This week’s Indy Environment looks at the U.S. Department of Interior’s boarding school legacy through the lens of a recent art exhibit at the Nevada Museum of Art.

This week’s Indy Environment looks at the Biden administration’s decision to resume oil and gas leasing on public lands, the mixed reactions and what it might mean for Nevada.

Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) helped derail an effort to revamp an 1872 mining law in the Democrats' agenda bill. The move has raised concerns with environmentalist ahead of a tough re-election campaign.

In this week’s edition of Indy Environment, we talk to an author who recently looked at the history of public lands policy in the West and what it might mean for the future.

This week's edition of the Indy Environment newsletter looks at what stories we are watching as 2022 begins.

In 2019, two mining giants joined forces, with huge consequences for a Northern Nevada community and economy.

This week’s Indy Environment newsletter looks at the Glasgow climate conference, what’s at stake and how those involved in Nevada climate policy are watching the talks.

The mining oversight board, set up by the Legislature in 2011 and modeled after the Gaming Commission, held its last recorded meeting in December 2015. Today, all seven board seats on the commission are vacant.

Gov. Steve Sisolak’s Home Means Nevada political action committee raised more than $830,000 in the last three months of last year, including $500,000 from Nevada Gold Mines — a joint venture between mining giants Barrick and Newmont — and another $260,000 from the pharmaceutical lobbying group PhRMA, according to campaign finance documents filed Wednesday.

The state’s largest gold mining company asked federal land managers to temporarily suspend permitting to expand the Long Canyon Mine, a proposal that the Confederated Tribes of the Goshute Reservation and environmental groups said would dry up wetlands and endanger wildlife habitat.

Nevada Gold Mines is in active settlement talks with the National Labor Relations Board after the federal agency told a federal court that the company engaged in “unlawful conduct” for failing to recognize a union and blocking employees from organizing.

Nevada Gold Mines, the state’s largest mining company, engaged in “unlawful conduct” in not recognizing a union, the National Labor Relations Board is alleging in court documents. Those actions, the board said, have “left many employees feeling terrified and betrayed.”

This week's Indy Environment newsletter looks at a water rights protest for a proposed mine expansion in northeastern Nevada. It also looks at air quality data in Las Vegas and the completion of a major Lake Mead project.

This week's Indy Environment newsletter looks at new research forecasting diminished Colorado River flows due to higher temperatures. It also takes a look at some questions facing the Washoe County Lands Bill and a coal plant moving toward natural gas.

“So you want to rely on people who know how to get you where you want to go.," said Rebecca Gasca, a lobbyist and owner with Wendovera LLC. "They have the compass. They’re the compass holders. You’re the boat. And you trust them. And it makes sense because you haven’t been in their shoes.”

Recent solar and wind projects, proposed to operate on the federal land that comprises most of Nevada, have come into conflict with wildlife corridors, public access and conservation areas. That tension has split environmental groups, and it has led some organizations to ask: What if solar developers are looking in the wrong places? 

Democratic Sen. Chris Brooks’ bill setting new restrictions and limits on the ability of large businesses to leave NV Energy is moving forward, but with a major amendment stripping out sections that would affect businesses that have already left or are in the process of leaving the utility.

A total of 14 companies and individuals involved in Nevada’s mining industry gave 57 legislators about $248,500 through the 2018 election cycle, about 2.3 percent of the $11.7 million raised by lawmakers in 2018. It’s slightly less than the $266,000 the industry gave in 2016; a presidential election year where most industries reported more contributions than they do in midterm elections.

It’s looking increasingly likely that Nevada lawmakers will push to increase the state’s Renewable Portfolio Standard for the first time in a decade when the 120-day legislative session starts in February. But one potential obstacle is standing in the way — how to deal with the growing number of businesses that no longer purchase electricity from NV Energy, the state’s primary utility.