Steam rises from the stacks of Basin Electric’s Laramie River Station coal-fired power plant near Wheatland, Wyo. The House Minerals, Business and Economic Development Committee advanced a joint resolution Monda that would call on Congress to require the Environmental Protection Agency to respect the state’s primacy in setting guidelines to regulate carbon dioxide emissions.CHEYENNE, Wyo. – Turns out the worst state for carbon dioxide emissions per person isn’t smoggy California or bustling New York, but a place famous for its big, clear skies: Wyoming.
But regulating greenhouse gases is a touchy subject in the least-populated state, which just recently received U.S. Environmental Protection Agency approval to do so.
Wyoming also is the top coal-mining state by far, producing almost 40 percent of the nation’s coal. Burning coal to generate electricity produces large amounts of CO2 — in Wyoming, across the U.S., and in the Far Eastern countries where state officials have sought to open up new coal markets.
Gov. Matt Mead made such a trip to Taiwan and South Korea last year. Meanwhile, he’s called EPA efforts to curtail greenhouse emissions a “war on coal” and said at a recent forum he’s skeptical about man-made climate change.
“What he also says is we do have a responsibility to always do things better,” Mead spokesman Renny MacKay said Thursday. “The coal industry has to be profitable if it’s going to invest in the research and development of new technologies.”