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Writer Wallace Stegner has a rule of thumb: The more arid a state, the worse its congressional delegation. I have a corollary to that rule: The more a state is “blessed” with natural resources, tile worse off it will be economically, socially and politically. Download entire issue to view this article: http://www.hcn.org/issues/21.4/download-entire-issue

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The West is crippled by its resources

by Ed Marston, High Country News
February 27, 1989

					<h1>The West is crippled by its resources</h1>
<p class="byline">by Ed Marston, High Country News <br />February 27, 1989</p>
					
<p>Writer Wallace Stegner has a rule of thumb: The more arid a state, the worse its congressional delegation. I have a corollary to that rule: The more a state is “blessed” with natural resources, tile worse off it will be economically, socially and politically. Download entire issue to view this article: <a class="external-link" href="download-entire-issue">http://www.hcn.org/issues/21.4/download-entire-issue</a></p>

					<p>This &lt;a target=&quot;_blank&quot; href=&quot;https://www.hcn.org/issues/21-4/the-west-is-crippled-by-its-resources/&quot;&gt;article&lt;/a&gt; first appeared on &lt;a target=&quot;_blank&quot; href=&quot;https://www.hcn.org&quot;&gt;High Country News&lt;/a&gt; and is republished here under a &lt;a target=&quot;_blank&quot; href=&quot;https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/&quot;&gt;Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;img src=&quot;https://i0.wp.com/www.hcn.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/cropped-HCN_Logo-Monogram_White_Sq-2.png?resize=150%2C150&amp;amp;quality=100&amp;amp;ssl=1&quot; style=&quot;width:1em;height:1em;margin-left:10px;&quot;&gt;&lt;img id=&quot;republication-tracker-tool-source&quot; src=&quot;https://www.hcn.org/?republication-pixel=true&amp;post=107545&amp;amp;ga4=G-0NS3WVPPTN&quot; style=&quot;width:1px;height:1px;&quot;&gt;&lt;script&gt; PARSELY = { autotrack: false, onload: function() { PARSELY.beacon.trackPageView({ url: &quot;https://www.hcn.org/issues/21-4/the-west-is-crippled-by-its-resources/&quot;, urlref: window.location.href }); } } &lt;/script&gt; &lt;script id=&quot;parsely-cfg&quot; src=&quot;//cdn.parsely.com/keys/hcn.org/p.js&quot;&gt;&lt;/script&gt;</p>

The West is crippled by its resources

A top Interior official’s former ranching clients wanted bison off public land. The Interior Secretary helped make it happen.

The billionaires’ club at the center of America’s public lands fight

Ted Turner owned vast swaths of Western land. What happens to them now?

Emergency plans for the Colorado River buy time, not solutions

War exposes the energy dominance lie

Public lands need less extraction and more rewilding

Know the West.