Last July, Nancy Eastman was leafing through HCN when she came across a photo of artificial cholla built by California scientists (HCN, 7/21/08). The imitation cacti are intended to serve as nesting sites for beleaguered coastal cactus wrens, but they’re also great gangly jumbles of spikes, pipes and spindly legs. Eastman, an artist and landscaper, […]
Politics
Posted inMarch 2, 2009: How low will it go?
True tests of ‘Stay and Defend’
Australian wildfires could alter Western fire policies.
Posted inGoat
Will pesticide applications require a Clean Water permit?
On January 7th the Federal Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit issued a decision in a long-running battle over whether the application of pesticides in, near or over water requires a Clean Water Act point source permit. In a case which consolidated multiple challenges to a Bush Administration regulation exempting pesticide applications from clean […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
“But enough about you…”
Former Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne said goodbye to his employees with a slide show, reports Washingtonpost.com. He showed about 600 slides, “each picturing the distinguished secretary, many of them taken at a national park.” One staffer who sat through the presentation commented, “It was special. That’s all I should say.”
Posted inGoat
Put up yer dukes
The Western Business Roundtable hosted a conference call yesterday. It was touted as a “sneak peek” into a new analysis of the Western Climate Initiative. But if you’d dialed in hoping to hear a fresh critique of the cap-and-trade framework designed to encompass 90 percent of the emissions across much of the west and part […]
Posted inGoat
Mo’ Money…
I just took a gander at www.recovery.gov. It’s the website the new administration made so we could keep ourselves informed and hold the government accountable in light of the economic stimulus package. On the site, there’s a section that estimates the amount of jobs that will either be saved or created in the next two […]
Posted inWotr
At last, a Montana rivers bill that makes sense
A former professor of mine once said that building a house in a floodplain is like setting up a tent on the interstate just because no cars are coming by right at the moment. It defies common sense. Yet, across western Montana in recent years, sprawling trophy homes have spread like a cancer along the […]
Posted inGoat
A place at the table for Native Nations
On December 31st, a 66-year old Cheyenne River Sioux man died after a doctor told ambulance drivers to “take him back to his residence or dump him in a ditch” because there wasn’t money for his care, recounted President of the National Congress of Indian Americans (NCAI), Joe A. Garcia, in his State of Indian […]
Posted inWotr
It’s time to abandon Desert Rock
There’s a lot at stake when it comes to energy development in New Mexico: the state’s crystalline blue skies, job opportunities for native people, and a sustainable future for all of those living in the land of little rain. Yet when it comes to weighing in on the proposed Desert Rock coal-fired power plant, New […]
Posted inFebruary 16, 2009: The Half-life of Memory
The long arm of the Hoffman
Ray Ring’s excellent article on the Wyoming political pressure that has kept Yellowstone Park’s eastern entrance open in winter despite the high cost, considerable danger, and minimal snowmobile traffic neglected to mention a key background factoid on this issue (HCN, 2/02/09). Cody, Wyo., for years had a powerful ally in its demand to keep Sylvan […]
Posted inFebruary 16, 2009: The Half-life of Memory
Justice for all
Salt Lake City attorney serves the homeless
Posted inGoat
“Top-to-bottom” ethical review at Interior
The appointment of Ken Salazar as Secretary of Interior revealed – once again – the conflict in the Environmental Movement between the “establishment” (aka the “nationals”) and a set of newer and mostly western environmental organizations (aka the “grassroots”). The establishment generally praised the appointment while the grassroots expressed disappointment. But as GOAT Blogger Sarah […]
Posted inFebruary 2, 2009: Non-navigable River Blues
Putting our house back in order
While Barack Obama was making his inaugural speech, I was vacuuming. I hadn’t planned to be engaged in that particular activity at that particular moment, but the deliverymen turned up early, bringing us a new bed at precisely the moment the new president began to speak. The floor was covered with dropcloths when the bed […]
Posted inWotr
Don’t trust this Texas billionaire
See T. Boone Pickens. Run, T. Boone, run! Watch out for T. Boone Pickens. As funny as that sounds, in the sing-song style of the classic Dick and Jane kids’ books, it’s a smart warning. Just as those books have used simple repetition to teach generations of kids to read since the 1930s, Texas billionaire […]
Posted inGoat
Farm Bill conservation programs
As pressure mounts to reduce agricultural crop subsidies, Farm Bill conservation programs are increasingly important to the bottom line of many American farms. This trend is expected to continue as Brazil, India and other developing nations insist that free trade deals include an end to American and European crop payments which they rightly claim distort […]
Posted inFebruary 2, 2009: Non-navigable River Blues
Pay to play — with water
Regarding your recent story “Up in Smoke,” while the Bushies may have outsourced with a particular vengeance, the Forest Service’s downsizing actually started early in the Clinton years, with “government reinvention” (HCN, 12/22/08). The story does touch upon a real dilemma for the Forest Service: Whatever it thinks its mission is, it does not have […]
Posted inFebruary 2, 2009: Non-navigable River Blues
Ich bin ein stupid-zoner
In Ed Quillen’s article “Change We Could Believe In,” the term “stupid zones” is defined as “an area that is stupid to build in on account of predictable dangers — avalanches, forest fires, hurricanes, tornadoes, mudslides, floods, etc.” (HCN, 12/22/08). A quick search on the Web site for the Rocky Mountain Insurance Information Association reveals […]
Posted inWotr
On second thought, Mr. Cheney
On the last day of 2008, a little bird told me that the venerable American Museum of Fly Fishing in Manchester, Vt., a beacon for the nation’s fly-fishers and a keeper of their rich tradition, had landed Vice President Dick Cheney as the guest of honor and speaker at its spring 2009 meeting. So I […]
Posted inGoat
Elephants and rubber dodos
We just swore in a new president, and already there’s speculation about who might run in 2012 — including a Westerner, Dirk Kempthorne of Idaho. Kempthorne was George W. Bush’s last Secretary of the Interior, replacing Gale Norton of Colorado in 2006. He had a long political resume — mayor of Boise, U.S. Senator, and […]
Posted inGoat
A midnight lease on the mesa
High Country News has reported on the Bush administration’s “midnight deregulations,” the host of hurried laws issued in the waning days of the administration, which – whether aimed at fisheries, air pollution, or oil shale – generally promise to benefit big business while undercutting environmental protections. But now that Obama’s in the oval office, some […]