A proposed ballot initiative in Montana would add one sentence to the state Constitution, “forever” preserving the right of Montana citizens to hunt and fish. However, that right “does not create a right to trespass on private property or diminution of other private rights.” The race is on for retiring Colorado Republican Ben Nighthorse Campbell’s […]
Politics
Posted inAugust 30, 2004: How Long Will it Flow?
Arizona elections stay ‘clean’
Despite a challenge from big business, the state’s public campaign program prevails
Posted inAugust 16, 2004: Journey of Rediscovery
Racetrack
California tribes are standing tall against the Terminator. The California Nations Indian Gaming Association is endorsing Proposition 70, an initiative opposed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, R. Proposition 70 would allow the state to grant tribes renewable 99-year contracts to exceed the current limit of 2,000 slot machines and allow roulette and craps in return for […]
Posted inAugust 16, 2004: Journey of Rediscovery
Tribes turn out to vote
Indians could decide tight races in key Western states
Posted inAugust 16, 2004: Journey of Rediscovery
Taking the load off the environment
BASALT, Colorado — Jonathan Fox-Rubin wants to start a revolution in car manufacturing. In his sunlit office in western Colorado he explains his approach to the weighty question of how to make cars easier on the environment: He goes straight to the body of the car. If the skeletal system of automobiles can be made […]
Posted inWotr
The last best-paid place in the West
Every winter my brother Tom goes to a muzzleloader shoot in central Oregon, where he camps out in a large tent, dons his feathered hat and buckskin leggings and fringed jacket, and shoots his black powder rifle at targets tucked away in the junipers and sagebrush. He usually calls me in Idaho after he returns […]
Posted inAugust 2, 2004: The Greening of the Plains
Speaking up for rural Oregonians: Judge Laura Pryor
JOHN DAY, Oregon — As hail pounds the concrete outside, more than 200 people cram into an Elks Lodge — replete with wood paneling and a smoky bar in the rear — to see Judge Laura Pryor, the chairwoman of the Gilliam County Commission and one of the rural West’s most outspoken champions. With her […]
Posted inWotr
Sometimes a policy is just words
One of our nation’s more dubious political practices is the tendency to cloak questionable — even harmful — environmental policies in the rhetoric of conservation. Consider the debatable environmental merits of the current administration’s “Clear Skies” and “Healthy Forest” initiatives, two policies that many argue weaken existing protections for air, water and forests. This month, […]
Posted inJuly 19, 2004: They're Here: Global Warming's Unlikely Harbingers
Of global warming and White House elephants
Any day now, if all goes according to plan, a bill that will actually do something about global warming will come up in the United States Senate. Come up, and go right down. Not even the bill’s sponsors, Republican John McCain of Arizona and Democrat Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, predict passage. Their goal is to […]
Posted inWotr
A Colorado corporation throws its weight around in Montana
When Montanans first employed the ballot initiative in 1912, all four of the measures they passed had a single aim: to curtail the political power of Amalgamated Copper, the state’s mining giant. So it’s no small irony that in 2004, a mining corporation is using the initiative process to try to reverse the expressed will […]
Posted inJuly 19, 2004: They're Here: Global Warming's Unlikely Harbingers
Supreme Court reins in citizens’ right to sue
Conservationists can’t interfere with the government’s ‘own ordering of priorities’
Posted inJuly 19, 2004: They're Here: Global Warming's Unlikely Harbingers
Scientific Principle: Klamath whistleblower throws in the towel
In 2002, federal biologist Mike Kelly “blew the whistle” on the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), the agency responsible for protecting threatened and endangered salmon (HCN, 6/23/03: Sound science goes sour). As one of the scientists charged with ensuring that enough water was left in the Klamath River for rare coho salmon, Kelly discovered that […]
Posted inJune 21, 2004: A Walk Between Worlds
Oil money rules in the West’s mini-Middle East
Wyoming and New Mexico governors walk a jagged line between conservation and fiscal conservatism
Posted inJune 21, 2004: A Walk Between Worlds
Fighting for the Rocky Mountain Front: Montana rancher Karl Rappold
DUPUYER, Montana — Montana’s spectacular Rocky Mountain Front is known for its window-rattling winds. But Karl Rappold, a former rodeo cowboy who raises cattle here, says he was still surprised to get blown out of his saddle — literally — while herding stock last year. The winds that day were clocked at over 120 mph, […]
Posted inWotr
Looking for Heroes? Go to Boise, Idaho
If you want an example of real heroes in the “war on terrorism,” go to Boise, Idaho. Look for 12 of your fellow citizens who recently spent long hours on uncomfortable chairs in a windowless room in the local federal courthouse. These are the jurors who recently found Sami Omar Al-Hussayen innocent of terrorism charges. […]
Posted inWotr
Getting rude at the nation’s big funeral
“Could the anti-everything folks have the common decency,” asked a caller to my public-radio talk show in Oregon, “to wait until the body gets cold before jumping on it?” Former president Ronald Reagan was being put to rest, and it was easy to understand how his admirers felt. Those of us outside that category might […]
Posted inJune 7, 2004: Wal-Mart's Manifest Destiny
Defending the West Desert: Utah activist Jason Groenewold
SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH — Utah’s West Desert is a tough place to love. The barren landscape, which stretches across tens of thousands of square miles along Utah’s border with Nevada, lacks the redrock spires and canyons that draw recreationists and sightseers to southern Utah. The occasional mountain range and salt flat are the only […]
Posted inMay 24, 2004: In Search of Solidarity
A champion of ‘cooperative conservation’: Interior Secretary Gale Norton
In recent months, High Country News has spilled a lot of ink covering the Bush administration’s policies for the public lands — and the controversies swirling around them. At the center of that storm is Bush’s secretary of the Interior, Gale Norton. Norton is charged with overseeing the National Park Service, the Bureau of Land […]
Posted inMay 24, 2004: In Search of Solidarity
The Complete Gale Norton Interview
Full transcript of the HCN Interview with Gale Norton, along with Kit Kimball, communications officer with the Interior Department, and Matt Kales of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The concise interview is located at (HCN, 5/24/04: A champion of ‘cooperative conservation’: Interior Secretary Gale Norton) Editor’s Note: HCN is particularly interested in hearing from […]
Posted inWotr
A feminist liberal looks back at age 90
What’s it like to look back at 90, over most of a century? Been there, done that, enjoyed most of it. When I was born in 1914, women could not vote. But in my lifetime, a woman named Hillary Clinton may well become president. The year I was born, we were at war. When I […]