Idaho

Larry Craig’s environmental legacy was dismal, but his successor’s might be better

In keeping with the classy GOP tradition -- out with the gay and in with the new -- Sen. Larry Craig is now history. But, expanding on Tom's post, it's worth keeping in mind that his brown legacy extends well past his much-lampooned arrest in an airport toilet.

The New West Network has a fairly encyclopedic rundown of the many ways in which Larry Craig obstructed legislation that was friendly to the environment and advanced measures detrimental to it. Some highlights: Craig supported offshore drilling, supported drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, obstructed appropriations to, among other programs, the Land and Water Conservation Fund, promoted the transportation of nuclear weapons to Yucca Mountain for storage therein, deappropriated funds intended to count the dwindling population of salmon in the Columbia and Snake rivers, trounced efforts to raise public land grazing fees, and attempted to deregulate big timber. It's quite a record -- all the more worth mentioning because some of the names being tossed around as potential replacements present such an enormous opportunity for improvement.

Cars are more expensive than you think

Everyone knows that cars are expensive, right? Still, it may come as a surprise to find out just how much money we spend getting from place to place.

The cost of the car itself -- typically the second biggest purchase many families make in their lives -- is just the start. When you start adding in the cost of gasoline, and car insurance, and maintenance and repairs, and parking, and taxes to build new roads and maintain old ones, and license fees, and the medical costs of traffic accidents ... boy, I could go on all day ... suffice it to say, the zeros start adding up.

Property-rights initiatives threaten environmental protections in four Western states

Field of dreams or field of nightmares? It depends who you ask. Photos: iStockphoto When you hear the phrase “a perfect storm,” it’s likely to conjure images of roiling whitecaps, perhaps a daring Coast Guard rescuer dangling from a helicopter to pull half-drowned sailors from their foundering vessels. Chances are the last thing it will […]

Tender Loving Caribou

Judge sides with caribou, bans snowmobiles from some Idaho national forests Mountain caribou celebrated last week as a judge banned snowmobiles from a nearly 470-square-mile caribou recovery zone in the Idaho Panhandle National Forests. The ban will hold unless the U.S. Forest Service can develop a winter recreation strategy that would enable noisy, polluting vehicles […]

Kempthorne leads list of possible replacements for Norton at Interior

The rumor mill is churning fast as Interior Secretary Gale Norton prepares to bid adieu to the Bush administration, and two names on the short list of possible replacements are leading the pack: for an outside-the-Beltway pick, Dirk Kempthorne, Republican governor of Idaho; for an inside-the-agency pick, Lynn Scarlett, currently Norton’s No. 2, who will […]

Back to the Yellowstone Age

The Bush administration has asked the United Nations to remove Yellowstone National Park from a list of endangered World Heritage sites. “Yellowstone is no longer in danger,” wrote the Interior Department’s Paul Hoffman in a letter to the World Heritage Committee. There’s just one snag: The park staff disagree with Hoffman, saying Yellowstone still faces […]

How we could save both forests and jobs

The “roadless” road show swept the nation last week as U.S. Forest Service officials collected public comment on President Clinton’s initiative to prohibit road building in national forests where no roads now exist. What’s missing from this picture? Photo: U.S. Forest Service. The policy would affect 43 million acres across the country, including about 5.8 […]

Fire on the Mountain

Enviros in Washington are apoplectic over what they fear will be a pre-Earth Day cave-in by the Clinton administration over mountaintop-removal mining in West Virginia. This used to be a mountain. Photo: David Miller, www.mountaintopmining.org. Readers may recall this battle from last year’s appropriations season, when powerful Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) introduced a rider that […]