Called “Leading the charge: Wyoming’s action plan for energy, environment and economy”, Mead’s intent was to properly recognize the interrelationship and vital nature of those factors.

“We produce 10.5 quadrillion British thermal units of energy each year in Wyoming,” he said.

“These resources are vitally needed to fuel America’s economy … at the same time, our treasures of nature are so important to all who live, work and find inspiration here.

“We cannot sit back and hope for the best. We need a strategy to strike the balance between energy development and environmental stewardship.”

Mead said his “leading the charge” initiative had been designed for continuous updating and built a framework to address issues in a forward-looking manner that had the capability to be adjusted as conditions changed.

Each of his strategy’s 47 initiatives, he said, were also action items and all would be put into place this year by state agencies.

Those agencies will make progress reports publicly available regularly in 2013.

“This strategy is the beginning of a continuum,” Mead said.

“[It] was put together with the hard work of people from across the state and from diverse backgrounds, including industry, environmental groups and agriculture.”

“Leading the charge” has four main themes: economic competitiveness, expansion and diversification; efficient, effective regulation; natural resource conservation, reclamation and mitigation; and education, innovation and new technologies.

For example, Wyoming will be looking at new and expanded marketing opportunities for state businesses and industry as well as baseline predevelopment of water quality testing.

The state will also develop a policy framework for offsite mitigation of natural resource sites and will work with hybrid energy systems to combine inputs to produce a variety of outputs using coal, natural gas and wind.