Sen. Cooper reflects on upcoming legislative session

Sen. Cooper reflects on upcoming legislative session

BY BARBARA ANNE GREENE 

Wyoming State Sen. Ed Cooper, R-Ten Sleep, headed to Cheyenne this week for the 2025 general session. Prior to leaving he discussed the bills he will sponsor, committee work, top issues and concerns. 

TOP ISSUES 

Cooper said all the energy issues should be on the top of the list. “We have a four-year window (Trump administration) to get a lot of good things done in the State of Wyoming,” he said. “We can actually make some forward progress on good energy projects.” 

“There are some CO2 sequestration bills there that are a rehash of things that were done.” 

One bill is SF 92-Make carbon dioxide great again-no net zero. 

“It is similar to the old HB 200 which asks the power companies to look at carbon capture. They aren’t required to do it. They are just asked to look at it. The result of that bill is you have a major power producer in Wyoming who was going to close numerous plants. They have completely done a reversal on that. They are going to convert two plants partially to natural gas. They will do carbon capture with that. It doesn’t matter if we think CO2 is a pollutant or not. The feds say it is and it has to be dealt with by 2030. That is only five years down the road.”

Wyoming needs to sit on its assets and do nothing or continue on the path to protect coal and natural gas. 

“If those plants get shut down, we are the first ones to suffer because we don’t have alternative power generation in Wyoming,” he said. “We don’t have very much hydro or nuclear yet. If those plants get shut down, we’re the first ones to go dark.  Wind and solar are not transition power, they are addition power. We need every ounce of power we can generate in Wyoming. We need to be able to use it in Wyoming for the business, like data centers, that are coming this way.” 

Taxes will be another top issue, he said. “We have two years to make some concrete positive reforms to property tax. If we don’t the Initiative A could play a part. (The initiative passed in November 2024. It allows changes to the state constitution to grant the legislature additional authority to adjust property taxes. “The adoption of this amendment would separate residential real property into its own class of property for purposes of property tax assessments. The amendment would authorize the legislature to create a subclass of owner-occupied primary residences.”). It could take effect the summer of 2027. 

Cooper continued that in his opinion it is the duty of the legislators to step up to make some strong and positive tax reform. If they do, Initiative A wouldn’t have to happen.

BILLS 

The senator has four bills he is sponsoring. 

Senate File 87-A prescriptive easement for electricity delivery. “A lot of the older lines throughout the state were brought in by the REAs years ago. Nobody thought about easements or right of ways.” With all the new ownership in the state, many REAs are having trouble accessing their lines to do repairs. 

Senate File 5-School district vehicles – flashing lights authorized. The need for this bill was brought to Cooper by the Meeteetse School District. “This bill has to do with lights on suburban type of vehicles. A lot of the smaller districts have gone to these type of school buses. Under current statutes they can’t put the lights on the top of them.” He explained this is just a small adjustment to the statute.  

Senate File  37-Enhaned concealed carry in school zones. This bill will provide enhanced concealed carry licenses, as well as designated places where enhanced concealed carry licenses are required. Cooper stated this bill is unlikely to pass due to a consensus among legislators to leave firearm regulation at private locations to their own discretion, but it will exist as an alternative as conversations about firearms in school zones proceed.  Representative Dalton Banks R-Cowley had considered co-sponsoring the bill but changed his mind. 

COMMITTEES 

Cooper sits on the following committees: Transportation and Minerals. His seat on Minerals has allowed him to be a representative on the Energy Council. He is also on the Wildlife Natural Resource Trust Fund Corpus. He believes that the mineral committee is a very strong one. There are some strong ideas especially on the nuclear side. 

“We have some opportunities coming to Wyoming in the next few years. We need to make sure we keep our language in our statutes compliant with the language in the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. So, we can at least have conversations about nuclear development in the future. We need to make sure we are ready when those opportunities come forward. 

CONCERNS

The senator said he is concerned what will happen with the supplemental budget. His thought on fiscal responsibility is not no spending; it is responsible spending. “Instead of just saying no we aren’t going to spend any money we have to say let’s consider where we are spending money.” 

He is also concerned about all the social bills. They are based on national think tanks like the Freedom Caucus. They may be “good” bills, but they aren’t constitutional in Wyoming. “We can’t be passing bills that aren’t in line with our state constitution. What is best for the state of Wyoming.”