Great American Outdoors Act

With a key component of the 2020 Great American Outdoors Act set to expire at the end of this month, the U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources is set to meet Friday in Grand Teton National Park to consider whether to continue funding infrastructure in national parks. 

The committee includes Wyoming Republican Rep. Harriet Hageman. It’s scheduled to hold an oversight hearing at 10 a.m. at the Jenny Lake Visitor Center in Grand Teton National Park. Several people are scheduled to speak before the committee, including Grand Teton Superintendent Chip Jenkins and Julie Calder, chair of the Jackson Hole Travel and Tourism Board. 

Act Included Two Funding Streams

The main topic will likely be the Legacy Restoration Fund section of the Great American Outdoors Act, which was signed into law by President Trump in 2020. The Legacy Restoration Fund (LRF) authorized $1.9 billion per year for five years. That included $1.3 billion for the National Park Service, and the rest for other federal land-management agencies.

Wyoming’s Zero-Tolerance Wildfire Policy Leaves No Room For ‘Let It Burn'

Wildfire is recognized to have a cleansing and renewing role in nature, but allowing it take its natural course is considered too risky in Wyoming.

Most state and federal agencies in charge of public lands have a standing policy to go after every blaze with everything they’ve got, as soon as possible. 

“The State of Wyoming, we do not have a let burn policy, we have a put-out policy, immediately,” Wyoming State Forester Kelly Norris said during a recent interview with Cowboy State Daily Show with Jake Nichols. 

“The Bureau of Land Management has that same policy, obviously private lands have that same policy,” she added. 

In remote areas of vast National Forest land in Wyoming, the U.S. Forest Service has a more leeway to allow natural fires to burn. 

However, that can have dire consequences if a fire escapes a wilderness area, as did the massive Pack Trail Fire in northwest Wyoming in October 2024, Norris noted. 

A slurry bomber airplane, under contract with the Wyoming State Forestry Division, helps fight the Muddy Fire near Casper. (Courtesy Russell Haynes, Wyoming State Forestry Division)

Wyoming Will Lose More Than An Hour Of Daylight Before Fall Officially Starts

Andrew Rossi, 09/02/25

The last of summer isn’t for another three weeks, but it’s taking a shockingly large chunk of its daylight before it goes. Between now and the autumnal equinox on Sept. 22, Wyoming will lose more than an hour of daylight. 

“We lose an average of 55 minutes a month after the equinox,” said Max Gilbraith, planetarium coordinator at the University of Wyoming. “In the next 18 days, we will lose about an hour and 10 minutes of daylight.”

The loss of daylight will go hand-in-hand with the first bites of winter. Cooler nights, lower humidity, and the first snowfall of the season are all possible before summer’s officially over.

“The first half of September is the period of the year when we lose daylight the fastest,” Gilbraith said.

Wyoming Lawmakers Drafting Legislation To Ban Cloud Seeding For 10 Years

After nearly four hours of educational presentation and passionate testimony, a legislative committee voted Thursday to draft legislation that could halt cloud seeding programs in Wyoming, ban geoengineering, and deliver a message to Congress.

The message the Joint Agriculture, State & Public Lands and Water Resources Committee voted in favor of drafting and potentially sending to Congress remained unclear to the public as the vote happened Thursday.

No lawmaker had read it aloud or described it ahead of the vote.

Wyoming Newspapers Saved

People in eight Wyoming communities have been cheering this week as they learned their local newspapers were saved.

This is not just good news for them locally and also for all of Wyoming.

The term “desert” gets used out here in the frontier when we lack things that people are used to seeing in bigger cities. When medical care is limited, the situation is often cited that we live in a medical desert. 

Well, this past week, we heard about eight towns (Torrington, Wheatland, Guernsey, Pinedale, Bridger Valley, Lusk, Evanston, and Kemmerer) becoming “news deserts.” 

Even in a depressed condition, local newspapers provide key information. About government meetings, births and deaths, little league team victories, lots of stuff about the local school systems . . . the list is almost endless.

There is no definite formula – each town and each newspaper is a little different from each other. But for centuries, people in this country have relied on their local papers for critical news.

Darin Smith Interim U.S. Attorney for Wyoming

A Wyoming state senator representing Laramie and Platte counties hand-delivered his resignation letter early Monday morning, then was sworn in as the interim federal prosecutor for the state hours later.

Darin Smith’s family announced his swearing-in as interim U.S. Attorney for Wyoming via social media Monday afternoon.

President Donald Trump on July 30 nominated Smith, a Republican, as his pick to fill the position permanently. To win that title, Smith will have to clear a U.S. Senate confirmation process.

In the meantime, his state Senate seat is vacant.

Smith hand-delivered his resignation letter to Gov. Mark Gordon’s office early Monday, Gordon’s spokesman Michael Pearlman confirmed to Cowboy State Daily.

“And the governor notified the state party that he had submitted his resignation,” Pearlman added.  In vacancies in which the incumbent state legislator resigns, the governor plays a role in the verification and replacement process – of notifying the political party to which the legislator belongs.

Story Of Green River Heroism Takes Bizarre Turn With Phony AI Court Cases

A Wyoming judge has sanctioned a lawyer for citing fake AI cases in a lawsuit over what caused a nearly fatal house fire in Green River. A woman and her son were saved by Ryan Pasborg, [pictured right] who was given the nation's highest honor for heroism for his actions.

The Jetson Plasma Iridescent Hoverboard sells for $148 at Walmart and allows riders to zip around on two wheels.

It’s powered by a lithium-ion battery and on Feb. 1, 2022, one at the Wadsworth home in Sweetwater County allegedly experienced a “thermal runaway,” causing it to burst into flames and burn down the home, according to a lawsuit filed in Wyoming District Federal Court. 

Ryan Pasborg was running late for work as he drove past the Wadsworth family home on Highway 374 in James Town in rural Sweetwater County around 4:30 a.m. and saw smoke and flames coming from a bedroom window. 

He then rushed inside and saved Stephanie Wadsworth and her 4-year-old boy Weston. 

Stephanie suffered “devastating burns covering 35%” of her body, according to court documents.

Weston was also severely burned, but survived, while Pasborg was honored for his heroism. 

Full Lunar Eclipse Directly Over Wyoming Will Make Moon Look Blood-Red

The full moon will be covered in a blood-red shadow during a total lunar eclipse directly over Wyoming just after midnight March 14.

The moon will pass between the Earth and the sun, darkening its bright surface, and Wyomingites are in a perfect position to take it all in.

The peak of the total lunar eclipse will happen at 12:58 a.m., but the eclipse itself will be an all-night event, which means there will be plenty of opportunities for getting photos — provided the weather cooperates.

Lawmakers Working to Uncover the Left's Woke Agenda

A group of lawmakers are working to uncover the radical Left’s woke agenda that had wormed its way into nearly every corner of the federal government under the Biden administration.  

Diversity, equity, and inclusion programs were embraced under the previous administration, but the Anti-Woke Caucus is exposing how these “insidious theories have infiltrated so much of our government so that we can start pulling them out,” Rep. Harriet Hageman, R-Wyo [pictured right]., told The Daily Signal at the Conservative Political Action Conference just outside Washington, D.C., in Oxon Hill, Maryland, on Saturday.  

Hageman chairs the Anti-Woke Caucus, a group she says is targeting the “social justice-type nonsense” in America’s schools, medical system, and beyond.  

After DEI Fight With Legislature, University Of Wyoming Launches Image Makeover

The University of Wyoming is trying to improve its public image. 

The school has come under fire from the Wyoming Legislature over the past year for issues like diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs on campus. Now, the school is launching a “Wyoming First” agenda for teacher education and putting more effort into actively promoting its Wyoming-focused programs.

UW President Ed Seidel told Cowboy State Daily the school’s top priority is trying to figure out how it can help advance the state.

“We are really trying to make a statement to the state that we’re here for the state,” Seidel said. “It’s very important to us that people understand that we’re here for the whole state, no matter where you’re from, and that means every student, every town, every organization across the state.”

Last year, the Legislature cut funding for the school’s DEI office. In response, the UW Board of Trustees cut the office while still retaining some of its services.