The Trump administration succeeded in opening the refuge for drilling. The highest bidder? The state of Alaska itself.
Energy & Industry
Posted inFebruary 1, 2021: End of the Line
In cash-strapped Wyoming, a community votes for a new hospital
As the state cuts funding for public services, cities and counties are figuring out how to go it alone.
Posted inFebruary 1, 2021: End of the Line
New wind projects power local budgets in Wyoming
As the pandemic hit the fossil fuel industry, renewable energy projects filled community coffers.
Posted inArticles
A crude virus: How ‘man camps’ can cause a COVID surge
The Keystone XL Pipeline threatens to spread more than just oil through Indigenous communities.
Posted inArticles
Lawsuit over proposed fossil fuel railway in Utah moves forward
The plaintiff says funding earmarked for the project was meant for communities ‘to alleviate the boom and bust cycle of energy production.’
Posted inArticles
Local climate efforts cut costs and carbon in Wyoming
As the state doubles down on fossil fuels, towns chart their own path.
Posted inArticles
New Mexico is on track to have the weakest methane emissions regulations in the nation
Laguna Pueblo Gov. Wilfred Herrera, Jr., urges the state to strengthen its proposed air quality rules.
Posted inArticles
Biden needs to go beyond a Trump reset
The president-elect has an opportunity to rebuild better than before.
Posted inDecember 1, 2020: A Community Divided
Elections in the West highlight divisions and diversity
Justice, power and environment: The 2020 elections were defined by grassroots organizing and deep partisanship.
Posted inDecember 1, 2020: A Community Divided
How fossil-fueled politics undermined a backcountry compromise
William Perry Pendley’s illegal stint as agency head undoes a first-of-its-kind land designation in Montana.
Posted inArticles
How the Biden administration can reverse Trump’s environmental policies
And what actions the President-elect should prioritize.
Posted inArticles
Montana’s new governor scares conservationists
Republican Greg Gianforte has a history of support for rolling back protections for public lands and waters.
Posted inArticles
New Mexico’s oil fields have a sinkhole problem
The hunt for industrial brine has opened massive and unexpected sinkholes, which is taking delicate work, and more than $54 million, to fill.
Posted inDecember 1, 2020: A Community Divided
Trump gutted NEPA regulations, but a Biden presidency could restore them
An environmental lawyer discusses the future of the country’s bedrock environmental law.
Posted inArticles
Will the extraction industry’s economic turmoil blight Colorado?
Questions about gas well maintenance, clean up and public safety rise amid bankruptcies in the sector.
Posted inArticles
Dispatch from an irreversibly changed New Mexico
Laura Paskus’s new book examines wildfire, drilling on the Navajo Nation and climate grief.
Posted inArticles
Why the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge may not be drilled
The economic, legal and political obstacles to petroleum extraction on Alaska’s North Slope.
Posted inOctober 1, 2020: Democracy's Frayed Western Front
When home is next to an oil refinery
All I knew about Wilmington, California, was poverty, so I long hid my connection to it.
Posted inArticles
The world’s largest battery could be the answer to California blackouts
A new project in San Diego will substantially increase the state’s storage capacity.
Posted inArticles
Who’s minding Montana’s abandoned oil and gas wells?
Left-behind extraction wells pollute after drilling and pumping stops. One foundation gets proactive.