Unsolicited Advice to the Sierra Club

November 19, 2025

After the 2020 George Floyd murder, the Sierra Club called for defunding police and reparations for slavery. It touched off an internal battle that tore the organization apart, leading to the ouster of two consecutive executive directors, employee layoffs, office closings, loss of members, and financial freefall. It also invited some unsolicited advice – from me. My column, […]

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What Happened to the Buffalo?

November 14, 2025

Theodore Roosevelt and Sitting Bull both thought the great American buffalo were extinct. Roosevelt called it “a veritable tragedy of the animal world,” and Sitting Bull said, “a cold wind blew on the prairie the day the last buffalo fell.” They didn’t know there were still about 100 remaining, but they were almost right. In […]

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Taxpayers Are On the Hook – Anyone Else?

November 7, 2025

A decade ago, three giant companies took advantage of federal incentives to build the world’s largest solar power plant in the Mojave Desert, known as Ivanpah. It was “the wave of the future,” a new technology that focuses 300,000 computer-controlled mirrors to reflect solar rays onto three boiler towers, each the height of a 40-story […]

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Just When You Thought Congress Dysfunctional

October 31, 2025

Last week, the Senate passed three Congressional Review Act resolutions overturning BLM resource management plans. What would have been called an earth-shattering precedent not so long ago was this time hardly noticed except by those who closely follow Interior and energy issues. The Biden-era resource management plans were designed to lock up millions of acres […]

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International Trade, Free Markets, and Killer Whales

October 22, 2025

When Congress authorized nearly $400 billion in climate subsidies, the bill was called the “Inflation Reduction Act,” though it had nothing to do with inflation. The 2001 “Patriot Act” was about expanding government surveillance powers, not patriotism. The massive new federal health insurance program was called “Affordable Care Act,” though it did not reduce the […]

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West Slope’s Conscience v. Denver’s Memory

October 8, 2025

Washington Evening Star humorist Philander Chase Johnson created a great character named Senator Sorghum. A 1902 piece called “A Delicate Distinction” had one character saying, “That friend of yours seems to have a clear conscience.” Senator Sorghum answered, “No, not a clear conscience; merely a bad memory.” A convenient memory is common in politics. And current […]

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Feds Need Different Approach to Colorado River

October 1, 2025

This month’s withdrawal of President Trump’s nominee to head the Bureau of Reclamation (BOR) provides an opportunity, not just for a new nominee but for a new approach to the whole Colorado River management mess. It is an opportunity the White House and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum should take very seriously. The nominee’s withdrawal, due […]

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Do Your Rights End at My Property?

September 24, 2025

John B. Finch, a 19th Century prohibition activist, originated the expression, “your right to swing your arm ends just where my nose begins.” Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes often used similar analogies to argue that personal freedoms do not extend to injuring the safety or property of others. Yet he also upheld limitations on property rights […]

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Beneficial Use is Well Defined, Well Understood

September 16, 2025

Last week when some marauding teens bashed a mailbox with a bat, angry neighbors posted on nextdoor.com, “there needs to be a law against that.” Is that just an impulse reaction, or do they really not know there is a law against that. Since 1909, it has been a federal offense to tamper with, vandalize, […]

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Someone Has to Pull the Lever

September 12, 2025

All my adult life, presidents have talked about energy independence. Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Clinton, and both Bush’s vowed to end dependence on foreign oil, to no avail. Even Obama and Biden, who did everything they could to stop domestic energy production, at least mouthed the same words. But on both sides, changing policies is […]

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