COLORADO After a failed ballot initiative, a dozen legislative bills and a special session that burnt the midnight oil, Colorado is no closer to managing its growth. Gov. Bill Owens, R, had promised citizens a solution by summer, but the Legislature couldn’t overcome a partisan impasse. Republicans opposed mandatory impact fees that would have forced […]
Politics
Posted inMay 21, 2001: Quenching the big thirst
The sublime delight of backtracking
It’s a Saturday midnight in late September, and David Bertelsen drives his battered car to the northern edge of Tucson, where the newest pseudo-adobes push hard against the Santa Catalina Mountains. He parks off the road, then begins walking up Finger Rock Canyon toward the summit of Mount Kimball. While many hikers try to avoid […]
Posted inApril 23, 2001: The Big Blowup
Slapping back at SLAPPs
COLORADO A bill designed to protect citizen activists from the cost and intimidation of frivolous lawsuits is lying wounded in Colorado’s State Senate. House Bill 1150, the so-called anti-SLAPP suit bill, was defeated on final reading in the state House last month after receiving an inadequate 32-32 tie vote. Still, the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Bill […]
Posted inApril 9, 2001: The water empress of Vegas
A journalist, and much more
During my first semester in college, I wrote a paper for an environmental studies class in which I cited an article by “journalist Donella Meadows.” “A journalist, and much, much more,” my professor wrote in the margin, high praise from a man not given to excess. In recent years, Meadows was known to many as […]
Posted inApril 9, 2001: The water empress of Vegas
Republicans launch counteroffensive
Bush administration revokes environmental rules
Posted inMarch 26, 2001: Teach the children well
Republicans undermine a bedrock environmental law
Industry launches an all-out assault on the Montana Environmental Policy Act
Posted inMarch 26, 2001: Teach the children well
The environmental movement is a-muddle
Green groups try to find a few friends in high places
Posted inFebruary 26, 2001: Return of the natives
How to draw a duck
Start with basic shapes: an oval for the body, a circle for the head, triangles for the bill and tail, a pole for the neck and a checkmark for the wing. Be sure to fill up most of your paper. Now, let’s round out the lines and add color. Then, draw in the duck’s habitat. […]
Posted inFebruary 12, 2001: Mr. Babbitt's wild ride
Bush hits the brakes
Almost immediately after taking office, President George W. Bush slapped a freeze on Bill Clinton’s last batch of new regulations, giving the new president time to review and possibly overturn those rules. New regulations which have not yet appeared in the Federal Register have been withdrawn for review; those already published but not yet in […]
Posted inFebruary 12, 2001: Mr. Babbitt's wild ride
The power of love, and its opposite
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Money isn’t everything, you know. There’s also love. And its opposite. In politics, we know that money corrupts, but so does love. And its opposite. Consider the rules. No, not the rules of love, but the rules of government – specifically those rules of the previous administration suspended for 60 days on […]
Posted inFebruary 12, 2001: Mr. Babbitt's wild ride
Don Ewy is no timber beast
HCN subscriber Don Ewy is not your typical logger. A self-described environmentalist who has fought to limit development on public lands, Ewy has selectively logged small trees in North Park, Colorado’s only state forest, for the past 31 years. During that time his only employees have been his three children, and he says his daughter […]
Posted inFebruary 12, 2001: Mr. Babbitt's wild ride
No matter what they say, Westerners don’t fit the stereotype
As good Americans, we not only endure a presidential election, but we also tolerate the analysis that emerges afterward. This time around, the right-thinking pundits couldn’t accept the simple fact that the 2000 presidential election was one of the closest in history. Instead, they looked for a mandate for the winner, and found one in […]
Posted inJanuary 29, 2001: Power on the loose
Paul Fritz left a unique legacy for the Park Service
We have reached a time when many conservation legends of the 20th century are disappearing. David Brower, the environmental giant, is a recent example. Now we’ve lost a lesser-known but very influential conservationist. Paul Fritz died quite suddenly on Christmas Eve from an undiagnosed brain tumor. He was 71. Fritz’s generation possesses a pure conviction […]
Posted inJanuary 29, 2001: Power on the loose
Weirdness abounds in Washington
Bush has already abandoned bipartisanship
Posted inJanuary 15, 2001: Plains sense
Coloradan tapped for Interior
Gale Norton is conservative, bright andrelativelyunknown
Posted inNovember 20, 2000: Water pressure
A ‘most improbable scenerio’ has come to pass
Am I some kind of a smart guy? Loyal readers may recall that I recently pointed out on these pages that even in very close elections one candidate always piled up a pretty hefty majority in the Electoral College, rendering the votes of any one state meaningless in the great scheme of things (HCN, 10/23/00: […]
Posted inNovember 20, 2000: Water pressure
Voters pummel planning, ban new elk farms
In an election full of murky results, at least two decisions were definitive. The region’s twin growth-control initiatives, Colorado’s Amendment 24 and Arizona’s Proposition 202 (HCN, 10/23/00: Colorado’s growth amendment rouses voters) were both defeated by more than 2-1 margins. Proponents of the initiatives blame the loss on relentless – and occasionally inaccurate – media […]
Posted inNovember 6, 2000: 'Re-inhabitation' revisited
On the trail
In July, Arizona’s growth-control initiative looked unstoppable: A poll by KUET, the Phoenix public television station, showed Proposition 202 winning, 68 percent to 17 percent. But the opposition, heavily supported by the development industry, has used its $4.1 million in contributions to mount a no-holds-barred media campaign (HCN, 10/23/00: Arizona’s 202 takes aim at sprawl). […]
Posted inNovember 6, 2000: 'Re-inhabitation' revisited
CARA’s not quite the girl she used to be
WASHINGTON, D.C. – When we last left Cara, our maiden in perpetual distress, she had escaped from the railroad tracks to which she had been tied by evil members of the House of Representatives, who hoped that an onrushing freight train or mass indifference would do her in. Not Cara, a game kid if ever […]
Posted inOctober 23, 2000: Stalking Slade
Libertarian is Chenoweth’s heir apparent
IDAHO The man who could succeed Idaho’s feisty Republican Rep. Helen Chenoweth-Hage is in hot water with the Environmental Protection Agency. C.L. “Butch” Otter says he recently dug weeds, cattails, rusty car bodies and concrete from the border of a pond next to his home to make the pond more hospitable to wildlife. But the […]