It turns out that this “new economy” of ours may be just as subject to boom and bust as was the economy based on cattle, oil, and lumber. Last month’s terrorist attacks emptied Las Vegas, caused hunters to cancel trips to Idaho and Montana and silenced the phones for ski-resort reservations in Colorado.
The West’s environmental movement was also thrown off balance. You can’t easily push to protect an endangered species or attack an oil-seeking administration when lower Manhattan and the Pentagon are in ruins. From the other side of the public-land barricades, demand for oil and gas and aluminum airplanes is likely to be way down, so why spend money lobbying to “open” the Arctic when you can’t afford to drill there anyway?
There’s also bound to be less national attention to go around. Washington, D.C., is where much of the West’s business has always been done. During the Clinton years, the West’s federal lands were tightly managed out of the White House — from roadless policy and national monuments to individual timber cuts and national forest plans.
Congress has been even more involved w... Read more
