Dollars continue to plague and divide candidates. For Idaho Republican Rep. Helen Chenoweth, misuse of money has become a potential Achilles’ heel. According to the state’s Democratic Party, Chenoweth’s campaign illegally hired a company she owns. Now, Chenoweth won’t say why her campaign paid $35,000 for rent and office space to her Consulting Associates although […]
Politics
Posted inMarch 4, 1996: Who owns these bones?
Idaho could move toward the center
Two years ago, Idaho’s congressional delegation took a hard turn to the right. Two Republican senators, Dirk Kempthorne and Larry Craig, already led the state, but the addition to the House of newcomer Helen Chenoweth (who claims that salmon aren’t endangered because they’re still available at the supermarket) moved the delegation to a new extreme. […]
Posted inFebruary 19, 1996: Can a Colorado ski county say 'Enough is enough'?
Wyden squeaks in
Wyden squeaks in Oregon Democrat Ron Wyden eked out an 18,000-vote victory over State Sen. Gordon Smith in the Jan. 30 election to replace Sen. Bob Packwood. With the national media noting that environmental issues took center stage in the race, environmentalists have been quick to tout Wyden’s victory as part of a backlash against […]
Posted inFebruary 19, 1996: Can a Colorado ski county say 'Enough is enough'?
Budget impasse leaves BLM scrambling
From under a blanket of snow, the Miles City, Mont., Bureau of Land Management office should be preparing for spring. Ranchers need permits to send their sheep into pasture. Roads that have decayed over winter need repairs. Outfitters need permits for spring river trips, and mining companies want their environmental assessments completed. But the BLM […]
Posted inFebruary 5, 1996: Lack of enchantment: Santa Fe's boom goes flat
Williams leaves, Montana scrambles
Williams leaves, Montana scrambles The script in Montana will read like it does every election year: Candidates will debate how much of the state’s mountains and forests should be protected and how much should be open to industry. But for the first time in nearly 18 years, the moderating voice of Democratic Rep. Pat Williams […]
Posted inJanuary 22, 1996: At Hanford, the real estate is hot
Big shoes empty in Oregon
Big shoes empty in Oregon After 28 years, the door to both of Oregon’s senate seats has swung wide open. The race to replace Republican powerhouses Mark Hatfield, who has announced his retirement after November, and Bob Packwood, forced to resign, begins with the Jan. 30 election for Packwood’s spot. Because many see the race […]
Posted inJanuary 22, 1996: At Hanford, the real estate is hot
Who felt the federal furlough?
While his colleagues paced anxiously at home during the 21-day federal furlough, Forest Service timber contracting officer Lathrop Smith administered 13 green timber sales in southwestern Colorado. He was hampered – -there were no soil scientists, hydrologists or biologists’ – but stayed on the job. Smith was not alone. Although most of the West’s federal […]
Posted inDecember 25, 1995: Utah hearings misfire
Allard takes aim
Last April, the League of Conservation Voters awarded Colorado Rep. Wayne Allard a score of zero for his environmental votes during his first 100 days in office. Now, Allard’s rating might dip into the negative numbers. A provision of Allard’s in the 1995 Farm Bill would prohibit the Forest Service from changing management plans to […]
Posted inDecember 25, 1995: Utah hearings misfire
They’re stepping down
Two powerful Western Republicans announced they would not seek re-election in 1996. Sen. Mark Hatfield of Oregon, the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, said in early December that he would step down because “Thirty years of voluntary separation from the state I love is enough.” Soon after, Alan Simpson of Wyoming said that he, too, […]
Posted inDecember 25, 1995: Utah hearings misfire
To comment on the Utah Wilderness bills
Note: This article is a sidebar to one of this issue’s feature stories, Congress weighs the fate of Utah’s wild lands. To comment on the Utah Wilderness bills, write or phone your congressional representative, senators and President Clinton. Mail to Senate offices can be addressed to: U.S. Senate, Washington, DC 20510. You can reach your representative […]
Posted inDecember 11, 1995: Hunting: Its place in the West comes under attack
Saga of Enid Waldholtz
Utah Democrat Karen Shepherd is considering a bid to retake the congressional seat she lost to free-spending Republican Enid Waldholtz. Authorities continue to investigate allegations Joe and Enid Waldholtz are at the center of a $1.7 million check-kiting scheme which may include violations of federal campaign-spending laws in the 1994 race against Shepherd. Waldholtz, a […]
Posted inDecember 11, 1995: Hunting: Its place in the West comes under attack
Congress’ war against nature creates backlash
When Republicans took control of Congress in 1994, everyone expected attacks on environmental laws and programs. And they came. But now, with just days left until the end of the 104th Congress’ first year, the anti-environment flood has been slowed. With the exception of the salvage logging legislation signed by President Clinton this summer, the […]
Posted inNovember 27, 1995: Saving the ranch
Voters say yes to elk, no to takings, jets
In state and local elections Nov. 7, environmental initiatives followed the law of the pocketbook: Measures that would have cost taxpayers money usually failed. Although fiscal conservatism spelled defeat for slow-growth initiatives in Colorado and Utah, it also contributed to a major victory for environmentalists in Washington state, where voters defeated Referendum 48 – the […]
Posted inNovember 13, 1995: Seeing the forest and the trees
Untangling Washington
UNTANGLING WASHINGTON When the 1994 Congress cut funding for its research groups, the Environmental and Energy Study Conference didn’t die, it reorganized as the for-profit Congressional Green Sheets. As a part of Congress, the conference had provided information about House and Senate actions on environmental issues. With the same staff and its new name, Green […]
Posted inNovember 13, 1995: Seeing the forest and the trees
Sinclair Lewis’ George Babbitt would be at home in this Congress
When I read recently that a couple of Republican congressmen were still fighting an impending ban on chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), I was overtaken by a literary obsession: I had to re-read Sinclair Lewis’ Babbitt. Let me explain. About a year ago, while still gainfully employed, I wrote a column about Rep. Dan Burton of Indiana, who […]
Posted inOctober 16, 1995: In the heart of the New West, the sheep win one
Cut to the past: logging wars resume
Less than three years after the Clinton administration devised a plan to protect most of the remaining ancient forests in the Pacific Northwest, the big trees have started to fall again. Taking advantage of an obscure provision in a salvage logging bill recently signed by the president, loggers have begun cutting healthy old-growth forests west […]
Posted inOctober 16, 1995: In the heart of the New West, the sheep win one
Congress is reworking 100 years of federal policy
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Right-wing conservatives, who have long argued that the nation would be best served if public lands and resources were in private hands, believed that their hour had come. On Sept. 19, a bill reached the floor of House of Representatives to create a commission recommending the sale of selected lands now managed […]
Posted inOctober 16, 1995: In the heart of the New West, the sheep win one
To save a Utah canyon, a BLM ranger quits and turns activist
Floating past cottonwood trees and tamarisk just before dusk, Skip Edwards deftly keeps his raft within earshot of ours so he can pummel us with facts about the 1964 Wilderness Act. But around the next bend, the former Bureau of Land Management river ranger falls silent and points to a massive red and orange sandstone […]
Posted inOctober 2, 1995: Did Idaho libel the feds?
Inside the glitter
In the past, photographers wanting to document Nevada’s workers headed for the mines, forests, ranches and irrigated farmlands. But no more, according to photojournalist Kit Miller. Today’s workforce can be found in the state’s casinos. Miller, a Nevada native, says she took on the project of interviewing and photographing this new Nevada workforce to confront […]
Posted inSeptember 4, 1995: I came, I saw, I wrote a guidebook
U.S. House to the environment: Die!
Attacking the environment through the yearly appropriations process is not new. But this year’s Congress may take it to new heights. No less an authority than House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., has acknowledged the scope of policy changes hooked on to appropriations bills: he called them “without precedent going back to 1933.” The attacks range […]