Outside special interests dumped some $30 million dollars on the Montana race for the US Senate between Democratic incumbent Jon Tester and Republican challenger Denny Rehberg, but the race came down to something that costs $19: A Montana resident hunting and fishing license. Sportsmen issues of access, wolves and gun rights headlined both the news […]
Sportsmen sealed reelection for Sen. Jon Tester
Posted inGoat
HCN’s take on Western elections
(Updated November 8) Political trends established over the last several years, or decades, in the American West mostly continued in yesterday’s elections — providing more evidence that our region is not coherent politically, but instead is really two opposing sub-regions. Democrats held or even gained ground in the coastal states (California, Oregon and Washington) as […]
Posted inGoat
King Coal is still King
Last week, as I was working on a story about the so-called “War on Coal” being waged by Obama (spoiler alert: It’s cheap natural gas, not the current administration, that’s the culprit), I ran into an article indicating that Peabody Energy, the biggest coal company in the world, plans to lay off about a thousand […]
Posted inOctober 29, 2012: Red State Rising
Wyoming Conservation Voters closes after 11 years
Wyoming pronghorn trek 120 miles, leaving Grand Teton National Park to winter near Pinedale, in one of the longest overland mammal migrations in the U.S. Although it’s less photogenic, the winter migration of Wyoming environmental lobbyists to Cheyenne for the legislative session is similarly epic. This was especially true before 2001, when the League of […]
Posted inRange
In the West, the rare earth rush is on
Recent news about the scarcity of rare earth minerals caught my attention just as I was reluctantly learning how to use my new Droid Razr. I am about a decade late for the smart-phone revolution, as I am with most gadgetry. You are welcome to laugh at me for this. I think I have the […]
Posted inGoat
Citizen oversight fizzles in Wyoming gas patch
The Pinedale Anticline gas field is a striking spot to visit. Even with the West-wide drilling slowdown caused by a recent bottoming out of natural gas prices, the place was hopping one hot evening last July as I explored its confusing web of roads during a reporting trip. Everywhere I looked, there seemed to be […]
Posted inOctober 29, 2012: Red State Rising
Utah’s Bob Bennett on the Tea Party, wilderness and life after Congress
Bob Bennett, 79, served as a U.S. senator for Utah from 1992 until 2010, when he lost the 2010 Republican primary to Tea Party candidate Mike Lee. “I was really upset for the first 48 hours,” Bennett says. “Then it was like, ‘I’m free at last, free at last!’ ” Bennett, now a political consultant, […]
Posted inRange
Rants from the Hill: My home lake
“Rants from the Hill” are Michael Branch’s monthly musings on life in the high country of Nevada’s western Great Basin desert. Edward Abbey began Desert Solitaire with the following words: “This is the most beautiful place on earth. There are many such places.” Well, my home lake here in Silver Hills is the most gorgeous […]
Posted inGoat
The stink over SkiLink
Updated Nov. 6, 2012 Utah’s Wasatch Range promises wintry solitude and deep chutes of fluffy powder for backcountry skiers. Its forested watershed provides more than half of Salt Lake City’s drinking water. But it’s far from untouched: The area also hosts 11 ski resorts that draw thousands of visitors each year for lift-served skiing and […]
Posted inOctober 29, 2012: Red State Rising
How the Mormon GOP runs Utah with a collectivist touch
“Our object is to labor for the benefit of the whole …” –Brigham Young, 1873 A throng of cars floats down Interstate 15 on an end-of-summer morning, the rising sun wreathed in the orange gauze of distant wildfire smoke. In Lehi, a suburb sandwiched between Salt Lake City and Provo, a massive steel-and-glass shape juts […]
Posted inArticles
Rantcast: Goodbye, listeners
Hi podcast listeners. Thanks so much for tuning in to the Rants from the Hill podcast for the past 6 months. We recently decided to discontinue our podcasts due to staffing limitations at High Country News. But never fear, you can still read the Rants from the Hill online, at HCN.org, on the first Monday […]
Posted inGoat
Strange days
It was Halloween Wednesday night. This brought an extra degree of strangeness to our small town. I saw a cop handing candy to some kids, a giant red bear gyrating on the dance floor, and three of the town’s most ambitious young women shackled in binders. Over the past weeks, as elections draw closer, a […]
Posted inOctober 29, 2012: Red State Rising
Voters shape energy policy by choosing utility regulators
Cam Cooper raises pedigree Angus cattle along the Big Hole River, a beautiful, rural region of southwest Montana. Like most ranchers, her politics are “quite conservative,” she says. “I generally vote Republican.” But this November, she’ll vote for at least one Democrat: John Vincent, an ally in Cooper’s battle against a new transmission line that […]
Posted inWotr
A trip back in time
Despite all those scary stories I’ve been reading and seeing in the American media about how dangerous and violent Mexico has become, I’m always eager to head south of the border. It’s because rural Mexico reminds me of a simpler time. Like the recent trip I took to the town of Ortiz, a journey that […]
Posted inRange
Of coal and cows in eastern Montana
By Heather Hansen, Red Lodge Clearing House As the Montana Department of Environmental Quality mulls an expansion of a coal strip mine east of Billings, the public has an opportunity to give input on what environmental factors the agency should consider. Chugging away in the northern corner of the well-endowed Powder River Basin, the Rosebud mine is […]
Posted inGoat
The money trail
The Montana Statesman calls itself “Montana’s largest and most trusted news source.” It is edited and published by Donald Ferguson, an “award-winning newspaper veteran,” boasts the Statesman’s website. Its home page features 11 stories — six of them unflattering portraits of Steve Bullock, Montana’s attorney general and the Democratic candidate for governor. The headlines topping the page: “Bullock admits […]
Posted inWotr
Nevada, face down and flailing
Suddenly, this election season, state politicians in Nevada are refusing to sign the pledge – the one anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist has been foisting upon conservative candidates and lawmakers for years. It requires the faithful to swear that they will never, ever raise taxes. Many signers surely believe in it; others sign for fear of […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
Death Valley wins heat contest
CALIFORNIA Not far from stands of huge redwood trees and often doused by rain, fans of Humboldt State’s Division II football team cheer on their team with an unusual array of helpers. An ax-wielding drum major cavorts in front of the crowd while some members of the Marching Lumberjack Band make music by banging on […]
Posted inGoat
Is the Western growth machine coming out of its coma?
I like to keep an eye on what the housing market’s doing in the West. That’s not because I’m invested in it — my family and I have been happy renters since we sold our house a year ago. I’m interested in the housing market because this one data set can tell so much about […]
Posted inGoat
Fecal matters
The Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn, NY is one of the nation’s most polluted waterways. Toxic sludge lines the bottom of the canal, designated a Superfund site, and used condoms, human feces and tampons bob on the surface. Every time it rains, wastewater treatments plants inundated with storm water flush sewage and run-off into the Gowanus […]