Cowboy State Daily Video News: Friday, January 9, 2026

It’s time to take a look at what’s happening around Wyoming for Friday, January 9th.  I’m Mac Watson.

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The feud between Gov. Mark Gordon and Secretary of State Chuck Gray boiled over Thursday when Gordon asked Gray, “Do you want to step outside” near the end of a marathon Wyoming Board of Land Commissioners meeting in Douglas. Cowboy State Daily’s David Madison reports friction between these two politicians isn’t new.

“Governor Gordon, I think, expressed his displeasure with Secretary Gray by asking him if he'd like to step outside. Now he said it with a very measured tone. Later, his spokesperson said he literally meant, do you want to step outside and discuss this further? Because I'm not understanding you, Governor Gordon, didn't seem to lose his temper. He just said it very bluntly, would you like to step outside? Secretary Gray, in a follow up statement to Cowboy State daily, he, you know, he accused the governor of intimidation. It certainly wasn't the vibe of most of the meeting, but it ended with that terse exchange. I think the big takeaway here is that it appears that Secretary Gray has succeeded in dragging the rest of the land board commissioners over to his side on this issue. Now that still remains to be seen how they vote down the road.”

The tense exchange capped an otherwise pleasant meeting that drew dozens of opponents to the Douglas Library, where residents delivered pointed testimony against the proposed wind project on both private and state trust lands in the shadow of the northern Laramie Range. 

Read the full story HERE.

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Cheyenne has approved Project Jade, a Tallgrass–Crusoe AI data center using up to 2.7 GW of mostly self-generated power, nearly triple the entire state’s power demand. Cowboy State Daily’s Renee Jean reports that’s a lot more than the 1.8 GW the companies announced in August.

“So the cap was always 10 gigawatts, but the initial announcement was 1.8 gigawatts at the city camps, or the Laramie County Commission meeting, they were talking about a 2.7 gigawatt facility. So, you know, I think that is an indication of demand in the marketplace. They were able to go out and find customers for that extra gigawatt of power…this is like roughly three times what the state itself uses as a whole for everyone in the entire state. This is going to be a massive, massive data center here in Cheyenne.”

At the time, that was the largest data center yet to announce plans for Wyoming. It received a lot of attention statewide because the facility would use almost twice as much power as the entire state. 

Read the full story HERE.

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A state representative from Casper wants to keep people from being charged with drunk driving if they're drunk while riding a horse, mule or donkey. Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports the bill made one defense attorney laugh and left prosecutors wondering if a specific case inspired it.

“It's a very Wyoming bill. It would specify that you can't be charged with DUI for drunkenly riding your horse. Now, I talked with Mike Vang of Laramie. He's a defense attorney who specializes in DUIs. He said, ‘Yeah, this is really interesting, and it may skirt some portions of you know, like DUI, implied consent for testing.’ But don't ride your horse to and from the bar, because you still may face other charges, like if, if there's a public intoxication ordinance in place, or you may face the state charge of reckless endangering.”

Johnson County’s top prosecutor said he was curious to know what prompted the legislation, since neither he nor the two deputy attorneys then standing in his office — with nearly 50 years’ experience between them — had never charged anyone for drunkenly riding a horse.

Read the full story HERE.

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A proposed ordinance expanding administrative warrants to access people’s property has upset some Cheyenne residents who say it crosses the line into government overreach. Cowboy State Daily’s Scott Schwebke reports that fire and building officials say they need them to do post-fire safety inspections.

“Firefighters, when they go on to a property, they fight a fire and they extinguish it, and they leave. Sometimes they have to come back, and according to fire officials, you know, they're required by the Constitution to get some kind of a warrant or get permission to come back on and sometimes buildings are abandoned, and they don't know who the property owners belong to, so they're they say they're trying to just do everything by the law. Some residents consider it overreach, because, for one thing, they don't want people forcing them to, you know, give permission to come on their property.”

On Monday, there will be a final reading of the bill during the city council meeting. But there is a large contingent of people on social media who say the bill is overreaching and they will show up and protest.

Read the full story HERE.

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I’ll be back with more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.

 

Cowboy State Daily news continues now…

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The proposed 2-gigawatt Seminoe Generating Station near Rawlins would pair natural gas and wind power to boost Wyoming’s energy supply. Cowboy State Daily’s Kate Meadows reports the project aims to cut water use by up to 95% and reduce emissions while creating hundreds of jobs.

“Water usage in the West is a critical issue because everyone needs it, and there's not enough. So we have on one side, we have the power company of Wyoming saying we're bringing in this project that's going to create all these jobs, and we still need water for this project, although we're going to be reducing, you know, the water usage by over 90% which sounds good, And that was enticing to the carbon county commissioners. However, one of the commissioners, who's also a rancher, did express concern over the 320 acre feet of annual consumption that this project will entail....On the jobs front with this project, the company's Vice President of Government and Public Relations said that the project will result in an anticipated peak of 350 construction jobs along with 30 operations jobs.”

Touted as one of the most widely used and reliable forms of large-scale renewable energy storage, pumped hydro relies on gravity and water rather than chemicals. 

Read the full story HERE.

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The teen who did not pull the trigger of the compound bow that killed his autistic friend last February, but who conspired to that end and watched the killing, was sentenced Thursday. Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports Orion Schlesinger was sentenced to between 54 years and life in prison.

“For second degree murder, you can get 20 to life. The prosecutor and the defense attorney came to this agreement. After months of defense and mental illness, plea and evaluations, they ultimately came to decide, okay. 54 is the bottom number, life is the top number. He's eligible for parole.”

19-year old Schlesinger was also ordered to pay $4,431.50 in restitution – one half of the funeral costs for his victim Dakota Farley, 23, and of the wages Dakota Farley’s father Ray lost by attending court proceedings. 

Read the full story HERE.

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Wyoming cattle ranchers are applauding the new federal dietary guidelines that prioritize protein like red meat and real foods over processed options. Cowboy State Daily’s Kate Meadows reports that ranchers are applauding the newly-released guidelines.

“Wyoming ranchers are excited about the new dietary guidelines that were announced this week. The Department of Agriculture and the Health and Human Services aim to bring back to the American diet, protein, fruits and vegetables and also deter Americans from highly processed foods…one rancher I talked to said we already raise a wholesome, non processed product.”

On Wednesday, the federal government released new national dietary guidelines that tilted more heavily toward eating more protein, "marking the most significant reset of federal nutrition policy in decades,” federal officials said in a statement.

Read the full story HERE.

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Some people are livid over the inclusion of President Donald Trump’s picture on the 2026 “America The Beautiful” national park annual pass.  Cowboy State Daily’s Mark Heinz reports that they’ve put stickers over the president’s image, which invalidates the passes.

“I talked to a Democratic Wyomingite, and I talked to a Republican Wyomingite, and the Democrat basically said, ‘Yeah, this is just Trump being Trump, being a huge egomaniac. He wants his picture and his name everywhere.’And then the Republicans said, ‘No, this is cool. It's appropriate. You have the nation's first president. You have the nation's current president, 250 years of America’ So, depending on how you want to look at it, there nationwide, there's been some people that are so upset about it, they started putting stickers over Trump's face. But the government, the Department of Interior, said, ‘No, if you do that, you basically rendered the pass void.’”

Some Trump detractors have turned to making plastic covers for the roughly credit-card-sized passes, which hide Trump’s face without altering the passes themselves.

Read the full story HERE.

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And that’s today’s news. Get your free digital subscription to Wyoming's only statewide newspaper by hitting the Daily Newsletter button on Cowboy State Daily Dot Com - and you can watch this newscast every day by clicking Subscribe on our YouTube channel, or listen to us on your favorite podcast app.  Thanks for watching - I’m Mac Watson, for Cowboy State Daily.