April 24, 2026 - The U.S. House Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources on March 25 considered Rep. Harriet Hageman’s bill to remove barriers to new coal leasing in Wyoming’s Powder River Basin. It was only one of many salvos as the Republican majority in Washington, D.C. seeks to bolster coal’s future prospects.

Vilified by environmentalists and many national Democrats for the better part of two decades, coal production in the Powder River Basin has been on a steady decline.

According to Hageman, 14 years of sustained attacks on American coal production have halted new leases in the PRB, which the Wyoming Energy Authority recently determined could cause shortages for the nation’s ever-growing power needs as early as 2030.

Under the leadership of President Donald Trump and moves such as this, the administration is trying to show coal is back in favor by eliminating barriers imposed by previous administrations.

“President Trump ended the Obama-era moratoriums on new leasing, while Hageman worked with her colleagues to terminate the PRB-specific bans by repealing the Buffalo resource management plan issued by the Biden administration,” her office stated.

Hageman, a Republican, has announced her plans to run for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Sen. Cynthia Lummis.

In line with Trump’s executive order to revitalize the coal industry, Hageman’s bill, H.R. 7872, would remove barriers to new leasing by modernizing the bonus bid payment structure. Winning bids currently pay 20% of the bid upfront and then another 20% for the next four years.

H.R. 7872 extends payment over 10 years, reducing this front-end hurdle for new leasing and creating more long-term certainty for the Wyoming K-12 education construction account funded by the bonus bids, her office staff stated.

However, hurdles still exist when it comes to the coal economy.

While Wyoming is the nation’s largest producer of coal, Converse County Commissioner Don Blackburn said the biggest thing the coal industry does for Converse County – since there’s no coal production and thus no severance tax revenue in Converse County because it is taxed at the mine mouth – is all of the jobs created.

“At North Antelope alone, we employed around 1,200 to 1,280 employees. Half, or sometimes more than half, reside in Converse County,” he said. “At one point I was told, which I don’t have as a fact , that each coal mine job supported eight other jobs in town from fast food to whatever. So that’s where we get our biggest impact from coal.

“Then, the transportation (of coal), we do get some, I believe. (Navajo Transitional Energy Company) is their inventory, all of their taxes for their personal or their property taxes, have to come through our county,” Blackburn said.

The Republican commissioner said the biggest effect he sees since the Trump Administration relaxed EPA rules regarding coal is that it gives “us an opportunity to use it and to advance our leases.

“The hard part is that coal always combats natural gas prices. So that’s their competitor. They’ve got to not only lease, which takes 10 years or more to get an LBA (lease by application) through the whole process and get it drilled and approved," he said. “They have a battle there just because of the processes.”

The only way coal production returns to Converse County, Blackburn said, is if the demand goes up.

“So we have to build some power plants, or bring some power plants back online that were coal. And most of (the coal plants) that they’ve retired are at their life anyway,” he said. “We either need to completely refurbish them and bring them back online, but I think the cost would probably be similar to building a new one. So that’s where the secret is, is if we can get some more demand or if we can get an export market out to the West Coast, that would be huge for coal.

“I think (Dave Johnston Power Plant next to Glenrock) is probably cheaper to convert to gas than it is to convert it back to coal. The economics are gonna be tough because they let everything go knowing it was going to shut down. They’re going to have to invest a fair chunk of money into it just to keep it open,” Blackburn said. “The big thing is we need to get some power plants approved to get it across the line. That would help.”

He added that the county needs to do whatever it can to remove the roadblocks that prevent industries from growing in the area.

What This Means for Converse County

While coal offers no severance tax revenue to Converse County (though its employment and related jobs are important), oil and gas remain at the top of the tax base for the county’s nearly $3.82 billion valuation – something the Converse County commissioners and Treasurer Joel Schell watch with careful eyes.

Like everyone else, they don’t know if prices will go up or down, whether exploration and production will increase or fall and whether county residents are headed for a boom or bust or just going to “hold our own.”

And, holding our own is not a bad position to be in.

The 2025-26 property valuation of $3.818 billion is $2 billion more than the valuation in 2021. Because a county valuation (which is a total of severance taxes on minerals industry and property taxes on industry, commercial and residential) determines how much a county will have in tax revenue for that fiscal year, everything is remaining pretty rosy for the moment.

Converse County Commissioner Robert Short said energy development in Converse County is holding “pretty steady,” and it may be slightly increasing in some of the producers’ areas.

“One producer in Converse has told us they’re adding another rig that may be standing up here very soon, which is great news. Obviously they’re trying to increase production capacity and that bodes very well for the people of Converse County,” Short said. “As we know, these entities are paying the bills. As county commissioners and even citizens, I’m – we’re – very thankful that these people are investing in Converse County because it does give us the opportunity to invest (here) and do things that have meaningful, long-lasting, positive impacts for the people of our county.”

He added that even though uncertainty over oil prices in the global market exists, it is not necessarily doing anything negative for the county, “because that $90 oil certainly is beneficial to us for these producers.

“Honestly, it gives them the opportunity to get a larger return on their investment, which then helps them service their debt (and) have the opportunity to increase dividends to their shareholders,” Short said, “and it is bolstering confidence in their business with their shareholders. It gives them a greater long-term viability.”