New bills in the legislature could curb industry excesses.
State government
Posted inJanuary 11, 2024: The Creatures in Our Midst
Washington’s solar permitting leaves tribal resources vulnerable to corporations
Tribal officials say the process threatens cultural resources and what remains of healthy Indigenous foodways.
Posted inDecember 1, 2023: December 2023
Has Montana solved its housing crisis?
A spate of new state laws will spur housing development. Will anyone be able to afford what’s getting built?
Posted inArticles
New Mexico’s displaced coal miners have gotten the shaft on severance pay
The state’s just transition plans promised by the Energy Transition Act haven’t panned out for many workers.
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California will need $21.5 billion to clean up its oil sites. Who’s going to pay for it?
As industry transitions away from fossil fuels, its profits will fall behind remediation costs.
Posted inJune 1, 2023: Seen and Unseen
How the tiny brine shrimp can help protect the Great Salt Lake
A conversation with the sixth-grade activists behind Utah’s new state crustacean.
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What hazardous cargo moves on Colorado railroads? It’s a ‘black box’, even to state regulators
In many Western states, 19th-century laws and deregulation allow chemical- laden trains to roll in obscurity — leaving hazmat teams guessing.
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Western legislatures take on foreign land ownership
Six bills in six states propose limits on who can own land, homes and natural resources in the region.
Posted inMarch 1, 2023: Moving Parts
Green colonialism is flooding the Pacific Northwest
The Yakama Nation is fighting a pumped hydro storage development near Goldendale, Washington – but it’s just one of many.
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5 new state bills that could shape the future of energy in Alaska
The state’s legislative session has just begun. Here are the bills climate activists are watching.
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Montana’s anti-Indigenous politics aren’t going away
The now-dead proposal to ‘investigate’ reservations was neither the beginning or the end of combative attitudes towards tribal nations in the state.
Posted inFebruary 1, 2023: The Reveal
In a warming world, California’s trees keep dying
That could doom the state’s plan to fight climate change with the help of nature.
Posted inMarch 1, 2023: Moving Parts
Here’s what it takes to build Alaska’s highways of ice
Frozen rivers are vital transportation routes for communities outside the state’s traditional road system.
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Colorado works on an oil and gas well cleanup guarantee, but doubts loom
The state’s financial assurance process called ‘the strongest in the nation.’
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At first, locals protested Alaska’s land sale. Now, they’re reclaiming it
The buyers plan to transform 40 acres of fire-scarred land into a sustainable, Indigenous-led farm.
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The environmental consequences of Gov. Ducey’s rogue ‘border wall’
Slicing across Arizona’s Coronado National Forest, the barrier will stop more migrating mammals than humans.
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Yak Titʸu Titʸu Yak Tiłhini say it’s time to return Diablo Canyon lands to Indigenous hands
The tribe, also known as the Northern Chumash, are requesting the return of their coastal home, currently occupied by PG&E’s nuclear power plant.
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The divide over Diablo
Greens battle greens over the fate of California’s last nuke plant.
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Photos: The pride and pain of the UFW march
California farmworkers and their advocates walked 335 miles to the state’s capitol in support of voting protections.
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Roe v. Wade’s reversal threatens to make incarcerated pregnant people even more vulnerable
‘It violates all the principles of reproductive justice.’