Reader Pauline Sandholdt wrote to let us know that a photo caption in our May 1 issue had blown a “considerable hole” in her confidence in High Country News. The picture in question appeared on page 19 of our special issue on land grant universities headlined, “Reform comes to “Ag” Schools.” It depicted cattle in […]
Politics
Posted inMay 29, 1995: Politics 101
Legislature votes to hamstring Washington state
By late July, Washington state could have the most far-reaching “takings” law in the nation – one so dramatic that even zoning might require landowner compensation. The Washington Legislature’s recent approval of Initiative 164 has elated its backers. “It is a crushing blow for big-government advocates, over-zealous state and federal bureaucrats, and cash-laden, well-heeled environmental […]
Posted inMay 29, 1995: Politics 101
This budget cut is destructive
Business isn’t being conducted as usual on Capitol Hill these days, and no better example exists than the perils besetting the Land and Water Conservation Fund The fund, created in 1965 at the height of the Great Society, was designed to finance federal purchases of land for recreation and habitat enhancement, and to give states […]
Posted inMay 15, 1995: Dog and pony show about salmon and owls
Heard Around the West
The terms of the engagement are clearly expressed in the West’s local papers, especially in the Casper Star-Tribune. This small but extraordinary daily, which tries to cover all 97,000 square miles of Wyoming, gives enormous space to local news, and at times, fills two or three broadsheet pages with letters to the editor. If the […]
Posted inMay 1, 1995: Land grants under the microscope
Will the bill’s authors please stand?
A memo to Sen. Slade Gorton, R-Wash., shows lobbyists wrote most of a bill scaling back the Endangered Species Act. The Feb. 28 memo from Gorton aide Julie Kays says in part: “The coalitions delivered your ESA (Endangered Species Act) bill to me on Friday” I know you are anxious to get the bill introduced. […]
Posted inMay 1, 1995: Land grants under the microscope
It’s deja vu yet again, says Bruce Babbitt
Washington, D.C. – On Dec. 24, 1992, while most Americans were eating Christmas Eve dinner, the four Marstons were listening to All Things Considered on National Public Radio. The occasion was Bill Clinton’s nomination of Bruce Babbitt to be secretary of Interior. To be honest, the occasion was NPR reporter John Nielson’s taped interview of […]
Posted inApril 17, 1995: The New West's servant economy
Is it politics, or is it revolution?
With Republicans firmly in power after the November landslide, a kind of insurrection is brewing in nearly every Western state. In legislative halls throughout the West, it’s popular to assert states’ rights under the 10th Amendment, streamline or gut environmental regulations and push private property “takings’ legislation. Some states, including Arizona, Utah and Idaho, have […]
Posted inApril 3, 1995: The Great Basin: America's wasteland seeks a new identity
County commissioner courts bloodshed
Note: This article is a sidebar to one of this issue’s feature stories, The Great Basin: America’s wasteland seeks a new identity. Dick Carver barnstorms the West telling crowds of ranchers how he faced down an armed federal agent to open a road in the Toiyabe National Forest. “We’re going to bring the power of […]
Posted inApril 3, 1995: The Great Basin: America's wasteland seeks a new identity
Back to the past: House resets pollution laws
This is not a good time to be an environmentalist in Washington. With House Republicans scrambling to meet their self-imposed deadline of voting in the party’s Contract With America by the Easter recess, some of the most anti-environmental bills in the history of environmental legislation have blasted through the House of Representatives. This is also […]
Posted inMarch 20, 1995: The fight for Reclamation
Slash and burn
Many good, green guys and gals were blown away Nov. 8, and bills now in Congress would block environmental regulation through “takings” analyses that elevate property rights above the public good. But legitimate fears should not blind the environmental community to new opportunities for positive change. Voters also blew out deadwood and shook the foundations […]
Posted inMarch 6, 1995: The fires next time
James Watt charged with felonies
A federal grand jury in Washington, D.C., has indicted former Interior Department Secretary James Watt for lying to Congress and obstructing an investigation of fraud and influence peddling at the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Federal prosecutor Arlin Adams says that after Watt left the Reagan cabinet in 1983, he earned $500,000 for interceding […]
Posted inMarch 6, 1995: The fires next time
Democrats resort to banana bread
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The scene was vintage Washington power breakfast: a private room at the Old Ebbitt Grill across from the Treasury Department. The table held plates of bagels and banana bread. The burgundy napkins complemented the Oriental rug and the velvet chairs. Those are the lures reporters expect from a deposed potentate or a […]
Posted inMarch 6, 1995: The fires next time
The word according to a weighty Republican
Alaska Republican Don Young, the new chairman of the House Resources Committee, (he removed “Natural” from the committee’s name) recently talked at length with reporter Angela Bouwsma: A congressional committee stumbles on the diversity of life: I’m, by the way, the only member of that (House Resources) committee that ever voted for the Endangered Species […]
Posted inFebruary 20, 1995: No more ignoring the obvious: Idaho sucks itself dry
Governor overrules voters
Voters in Arizona may have trounced a takings initiative last election but Republican Gov. Fife Symington isn’t listening. In his state-of-the-state address, Symington promised to issue an executive order ensuring compensation for any property owner whose land use becomes limited by government regulations. “Every executive agency in state government will be ordered to respect private-property […]
Posted inFebruary 20, 1995: No more ignoring the obvious: Idaho sucks itself dry
Trimming pork the green way
Hoping to force the Republican Congress to keep its word and cut the budget, environmentalists and liberal Democrats have targeted dozens of federally subsidized programs. The 40-page Green Scissors Report, written by Friends of the Earth and the National Taxpayers Union, aims to trim $33 billion in federal pork. Colorado’s long-delayed and controversial Animas-LaPlata dam […]
Posted inFebruary 20, 1995: No more ignoring the obvious: Idaho sucks itself dry
1995: Cecil Andrus knew how to take a stand
Cecil Andrus tells the story about how, as a young logger in Orofino, Idaho, he would skid logs down streambeds because it was the easiest way to move them. Skidding, for those who don’t know the rough-and-ready truths about logging, rips up the land and streams. “Those of us in logging in those good old […]
Posted inJanuary 23, 1995: What a long strange trip it's been
A Newtonian vision
A cadre of policy wonks from some ultra-conservative think tanks decended on Capitol Hill Jan. 11 to tell sympathetic Republicans how they’d strip the budgets of the Department of Interior and the Forest Service. Representatives of the Heritage Foundation, Cato Institute, Citizens for a Sound Economy and Citizens Against Government Waste urged legislators to: * […]
Posted inJanuary 23, 1995: What a long strange trip it's been
Feds targeted by louder thunder from below
SALT LAKE CITY, Utah – Met Johnson worried that no one would show up for the two-day Western Summit of conservative state legislators, county commissioners and public-land users he organized here in January. Johnson, the leader of the so-called “Cowboy Caucus” in the Utah House of Representatives, feared the “steam might have gone out of […]
Posted inNovember 28, 1994: Beauty eludes the beast
Environmental records of ranking Republican members ofcommittees addressing natural resource issues
Note: this is a sidebar to the news story titled “Election ’94 postmortem“ Environmental records of ranking Republican members of committees addressing natural resource issues. Compiled by League of Conservation Voters, based on bill sponsorship and recorded votes in the 103rd Congress. Sen. John Chafee, Committee on Environment and Public Works – 79 percent Sen. […]