[1][2] Located largely on federal lands, the project is being built in conjunction with the TransWest Express transmission line to supply power to California.[8] With this project, Wyoming is following the footsteps of Iowa, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas in taking advantage of its substantial wind resources.[2] The Chokecherry and Sierra Madre Wind Energy Project is financially backed by Philip Anschutz, a billionaire from Denver, Colorado, who made his fortune largely in the fossil fuel industry.Thanks to efforts by private companies and state governments looking for better ways to harness renewable energy and to combat climate change, the wind power industry is now becoming more and more financially feasible and economically competitive, enough to satisfy fiscal conservatives.[9] In January that year, it obtained approval from the U.S. Bureau of Land Management for its first phase, the construction and installation of 500 wind turbines.PCW claimed that the 1,500 MW of power generated from the first phase of the project could help reduce U.S. carbon emissions by millions of tons per year.[20] There are many different approvals to apply for, and the BLM struggled to build a regulatory system capable of handling the many new large solar and wind projects on federal lands.[34] In April 2016, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service released a draft environmental impact statement on the project for 60 days of public comment.