For years now, the oil and gas industry has been stirring up trouble for sage grouse. The possibility that the prairie-dwelling birds might receive Endangered Species Act protection gives oil executives high-grade anxiety. It would threaten jobs, they say. It would ruin the economy. It would reduce profits. All the noise the industry has made […]
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Feds demand payback for misused stimulus funds
Millions of dollars for carbon sequestration that apparently never happened.
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The increasingly unequal West
Rich get richer while everyone else wallows in a region once known to be economically egalitarian.
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Dry January means more drought across West
After a rainy December, many states now have lower-than-normal snowpacks.
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A wilderness bill for both sides of the aisle
U.S. Rep. Mike Simpson tries another Boulder-White Clouds bill in Idaho.
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Oil pipelines are going to keep breaking in rivers
On the second day of July in 2011, I walked down to my hay fields to see if the Yellowstone River had flooded its banks. It had — but so had crude oil leaking from Exxon’s Silvertip Pipeline, which runs underneath the river upstream from my farm south of Billings, Montana. That was the beginning […]
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A new film tells the story of the Klamath River agreements
Republican lawmaker-turned-filmmaker, Jason Atkinson on why conservation doesn’t have to be a partisan issue.
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Plunging oil prices are saving Alaskan ecosystems — for now
The new governor shelves controversial roads, dams and other developments.
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Let’s talk about the “Z” word
I am a rancher in a ranching community, so I imagine you’re not surprised to learn that we don’t like anyone else to tell us what we can do with our land. This worked when we all raised cattle. Even when some folks started raising sheep or buffalo, we generally got along. The requirements of […]
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Attacks on federal research funding anger scientists
Politicians lay siege to the National Science Foundation.
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Why we risked getting arrested in Utah
Twenty-five people who took direct action last summer to stop a tar sands strip mine on Utah’s East Tavaputs Plateau accepted plea deals on Jan. 25 to avoid more serious charges such as “felony riot.” We took the risk of going to prison in the first place because we felt we’d become the last line […]
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National forests to decide where snowmobiles are welcome
A new rule requires the government to specify areas for winter motorized users.
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Rants from the Hill: Hedgehog comes to the High Desert
Welcoming a fifteen-million-year-old animal to the Ranting Hill
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Plan for a burn at Rocky Flats stirs lingering fears
More from the nuclear fallout department.
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New snarl for proposed transmission line in the Southwest
In less than a week, SunZia had solved one problem just in time to encounter another.
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Hunters and anglers organize against land transfers
Sixty-nine percent of hunters in the 11 Western states rely on public lands for the sport.
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In Idaho, new worries over nuclear shipments
With governor set to offer DOE waiver, nuclear waste fears return.
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Wildlife-shooting contests are unjustified
On the first day of 2015, a photo appeared on the front page of the Albuquerque Journal, showing a solemn-looking man standing in the desert near Las Cruces, New Mexico. He was looking at dozens of dead coyotes spread out on the ground around him. The man in the photo was me, and the 39 […]
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Mapping Earth’s hidden water
A new NASA satellite will measure the planet’s soil moisture.
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Utah burn ban ignites outrage over ‘basic freedoms’
The right to burn versus the right to breathe.