Free Republic

New York (CNN) -- Liz Cheney, whose upstart bid to unseat Wyoming Sen. Mike Enzi sparked a round of warfare in the Republican Party and even within her own family, is dropping out of the Senate primary, sources told CNN late Sunday. Cheney, the eldest daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, began telling associates of her decision over the weekend and could make an official announcement about the race as early as Monday.

Hundreds of abandoned drilling wells dot eastern Wyoming like sagebrush, vestiges of a natural gas boom that has been drying up in recent years as prices have plummeted. The companies that once operated the wells have all but vanished into the prairie, many seeking bankruptcy protection and unable to pay the cost of reclaiming the land they leased. Recent estimates have put the number of abandoned drilling operations in Wyoming at more than 1,200, and state officials said several thousand more might soon be orphaned by their operators. Wyoming officials are now trying to address the problem amid concerns from...

CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) -- One of the country's largest producers of ammunition magazines for guns is leaving Colorado and moving operations to Wyoming and Texas because of new state laws that include restrictions on how many cartridges a magazine can hold.

Magpul Industries threatened to leave Colorado after the legislature passed a measure banning weapons magazines with more than 15 rounds. And now that is official. The Erie-based ammunition magazine manufacturer said on Thursday that it is relocating its operations to Cheyenne and Texas. "Moving operations to states that support our culture of individual liberties nad personal responsibility is important," CEO Richard Fitzpatrick said in a press release. "This relocation will also improve business operations and logistics as we utilize the strengths of Texas and Wyoming in our expansion. The move is expected to happen within the next 12 to 16...

CHEYENNE, Wyo. – The developers of what could become the nation’s largest wind energy project say the U.S. Bureau of Land Management has overestimated how many eagles could be killed by wind turbines at the site. They say they’re planning a variety of measures to reduce eagle deaths at the $5 billion Chokecherry/Sierra Madre wind power project south of Rawlins, and those steps will result in fewer deaths than the BLM estimate of 46-64 per year.

An environmental activist who pled guilty this month to poaching elk during a November hunting trip will resign his position as the Idaho director of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition. Marv Hoyt, a leading critic of mining activities on the health of sheep and cattle, killed three elk and left the carcasses of two behind to rot in the field. Hoyt had only one tag for one elk, and initially denied to fish and game officers he had killed the other two cows and tried to hide the carcasses with tree branches. Although the protection of elk is a central goal...

Budget deal cuts oil and gas royalties to states The budget deal in Congress will cost Wyoming, New Mexico and other states $415 million in lost oil and gas royalties over the next decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Legislation implementing the agreement makes permanent an effective 51-49 percent split that favors the federal government in dividing the 12.5 percent royalty collected from energy companies on oil and gas production on federal land. Until 2008 when the Interior Department began setting aside 2 percent of the royalties as an administrative fee, the split between the federal and state government...

The supervolcano that lies beneath Yellowstone National Park in the US is far larger than was previously thought, scientists report. A study shows that the magma chamber is about 2.5 times bigger than earlier estimates suggested. A team found the cavern stretches for more than 90km (55 miles) and contains 200-600 cubic km of molten rock. The findings are being presented at the American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting in San Francisco. Prof Bob Smith, from the University of Utah, said: “We’ve been working there for a long time, and we’ve always thought it would be bigger... but this finding is...

Yellowstone's grizzlies, now classified as a threatened species, were briefly removed from protected status by the federal government in 2007, when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service declared that the outsized, hump-shouldered bears had made a healthy comeback. At the time, the number of grizzlies in the region had exceeded the government's recovery goal of 500 bears, the government said. But conservationists successfully challenged the de-listing in court, arguing that the government discounted climate changes ... On Wednesday, members of the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee sought to reverse that decision, recommending a new de-listing after reviewing a report suggesting Yellowstone's...

Past experience in Idaho, northeastern Oregon and Washington state illustrate that it's time to take gray wolves completely off the federal list of endangered species. The West’s wolf problem started in 1995 and 1996. That’s when 66 wolves from Canada were reintroduced in Idaho and Yellowstone National Park. Those wolves multiplied and spread into Wyoming, Utah and Oregon. They also took up residence in Washington state and Montana, where other wolves from Canada already lived. Today at least 1,674 wolves live in 321 packs within the region, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. That’s in addition to the...

You could call it the "Catfight at Cheney Corral" (but if you do, you should expect feminist outrage). When Liz Cheney moved from the suburbs of the nation's capital to Wyoming to run for the U.S. Senate, she knew she was asking for trouble. She risked being called a "carpetbagger," but that has a sharper sting in Virginia than in Wyoming. She pulled intimate and sensitive family laundry out for a public airing by emphasizing her conservative roots. Acknowledging that her sister was in a gay marriage, which isn't recognized as a true marriage in either Virginia or Wyoming, she...

Former Vice President Dick Cheney took the side of his U.S. Senate candidate daughter Liz in her high-profile spat over gay marriage with lesbian sister Mary, saying Monday that he was "pained" that the family dispute had become so public, Politico reported. Cheney and his wife, Lynne, issued a statement noting that the gay-rights issue was one "we have dealt with privately for many years." "[We] are pained to see it become public," the parents wrote. "Since it has, one thing should be clear. Liz has always believed in the traditional definition of marriage." The parents said Liz Cheney "has...

I’m tempted to call this a clever Cheney family ploy to burnish Liz’s conservative credentials ahead of her primary against Mike Enzi, except … Enzi’s opposed to gay marriage too. It may help her pass a tea-party litmus test but it doesn’t actually gain her anything against the incumbent. On the contrary, all the attention to this subject is likely to remind Wyoming conservatives not only that the Cheney family is notably pro-gay among Republican royalty — Dick Cheney’s other daughter is herself married to a woman — but that Liz herself was widely assumed to be pro-SSM based on...

They were the towheaded sisters who tagged along on campaigns, polite and smiling, as their father rose through Wyoming and then Washington politics to become one of the most powerful men in the country. “We were as close as sisters can be,” recalled Mary Cheney of her relationship with her older sister, Liz. But now, a feud between the two has spilled into public view, involving social media, an angry same-sex spouse, a high-profile election and a father who feels uncomfortably caught between his two children.

The results of a new poll paid for by a super PAC supporting Wyoming U.S. Sen. Mike Enzi weren’t surprising.Pollster Bob Wickers reported that of 400 likely 2014 Republican primary voters, 69 percent supported Enzi over Cheney, the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney who is trying to oust the three-term incumbent.The results showed Cheney only had 17 percent of support from those polled.Wickers has long-standing ties to Wyoming. He worked for state Treasurer Mark Gordon’s 2008 congressional campaign and state legislator Colin Simpson’s 2010 gubernatorial campaign.The Cheney camp called it a phony poll conducted by a “well-known pay-for-say”...

Nashville, TN – Today, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham introduced the Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act. The legislation currently has 33 cosponsors – but Senator Alexander is not one of them. Conservative Senate candidate Joe Carr called on Senator Alexander to change his stance and add himself as a co-sponsor. “I’m strongly pro-life and believe it’s imperative the Senate pass this important piece of legislation. When Senator Graham announced his co-sponsors and Senator Alexander’s name was missing, I was disappointed. I am hoping Senator Alexander will change his stance and add himself as a co-sponsor. This legislation is too...

Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander (R) Montana Senator Max Baucus (D) Alaska Senator Mark Begich (D) Georgia Senator Saxby Chambliss (R) Mississippi Senator Thad Cochran (R) Maine Senator Susan Collins (R) Texas Senator John Cornyn (R) Massachusetts Senator William "Mo" Cowan (D) Illinois Senator Dick Durbin (D) Wyoming Senator Mike Enzi (R) Minnesota Senator Al Franken (DFL) South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham (R) North Carolina Senator Kay Hagan (D) Iowa Senator Tom Harkin (D) Oklahoma Senator Jim Inhofe (R) Nebraska Senator Mike Johanns (R) South Dakota Senator Tim Johnson (D) Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu (D) Michigan Senator Carl Levin (D) Kentucky...

he Wyoming GOP primary campaign is already shaping up to be a scorched-earth affair, demonstrating the kind of senator Liz Cheney would likely be. ..... Other Wyoming politicos who’ve tried to stay above the fray have found themselves drawn into the feud, notably Alan Simpson, the former Republican senator known for his crotchety demeanor. The Cheneys and the Simpsons were at a charity gala in Cody, Wyoming, when Lynne Cheney—Liz’s mother, Dick’s wife, and a writer of racy novels—allegedly approached Simpson and told him to “shut your mouth.” Simpson’s daughter-in-law posted about the incident on her Facebook page, and the...

Three environmental groups petitioned the federal government Monday to block new oil and gas development in an area of key sage grouse habitat near Douglas. The petition came a month after Gov. Matt Mead announced a plan with Chesapeake Energy to allow drilling in what is known as the Douglas Core Area and represented an effort by environmentalists to counter what they see as an erosion of state sage grouse protections. ... WildEarth Guardians, the Biodiversity Conservation Alliance and American Bird Conservancy petitioned the Department of Interior and U.S. Bureau of Land Management to prohibit construction of new wellpads and...

Could This Oil Field Be the Next Bakken? Business is rockin' in the Bakken. Within the next year output is expected to surpass one million barrels per day, up from almost nothing ten years ago. Such growth has been a boon for investors as evident in the share price performance of companies like Continental Resources, Inc. (NYSE:CLR), Kodiak Oil & Gas Corp (USA) (NYSE:KOG), and Oasis Petroleum Inc. (NYSE:OAS). But the hunt is now on for the next great American shale play. And one formation in particular just might have the potential to rival the Bakken: the Colorado Niobrara.A spotty track record Readers...