Federal bureaucracy gets in the way of complex ongoing relationships that serve civil society. If you want to see the case for limited government, consider that there’s a siege happening in some dusty corner of Nevada over tortoise welfare. Cliven Bundy, a Nevada rancher currently engaged in a standoff with the federal government over grazing […]
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This is a story of thankfulness. This is a story that makes me proud to be an American. The West Yellowstone Economic Development Council celebrated the 25th Anniversary of the 1988 Fires on September 2nd 2013, the day 25 years ago when farmers from southern Idaho trucked their irrigation pipes to “West” and helped set […]
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Introduction by John Baden, Chairman, FREE In last week’s FREE Insight Mary Roloff wrote of her family farm and the culture in which it is embedded. “My grandfather … carried a gun to protect himself from those that would do him harm, take what didn’t belong to them, hurt his family, or to kill […]
Read MoreI’m writing this on Groundhogs Day, February 2. Ramona and I are seven miles east of Ashton, Idaho near the Yellowstone Park border. YNP is an excellent place to explore parables of environmental stewardship so FREE’s work naturally features Yellowstone. Our July 15-19 conference, “Harmonizing Ecology, Prosperity, and Liberty”, will include a day in Yellowstone […]
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Pete Geddes is the General Director of the American Prairie Reserve. This is an entrepreneurial foundation dedicated to restoring 3,000,000 acres of grassland and its wildlife and ranches. It’s their “American Serengeti”. Pete came to Bozeman from Missoula nearly 17 years ago after earning his graduate degree in forestry from the U of M. One […]
Read MoreAllen Johnson is founder and leader of Christians for the Mountains. This group is devoted to fighting mountain top removal mining in West Virginia and adjacent areas. Christians for the Mountains helps the people and environment that suffer from this destructive but politically powerful abuse. I’ve known and worked with Allen for several years and […]
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Like much else in government, U.S. public land policy is a vestige of the past, established in 1910 when America’s population was just 92.2 million and a Western state such as Nevada had only 81,000 residents. Today our needs are much different and much greater. The United States can no longer afford to keep tens […]
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This essay originally appeared as a blog post on TheAtlantic.com on May 22, 2012. Thanks to Megan (McArdle) for inviting me to spend some time over here. As she mentioned, much of my work focuses on environmental law and policy. I also do a fair amount on “administrative law” more generally (aka the law governing administrative […]
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Here is a story well known, but worth reviewing and appreciating. It’s one to share as environmental concerns grow. Its implications are increasingly important. Essentially, in ecology as in economics, many actions and beliefs are interdependent. It’s difficult to do one thing that doesn’t affect others. This has major ethical as well as environmental implications. […]
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America’s experiences with Indian tribes should alert us to consequences of changes in rights, especially when imposed from higher authority. When rights to land or valuable resources that flow from it are unclear and changing, conflict naturally follows. A sense of ownership can come from traditional uses that engender psychological entitlement. Leigh Anderson and Dick […]
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