Powder River Breaks Newsletter September – October 2022

September – October 2022, Volume 50, Number 5 Powder River turns a half century old this year! Our founding members joined together in 1973 for the organization’s first annual meeting of the membership, and on Nov. 5 in Sheridan we’ll celebrate the golden anniversary of our annual meetings. The staff and board are excited to […]

Federal court cites human health, climate costs in rejecting coal mining plan

A federal judge late yesterday struck down two U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) resource management plans that failed to address the public health consequences of allowing massive amounts of coal, oil, and gas production from public lands and minerals in the Powder River Basin, including approximately 6 billion tons of low-grade, highly polluting coal […]

Powder River Breaks Newsletter May – June 2022

May – June 2022, Volume 50, Number 3 On June 13, energy experts from Crossborder Energy released a new report analyzing the benefits and costs of rooftop solar in Wyoming, from the perspective of utilities and their customers. Powder River hosted the experts to present their findings in a webinar, Rooftop Solar in Wyoming: Analyzing […]

Powder River Breaks Newsletter March – April 2022

March – April 2022, Volume 50, Number 2 Wyoming’s Zero Emission Vehicle Strategy is the state’s plan to use federal infrastructure funding to accomplish its zero emission infrastructure visions. The strategy recognizes the electric-vehicle-centric nature of much of the federal rollout, by including both short-term needs to take advantage of the current funding, and longer-term […]

Lawsuit Challenging National Coal Council Comes to an End after DOE Shutters the Council

Western Grassroots lawsuit results in commitment to improved balance and transparency Thursday, May 19th, the Western Organization of Resource Councils (WORC) represented by Democracy Forward and EarthJustice, voluntarily dismissed their lawsuit against the Department of Energy (DOE) following the dissolution of the National Coal Council (NCC) and the establishment of a restructured National Advisory Committee […]

Powder River Breaks Newsletter January – February 2022

January – February 2022, Volume 50, Number 1 Powder River, in partnership with researchers at the University of Wyoming Haub School of Environment and Natural Resources, has unveiled Wyoming Voices, a pilot project looking at how storytelling may support communities in transition. Through this process, eight participants from Southwest Wyoming not only told their personal […]

Powder River Releases Wyoming Voices Storytelling Project

The Powder River Basin Resource Council (Powder River), in partnership with researchers at the University of Wyoming Haub School of Environment and Natural Resources, has unveiled Wyoming Voices, a pilot project looking at how storytelling may support communities in transition. Through this process, eight participants from Southwest Wyoming not only told their personal stories of […]

Powder River Breaks Newsletter November – December 2021

November-December 2021, Volume 49, Number 6 For the second year, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Powder River held the Annual Meeting online via Zoom on Nov. 5 – 6. Unlike last year when we decided to forego the speaker and hold only the business meeting, we brought back the keynote speaker event. On the evening […]

Conservation Organizations’ Statement on EPA’s Decision on Jim Bridger Coal Plant

Powder River Basin Resource Council, National Parks Conservation Association, and Sierra Club welcomed a decision from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposing to deny a change to a long-standing pollution control plan for the Jim Bridger coal plant in Wyoming. Wyoming and the utility that operates the plant, PacifiCorp (or, Wyoming-based Rocky Mountain Power), […]

BLM’s Coal Program Review Lacks Solutions

In response to the BLM’s comment summary report on the federal coal program review released in late December, western grassroots organizations voice the need for prompt and long overdue action to improve the process of federal coal leasing and mining beyond just the acknowledgement of a broken system. Bob LeResche, a Board Member of Powder […]