WASHINGTON, D.C. – Ah, for the glory years of the 104th. Those were the days, when Western Republicans filled the congressional hoppers with their dreams for their region’s public lands – plans to help one species or another chop more trees, chomp more grass, dig more mines and maybe even present some of the land […]
Politics
Posted inMay 12, 1997: Planning under the gun: Cleaning up Lake Tahoe proves to be a dirty business
Dick Randall, a fighter for the West
Staff was sorry to hear of the death of Dick Randall in Rock Springs, Wyo., at the age of 72. A fervent conservationist, Randall in his youth worked as an aerial coyote-gunner for the federal Animal Damage Control agency. Suffering from the effects of several air crashes, and more important, a change of heart about […]
Posted inApril 14, 1997: Beauty and the Beast
Beauty and the Beast
The president’s new monument forces southern Utah to face its tourism future.
Posted inApril 14, 1997: Beauty and the Beast
Money: the real political organizer
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Now about this soft money business. As a descriptive term, “soft money” isn’t. It’s vague, if not downright misleading, considering that “soft money” is no softer than any other money. So let’s approach the subject from another perspective, not as an abstract “issue,” but as a case study of a real, living, […]
Posted inMarch 17, 1997: Working the Watershed
Cut the fat out
Cut environmentally damaging subsidies and save $36 billion doing it, urges a report targeting 57 wasteful federal programs. The third annual Green Scissors describes how each program costs both taxpayers and the environment. Ending below-cost timber sales, the report says, could save $1 billion over five years. Twenty-five taxpayer and nonprofit groups contributed to the […]
Posted inMarch 17, 1997: Working the Watershed
Montana Legislature ‘swirlies’ to the right
HELENA, Mont. – Montana’s Republican-dominated Legislature has taken such a sharp turn to the right, its critics say, that it will take moderate Republican Gov. Marc Racicot to keep it from going off the deep end. A slew of bills have been introduced that would weaken environmental protection or make citizen redress more difficult. A […]
Posted inMarch 17, 1997: Working the Watershed
Ben Nighthorse Campbell: A U.S. senator who shoots from the hip
He improvises more than he calculates.
Posted inFebruary 17, 1997: No home on the range
Clinton’s budget blows off a wilder West
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Teddy Roosevelt was in town the other day, arguing that the country is short-changing its parks and forests. No, this is not a time warp. This was Theodore Roosevelt IV of New York, an investment banker, a conservationist and – best of all – a Republican. It was a nice touch, having […]
Posted inJanuary 20, 1997: Bees under siege
This year, Congress slunk into Washington
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Even without the small complication bestriding the opening of the 105th Congress, the difference between it and its predecessor could be discerned by a quick look at the schedules. Two years ago, the ebullient Republican majority of the House of Representatives came to town with revolutionary zeal, determined to remake the government, […]
Posted inDecember 23, 1996: El Nuevo West
An 84-year-old postal veteran
The struggle by Red Lodge, Mont., that kept alive a downtown post office may be duplicated 150 miles away in Livingston, population 7,500. Recently, 1,500 Livingston residents signed a petition calling on Postal Service officials to forego a move to spacious new quarters and retain the 84-year-old post office in the heart of town. “It’s […]
Posted inDecember 23, 1996: El Nuevo West
Keeping the heart in the center of town
The residents of very small Red Lodge, Mont., struck a blow, this month, for keeping their town a town. The forces for sprawling suburbanization are still all there: rising real estate prices, a major expansion at Red Lodge Mountain ski resort, and an influx of amenity-seeking newcomers attracted to the town’s setting, 60 twisting miles […]
Posted inNovember 25, 1996: Pollution in paradise
Don’t expect problem solving in 1997-1998
Note: This article is a sidebar to one of this issue’s feature stories. How will the elections affect environmental issues in the Congress? One thing is certain, observers say: They won’t make resolving problems any easier. Wilderness: In Utah, the elections seem to bolster the chances of passing a small-acreage wilderness bill. With Democratic Rep. […]
Posted inNovember 25, 1996: Pollution in paradise
The way columnist Ellen Miller saw one ’96 race in Colorado
Note: This article is a sidebar to one of this issue’s feature stories. “None of the big-city analysts have tumbled yet to what beat Tom Strickland, the Democrat who ran against Wayne Allard for the Senate in Colorado. What happened was that Strickland, a close but not identical politician in the Tim Wirth mode, lost […]
Posted inNovember 25, 1996: Pollution in paradise
If politics is a baseball game, I don’t even own a bat
After each election I become the fearful character in a Gary Larson cartoon, peering through window slats to discover that neighboring houses are occupied by large canines, drooling spittle and looking hungrily in my direction. After 12 elections, I ought to have more stomach for the results, but each biennium comes as fresh horror. The […]
Posted inNovember 25, 1996: Pollution in paradise
The West is just another ethnic voting bloc
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Oh, you folks think you’re so different out there, do you? All these seminars and conferences about the Old West and the New West, the changing West, the future of the West, the culture of the West, even the sovereignty of the West. From the intellectuals in the universities to the anti-intellectuals […]
Posted inNovember 25, 1996: Pollution in paradise
The Republicans now own the West
The morning after the elections, Carl Pope and Deb Callahan, heads of the Sierra Club and the League of Conservation Voters respectively, held a jubilant conference call with the press: “The message from yesterday’s election comes down to two words – environment wins. Voters supported those committed to protecting our environment,” began Callahan. “The nation’s […]
Posted inOctober 28, 1996: Has big money doomed direct democracy?
Has big money doomed direct democracy?
The history of initiatives is the history of the rise and fall of contentment with, and trust in, representative government.
Posted inOctober 28, 1996: Has big money doomed direct democracy?
How citizens make laws
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. * An initiative is a proposed law or resolution placed on the ballot as the result of a petition drive among registered voters. It is then voted on by the electorate. * A referendum is a decision by the legislature that is put to […]
Posted inOctober 28, 1996: Has big money doomed direct democracy?
Should city slickers dictate to trappers?
Note: in the print edition of this issue, this essay appears as a sidebar to a feature article, “Western hunters debate ethics tooth and claw.” Editor’s note: Under the banner of People Allied With Wildlife, more than 1,000 volunteers fanned out across Colorado earlier this year to drum up support for a constitutional amendment that […]
Posted inOctober 28, 1996: Has big money doomed direct democracy?
She works to save the past
Longtime HCN subscriber Ann Phillips finds herself drawn time and again back to a place that many experience as timeless: southeastern Utah. There, with one hand, she tries to record archaeological sites before they vanish; with the other, she works to prevent them from vanishing. The educational consultant turned archaeologist came through Paonia recently with […]