Wyoming, a state long synonymous with coal and mineral wealth, has become the epicenter of a fierce national debate over energy, climate, and the future of American industry. In the past year, sweeping policy changes and bold rhetoric from Washington have collided with dire warnings from environmental experts, leaving Wyoming families, industry leaders, and climate advocates locked in a high-stakes contest over what comes next.
Just nine months after President Trump’s inauguration, Wyoming’s energy sector is experiencing what some call a renaissance. According to Wyoming Senate President Bo Biteman, “President Trump has aggressively fought back against this war on American energy and delivered real victories for hardworking Wyoming families.” Biteman points to the rollback of what he describes as burdensome regulations from the Obama and Biden administrations—policies like the Paris Agreement and the Clean Power Plan, which he says “locked up Wyoming lands, killed new projects, abused federal regulations, and covertly funded ridiculous climate lawsuits.”
For many in Wyoming, these national policies weren’t just abstract disagreements—they were felt as direct attacks on local communities. “Former Presidents Obama and Biden never thought about the miner trying to put food on the table or the families depending on energy jobs to pay their mortgages, other than saying that maybe they ‘needed to learn to code,’” Biteman said, highlighting a sentiment echoed by many in the state.
The Trump administration’s approach, Biteman argues, is a direct rebuke to this legacy. In July 2025, the grand opening of the Ramaco Brook Mine in Sheridan County marked a milestone: the first new rare earth mineral mine in America in over 70 years, and the first new coal mine in Wyoming in half a century. The event, attended by Energy Secretary Chris Wright and other dignitaries, was described by Biteman as “historic.”
The momentum didn’t stop there. The Bureau of Land Management issued its final environmental impact statement for the West Antelope III lease, granting access to 440 million tons of coal and extending the Antelope mine’s operations by nearly two decades. These approvals, which had languished under prior administrations, were fast-tracked under Trump’s leadership. “This shows what happens when you have leaders who streamline the Environmental Impact Statements process instead of letting left-leaning bureaucrats slow-walk every project to death,” Biteman said.
Environmental regulation, too, has shifted dramatically. EPA Administrator Zeldin visited Wyoming to sign a directive allowing the state to control its own coal byproducts—a move celebrated locally as a restoration of state rights. “Nobody knows Wyoming like the people of Wyoming,” Zeldin declared during his visit to Cheyenne.
The crescendo came on September 29, 2025, with the “Coal Day” announcement at the U.S. Department of the Interior. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, alongside Energy Secretary Wright, unveiled plans to open 13.1 million acres of federal land for coal leasing—tripling previous benchmarks set by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and targeting the Powder River Basin, home to the lion’s share of America’s recoverable coal reserves. The administration also moved to classify metallurgical coal as a critical mineral, streamlining permitting and opening new federal incentives for steel production and mineral processing in the U.S.
Biteman described the mood in Washington as electric. “This is the kind of decisive action that President Trump promised—and is now delivering—at breakneck speed. It’s a direct rebuke to the failed policies of the past that shuttered mines and shipped jobs overseas, and a beacon of hope for every family in Wyoming and beyond who knows that coal isn’t just fuel; it’s our future.”
Yet, for every cheer in Wyoming, there’s a chorus of alarm from climate advocates and scientists. According to Forbes, the climate crisis now threatens the displacement of billions, city fires, droughts, and economic losses estimated at $38 trillion a year by 2049. Methane and carbon dioxide emissions continue to heat the atmosphere, devastating ecosystems, raising sea levels, and creating more dangerous natural disasters. “If we do not act now, we risk a catastrophe for future generations,” wrote Shawn Crowell, a student and climate advocate, in a recent opinion piece.
Crowell and others argue that the oil and gas industry—often dubbed “Big Oil”—has spent decades undermining efforts to address climate change. From fighting the 1993 British Thermal Units carbon tax to opposing the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, companies like Exxon Mobil and Koch Inc. have leveraged vast resources to shape policy in their favor. “These companies knew as early as the 1970s that their business model was ruining the environment. Yet, they deny and push lies even as the situation gets worse,” Crowell wrote.
The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, signed by President Biden, invested $783 billion over ten years in clean energy and greenhouse gas reduction. Despite aggressive opposition from “Big Oil,” the bill passed the Senate by a razor-thin 51-50 vote. After the Trump administration’s exit from the Paris Climate Agreement, 24 states and Puerto Rico pledged to uphold the agreement’s goal of capping global temperature rise to 2°C by cutting carbon emissions to zero. California led the charge, with ten states passing laws to ban the sale of gas-powered cars by the early 2030s.
But the pendulum has swung again. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed into law in September 2025, eliminated an estimated $488 billion in environmental justice investments from the Inflation Reduction Act and introduced new tax incentives for oil and gas companies. According to NBC estimates, this move reversed years of progress. “It can’t be overstated how much harm this greed will have on our future generations,” Crowell warned. Flooding events, extreme heat, and rising sea levels are already threatening cities from New York to Miami, with the IPCC predicting that the 1.5°C warming threshold will be breached in the early 2030s—decades earlier than previously thought.
NOAA reports that nine of the ten hottest years have occurred since the beginning of the 2010s. Climate activists are now calling for a renewed push for the Green New Deal, increased international cooperation, and a crackdown on the political influence of oil and gas interests. “We must demand that our leaders take climate change seriously,” Crowell insisted. “We must demand politicians implement the ‘Green New Deal’ to repair our infrastructure and provide millions of clean energy jobs.”
As Wyoming celebrates its comeback, the nation faces a stark choice: double down on fossil fuel dominance, or heed the warnings of scientists and pivot toward a sustainable future. The stakes, both economic and environmental, have never been higher.
