Industrial siting and wildlife mitigation prompt split testimony; committee treats draft as informational

Committee members used a draft sponsored by an individual senator as a learning exercise on whether industrial siting applicants should be required or allowed to make payments to state wildlife entities to address unmitigated impacts.

What the staff draft proposes: The draft (26 LSO 28, 0.53) would allow Game and Fish and the Wyoming Wildlife and Natural Resource Trust Board to seek payments from industrial siting applicants to address unmitigated wildlife impacts. Under current law, industrial-siting impact assistance payments are distributed from a portion of the state’s sales-and-use tax to local governments for defined unmitigated local impacts (public safety, roads, law enforcement and utilities). The draft would create a voluntary or negotiated pathway for project proponents to address wildlife impacts through agreements with state wildlife entities, or to have the issue considered by the Industrial Siting Council as part of the permit process.

How the existing process…