Environment

Madeleine Pickens ponies up wild-horse adoption plan

Just call it the “Pickens Pony Plan.”

Jumping into an environmental issue with the same headline-grabbing gusto of her billionaire oil-man husband, Madeleine Pickens Monday rode in like the proverbial cavalry at a public meeting in Reno, Nev., on the mounting wild-horse crisis in the western United States.

New BLM oil shale regs draw fire from Salazar, environmental groups

As predicted by environmental groups in a Colorado Independent story last month, new federal regulations dictating government royalties for oil shale production on public lands in Colorado, Wyoming and Utah fall far short of fair compensation, numerous critics said Monday.

Enviros hungrily eye menu of conservation goodies under Obama administration

Besides revising or even rescinding Colorado’s controversial roadless rule, environmentalists are also targeting the Bureau of Land Management’s bitterly contested leasing for natural gas drilling on the Roan Plateau near Rifle as they make a wish list of conservation issues for the incoming Obama administration.

Western Slope pols look for energy industry to take voluntary tax hike

The oil and gas industry spent $10.8 million to bring about the Election Day defeat of Amendment 58, a measure that would have dramatically increased the severance tax the industry pays to the state for extracting resources from Colorado soil.

So it seems counter-intuitive that the industry would now voluntarily agree to pay even more severance tax, which in Colorado is currently the lowest among all major energy-producing states. But that’s exactly what key Western Slope lawmakers are hoping to accomplish in the coming months.

Colorado roadless rule deliberations coming to a head

Efforts to close perceived loopholes in Colorado’s controversial roadless rule, which outlines management plans for 4.4 million acres of largely unspoiled public lands throughout the state, will come to a head Tuesday and Wednesday in Washington as a key federal advisory group meets on the issue.

Arches National … oil and gas field?

Author and naturalist Edward Abbey didn’t even like people hanging out at Arches National Park near Moab, Utah, when he was a seasonal ranger there in the late 1950s. One wonders how he’d feel about the place being overrun by oil and gas wells.

Can ATV riders, bird watchers, skiers and snowmobilers all just get along?

The sprawling 2.5-million-acre White River National Forest in Colorado’s central and northern Rocky Mountains is home to some of the most renowned ski areas in the world, including Vail and Aspen, but other methods of recreating are likely to be the most controversial elements of a revised travel management plan released Thursday.

Battle brewing over Senate proposal to protect public lands

Senate majority leader Harry Reid appears poised to deliver on a recent promise to revisit the Omnibus Public Lands Management Act of 2008, which combines more than 150 separate conservation bills and would permanently protect nearly two million acres of public lands in eight states as wilderness.

GAO recommends drastic action to rein in costs of caring for wild horses

The runaway costs of caring for wild horses both in Bureau of Land Management corrals and on the open range have reached a “critical crossroads,” according to a report released Monday by the Government Accountability Office (GAO).

The midnight deregulation express

It’s something of a tradition — administrations using their final weeks in power to ram through a slew of federal regulations. With the election grabbing the headlines, outgoing federal bureaucrats quietly propose and finalize rules that can affect the health and safety of millions.