I don't think Obama is wholly to blame for Wyoming's economy right now, but he sure hasn't helped and has actively hurt. There are the actions GoPoke86 wrote about that have hurt coal especially combined with the natural gas play out east. In other words when you have market factors that are making coal not as strong, coals ability to deal with increased regulations is nil. Given Obama's rhetoric while he was campaigning tells me they know this. Additionally, health care insurance costs continue to restrict our economy and his signature domestic legislation the ACA has not helped (arguably it made things worse). Further, the National Forest Service regional office in Denver has severely cut funding to Wyoming National Forests (Bighorn cut by 25-28%) while increasing the budgets of National Forests in Colorado. Then BLM making things more difficult and requiring ridiculous bonding for oil companies while oil is down. These are all things that are actions by Obama and his Departments that are actively hurting the Wyoming economy.
Ultimately though it isn't up to our legislature, governor, or the U.S. government to diversify our economy. That is up to us individual Wyomingites. Wyoming has been diversifying, and things look better than 1980's (knock on wood), but we have a way to go. Tourism helps, but when 6 million tourists generate only 1/3 the tax revenue of our mining, tourism will only go so far. Tech and manufacturing, I think there is where we can focus some energy and time on. One thing that would help, if they figure out if you can get rare earth materials from oil/natural gas waste water in an economical manner.
As for wind, Wyoming is calling these company's bluffs. How long did Wyoming get taken for a ride before passing a state severance tax? These companies are going to build wind farms and transmission lines that do affect view shed, landscape, and land access. If these energy sources are marketable, well time for them to start playing by at least similar rules to other energy sources. There are reasons that they are looking to build these wind farms in Wyoming rather than in California in the first place. Personally, I don't particularly like it when companies head quartered in other states make huge bank using Wyoming resources while Wyoming gets table scraps. Oil and coal used to be that way, did we learn from that?
To try and bring the above back to the topic of this thread, there were plenty of people I knew while I was living in Colorado that were ticked about this stadium. They have no ties to CSU, and they look at attendance and wonder why they need a stadium that big. Colorado may look rosy right now, but there are some potentially serious economic issues. Cost of home ownership such as home costs, property taxes, homeowners insurance, and hoa fees are rising fast and far outpacing wages. Even with current economies, my family is in far better financial shape now in Wyoming than we were in Colorado. My point is not to say that Colorado is awful and heading for disaster and Wyoming is fine, rather it is pointing out the grass is not always greener and both states and both UW and CSU have their challenges. Though UW's biggest obstacle when it comes to athletics seems to be the director, and that is not good.
