gas, electricity, timber and pipeline companies), and environmentalists who put a higher priority on preservation and protection of scenery and wildlife. For example, after the age of coal mining arrived in eastern Montana in the late 1960s, the issue became use of Yellowstone River Basin's water to cool the coal-burning electricity plants planned for Colstrip. Environmentalists rallied cattle ranchers, fishing organizations and other recreational river users to oppose strip mining. These groups succeeded after intense debates in forming of organizations such as the Northern Plains Resource Council, and securing legislative enactment of Montana's Environmental Protection Act (MEPA) and the Major Facilities Siting Act. Howard Newspaperman and lecturer Joseph Kinsey Howard (1906–51) believed Montana and the rural West provided the "last stand against urban technological tedium" for the individual. His Montana: High, Wide and Handsome (1943) gave impetus to the environmental movement. Howard fervently believed that small towns of the sort that predominated in Montana provided a democratic bulwark for society. Howard's writings demonstrate his strong belief in the necessity to identify and preserve a region's cultural heritage. His book as numerous speeches and magazine articles, were based on his ideals of community awareness and identity, his hatred of the Anaconda Company, and called on readers to retain an idealistic vision contesting the deadening demands of the modern corporate world. The book's 27 chapters were grouped into sections on Prairie, Prophet, Prospector, Puncher, Plow, Panic, and Planning. Each chapter was written with emotionally charged prose that marked a dramatic change from the standard histories romanticizing the Old West. Howard focused on economics, arguing that Native Americans had "the perfect balance of Nature, man, and food in this grim and unforgiving land". Howard presented themes that reverberated in environmentalist thinking for over a half century, alleging that the white invaders destroyed "the natural economy of the northern Great Plains" and in return built little that lasted. Moreover, the new industrial economy, despite all its promises, could never restore the old balance of man and nature. Scholars have judged the book "heavily romantic and melodramatic" and have called many of his conclusions "simplistic", but they also argue Montana: High, Wide and Handsome "has probably affected people's thinking about Montana more than any other work". Higher education In 1994, in the face of declining state spending, the Montana Board of Regents of Higher Education restructured the state's public colleges and universities. It put Montana's