Powder River Breaks Newsletter – September-October 2023
September – October 2023, Volume 51, Number 5 Powder River staff and members traveled to Denver, CO in late August to show support for the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) proposed Fluid Mineral Leases and Leasing Process rule. Readers may recall from our previous issue that the rule makes long overdue changes to the onshore […]
Westerners call on BLM to update federal oil & gas bond amounts
This week, 30 western grassroots and advocacy groups sent a letter to Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Director Tracy Stone-Manning urging her agency to update the Bureau’s federal onshore oil and gas bonding program. Impacted communities and split-estate landowners throughout the West are ready to see BLM take expedient action to update the program, which […]
Powder River’s 2021 Annual Report
This is Powder River Basin Resource Council’s 2021 Annual Report. To read the full report, please download the PDF.
Powder River Statement on Wyoming Nuclear Facility Announcement
“While we support efforts to reduce carbon emissions, we have many questions surrounding Governor Gordon’s proposal to build a small nuclear reactor in Wyoming. This technology is still experimental and unproven; the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has yet to license a design, so this announcement appears to be premature. Additionally, we have concerns about the cost […]
Powder River Breaks Newsletter January – February 2021
January – February 2021, Volume 49, Number 1 In an effort to demonstrate widespread concern about air quality related to oil and gas development in Laramie County, Cheyenne Area Landowners Coalition (CALC), an affiliate of Powder River, teamed up with Earthworks’ Community Empowerment Project to film several leaking wells with state-of-the-art infrared cameras. The organizations […]
Western Conservation Group Sues Trump Administration Over Secretive Coal Council
Today, on behalf of the Western Organization of Resource Councils (WORC), Democracy Forward sued the Trump administration for violating the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) by refusing to make fully public the meetings and records of the National Coal Council (NCC) — an outside advisory group that makes recommendations on federal policies related to the […]
Powder River Breaks July – August 2020
July – August 2020, Volume 48, Number 4 In the summer of 2019, Governor Gordon, a couple of legislative leaders, and the state land office began discussions about the purchase of millions of acres of mineral rights and land owned by the financially troubled Occidental Petroleum (Oxy). The purchase entailed approximately 1 million acres of […]
Powder River Statement on Wyoming’s Failed Occidental Petroleum Land Bid
Powder River Basin Resource Council says Wyoming has been saved from a potentially serious financial blunder. Powder River Basin Resource Council expressed optimism that Wyoming’s bid for millions of acres of land and mineral rights has apparently failed. Occidental Petroleum (OXY) is negotiating with another bidder instead. “Luckily, Wyoming seems to have dodged a bullet, […]
Remaining coal mine reclamation could create hundreds of jobs for rural Wyoming
The collapse of the coal industry is devastating small communities across the Western United States, but reclaiming these mined lands quickly could create up to 4,800 full-time equivalent jobs per year in the critical two-to-three-year period after mine closure says a report released today by the Western Organization of Resource Councils (WORC). The report, “Coal […]
Reclaiming & Growing Wyoming’s Future webinar series continues July 7
On Tuesday, July 7 Powder River Basin Resource Council will continue its webinar series, Reclaiming & Growing Wyoming’s Future, providing education, tools, and resources available for a planned transition to a new, diversified Wyoming economy. Each session features different panelists with specific areas of expertise in transitioning resource-dependent communities. In this third webinar, Securitization: A Finance […]
