How Much is Enough

December 31, 2015

How much land should the government own? Most westerners don’t give it much thought, but stoically accept the reality that government owns almost all of the land around us. But in the nation’s capital there is a serious debate underway about it, for the first time in a century. When I headed the Colorado Department […]

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States Can Save Feds the Trouble

December 31, 2015

The Environmental Protection Agency finally published its final “Clean Power Plan” last week, and it was greeted this week with more lawsuits than anything EPA has ever tried. More than half of the States have already filed suit to stop the regulations, as have labor unions, utilities, rural electrics, manufacturers, business groups, and many others. […]

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Ignore the Message, Shoot the Messenger

November 5, 2015

A new study says that the EPA horribly underestimated the impact its new regulations might have on power plants across the nation. The Institute for Energy Research (IER) is a Washington-based think tank that has studied energy policies and their effect on the economy for over 20 years. Its report now joins dozens of other […]

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You Honeyfuggling Puzzlewit!

October 30, 2015

During former President Theodore Roosevelt’s independent campaign of 1912, he famously referred to incumbent President William Howard Taft as a “puzzlewit.” The self-defining term is a rarely-used but creative and entertaining word for someone stupid. It provoked Taft, who responded by calling Roosevelt a “honeyfuggler.” That’s worse. It describes a swindler who plots to deceive […]

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A Solution in Search of a Problem

October 15, 2015

Americans often react to problems with a conclusion that “there ought to be a law.” But on occasion, we get so wrapped up in the process of making law that we forget what the problem was. This is especially dangerous at the federal level, where the rulemaking process takes so long that the problem may […]

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Check Your Common Sense at the Door

October 15, 2015

In Philadelphia you have to get a $300 business license to write a blog. One poor woman complained that her blog wasn’t much of a business, as she had earned only $11 from it last year, but the City fined her anyway. (My blog, like millions of others, is for information and perhaps entertainment, but […]

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Out of the Frying Pan

October 5, 2015

The Interior Department announced this week that it would not add the Greater Sage Grouse to the endangered species list, and many westerners breathed a sigh of relief. To many, the decision sounded like a victory for state and local efforts to conserve a species without the heavy-handed regulatory approach that comes with a federal […]

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Hard Work Begets Wisdom

October 5, 2015

Like millions of other Americans, I have always been fascinated by old family stories and genealogy. I’ve spent more time than most researching the family tree, but the stories are much more enlightening than just names and dates. My own grandparents and other relatives really kindled my interest in natural resources as far back as […]

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Second-Hand Smoke

October 5, 2015

During a recent trip from Grand Junction to Durango, I was coughing because of all the smoke filling the mountain valleys of Western Colorado. Over the past few years, we have almost become accustomed to it in the Grand Valley, though it is unusual for it to blanket so much of the entire region that […]

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Who’s Really in Charge?

September 14, 2015

The President thought government spending was out of control, so he vetoed the appropriations bill. Congress was determined and over-rode the veto, restoring funding despite his objections. But it took 10 days for full funding to be restored, and in the meantime, two federal departments were shut down. That may sound like a common theme […]

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