Josh Durrell, chief executive of the Wyoming Business Council, opened the agency's presentation by tracing organizational changes since 2019 and describing a strategic shift toward ROI-driven investments and local capacity building. Durrell said the council's standard biennial request (as submitted) totals $111,770,612 while the governor's recommended level is $54,623,232.

Durrell said the council believes Wyoming faces a multilevel infrastructure shortfall—between about $500 million and $1.7 billion—to enable local communities to expand and attract or retain businesses. He framed the council's exception requests as targeted investments to unlock private-sector growth, not general giveaways.

Key exception priorities Durrell described to the committee included:

- Broadband redundancy (priority to support commerce and data centers). Durrell and staff asked the committee to consider a $50,000,000 state-level investment in commercial-grade fiber backbone and redundancy to make Wyoming more attractive for large-scale business and data-center activity and to complement significant federal broadband funds already flowing into the state (Durrell said federal programs total in the hundreds of millions, and committee staff cited a federal BEAD allocation of $348 million). Durrell noted satellite and alternate technologies will be part of consumer coverage but argued fiber redundancy matters for business and commercial reliability.

- Business Ready Communities and local infrastructure supports: Durrell said state matching and targeted grants are often necessary to make projects bankable and to persuade companies to site in Wyoming towns rather than competing states.

- Entrepreneurial and innovation supports: SBIR/match programs, Kickstart grants, Startup Wyoming, Wyoming Labs (critical-minerals commercialization), and manufacturing-works programs. Durrell said these programs leverage federal funds and local partners to help firms commercialize and scale.

Durrell acknowledged the governor reduced many of the council's asks but urged the committee to consider the long-term economic impact of the council's strategic investments. He said the council had commissioned public polling and local analysis of attitudes toward growth and claimed a majority of Wyoming respondents support population growth in principle; Durrell offered to provide the committee more detailed analysis, costs and a deployment plan for priority projects if the panel wanted it.

Committee members pressed for specifics about where a $50 million broadband redundancy investment would be deployed; Durrell said he would provide the committee a detailed plan that aligns to major corridors and business needs. He told senators and representatives the council's mission is to solve local bottlenecks that prevent business expansion and to leverage federal money when possible.

The Business Council presentation closed with committee members asking for follow-up materials and written reports on program metrics and broadband deployment plans.