As a member of the Energy Council’s Executive Committee I attended the Council’s annual meeting September 15-18 in San Antonio, Texas. Wyoming is well represented as one of 14 states and two Canadian provinces sending legislators to meet and discuss energy issues impacting their respective states, and to collaborate on efforts to effect change.

An example of efforts we work together on is a resolution I prepared over the past three months after the Energy Council meeting in Kansas when we were informed the Department of Interior still has not adopted a policy that would share revenues with states where federal lands are used for wind and solar projects. The federal government has historically shared 49% of the royalties generated from minerals such as coal, natural gas, and oil with the states where the royalties are generated. States are impacted from wind and solar generation as well and it seems appropriate the revenues generated from these projects be shared with states as well. The resolution was adopted and will be delivered to members of congress and Secretary of Interior, Deb Haaland.

The Energy Council also spent time at this annual meeting to discuss the following issues:

1. New Technologies in energy

2. Reliability Challenges for RTOs and ISOs

3. Critical Infrastructure Weatherization

4. ESG Effects on Financing the Energy Industry

5. Wildfire Risks and Relief

6. Baseload Generation

7. Load Following Power Plants

8. Federal Energy Policy

9. Advances in Carbon Capture

10. The Changing Landscape for Transportation

11. Non-variable Renewable Energy