Decisions Based on Science, or Spirits?

September 29, 2023

The Interior Department marked its 172nd anniversary two years ago by recommitting itself to science-based decision-making, instructing its employees to follow the best available science at every turn. It was intended to realign agency procedures with the Data Quality Act of 2000, which set scientific information quality, integrity, and reproducibility standards for information disseminated by federal […]

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Training Kids to Use Dangerous Weapons

September 22, 2023

Are we teaching kids to use dangerous weapons that create a more violent world, or how not to do so? Apparently, that depends on whether you ask the U.S. Department of Education (DoEd), or the governments of all 50 states. In the 2022 “Safer Communities Act,” Congress included a provision eliminating funding for school programs […]

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California Condors on Mt. Garfield?

September 8, 2023

The Endangered Species Act turns 50 this year, while the Administration is proposing a new interpretation of one of the law’s central definitions – and almost nobody has noticed. An Internet search for the proposal turns up an Interior Department press release, but almost no news stories, commentary, or analysis.     The law defines an […]

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BLM’s Investment in a Better America

September 1, 2023

Last week we mentioned the Administration’s “Investing in America Agenda,” and how the Interior Department is spending $44 million of its windfall share of the recent massive spending bills. It is ironic, to say the most, to call government spending “investment,” when all it really amounts to is more employees, more offices, more reports, rules, […]

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Interior Funds Are Absorbed, Not Invested

August 23, 2023

Some time ago, smart politicians figured out they could avoid fallout from unpopular increases in government spending by referring to it as “investing.” To dodge criticism for massive increases in Education Department spending, they called it “investing in our children’s future.” While ramping up spending on EPA, they called it “investing in a cleaner America.” […]

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How Much is an Endangered Fish Worth?

August 18, 2023

Several years ago, I wrote about what I thought must be the world’s most valuable fish. It was not a collectable aquarium fish, though buyers will pay $1,000 for an orange and purple striped Candy Basslet, and $2,500 for a Wrought Iron Butterflyfish. No, it was the rainbow trout in Washington’s Yakima River, estimated by […]

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Why a Tesla Costs More Than a Model T

August 8, 2023

Henry Ford’s use of a moving assembly line finally made it possible for average working Americans to own cars. Automobiles were toys for the rich, but in 1920 Ford lowered the price of a new Model T to $260, about $3,500 in current dollars. Try buying a new car today for $3,500. What caused the […]

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Do We Still Need the “Big Straw?”

August 2, 2023

In the 1980s Gunnison philanthropist Butch Clark offered a novel way to end the age-old West Slope-East Slope water battles. He suggested that Denver could use the Colorado River’s remaining unallocated water by building a pipeline from the Utah line to the Continental Divide. No future Western Slope water use would be threatened; the only […]

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Green Energy – Easier Said Than Done

July 28, 2023

In 2019 the City Manager of Scottsbluff, Nebraska proudly cut the ribbon on a huge, multimillion-dollar, 5.2 megawatt solar farm of over 14,000 photovoltaic panels, saying, “This project will help the city achieve its goal to reduce our carbon footprint and stabilize city costs for the next 25 years.” That dream lasted less than four […]

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Headed for Court – Where Else?

July 21, 2023

The debate may soon turn to litigation on the Administration’s proposed new rule allowing public land to be leased for “conservation,” which is to say, for no use. The proposal was the subject of over 215,000 official comments from groups, businesses, local and state governments, and others, mostly objecting to it. Now that the comment period […]

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