He’s a rich, conservative Republican businessman, and the scion of a powerful Mormon family. And four years into a devastating economic crisis, he has come to Washington, D.C., amid cries to balance the budget, to offer a solution. Mitt Romney? Nope. It’s Marriner S. Eccles. The year was 1933, and the U.S. Senate Finance Committee […]
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Environment 2012
Environmental issues have barely registered a blip on political radar screens this campaign season. Sure, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney had a notable bickering match about drilling on public lands in their town hall debate. But it devolved into a game of one-upmanship as to who would drill more. Yes, Obama continues to promote clean […]
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Glimpses of moderation this election season
Like a lot of you, I’m feeling depressed in the runup to the November 6 elections. The relentless attack ads demonizing every candidate around the West, and our further fragmentation into hostile camps — six political parties qualified for Wyoming’s ballot alone, a new record for that state, for instance — I’m beginning to think […]
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Is the future of Western water in jeopardy?
Updated 10/22/2012, 12:14 p.m., MDT “Supreme Court decision could lead to ‘water anarchy’ in the West““U.S. on the verge of water anarchy““Utah’s water future in court”“Ruling key to Colorado water future““Upcoming ruling key to New Mexico’s water future“ These headlines, splashed across major Western newspapers in recent weeks, and in the influential website Politico and […]
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Gettin’ down with cap ‘n trade
Next month, California will hold the first auction as part of its carbon cap and trade program. The program, which will be the second largest CO2 emissions trading system in the world, has been in the works since 2006, when the Golden State passed the Global Warming Solutions Act, a piece of legislation that mandated […]
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Bureaucracy and the birds
In 1975, the Department of Interior reassured Native Americans they would not be prosecuted by the federal government for using eagle feathers for cultural or religious purposes. But the “Morton Policy,” as the directive is known, didn’t answer several important questions, leading to confusion on the part of tribal members. For example, was it okay […]
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Drilling into the data
I’ve written here before about how the natural gas glut has led to low prices which has led to a drilling drought in many Western regions. But even I was surprised when I received the latest numbers from the Colorado Oil & Gas Conservation Commission and saw that drilling in my state had slowed to […]
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Putting a price tag on existence
By Heather Hansen, Red Lodge Clearing House There’s an important change brewing in the protection of endangered species. It appears to push economic considerations higher up in the part of the law dealing with critical habitat designation. The shift comes in the form of a proposed rule by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) and […]
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BLM looks for balance
“We need to be smart. The future of how public lands are going to be managed is going to be based upon how they’re being used today.” — Retired Bureau of Land Management chief Bob Abbey, who stepped down in May, speaking to HCN in a recent interview. Judging by the way much BLM land […]
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TransCanada expects your stall tactic
The environmentalist style of warfare is to stall the enemy into submission. Climb up in a tree, stand in front of feller bunchers, block traffic, throw stink bombs on whaling ships, etc. It’s worked, and it hasn’t. Last January, environmentalists claimed a victory when the State Department denied construction of the Keystone XL pipeline pending […]
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Some (diseases) like it hot
All sorts of things have been linked to climate change lately: skin cancer, shrinking leaves, extreme weather and death. This summer, scientists and reporters have been puzzling over a wave of disease outbreaks—hantavirus,valley fever and West Nile virus—and whether they, too, are linked to climate change. With some of these diseases the climatic connections are […]
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Number games
I’ve always enjoyed the security of numbers, especially the dependable type. Two: the number of feet I have to stand on. Six: the number of months I have to work at the fine establishment that is High Country News. These are figures I can count on. They help me navigate through the world with a […]
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Another win in the Wyoming Range
I’m not usually sold on catchy one-liners, but today, I have a favorite conservation slogan. Care to guess? I bet you won’t get it. Nope, it’s not “What Would Hayduke Do?” (Though I saw that one in Bluff, Utah, this weekend and had a chuckle.) And no, it’s not “Go Green: Eat People.” (Though that […]
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Fear and loathing in San Juan County
Vandalism and threats play out against wilderness proponents in Utah’s canyonlands.
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Marijuana politics
Marijuana occupies an unusual place in the legal world. Possessing any amount is illegal under federal law with a jail term of up to one year for first time offenders. But the ill and afflicted can happily use the plant to soothe their pains in 17 states, as long as a willing doctor prescribes it. […]
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Wilderness limited
By Heather Hansen, Red Lodge Clearing House I don’t go to the mega-Whole Foods in Boulder at lunchtime on Saturdays because it’s a madhouse, like some Lord of the Flies experiment where hordes of people jockey to secure a limited supply of resources. According to a study I read recently, when facing the prospect of crowding, I’m an “adjuster,” or […]
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Wild horses to the slaughter?
On Monday, the Bureau of Land Management began its helicopter-assisted roundup of 3,500 wild horses and burros from public lands. Horses gathered from the range are corralled temporarily around the West and then shipped to pastures in the Midwest, where they’re either adopted or spend the rest of their lives chomping on grass at the […]
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OPEC invades Hollywood!
The Heritage Foundation’s crack team of investigative journalists has done it again. After deep digging (looking at the film’s credits?) they determined that Gus Van Sant’s new film with Matt Damon, “Promised Land,” about oil and gas drilling and hydraulic fracturing, was at least partially funded by a firm based in the United Arab Emirates. […]
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New podcast: Fire & Brimstone
And HCN‘s editorial fellow Neil LaRubbio has a travelogue from his visit to the Gila Wilderness in the wake of the Whitewater-Baldy fire, the largest wildfire in New Mexico history, which burned through the Gila earlier this year. More fires have been allowed to burn in the Gila than in most of our nation’s forests, […]
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Big dreams in a little town
Last Thursday evening, three members of the HCN crew stopped off in El Rito, N.M., an hour and a half north of Santa Fe, where we were headed for a Board of Directors meeting. There, in a hamlet of about 1,000, we strolled through a century-old campus and learned about a grand vision for education. […]