Wyoming Legislature 2023: Minerals Committee Looks At "All Of The Above," Energy Sources

2023 Minerals, Business, and Economic Development Committee
Committee Chairs (click to meet the committee)
Senate - Dan Dockstader
House - Don Burkhart 

Senate committee members - Ed Cooper, Affie Ellis, Stacy Jones, Chris Rothfuss
House committee members- Dalton Banks, Jon Conrad, Scott Heiner, Chris Knapp, JT Larson, Martha Lawley, Reuben Tarver, Cyrus Western

A couple of legislative veterans and stalwarts will take the reigns of the Legislature’s Minerals, Business, and Economic Development Committee. While Dan Dockstader and Don Burkhart have a combined 26 years of service in the Wyoming Legislature, they will lead a committee with six new members to the Wyoming Legislature and three others who have been sitting legislators for two years or less. 

Dockstader says he is excited to work with the Minerals Committee as the state works with a budding nuclear energy future. In addition to the Kemmerer plant, which is slated to open in 2024, he says micro-nuclear plants are looking at locations around the state, including Lincoln County, Campbell County, and even Laramie County. He says it will be important for Wyoming to make sure the industry feels like it has an open door, but doesn’t lay down to the industry.

“I think in five years, you are going to see quite a bit of activity in this industry around the state,” Dockstader says about nuclear energy.

Meanwhile, he says the committee needs to keep an eye on ways to keep the oil and gas industries healthy. He says an industry insider told him recently that he felt like extractive industries were operating in a hostile environment, due to federal restrictions. Dockstader says he wants to find a way to work on that and keep people employed.

“I am an all-of-the-above person when it comes to energy,” Dockstader says. “Our petroleum association is telling us they are having a  hard time because of the federal restrictions right now. Until those straighten out, it is a very difficult time for folks in that industry.”

Burkhart says two other areas the committee and state will examine include Carbon Capture, and Sequestration Utilization (CCUS) and hydrogen. He says Wyoming has one of the best CCUS programs in the country, a great enhanced oil recovery program using carbon dioxide and some of the best geology for sequestration. Additionally, Wyoming is looking at ways of helping our fledgling rare earths industry become a robust and vibrant part of Wyoming’s economy from the mining of the minerals all the way through finished manufactured products made in Wyoming.

“These are exciting times as Wyoming develops an economy based on advanced technology and at the same time maintaining and enhancing our great natural resource production,” Burkhart says.