Key takeaways from our investigation revealing how expensive properties use a system meant to help farmers and ranchers.
Nick Bowlin
Nick Bowlin is a contributing editor for High Country News. Email him at nickbowlin@hcn.org or submit a letter to the editor.
Posted inArticles
Montana’s ag tax slashes bills for thousands of million-dollar homes
Properties classified ‘agricultural’ get a tax break despite no bona fide operations. Can lawmakers’ new proposals tighten qualifications?
Posted inArticles
Key Senate and House races remain uncalled across the West
A dramatic shift by Latino voters toward Trump helped create a red wave.
Posted inArticles
The Forest Service is cutting its seasonal workforce and public lands will suffer
Temporary employees warn that important work will go undone all over the country.
Posted inArticles
Repeal of the Chevron doctrine will have profound consequences for federal rulemaking
Climate, public lands and tribal law regulations are now likely to face legal challenges.
Posted inArticles
Polluted air threatens the health of New Mexico infants
A new study finds a link between air pollution and low birth weight.
Posted inArticles
Colorado’s oil and gas rules put taxpayers at risk, according to study
The report contradicts claims that the new rules are the ‘most robust in the country.’
Posted inMay 2024: A River Returns
Bozeman’s boom depends on immigrants but struggles to support them
One of the nation’s fastest-growing cities relies on a vulnerable population of workers to fuel its economic explosion.
Posted inMay 2024: A River Returns
Los motivos ocultos de la prosperidad de Bozeman
El auge económico de una de las ciudades estadounidenses con mayor crecimiento depende del trabajo de un grupo vulnerable de personas.
Posted inArticles
Drilling for oil on public land is about to cost a lot more
Long-awaited Interior Department policy will raise financial assurance and royalty rates.
Posted inArticles
Oil industry profits don’t pay for cleanup
A failure of regulation has allowed industry to avoid the true cost of cleaning up its unplugged wells.
Posted inArticles
Mountain towns are trying all sorts of solutions to the housing crisis
A new report details the many ways that high-altitude communities are wrestling with ballooning housing costs.
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 inArticles
Private equity gets into oil and gas
A new report warns of bankruptcies and abandoned wells on Western public land.
Posted inArticles
New public-land drilling rules would overhaul the Western oil industry
The potential new rules would hike the amount companies must pay in order to drill, in addition to other changes.
Posted inArticles
Western resort towns risk being ‘loved to death’
A new report details the downsides of tourism and population booms – and what communities can do about it.
Posted inApril 1, 2023: The Path Forward
The natural gas pushback
Local communities want to electrify, but gas interests have other ideas.
Posted inArticles
Colorado regulators come down hard on troubled oil company
K.P. Kauffman said that penalties could result in a large bankruptcy, leaving well cleanup to the state.
Posted inArticles
Colorado works on an oil and gas well cleanup guarantee, but doubts loom
The state’s financial assurance process called ‘the strongest in the nation.’
Posted inArticles
Feds claim Defenders of Wildlife unlawfully fired union-organizing staffer
The environmental nonprofit’s work environment is under scrutiny after multiple unfair labor submissions.