Episode Details

It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming for Friday, January 9th. I'm Mac Watson.

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The feud between Gov. Mark Gordon and Secretary of State Chuck Gray boiled over Thursday when Gordon asked Gray, "Do you want to step outside" near the end of a marathon Wyoming Board of Land Commissioners meeting in Douglas. Cowboy State Daily's David Madison reports friction between these two politicians isn't new.

"Governor Gordon, I think, expressed his displeasure with Secretary Gray by asking him if he'd like to step outside. Now he said it with a very measured tone. Later, his spokesperson said he literally meant, do you want to step outside and discuss this further? Because I'm not understanding you, Governor Gordon, didn't seem to lose his temper. He just said it very bluntly, would you like to step outside? Secretary Gray, in a follow up statement to Cowboy State daily, he, you know, he accused the governor of intimidation. It certainly wasn't the vibe of most of the meeting, but it ended with that terse exchange. I think the big takeaway here is that it appears that Secretary Gray has succeeded in dragging the rest of the land board commissioners over to his side on this issue. Now that still remains to be seen how they vote down the road."

The tense exchange capped an otherwise pleasant meeting that drew dozens of opponents to the Douglas Library, where residents delivered pointed testimony against the proposed wind project on both private and state trust lands in the shadow of the northern Laramie Range.

Read the full story HERE.

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Cheyenne has approved Project Jade, a Tallgrass–Crusoe AI data center using up to 2.7 GW of mostly self-generated power, nearly triple the entire state's power demand. Cowboy State Daily's Renee Jean reports that's a lot more than the 1.8 GW the companies announced in August.

"So the cap was always 10 gigawatts, but the initial announcement was 1.8 gigawatts at the city camps, or the Laramie County Commission meeting, they were talking about a 2.7 gigawatt facility. So, you know, I think that is an indication of demand in the marketplace. They were able to go out and find customers for that extra gigawatt of power…this is like roughly three times what the state itself uses as a whole for everyone in the entire state. This is going to be a massive, massive data center here in Cheyenne."

At the time, that was the largest data center yet to announce plans for Wyoming. It received a lot of attention statewide because the facility would use almost twice as much power as the entire state.

Read the full story HERE.

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A state representative from Casper wants to keep people from being charged with drunk driving if they're drunk while riding a horse, mule or donkey. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports the bill made one defense attorney laugh and left prosecutors wondering if a specific case inspired it.

"It's a very Wyoming bill. It would specify that you can't be charged with DUI for drunkenly riding your horse. Now, I talked with Mike Vang of Laramie. He's a defense attorney who specializes in DUIs. He said, 'Yeah, this is really interesting, and it may skirt some portions of you know, like DUI, implied consent for testing.' But don't ride your horse to and from the bar, because you still may face other charges, like if, if there's a public intoxication ordinance in place, or you may face the state charge of reckless endangering."

Johnson County's top prosecutor said he was curious to know