CO2 Coalition Message Advances in Wyoming

Wyoming Senate Bill Advances CO₂Coalition Message

The Wyoming State Senate has introduced a bill to prevent carbon dioxide (CO₂) from being treated as a pollutant and to stop “measures that support the reduction or elimination” of the gas.

Calling the bill “Make Carbon Dioxide Great Again,” legislative sponsor Sen. Cheri Steinmetz drew on the CO₂ Coalition’s scientific support, incorporating much of the organization’s information about the benefits of carbon dioxide.

Among the points that the senate bill makes are:

CO₂ “is a foundational nutrient necessary for all life on Earth. ... The more carbon dioxide available for this, the better life can flourish.”
Agriculture is “breaking production records primarily due to increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide.”
NASA “has confirmed that global vegetation is increasing from the near-polar regions to the equator. The largest contributor to this greening of the Earth is increasing carbon dioxide.”
Standing at 420 parts per million (ppm), the current concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide is at a historically low level and only one-sixth the average level of 2,600 ppm over geologic time. Most plant life requires a level of at least 150 ppm.

The bill’s prohibition of attempts to lower CO₂ levels runs counter to Gov. Mark Gordon’s efforts to “decarbonize the West” through so-called carbon sequestration. To become law, the bill needs passage by the Wyoming Senate and House and the governor’s approval or a legislative override of a gubernatorial veto.

Sen. Steinmetz said, “The bill is about applying science, thoroughly reevaluating the ‘climate change’ scientific assumptions and advocating for policies grounded in practicality, reality, and achievability – common sense.”

To our knowledge this is the second time in a matter of months that political leaders have advanced the science of the CO₂ Coalition in formal resolutions. A previous one came in a declaration of Alberta, Canada’s Unified Conservative Party, which presented the salutary effects of CO₂ to support rejection of the national government’s net zero policy.

We are winning.

If you have not read our report Wyoming and Climate Change: CO2 Should Be Celebrated Not Captured, you make do so here.