Current drilling remains a shadow of the frenzy that occurred under Obama.
Jonathan Thompson
Jonathan Thompson is a contributing editor at High Country News. He is the author of Sagebrush Empire: How a Remote Utah County Became the Battlefront of American Public Lands. Follow him @LandDesk
Posted inArticles
A judge just dealt a potentially fatal blow to Keystone XL
Trump’s approval of the oil pipeline failed to account for environmental impacts.
Posted inNovember 12, 2018: Old Wests, and new
In these stories, the only real home is a phone’s home screen
Lydia Millet’s new book documents modern-day America from Los Angeles.
Posted inArticles
A high-stakes water reckoning looms in the West
Be it a wet or a dry year, the water rich in Colorado’s North Fork Valley take their share.
Posted inNovember 26, 2018: Follow the fish
Sagebrush Rebel appointed to Interior Department
Property rights lawyer Karen Budd-Falen will give legal counsel on wilderness, wildlife and many of the policies she’s spent her career attacking.
Posted inOctober 15, 2018: Nature Retreat
Trump’s methane rule rollback burns the natural gas bridge
Without emissions regulations, the ‘clean’ fossil fuel is as dirty as coal.
Posted inAugust 31, 2018: The Big Threat to Bighorns
The casualties of Trump’s trade war
How ‘America First’ often puts the West last.
Posted inJune 25, 2018: Little Weed, Big Problem
Trump’s coal and nuclear bailout helps execs and hurts the grid
In a heavy-handed directive, the Department of Energy caters to industry barons.
Posted inArticles
The 416 Fire reminds us there’s no escape from climate change
Rumors that a popular tourist train sparked the fire have forced a reckoning.
Posted inMay 28, 2018: The River of Lost Souls
The dark secrets of the Animas River
A 2015 spill that turned the waterway orange is a reminder of mining’s disastrous legacy.
Posted inMay 14, 2018: Death in the Alpine
The nowhereness of airports
The way air travel has devolved says something awful about humans.
Posted inArticles
At Bears Ears, Trump and Zinke ignored everyone but industry
Newly released documents show that locals had little voice in monument decisions.
Posted inMarch 5, 2018: Drilling Chaco
Resistance to drilling grows on the Navajo Nation
Indigenous activists try to quell a rising tide of oil and gas exploration in Chaco Canyon.
Posted inMarch 19, 2018: Desert, Divided
The danger of local hands on public lands
When it comes to monuments, Utah lawmakers have conflicts of interest.
Posted inFebruary 19, 2018: Unfrozen North
The big public land sell-out
Even without wholesale land transfers, public lands are already being conveyed to industry.
Posted inArticles
The 26,000 tons of radioactive waste under Lake Powell
The West’s uranium boom brought dozens of mills to the banks of the Colorado River — where toxic waste was dumped irresponsibly.
Posted inArticles
What national monument protections do
Some say the Bears Ears shrinkage won’t change anything — they’re wrong.
Posted inDecember 25, 2017: Bear Essentials
Interior Department’s return to the ‘robber baron’ years
Secretary Ryan Zinke will be known better for cynicism than conservationism.
Posted inArticles
How to make sense of Trump’s changes to Bears Ears
The drastically reduced boundaries don’t line up with what the public wants.
Posted inDecember 25, 2017: Bear Essentials
A map of $1.1 billion in natural gas pipeline leaks
In seven years, pipeline incidents have killed nearly 100 people nationwide.