Editor’s note: Sharon Friedman blogs on forest policy at “A New Century of Forest Planning” and will be posting occasionally on the Range blog. As you all know, I think it’s really important that the public gets a chance to understand Forest Service (publicland, natural resource) issues so they can make informed choices. The problem […]
Politics
Posted inGoat
Bill Koch, coal, and political cash
The cynic in me hardly batted an eye when I read recently that Republican House Speaker John Boehner is raking in coal-stained cash. Nor did I spill my coffee when I noticed that one of Boehner’s big new donors is a Koch brother. My interest was piqued, however, when I saw that it wasn’t David […]
Posted inSeptember 19, 2011: Redemption
The turn of the wheel: the many lives of writer H. Lee Barnes
“A lot of the themes that I work with are within the context of the lives I have lived,” says Nevada author H. Lee Barnes. “My characters are grassroots people who struggle to make it to the next day.” An Army brat who grew up “all over the Southwest,” Barnes was a Green Beret in […]
Posted inGoat
Learning curve
If the wildlife news of the last few months is any indication, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is on the road to enlightenment, or at least, loitering on the sidewalk. In particular, three of their recent actions suggest the agency is learning from its mistakes. Lesson 1: No otter is an island On Monday, the […]
Posted inGoat
Economy vs. environment?
The state legislative universe is famously sluggish. Moves toward significant change tend to ooze at the pace of cold honey while lawmakers waste time bickering over bills that everyone knows won’t go anywhere. CEQA — which was inspired by the National Environmental Policy Act and itself inspired similar laws in other states — requires state […]
Posted inGoat
Industry Pot Calls Enviro Kettle Black
Environmental groups like the Center for Biological Diversity and the Chesapeake Bay Foundation are notorious targets for media label makers that live to pigeonhole with prose. But if the USFWS is the enviros’ legal whipping boy, then the Environmental Protection Agency is industry’s. A report released this week from the Government Accountability Office — a […]
Posted inGoat
Let it smog
“Mush from the wimp.” That’s how Paul Krugman summed up President Obama’s recent decision not to set tougher ozone standards, which would have helped force places like gas fields and cities nationwide to de-smog. In HCN‘s editorial bullpen, we too were scratching our heads when we heard the news last Friday. EPA scientists have recommended […]
Posted inSeptember 5, 2011: For the love of hummers
PG&E conservation lands
PG&E made 140,000 acres of watershed lands available for conservation as part of a bankruptcy settlement with the state of California, which bailed the utility company out. The nonprofit Pacific Forest and Watershed Lands Stewardship Council is disposing of the parcels, shown here in grey.
Posted inGoat
Friday News Roundup: Of Fuel and Frogs
TransCanada’s proposed Keystone XL pipeline — the world’s largest — has dominated the news this past week. Last Friday, the State Department issued a final Environmental Impact Statement for the pipeline — which would run oil from the Alberta tar sands to Gulf Coast refineries — that concluded the project would not significantly impact the […]
Posted inRange
Beware of wolves cloaked in “access”
America’s national forests and our fish and wildlife belong to everyone. Americans rightfully demand access to this national birthright. Access is like oxygen for hunters and anglers. But beware. Industry barracudas are trying to hoodwink sportsmen into supporting bad legislation by promising “access.” Take HR 1581, the Wilderness and Roadless Release Act. It’s sponsored by […]
Posted inAugust 22, 2011: Looking for Balance in Navajoland
Navajo Monster Slayers: a tribe struggles to fight corruption
Window Rock, Arizona The Navajo Nation Council Chamber is a rounded bit of beauty inspired by the traditional Navajo hogan. It’s set against a natural arch of sandstone that gives Window Rock its name, a wide and frequently dramatic sky, and temporary government-office barracks that have been at their task several decades too long. The […]
Posted inRange
10 years post September 11: Keeping America free and open
Almost 10 years ago, just after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, my wife and I back-packed from near our home in Kalispell, Montana to Waterton Lakes National Park, in Alberta, Canada. For documentation, we carried our driver’s licenses, although I don’t recall anyone asked for much of a look. We just returned from another Waterton vacation. […]
Posted inWotr
The real side effect of medical marijuana
My father died from an addiction to a dangerous drug when I was 13. The pushers who sold it to him remain in business, and the federal and state governments seem to like that fact. I’m not bitter, but whenever I hear the arguments against medical marijuana in Western states, I’m struck by the hypocrisy. […]
Posted inRange
Some places are as good as gold
By Heather Hansen, Red Lodge Clearing House “Wilderness, wilderness . . . We scarcely know what we mean by the term, though the sound of it draws all whose nerves and emotions have not yet been irreparably stunned, deadened, numbed by the caterwauling of commerce, the sweating scramble for profit and domination.” Ah, nothing like a little […]
Posted inGoat
A shift in the gas debate?
When, at the direction of President Obama, the Department of Energy appointed a panel to come up with recommendations to improve the safety of natural gas development, environmentalists didn’t expect much. Watchdog groups worried the panel was weighted to favor industry. The nonprofit Environmental Working Group called for its chair, John Deutch, to step down […]
Posted inRange
How federal budget cuts may hurt Indian Country
So far, most of the government”s austerity movement has been theoretical. We know the federal budget is shrinking, but the evidence of that has been slow to surface. Proposals to wipe out the Bureau of Indian Affairs (and replace it with what?) remain little more than spin. Kentucky Sen. Paul Rand’s bill, for example, has […]
Posted inAugust 22, 2011: Looking for Balance in Navajoland
Idaho: The CAFO state?
In 2008, California voters granted egg-laying hens the right to enough space to lie down, stand up, and stretch their wings. Egg farmers warned that the measure would increase costs, forcing them to leave the state to compete. And Idaho hastened to woo the would-be émigrés. “(Poultry is) a really great industry to have around,” […]
Posted inRange
The monumental fight over Otero Mesa
By Heather Hansen, Red Lodge Clearing House The decade-long tussle over energy development in New Mexico’s Otero Mesa has been reinvigorated recently, as hardrock mining claims now threaten the region for the first time. The area, sometimes referred to as the “Southwest’s Serengeti,” is a 1.2 million-acre stretch of undisturbed Chihuahuan Desert grassland. The sprawling but sensitive […]
Posted inRange
Religious Intolerance Plays Role in Presidential Politics
Judge a person by his character, not his race, color or creed. It seems Americans — liberals and conservatives alike — could use a booster shot on this topic, at least when it comes to the issue of Mormons, or members of the Church of the Latter Day Saints. Two men with LDS roots, Mitt Romney […]
Posted inAugust 8, 2011: Ganjanomics
Ganjanomics: bringing Humboldt’s shadow economy into the light
One evening last October, I met with Anna Hamilton in the Northern California town of Garberville. A singer-songwriter with a barbwire voice, Hamilton is known locally for her radio show, Rant and Rave, Lock and Load and Shoot Your Mouth Off — which, it turns out, is a pretty good description of her approach to […]