NEWS ROUNDUP

Stories of heroism emerge from crash The airplane was already aflame, burning hot, when Jodee Hogg pushed open the cargo door and fell into the cold mountain air. That she was alive has been called remarkable. That she was relatively unhurt has been called miraculous. That she climbed back into the burning plane to rescue a friend is being called nothing short of heroic. In fact, as details of Monday's wilderness airplane crash continue to emerge, the story is shifting quickly from one of tragedy to one of survival, and finally to one of heroism....
Weather likely played role, but answers still unknown Low clouds and high mountains remain the prime suspects in Monday's wilderness plane crash that killed three, but firm answers as to the cause of the accident likely won't come for at least nine months. "It is far too soon to be making conclusions," said Georgia Struhsaker, senior air safety investigator for the Northwest Regional Office of the National Transportation Safety Board. Struhsaker, whose job it is to investigate airplane crashes, arrived on the scene Wednesday, and has been working at the site alongside teams from the Forest Service and Federal Aviation Administration. A team from the Cessna airplane company is also on hand, she said....
Brother of crash survivor describes grief, joy On Friday, Ryan Hogg, whose sister survived a plane crash in northeastern Montana, outlined his family's week. Hogg, 27, said the family was informed by Forest Service officials on Tuesday at about 3 p.m. that Jodee had died in the contract plane with four others, because "it wasn't a survivable crash." Twenty-four hours later, they were told that two people from the crash had walked out of the wilderness. After another half hour, they learned that one of them was Jodee, 23. The other was Matthew Ramige, 29, of Jackson, Wyo....
Report: Spotted owls still declining Fourteen years after coming under federal protection, the northern spotted owl continues to decline, particularly in Washington state, a new study shows. The owl — an icon of the Northwest timber wars — no longer faces the severe threat from logging it once did, but it faces new threats, including catastrophic wildfires that rage through overgrown forests and the barred owl, a relative that is rapidly taking over spotted owl habitat in the West, the report said. The study, conducted by a Portland firm on behalf of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, appears to be a blow to timber industry efforts to loosen restrictions on federal forest logging in Washington, Oregon and Northern California....
Drillers awaiting word on protection of grouse's habitat Some wildlife experts want to make the greater sage grouse an endangered species icon. Its Western habitat, unfortunately, is atop some of the nation's largest untapped natural gas fields. The grouse has lost about nine-tenths of its 2 million population in Western states and Canada since the early 19th century. A decision by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on whether it should be listed as an endangered species is expected by the end of the year. Developers wanting to drill for natural gas in the grouse's habitat, in sagebrush-covered areas of Colorado, Montana, Utah and Wyoming, are tense....
Development holds reins in the Wild West But the administration's most enduring environmental legacy may lie here in the West, where a series of policy decisions and little-noticed administrative actions have eased development restrictions on millions of acres of federal lands. More than 60 million acres -- an area twice the size of Virginia -- are more vulnerable to logging or drilling as a result of policies that weakened federal restrictions on their development. Other administration actions have made it harder for government officials to apply the most stringent protections to federal wild lands. As part of a legal settlement reached last year with Utah, the administration banned government workers from surveying public lands to identify areas worthy of being set aside by Congress as federal preserves off-limits to development of any kind. More than 3 million acres of land that had been nominated for a congressional designation lost their protected status....
California Backs Plan for Big Cut in Car Emissions California regulators approved a plan on Friday aimed at drastically reducing over the next 11 years the vehicle emissions of gases that scientists have linked to global warming. It would be the first such regulation in the nation and one that, if it survives legal challenges, would force automakers to increase sharply the fuel efficiency of millions of vehicles. Though the plan is being put into place by only one state, automakers see it as the most challenging demand from government since Congress first imposed standards to improve fuel economy in the 1970's....
Retailer Gets Out the Green Votes Patagonia Inc.'s corporate mission is to protect planet Earth. So, when the Ventura, California-based1 company's executives sat down in January to map out the company's marketing strategies for the year, they decided to focus on convincing Americans to vote in the 2004 election for candidates with sound environmental records. This summer, the private company -- which sells about $250 million worth of fleece clothing, camping equipment, climbing gear and other outdoor products a year -- launched a $500,000 multimedia Vote the Environment campaign that will run until Election Day. As Nov. 2 nears, Patagonia is stepping up its get-out-the-vote campaign. It is sending e-mails to 400,000 subscribers, printing essays penned by well-known environmentalists in its catalogs, communicating with visitors in hundreds of environmental and outdoor-sports chat rooms, message boards and blogs, and funding the national distribution of Monumental, a documentary on David Brower, the Sierra Club's first executive director....
Canal Mule Reaches Retirement There's a mule in Georgetown who puts the term 'workhorse' to shame. Frances has worked for more than two decades pulling visitors along the C&O Canal, and on Saturday she will end her career with one last tow. At 28, Frances is a senior citizen by mule standards. But she's a spry thing who doesn't act her age, which is the equivalent of 84 human years. She doesn't even have gray hair. "Frances is a genetic marvel. She looks and acts like the day we got her. Her health is great. She loves to work," said Kathy Kupper of the National Park Service....