Gillian Flaccus

Associated Press

Dan Martinez, emergency manager for the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs, pauses in the hallway of a storage building filled with donated water on Tuesday, Dec. 7, 2021, in Warm Springs, Ore. “The infrastructure bill brought joy to my heart because now it gives me hope — hope that it’s going to be repaired,” said Martinez, the tribes’ emergency manager.

Infrastructure Bill to Aid U.S. Tribes with Water, Plumbing

It includes $3.5 billion for the federal Indian Health Service.

Vince Patton, a new Tesla owner, demonstrates on Wednesday, Dec. 8, 2021, on a closed course in Portland, Ore., how he can play video games on the vehicle's console while driving. Patton, of Portland, Ore., filed a complaint with federal regulators after discovering the feature in his new car.

Drivers Playing Video Games? U.S. Is Looking into Tesla Case

A software update may allow a video game to be used by drivers.

In this May 8, 2003, file photo, a Northern Spotted Owl flies after an elusive mouse jumping off the end of a stick in the Deschutes National Forest near Camp Sherman, Ore. The Trump administration has slashed more than 3 million acres of protected habitat for the northern spotted owl in Oregon, Washington and northern California, much of it in prime timber locations in Oregon's coastal ranges. Environmentalists are accusing the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service under President Donald Trump of taking a 'parting shot' at protections designed to help restore the threatened owl species.

Trump Slashes Imperiled Owl Protections

It's being called a "parting gift to the timber industry."

In this Oct. 28, 2019, photo, apples collected by amateur botanist David Benscoter, of the Lost Apple Project, rest next to his field notes and an apple picking pole in an orchard at a remote homestead near Pullman, Wash.

10 Extinct Apples Rediscovered

Turns out they were just hiding in the Pacific Northwest.

In this March 3, 2020, photo, a dam on the lower Klamath River known as Copco 2 is seen near Hornbrook, Calif.

Largest US Dam Removal Stirs Water Debate

The plan calls to demolish four hydroelectric dams.

This May 19, 2010, file photo shows a blue rectangular piece of microplastic on the finger of a researcher with the University of Washington-Tacoma environmental science program, after it was found in debris collected from the Thea Foss Waterway, in Tacoma, Wash.

Scientists Study Microplastic Pollution Risks

The largest of these plastic bits are 5 mm long, roughly the size of a kernel of corn.

In this April 23, 2018, file photo, Trevor Eubanks, plant manager for Big Top Farms, shovels dried hemp as branches hang drying in barn rafters overhead at their production facility near Sisters, Ore. Draft rules released by the United States Department of Agriculture for a new and booming agricultural hemp industry have alarmed farmers, processors and retailers across the country, who say the provisions will be crippling if they are not significantly overhauled before they become final.

Proposed US Hemp Rules Worry Industry

The government's heavy hand could result in many crops failing required tests and being destroyed.

In this Dec. 11, 2019 photo, Kevin Dunn, who fishes off the coasts of Oregon and Washington, holds a rockfish at a processing facility in Warrenton, Oregon. A rare environmental success story is unfolding in waters off the U.S. West Coast as regulators in January 2020 are scheduled to reopen a large area off the coasts of Oregon and California to groundfish bottom trawling fishing less than two decades after authorities closed huge stretches of the Pacific Ocean due to the species' depletion.

Fishery Rebounds in Rare Conservation 'Home Run'

A rare environmental success story is unfolding in waters off the U.S. West Coast.

In this Oct. 22 photo, E.J. Brandt and David Benscoter, amateur botanists with The Lost Apple Project, walk toward an orchard in the Steptoe Butte area near Colfax, WA.

Apple Detectives Comb US Northwest for Lost Varieties

A pair of amateur botanists are on a quest to find orchards planted by settlers as they pushed west more than a century ago.

A container at the Bodega Marine Lab in Bodega Bay, California holds hundreds of live purple urchins harvested from the Mendocino County coast where they have been decimating kelp forests. Tens of millions of voracious purple sea urchins that have already chomped their way through towering underwater kelp forests in California are now spreading north to Oregon.

Sea Urchin Spike Hurts Fisheries

The explosion of purple sea urchins is the latest symptom of a Pacific Northwest marine ecosystem that's out of whack.

In this file photo, a man displays hemp seeds being prepared for sale to industrial hemp farmers at his facility in Monmouth, Oregon.

Standards Hopefully Fix Hemp 'Mess'

"A lot of people say, 'Is your seed certified?' and there's no such thing as certified seed right now. There's no test, there's no oversight."

In this April 26, 2019, photo, medical marijuana cardholder Scott Donnelly, assisted by his wife and licensed caregiver, Vicki Poppen, leaves Western Oregon Dispensary in Sherwood, Ore., after buying medical marijuana to treat muscle spasms caused by his multiple sclerosis. Donnelly visits the medical-only dispensary once a week and relies on it for the cannabis that eases his tremors long enough that he can fall asleep. The dispensary is one of two medical-only shops left in Oregon.

Legal Pot Ups Cost of Medical Weed

States see a "massive exodus" of medical patients when they legalize marijuana for all adults — and then, in many cases, the remaining ones struggle.