NEWS ROUNDUP

Congressmen want to tax federal government on public land to fund schools Blaming the federal government for meager education funding in Western states, two congressional Republicans on Monday announced an ambitious plan to levy taxes on the vast landholdings the federal government has across 12 states. U.S. Reps. Chris Cannon and Rob Bishop said the government has broken a promise to the states by failing to sell the land it now manages - some of which is environmentally protected. The two say that if the government is going to keep the land instead of selling it, it owes states a one-time payment amounting to 5 percent of its value and should pay yearly taxes on the land. The one-time payment in Utah would net $836 million, and across all 12 states would amount to billions of dollars. The annual property taxes would total $116 million here and anywhere from $26 million to $782 million in the other 11 states outlined in literature. Nine Western states have passed resolutions calling for the government to start paying taxes on the land it owns, but Cannon said he believes this is the first official crack at it in Congress....
Relocation of elk planned for Rogue Valley These "urban elk" have become common sights in the Rogue Valley, where residents often marvel at seeing Oregon's largest big-game animal stroll across the road or lounge in a nearby field. But they feast on expensive pears, damage trees and tromp fences. "Elk are absolute pests," said Scott Cully, one of two orchard directors for Bear Creek Corp. "Two years ago, it was estimated that we lost 100 tons of pears." In most damage cases, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife issues permits to hunt problem elk, said agency wildlife biologist Mark Vargas. But many landowners in these areas do not allow hunting on their property, Vargas said....
U.S. Senate passes Highlands Conservation Act The U.S. Senate has passed the $100 million Highlands Conservation Act, which dedicates open space in New Jersey and neighboring states. The act was passed unanimously Sunday night _ the bill now goes to the House. The bill authorizes $100 million in spending over 10 years for open space purchases in the Highlands region that stretches from Pennsylvania and New Jersey through New York and Connecticut. An additional $1 million annually was authorized for planning assistance from the U.S. Forest Service....
Land purchase plan wins some, loses some in gorge Last June, Dave Cannard finally prevailed in his eight-year campaign to secure public ownership of Pioneer Point, a promontory above the Columbia River, when the Forest Service bought his 68 acres atop a sheer cliff northeast of Cape Horn for $740,000. But Pioneer Point, with its million-dollar view from 1,200 feet above the river, may be one of the Forest Service's last major land purchases in the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area for the foreseeable future. A sharp cutback in funding from Congress has put several high-priority gorge properties at risk of development....
Column: How Welfare Ranchers and Their Livestock Are Damaging Public Land Twenty years ago, much of the public land around the San Pedro River in southeastern Arizona resembled the barren and desolate landscape found in a Sub-Saharan desert. For years, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) had granted grazing permits to ranchers for thousands of acres of fragile land along the San Pedro. At any given time 10,000 cows were grazing in the area, trampling the river's banks and causing it to widen out and become precariously shallow. The cows also devoured native grasses and shrubs near the river, transforming the once-healthy landscape to little more than a vista of dry earth, lumps of cow pies, and sparse vegetation....
Column: Ensuring Healthy Forests Last Fall, Congress passed the bipartisan Healthy Forests Restoration Act. The Act built upon the foundations of President Bush's Healthy Forests Initiative -- an effort to protect communities and restore forest health by selectively removing overly dense vegetation and tree stands. The Initiative is making a difference. In just four years, federal agencies have nearly quadrupled the number of acres treated to remove hazardous, excess vegetative fuels from public lands. In 2004, federal agencies set a goal of improving land condition on 3.7 million acres -- a goal the agencies exceeded by removing hazardous fuels from some 4 million acres....
State taking lead role in management of wolves John Kraft can't be sure what created the mayhem that caused 20 calves to panic and pile up in the end of alley way over the weekend at the ranch he manages near Cameron. All he knows for sure is that 20 of them died. "They smothered each other," said Kraft. The next night the remaining calves panicked again, broke down the corrals and scattered all over the ranch. "We didn't lose any that time around, but they sure were stressed," he said....
Experts concerned about bear deaths Human-caused grizzly bear deaths in the Northern Rockies are at or nearing a record, officials said Monday. There have been 24 grizzly losses in the region so far this year, and at least 14 have been females, said Chris Servheen, grizzly bear recovery coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. "We're way beyond our normal levels of morality," Servheen said. Brian Peck of the Great Bear Foundation, a grizzly bear conservation group, said this year's losses are the greatest since 1974, when there were 20 nonhunting deaths and 17 legally killed by hunters....
Effort under way to protect habitat of threatened trout in Nevada Two federal land agencies are trying to improve the habitat of the threatened Lahontan cutthroat trout in a remote corner of northern Nevada. The Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service are joining forces with Newmont Mining Corp. on the project designed to help the large native fish in Summit Lake about 175 miles north of Reno. BLM spokesman Jamie Thompson said efforts are under way to protect the habitat of Mahogany Creek, the sole spawning ground for the lake's trout....
Tempting trash foils wild condor breeding effort While the captive release program continues to expand -- combined releases at Pinnacles National Monument and in Big Sur this fall will mark the largest send-off in California since condor reintroductions began in 1992 -- breeding in the wild is still stuck in the nest cave. For the past three years, wild hatchlings have died after ingesting large amounts of trash. Last month, a chick brought in with a broken wing was found with a record 35 bottle caps in its stomach....
Congress Passes Lewis and Clark Park Congress has sent to President Bush a bill that would establish the Lewis and Clark National Historical Park in Oregon and Washington state. The measure would expand and rename Fort Clatsop National Memorial in Oregon in honor of explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. It also would add three sites along the lower Columbia River, bringing the park for the first time into Washington state....
Lincoln Memorial Video Removed Without notice or explanation, the National Park Service (NPS) has removed from public display the videotape containing footage of demonstrations and other events that took place at the Lincoln Memorial. The agency took down the video the day after Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) publicly released agency records showing that the Bush Administration has spent nearly $200,000 in an effort to edit out filmed scenes of gay rights and pro-choice demonstrations that occurred at the Lincoln Memorial. The controversy surrounding the video has been building for more than a year. In November 2003, under pressure from Christian fundamentalist groups, the Bush Administration announced that it would alter the eight-minute video....
Court Rules Bush Administration Is Illegally Hiding Wilderness Documents Last Friday, October 8, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that the Bush administration violated the Freedom of Information Act by concealing documents related to a deal cut in secret that makes development possible on millions of acres of America’s last wild lands. On Friday, Federal District Court Judge Reggie B. Walton ordered the Interior Department to release the documents within 30 days or come up with a legal explanation for withholding them. Judge Walton found that none of the reasons provided by the agency for hiding documents met the law’s strict limits on when the government can keep information from the public....
Senate approves revised bill to sell Lincoln County land The Senate has approved a revised Lincoln County lands bill, after recalculating how millions of dollars from federal land auctions in southern Nevada would be distributed. The bill, passed without dissent during a rare Sunday session in Washington, D.C., keeps key provisions designating a utility corridor for construction of a water pipeline from rural Nevada to Las Vegas. But facing resistance from the Bush administration, Nevada senators raised the share of money that would go to the Bureau of Land Management to 85 percent. The federal agency would have to spend the money within Nevada. A House version of the bill that passed Oct. 4 would give the BLM half the revenues from Lincoln County land sales, and the county 45 percent....
Reinterpreting a review Perhaps no issue epitomizes the Bush administration's approach to environmental rulemaking than the high-stakes struggle over the "New Source Review" provisions of the Clean Air Act. Lobbyists and political appointees with ties to industry played a central role in making policy changes that would, if upheld by the courts, let companies upgrade old power plants, refineries and factories without installing modern pollution-control equipment....
A facelift at the EPA To some activists and career agency employees, Lisa Jaeger had the ideal resume to win a top appointment at the Bush administration's Environmental Protection Agency: She had spent much of her professional life helping clients fight environmental regulations....
That's just Brando blowing through After Marlon Brando died at 80 on July 1, his family had him cremated. They left some of his ashes on his island in the South Pacific. The rest, my colleague Robert Welkos reported recently, they scattered at an undisclosed spot in Death Valley, along with ashes of his longtime friend Wally Cox. It develops that Cox, best known for his television roles on "Hollywood Squares," "Mr. Peepers" and "Underdog" (he was the voice), visited the desert often with Brando before dying of a heart attack at 48 in 1973. Brando had held onto his ashes for more than three decades. Death Valley is one among scores of national parks that allow families to scatter ashes of their loved ones....
Warnings for a shrinking world Ben Wattenberg's "Fewer: How the New Demography of Depopulation Will Shape Our Future" is a remarkable book and, in terms of its importance for our country and the world, it should attract a great deal more attention than most of the presidential campaign advertising. Mr. Wattenberg reports conclusively that the world will have far fewer people than was expected even a decade ago, that in numbers and age and gender patterns this smaller population will be distributed in ways that will be significant, and that the implications for the environment, the economy and national security will be quite profound....
Senate OKs water disputes bill The U.S. Senate approved legislation to resolve a long-standing dispute over how much Arizona owes the federal government for construction of the Central Arizona Project. The bill also settles Indian water rights, some of which have been in dispute for decades. "It's the biggest water settlement in the history of the United States," Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., said Monday of the bill passed Sunday by the Senate. The House is expected to vote on the measure after the November election. The legislation resolves a complicated web of disputes and claims by dozens of parties....
NCBA Hails Bill Passage Cattlemen scored a victory in the U.S. House last week with passage of the conference report on the American Jobs Creation Act (H.R. 4520), which contains a number of provisions important for cattlemen, according to a NCBA news release. Included in H.R. 4520 is the Rancher Help Act, which extends from two years to four years the amount of time cattle producers have to reinvest in livestock without paying capital gains taxes on cattle sold due to drought or another natural disaster. The bill also extends Section 179 expensing and allows cattle producers to write off equipment purchases in the year of purchase without having to depreciate the expense over time....
Cowboy cuts costs by using work dogs "These dogs are working dogs, headers and heelers," said Scott Allison, describing the canines he uses to replace cowboys and still get the cows where he wants them. While most cowdogs are willing to work the heels of a bovine, Hangin' Tree Cowdogs will work the bulls up front. "They've got courage," the Dillon-area cowboy said proudly. Allison, 31, said the need to reduce labor costs on the 100,000-acre deeded and leased operation near Grant south of Dillon pushed him into dogs. "We had to figure out how to get the work done," he said. After some study, he settled on the mixed breed developed by Gary Erickson of Salmon, Idaho, who started the registry 25 years ago. The composite Hangin' Tree is a combination of Spanish Catahoula leopard dog, border collie and Australian kelpie....
Rodeo pioneer enjoys baking for grandsons Dixie Reger Mosley has been a pioneer for women's rodeo since she was roped into it at the tender age of 5. By 11 she was jumping a horse over a car to entertain the rodeo crowd. She was also a calf roper, trick rider and roper, bull rider and an official rodeo clown. In 1948, she co-founded the Girls Rodeo Association, which is the oldest women's sport association in the U.S., Mosley said. "We formed the association to have uniform rules for the women," Mosley said....
One Man's Crowning Glory John Batterson Stetson was never one to follow the herd. He was the seventh of a dozen children born to a successful hat maker in East Orange, N.J. In his early '30s, tuberculosis changed his life. The need to recover sent Stetson (1830-1906) west to St. Joseph, Mo. He stayed in the area to work in the lumber trade and searched for gold to no avail. But during these years, he found himself in the company of cowboys, then called drovers and bullwhackers....