Star-Tribune reporter Megan Lee interviewed presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama in Casper Friday. The following is a transcript of the interview:

Lee: Wyoming is a state whose economy relies on traditional fossil fuels - coal, oil - and a transition to a clean energy future, which I know you are pro as you discussed during the town hall meeting today about "punishing polluters." How would you suggest transitioning Wyoming from a bust-boom traditional fossil fuel state to a clean energy state? How would our economy last through that?

Obama: First of all, people are still going to be using coal and they're still going to be using oil and they're still going to be using natural gas. But what we have to do is price it properly and make sure that some of the billions of dollars that are generated from a cap and trade system, which is what I'm proposing, get re-invested in critical issues like clean coal technology. I come from a coal state. Southern Illinois, which has fallen on some difficult times, is a coal region and so I want to make sure that we're investing in ways to sequester the carbon that is emitted from coal power plants and I think that a lot of those jobs and a lot of that work should go into those states that are most familiar with these energy resources. If we do that, then not only do I think that we can create good jobs here in Wyoming, but I also think we could end up creating economic opportunities for export to countries like China that are gonna need ways of dealing with the side effects of carbon as well.

Lee: Wyoming just knocked down an idea for a clean coal plant here, and the reason was expense. Clean coal needs to be researched first …

Obama: It's very expensive, which is why the federal government has to view this as an "Apollo Project", not just around coal, but also around solar, around wind and around bio-diesel. We have to have a broad energy mix, and I as president intend to make this one of my number one domestic priorities and to put in the resources needed in order to make it happen.

Lee: So you would be committed to funding clean coal?

Obama: Absolutely. Yes.

Lee: Recently, the National Parks Service began reviewing its policy on whether or not people should be able to carry loaded guns in national parks, and as you know Wyoming has parts of several national parks. Would you support carrying loaded guns in national parks?

Obama: I believe in Second Amendment rights and I believe in the rights of hunters and sportsmen to bear arms and use them in a responsible way. I would want to review the National Park initiative to make sure that there was acutally a rationale for it. People generally don't have hunting licenses in national parks, and if they don't have a hunting license, the question then is what are they going to use the firearms for? Presumably protection - if there was a bear that people came across, but I'd want to see the statistics in terms of how many actual bear attacks there have been before we decide that this is something that would be necessary, only because there are a lot of people who use the national parks. You could forsee the possibility of accidents. In wilderness areas where you know there's hunting, people take certain precautions. In national parks, people aren't expecting to have to take those same precautions. There are kids running around. I think there are a whole set of issues that I'd want to examine.

Lee: So should Wyomingites be nervous that you would want to take away their guns in any way?

Obama: No. I think that if you are a legal, responsible gun owner, you have nothing to fear. I do want to strengthen our background checks. Just recently, we had students at the Northern Illinois University gunned down. There are consistent tragedies that are occurring because people with histories of mental health problems are somehow still evading background checks. We're still seeing criminals being able to obtain a lot of weaponry on the streets of many urban communities around the country, and I think we've got to do a better job of tracing where these guns are coming from, why they're falling into the hands of people who shouldn't have them, and crack down on that. But if you're the average gun owner in Wyoming who doesn't have a criminal record and is acting responsibly, then you're going to be able to maintain your Second Amendment rights.

Lee: I want to ask about the Wyoming Range. I'm not sure how much you would know about this - it's sort of local - but our governor, Freudenthal, supports legislation that would put 1.2 million acres of the Wyoming mountain range off-limits to energy development, and it's supposed to be a great place for energy development. The Bush administration is kind of on the fence about this, they haven't really made any decisions. What would we expect from President Obama?

Obama: I haven't looked at all the details of this, although I think your governor has done a great job in balancing some of these concerns about energy and economic development with concerns about conservation and our natural resources. So, I think the principle that I'd want to observe is that the federal government should recognize that the range of interests involved in all of these land issues in the West and consult with local and state and regional officials who know this stuff best and try to strike the right balance between those folks. I will say this: that the natural beauty of Wyoming is a national treasure and I would not want to see economic development strategies that over the long term would diminish it. It's that part of Wyoming that makes it so special.

Lee: You know Wyoming is a Republican state.

Obama: (jokingly) Really?

Lee: If we look ahead to fall, I know that Wyomingites are concerned about how a Democratic administration would handle issues like energy development, public lands, endangered species are a big issue here, immigration and the environment. What would you like to say to them? Why should they consider supporting you?

Obama: First of all, because a lot of the issues that I've talked about in this campaign are issues that Republicans should be concerned about and conservatives should be concerned about. There's nothing conservative about undermining our civil liberties with warrantless wiretaps. That's a radical idea and theres a lot of libertarians in Wyoming who know we shouldn't have a federal government who's poking around in people's business unnecessarily. We want to take seriously the threat of terrorism, but we also want to balance that with our civil liberties. I think that a lot of conservatives are concerned about fiscal irresponsiblity. George Bush has increased our national debt by $4 trillion. That's not being good stewards of the economy and I think that we can do a lot better. In terms of local - some of the particular issues that you raised, a lot of those are Western issues, and although Wyoming is considered strongly Republican, so was Montana until recently and Colorado, Nevada. We had a rally in Boise, Idaho, and we had 13,000 people. I think that the West is changing and I certainly want to make sure that the Democratic Party is attentive to the issues of the West because I think we can do very well as long as we're listening to local people and not trying just to impose cookie-cutter solutions from Washington all the time.