Thompson Divide

“The rivers, lakes, canyons, and mountains found on public lands serve as a unique and compelling backdrop that has helped to transform the western economy from a dependence on resource extractive industries to growth from in-migration, tourism, and modern economy sectors such as finance, engineering, software development, insurance, and health care,” the letter says. “Increasingly, entrepreneurs are basing their business location decisions on the quality of life in an area. Businesses are recruiting talented employees by promoting access to beautiful, nearby public lands.”

The economists’ message was also delivered to leaders in Congress, who are largely locked in partisan gridlock over issues dealing with the environment with few exceptions, such as the expansion of a wilderness area in San Diego County that shares bipartisan support led by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and the recent passage of the U.S. Ski Area Recreational Opportunity Enhancement Act, which Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.) championed for many years.

The Obama administration appears to have gotten the economists’ memo before it was even written, given that U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar issued a report three weeks earlier calling for the declaration of 18 new wilderness and conservation areas in nine Western states. Salazar’s report says they all have “significant local support” and, in Colorado, they include expanded land protections in the McKenna Peak Wilderness Study Area of the San Juan Mountains, the Castle Peak Wilderness Study Area, the Browns Canyon Wilderness Study Area and the Bull Gulch Wilderness Study Area.

To get conservative members of Congress, such as U.S. Rep. Scott Tipton (R-Colo.), on board will take some convincing. Tipton so far hasn’t tipped his hand on whether he supports the San Juan Mountains Wilderness Act or drilling in Thompson Divide, but he has been enthusiastic in rolling back wilderness protections for other public lands, and he previously blasted Salazar’s controversial Wild Lands policy. Like Tipton, Colorado’s other conservative congressmen — Doug Lamborn, Cory Gardner and Mike Coffman — have been rebuked for their environmental records.

Three Nobel Laureates and 10 residents of Colorado are among the scores of economists and academics who signed the public lands letter with the hope of getting U.S. policy-makers’ attention.

“Here in Colorado, our public lands fuel local economies,” said Zeke Hersh, owner of Blue River Anglers in Frisco. “It is only common sense that our elected officials in Congress and the White House protect these places with adequate investment and protections for the clean air, water, wildlife habitat, and open space that lures tourists and small business entrepreneurs to communities like Frisco.”

“Public lands are the identity for our community and thus our businesses,” added Roger Marolt, who operates an accounting firm in Aspen. “They help define who we are and are what attracts vibrant employees, exciting new companies, visitors and consumers to the West. The preservation of federal lands is vital to our economic growth and ensuring existing businesses like mine thrive.”

A recent study commissioned by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (pdf) reports that outdoor recreation supports $289 billion in annual retail sales and services and it supports more than 6.5 million jobs.

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In Colorado, it’s worse yet.

As the Colorado Independent’s Katie Redding has been reporting, healthy women in this state pay much more than men who are unhealthy pay, including smokers. As much as 50 percent more. As Redding put it on Colorado’s Progressive Talk radio this Monday, “Women are being penalized for doing what they’re supposed to do– for going for regular checkups” — that is, for practicing the kind of preventative care everyone knows saves money, as well as lives.

“We have the opportunity here to change the law and to change health care,” said Mikulski.

California’s Barbara Boxer argued that health reform is about saving money, not spending it. She is making a point that time and again gets lost in a debate where splashy headlines emphasize the cost of the legislation over a decade or more– headlines like the blaring one above the fold at the Denver Post that announced the arrival of the Senate bill. The cost, hundreds of billions, seems huge floating in space unencumbered by context. Where is the corresponding tally running next to that figure of the amount we will all spend on health insurance and health care should reform fail and the industry continue along as it has been doing? In other words, how does the cost of the bill compare with the cost of doing nothing?

In her speech Boxer alludes to the fact that we’re all spending money now– at an enormous and increasing rate in a system that analysts on all sides of the political spectrum, including those paid by the health care industry, agree now fails utterly to contain costs.

“We can sit here and do nothing. We can scare people. That’s the easy thing to do.”

The Senate bill, Boxer said, will save Medicare. Republicans fought Medicare. Bob Dole bragged that he fought against it. Newt Gingrich said Let it wither on the vine.

“Well, if you ask our seniors, I think they’re the group most pleased with their coverage. It’s not perfect. But it’s critical. And we save it here. We extend the life of Medicare.”

And North Carolina’s Sen. Kay Hagan tells the harrowing story of a constituent who died of breast cancer after waiting to get a lump checked, paying in cash at last for a checkup and then being diagnosed with cancer. The woman had no coverage and no access to insurance, especially once she was diagnosed.

Anyone who has ever gone through stretches of noncoverage knows the horror of suspecting you might be sick while also dreadfully aware of the fact that no insurance company will cover you and no doctor will work on you outside an emergency room, which is no place to find a cure for a disease like cancer.

Hagan’s constituent’s story played out as a round-the-clock nightmare. She died of the cancer that was caught too late and that was insufficiently treated. Her sister emailed the story to Hagan.

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A Hillary Clinton supporter joined fellows marchers down the 16th St. Mall in Denver. (Photo/Jason Kosena)

With Hillary Clinton’s speech at the Democratic National Convention just hours away, many of the New York senator’s committed feminist supporters are softening toward the Barack Obama-Joe Biden ticket.

While steadfast Clinton supporters are clamoring for her nomination on the floor of the convention tomorrow, there are indications that the disappointment and disillusionment of the past several months are slowly melting away as Clinton backers heed the call for party unity.

Formally, women’s leaders are signaling their support for the presumptive nominee. Kim Gandy, president of the National Organization of Women, said in a statement Saturday that “Senator Hillary Clinton was our first choice, and that of 18 million primary voters, but presumptive Democratic nominee Senator Barack Obama’s pick, Joe Biden, is a friend of women and a strong selection for Vice President.”

Biden has won points with many high profile women’s rights leaders by authoring the twice-renewed 1994 Violence Against Women Act, which allocated $1.6 billion toward prevention and services for survivors.

Gandy, who spoke yesterday in Denver at a Women’s Equalitea party hosted by NOW, Feminist Majority, and the Dolores Huerta Foundation, among others, said before her presentation that her group was considering endorsing Obama.

“We are a grass roots organization — bottom up — and we did a deliberative process before we did the Clinton endorsement,” Gandy said. NOW will consult with its state level officers, local chapters, and the national board before switching its allegiance to Obama.

Hillary Clinton at a Jan. 26-27, 2007 SEIU International presidential debate at Gallaudet University. (Photo/SEIU International, Flickr)

“It won’t be long before we have someone in the White House who not only has a heart but has a brain. What that means for women is that we will have someone who understands our power,” said California Rep. Lynn Woolsey to an audience of congresswomen, delegates and feminist organizers, many of whom were wearing buttons that read “Hillary supports Obama. So do I.”

“I know John McCain, I know Barack Obama and I know Joe Biden,” said California Sen. Barbara Boxer. “There are some people hurting from the primary. We must be united. We can’t afford to elect John McCain.”

“I don’t want to talk about the past. John McCain has a zero voting record from NARAL [Pro-Choice America],” she continued, as the audience hissed.

Other speakers lauded Obama’s direction in this year’s Democratic Party platform, which calls for protected abortion rights, an extension of the Family and Medical Leave Act, and an end to sexism in the media.

“If you have not read the platform, you have to,” said New York Rep. Carolyn Maloney. “It is the strongest I have seen since I learned to read.”

“We are standing taller because of Hillary’s work,” she said.