—whatever it takes to kill a bill. And in all likelihood, there is a cadre of lobbyists on the other side, doing the same things trying to win the bill’s majority support.
If the Committee of the Whole votes in favor of the bill on each of three readings, the bill goes to the other side of the Capitol to repeat the process in front of that side of the Legislature. This is the most straightforward way the full Legislature can pass a bill. There are more complicated ways, to be sure, but we won’t go into them here.
Assuming the bill has survived the tumultuous interim, two or more intense committee hearings, the raucous Committee of the Whole, and has ultimately won the Legislature’s approval, it gets sent to the governor for his/her signature—and it has yet another chance to die.
Once again, lobbyists and citizens on both sides of the issue have been working to convince the governor and the governor’s staff that the best course of action is to either sign the bill into law or to veto it. If the governor does veto the bill, it is dead. At least until the next legislative session.
There are any number of ways to kill a bill—in fact it is a lot easier to kill one than it is to get it passed.
There are at least 11 distinct steps during the legislative session that must be surmounted for a bill to succeed.
Given that, and the conservative nature of Wyoming’s elected officials, it is a bit surprising that bills ever get passed. And yet they do, in quite astonishing numbers. Generally about 100 bills are signed into law each year (of about 200-600 that have been introduced).
Generally about 20 percent of those bills directly affect the mission of the Wyoming Outdoor Council. So it is crucial, from our perspective, that we maintain our presence in Cheyenne and during the interim. This gives us a chance to positively influence the process, whether we are for or against a bill or for or against amending it in some way. I am grateful that I have had the opportunity to do this work on behalf of our members since 2008.
For more information, please be in touch. And if you can make it to Cheyenne in February, I will be delighted to see you!
And if you’ll be in town, don’t miss our Cheyenne Reception on February 14!
Contact: Richard Garrett, energy policy analyst and legislative advocate, Wyoming Outdoor Council. 307.332.7031 x18, richard@wyomingoutdoorcouncil.org
This post is dedicated to my friend Representative Sue Wallis, a tireless legislator who passed away this year on January 28. She served her district since 2007; I am confident that she gave more than 1,000 hours annually to her constituents. Though we did not always agree, I knew Sue to be a person who was “all-in”—she was dedicated to Wyoming, the people she represented, and the people she loved.
Note: This version was updated on February 10, 2014 to correct the session number and the date of Representative Wallis’ passing.
When: 5-7 p.m., Friday, February 14The Wyoming Outdoor Council will be in Cheyenne during the entire 2014 legislative session, advocating on behalf of our 1,500 members and Wyoming’s environment.
The Outdoor Council board invites you to join us during this important time for a casual reception at Little America on Friday, February 14.
Enjoy refreshments and a chance to meet with legislators, Wyoming Outdoor Council board, staff, and members, and many others.
Our lobbyist, Richard Garrett, will update us on proposed legislation, funding for the Wyoming Game and Fish Department, flaring, and more.
Call Linda at (307) 332-7031 with questions, or email linda@wyomingoutdoorcouncil.org. Hope you can make it!