Return with us now to those thrilling days of not quite four years ago, when George W. Bush was taking office and almost every mainstream, establishment, veteran political observer — yea, even including your humble agent here — predicted that his presidency would not stray too far from the ideological center. So much for the […]
Jon Margolis
Posted inJuly 19, 2004: They're Here: Global Warming's Unlikely Harbingers
Of global warming and White House elephants
Any day now, if all goes according to plan, a bill that will actually do something about global warming will come up in the United States Senate. Come up, and go right down. Not even the bill’s sponsors, Republican John McCain of Arizona and Democrat Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, predict passage. Their goal is to […]
Posted inWotr
Bush is audacious, but should that be surprising?
Indulge a small fantasy: It is 1993, and Bill Clinton, about to become the first Democratic president in 12 years, meets with the men who control his party’s majorities in Congress. “Mr. President,” say Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell and House Speaker Tom Foley, “you are our leader. You make the final decisions. We have […]
Posted inMarch 29, 2004: Who Will Take Over the Ranch?
Bush is a man of his word: He’s audacious, but should that be surprising?
Indulge a small fantasy: It is 1993, and Bill Clinton, about to become the first Democratic president in 12 years, meets with the men who control his party’s majorities in both Houses of Congress. “Mr. President,” say Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell and House Speaker Tom Foley, in unison, “you are our leader. We hope […]
Posted inJune 23, 2003: 'Sound science' goes sour
The Bush administration – Sinister motives, or just ‘veracity-challenged’?
One problem with environmentalists is that they tend to be reformers. They revere Good Government as much as clean air and wild land. This is a mistake, and not only because clean air and wild land can be protected by making deals — often behind those “closed doors” reformers hate — but also because the […]
Posted inMarch 3, 2003: The Wild Card
While America waits for war, the environment suffers
WASHINGTON, D.C. — In the best of times, it’s tough to get the average American to pay attention to such arcane matters as whether it should be legal to sue the Forest Service if it fails to protect wilderness in Alaska, or whether to pay logging firms to thin one section of forest by letting […]
Posted inWotr
We care for our public lands more than we know
Hear the debate rage. As someone once said, academics get so angry at each other because the stakes are so small. “The author does not seem to understand, and thus misrepresents, many of the concepts he wants scrutinized,” asserts one scientist. “I focus on what appears to be the source of his snappishness,” says another. […]
Posted inSeptember 2, 2002: Backlash
Bush’s energy push meets unintended consequences
WASHINGTON, D.C. – As substances go, natural gas doesn’t have much substance. Oh, it’s real enough. Mishandled, it can explode. Properly handled, it can heat homes, power vehicles and generate electricity. But being a gas, it lacks solidity. Unless it is liquefied, you cannot see it, much less grasp it. Natural gas, then, is sort […]
Posted inAugust 19, 2002: The Great Western Apocalypse
Presidential hopeful plays with fire
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Could Tip O’Neill have been wrong? Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle may be about to find out, perhaps to his regret. With one artful insertion of law, the South Dakota Democrat demonstrated that even if “all politics is local,” as O’Neill famously said, the local and the national become easily enmeshed, with […]
Posted inMay 27, 2002: Wolf at the door
Congress goes barmy over the Army
WASHINGTON, D.C. – “Let’s all go barmy, live off the Army” sang Mack the Knife and his friends in The Threepenny Opera. They must be in town. Come to think of it, they must have gotten elected to Congress, which has been acting barmier-than-usual, thanks to the armed forces. It started in March, when the […]
Posted inMay 13, 2002: Beyond ecology: Restoring a cultural landscape
New monuments: Planning by numbers
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear, just before and after George W. Bush was inaugurated, when some of his Western supporters spoke openly about nullifying those 11 new national monuments created by the presidential predecessor they hated. Enter reality, both legal and political. It turns out that the […]
Posted inApril 1, 2002: Move over! Will snowmobile tourism relax its grip on a gateway town?
Campaign finance reform may boost grass roots
WASHINGTON, D.C. – We all know that whoever looks too closely at the trees can lose sight of the forest. Something along this line has happened to those around here who make their living watching trees and forests, fields and streams, or mountains and deserts, either to extract resources from them or to guard them […]
Posted inFebruary 4, 2002: Last dance for the sage grouse?
Yucca Mountain debate goes nuclear
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Atoms have an irresistible inclination to combine. Good thing, too. If, for instance, two atoms of hydrogen did not regularly combine with one of oxygen, water would not exist, and we would not be having this conversation. As with physics, so with politics, including the politics of atomic energy, which reared its […]
Posted inNovember 5, 2001: Wyoming's powder keg
The Arctic: A slave to luck
In politics, as in comedy, timing is everything. Sometimes you get lucky, but if you don’t get lucky at the right time, you might as well not have gotten lucky at all. The folks hereabouts fighting the Bush administration’s plan to allow oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge got a lucky break recently […]
Posted inJune 18, 2001: Transforming powers
Jeffords proves the West is part of the USA
The new score in the Senate throws policy decisions a-tumble
Posted inJune 4, 2001: Tribal links
An energy plan as solid as natural gas
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Surely, there was a time when the much-heralded proposals issued in these parts actually meant something. One must not romanticize the past, and in the immortal words of racing columnist Col. Stingo, “memory grows furtive.” Furtive or not, there is a memory of receiving, one chilly November afternoon in 1973, the much-heralded […]
Posted inMay 21, 2001: Quenching the big thirst
Bush administration blinks on roadless rule
Attack on forest protection may backfire
Posted inMarch 26, 2001: Teach the children well
The environmental movement is a-muddle
Green groups try to find a few friends in high places
Posted inFebruary 12, 2001: Mr. Babbitt's wild ride
The power of love, and its opposite
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Money isn’t everything, you know. There’s also love. And its opposite. In politics, we know that money corrupts, but so does love. And its opposite. Consider the rules. No, not the rules of love, but the rules of government – specifically those rules of the previous administration suspended for 60 days on […]
Posted inJanuary 29, 2001: Power on the loose
Weirdness abounds in Washington
Bush has already abandoned bipartisanship