Episode Details

It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming for Monday, January 19th. I'm Mac Watson.

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As federal subsidies phase out for new wind energy projects, wind developers and opponents are regrouping. Cowboy State Daily's David Madison reports that in Wyoming and Nebraska, residents against large-scale developments say the fight has just begun.

"I spoke to national experts looking at the wind market, looking at this post subsidy world for wind and solar, where there's no longer going to be new federal subsidies for those two sectors of the of energy…The industry is moving into a new space. And so we got some analysis on what that means. Can they compete in the marketplace for different power? Those backing wind would say, 'Yes, we can, because we can get new generations to market faster than other methods. That it takes maybe four years to build a natural gas plant, we can be up in one or two years generating electricity.'"

After 33 years of federal tax support, this corner of the energy sector remains in transition, which U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright made clear in December when he told Cowboy State Daily, "We cleaned out a ton of subsidies, over a half a trillion of energy subsidies."

Read the full story HERE.

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The 94-yard-long underground wine cellar at the Brush Creek Ranch in Carbon County has over 30,000 bottles of wine and is the 4th largest private collection in the U.S. Cowboy State Daily's Renee Jean reports that it has some of the rarest bottles of wine anywhere.

"Bruce White started Brush Creek Ranch, and he started this wine cellar, and it is the fourth largest in the US. private collection is the seventh largest in the world. As far as private wine collections go, it's a 94 yard tunnel, 30,000 bottles of wine down there, selection of over 2000 so you know, just a lot of very interesting wines down there, old wines, rare wines, expensive. One of the bottles of wine is a $34,000 bottle of wine…It's like a Wizard of Oz experience…it's a magical experience. And I have to admit, when I went and did the wine cellar tour, it indeed, is a magical experience. I don't know any other way to describe it. Really, they have secret rooms down there. You push a panel to the right of the secret painting, and a door slides open, and inside is this glowing wall. Speak Easy, and each of these little windows has a different bottle of a different spirit in it that's luminous because the light in each locker."

Big wines are a feature of the collection, in part because they age so well. The late Bruce White's collection includes many bottles in the 6- to 9-liter range. The largest bottle in the collection is an ultra-rare, 27-liter bottle of Jygantor 2016.

Read the full story HERE.

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State Rep. Daniel Singh left the Wyoming Freedom Caucus last month. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports that Singh says he wants to emphasize his independence, but still believes in the Freedom Caucus' mission.

"Daniel Singh has always been a little different from the Freedom Caucus majority, a little more libertarian leaning. And I asked him, 'Why are you leaving?' And he said, 'Look, it's about emphasizing that I'm independent.' He said that no one in the Freedom Caucus told him how to vote, that they're not as group think, as has been alleged in some news outlets, but that he wanted to reassure his constituents of his staunch independence…He does deviate from them once in a while, like when Freedom Caucus members voted to ban lab grown