The Obama administration has now enlisted at least 34 people who have direct ties to environmental groups or clear leanings in that direction.

That's my running count of the enviros nominated or appointed to top jobs in federal agencies and the White House.

The latest is Harris Sherman, executive director of the Colorado Department of Natural Resources. Today, the Obamaites nominated Sherman to be Under Secretary of Agriculture for Natural Resources and the Environment. If the Senate approves the nomination, Sherman would oversee the U.S. Forest Service and all those issues.

Sherman, 66, has held a lot of environmental positions in Colorado government, ranging from water quality to wildlife to mine reclamation. According to his bio, he's also "active in land conservation efforts with the Nature Conservancy, Colorado Open Lands, and the Trust for Public Land."

In case you missed it in the opening sentence, here's the link to my full list of Obama enviros, which keeps growing and growing. It includes an additional three enviros who are very close to the administration but not officially in it (so the total is really 37 enviros wielding influence like this). They come from groups such as Environmental Defense Fund and American Rivers -- not the movement's left wing -- and they're in positions over public lands, wildlife, energy and climate policy. Please add to the list if you see I've missed some.

Preparing to be in a Montana town hall with the president of the United States on August 14, 2009: First think about what to wear. Faded jeans? That would be Montana-ish. But notice a hole worn right though the old denim. So not the faded jeans. Maybe the dark blue jeans that haven't faded yet -- that would be dressier and kind of Montana-ish. But technically the blue doesn't go with my best blazer, which is somewhat the color of a spruce tree. So the black jeans, faded to a unique dark gray that goes either with everything or nothing.

Then walk around the house grabbing what I need to bring. Pads for taking notes, and three or four pens, and the snapshot camera because a snapshot is better than nothing. Get on the road, feeling hurried, checking my watch for how I'm doing on the time. Spend minutes in Bozeman city traffic, get on the frontage road beside the interstate, get up to 60 m.p.h. -- hoping the tinny old Nissan pickup will hold together, same thought any time I drive it anywhere.

Raindrops begin tapping the windshield. A surprise. Riding my get-to-town-hall rails, I hadn't noticed the various clouds swirling overhead -- and that magical scene of some clouds strung low along the mountain fronts, clouds sneaking into canyons below the peaks. A smile -- nothing I ordered up -- comes over my face. Even at my age (59) it's possible to feel a touch of enthusiasm without reservation.

President Barack Obama! Here in my town!

Two sheriff's cars zoom past, like mechanical wolves with flashing light bars ...

My list of 37 influential environmentalists who are in -- or very close to -- the Obama administration (updated most recently on Sept. 10, 2009):

I'm not saying environmentalists run everything now -- far from it. But most commentators focus on industry people who gain political power, so I'll contribute something original by tracking enviros. And it's interesting.

These are people who have direct ties to environmental groups, or clear leanings in that direction, along with various other credentials such as professorships and previous government service.

I'm defining "environmental group" somewhat loosely. I've included progressive or organic farming groups, for instance, and one unusual state agency (the Great Outdoors Colorado Trust Fund, which uses lottery revenues to buy open space and wildlife habitat).

Most of these groups are centrist or in the conservative wing of the environmental movement, not the left wing. Environmental Defense Fund and American Rivers seem to have the most representation in the Obama admin.

No lefties like Western Watersheds or Center for Biological Diversity folks on the list. No Sierra Club, no Greenpeace etc.

I've organized the list beginning with the departments most important to the West, and within each department people are listed according to the rough hierarchy (most powerful first) ...

Here are three more takes on experiments in running the West's national forests differently -- follow-up to my High Country News story, "Taking Control of the Machine."

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Do I think the experiments will succeed? ... That question was posed by Colorado Public Radio host Kirk Siegler, when he interviewed me last Friday on KUNC in Greeley … I had to grin, thinking: Who can predict outcomes in our current political system? (The edited interview runs five minutes.)

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Bob Decker, former head of the Montana Wilderness Association, has edgy remarks about wilderness politics these days ...

I followed a log truck on a dirt road, breathing the dust it churned up -- heading to the RY Timber mill in Townsend, Montana, last Friday.

The truck stopped on the scales by the mill to have its load weighed.

I kept going only a few more yards to strangest-ever press conference for a wilderness proposal.

The star was Montana Sen. Jon Tester, the most genuine workingman in Congress. He's a third-generation farmer who comes home from D.C. frequently to drive a tractor and turn whatever wrenches need turning on his spread ...

When I researched my new High Country News story on bold experiments emerging in national forests, I talked to a bunch of people whom I couldn't fit into the magazine story. That's a drawback of magazines -- the pages are not infinite the way the Web is.

So I'm going to use my blog to publish additional material related to the story.

Today, here are summations of the positions of two more environmentalists who don't like the Beaverhead-Deerlodge Partnership -- the Montana experment in which the timber industry cut a deal with three sizable green groups (National Wildlife Federation, Trout Unlimited and Montana Wilderness Association).

Montana Sen. Jon Tester says he'll hold a press conference Friday to announce how he's tuned the deal and wrapped it into proposed legislation that would designate new wilderness while supporting timber jobs and off-road driving in Montana. Forest restoration -- fixing mistakes of the past -- is also a primary goal.

These two environmentalists run small groups that challenge timber sales with appeals and lawsuits (often winning). They say it's a bad deal in many ways ...

At least 13 people have been killed in all-terrain-vehicle accidents in the West in the past month. The fatalities include a 10-year-old boy in California, a 16-year-old girl in Wyoming, and an off-duty sheriff's deputy in Utah.

Expanding the bloody accounting to include the serious nonfatal ATV accidents in the same period (since April 20), the victims include a 9-year-old boy with head injuries and a man who lost his right hand ...

I'm not sure how feasible this is for widescale installment on the many grazing parcels in the West. But it's worth spreading the word to help it catch on.

A grad student, Adam Sigler at Montana State University, has designed and tested a new technology that changes the way cattle use streams. It looks like this:

Sigler's invention might be a breakthrough -- a $1,500 framework of stanchions and fencing that controls how cattle approach and drink from streams. The cattle don't even touch the ground around the stream, and they're prevented from getting into the water and streambed. These diagrams show how it works ...

Republicans in the U.S. Senate today stood up for a downtrodden victim -- the oil and gas industry. That's how they described it anyway. Really a lot more is at stake.

The superficial news: On behalf of their chosen industry, using classic Senate martial arts, the Republicans blocked the Obama administration's nominee for the Number Two job in the Interior Department.

Amid that noise, which is led by Utah Sen. Bob Bennett, the underlying character of today's Republican Party can be detected. It's more evidence of the tremendous leverage rightwingers have within the party, and how they exercise it in the Republican primaries, pressuring other Republican politicians to avoid any middle ground.

Interior's Number Two is a key for running much federal land and resources in the West. The Obamanites want a centrist environmentalist, David Hayes, to take the job ...

Maybe it's more incompetence by U.S. Department of Justice prosecutors -- kind of a holdover from the Bush era.

Maybe it's because a criminal conspiracy charge is always difficult to prove.

Or maybe it's a form of justice.

A jury in Missoula, Montana, just decided that the W.R. Grace corporation and some former Grace executives are not guilty of criminal conspiracy charges in connection with the deaths of hundreds of people -- and the illnesses of more -- in the small mining town of Libby.

The verdict shocked the surviving victims and kin of those who died from exposure to the corporation's asbestos mining. Gayla Benefield, who lost family and friends to lung disease and suffers effects herself, tells the Associated Press: "They have gotten away with murder. That's all I can say."

The Missoulian sums up the case and courtroom scene, and adds in a separate story: "Libby residents shellshocked by verdict."

The New York Times reports: "The verdict was a repudiation of the federal government’s case, which portrayed Grace as a greedy mine operator, aware of the dangers created by its mining operations and then callously, criminally covering up its crime."

The LA Times: "At least one juror was in tears as the verdict was read ..."

Judge Donald Molloy, who was appointed by President Bill Clinton and tends to rule for environmental claims, nevertheless slammed prosecutors during the trial -- as all the stories report, including an AP analysis headlined:"Prosecutors struggled in Grace trial."

And as usual, as I've often observed, environmental groups mostly continue to ignore this environmental crime because the victims are people, instead of ecosystems.