NEWS ROUNDUP

Appeals court upholds dismissal of lawsuit over bison hazing A federal appeals court on Wednesday upheld a judge's decision to dismiss a lawsuit environmental groups filed to stop the hazing of bison wandering from Yellowstone National Park. A three-member panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that U.S. District Judge Charles Lovell properly dismissed the suit in April 2003 because the groups had not proven their case against the federal agencies involved in the management of bison. The groups had argued that efforts to haze or capture bison that leave the park were adversely affecting nearby nesting bald eagles, and that officials had not properly studied the effects on the protected birds....
Column: Roads to Perdition Many political observers thought President Bush would lay off the environment during the election season. After all, he faces an opponent with a well-burnished rep as an environmental good boy. Seems they've misunderestimated Dubyah yet again. On Monday, Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman announced a Bush administration plan to scrap the hard-won Clinton-era "roadless rule" -- a move that Phil Clapp, president of National Environmental Trust, ranks as "one of the top five biggest attacks on the environment since the Bush administration set foot in the White House, not to mention the single biggest giveaway to the timber industry in the history of the national forests."....
Editorial: Spare the chain saw, spoil the forest Kerry on Tuesday talked of cutting the Forest Service's commercial logging activities by $100 million and spending it, instead, on a new Forest Restoration Corps. Heaven knows, our forests can use the investment. The West alone has tens of millions of acres of forests in need of thinning, streams that need protection from erosion and range lands that could bear rehabbing. And with every major forest fire, there are thousands more acres in need of reclamation and replanting. But the idea that this work can be done at the expense of commercial logging is delusional. The Bush administration errs in putting too much emphasis on commercial logging as the solution to complex forest-health problems, but Kerry is mistaken in seeing logging and forest restoration as mutually exclusive. We aren't going to truly restore our forests if we focus mostly on the big trees most valuable to loggers, but good stewardship isn't going to happen without loggers, either....
Editorial: National forests, goodbye Thanks to a new Bush administration policy, the fate of untouched Alaskan landscapes will largely be left up to the whims of local politics. The new policy will effectively convert the national forest system into a collection of state forests. Each state will soon be driving the political decision-making process to open up roadless areas for mining and timber harvesting....
Editorial: Protecting roadless forests The most important bottom line regarding roadless forest policy in the West is that protection is the right approach. The economic future of the region does not depend on expensive timber-cutting access to roadless areas and old-growth timber. The Bush administration's announcement this week that it was removing blanket protections for roadless areas in national forests may not lead to wholesale assaults on those areas -- but the government will have to move with great care and clarity to assure that....
Editorial: America's forests A new Bush administration plan eliminating the Roadless Area Conservation Rule that protects America's national forests puts millions of acres of pristine forest up for grabs by logging companies. The rule put into effect by the Clinton administration on its way out of office in 2001 has been struck down twice in federal court. The latest ruling is being appealed by environmentalists in one of several pending court challenges....
Editorial: Roadless reversal victory for federalism The Bush administration this week made good on a promise to revise the Clinton-era roadless rule, and like clockwork a number of environmental groups immediately warned of armies of chainsaw-bearing loggers razing the national forests. But a much less hysterical reading is that the U.S. may be returning to the sensible "multiple-use" policy that had long guided management of most public lands. Imposed by executive fiat in the waning days of the Clinton administration, the rule banned road construction on about 30 percent of the national forests. With the stroke of a pen, 60 million acres were declared de facto wilderness and taken off the table even for consideration of potential timber harvesting, mineral extraction, and other activities....
Column: It takes a tree-hugger to raze a forest In fact, the plot would just overturn a giveaway penned by Bill Clinton in one of his last days in office — proclaiming some 59 million acres of federal forestland off-limits to any road building. Under the new plan, states and governors would be given the power to reconsider: Those who wished to maintain the status quo would petition the federal government to maintain the roadless rule within their borders. So what are the Democratic governors so upset about? Richardson and Oregon's Gov. Ted Kulongoski will be empowered to keep their pristine tinderboxes under a signature of their own. But judging by their responses, it's not as appealing to support radical environmental policies when your office is on the line — such things are more conven-iently accomplished through presidential fiat than persuading voters....
Column: One Big Step For years, environmental groups like the Bluewater Network have warned of the coming plague of jetskis, snowmobiles and the many versions of all-terrain vehicles on our public lands. Now, the plague is upon us, and while the impacts of these machines have been documented in countless studies, more and more people are witnessing the damage first-hand to our air and water quality, wildlife, cultural resources, soils and wildlife. Recognizing this damage from these so-called "outlaw trails," the Forest Service proposed a rule July 7 that would ban riding off designated trails, though no extra money has been set aside to enforce closures. The proposed rule, open for comment for 60 days, defines ORVs as dirt bikes and four-wheel drive all-terrain vehicles, but exempts snowmobiles....
Limits on OHV access opposed Clarence Pollard says his family has been hunting in upper Beaver Canyon since 1875, and now he fears that will become more difficult -- if not impossible -- if off-highway vehicles are restricted or prohibited. The owner of Beaver Sport and Pawn -- which claims to be Utah's biggest seller of guns -- predicts the proposed changes for OHV use in Fishlake National Forest will meet with stiff opposition. "The problem's not with the public, but with forest management," Pollard maintains, adding that he believes most OHV riders are responsible, and that only one-half of 1 percent cause problems for everyone else....
Environmentalists Seek Limits on Sonar Environmental and animal rights groups threatened Wednesday to sue the Navy unless it takes new steps to protect whales and other species from booming waves of sonar designed to detect enemy submarines. In a letter to Secretary of the Navy Gordon England, the groups said dozens of whales off the coast of Washington, Puerto Rico, the Canary Islands, Portugal and other locations have beached themselves during Navy maneuvers sometimes hemorrhaging blood through their eyes and ears....
America's Hunters & Anglers Oppose Major Administration Conservation Policies But Praise Several Funding Initiatives "A majority of America's hunters and anglers, while praising specific Bush Administration's wildlife funding initiatives, say the administration's priorities are wrong on major conservation policies," Larry Schweiger, president of the National Wildlife Federation, said here today at a press conference presenting the findings of a first of its kind survey of the nation's sportsmen....
Column: Feds attempt to advance the "green" movement This could prove to be a frightening week for anyone who owns property in America. Legislation being considered in Washington, D.C. will be some of the most dangerous that property owners can face. This week could determine if the American people will lose millions of acres more of their land. Legislation designed to place more controls and fund more programs for acquisition will be heard in Senate Committee meetings. The American Heritage Partnership Act (S2543) will be voted on in the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee today and the New CARA bill, now called Get Outdoors (S2590) providing $57 billion for land acquisitions is scheduled in the same committee on Tuesday, July 20....
Mexico urged to mark its piece of Anza Trail If enthusiastic Sonoran tourism supporters get their way, Arizona and its northern Mexico neighbor soon may have only the second binationally recognized historic trail running through their states. At issue is what level of recognition Mexico is willing to give to the trail blazed by Spanish explorer Juan Bautista de Anza in the mid-1770s across Sonora and Arizona en route to founding a presidio and mission in the San Francisco Bay area. That expedition expanded Spanish influence in the New World far to the west and opened an immigration and supply route to northern California....
Interior officials oppose cut in trona royalty Interior Department officials on Wednesday put a damper on Wyoming lawmakers' bid to reduce the federal royalty that trona companies pay from 6 percent to 2 percent. The rejection came in written testimony presented to a Senate Energy Committee panel that was holding a hearing on a proposal by Sen. Craig Thomas, R-Wyo. Despite the opposition, Wyoming lawmakers say they remain optimistic about the proposal's prospects....
National-forest squatters spur call for restrictions Squatters who set up illegal campsites in national forests have become such a problem that Forest Service officials are considering limiting the use of forests near urban areas. Among the possible changes: restrictions on camping, target shooting and off-road-vehicle use in places within a two-hour drive of urban areas....
EPA weighs pollution lawsuits at 22 sites The owners of nearly two dozen coal-burning power plants could face lawsuits from the Environmental Protection Agency for clean air violations stemming from plant expansions or improvements, according to agency officials and documents. The EPA and the Justice Department are considering actions against operators of 22 plants for alleged violations of a regulation that the Bush administration has been trying to scale back and make less burdensome to industry....
Repeal of cyanide mining ban qualifies for ballot A proposal to repeal a 6-year-old ban on using cyanide in new gold and silver mines has qualified for the November ballot, the secretary of state's office said Wednesday. The office verified the petition signatures of 21,166 voters and said the initiative qualified in 39 of Montana's 56 counties. To get on the ballot, the measure needed a minimum of 20,510 signatures representing at least 5 percent of those voted for governor in the 2000 election from each of at least 28 counties....
Actor Robert Redford headlines environmentalist rally Environmentalists used a Hollywood film star and Governor Richardson on Wednesday morning to rally voters for the November general. Actor Robert Redford, Richardson and others criticized Bush administration policies as damaging to the environment. They say the Bush administration’s policies are tilted in favor of oil and natural gas development. Redford was the featured speaker at a Santa Fe rally organized by the Environmental Accountability Fund. That’s a project by the Natural Resources Defense Council Action Fund targeting Bush environmental policies....
EPA: No link between hydraulic fracturing, well contamination In a rebuff to charges leveled by citizen groups in Alabama and other states, federal regulators have concluded that a common coalbed methane drilling technique, known as hydraulic fracturing, poses "little or no threat" to underground drinking water supplies. In the recently released report, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said it found no confirmed incidents of well contamination linked to fracturing....
Panhandle water authority explores cheaper new source The main supplier of water to 11 communities in drought-parched West Texas wants to place hundreds of small wells along its pipeline between Amarillo and Lamesa over the next 20 years. The board of the Canadian River Municipal Water Authority, which has been looking for other sources of water as Lake Meredith remains low, approved a study of the proposed project Wednesday at a meeting in Sanford. The move comes two months after Dallas oil tycoon and Panhandle landowner T. Boone Pickens declined to sell the authority water rights he owns or controls on about 110,000 Panhandle acres, Satterwhite said....
Private Partnership Creates Model to Balance Wildlife Habitat and Working Ranchland Conservation The Grand Canyon Trust (GCT) and The Conservation Fund announced today that they have purchased an exclusive option from the Kane Ranch Land Stewardship & Cattle Company, LLC to buy the Kane and Two Mile Ranches, which own or control grazing permits on nearly 900,000 acres north of the Grand Canyon. The grazing allotments of the ranches share a boundary of approximately 80 miles with Grand Canyon National Park including some of the most varied wildlife habitat in the West. The ranches include 1,000 acres of private land in House Rock Valley, along the Vermilion Cliffs and on the Paria Plateau. Tied to this base property are federal and state grazing permits for nearly 900,000 acres....
The Pope of Gringo Pass A big, silver Cadillac inches along the dirt runway a few hundred feet from the Mexican border. The driver--a geezer in a straw hat--holds a Mexican stogie, and he's waving it like a wand as he holds forth on the state of border politics, smuggling, power-hungry bureaucrats, dark-eyed senioritas and what he calls the U.S. Border Patrol's "Gestapo tactics." He chomps the end of the cigar and spits the wet leaf out the window....
Kiddin' with the Kid The horse thus accounted for was a magnificent Arabian, which William H. Bonney, alias Billy the Kid, actually gave - going through the motions of a sale, for the record - to Dr. Hoyt, the first civilian physician in the Texas Panhandle. Hoyt and Billy Bonney had become friends during the several months that the outlaw spent encamped near Tascosa, Texas. Upon hearing that Dr. Hoyt would be moving away, Bonney rode into town and presented the horse as a farewell gift. The witnesses were the proprietors of a general store. Dr. Hoyt eventually became Surgeon General of the United States....