In the late fall of 2008, the staff of the nonprofit Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility gathered at the Airlie Retreat Center in Virginia’s horse country to plot strategies for a new day dawning: Barack Obama had just been elected president, promising fresh progress on issues that had frustrated environmentalists throughout the eight years of […]
Feature
Posted inJanuary 24, 2011: Serendipity in the Desert
Utah’s Sagebrush Rebellion capital mellows as animal-lovers and enviros move in
Kanab, UtahOn a crisp June morning in the heart of Sagebrush Rebel country, a steady stream of rental cars, minivans and SUVs flows north from Kanab on Highway 89, heading toward the serene, red-rock walls of Angel Canyon. As the highway curves, the landscape flickers through sun and shadows, the sandstone glowing like embers in […]
Posted inDecember 20, 2010: California Dreamin'
California’s Tangled Water Politics
The Sacramento and San Joaquin Delta, formed where the two rivers meet in California’s Central Valley before flowing into San Francisco Bay, is the largest estuary on the entire West Coast of the Americas. But much of the Delta is a remote, labyrinthine wateriness that, for most people, exists only in the mind, wrapped in […]
Posted inDecember 6, 2010: Toxic Past, Toxic Present
Oil and Water Don’t Mix with California Agriculture
KERN COUNTY, CALIFORNIA From the “Petroleum Highway” — a rutted, dusty stretch of California State Route 33 — you can see the jostling armies of two giant industries. To the east, relentless rows of almonds and pistachios march to the horizon. To the west, an armada of oil wells sweeps to the foothills of the […]
Posted inDecember 6, 2010: Toxic Past, Toxic Present
Farming’s Toxic Legacy
Banned ag chemicals linger in neighborhoods that swallowed up former farms and orchards
Posted inDecember 6, 2010: Toxic Past, Toxic Present
Debating Preservation in the Southwest’s Spanish Missions
TUCSON, ARIZONA The temperature drops dramatically as you step through tall church doors into the cavernous interior. The ancient five-foot-thick walls have the dignity of living ruins. Where plaster is missing, you can see graying adobe bricks, and the painted decorations on the whitewashed walls have faded. Yet the Tumacácori mission still seems to breathe, […]
Posted inNovember 22, 2010: Hardrock Showdown
Hardrock Mining Showdown
For background on previous coverage and history on the 1872 mining law, read our Editor’s Note Geologist Jeff Cornoyer steers a Ford van over a rocky, rutted, winding dirt road, climbing the foothills of the Santa Rita Mountains on a toasty August morning. The desert here, about 30 miles southeast of Tucson, is dotted with […]
Posted inNovember 22, 2010: Hardrock Showdown
Washington eco-saboteurs topple towers
Monkey-wrenching of radio station doesn’t last
Posted inNovember 8, 2010: Dr. No
Dr. No
How Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn — and his colleague, Sen. Jim Inhofe — run roughshod over the West
Posted inNovember 8, 2010: Dr. No
Oklahoma vs. the West
This dispute includes drilling, wilderness, guns and climate change
Posted inOctober 25, 2010: Lynch-Mob Politics
How I ran for a U.S. Senate seat, and what I learned
Investigative reporter John Dougherty writes about his surprising Arizona campaign
Posted inOctober 25, 2010: Lynch-Mob Politics
Lynch-mob politics
It’s not the Old West — it’s our guide to this year’s Western elections
Posted inOctober 25, 2010: Lynch-Mob Politics
Montana: Utility regs and clean energy up for grabs
When Democrat Dennis McDonald first decided to try to knock Denny Rehberg out of Montana’s sole seat in the House of Representatives, his chances appeared good. Montana’s Democrats had been on a roll since 2004, winning a Senate seat, the governor’s mansion and four other statewide offices. McDonald has a background in ranching — an […]
Posted inOctober 25, 2010: Lynch-Mob Politics
Nevada: A hairy ride for Harry
Two years ago, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid must have felt on top of the world. He stood at the helm of a Democratically controlled Congress, and he and his state had just helped put a Democrat in the White House. Reid and his cohorts immediately set to work: They scotched the plan to bury […]
Posted inOctober 25, 2010: Lynch-Mob Politics
New Mexico: Wolves, wilderness, drilling and Latinos
“Nothing is more attractive to a wolf than the sound of a crying baby,” said then-Rep. Steve Pearce, R, during a 2007 debate over one of his bills, which sought to kill funding for the federal Mexican wolf reintroduction program in southern New Mexico, Pearce’s district. More recently, Pearce expressed his views of land protection […]
Posted inOctober 25, 2010: Lynch-Mob Politics
Oregon: Tea Party limbo
It’s hard to imagine, in these Tea Party times, a guy with a political history like John Kitzhaber’s having a chance to win a major elected office. As a Democratic state senator in the ’80s, he authored Oregon’s government-funded health plan; later, as governor from 1995 to 2003, he expanded the plan, got more funding […]
Posted inOctober 25, 2010: Lynch-Mob Politics
Utah: A Sagebrush Rebel headed for D.C.
Utah’s most important election this year was held in the springtime, when angry right-wingers overthrew three-term incumbent Sen. Bob Bennett in the Republican primary. Mike Lee, a lawyer who pushes high-profile Sagebrush Rebel cases, is now the Republican candidate for Senate. And given Utah’s history, Lee will almost certainly crush Democrat Sam Granato to win […]
Posted inOctober 25, 2010: Lynch-Mob Politics
Washington: Tea Party limbo #2
Washington is a coffee-drinking state; Starbucks is only one of the many java peddlers rooted in Seattle. Tea, however, at least of the political sort, is not catching on. So the fact that some of this year’s races appear to be ramped up on caffeine can probably be blamed on roasted, ground-up beans. HCN’s Guide […]
Posted inOctober 25, 2010: Lynch-Mob Politics
Wyoming: A popular governor gets mysterious
Democratic Gov. Dave Freudenthal isn’t running for a third term, despite his belief that he could successfully challenge Wyoming’s term-limits law in court and translate his high approval ratings into another win in the ballot boxes. And he’s apparently decided that it’s no longer crucial to have a Democrat in the governor’s office as a […]
Posted inOctober 25, 2010: Lynch-Mob Politics
Arizona: Obama’s curse?
Is President Obama to blame for the Democrats’ troubles? In the West as a whole, maybe. In Arizona? Definitely. When Obama picked Arizona Democratic Gov. Janet Napolitano to run his Homeland Security Department, he inadvertently surrendered the state to an ultra-conservative agenda. The Republican Legislature forged ahead with bills closing state parks and selling off […]