How federal giveaways to Big Coal leave ranchers and taxpayers out in the cold
Short cuts, subsidies and tax breaks helped create 7,000 jobs in the Powder River Basin. Damage to water, air and land is part of the price borne by the public, too.
subsidies
King v. Burwell ruling keeps 17,000 insured in Wyoming
The Supreme Court’s ruling in King v. Burwell allows some 17,000 Wyoming residents to keep receiving federal subsidies; Barrasso disappointed in ruling.
Sweet Beets
The company that bottles Pepsi's line of soft drinks in Worland is once again using sugar — from Big Horn Basin sugar beets — in some of its products. That’s a big switch from what’s gone on in the last quarter-century, when the Admiral Beverage Corp. regularly sweetened its Pepsi line with high-fructose corn syrup hauled in on rail tankers from the Midwest, even as the factory sat surrounded by fields of sugar beets.
Farm subsidies a complex mix of financial aid, politics & markets
Since the 1930s, the federal government has managed an increasingly complex system of subsidies, direct payments, incentives and other financial assistance to American farmers, all with the goal of making the difficult and risky work of farming less volatile and more sustainable, particularly for small, family operations. But even some who participate in the system concede that it is far from perfect, often producing unintended consequences and counterintuitive results.