Prescriptive easements for electricity

Summary#

SF-99, “Prescriptive easements for electricity delivery,” is enacted as Wyoming Act 63 and adds a new section to Wyoming law. Effective July 1, 2026, it grants certain electric utilities a nonexclusive easement for older electricity lines when the listed conditions are met. The law says its goal is to protect historic arrangements while limiting added burdens on land.

• The easement applies to a utility’s system installed on or before January 1, 2006, if it is visibly installed, has been used continuously and without interruption (with specified exceptions), and no valid written agreement sets a different easement for it.
• The utility gets rights to reconstruct, re-phase, maintain and repair the existing system; reattach existing pole attachments; and trim or remove hazardous vegetation.
• The easement’s width must match the system’s historical and traditional use and cannot extend more than 30 feet in any direction from existing lines or other system components. Access is generally limited to what is reasonably needed, with a limited exception for hazardous or materially difficult access.
• The easement is abandoned if the utility does not use the system for more than three consecutive years, unless the landowner or a predecessor agreed to the lack of use.
• Existing easements and other agreements are not changed. The law limits expansion that would materially increase the burden on the land, with an exception for reasonable growth in neighboring or local uses; that exception excludes industrial or manufacturing increases in wattage.

What it means for you#

• Landowners: If the conditions are met, the utility receives easement rights without a requirement in this law that the current landowner agree to a new written easement. The rights are limited by the law’s width, access, use and abandonment rules.
• Electric utilities: A utility must publish notice in a local newspaper or customer newsletter before the easement’s enactment date. The law gives qualifying utilities the listed easement rights.
• Electricity users and their successors: The law defines an electricity user to include people who receive or received electricity from a public utility, are or were its members or customers, or whose land is crossed by an electric utility system. It does not set out an application or hearing process for determining whether a particular easement qualifies.
• Everyone else: The law does not directly change electricity rates, taxes, or the terms of existing written easements.

Money#

No cost information is in the available material.

• The law authorizes no stated appropriation, fee, fine, or payment to landowners.
• Utilities must publish notice, but the law gives no estimate of that cost.

What is unclear#

• The law does not explain how a utility or landowner establishes that a particular line meets the conditions, or how a landowner can challenge a claimed easement.
• It does not say how the required notice identifies affected properties or clarify the timing meant by “prior to the easement’s enactment date.”
• It does not define “historical and traditional use,” “materially encumbered,” or “reasonable expansion” in this section.
• The supplied material does not include the prior law, so the extent of any change to existing easement law cannot be verified against current law. The new section says it does not expand or modify Wyoming’s prescriptive easement laws.

Case for#

• The legislature’s stated concern is that rural electricity lines were often built with neighborly permission but without written records. Protecting qualifying lines could preserve arrangements that served nearby landowners.
• The limits on width, access, expanded use and abandonment could protect landowners from a broader or unused easement.
• Leaving existing written easements and other agreements in place avoids changing those arrangements under this section.

Case against#

• A qualifying easement may burden land even without a new agreement with the current owner. The law does not provide a process for notice to each affected landowner, objections, or resolving disputes.
• The terms that limit or permit changes in use are not fully defined here, which could leave room for disagreement about the easement’s scope.
• The law gives utilities rights to repair, rebuild and remove hazardous vegetation, but the supplied text does not set out a compensation rule for landowners affected by those activities.