Critics call for Colorado to forget Flaming Gorge pipeline after latest federal denial

A second blow was dealt Thursday to a proposal to construct a 501-mile pipeline from Wyoming’s Flaming Gorge to Colorado’s Front Range when the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) deemed the application premature. Opponents quickly questioned how Colorado leaders could take the project seriously considering the Army Corps of Engineers rejected an earlier application.

Anti-Obama billboard tolerated despite ‘twisted dictatorship’

An anti-Obama billboard put up Monday in Grand Junction has been called everything from “racist” and “homophobic” (Mesa County Democratic Party Chairwoman Martelle Daniels) to “juvenile” (Mesa County Republican Party Chairman Chuck Pabst), according to the Grand Junction Daily…

Gas-patch politicians ask Salazar to ease up on industry even as Colorado levies record fines

Monday, just a couple of days after running a story in which more than 90 county commissioners and other elected officials from around the West urged Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to ease up on the oil and gas industry,…

Frack-fluid tagging part of model Grand Junction, Palisade watershed plan

Using chemical tracers to make sure hydraulic fracturing fluids aren’t contaminating groundwater supplies may be off the radar of Colorado officials who regulate the state’s natural gas industry, but the concept is contained in what could be a precedent-setting watershed plan crafted by the cities of Grand Junction and Palisade.

Bennet on health reform offers calm and steady in a storm of crazy

Only Sen. Michael Bennet can deliver a full-contact well-supported muscular line on health care like “The status quo is eating people alive all across this country” in an impressively no-frills monotone. In the age of cable news and shouted joint-session…

GOP stoked for Keystone confab, fanning flames of ‘Rojo Revolution’

For the Colorado Republican Party, it’s time to party like it’s 2010 at Keystone ski resort starting this evening.

According to the Denver Post, state GOP members are practically giddy about their chances to reclaim the governor’s mansion, Democrat…

Oil and gas drilling permits on 2005 pace, with GarCo still leading pack

Oil and gas drilling permits in Colorado in 2009 are on pace to slightly top 2005 numbers, according an analysis by the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel, but much of that activity came as part of a rush in March…

Penry already breaking campaign pledges, says former State Senate opponent

When Democrat Dana Baker got Republican Josh Penry to sign a pledge in 2006 to serve out a full four-year term if elected, the “idea behind that was no one would be seeking another office or other work or other endeavors during that time, that we intended to serve out the term of that office.” While Penry, now State Senate minority leader, isn’t resigning, he’s running for governor.

GOP state lawmaker: ‘Pitchforks about to come out’ over drilling regulations

State Rep. Laura Bradford says ranchers and landowners in and around Grand Junction and Mesa County are enraged by new, more environmentally stringent drilling regulations keeping them from fully developing their oil and gas mineral rights.

‘Praise Darwin’ billboard celebrates scientist’s birthday in Grand Junction

A national group of atheists and agnostics erected a billboard celebrating the bicentennial of Charles Darwin’s birth just outside Grand Junction this week, the Freedom From Religion Foundation announced Tuesday. The town landed the “Praise Darwin: Evolve Beyond Belief” billboard — which also commemorates the 150th anniversary of the publication of Darwin’s On the Origin of Species — because Grand Junction rejected a proposal by a local atheist to proclaim a day honoring the father of evolution, FFRF said in a release.