Same As It Ever Was

March 11, 2016

Like many westerners who deal with water issues, I have often found myself explaining our complex system of water laws, which seem bizarre in parts of the country where it rains all the time. People in such places (like Washington, D.C.) have trouble understanding why the right to use water is considered property, why someone […]

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You Mean It’s Really About Money?

February 22, 2016

Almost all the climate economists in the world now agree. Tax carbon dioxide and do it now. Since President Obama failed to secure the binding international agreements he so wanted from the International Climate Conference in Paris last month, the U.N. and its allies have another strategy. Leaders who use global warming as a tool […]

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File the Pink Copy by Date

February 22, 2016

When I first started work on Capitol Hill in the 1970s, we used three colors of carbon paper to file and cross-reference every outgoing snail-mail letter. We filed the pink copies by date, yellow by issue, and green by constituent name. It was considered very efficient in days when Senators routinely received 1000 letters a […]

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Let’s Hope Nobody Sees This

February 22, 2016

There is a tried and true method for making embarrassing announcements that nobody will notice. Put out a press release during the holidays. It is a system used by politicians for years. That explains the fairly scant coverage of a major policy shift for the U.S. Forest Service on the decades-old issue of federal control […]

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Riding the Omnibus

December 31, 2015

Last week Congress averted the annual year-end scare over a government shutdown, passing an “omnibus” appropriation bill that funds the government for a few more months. The 2,000-page monster bill contained plenty for everyone on both sides to hate, and it has been criticized by lots of folks on both sides. I know people on […]

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Hail the Conquering Hero

December 31, 2015

President Obama and a contingent of nearly 500 Americans returned last week from the much-anticipated climate conference in Paris, armed with a historic new international agreement – finally – to address what the President has called the most urgent threat to our national security, and our planet. What a fitting message to the terrorist thugs […]

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The Albatross Around Our Necks

December 31, 2015

Hardly anyone noticed an important occurrence this week on the tiny Pacific Atoll forever known to history as Midway, site of the most decisive naval battle of World War II. American military activity on the island was shut down about 20 years ago, and Congress made the deserted place a national wildlife refuge. This week […]

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Low Energy Candidates

December 31, 2015

In several of the presidential campaign debates, candidates have referred to each other as “low-energy,” and the accusation has stuck, especially when leveled by Donald Trump at Jeb Bush. But in one sense, all of the candidates on both sides are “low-energy,” that is, none of them are really talking much about energy issues. Even […]

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Getting Ahead by Destroying Others

December 31, 2015

Among truly ambitious people, I have learned that there are two distinct types: those who seek to improve themselves and their value to others, and those who think they can get ahead by dragging others down. There are many ways to destroy competitors, in business or in politics, but that strategy rarely produces lasting success […]

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A Rose is Still a Rose

December 31, 2015

Gertrude Stein wrote her famous line “Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose” in a 1913 poem and repeated it in other works throughout her life. She explained it as meaning “things are what they are,” that simply using the name of a thing evokes imagery and emotions. But what if we […]

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