Committee stops resolution to phase out electrical vehicles

TEN SLEEP – Senator Ed Cooper (R-Ten Sleep) reported this week that Senate Joint Resolution 4, a commitment to phase out sales of new electric vehicles by the year 2035, has been laid to rest by a decision from the Senate Minerals, Business & Economic Development Committee.

The electric vehicle resolution, a response to California Governor Gavin Newsom making a commitment to phase out the sale of gasoline vehicles by 2035, garnered attention nationwide, and Cooper said the response that Wyoming legislators received was largely positive. Cooper said "It did prompt a lot of conversation all across the nation. A little bit of negative, but it was mostly positive toward Wyoming and the message we were trying to send."

Cooper stated that the resolution had served its purpose by sparking this conversation, and it was "time for it to die" to redirect the Senate's focus to other legislation.

He added, "The future is going to include all types of vehicles: electric, hydrogen, gasoline, whatever technology develops as we continue to grow; but it's free market that should direct that rather than the government. Private enterprise and personal choice needs to prevail in that issue."

Outside of Joint Resolution 4, Cooper said that the Wyoming Senate has accomplished much in the last week. He said "We've had a lot come through the Senate in the last week. We've had some good legislation make it through the third reading and turned it over to the House, now it will go over there and make its way through the House committees."

Cooper noted that some "really good trespass bills" made it through the Senate last week, that would "give some really good landowner protections that I think are critical." This includes Senate File 34 which covers trespass by small unmanned aircraft. According to the document, this bill signed into law would find a person "guilty of trespass by small unmanned aircraft to enter into the immediate reaches of the airspace over the private property of a landowner and the entry substantially interferes with the landowner's or his authorized occupant's use and enjoyment of the land." Senate File 34 was approved at its third reading and has been passed over to the Wyoming House of Representatives.

As a relatively new technology, small unmanned aircraft such as remote control drones are becoming more prevalent and issues have arisen regarding their use over private property. Cooper said "those kinds of things need to be addressed: what they can and can't do with them. The laws addressing that are a little bit ambiguous, so we were careful to draft a bill that addresses those concerns. The law we have drafted is pretty clear; trespass can happen underneath the ground, on the surface or in the immediate airspace above."

Cooper stated that he would sponsor Senate File 154, introduced on Jan. 24 to the Minerals Committee, which would aid in the construction and expansion of oil and gas refineries in Wyoming. He said "One of the findings from the Governor's Task Force on gas and diesel prices over the last summer that keeps coming back is that we don't have any refining capacity in Wyoming. We have four smaller refineries, but we'd like to expand on our refining operations and improve the capacity for Wyoming oil to be refined in Wyoming. I think that would help a lot with the prices in Wyoming." He stated that currently, much of the oil produced in Wyoming is exported to neighboring states like Montana, Nebraska or Colorado to be refined and the finished product is then sent back. In his opinion, "We need to be putting those jobs and revenues right here in Wyoming."

When asked about his work coming up, Cooper stated that property taxes will be heavily discussed in the coming week. He said "One of the things we are seeing on property taxes is that there are not a lot of things we can do legislatively without a state constitutional amendment. Significant changes in the structure of property taxes will have to pass." He stated that these changes would probably not come out of this General Session, but that legislators could make progress towards these changes.