Reporting from The Center Square
Op-Ed: Idaho and Montana are winning the competition for America’s families
What if the best report card for state government wasn’t a poll or an election? What if it was a moving truck?
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Reporting from The Center Square
Watchdog asks Interior to investigate National Wildlife Federation political spending
(The Center Square) – A watchdog group wants the Department of the Interior to investigate whether the National Wildlife Federation misused federal grant money tied to political spending in Montana’s 2024 U.S. Senate race.
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Reporting from The Center Square
Op-Ed How housing costs are reshaping who can live in Montana
Montana has become one of the clearest examples of how housing affordability is reshaping who can live in the Mountain West. Population growth, in-migration, and strong housing demand have driven up prices across the state, particularly in Bozeman, Missoula, and the Flathead Valley. A series of nationally recognized housing reforms will take time to address the decades-long barriers to homeownership and affordable rental housing.
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Reporting from The Center Square
Op-Ed: Trump Administration is right to enforce hospital price transparency rule
More than five years after hospitals were required by law to post prices for their services, over 500 nationally, including 19 in the Mountain West (9 Washington; 4 Montana ; 3 Idaho; and 3 Wyoming), failed to meet transparency requirements this year – keeping healthcare costs higher for everyone.
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Reporting from The Center Square
Op-Ed: Data centers aren’t draining the Mountain West
Across the Mountain West, data center construction has been slowed by local opposition, fueled in part by misunderstandings about the water consumption associated with the industry. Articles like “AI Chugs a Bottle of Water Every Time You Chat With It,” and “The Dark Side of Data Centers Part 2: Water Guzzlers” give the impression that data centers are uniquely intense in their water consumption. This phrasing has also shown up in recent legislative bills. Idaho’s recently passed HB 895 claims data centers “require significant amounts of water.” Washington HB 2515 says data centers “are also major users of … water.”
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Reporting from The Center Square
Education Department admits it violated court order in Title IX cases
(The Center Square) – The U.S. Department of Education confirmed a whistleblower’s allegations that the agency violated a federal court order while handling Title IX cases tied to gender identity and sexual orientation, according to the U.S. Office of Special Counsel .
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Reporting from The Center Square
Montana governor to Washington companies: We want your business
(The Center Square) - The Governor of Montana tells The Center Square he hopes to lure more out of state business expansion into his state, following this week’s announcement that Sedro-Woolley based Janicki Industries chose Great Falls as the site of its next manufacturing campus.
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Reporting from The Center Square
WATCH: New report ranks fiscally healthy states: where did WA fall?
(The Center Square) - A new report from Truth in Accounting on the fiscal health of U.S. states finds several Mountain West states in the top 10, including Wyoming, Montana and Idaho, while Washington ranked much lower in the bottom half.
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Op-Ed: State policies matter for taxpayers and the business climate
I start each workday by reviewing the latest economic and government reports for Idaho, Montana, Washington, and Wyoming. It doesn’t take long to see a trend. Those states that prioritize fiscal discipline and a low regulatory and tax burden are doing well. The opposite is true if a state fails to keep its fiscal and regulatory house in order.
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