Free Republic

The downward slide continued for Colorado's coal industry in 2015, highlighted by production at Routt County's Twentymile Mine, which was down 38 percent. Statewide, production in Colorado was down 18.5 percent, with 18.7 million tons, the lowest amount of coal mined in 23 years. ... Colorado Mining Association President Stuart Sanderson said the drop in production is a result of lower demand, but it was not caused by natural market forces. What we are seeing is the direct result of government regulations that are designed to drive coal out of the energy mix," Sanderson said. He called Colorado's 2010 Clean...

Across all sectors of Colorado the cost of electricity has skyrocketed more than 67 percent between 2001 and 2014, easily exceeding median income growth and the expected rate of inflation . ... For all sectors between 2001 and 2014, the cost per kilowatthour jumped from just over 6 cents to more than 10 cents, or 67.11 percent. ... the data for the remaining sectors emphasizes the double impact that increased energy costs have in the form of rapidly escalating electricity rates on Colorado ratepayers, who see not only their own personal energy costs rise, but are hit a second time...

Obama on federal coal mining is a throwback to Carter administration failings. resident Obama's plot to use the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) to kill federal coal mining with a thousand paper cuts is not the first time he has used NEPA to try to end energy development. Disturbingly, his scheme is a throwback to President Carter and a decade-long moratorium that ended only when President Reagan took office. Meanwhile millions of Americans, vast regions and the nation's economy will suffer. In 2009, the Obama administration settled a "sweetheart lawsuit" by environmental groups by agreeing to a NEPA study on...

The powerful agency that manages development on California’s coastline fired its executive director Wednesday after a lengthy and, at times, emotionally charged meeting that veered from accusations about the influence of developers and lobbyists to discussions on the mundane inner workings of government. The California Coastal Commission voted 7-5 to dismiss Charles Lester, who has held the post since 2011. The shake-up raises questions about the direction of an agency often caught in the clash between property rights and conservation. The panel has broad sway over construction and environmental issues in coastal areas that include some of the most coveted...

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) told CNSNews.com at her press briefing on Thursday that requiring young women to register for the draft is "an issue that we should discuss." [...] "I think it's an issue that we should discuss. I think we should discuss it. Every time we use the word 'draft', people get a misunderstanding about what you're talking about, but I have supported women in every role in the military including Commander in Chief." ...

California, Oregon and the federal government are working on a way around congressional barriers to the removal of hydroelectric dams on the Klamath River. The states, the U.S. Interior Department and the owner of the dams, PacifiCorp, announced Tuesday that they have agreed in principle to pursue removal through the federal dam relicensing process. The move comes after a complex deal to decommission four hydroelectric dams and restore portions of the historic salmon river fell apart when Congress failed to act on a crucial piece of the pact by a Dec. 31 deadline. Republican members of Congress and local elected...

The Utah Attorney General's Office filed a lawsuit Thursday against the Department of the Interior and Department of Agriculture, claiming the agencies' strategy to disallow new mining on or near greater sage grouse habitats is a breach of "numerous federal laws and regulations." The lawsuit in U.S. District Court seeks an order voiding the federal government's land-use plan amendments submitted last year that would directly prohibit new hard rock mining on 233,300 acres in Utah. "The state of Utah claims that the 2015 federal plan amendments disregarded the hallmark of federal land management -- multiple use and sustained yield --...

The cover of the January-February 2016 issue of Audubon Magazine proclaims: Arctic on the Edge: As global warming opens our most critical bird habitat, the world is closing in. In reality, it is the magazine's writers and editors who have gone over the edge with their misleading reports on the Arctic.

It appears that there is much more to the Hammond/Bundy story than meets the eye. For a bit of history, let’s go to Tri-State Livestock News:

A hunter, veteran, retired fisheries biologist and others rallied for public lands in downtown Seattle early this afternoon. Make no mistake, Mark Heckert of the Washington chapter of Backcountry Hunters & Anglers told a crowd of 75 at the Henry M. Jackson Federal Building, the group that took over the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge earlier this month and their agenda is not going away unless it is countered. Speaking forcefully, Heckert, a biologist from Puyallup, called himself a "patriot" who enjoys going out into the wild country of public lands where he can feel like a king. He said that...

Environmental organizations that offered more than 150,000 comments calling on the U.S. Forest Service to reject an agreement to allow additional mining in the North Fork area said the response demonstrated strong public opposition. More like "stuffing the ballot box," said an industry spokesman who noted that the environmental opposition would undermine a bargain fashioned over five years of talks. The Forest Service proposes reinstating the North Fork coal-mining exception to the Colorado Roadless Rule. The exception would allow Arch Coal to extend the West Elk Mine near Somerset below the roadless area. The roadless exemption would allow construction of...

Farewell to the man who invented 'climate change’ To this day, global climate policy is still shaped by the agenda of Maurice Strong, a Canadian multimillionaire During the Second World War, having emerged from humble origins in the Great Depression, Strong became convinced that the new United Nations should become a world government, dedicated to ensuring that the wealth enjoyed by the richer countries of the West should be spread out around the world’s underprivileged majority. In 2005, Strong was caught having been illicitly paid $1 million from the UN’s Oil for Food programme, supposedly set up to allow Saddam...

Same practice landed ranchers in jail OKANOGAN, Wash. — It’s “outrageous and hypocritical” that the federal government imprisoned two Oregon ranchers for a backburn that got away from them and burned a little over 100 acres of public land while federal and state agencies backburned thousands of acres of private land in Okanogan County last summer and were not held accountable, the president of the Okanogan County Farm Bureau says.

WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration will announce on Friday a halt to new coal mining leases on public lands as it considers an overhaul of the program that could lead to increased costs for energy companies and a slowdown in extraction, according to an administration official. The move would represent a significant setback for the coal industry, effectively freezing new coal production on federal lands and sending a signal to energy markets that could turn investors away from an already flailing industry. President Obama telegraphed the step in his State of the Union address on Tuesday night, saying, "I'm going...

Trump says Americans shouldn't let the government turn the West into a federally-owned frontier. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa) Forget China, guns or immigration. Donald Trump is taking on a new issue: federal land ownership. In a new op-ed for the Reno Gazette-Journal, the Republican presidential front-runner rails against the "draconian rule" of the Bureau of Land Management and the Obama administration's "land grab" in the western United States. "The BLM controls over 85 percent of the land in Nevada," Trump explains. "In the rural areas, those who for decades have had access to public lands for ranching, mining, logging and energy...

The Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014, which received Royal Assent in March 2014, will assign a "named person" to every child in Scotland up to the age of 18 (and even beyond should the child remain in school after 18). The only exception applies to children of persons in the armed forces. The named person, for example a midwife, health worker or school teacher, will have the power to receive and share information about the child in a number of circumstances. The legislation as presently framed does not provide a parent with any say in who the named...

The prime minister will call for a revolution in child rearing this weekend by suggesting that all parents should attend classes on how to discipline their children. In a move likely to enrage those fearful of an encroaching "nanny state", David Cameron will say that it should be the norm for parents to receive instruction on how to behave around their offspring. As part of a speech on the family, Cameron will announce plans for a parenting classes voucher scheme, claiming that all parents need help and that there is too little state-sponsored guidance on offer. "In the end, getting...

ENVER — Ken Ivory, a Republican state representative from Utah, has been roaming the West with an alluring pitch to cattle ranchers, farmers and conservatives upset with how Washington controls the wide-open public spaces out here: This land is your land, he says, and not the federal government’s. Mr. Ivory, a bespectacled business lawyer from suburban Salt Lake City, does not fit the profile of a sun-scoured sagebrush rebel. But he is part of a growing Republican-led movement pushing the federal government to hand over to the states millions of acres of Western public lands — as well as their...

Before I get into the substance of tonight's essay, I'd like to offer my deep gratitude to Nash Montana, who became a translation dynamo during the aftermath of events in Cologne and other cities. She translated three or four videos per day, and often an equal or greater number of articles. Thanks to her (and Vlad) the English-speaking world was able to get a well-rounded account of what was happening in Germany and Austria. Just over a week ago the culture-enrichers of Cologne went out for a wild night on the town. It was Silvester night, what we call New...

Why is the federal government so obsessed with grabbing more land? After all, the federal government already owns more than 40 percent of the land in 9 different U.S. states. Why are federal bureaucrats so determined to grab even more? Well, the truth is that this all becomes much clearer once you understand that there is a very twisted philosophy behind what they are doing. It is commonly known as "Agenda 21", although many names and labels are used for this particular philosophy. Basically, those that hold to this form of radical environmentalism believe that humanity is utterly destroying the...