Wyoming Tribune Eagle offers thumbs up, 2-21-26

Editor’s note: Laramie County Library System Executive Director Antonia Gaona is a member of the Wyoming Tribune Eagle’s editorial board. She was not involved in this week’s meeting and discussion of topics.

Bills would help protect children online, catch sexual predators

UP to Wyoming state lawmakers for advancing bills to protect children online, and catch and punish predators.

House Bill 102, “Protecting kids from deepfakes and exploitative images,” would protect children from sexual exploitation via AI-generated child pornography, banning the development and distribution of those very things, sponsor Rep. Jayme Lien, R-Casper, said. If approved, the measure would also protect individuals from AI systems that promote self-harm, and it bans non-consensual deepfakes that invade privacy and extort victims.

Meanwhile, Senate File 85, “RAVEN Act,” would create a dedicated account to fund the work of the Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) task force, which is run by the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation. Created two decades ago in partnership with the U.S. Department of Justice, ICAC has been funded almost entirely by the federal government. That amount has not increased for about 16 years, though, according to state Sen. Tara Nethercott, R-Cheyenne, the bill’s lead sponsor.

Unfortunately, the need for the program to combat child exploitation online has only increased over time, which is the reason Sen. Nethercott is encouraging her colleagues to appropriate $1.6 million from the state’s general fund over the next two years for this important work.

Both have passed (so far) without a “nay” vote. Cheers for unity on behalf of the kids! We encourage state lawmakers in both chambers to support these initiatives and make them effective as soon as practicable.

Repealing the carbon capture mandate is right thing to do

UP to lawmakers working to pass House Bill 56, which seeks to dismantle the regulatory framework established in 2020 that requires public utilities to evaluate and potentially implement carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) technology at aging coal-fired power plants.

The original legislation was passed to protect reliable and dispatchable coal-generated power, and the taxes Wyoming gets from mining coal by forcing companies to delay shutting down coal-fired power plants in the state until they had evaluated adding CCUS technology. Now it is being called a “woke yoke placed around our necks for energy,” with critics like Rep. Christopher Knapp, R-Gillette, saying the low-carbon energy standards in the original House Bill 200 are too costly.

Sure, the 2020 legislation prohibited utilities from prematurely closing coal-fired plants that produce dispatchable and reliable power. It also regulated how much they could turn to ratepayers to recover costs for new facilities built to replace retired coal plants unless they could show they were taking steps toward utilizing carbon capture. But it also authorized a surcharge on customer bills of up to 2% to fund such efforts. And utilities have continued to use this legislation as a reason for raising rates much higher in the intervening years.

While we believe Wyoming should continue to logically embrace all forms of energy production — not just coal — this repeal of the previous CCUS mandate makes sense.

Movement on renovating Hynds Building, filling ‘hole’ is encouraging

UP to those who are working to turn the Hynds Building and the adjacent “hole” into affordable housing.

Thanks to more than $6 million coming from the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit equity, the HOME Investment Partnerships Program and the National Housing Trust Fund, a 69-unit mixed new construction and acquisition/rehabilitation housing community is moving forward, according to a news release from the Wyoming Community Development Authority.

Once complete, the Historic Hynds Lofts and The Reserves at the Hole (which needs a better name before it opens) could provide multiple benefits to Wyoming’s capital city. First and foremost, if the units are priced right, they will help address the ongoing need for affordable housing.

The other major benefit of the project is that after more than 20 years, the hole created by a December 2004 fire at Mary’s Bake Shoppe will be filled and the mostly empty Hynds will be fully occupied for the first time in more than four decades.

We wish the developer, Overland Properties Group, much success, and look forward to celebrating the day this important project is completed.

New library program encourages local residents to enjoy same book

UP to the Laramie County Library System and Executive Director Antonia Gaona for launching the new “One Book, One Laramie County” program.

Acting almost like a community-wide book club, “One Book, One Laramie County” allows the community to read, reflect and discuss the same book. This year, the selection is “The Bear” by Andrew Krivak, described on the author’s website this way: “In an Edenic future, a girl and her father live close to the land in the shadow of a lone mountain. They possess a few remnants of civilization: some books, a pane of glass, a set of flint and steel, a comb. The father teaches the girl how to fish and hunt, the secrets of the seasons and the stars. He is preparing her for an adulthood in harmony with nature, for they are the last of humankind. But when the girl finds herself alone in an unknown landscape, it is a bear that will lead her back home through a vast wilderness that offers the greatest lessons of all, if she can only learn to listen.”

Thanks to the Laramie County Library Foundation, 500 copies of the paperback were made available free of charge to anyone who wanted them. Those who picked them up are encouraged to read the small, 224-page novel, then pass it on to someone else right away so more people can participate before the author’s local visit in May.

The library plans to continue this program every other year. We look forward to reading “The Bear” ourselves and hope many of you Wyoming Tribune Eagle readers will join in this shared reading experience. Then, let us know what you think!