Why indigenous voices are needed to make U.S. a better democracy.
Congress should appoint delegates to represent tribal nations
Posted inArticles
Powder River Basin coal is fast becoming a “stranded asset”
Nine years ago, Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway Company embarked on a campaign to improve its freight service in and out of the coal-rich Powder River Basin of Montana and Wyoming. Times were good, the coal industry was booming, and BNSF was getting political pressure to beef up its Powder River Basin infrastructure to help meet […]
Posted inArticles
Sparks fly in Colorado over the EPA’s Clean Power Plan
State attorney general may challenge the emissions limit, though a top state environment official supports it.
Posted inArticles
Obama slashes greenhouse gas emissions from power plants
The EPA’s historic Clean Power Plan makes a big push for renewables.
Posted inArticles
The desert doesn’t need this “City”
When President Obama announced central Nevada’s new Basin and Range National Monument July 10, the White House described the area as “one the most undisturbed corners of the broader Great Basin region.” That’s ironic, given that the monument includes a parcel of private ranchland where, for more than four decades, a man named Michael Heizer has […]
Posted inAugust 3, 2015: Outflanked
Young men and fire
Review of “On the Burning Edge: A Fateful Fire and the Men Who Fought It” by Kyle Dickman.
Posted inAugust 3, 2015: Outflanked
Wilderness vs. mining, Roundup research and Western prisons
Hcn.org news in brief.
Posted inAugust 3, 2015: Outflanked
Tracing the Yampa River where it flows free
Review of “Colorado’s Yampa River” by John Fielder.
Posted inAugust 3, 2015: Outflanked
The Latest: Oregon governor passes ethics reforms
The new reforms bar governors’ partners from using their position for personal gain.
Posted inAugust 3, 2015: Outflanked
Surprise attack
In his letter “High-Flyin’ Hypocrisy,” (HCN, 6/8/15) Robert Michael accuses Kathleen Dean Moore of hypocrisy for considering mankind’s destruction of the world because her plane uses the very fuel being produced by the horrors she observes on the ground beneath her. He might have a point, except for the fact that she never separates herself […]
Posted inAugust 3, 2015: Outflanked
Arrival of the cost-benefit state
The Supreme Court wants the Environmental Protection Agency to weigh human health against costs to industry.
Posted inAugust 3, 2015: Outflanked
Protection in name
A recent feature lauds the powers of the president to protect lands by declaring them national monuments (“Monument Man,” HCN, 5/25/15). Meanwhile, in a companion article discussing grazing and oil drilling, the author finds “little has changed on the ground” since Canyon of the Ancients National Monument received its designation. A second sidebar describes a […]
Posted inAugust 3, 2015: Outflanked
No ordinary fire
On a Friday afternoon in July, a wildfire sparked on Southern California’s Cajon Pass. The brush was dry and the winds were strong, speeding the fire toward Interstate 15 and its weekend traffic. Those who saw it later described what followed as surreal: flames shooting into the air, cars on fire, and semis on fire, […]
Posted inAugust 3, 2015: Outflanked
New interns and old errors
Get to know Paige Blankenbuehler and Gloria Dickie. Also, a correction and a clarification.
Posted inAugust 3, 2015: Outflanked
Monument-making
John Hart’s essay, “Making a national monument from scratch,” (HCN, 5/25/15) beautifully illustrated the unique history and landscape of the Berryessa Snow Mountain region and the tremendous work it takes to ensure permanent protection for our public lands. It is important to underscore that the effort to designate these lands as a national monument is supported […]
Posted inAugust 3, 2015: Outflanked
It’s time to end Custer worship
A Montanan faces up to the West’s own history of racism.
Posted inAugust 3, 2015: Outflanked
Finding the quiet West inside
A writer remembers a week spent on a cattle ranch, and an unexpected discovery.
Posted inAugust 3, 2015: Outflanked
Entertaining toddlers
Start them young. My 19-month-old grandson, River, is in love with the “Tree of Life” illustration on the June 8, 2015, cover. My thanks to Bryce Gladfelter for an image that can entertain a small child, over and over: birds, bugs, lizards, spiders and so much more to point at. But I must say he […]
Posted inAugust 3, 2015: Outflanked
Does the fate of the silvery minnow foretell the Rio Grande’s future?
Biologists go to great lengths to keep the fish alive, but it’s nearly extinct in the wild.
Posted inAugust 3, 2015: Outflanked
Damage from smugglers
As a longtime subscriber to your magazine and someone who values your focus on issues across the West, I do take exception to your “Latest” item about Sen. John McCain’s bill to increase the Border Patrol’s access to the borderlands, (HCN, 5/25/15). I can assure you that, as a retired Border Patrol agent, any environmental damage done while agents […]