Winter, Cooper provide legislative session wrap-up

State of Wyoming legislators, Senator Ed Cooper and Representative John Winter, provided a wrap-up of the legislative session to the community at the Hot Springs County Historical Museum on Tuesday, March 28. The Hot Springs County Republican Party hosted the event.

Cooper is the District 20 Senator and represents Big Horn, Fremont, Hot Springs, Park and Washakie Counties. Cooper has been in this office since 2021. 

Winter is the Representative from District 28 and has been in that office since 2019. He represents Big Horn, Fremont, Hot Springs and Park Counties.

Cooper lives in Ten Sleep and his family first came to the Big Horn Basin in 1906. Cooper grew up in Worland and spent most of his adult life in the oil and gas business. Cooper is on the Judicial, Minerals, Wyoming Wildlife Natural Resources Trust Fund and the Energy Council committees.

Winter is on the Agriculture, Travel/Recreation/Wildlife and Natural Resources Management Committees. He has been a rancher and a Wyoming Outfitter and Guide. 

Regarding minerals, Cooper said, “We’ve got a lot of things that are going to happen in minerals in the next 10 to 15 years in Wyoming, outside of oil and gas or coal, hydrogen is being developed at a rapid rate. Rare earth minerals, you’re going to see more nuclear projects come to the state and different types of nuclear energy. Thorium is something that’s being expressed an interest in, and that’s an extremely safe product to generate heat with.”

Cooper explained the difference between thorium and uranium. Uranium can be enriched to become weapon-grade material, but thorium cannot be made into a weapon and is stable and safe. Cooper added that there is a rare-earth mine in northeast Wyoming and thorium can be found there. However, there is no market for thorium at this time. Cooper said that the state of Wyoming talked to the Nuclear Regulatory Committee (NRC) about becoming a cooperative state for thorium. The NRC responded positively and Wyoming was able to become a cooperative state in less than a year, which was faster than anticipated. Shortly after that, a group from NASA also expressed interest in the thorium mine. Cooper said that thorium nuclear reactors are much safer than uranium and cannot melt down like a uranium-powered reactor. In this use, there is a market for thorium.

Cooper also said, “Hydrogen development is going to come in Wyoming in the next 10 to 15 years.” This is where they extract hydrogen from the atmosphere. Cooper referred to a project in eastern Wyoming and said, “My biggest problem with it is it takes about 100,000 acres of wind power to generate that project. And I’m not a huge fan of wind. I think it’s part of the future. But I think there are better solutions than wind out there. And right now it’s heavily subsidized.” However, regarding the hydrogen project, Cooper said they can burn natural gas and extract hydrogen from it. 

Regarding the Wyoming Wildlife Natural Resources Trust Fund. Cooper said that the trust fund has been built over the last 17 years to $200 million where most of the money has come from sources outside the state. The fund helps resource projects prioritized for Wyoming businesses. One project example Cooper provided was about creating a fish ladder to help landlocked fish from a dam be able to re-habitat the river. Cooper also said they have another project to create or improve the habitat for the Bonneville Cutthroat trout on Bear River which has become endangered. 

Regarding the Energy Council, Cooper said the council “consists of 14 representatives from 14 states and two provinces, and the purpose of it is to help direct energy policy for the nation. So in June, I’ll spend a week in Washington, DC with our representatives there, and then meet with the rest of the Energy Council to help hopefully guide an energy policy for the whole nation. That’s a pretty big step for our end of the state. We haven’t had this kind of representation on that council ever. So I’m pretty pleased with that.”

Cooper also touted Representative Winter’s sponsored bill for Wolf Depredation Compensation that passed. Cooper said, “This was a long time coming, and he needs some real kudos on getting this passed.”

Cooper added about how he and Winter made their decisions on how they voted on the bills in the legislature and said, “One of the things that I think is really important to keep in mind is not necessarily how we voted, but why we voted the way we did. Some of the bills that came across, a lot of the property tax bills, weren’t constitutional within the state constitution. So we have to change that constitution a little bit in order to separate residential property out from the general property tax. If we want to make the changes.” Cooper added, there are two schools of thought on the matter but said, “Either way, there has to be some kind of property tax reform…One of the things that will be discussed at length is acquisition-based property tax. And I think that’s a direction that most of us would like to see it go.”

Cooper provided some numbers about the legislature. There were 300 bills in the House, 197 bills in the Senate, and 197 bills were passed. Cooper said, “We failed 300 bills. Some of those bills needed to go away. There was a lot of fluff. There were a lot of bills that didn’t do anything. And we passed some bills that did absolutely nothing if you want to know the truth. I’ve been telling people we did a solid ten days’ worth of work in the last 40 days. I’m not really proud of the work that got done down there. I think the people of the state of Wyoming deserve better than what we did. We had a huge new class of freshmen in the House, and unfortunately, most of them wanted to hear themselves speak and promote themselves rather than the good of the state.”

Representative Winter spoke about some of the controversial bills that passed. Winter said that House Bill 152, the Life as a Human Rights Act passed. There was a ban on chemical abortions. House Bill 103 banned crossover voting. Bill 70 was the Homeschool Freedom Act which allowed more than one family to be involved in homeschooling. House Bill 127 had to do with healthcare visitation rights. 

Winter also talked about some bills that did not pass. House bill 194 was the Universal School Choice bill which would fund the student, not the system, where the money follows the student.

Senate bill 144 for Protection of Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation and Senate 117 Parental Rights and Education did not pass. House Bill 66 and 143 Medical Freedom did not pass. 

Winter also said, “One of the main things that bothered me the most and I touched on it was the fact that we didn’t get any tax relief for the taxpayers of Wyoming.” Winter added about the budget and said, “I will say a little bit about the budget. In my estimation, we didn’t need to have this discussion. We had already in the previous year. We had funded everything and this was just another way I felt, to spend more money and that’s exactly what happened. We put some into savings, but then a lot of that savings, the money that we’re going to get back from that was pretty small compared to what we could have gotten in some of the other funds that are available….Relative to this budget discussion, there were over 50 amendments to curb spending increases and to increase savings and promote social conservatism. These were brought forward in the debate, but they just didn’t pass.”

Winter described the House as having “a big divide” and gave some numbers of the conservatives in the House. Winter added, “It’s got a lot of people concerned that we’re not going about things the way they used to.”

Winter proposed six bills this year and only one passed, which was the Wolf Depredation Compensation. This bill is administered by the Department of Agriculture in the state. Winter said, “This whole program will be based on the damages that the wolves may cause to these livestock operators. And the Department of Agriculture is still going to be involving the Game and Fish and the Fish and Wildlife Service to verify these different kills that come about.”

Winter also said, “The other bill that I really was hoping we could get something done on, and I’m still hoping that way. But it is the wild horse bill. I’ve been working on Wild Horses for all my career, I guess before I was in the legislature, but we do have a big problem out there on the range, especially down in the southwest part of Wyoming, on the desert. So I’m going to keep working at it.”

Winter also mentioned a bill that did not pass regarding the Jackson Hole Rodeo and Fairgrounds, which “fizzled at the last minute.” Winter added, “It’s pretty important for the state of Wyoming that we protect this historic attitude that Wyoming has. And we need to do what we can to save that particular fairgrounds.”

Winter said that he had a bill regarding campaign signs on HOA properties that did not go anywhere. It was defeated in committee. 

Senator Cooper added comments to why he voted against the crossover bill. Cooper said there was a need for clarity in the bill’s language that didn’t end up in the bill. The county clerks in the state requested the clarity. He said, “I ended up voting against the bill because we couldn’t get that clarity put in it. I agree 100% with the principle of the bill.”