Governor Mark Gordon speaks in Thermopolis

On Tuesday, March 3 Wyoming Governor Mark Gordon visited Thermopolis in an informal meeting at the Hot Springs Hotel in Hot Springs State Park. The meeting was well attended by various members of the community. Gordon said he wanted to have a conversation with the people. 

Gordon started off by relating his efforts to national matters that affect Wyoming. Regarding the subject of energy, Gordon said, “I know several of us Republican governors, and notably Doug Burgum from North Dakota and myself, have continually pointed out that we used to be in a position where we could sell energy to our friends. Now we find ourselves in a position where we’re depending on our adversaries and in some cases our potential enemies to provide energy to us. To keep our inflation rates down that we believe is directly related to the fact that this administration has decided that they’re going to take us off of fossil fuels, and they’re going to do that with an attempt to somehow address climate change. We feel that our path forward can include our local industries, although our legacy industries feel very strongly that it has to include our legacy industries. There’s a couple of reasons for that.”

“If you let a marketplace and have enterprises actually allow for the development of new technologies and start to build new markets, then we can actually address climate change much more efficiently and better and not in a way that puts people out of work, which has been our big fight with the EPA. That actually moves our country forward towards more energy independence.”

Gordon added, “We’ve worked very hard to present those ideas.”

Gordon also explained how he wrote an executive order to keep some plants in Wyoming open that the Biden administration wanted to shut down.

Also, Gordon discussed a new income source for ranchers and farmers in Wyoming using carbon credit in the exchanges to offset carbon footprints and their use. 

Governor Gordon discussed grizzly bears and his efforts to delist them from the endangered species list. The bears have been delisted twice before but are currently listed again. The delisting effort both of those times originally went before the judges of the 9th Circuit but then went before the 10th Circuit, which covers Wyoming.

Gordon said that the grizzly bears have exceeded their population, and it is a precarious place to be because the legal system kept moving the goalposts. He emphasized in their case that they maintain the genetic viability of the bears.

Gordon said, “Our hope is that people come to realize the Endangered Species Act is about making sure that you can get bears off the list, not that you keep them on the list forever and ever… but we do maintain that we have better science than anyone else. We maintain that we have the proper way to go about doing that.” Gordon added that he believes Wyoming is not going to lose its ability to manage the wolf population as well.

Gordon moved on to the state matters by discussing the issue of water and said he would make sure Wyoming has a presence in any negotiations with other entities about water.

Regarding American Rescue Plan dollars that have been borrowed, Gordon said, “since most of those are borrowed from our great-grandkids, I wanted to make sure that whatever investments we made were long-haul and would not just serve to pay off today’s payroll or today’s incidental expenses. They really had to be transformational over time.”

Gordon mentioned his committee to “Survive, Drive and Thrive” where he seeks to know what are the things to stabilize our communities and drive them forward and make them stronger. 

Gordon highlighted Hot Springs County and said, “we need to be able to bring more dollars into Hot Springs County. We can do that a little bit with agriculture. We can do that a little bit with oil and gas. But frankly, one of the things that we’re in the middle of right now is what are the ways that we can make this more of a destination area for tourism.”

Gordon added that the lodging tax has provided money in “a greater way,” with about 10% revenue year over year which most over revenue comes from out-of-state visitors. Gordon continued and said, “Rather than just focusing on Yellowstone Park or Grand Teton Park, we need to be able to start spreading our tourism efforts out more around the state.”

Next, Gordon highlighted the need to make sure local health care can survive and to start to incorporate new technologies and new opportunities. Gordon mentioned the Wyoming Pioneer Home, Hot Springs Health and Gottsche saying they are “so essential.” 

Regarding schools and the local community, Gordon said he had two points he feels particularly strong about. “One is we need to continue to have really strong schools because that’s what families are going to be drawn to. They want their kids to have a great place to go to school. The families really want their main streets to look right. They’re less inclined, in my opinion, to go buy everything online and have it shipped in by UPS. They’re much more inclined to have a place where their kids can spend time and enjoy the community.”

Gordon said about education there is “one argument with two sides. It’s too expensive or we have to raise taxes. There is no nexus on that… And I have really wanted to make sure that we have a different way of approaching this topic, so I put together a group of people that are not aligned with schools directly. They are parents, they are business people, they are former school administrators. Let’s start making sure we start from the ground and build what our school system should look like. And then we can start talking about what we need to do to be able to fund it.”

Gordon added it is time that parents have the primary role in deciding on how to educate their children. Gordon said he created an organization called The Ride to help do this.

Governor Gordon moved on to other state matters saying, “Wyoming is not investing in the Natrium reactor. That is a joint project between Rocky Mountain Power and Terra Power. My particular interest in that is there’s going to be a whole bunch of manufacturing that goes with new vessels, new piping, new technology, new types of workforce needs, and from my standpoint, these are all things Wyoming can capitalize on. I think Wyoming’s economy is going to have to learn to pivot.”

Regarding agriculture, Gordon discussed new opportunities for beef processing and the potential of expanding markets overseas in places such as Asia. 

Questions

Next, Governor Gordon took questions from the public.

The first was about the issue of the 30x30 Plan. Gordon replied and said, “We oppose it. I told Vilsack that I’ve lost faith in him. If he can get dollars out to our conservation districts then he can say conservation work is what conservation districts are doing.

Gordon said he also told Vilsack that if there’s a way he can get more conservation dollars to these districts that are locally controlled, which is what he has said he was going to do, then we can talk. Otherwise, it just looks like it’s a land grab and we’re not interested in that.”

Another question was about the franchises in Hot Springs State Park. Gordon replied, “That’s an ongoing conversation, we’ve had two or three. Senator Cooper actually has been very interested in making sure that we have a good operator here, that has the wherewithal to actually kind of make things look a little better. But last fall, we had several people that were looking at an RFP for it.”

Regarding the use of CO2 that is captured, Gordon said there are methods for it. One is to put it into concrete to make it stronger or to use it for enhanced fuel in biofuel production and to make it a commercial product. But then Gordon emphasized the importance of forest management and how trees will sequester carbon.

Gordon added, “If that is something that we’re going to do, Wyoming citizens need to get a benefit from doing it. So if people are saying we’re going to pay to take fossil fuels offline, they also need to pay to make sure that we sequester that.”

A women then asked questions about renewable energy, Medicaid expansion and what is the Governor’s opinion on Critical Race Theory in our schools. Gordon replied, “Wyoming has probably the best portfolio of wind anywhere in the country, and we see a lot of development. What we’re starting to see is a little bit of pushback in certain places. I have no problem with renewables. I think they have a very substantial role to play in the energy supply system. Wyoming is an all-energy front. We will be home to the second-largest wind farm in the world, second only to one in China.”

Gordon also brought up hydrogen as an energy source and to electrolyze water to create hydrogen. Gordon mentioned a solar farm in Wyoming that disrupted the migration path of antelope and that “whether it be renewable, whether it be traditional, whatever it be in Wyoming, we care about our wildlife. We have done a phenomenal job of setting up migration corridors, respecting private property and working with our industries to make sure that we allow for those kinds of uses of the landscape to continue.”

Regarding Medicaid expansion, Gordon said, “I have stated that my concern about Medicaid expansion is: What are the long haul costs going to be for the state? If we can get that understood and appreciate what that is and look at how that is handled, I’m not necessarily going to stand in its way. My biggest concern is to make sure that we don’t end up with a burden on the taxpayers of Wyoming down the road that we can’t afford.”

Regarding Gordon’s opinion of Critical Race Theory, he said, “It is my understanding and belief, I used to be on a school board in Johnson County, that we do not teach CRT. I don’t think that it is a good thing for us to be trying to teach kids.”

Gordon added, he believes education ought to be about building good citizens and it ought to be about giving our students the ability to analyze and look at stuff for themselves.

“I think that our curriculum has really tried to do that. Local school boards, for the most part, I think have tried to do that. I’m not aware of any that have looked at it differently. Local school boards are where that curriculum should be set. I believe that education starts with the parents.”

Gordon stated, “Do I think we should be teaching CRT in Wyoming? No, I don’t, because I think you’ve got to balance whatever the education is on and make sure that goes ahead. If you’re talking about the current bill, it’s actually part of the budget that is currently being argued at this point. When I see it, I will look at it carefully. This is more sort of a philosophical thing. We spend more time talking about our differences than we do about our similarities. When we do separate things out and it’s something my wife has said to me a million times, ‘Once we identify somebody, we can dismiss them.’ I think we’re Americans, and I think as Americans, we are in this room. There are lots of different nationalities and we all have our uniqueness, and we should appreciate that as part of being American.”

As a follow up to the three questions, the woman said, “I think that it is very important as Americans that we understand our history. If we do not understand our history, if we do not learn from our history, including our mistakes, we cannot be the great nation we aspire to be. I think it’s very important that we teach our children the facts. I agree that we should not spend time dividing people, but I do think that we need to acknowledge the truth of our mistakes. And I think that is something that every student deserves to learn.”

Gordon replied about his education as a history major and said that “Each generation looks at the issues differently, and so the way we examine things is as much as an analysis of our particular time as it is of the original event.”

Governor Gordon was asked about the possibility of some rare earth mineral mines getting permitted. Gordon replied, “In my budget, there are several million dollars to do a survey to be able to identify deposits of critical and rare earth. We are pushing for that because we do believe that America needs to remember that our ability to produce the minerals we need is essential, and one of the examples of that is uranium.”

Continuing on energy, one citizen discussed centralized distributed energy and having solar panels on their houses and asked, “Was there any activity in that regard?” Gordon replied that the solution is “a lot more accessible to the common man or woman.”

A question was raised about illegal immigrants being brought into Wyoming. Gordon replied saying that there are reports of planes landing in Wyoming and offloading illegal immigrants and “that is just not true. We monitor that on a regular basis.”

However, Gordon said that he and other governors did visit the southern border to observe illegal immigration and together they said “This has got to stop”.

Gordon added that Wyoming offered to Texas a sophisticated reconnaissance plane to assist them and that they offered other resources to them.

Regarding coal and other commodities being exported off the West Coast, such as Asia, Gordon stated that issue was left unresolved and we are not shipping coal off the West Coast. “Wyoming is actively looking at alternatives through Mexico or alternatives through Long Beach,” he added.

 A citizen brought up the issue of companies who may contaminate Wyoming’s water, such as Boysen, the Wind River and Bighorn River, and asked, “What can we do to make sure that we sustain our fisheries or clean water and hold companies to what they said?”

Gordon replied about the DEQ working with Aetheon about the matter and that “if they are not in compliance, they are not in compliance.” However, Gordon added, “there is a difference in the jurisdictional approach between the reservation and the state of Wyoming.”