OMB issues guidance on "green" competitive sourcing plans The Office of Management and Budget has asked federal agencies to craft plans for letting contractors bid on federal jobs from now through 2008. The multiyear plans will help it decide which agencies deserve a "green" rating, or top marks in competitive sourcing, said OMB Deputy Director for Management Clay Johnson in a Dec. 22, 2003 memorandum announcing the planning exercise. He added that OMB would evaluate plans based on how well they support an agency's mission. "OMB will assess a plan's effectiveness in a manner that accounts for the agency's unique mission and workforce needs as well as the agency's demonstrated ability to conduct reviews and competitions in a reasonable and responsible banner," Johnson wrote in the memorandum, which was distributed to the President's Management Council. The plans could serve as a window into how agencies would comply with the competitive sourcing initiative in a second term of the Bush administration, if the president is re-elected. Until now, most agencies have worked to implement OMB-approved plans to earn a "yellow" rating, which signals mixed results...Forest advisory board supports aggressive plan The Black Hills National Forest Advisory Board voted Monday to support a 10-year accelerated option for insect and fuels treatment that would help reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfire and restore forest health. State Representative and Advisory Board Vice Chairman John Teupel of Spearfish made the motion in favor of a 10-year option that would see the U.S. Forest Service treat an average of 39,000 acres annually to reduce the threat on areas in the high hazard category. Though some of his fellow advisory board members argued that the more aggressive seven-year option for fuels treatment might reduce wildfire danger more quickly, Teupel favored the 10-year plan as "aggressive but executable."...Military, Local Officials Coordinate Firefighting Efforts Local Navy and Marine flight crews took a big first step Monday toward becoming certified to fight civilian brush fires. After last October's disastrous firestorm, forestry officials are eager to recruit aerial reinforcements from the military. Officials said that it's going to take a lot of intense training, planning and logistical work to coordinate their firefighting efforts -- but that they can do so. On Monday, pilots and flight crews from the California Department of Forestry met with counterparts from Naval Station North Island, Marine Corps Air Station Miramar and the California National Guard to map out the process of coordinating radio frequencies and air-operation protocols, as well as the sticky topic of chain of command. Authorities also want to have the military pilots certified to fight civilian fires, an effort that has been cleared by the Pentagon...Resorts sprouted after Sun Valley With the opening of Sun Valley as the nation's premier winter resort, it was only a matter of time before Idahoans began looking to other mountaintops as a way to cash in on the fun. Popular folklore says Averell Harriman considered Mount Bonneville - the highest point in the Portneuf Range - for his Sun Valley resort, but decided it was too difficult to get to. No matter. In 1947, 11 years after Sun Valley opened, several Pocatello daredevils formed the Alpette Ski Club and pooled their resources to buy a New Sweden rope tow, which they placed on Scout Mountain...Both sides claim win in minnow decision A decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals 10th Circuit to vacate its earlier decision in the endangered species Rio Grande silvery minnow case is being declared a victory by both sides of the issue. Representatives of the state and agricultural community called the decision by the 10th Circuit a victory. Environ-mentalists said it gets the appeals court out of the picture but does not undo their earlier victory in federal district court in Albuquerque. The court ruled that an appeal of the Court of Appeals' June decision regarding diversion of water to maintain a habitat for the silvery minnow was made moot by events occurring after the entry of the injunction order, which expired on Dec. 31. The appeals court had agreed during the summer with Chief U.S. District Judge James A. Parker of Albuquerque. Each court held that the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation can take water from middle Rio Grande irrigators and others who contract for imported water through the San Juan-Chama Project if it's needed to sustain the minnow. The State of New Mexico, the federal government, the City of Albuquerque and irrigation districts had asked the appeals court to reconsider its decision. "The injunctive order from which this appeal was taken no longer provides the court with a live controversy to review," the 10th Circuit judges wrote, which were released on Monday...Endangered wolf escapes from Battle Creek zoo An endangered Mexican gray wolf remained on the loose Tuesday after escaping from Binder Park Zoo. Three wolves escaped from their enclosure through a small hole they stretched in their exhibit fence early Saturday morning. Two wolves quickly were recaptured, but one climbed the zoo's 9-foot perimeter fence and got away. "This is not a situation that is taken lightly at Binder Park Zoo," Geise said. "We are very concerned for the safety of this animal, and we are taking every possible measure to see that it is returned safely." The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service owns the wolf and two service biologists who specialize in wolves are aiding in the search, Geise said... Petition to list "eastern" sage grouse rejected The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has rejected a petition to list "eastern" sage grouse under the Endangered Species Act, saying there's no evidence they are a unique subspecies of other sage grouse found in the West. But the agency said it will continue a preliminary review of other pending petitions involving the species as a whole. A finding on those petitions, including one filed last month by 20 conservation organizations, is expected by the end of March, the agency said...Column: Puzzling times Land acquisitions in our local communities are not necessarily real estate transactions between two willing parties but are sometimes classified as controls and "takings." They come in many forms other than a deeded sale of property. If we were to put a jigsaw puzzle together with each piece representing a "controlling program," we could see how close the puzzle is to being complete... Editorial: Species act has support Signed into law Dec. 28, 1973, the law is designed to provide a safety net for fish, wildlife and plant species on the brink of extinction. It is arguably the most comprehensive conservation measure ever crafted. The act makes it illegal to kill, harm or harass listed species. And it allows for protection of critical habitat for listed species. Several signature species, including the American bald eagle, the peregrine falcon and the southern California sea otter, have rebounded from perilously low numbers through protection afforded by the act. The Endangered Species Act has strong public support. In a Lou Harris & Associates poll commissioned by The Olympian several years ago, 71 percent of the adults surveyed called the act somewhat to very effective in protecting plants and animals from extinction. And two-thirds of those polled wanted Congress to reauthorize the act... Groups seek end to Park Service's 'Blanket Approval' Policy Four conservation groups have cited the National Park Service for authorizing wholesale Wilderness Act violations by its own staff at Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks in California's Sierra Nevada Mountains. Sequoia and Kings Canyon contains more than 700,000 acres of congressionally designated wilderness in some of the wildest country in California. The Wilderness Act prohibits such things as motor vehicles and aircraft landing in wilderness. The prohibitions apply not only to the public who visit wilderness, but also the federal agencies that administer it. The Act allows federal agencies some latitude to engage in practices prohibited by the Wilderness Act but only when the practices are absolutely needed for administering the wilderness... Report says bear attack occurred during the day The bear that killed Timothy Treadwell and Amie Huguenard attacked them at their campsite at midday, not at night as was widely believed, according to a National Park Service report. The report, released Dec. 29 by a technical board of investigation for Katmai National Park, says the attack began at 1:58 p.m. Oct. 5. The time is based on a date stamp found in a digital video camera the couple turned on just before the attack. The digital video contains the sounds of the attack but no pictures, apparently because the lens cap was on...Religious debate rages at National Parks With pages of eye-catching photographs of the Grand Canyon and the blue waters of the Colorado River, the hardback "Grand Canyon: A Different View" is a medium seller at the national park's bookstore. But the book's use of a biblical time scale to claim that the Grand Canyon is only a few thousand years old has thrust the park into the debate over religious materials at public sites. Some critics say examples from the Grand Canyon to the Lincoln Memorial show the National Park Service has caved to pressure from conservative and fundamentalist Christian groups, accommodating their requests to post or alter materials. But National Park Service officials deny the accusation, saying they seek legal advice before acting. Parks also may sell or post materials considered inspirational, such as poetry and photographs, as long as they don't make scientific claims, the agency said...BLM releases report on Otero Mesa The controversial fate of southern Otero County's Otero Mesa is a step closer to being decided with the Bureau of Land Management's release of a proposed Resource Management Plan. The plan, also known as the EIS (Environmental Impact Statement), outlines decisions that will guide the management of almost two million acres of federal public lands and mineral estate administered by the Las Cruces BLM field office. "What this document shows is a proposed plan how we would administer oil and gas leasing," said Tom Phillips, BLM land use planner in the Las Cruces office. "This is our proposed plan. The final EIS. This is at the end of five years of development." There will be a 30-day protest period, Phillips said. Protestants have to send their documents to the BLM director in Washington...Column: Hydrogen's Dirty DetailsThe day after George W. Bush's 2003 State of the Union address, the president of the National Mining Association, Jack Gerard, wrote him a letter applauding Bush's plan for a pollution-free future powered by fuel cells, the battery-like devices that use hydrogen to release energy. "Coal - reliable, abundant, affordable and domestic," wrote Gerard, "will be the source for much of this hydrogen-powered fuel." Gerard is right: The so-called hydrogen economy will be a boon for the mining industry. The clean-energy future that many environmentalists have dreamed of has been turned over to the coal industry and a notoriously dirty Siberian mining company run by Russian oligarch Vladimir Potanin. A deal personally smoothed over by Bush has given Norilsk Nickel, one of the world's worst polluters, a toehold on American soil - and a major stake in the hydrogen economy. The new mining frenzy is emerging as yet another piece of Bush's "black hydrogen agenda," according to the Green Hydrogen Coalition, whose members include the Sierra Club, Public Citizen, and Jeremy Rifkin, a leading proponent of hydrogen fuel cells...BLM may shave coal lease Federal land managers want to cut 123.6 million tons from a lease by application (LBA) for federal coal in the southern Powder River Basin. The West Antelope LBA Tract is one of five under consideration in the Bureau of Land Management's South Powder River Basin Coal final Environmental Impact Statement, which was released for a 30-day public comment period on Christmas Eve. Under the BLM's proposed alternatives, the agency would make available five new leases for a total of 1.5 billion tons of federally-owned coal in a competitive lease process. Antelope Coal Co., a subsidiary of Kennecott Energy, had applied for one new lease tract containing about 3,542 acres and 294 million tons of coal to extend the life of its Antelope coal mine straddling the Campbell and Converse county line in northeast Wyoming...State to oppose prairie dog listing State officials will soon ask the federal government to drop the black-tailed prairie dog as a candidate for the threatened species list. Pennington County ranchers say the state should do more - and fast. George Vandel, the top biologist for the state Game, Fish & Parks Department, told the Pennington County Commission and a large group of area ranchers Tuesday that GF&P Secretary John Cooper and state Agriculture Secretary Larry Gabriel will make the formal request to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. Vandel said the state's request will contain preliminary data from a survey indicating the state has more than 200,000 acres inhabited by prairie dogs, including 170,000 acres of nontribal land. The survey is nearly complete...Colorado set to post record in 2004 for oil, gas well permits A record 2,500 permits to drill oil and gas wells in the state are expected to be issued this year, furthering the Rockies' claim as a hot spot for energy producers. The 2004 forecast by the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, based on a poll of 600 companies actively operating in the state, is substantially higher than the previous record of 2,378 permits set in 1980. "There has been a sustained drilling boom for three years in a row, but we believe 2004 will be an all-time record," said oil and gas commission Director Rich Griebling...Following busy year, Wyoming tries to cope with coalbed growing pains In the last four years, the Bureau of Land Management office here has expanded three times. The staff has jumped from 25 employees to 76. The Forest Service, which shared the office with the BLM for years, has been squeezed out. "We've beefed up knowing that the onslaught is coming," said Beels, project manager for oil and gas in the BLM's Buffalo office. The signs are obvious in places like the Lower Prairie Dog Creek drainage, just outside Sheridan. Older pickup trucks steered by ranchers are giving way to new pickups driven by gas company officials and tractor trailors hauling pipes and equipment. The rolling ranchland is still a bucolic setting, but increasingly is home to giant compressors, underground pipes, new roads and scores of squat beige boxes that house coalbed methane wells...Heated discussion marks first post-fire meeting Skepticism and disagreement marked the beginning of an experimental "consensus" process for planning post-fire management projects in the Flathead's North Fork Valley. The Flathead National Forest launched the process Monday at the Kalispell Center WestCoast Hotel, with 83 out of 110 registered participants showing up. The crowd included some of the most vocal environmental and multiple-use activists in the Flathead Valley, creating a charged atmosphere for the start of a process that will continue with a series of meetings over the next 10 days...Energy firms paying tab for GOP trip A dozen or more congressional Republicans will gather at a resort in balmy Phoenix this week to hear the legislative wish lists of Western coal, power and mining companies - and raise money from them. The four-day conference begins today with a $1,500-per-person round of golf and private dinner, dubbed "Mulligans and Margaritas." The money raised from industry officials will be divided among the re-election campaigns of the lawmakers, most of whom serve on committees that oversee the mining and energy industries... An Environmental Memoir It is strange to recall, given his spectacular misdeeds in office, that Richard Nixon was among the 20th century's most progressive political leaders on matters of the environment. During his presidency, Nixon set in motion policies that cleaned waterways, removed grit and fumes from the air, saved big chunks of critical habitat and hundreds of plant and animal species, reduced and in some cases banned the use of deadly pesticides and created several interlocking federal agencies to protect the environment and the public domain. "That environmental agenda," Washington insider Russell Train writes in his memoir, "Politics, Pollution, and Pandas," "was so wide-ranging, and yet so comprehensive, as to be without precedent in the history of the United States."... Former Colo. Arsenal Gets a Cleanup site once branded as the most polluted square mile in America, where sarin gas and other weapons of mass destruction were manufactured for decades, has been declared free of chemical weapons. The Rocky Mountain Arsenal, 10 miles north of Denver, once represented 60 percent of the nation's chemical weapons production capacity, but is now on its way to becoming a federal wildlife preserve. The federal Superfund site has undergone a $2.2 billion cleanup aimed at transforming it into a wildlife preserve...Dixon dairy faces federal suit over 1.3 million gallon spill A Dixon dairy that spilled more than 1 million gallons of manure-tainted water into streams leading to the Sacramento River faces a federal lawsuit for violating the Clean Water Act, environmentalists said Tuesday. The Sierra Club notified Heritage Dairy owner Peter Albers last week that it intends to sue him in U.S. District Court for a November spill that began when a pump failed in a manure storage lagoon. Federal environmental lawsuits require 60 days notice before they can be filed. The Sierra Club has targeted large livestock operations as a national priority in its campaign to prevent pollution, but it's the first Clean Water Act lawsuit the club has threatened to bring in California...Western States Submit the Nation's First Plans to Reduce Haze over National Parks and Wilderness Areas Five Western states and the City of Albuquerque have completed the nation's first air quality plans designed to reduce haze over federally protected Class I areas, such as national parks and wilderness areas. The states of Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Oregon, and Wyoming -- all members of the Western Regional Air Partnership (WRAP) -- each submitted their plans to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in December. These states are among the 13 WRAP states that are working together with Western tribes, federal agencies, industry, and environmental groups to conduct research and develop policies to reduce haze in the West. A key element of each state plan is an innovative strategy to reduce sulfur dioxide emissions from major industrial sources such as coal-fired power plants, smelters, and refineries. The plans institute a regional cap on sulfur dioxide emissions in the five states. The cap limits the tons of sulfur dioxide that can be emitted annually by industrial sources in the five state region. If industrial emissions remain below the cap, no further regulation takes effect. If the cap is exceeded, an emissions trading program is triggered to ensure the environmental goal is achieved. Under the emissions trading program, sources are given an annual emissions allowance and must limit their emissions to that level or purchase additional allowances from another source with excess allowances. Other important elements of the plans are strategies to reduce smoke from prescribed fires and strategies to increase the use of renewable energy and energy efficiency...San Joaquin County farmers to battle California laws on agriculture discharge Farmers, agricultural water providers, environmentalists and the public in general will be allowed to voice their opinions Wednesday on new rules requiring farmers to monitor pesticides and other items discharged from their land to California waterways. Six appeals representing farmers and one appeal by a coalition of environmentalists have been filed with the California Water Resources Control Board, a division of the California Environmental Protection Agency...Seize the opportunity It's not exactly a full-scale victory for Rio Grande water users and rights owners, but the federal appeals court decision to vacate its earlier ruling on water for the silvery minnow allows them to catch their breath. In what was more a technical decision than a ruling, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals said its June decision that would allow the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to divert San Juan-Chama water from Rio Grande irrigators to habitat for the minnow was moot because the lower court preliminary injunction it upheld had expired. The decision sends the case back to federal district court in Albuquerque for a new hearing before Judge James A. Parker, who issued the preliminary injunction that the state had appealed to the 10th Circuit. In rehearing the case, Parker will have to deal with a new federal law sponsored by U.S. Sens. Pete Domenici and Jeff Bingaman, both of New Mexico, that passed Congress in November and was signed by President Bush. That law prohibits the federal government from taking San Juan-Chama water for the minnow... Wyoming Livestock Board approves emergency brucellosis testing The Wyoming Livestock Board on Tuesday unanimously approved emergency rules requiring testing of cattle for brucellosis. Testing for the disease, which causes cattle, bison and elk to abort and can lead to chronic flu-like symptoms in humans, is optional in Wyoming. Mandatory testing could affect tens of thousands of cattle, industry experts said. The board adopted the rules to allay concerns from other states about the safety of Wyoming's cattle in wake of the finding of brucellosis in a herd in Sublette County... Calgary's big money proposal: Potential $1 million payout turns heads During the NFR in Las Vegas, officials from the Calgary Stampede announced that their event will pay out more than $1 million for this year. And the money will bring some major changes to the Calgary Stampede and create new questions for the PRCA. Prior to 2004, 10 competitors qualified for Sunday's Stampede Showdown rounds. The top four would advance to the finals with the champion earning a winner-take-all $50,000 bonus. The money in the bonus round did not count toward the world standings. This summer, the Calgary Stampede is changing the format, increasing its payouts and how competitors qualify...Paying attention But today, I wasn't able to concentrate on much of anything. Not with her on my mind. You'd have to see her to know why my thoughts ran like a stampede of steers through five holes in a fenceline. She was as pretty a cowgirl as my eyes ever had the pleasure to witness and, best of all, she liked cowboys. More important, she liked this cowboy, at least enough to say "yes" when my bumbling mouth stuttered a request for a date to the Stock Show. Now all she had to do was arrive and I'd be the happiest man holding up a hat this side of the Atlantic. It was a week ago I asked her, stumbling over the words, and I'd been a nervous wreck since...