Natural Resources

"A 120-year-old idea to make New Mexico's White Sands National Monument a national park could be realized before the end of the year."

"Business has blossomed at Interior Secretary David Bernhardt's former law and lobbying firm in the 31 months since he was first nominated to a Trump administration post, a new study by an environmental group shows."

"From the bulging peak of Rabbit Mountain, at 6,000 feet on the edge of the foothills north of Boulder, Colorado, you can watch a transition unfold. To the east, a tabletop of pasture and farmland spreads out to the horizon. To the west, the Rocky Mountains rise impenetrably."

"House Democrats introduced sweeping climate legislation Tuesday that would halt fossil fuel production on public lands for at least a year as the nation prepares to drastically cut climate-warming pollution from its own land holdings."

"The vast majority of staffers at the Bureau of Land Management's Washington, D.C., headquarters do not intend to move out West as part of a planned reorganization, according to multiple sources."

"A privately funded, nonprofit organization is creating a 3.2 million-acre wildlife sanctuary — American Prairie Reserve — in northeastern Montana, an area long known as cattle country."

"On 'good' bad days, the shells lay open at the bottom of the river, shimmering in the refracted sunlight. Their insides, pearl white and picked clean of flesh, flicker against the dark riverbed like a beacon, alerting the world above to a problem below."

"Invasive species — everything from rats to Burmese pythons — have spread to more than half of national parks, according to new research published this week, which also offers suggestions for stopping non-native animals while safeguarding native species into the future."