While Congress does nothing, Western state lawmakers pass a flurry of consequential and/or crazy — bills.
New Mexico
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
Stolen Indigenous land is the foundation of the land-grant university system. Climate change is its legacy.
Extractive industries are filling public university coffers on stolen land.
Posted inJanuary 11, 2024: The Creatures in Our Midst
Bighorns, badgers, coyotes and Christmas tumbleweeds
Mishaps and mayhem from around the region.
Posted inArticles
New Mexico pushes back on Big Oil
New bills in the legislature could curb industry excesses.
Posted inJanuary 1, 2024: January 2024
The New Mexico co-op breaking up with fossil fuels
An 80-year-old electricity supplier goes all in on decarbonization.
Posted inIssues
As migration routes shift toward New Mexico, so does death
Migrant deaths in the state have jumped from 2 to 109 in a few years.
Posted inDecember 1, 2023: December 2023
How the New Mexico whiptail became a gay icon
All members of the lizard species are female and reproduce asexually through a process called parthenogenesis.
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 inOctober 2, 2023: The Dark Side of the Sheepherding Industry
Short-lived or shallow, it’s still water
Notes on what is fluid and flowing, even if ephemeral.
Posted inSeptember 1, 2023: Food Justice
‘I want people to know me for the good that I do in my life’
#iamthewest: Giving voice to the people that make up communities in the region.
Posted inSeptember 1, 2023: Food Justice
The long tail of toxic emissions on the Navajo Nation
Communities contend with ongoing air quality issues tied to gas and oil wells.
Posted inArticles
What downwinders inherited at Trinity
In the days of ’Oppenheimer,’ an exhibition advocates expansion of the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act.
Posted inArticles
Private equity gets into oil and gas
A new report warns of bankruptcies and abandoned wells on Western public land.
Posted inAugust 1, 2023: In the Line of Fire
Mexican wolf recovery hinges on maternal instincts
Fifty years after the passage of the Endangered Species Act, the Mexican wolf recovery plan walks a fine line between human meddling and trusting mother nature.
Posted inArticles
The miller moth is hard to love, but it deserves our respect
Every summer, the migration of the small insect plays a role in the food web. Don’t be annoyed when they show up in your bedroom.
Posted inJune 1, 2023: Seen and Unseen
Ferry felines, ornithopters and Tokitae going home at last!
Mishaps and mayhem from around the region.
Posted inArticles
After the feds accidentally burned down their homes, they made it hard to return
FEMA told survivors of the largest wildfire in New Mexico history that it aimed to put temporary housing on their land. But because of its strict, slow-moving bureaucracy, that has happened only twice.
Posted inApril 1, 2023: The Path Forward
Navigating the new health-care deserts
Post-Roe, startups help those seeking abortions shrink travel distances and carbon emissions.
