Mountain West (CO ID MT NV UT WY)

"Colorado, which gets 60 percent of its electricity from coal-burning power plants, has set some of the more ambitious greenhouse gas reduction targets in the United States. It wants to cut emissions from its power plants 38 percent by 2030. ... One of the immediate problems of the target-setters, however, is that the state lacks plans from its fastest-growing, most energy-hungry users: owners of indoor marijuana farms."

"BILLINGS, Mont. — The Obama administration brushed over the threat that climate change poses to the snow-loving wolverine when it denied protections for the elusive predator also known as the "mountain devil," a federal judge ruled Monday."

"A National Park Service decision that gave Wyoming officials control over wildlife management on private and state lands within Grand Teton National Park seems to have sidestepped historic negotiations that led to today's Grand Teton National Park, as well as longstanding court rulings that have upheld the Park Service's authority to manage all wildlife within a park, even on non-federal lands."

"About 465 coal mine workers are being laid off from the two largest mines in northeast Wyoming as declining prices and demand for coal force mining companies to scale back their operations."

"Descendants of a bison herd captured and sent to Canada more than a century ago will be relocated to a Montana American Indian reservation next month, in what tribal leaders bill as a homecoming for a species emblematic of their traditions."

"The Obama administration has cancelled a disputed oil and gas lease in the Badger-Two Medicine area near Glacier National Park."

"Rooftop solar and distributed energy champions have advanced a ballot initiative to restore Nevada’s retail-rate net metering policy. However, they are facing legal challenges from a utility-backed PAC. Expect a vigorous courtroom battle."

"A few miles outside Glacier National Park in northwest Montana is land known as the Badger-Two Medicine, the ancestral home of the Blackfeet tribe. But it's also the site of 18 oil and gas development leases, and an energy company is heading to federal court March 10 to fight for the right to drill there after decades of delay."

"The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed on Thursday stripping Endangered Species Act protections from the grizzly bear in and around Yellowstone National Park, saying the animal's numbers have rebounded sufficiently in recent decades."