Skeptics Disagree With Study That Finds Wyoming Tops In The Nation In Energy Costs

Wyomingites are paying more on their energy bills than anyone else in the United States, according to findings from personal consumer website WalletHub.

But some skeptics are taking exception.

Miami-based website WalletHub’s annual ranking of states with the highest average monthly energy bill in the country shows that Wyoming is ranked No. 1 in terms of consumers having to pay the overall most for electricity, heating oil, natural gas and motor fuel. 

Wyoming consumers are paying an average monthly energy bill of $1,591 per household.

 That’s nearly double what No. 2 North Dakota pays at $840, and over three times as much as what hipster state California pays at $476. 

 So, what’s up?

“I call B.S. on it.,” said Sen. Cale Case, R-Lander, an economist who is an expert in electricity and energy costs. 

Case said the ranking has triggered some constituents to blame some elected government officials for earning the state the ignominy.

“I’ve received emails from people angry and have been copied on emails sent to Gov (Mark) Gordon saying things like, ‘Look what you’ve done with this energy policy, and blah, blah and blah.”

One letter sent by an upset Wyoming resident to Gordon cited an article on the subject printed in the New York Times. The letter was provided to Cowboy State Daily with the name of the writer redacted by Case. 

“When I first saw the article, I said ‘not possible doesn’t make sense, you can’t trust anything you read in the New York Times,” the anonymous resident wrote to Gordon on July 13.  

“And then I went back and added up my electricity, natural gas and motor fuel bills from last year,” the person wrote to Gordon. “Shazam! My energy bill was pretty darn close to what is highlighted in the New York Times. Who knew the New York Times could post something that was right?”

The analysis includes some things that don’t make any sense, according to Case, who said that he quickly saw a “critical flaw” in WalletHub’s analysis.

“According to WalletHub, we all share this monthly heating oil cost. Nobody uses heating oil in Wyoming. And even if you include propane in that analysis, those are modest bills,” Case said.

“We hardly have any heating oil. I looked at the Energy Information Administration data, and there’s just not that much heating oil in Wyoming,” he said. “It’s a Northeast United States kind of phenomena.”

Case labeled the study as a “poor analysis” that does a disservice to Wyoming. 

“It’s disappointing, and flashy analysis,” he said. “How can people be upset over something so stupid?”

Consumer Site Disagrees

 Still, the findings show that Wyoming topped the WalletHub list for most expensive energy in the U.S. for categories covering heating oil and motor fuel consumption.  It was ranked much lower at 45^th on the list for monthly electricity costs and No. 13 for monthly natural gas costs.

Cassie Happe, analyst with WalletHub, said that the study relied on credible data from many agencies in the federal government.

These included an alphabet soup of bureaucracies like the Energy Information Administration, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Environmental Protection Agency and Federal Highway Administration. 

“The findings do make sense,” Happe said.  

It’s really based off the consumption data and on what the cost is for a fuel,” she said.

Wyoming has the highest energy costs in 2024 due in part to the fact that Wyoming has the highest gas consumption per capita and the highest residential oil consumption per capita, she explained.

“Coupled with relatively high prices for heating oil and natural gas, this makes Wyoming a particularly costly state,” Happe said. 

“Considering Wyoming’s extremely cold winters, however, this isn’t too much of a surprise,” she said. “Residents also may not have as many heating options as other states, given that many residents live in more remote areas.” 

Three Consecutive Years

Wyoming, which has held the top spot in the nation with the most expensive energy bills since 2022, has grown more expensive over the years since WalletHub first conducted these annual surveys a decade ago. 

It held the 44th spot on the list in 2014, the inaugural year of the surveys, then fell to the 50th spot with the least expensive energy bills in 2015.  

But things began to change dramatically in subsequent years.

That’s when Wyoming rose to 12th most expensive in 2016, then the fifth most expensive in 2017, and most expensive in 2018 – during a period of much alternative energy growth in the state. 

In 2019, Wyoming fell to No. 2, then seventh in 2020, and second most expensive in 2021, according to data provided by Happe.  

Wyoming has held a king-of-the-hill status in terms of most expensive energy bills over the past three years, partially driven by supply chain disruptions in the energy world caused by the pandemic that roiled the world in 2020, she observed.

Robert Godby, the University of Wyoming director of the Energy Economics and Public Policies Center, told Cowboy State Daily that Wyoming always ranks highly on the list because of two major factors.
First, Wyoming has relatively colder winters and given the lack of natural gas distribution in some rural areas, the state relies more on electricity and heating oil.  

Both of those commodities are more expensive to use for heating, he said.

Long Winters

“Given that last winter heating season was longer, I am not surprised that our heating bills would be higher,” Godby said. “Certainly, relative to other states, that would increase the heating portion of the survey. 

The longer heating season also raises the cost for natural gas, he said.

Secondly, since Wyoming is a very rural state, residents here tend to drive a lot more than other places, he said.

 “Many rural residents have to drive quite a ways to get necessities or work, while those that live in the larger cities in the state, do not typically have access to public transportation in the way that other places do,” he said.

Furthermore, he added, the types of vehicles that are driven here are larger, Godby observed.

The commonly driven pick-ups and SUVs in Wyoming tend to increase the fuel use per person, he said. 

“That also raised our relative cost of consumption for transportation fuels,” he said.

So, while energy prices may have been lower over the past year nationally than the previous year, especially for gasoline, those trends are national and differences between states drive the results, he said.

This leaves Wyoming using more energy per person than most states and, of course, paying more in total for it, Godby said.

Some significant electricity price increases also occurred last year,” he said. “That would've raised our cost relative to previous years and possibly also relative to other states.

“Wyoming is still one of the highest cost energy states and last year was no exception due to the nature of Wyoming,” he said.

Pat Maio can be reached at pat@cowboystatedaily.com.