Free Republic

In 2001, Colorado electricity consumers enjoyed some of the lowest electric rates in the country. The 15 years since haven’t been so kind to ratepayers. For more than a decade, elected officials, PUC commissioners, industry and advocates have told Colorado ratepayers that they could transform the state’s electricity generation away from coal and toward industrial wind, solar and natural gas with little cost to ratepayers. However, the actual numbers tell a much different story. Colorado electricity rates have risen sharply – 62.1 percent – across residential, commercial and industrial sectors, despite a slight decrease in recent years. Colorado electricity rates...

37 quakes -one was 5.3 on the Richter scale- NE of Soda Springs, Idaho (southwest of Yellowstone) in the past 7 hours. Close enough to be of possible concern?) Suspicious action from a fairly quiet area.

“Does a state violate the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause or Free Speech Clause when it punishes a judge who has discretionary authority to solemnize marriages because she states that her religious beliefs preclude her from performing a same-sex wedding?” That’s the question Judge Ruth Neely from Pinedale, Wyoming, wants the Supreme Court to answer. On August 4, she filed a petition with the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS), asking them to review a March 7, 2017 ruling from the Wyoming Supreme Court. That ruling handed down a public censure and effectively removed her from a circuit court...

The Trump administration is removing Endangered Species Act protections for Yellowstone grizzly bears, after they spent more than four decades on the threatened list. The Interior Department’s Fish and Wildlife Service announced the delisting decision Thursday, which immediately drew rebukes from conservationists and Democrats. Officials said that conservation efforts for the bear, a more than fourfold increase in its population and state policies designed to protect the bears show that the delisting is warranted. The Yellowstone grizzly bear lives in and around Yellowstone National Park in Montana, Wyoming and Idaho. “This achievement stands as one of America’s great conservation successes;...

YELLOWSTONE REGION (INTELLIHUB) — U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) seismology reports conclude that a massive swarm of earthquakes swept through the park triggering more than 60 separate events in which seismographs spiked to magnitudes of up to 5.0. Friday. Experts fear that the supervolcano is long overdue for an eruption capable of wiping out a vast amount of human, animal, and plant life in the Continental United States. Scientists currently believe that there’s a 10% chance that a “supervolcanic Category 7 eruption” could take place this century, as pointed out by theoretical physicist Michio Kaku who appeared on a segment for...

The folks who run the Town Hall in Jackson, Wyoming proudly displayed a portrait of President Obama during his terms in office. But they won’t be extending the same respect to President Trump. Mayor Pete Muldoon removed portraits of President Trump and Vice President Pence – replacing them with a portrait of Chief Washakie, a renowned Native American warrior. The mayor told me in a lengthy email that he stands by his decision – even though he acknowledged Trump “won the election under the rules we have in place.” “Dictators like Joseph Stalin required their portraits to be displayed...

The resurrected feeling of American possibility came not from pontificating TV pundits or a radio host in a studio miles away. Optimism arrived here in Gillette, Wyo., because of what people were seeing: the unemployment lines getting shorter and their daily commutes getting longer. Tom Gorton, 41, drove through those increasingly congested streets in his Arnold Machinery truck late on a spring afternoon, under the watch of mountains covered in white from a spring snowstorm. As Gorton settled behind his desk, he was heartened to see how messy it was with orders, one year after hundreds of layoffs at two...

CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) - Wyoming officials considering a permit for a new coal mine heard testimony about how the mine could lower groundwater and cause the ground to settle. The testimony wrapped up Thursday. The Wyoming Environmental Quality Council now will take written comments from proponents and opponents before deciding on a permit in August. Lexington, Kentucky-based Ramaco wants to mine coal from the Brook Mine near Sheridan for industrial purposes. That could include making carbon fiber, a material used in car and airplane parts. It would be Wyoming's first major new coal mine in decades.

House Speaker Paul Ryan said Thursday that Greg Gianforte, the GOP House candidate charged with assaulting a reporter, should apologize but added that it is now up to voters in Montana to choose whether they want him as their representative in Congress. "There's never a call for physical altercations," Ryan told reporters during his weekly press conference. "That is wrong and it should not have happened." "I think he should apologize," Ryan added.

In a letter dated April 21 and addressed to the Armenian National Committee of America Western Region (ANCA-WR), Wyoming Governor Matthew H. Mead has recognized the Armenian Genocide and praised the work of Armenian American grassroots. “The atrocities of both the Armenian and Jewish Holocausts were unimaginable,” reads Governor Mead’s letter, “but it is important for all to remember—history must not repeat itself.” ... “I congratulate the Governor for his courageous stance on this moral issue amid lavish anti-Armenian lobbying in Wyoming, which has included all-inclusive junkets to the dictatorship of Azerbaijan by legislators across our nation, who should know...

JACKSON, Wyo. (AP) — Grizzly bears continue to expand their range amid an ongoing effort to turn over management of the bears from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to the states of Wyoming, Montana and Idaho, a federal official said. “We’ve seen an 11 percent change in increasing range in just a couple of years,” Frank van Manen, head scientist of the Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team, said last week at a meeting in Jackson. Since coming under the protection of the Endangered Species Act, grizzlies have steadily expanded their habitat outward from the population’s core in Yellowstone National...

Advocates of abolishing the $1 Federal Reserve note are at it again, this time hoping that President Donald Trump and conservative Republicans will finally side with their three-pronged approach to revamping the nation’s currency system. Under S. 759, introduced March 29 by Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., the government would end production of the $1 Federal Reserve note, revise the composition of the 5-cent coin, and suspend production of 1-cent coins. While the draft legislation calls for an end to paper dollar notes and the cent, it is silent on dollar coin production. Backers of the legislation...

A small-town judge who says her religious beliefs prevent her from presiding over same-sex marriages was publicly censured by the Wyoming Supreme Court on Tuesday. But while the court said her conduct undermines the integrity of the judicial system, it does not warrant removal from the bench. In a 3-2 decision, Justice Kate Fox wrote that Judge Ruth Neely violated judicial conduct code but removing Neely would “unnecessarily circumscribe protected expression.” “Judge Neely shall either perform no marriage ceremonies or she shall perform marriage ceremonies regardless of the couple’s sexual orientation,” Fox wrote. […] Neely, who’s not a lawyer, is...

Peter Kearl is co-founder and CTO of Qmast which is a Colorado-based company pioneering the use of the microwave technology to recover oil. Oil giants BP and ConocoPhillips are pouring resources into developing similar extraction techniques, which can be far less water- and energy-intensive than fracking. There is more than 4.285 trillion barrels of oil barrels of oil in the Green River Formation (2011 U.S. Geological Survey of resource in-place). Using oil shale cutoffs of potentially viable (15 gallons per ton) and high grade (25 gallons per ton), it is estimated that between 353 billion and 1.146 trillion barrels of...

Diane Reiman, sister of Vietnam veteran Stephen Carl Reiman, is given the casket flag from her brother's coffin during his funeral on Tuesday morning at the Oregon Trail State Veterans Cemetery in Evansville. Stephen Carl Reiman, who served in the Navy during the Vietnam war, died on Nov. 17, in Casper. He suffered from PTSD and was homeless before he was discovered in a hotel room in Sheridan with only a few belongings, including some Bruce Springsteen CDs and his autobiography. Reiman appeared to have no family until his sister was finally located. EVANSVILLE, Wyo. (AP) — Hundreds of people...

he knows he served with honor in Vietnam. She knows he loved cooking and Bruce Springsteen. She knows he died lonely in Casper. But that’s about all Natrona County Coroner Connie Jacobson knows for certain about Stephen Carl Reiman, a 63-year-old homeless Navy veteran who died Thursday at Wyoming Medical Center. Her office has looked for a friend or a family member to claim Reiman. They haven’t found anyone. The other thing Jacobson knows is that Reiman needs to be buried with respect. And that he shouldn’t be alone. Reiman came to Wyoming from a Southern California community for homeless...

President Obama on Sunday refused to blame Hillary Clinton for the Democrats' failure to win the White House or take back the House or Senate, and instead said improved messaging and better luck will help Democrats in future years. . . . Aside from messaging, Obama said another reason Democrats didn't do well is the "nature of our system." While some Democrats have called for an end to the Electoral College, Obama didn't go that far, and instead indicated he was talking about how Republicans have a natural advantage in the Senate. "As long as Wyoming gets the same number...

IRS data show the average income of taxpayers leaving Illinois surpassed the average income of taxpayers entering the state by $20,000 in 2014, a record loss for Illinois in the wake of the 2011 income-tax hike. Politicians enacted Illinois’ 2011 income-tax hike during a late-night legislative session in January 2011 and raised the state’s personal income-tax rate to 5 percent from 3 percent. This 67 percent income-tax hike lasted for four years, during which time Illinois experienced record wealth flight. IRS data reveal what happens when politicians choose short-term tax revenue gains over long-term stability. The short-term increase in tax...

Dave Smith, a well known author and expert on bear attacks, sent me a heads up on a proposed Grizzly hunting regulation.  In the  Wyoming Grizzly Bear Management Plan(pdf), on page 47, (page 55 on some pdf versions), dated  5/11/2016, is a regulation requiring that grizzly hunters carry bear spray. “All grizzly bear hunters must carry bear spray while engaged in the act of grizzly bear hunting (WGFC Regulation Chapter 16, pending)” When you are hunting bears, you would normally be carrying a rifle.  You would have to drop the rifle, then access and deploy the bear spray.  That does...

CHEYENNE – With only about two months until the next Congress convenes, Republican Rep.-elect Liz Cheney is already starting her transition to the U.S. House of Representatives. Formal orientation for freshman lawmakers begins next week, and Cheney will also be working with outgoing Rep. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyoming, as part of the changeover.