Guest Column
Montana Legislature Won’t Tackle Carbon Sequestration, And That’s a Good Thing
The Montana legislature is poised to do exactly nothing about carbon sequestration when next we meet in January for our biannual funfest. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
‘Carbon sequestration’ is the notion of pumping carbon dioxide from coal-fired power plants deep into the ground, to stash it away forever so we can enjoy the electricity without increasing the carbon content of the atmosphere and thus presumably threatening our future with continued and ultimately perilous climate warming.
The idea of burying carbon was a hot topic during the last legislative session in 2007, which was so closely divided and contentious that the final resolution was to punt. In legislative terms this means doing a study. It’s a classic maneuver to avoid doing anything substantive.
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Real Estate and Development in the Northern Rockies
New West Conference: Discount Registration Ends Friday
Our third annual Real Estate and Development in the Northern Rockies conference, Oct. 23-24 at the Hilton Garden Inn in Missoula, is shaping up to be our biggest and best yet. Economist Christopher Thornberg of Beacon Economics will again be giving his highly entertaining (and exceptionally accurate) take on trends in the regional real estate market, and this year for the first time he'll be joined by three other eminent economists: Tony Madden of the Federal Reserve Bank, Larry Swanson of the Center for the Rocky Mountain West, and David Eacret, the North Idaho Real Estate economist. Rick Holley, CEO of Plum Creek Timber, will also be joining us for a keynote talk. And that's just for starters: you can see the full lineup at www.newwest.net/realestate08.
We also have a much-expanded pre-conference seminar program this year, with continuing education credit for real estate agents, planners, attorneys, and architects.
You can save more than 20% off the regular ticket price if you register by Friday, Sept. 5. Click here for all the details on the event, and as always give us a call at 406-829-1725 if you have any questions.
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NewWest.Net is all about fostering dialogue about the Rocky Mountain West, and especially, conversation about what we think of as "the big story" of the region: Growth and change. One way we do that is
through our conferences, which bring together people, from many sides of the issues, for robust discussions about the topics we cover here at NewWest.Net on a daily basis.
Above is a highlight reel from Anjin Herndon from our most recent conference,
Designing the New West, a sold-out event held in Bozeman this spring. You can
buy the full DVD from the conference here and find out more about for our next conference, the 3rd annual
Real Estate and Development in the Northern Rockies here.
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Missoula Hosts Workshop on Cleaning, Using Brownfields
A workshop on the cleanup and reuse of brownfields will be held today, Thursday, Sept. 4, at the Missoula City Council Chambers at 140 W. Pine St. and, in the afternoon, at the Missoula County Courthouse less than a block away at 200 W. Broadway, rooms 201 and 374.
Anyone interested is welcome to attend, including local officials, developers, landowners, bankers, lenders, community leaders, attorneys and consultants as well as the general public or anyone who fits some, all or none of the labels mentioned above. (Registration is $25 and can be done online or in person at 8 a.m. at the Council Chambers.)
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Pro Managers Will Run Yellowstone Club, and Finish Building It
Edra Blixseth and the other top owner of the Yellowstone Club near Big Sky have retained an Arizona-based company to manage the private club and complete its long-overdue construction projects, according to an item on PR-inside.com.
Over the past year and more, the Yellowstone Club, the world's only private skiing and golf community, has been in and out of the news, thanks to the public divorce of owners Tim and Edra Blixseth as well as legal battles between owners and Tim Blixseth. Also, the club missed loan payments to creditor Credit Suisse and teetered on the brink of bankruptcy. Earlier this year, Edra won control of the club and vowed to get its overdue construction back on track and to keep its business out of the public eye.
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Public Lands
Roadless Compromise in Idaho
The Bush Administration and conservation groups have reached a compromise agreement on rules governing roadless areas in the state, reports the New York Times. The deal involves the much-contested rules that Clinton Administration put in place banning road-building and other development on federal lands that don't already have roads - rules that were then reversed by the Bush Administration and have been the subject of a convoluted legal battle ever since. The Idaho compromise allows some road-building to log burned areas, and opens up some acreage for development in exchange for continued protection of most roadless areas, according to the Times.
News of Note
Poll: Westerners Will Pony Up for Renewable Energy
Sixty-four percent of likely voters polled in Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, New Mexico, Arizona and Nevada say they're willing to pay higher energy bills if their energy is coming from renewable resources.
The Mason-Dixon poll, taken earlier this month, was commissioned by the Las Vegas Review-Journal, the Denver Post and the Salt Lake Tribune. Of the 2,400 people polled, 64 percent said they would rather pay more for solar and wind energy than lean on energy from fossil fuels. Twenty-five percent said they wouldn't pay more for renewables and 6 percent said they weren't sure.
More from the Review-Journal here.
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Media Industry
In Missoula, Layoffs and Other Changes at the Daily Newspaper
A husband-wife pair received the first newsroom layoff notices from the Missoulian in more than five years, as Missoula's daily newspaper and other Lee Enterprises newspapers around the state slashed costs in the face of high paper prices, slow advertising sales and increased competition (especially from free Internet-based classified ad vehicles, like craigslist, as well as news and aggregation sites).
John Cramer, the environmental reporter, and Pamela J. Podger, who covered business, came to the Missoulian about a year ago. The two have young boys, twins, and recently bought a house in town.
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News of Note
Wyoming’s Economy Riding High on Oil and Gas
Wyoming's oil and gas industry is responsible for one in five jobs in the state and about one-third of the state's total economic output, according to a report detailed in today's Casper Star-Tribune
Business editor Tom Mast rounds up the highlights of the report, most of which confirm that while the direct economics of the industry are predictable, the "downstream" effects are even more staggering than one might expect.
As one investigator says, "It shows vulnerabilities associated with oil and gas in that it's such a large portion of Wyoming's economy."
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News of Note
The Afforable Housing Dilemna Comes to a Head in Moab
From today's Salt Lake Tribune:
Tuesday, the Moab City Council is voting on a rezoning that could clear out two mobile home parks to make room for condos.
One resident says: "Affordable housing in Moab is nonexistent. We just want a place to move our trailer."
Click here for the story.
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the tolls of expensive gas
Highway Funding Concerns Loom Large in Montana, Other Rural States
Americans are driving less, especially in rural areas, the U.S. Department of Transportation announced last week. The resultant drop in gas consumption (and combustion) is good, no doubt, but not for the country's gas tax-fueled Highway Trust Fund, already facing a multibillion dollar shortfall.
Highway projects around the country could be left unfunded if Congress doesn't act -- and it may disproportionately affect large, rural states.
States like Montana.
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