Back in 2005, the Senate withheld its confirmation of Stephen Johnson as Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency when he refused to cancel the Children’s Environmental Exposure Research Study, which proposed using human subjects to examine the effects of pesticides on children from infancy to age 3. When he agreed to cancel the study, the […]
Blogs
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Survival or bust
The Quino checkerspot, a pretty patchwork butterfly native to the scrubland of southern California, is not doing so well. The butterfly has been listed as endangered since 1997 and only a few small populations remain. But a group of biologists have a suggestion for how the Quino—and other organisms on the brink of extinction—might be […]
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Utah fishermen no longer required to levitate
In Utah, as in many states, the public has a right to use the water in rivers for recreation. But the land underneath the state’s rivers is often privately owned. So what happens when someone touches the bottom? The question floated all the way to the Utah Supreme Court thanks to Kevin and Jodi Conatser, […]
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Las Vegas offers rural Nevada the dry end of the straw
Las Vegas is a thirsty city in a state that’s entitled to a measly four percent of the Colorado River’s annual in flow. That means that it’s had to be at turns creative and bare-knuckled in getting the water it needs to keep up with explosive population growth. Lately it’s been leaning towards the bare-knuckled […]
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New hcn.org
For the past 9 months I have been working with the wonderful folks over at ONE/Northwest and the Web Collective, both out of Seattle, on the new hcn.org. Built on the powerful open-source platform Plone, the new site gives us greater control over our content, more flexibility, and simply put, the ability to do more […]
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The many faces of rural America
Rural America is no longer Norman Rockwell’s version, if it ever was. Such is the lesson of a recent report by the Carsey Institute at the University of New Hampshire, a policy research center that focuses on rural communities. The report, entitled Place Matters: Challenges and Opportunities in Four Rural Americas, makes clear that it […]
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Why Bush promotes drilling ANWR
This morning on the news show Democracy Now! Amy Goodman asked energy guru Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute why the Bush Administration continues to push drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). The question was in response to Lovins’ assertion that oil corporations don’t want to drill in ANWR because […]
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One way to look at $4 gas
I just endured the most expensive tank of gas I’ve ever bought in my life, and the next one certainly won’t be any cheaper. Like most Americans, I’m not fond of paying $4 a gallon for gasoline. But while I was watching the pump numbers climb at astonishing rate, and remembering the days of my […]
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Enviros go to court in a last-ditch effort to save the Roan
Cataloguing the wildlife and habitat on the gas-rich Roan Plateau and listing the history of public input asking that it be saved, a coalition of 10 conservation and wildlife groups filed suit today in Denver District Court to halt the Bureau of Land Management’s August 14 auction of 55,000 acres on the plateau west of […]
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A mouse divided
The twisting tale of the Preble’s meadow jumping mouse took another turn yesterday as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced that the Wyoming populations of the rodent had become adequately viable to warrant their removal from Endangered Species Act protection. This rather protracted controversy has historically centered around the question of whether or not […]
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Utah ultra-conservatives kill a RINO
In what may be a sign of things to come, one of the country’s most conservative congressmen recently lost an election – to an even more conservative upstart. Despite being out-fundraised four to one, first-time office-seeker Jason Chaffetz defeated six-term U.S. House member Chris Cannon by 20 percentage points in Utah’s June 24 Republican primary. […]
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Oregon federal forest bills won’t reduce fire risk or restore forests
Oregon Senator Ron Wyden and Oregon Representative Peter DeFazio are each planning to introduce legislation for Oregon’s federal forests. DeFazio has distributed drafts of his bill and has been receiving comments back from environmental and timber interests; Wyden has been less forthcoming. Both members of Congress have indicated that their bills will protect Old Growth […]
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Wanted: Dead or Mostly Dead
“The common understanding of the term ‘live’ is, quite simply, ‘not dead.’” It may sound like something out of a Monty Python movie, but the above is actually a portion of the plaintiff’s argument in a U.S. Court of Appeals case decided last month in the Ninth Circuit. Environmentalists had issued a challenge to salvage […]
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Land grant claims won’t go away
Some of my neighbors in northern New Mexico call this region “occupied Mexico.” They’re only half joking. Heirs of community land grants made by the Spanish and Mexican governments are still arguing – 160 years later – that the U.S. did not honor its obligations under the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. The treaty promised […]
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Knee high by the Fourth of July
I had a flashback today as I went out to irrigate the field of corn on our small ranch in Western Colorado: It was 30 years ago or so, and I was lying flat on my back in a deeply eroded gully on the campus of my old high school outside St. Louis. Ten feet […]
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Of vocabulary and the Fourth
Many small towns promote an “Old-fashioned Fourth of July celebration,” and mine is no exception, starting with an afternoon parade and concluding with fireworks after dusk. Judging by old newspapers and the memories of old-timers, we miss several “old-fashioned” aspects of the celebration: modern kids don’t enjoy much access to potent fireworks like silver salutes […]
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Of parks and particulates
In yet another goodwill gesture to the energy industry, the feds are proposing to loosen air quality restrictions in some national parks and wilderness areas. The EPA’s new rule would change the way in which emissions are reported, allowing power plants to substitute an annual average in place of averages for shorter periods, such as […]
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There’s one man’s veto Congress can’t override
When the Bogeyman goes to sleep at night, he checks his closet for Chuck Norris. Chuck Norris, on the other hand, does not sleep. He waits. He is the reason Waldo is hiding. He uses pepper spray to season his steaks. He uses 8×10 sheets of plywood as toilet paper. And Norris, the former “Walker, […]
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Democratic? National Convention comes to Denver
The 2008 Democratic National Convention is looming – and the recurring questions about free speech, public spaces and national security are on the minds of freedom-loving people everywhere. Not surprisingly, those who plan to protest at the Democratic National Convention next month will most likely be confined to a fenced in “designated protest zone.” This […]