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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These Public Lands Are Different

September 10, 2025

A land ownership checkerboard exists in nearly every state because of an oddity called “state school trust lands.” The federal government granted those lands at the time of statehood, under the Land Ordinance of 1785. Thomas Jefferson’s system divides and records land into townships, each with 36 one-square-mile sections. New states entering the union were […]

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If States Don’t Want Park Sites, Who Does?

August 27, 2025

Referring to the President’s annual budget proposal to Congress, a Bloomberg headline read: “Trump Plans to Offload National Park Sites, But States Don’t Want Them.” Really? I couldn’t help wondering why we have national parks that states don’t want. Without state support, how did they get established in the first place? Funny how many federal officials […]

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Their Jobs Essential. Yours, Not So Much

August 13, 2025

Every time congressional dysfunction has caused a temporary government shutdown, I’ve heard people make fun of the instruction that “essential workers” must report to work anyway. Pundits always ask, if other government workers are not essential, why do we pay them? What business hires workers it doesn’t need? Nearly all employees think they are essential, […]

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What’s So Rare About Rare Earth Minerals?

July 25, 2025

Energy Secretary Chris Wright went to Wyoming last week to cut the ribbon on the first new rare earth mine in the U.S. since the 1950s. Telling the assembled guests and reporters that the “Brook Mine” is critical to breaking China’s “stranglehold on rare earth processing,” he hinted that it might be the first of […]

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Colorado River Solution Has Always Been Obvious

July 18, 2025

Western newspapers, blogs, and podcasts are humming this month with stories that the seven states on the Colorado River are close to an agreement on managing the River in future years. The existing agreements, designed to “supplement” the ancient and sacred Interstate Compact during drought years, are set to expire at the end of 2026, […]

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A Road is a Road is a Road

July 4, 2025

Gertrude Stein wrote her oft-repeated line “A rose is a rose is a rose…” in a 1913 poem. She explained it as meaning “things are what they are.” But what if it’s called something else? That was Juliet’s question to Romeo: “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose, by any other name […]

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Drought Studies – When Will They Ever Learn?

June 27, 2025

Here is a late-breaking flash from a new study released last week at the University of Arizona: westerners use too much water. Pete Seeger’s 1960s folk standard, “Where Have All the Flowers Gone,” is in the Grammy Hall of Fame, made a genuine classic through cover versions by the Kingston Trio; Peter, Paul and Mary; […]

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Supreme Court Nips NEPA – A Good Start

June 11, 2025

Supreme Court decisions occasionally have far-reaching impacts, but the recent ruling in Utah’s Uintah Basin Railway case was a Doozy, in which the Justices unanimously hinted that Eagle County, Colorado should mind its own business. County Commissioners there had challenged the Surface Transportation Board’s approval of the 88-mile rail line, proposed by seven Utah counties […]

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