North Dakota sued the Interior Department at least five times under Gov. Doug Burgum. Now he’s set to run the agency.
Coal
Posted inIssues
What happens after Utah’s coal-fired power plants close?
Department of Energy grants are helping eastern Utah plan for the energy transition.
Posted inArticles
Jimmy Carter’s mixed environmental record
The former president emphasized conservation, protection — and coal mining.
Posted inArticles
How Utah’s Christmas Festival has buoyed a changing coal community
Thirty-five years ago, Helper was nearly a ghost town. Now, art and tourism are providing new paths forward.
Posted inArticles
Utah’s coal mines can’t find enough workers
A mine just reopened in eastern Utah, but the industry has changed.
Posted inArticles
Beautiful Bears Ears is at risk, again
What are the consequences for the land if the incoming president shrinks the national monument?
Posted inNovember 2024: The Once and Future Prairie
How the climate is changing your energy bill
Wildfires and winter storms are costing utilities and families.
Posted inJanuary 2025: The West's Most Wanted
What Project 2025 has to say about Native communities
The initiative focuses heavily on resource extraction of tribal lands but lacks detail on other key issues.
Posted inArticles
Trump vs. Biden on the climate
The next presidential election will have huge ramifications for the planet.
Posted inArticles
The good, the bad and the ugly of the state legislative season
While Congress does nothing, Western state lawmakers pass a flurry of consequential and/or crazy — bills.
Posted inArticles
New Mexico’s displaced coal miners have gotten the shaft on severance pay
The state’s just transition plans promised by the Energy Transition Act haven’t panned out for many workers.
Posted inSeptember 1, 2023: Food Justice
Revisiting the Rock Springs Massacre
In 1885, white coal miners in Wyoming Territory, murdered at least 28 Chinese men and ran the rest of the Chinese out of town at gunpoint. These artworks bring that history back to the present.
Posted inMay 1, 2023: Reemergence
How a dinosaur is redefining a rural coal town
The 74 million-year-old fossil of Walter the hadrosaur brings paleo-tourism to Craig, Colorado.
Posted inArticles
The Willow project is part of a larger trend: energy colonialism
Five decades ago, the late Navajo Nation President Peterson Zah described America’s ‘power madness.’
Posted inArticles
Is carbon capture the solution for jobs and climate action in fossil fuel country?
A project in Wyoming’s coal region brings the new technology, but critics say it carries unacceptable risks.
Posted inDecember 1, 2022: Beyond Illusion
Carbon capture convolution
A complicated process, explained.
Posted inSeptember 1, 2022: Going Under
Can ravaged economies be healed with a restoration industry?
Cleaning up the West could be as lucrative as wrecking it.
Posted inArticles
Climate game changer? Or fossil fuel giveaway?
A break down of the Inflation Reduction Act.
Posted inSeptember 1, 2022: Going Under
The EPA has more options to rein in climate change than you think
There are still many ways to shut down major polluters — including some options the agency isn’t using.
Posted inArticles
In Alaska, coal is dwindling as green energy is on the rise
The closure of Healy Unit 2 signals a rise in renewable energy projects around Alaska.