It ain't easy building green in energy-rich Wyoming

Remember when Spearditch wanted to raze a school because nobody wanted to preserve it?

That was almost thirty years after it constructed a state-of-the-art building designed, yet under-engineered, to be heated with solar collectors. Yep, it was clearly President Carter's fault that it never worked very well (he just turned 88 and still working while W is barricaded at his ranch). Not so very long ago the rooftop array was dismantled and sold for scrap.

So, building a green school in Wyoming is socialism, right? Sustainability seems like blasphemy if you don't put the pedal to the metal when you own the fuel: and go out of state if you want find LEED certification at great cost, hippie.

Willow Belden at Wyoming Public Radio:

Specialists in green technologies aren’t always available locally. At Davey Jackson Elementary, they had to bring in someone from California to do the lighting system. And to get LEED certification, there are lots of hoops to jump through. 

Stephen Grimshaw is a developer who constructed Wyoming’s first energy-efficient apartment buildings, in Casper. He had to pay for a LEED inspector to come all the way from Boulder, Colorado multiple times during the construction process. And there was a mountain of paperwork.

Senator John Bare Asso (earth hater-WY) just sent a veiled ultimatum on Strategic Petroleum Reserves to President Obama according to Adam Voge at the Casper Star-Trib:

The letter was also signed by Sens. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., John Thune, R-S.D., John Cornyn, R-Texas, Roy Blunt, R-Mo., and James Inhofe, R-Okla.

The Red Line is drawn at the Oil Patch.