Having It Both Ways

July 17, 2023

A common expression says, “You can’t have your cake and eat it, too.” That makes no sense, as one cannot eat cake if one doesn’t have cake. Of course, that is not how the saying really goes; it’s just a modern lazy version. The idiom dates from 1546, when John Heywood wrote, “would you both […]

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Fixing the Climate by Banning Things

July 5, 2023

I’ve been waiting since May for the media feeding frenzy I assumed would develop, when the Administration announced new rules to further restrict home dishwashers. There has been a deafening silence about it, though, maybe because such overreach no longer astonishes anyone. Or as Senator Bill Armstrong often said, “The only thing shocking about this […]

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Remember When the Judiciary was a Co-equal Branch of Government?

June 30, 2023

Former Interior Secretary Dave Bernhardt’s new book, “You Report to Me,” is edifying for anyone trying to understand why government has become so intrusive, partisan, divisive, and dare I say, dysfunctional. It is a first-hand backgrounder on the evolution of the “administrative state,” with eye-opening examples that beg the question, who is really in charge […]

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The End of a Divisive Era

June 23, 2023

A landmark era of American politics passes into the history books, with Jimmy Carter under end-of-life hospice care, and with the May 27 death of James Watt. Theirs was a moment in time that deserves remembering. Most of America’s essential environmental laws passed in the 1970s with relatively bipartisan support. Yet today, no environmental issue […]

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An Udderly Different Wildfire Strategy

June 16, 2023

Federal land managers and environmental industry lawyers are back in court, rearguing a decade long case about livestock grazing permits. It is a generational debate that finally shows an emerging consensus, though this lawsuit clarifies it’s not universal. Throughout the 1990s when I was at Club 20, one of the Western Slope’s more contentious issues […]

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Californians Want Water – But Not Theirs

June 9, 2023

People concerned about water levels in the West’s reservoirs should be able to cheer up now. The U.S. Drought Monitor system has removed drought status from the entire Western Slope and nearly all of California. Snowpack this winter was well above average for the entire Sierra Nevada Mountain Range, and nearly 50 percent above average […]

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Drought Solution – Are They Serious This Time?

June 2, 2023

My grandpa was a ditch rider on the Stub Canal in Palisade, and when someone used more water than they were entitled to, the solution was simple – he locked the headgates. This week, the seven Colorado River Basin states announced they had finally reached an agreement to reduce their water use, staving off the […]

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Maybe We Should Ration Common Sense

May 26, 2023

I am not old enough to have experienced rationing during World War II, but I heard stories about it from grandparents. They remembered well having to pay an inflated price for many goods, not just in money but also rationing stamps and tokens issued to every family. The government first rationed tires, but soon added […]

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The Forest Service’s OTHER Mission

May 17, 2023

When I was little, grandpa used to speculate that someday there would be a car that could run without gas. I don’t know if he could have envisioned modern wind and solar power, or lithium-ion batteries, but as a highly skilled blacksmith he had considerable imagination about the future of gadgetry and machinery. He might […]

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Should Agency Experts be Experts?

May 12, 2023

In 2021 President Biden nominated Martha Williams to run the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS). Several powerful environmental industry groups objected and several lobbied intensely against Senate confirmation. This is a position once considered mostly nonpartisan, and historically held by scientists, not political activists. So, a political battle over that nomination has only happened […]

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