skip to main content
skip to newscasts

Thursday, March 20, 2025

Public News Service Logo
facebook instagram linkedin reddit youtube twitter
view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

'Woefully insufficient': Federal judge accuses Justice Department of evading 'obligations' to comply with deportation flights request; WA caregivers rally against Medicaid cuts; NM's state methane regulations expected to thwart federal rollbacks; Governor, critics call out 'boilerplate' bills from WY 2025 session.

view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

Trump faces legal battles over education cuts, immigration actions, and moves by DOGE. Farmers struggle with USDA freezing funds. A Georgetown scholar fights deportation, and Virginia debates voter roll purges ahead of elections.

view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

Cuts to Medicaid and frozen funding for broadband are both likely to have a negative impact on rural healthcare, which is already struggling. Plus, lawsuits over the mass firing of federal workers have huge implications for public lands.

Utah allocates funds to build more wildlife crossings

play audio
Play

Friday, November 3, 2023   

Budget legislation was signed into law in Utah this week that includes $20 million for building wildlife crossing infrastructure.

Utah joins other Western states in enacting bills that allow them to receive millions of dollars in federal matching funds to install wildlife overpasses, underpasses and fencing.

Bill Christensen, volunteer government relations representative for the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, said Utah has a long history of investing in wildlife crossings, and the state's $20 million appropriation will turn into $100 million. He said one potential project is around Echo Junction.

"This is about 50 miles northeast of Salt Lake City," he said, "and during the legislative session last year, in one week, 32 elk were hit and killed. No people were killed, but the property damage was just huge and significant."

Christensen said these crossings help not only preserve wildlife connectivity and migration routes, but also improve public safety for Utah roadways. He said this issue has garnered strong bipartisan support.

While Christensen called the latest one-time state appropriation "a huge win," he'd like to see the state continue to solidify its commitment to building wildlife crossing structures through a recurring allocation of funds from the Utah Legislature. Christensen said funding is always a challenge when dealing with these projects.

"Wildlife crossings can be as inexpensive as fencing along a highway, or as expensive as a large overpass or underpass," he said. "I think that there is big support from our citizens now, as they've seen the positive effects of, number one, public safety - and number two, the preserving of wildlife."

Christensen said the state also has invested in tracking how these crossings are used. He added that research on wildlife crossings across the West by a former Utah State University professor, Patricia Cramer, has been a pioneering effort that informs project development.


Support for this reporting was provided by The Pew Charitable Trusts.


get more stories like this via email
more stories
PoliChic Engagement Fund says it's critical Texans make sure lawmakers are voting in their public interest. (JHVEPhoto/Adobe Stock)

Social Issues

play sound

Many Texans feel strongly, one way or another, about the proposed school voucher bill before state lawmakers. Gov. Greg Abbott has proposed a plan to …


Social Issues

play sound

As the Trump administration makes good on promises to abolish the U.S. Department of Education, educators and parents are raising concerns about the …

Environment

play sound

Greenpeace has been ordered to pay several hundred million dollars stemming from the Dakota Access Pipeline protests and some are saying the verdict l…


Experts advised neighbors to work together to reduce the risk of fire racing across the block or through the neighborhood. (Brian/Adobe Stock)

Social Issues

play sound

As Los Angeles starts to recover from the firestorm, people are looking for ways to harden their homes against future mega-blazes. Experts said the …

Environment

play sound

A local event that brings students face-to-face with outdoor habitats is serving to ignite a lifelong passion in some that go on to pursue "green jobs…

Research shows there is a direct correlation between unstable housing and food insecurity. (FamilyWorks Food Bank)

Social Issues

play sound

While affordable housing advocates across the state have been cheering on Washington's rent stabilization bill in Olympia, so have organizations …

Social Issues

play sound

Industry groups say Minnesota is short more than 100,000 affordable-housing units to meet demand, and project leaders have said the Trump …

Social Issues

play sound

The number of working-age Wyoming adults with college degrees or valuable credentials increased by over 18% between 2009 and 2023, according to …

 

Phone: 303.448.9105 Toll Free: 888.891.9416 Fax: 208.247.1830 Your trusted member- and audience-supported news source since 1996 Copyright © 2021