NEWS ROUNDUP

NYT Editorial: Tongass Travesty The Bush administration has pulled another thread from the intricate legal tapestry shielding the national forests from excessive logging. On Tuesday, it announced that the Tongass National Forest in Alaska would be denied protections provided by the so-called roadless rule, a federal regulation prohibiting the building of roads -- and by definition most commercial activity -- on 58.5 million acres of national forests. The administration presents the new policy as a necessary tonic for southeast Alaska's depressed economy, and as a necessary response to a state lawsuit that it says it could never have won. The reality is otherwise. This is essentially a holiday gift to Senator Ted Stevens and Gov. Frank Murkowski, both of whom have lobbied for the resumption of the clear-cutting that has already stripped the nation's only temperate rain forest of a half million acres of old-growth trees. The announcement came wrapped in the same deceptive packaging that has camouflaged much of this administration's forest policy. The most egregious example was the Forest Service's disingenuous assertion that the new policy would allow logging on only 300,000 acres of the Tongass, or about 3 percent of the 9.6 million roadless acres that are earmarked for protection...Editorial: Tongass roads lead to nowhere U.S. taxpayers can howl as loudly as environmentalists over Bush administration plans to expand logging in Alaska's Tongass National Forest. Predictably, the proceeds from timber sales will be less than the cost of preparing the sales and building roads, so the expense to the national treasury is a serious question...Efforts to round up wild horses will continue in national forest An effort to round up horses in the Carson National Forest will continue despite an announcement from the U.S. Forest Service that it had been suspended. The Forest Service announced this week that the roundup in the Jarita Mesa Wild Horse Territory within the El Rito Ranger District had come to an end without a single horse captured. But Carlos LoPopolo, director of the New Mexico Horse Project, said his organization intends to fulfill its contract, which expires Tuesday. "The Forest Service misspoke," LoPopolo said. "We are going to try and get the job done."...Justice Dept. official knows the West As assistant attorney general for environment and natural resources, Sansonetti, 53, occupies a crucial but little-known post in the Justice Department. He and his staff of 450 lawyers handle all environmental litigation for the federal government. A big man with a round face, a taste for the good life and a mean game of tennis, he's the only one of John Ashcroft's assistants to hail from west of the Mississippi. And he says that's brought an important understanding of the issues for a division of the Justice Department where two-thirds of the cases come from the West. After all, until 1989, it was known as the Lands Division...Flying with ducks, thinking like them key to wildlife survey Ducks and geese aren't the only ones flying south for the winter -- they're being joined by members of the U-S Fish and Wildlife Service. Some 16 pilot-biologists fly with the birds from the Arctic Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico, including Alaska and Canada. It's all part of the largest and possibly most reliable wildlife survey in the world...`Split estate' sparks conflicts between developers, landowners The separation of surface and mineral rights occurred across the West when the government retained the mineral rights to large swaths of land it manages. Many private landowners, particularly during the Depression, sold the rights to raise money. Colorado law requires notifying property buyers if mineral rights aren't included. State and federal government officials throughout the region also urge companies to try to negotiate agreements with surface owners and can require bonds to cover damages. The Bureau of Land Management office in Farmington, N.M., which oversees most of the 20,000 wells in the gas-rich San Juan Basin, has produced a video on landowners' concerns to show to industry employees. In Wyoming, ranchers and state and industry representatives have drafted procedures for mediating disputes. The state has 40,300 wells, with thousands more planned...Energy expansion prompts concern over air pollution in Four Corners Plans to add thousands of natural gas wells in the Four Corners region has prompted concern among state and federal agencies about skyrocketing air pollution. San Juan County, N.M., has only one-fifth of the Albuquerque area's population of 557,000. Yet state air-quality experts say the area posts some of the highest levels of surface ozone in the state. "It is surprising," New Mexico Air Quality Bureau manager Mary Uhl told The Denver Post. "Most ozone problems in the United States occur in metropolitan areas with populations greater than a million."...Editorial: Lift the ban We've explained here before why we believe a ban on the carrying of firearms in U.S. national parks is based on a dangerous delusion, given that visitors to these often remote areas aren't somehow magically immunized against criminals or attacks by animals. Americans shouldn't have to surrender their Second Amendment rights or an effective means of self-defense, we've pointed out, when visiting their own "public" lands. While firearms are permitted on most national forests and lands administered by the Bureau of Land Management, they are forbidden in all but a few national parks. Drug gangs are understandably drawn to nation parks and state and federal forests due to their remoteness, and an ability to operate there with little fear of detection. But an added appeal must be that the gangs know they have little chance of encountering campers or hikers who are armed and able to defend themselves...Leases could net Wyoming millions Details of a series of coal deals that could be worth hundreds of millions of dollars and lead to mining 1.5 billion tons of coal in the southern Powder River Basin were released this week by the Bureau of Land Management. The leases ultimately will provide substantial revenues to the state of Wyoming when the federal government pays the state its share of the lease payments...