Wyoming's Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) wants to throw out 30 years of enforceable wildlife protections at coal mines — and replace them with nothing more than informal suggestions.

Since 1995, coal operators in Wyoming have been required by law to monitor raptors, track sage grouse lek sites, and inventory big game ranges near their operations every year. These rules exist because coal mining has real, documented impacts on the wildlife that defines Wyoming's landscape — the golden eagles, sage grouse, pronghorn, and mule deer that hunters, ranchers, and conservationists all depend on.

Now the DEQ's Land Quality Division is proposing to repeal those requirements entirely. In their place: voluntary recommendations from the Wyoming Game and Fish Department. No enforcement. No accountability. No legal obligation to track what happens to the wildlife living alongside coal operations.

The proposal met immediate resistance. When the DEQ's advisory board took it up at a public meeting, not a single attendee supported the elimination. The board backed down temporarily — but the push to repeal these rules isn't over.

Wyoming's coal industry is already operating at roughly half its peak production, with no new mines currently being permitted. This is exactly the wrong time to gut the monitoring requirements. The data collected under these rules is the long-term environmental record of what coal mining has done to Wyoming's wildlife. Eliminating the requirement doesn't make that impact go away — it just means no one has to look at it.

Sign this petition to demand that Wyoming's DEQ keep enforceable wildlife monitoring requirements at coal mines — and reject any proposal that replaces legally binding standards with voluntary ones.