Ernest Hemingway said every writer needs a “shockproof B.S.-detector.” My B.S.-detector has been getting a workout, as the presidential candidates have been hunting for votes this autumn. In particular, they are seeking the votes of the 47 million Americans who hunt and fish. In a race this tight, politicians see this as a bloc as […]
Politics
Posted inSeptember 27, 2004: Life After Old Growth
Racetrack
Since the 1970s, Oregon has pioneered land-use laws to preserve rural landscapes, prevent irresponsible suburban development, and support local businesses over big-box stores (HCN, 11/25/02: Planning’s poster child grows up). Now, Oregonians in Action, a private-property rights group, is supporting an initiative that would force the state to compensate private-land owners who are restricted from […]
Posted inSeptember 27, 2004: Life After Old Growth
Utah’s favorite sons battle for governor
Can the Democrats capture the conservative state’s chief office?
Posted inSeptember 27, 2004: Life After Old Growth
Bucking the trends: Black Hills crusader Marvin Kammerer
RAPID CITY, SOUTH DAKOTA — An old pickup rattles to the top of a grassy ridge. The Black Hills stretch across the western horizon, and in the valley below, the family ranch of Marvin Kammerer is only a dot in the fields of grass. Kammerer stops the truck, gets out and looks down on his […]
Posted inWotr
This is no time to step back from the Roadless Rule
While researching a new book last spring, I had the opportunity and pleasure of interviewing Dale Bosworth, chief of the Forest Service. I found him to be an honest, straightforward, forthcoming, and, at times, courageous man. So when I read that he had agreed to the repeal of the Clinton-era Roadless Rule on our national […]
Posted inWotr
Let the states broker roadless lands — it’s the democratic way
This July, the U.S. Forest Service proposed a new administrative rule dealing with the controversial issue of roadless areas in national forests. Environmental groups reacted as you might expect. For example, a “personal” spam I received from John Adams at the Natural Resources Defense Council warned that the Bush administration “is lining up massive timber […]
Posted inSeptember 13, 2004: When a Boom is a Bust
Colorado voters hold the cards on renewable energy
In the state Legislature, utilities have had the upper hand — but now the choice is up to voters
Posted inSeptember 13, 2004: When a Boom is a Bust
Japanese cars may get all the good lanes
Note: in the print edition of this issue, this article appears as a sidebar to another news article, “Colorado voters hold the cards on renewable energy.” A proposed new law would give some hybrid-vehicle owners access to California’s coveted commuter lanes — and the CEO of Ford Motor Co. is feeling left out. The bill, […]
Posted inSeptember 13, 2004: When a Boom is a Bust
Composing the new Western: Calexico
NEW YORK CITY, New York — Joey Burns, the guitarist and singer of the rock band Calexico, is sitting just a few blocks from Ground Zero, looking across the water at the Statue of Liberty. It is the Fourth of July. He assesses the situation with rock ’n’ roll profundity: “It’s a trip, man — […]
Posted inAugust 30, 2004: How Long Will it Flow?
Racetrack
A proposed ballot initiative in Montana would add one sentence to the state Constitution, “forever” preserving the right of Montana citizens to hunt and fish. However, that right “does not create a right to trespass on private property or diminution of other private rights.” The race is on for retiring Colorado Republican Ben Nighthorse Campbell’s […]
Posted inAugust 30, 2004: How Long Will it Flow?
Arizona elections stay ‘clean’
Despite a challenge from big business, the state’s public campaign program prevails
Posted inAugust 16, 2004: Journey of Rediscovery
Racetrack
California tribes are standing tall against the Terminator. The California Nations Indian Gaming Association is endorsing Proposition 70, an initiative opposed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, R. Proposition 70 would allow the state to grant tribes renewable 99-year contracts to exceed the current limit of 2,000 slot machines and allow roulette and craps in return for […]
Posted inAugust 16, 2004: Journey of Rediscovery
Tribes turn out to vote
Indians could decide tight races in key Western states
Posted inAugust 16, 2004: Journey of Rediscovery
Taking the load off the environment
BASALT, Colorado — Jonathan Fox-Rubin wants to start a revolution in car manufacturing. In his sunlit office in western Colorado he explains his approach to the weighty question of how to make cars easier on the environment: He goes straight to the body of the car. If the skeletal system of automobiles can be made […]
Posted inWotr
The last best-paid place in the West
Every winter my brother Tom goes to a muzzleloader shoot in central Oregon, where he camps out in a large tent, dons his feathered hat and buckskin leggings and fringed jacket, and shoots his black powder rifle at targets tucked away in the junipers and sagebrush. He usually calls me in Idaho after he returns […]
Posted inAugust 2, 2004: The Greening of the Plains
Speaking up for rural Oregonians: Judge Laura Pryor
JOHN DAY, Oregon — As hail pounds the concrete outside, more than 200 people cram into an Elks Lodge — replete with wood paneling and a smoky bar in the rear — to see Judge Laura Pryor, the chairwoman of the Gilliam County Commission and one of the rural West’s most outspoken champions. With her […]
Posted inWotr
Sometimes a policy is just words
One of our nation’s more dubious political practices is the tendency to cloak questionable — even harmful — environmental policies in the rhetoric of conservation. Consider the debatable environmental merits of the current administration’s “Clear Skies” and “Healthy Forest” initiatives, two policies that many argue weaken existing protections for air, water and forests. This month, […]
Posted inJuly 19, 2004: They're Here: Global Warming's Unlikely Harbingers
Of global warming and White House elephants
Any day now, if all goes according to plan, a bill that will actually do something about global warming will come up in the United States Senate. Come up, and go right down. Not even the bill’s sponsors, Republican John McCain of Arizona and Democrat Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, predict passage. Their goal is to […]
Posted inWotr
A Colorado corporation throws its weight around in Montana
When Montanans first employed the ballot initiative in 1912, all four of the measures they passed had a single aim: to curtail the political power of Amalgamated Copper, the state’s mining giant. So it’s no small irony that in 2004, a mining corporation is using the initiative process to try to reverse the expressed will […]
Posted inJuly 19, 2004: They're Here: Global Warming's Unlikely Harbingers
Supreme Court reins in citizens’ right to sue
Conservationists can’t interfere with the government’s ‘own ordering of priorities’