"Foresters are on the watch for a potential invasion of an insect that has decimated millions of acres of forest across the West and in Canada, with continued evidence showing the mountain pine bark beetle is on the march into Nevada and the Sierra."

"BILLINGS, Mont. -- Eastern Montana residents will weigh in this week on a proposed 83-mile coal railroad with the potential to usher in a dramatic expansion of mining in the state and increase exports of the fuel to Asia."

"SALT LAKE CITY -- The U.S. Department of the Interior scaled back a Bush administration plan Friday to lease Western range lands for development of oil shale and tar sands, the unconventional sources of oil found in pockets of the Rocky Mountains."

"LONGMONT, Colo. — Longmont's city charter will now ban fracking."

"Drinking water in one out of eight Denver homes with lead plumbing may be contaminated with lead — a health hazard that causes brain and nerve damage, especially in children."

"No matter who wins the election Tuesday, the Bureau of Land Management is going to have to thread a needle to find routes Idaho Power Co. and Rocky Mountain Power can use for the Gateway West power line across southern Idaho."

"LARAMIE, Wyo. -- The idea behind the sculpture that appeared on the University of Wyoming campus about 16 months ago was simple but provocative: a swirl of dead wood and lumps of coal, intended to show the link between global warming and the pine beetle infestation that has ravaged forests across the Rockies."

"After years of working to obtain permission from the state, Alberta-based U.S. Oil Sands Inc. was given the final go-ahead Wednesday to develop the first commercial oil sands project in the US."

"WASHINGTON, DC -- Clearing the way for the largest wind farm in the United States, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar Tuesday approved the Chokecherry and Sierra Madre site in Wyoming as suitable for wind energy development."

"Bivouacking with sheep high in the mountains around Sun Valley, Idaho, field technicians with the environmental group Defenders of Wildlife are gaining deeper insights into strategies they can use to keep wolves at bay without shooting them."

"El Dorado County environmental health officials are urging residents and visitors to take precautions after a chipmunk found in the Lake Tahoe Basin last week tested presumptive positive for the bacteria that causes the plague."

"CHEYENNE, Wyo. -- A land conservation group has reached a long-sought agreement to prevent a gas drilling project near a southern approach to Jackson Hole and Grand Teton National Park by buying out a vast area of mineral leases."

"FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. — Klee Benally, a member of the Navajo tribe, has gone to the mountains just north of here to pray, and he has gone to get arrested. He has chained himself to excavators; he has faced down bulldozers. For 10 years, the soft-spoken activist has fought a ski resort’s expansion plans in the San Francisco Peaks that include clear-cutting 74 acres of forest and piping treated sewage effluent onto a mountain to make snow."

"President Obama plans to bypass Congress and sign an executive order [Friday]designating the ancient Chimney Rock ruins in southwest Colorado as a new national monument, the administration announced late yesterday."

"A coal-fired power plant in Billings, Montana, will be mothballed starting in April 2015 because it will cost too much to comply with new emissions reductions required by the government, plant owner and operator PPL Montana said on Wednesday."