Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Shooting Spree.” Relentless Johanna Wald Natural Resources Defense Council, branch in San Francisco Bio Law degree from Yale University, 1967 Helped open the first NRDC office in California in 1972, and quickly became the leader in BLM issues, pioneering cases on grazing, coal mining […]
Politics
Posted inMay 10, 2004: Shooting Spree
Shooting Spree
The Bush administration is perforating our basic environmental laws. Can a cadre of seasoned green lawyers stop it?
Posted inMay 10, 2004: Shooting Spree
Filmmakers Filmmakers Dru Carr and Doug Hawes-Davis: Documenting the Evolving West
MISSOULA, MONTANA — Filmmaking isn’t about big budgets, explosions or special effects for Dru Carr and Doug Hawes-Davis, the only full-time employees at the Missoula, Mont.-based High Plains Films. Instead, it’s the tool they use to document — and, they hope, protect — the ever-evolving West. In the early ’90s, Carr and Hawes-Davis were students […]
Posted inApril 26, 2004: Outsourced
Senate rejects Energy Bill – again
But the energy industry is amply funding its champions’ re-election
Posted inApril 26, 2004: Outsourced
Green investor Hal Brill: Bringing the Money Home
PAONIA, COLORADO — In a house stuffed with green-building books, astrologic calendars and a world-spanning array of wooden drums, a basement office is one of the few signs that Hal Brill’s life has headed squarely into the world of high finance and asset management. “I’m definitely one of the more unlikely candidates to be an […]
Posted inWotr
Democrats hope for a new day in the West
Two recent events signal a new development in Western politics. The first is New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson’s call for a Western primary in the mountain states of Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming. The second is the launching of a “Democrats for the West” initiative by leading Democrats from those […]
Posted inWotr
Eating humble pie can be good for you
From the fifth rung of the ladder, I surveyed the scene, and the conclusion was unavoidable: I’d been screwing up for years. This winter marked a full decade since I bought a small orchard on the north coast of California, but the trees weren’t in top condition any more. With my two riverside acres came […]
Posted inApril 12, 2004: The One-Party West
Race track
Idaho Sen. Mike Crapo may have blown big bucks for nothing. The incumbent senator, who has already spent $1.5 million on his re-election campaign, will not be facing a Democratic challenger in November. According to the Idaho Statesman, would-be Democratic candidate Michael Kennedy’s campaign organizer missed the filing deadline by seconds, after the first challenger […]
Posted inApril 12, 2004: The One-Party West
The environment’s ‘most durable foe’
During the rising tide of environmentalism in the 1960s, one man earned the title of the movement’s “most durable foe.” Historian Steven C. Schulte’s new book, Wayne Aspinall and the Shaping of the American West, profiles the congressman who unabashedly promoted the development of the West’s public lands and shaped American environmental policy. For more […]
Posted inApril 12, 2004: The One-Party West
The One-Party West
With one foot in the cities and one foot in the country, Western Democrats can put hope back into political life
Posted inApril 12, 2004: The One-Party West
Colorado Senate race steps into national spotlight
Democrats look to regain seat and hold the line in the U.S. Senate
Posted inApril 12, 2004: The One-Party West
Wrecking homes for open space: Philanthropist Jennifer Speers
MOAB, UTAH — Call her a home-wrecker, and Jennifer Speers just laughs. But the title fits. In February 2003, Speers purchased the “Rio Colorado at Dewey,” a 115-acre commercial development near Moab, that included a new adobe home with spectacular views of the Colorado River. Just a few months later, she leveled the $600,000 house. […]
Posted inApril 12, 2004: The One-Party West
Republicans need to claim the environmental middle ground
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “The One-Party West.” At a time when the United States is deeply — and evenly — divided politically, the Rocky Mountain West is firmly in the grasp of the Republican Party. Thank goodness. I believe Republican leaders are better equipped to meet the challenges […]
Posted inApril 12, 2004: The One-Party West
Why Greens need blue blazers
One of my childhood friends, Karl Warkomski, is the first and only elected Green Party member in ultra-right-wing Orange County, Calif. Orange County — home to the mega-hawk and former congressman “B2 Bob” Dornan — is a place where people get misty eyed remembering the Reagan presidency. So how in the world did Karl get […]
Posted inWotr
Bush is audacious, but should that be surprising?
Indulge a small fantasy: It is 1993, and Bill Clinton, about to become the first Democratic president in 12 years, meets with the men who control his party’s majorities in Congress. “Mr. President,” say Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell and House Speaker Tom Foley, “you are our leader. You make the final decisions. We have […]
Posted inWotr
Watch out Mars, we don’t treat frontiers with respect
The same day President Bush announced his plan to “continue the journey” into space by colonizing the moon and heading for Mars, I stood in line at the grocery store and thought about space exploration as just another excuse to head ever Westward, another distraction for troubles at home, another frontier to conquer and leave […]
Posted inMarch 29, 2004: Who Will Take Over the Ranch?
Connecting Indian Country: Talk-show host Harlan McKosato
ALBUQUERQUE, NEW MEXICO — Up on the third floor of Oñate Hall, the broadcast center for radio station KUNM-FM at the University of New Mexico, a pungent, distinctive aroma hangs in the midday air. It seems out of place in the halls of what looks like a nondescript college office building. “Did you smell the […]
Posted inMarch 29, 2004: Who Will Take Over the Ranch?
Bush is a man of his word: He’s audacious, but should that be surprising?
Indulge a small fantasy: It is 1993, and Bill Clinton, about to become the first Democratic president in 12 years, meets with the men who control his party’s majorities in both Houses of Congress. “Mr. President,” say Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell and House Speaker Tom Foley, in unison, “you are our leader. We hope […]
Posted inWotr
Judges tie themselves in knots when it comes to the West
Liberals have had their runs at dominating the federal court system, now it’s the Republicans’ turn. It’s not a sport, but it has some spectacular gyrations: Call it judicial flip-flopping. Most recently, it’s played by federal judges in Wyoming and Washington, D.C. — one ordering the National Park Service to ban snowmobiles in Yellowstone Park, […]
Posted inMarch 15, 2004: The New Water Czars
Persistence frees the Mokelumne: River advocate Pete Bell
California’s Mokelumne River flows from a high mountain lake in the Sierra Nevada, plunging down in a series of cascading waterfalls through a steep forest canyon in the foothills. Dams and diversions have reduced the once free-flowing river to a relative trickle. But that is changing, thanks in large part to the efforts of a […]