Governor highlights unity in struggles, opportunity in energy

GILLETTE — Shortly after Gov. Mark Gordon began his speech to the Campbell County Chamber of Commerce Thursday, he relayed an old memory of his, one from before he got into politics.

Driving down a stretch of road, he noticed a nearly three-mile set of skid-marks and was told that two old neighbors had been arguing whether a Duramax or Dodge had more horsepower until the argument got so heated that they decided to attach a chain to drag each other across the stretch to figure it out. When the bumper of one was ripped off, they attached the chain to the axle until it too was ripped off.

Gordon never said who won.

“This is such an exciting time (for) Wyoming, the thing that’s holding us back, like those two trucks down there, if we could stop pulling at each other and dragging each other all over the highway and start thinking about how do we get down the road,” he said. “That’s what’s going to make a difference here in Wyoming.”

While speaking on a wide variety of subjects during his speech, Gordon paid particular focus on Wyoming’s energy sector, noting the state’s leading role in coal production and that recent efforts at the federal level have provided Wyoming with more opportunities to expand its energy output.

“We were able to go through the several orders that (President Donald Trump) had that really opened the way for us to be able to think about coal in a very positive light again,” he said. “Now if you’ve been in Wyoming over the last several years, you have known that we have been a champion of what coal can do. Coal is a very important part of any energy scenario going forward, Wyoming has been at the head of that.”

One such opportunity is exporting energy to countries like Japan and Taiwan, which, while aiming to reach net zero emissions by 2050, are still amenable to using Wyoming coal to help push itself to that point, which may bring further interest and investors into the sector.

“What Wyoming has demonstrated is leadership across the energy sector in a way that makes our energy preferable to any other energy they can get from Australia, from Indonesia, even from our neighbors in the southeast,” Gordon said. “We are poised at an opportune time.”

The governor also commented on energy demands more locally, with artificial intelligence data centers causing a spike in electricity demand, requiring the industry to expand to keep up with said demand. He said Wyoming is an optimal match for that expansion to take place, given that it is literally “high and dry.”

“We just will kill ourselves if we slow everything down,” Gordon said.

However, while noting the state’s current opportunities to continue leading in energy production, he expressed some concern about the recent decision by the Wyoming Legislature to cut property taxes in the past two sessions.

These cuts, combined with reduced aid from federal sources, have left many local services in a tough position, Gordon said.

And the consequences of these actions are fast approaching and not always fully understood ahead of time. He added that with these property tax cuts, Wyoming has struggled to meet the needs of its residents.

Gordon also noted that, as federal funding these services through local taxes, communities have the opportunity for a more direct say in what their money is spent on compared to federal funding.

“Nobody in this room, I think, is excited about paying property tax, but it is property tax that does fund our local communities and our counties, not even talking about schools yet,” Gordon said. “It is something that every citizen really needs to pay attention to. How do your taxpayer dollars get spent? Do you have control over them? Or does somebody, whether it be in Washington or whether it be in Cheyenne, make those decisions for you? These are complex discussions that need to come into next year’s election, because they will be on the ballot.”

He also spoke more directly on the importance of investing in Wyoming’s future through education, pointing out the high quality of the state’s school system, which ranks in the top 10 of the nation and often within the top five regarding public schools in particular. This, Gordon notes, comes with a very real cost but one that, historically, has left a mark of pride in Wyoming communities.

“This legislature is going to have to wrestle it with how do we fund schools, and this conversation is going to be very important,” Gordon said. “It should be open, and people should understand what that is, but at the same time that we’re talking about how we do the regular recalibration of our schools. We’ve also expanded opportunities, which is a good thing — people need to have more opportunities for schools — but all of these new opportunities cost money. Coming to grips with what those costs are is something that we all are going to have to spend a lot of time discussing, thinking about, and coming up with solutions for.”

This story was published on May 10, 2025.