NEWS ROUNDUP

The Finish Line in Sight for Landmark Hage v. U.S. - Closing Arguments Heard in Takings Case for Nevada Rancher It’s been nearly fourteen years since Nevada rancher, Wayne Hage and his late wife, Jean, filed their takings case against the United States. On Thursday, October 21, 2004, ranchers from at least five states crowded into the small courtroom and spilled out into the hallway to hear the closing arguments in this landmark case being heard by Judge Loren Smith of the U.S. Federal Claims Court. Wayne Hage is no stranger to the courts. From the time Hage purchased Pine Creek Ranch in 1978 until he filed the takings case in 1991, Hage spent countless hours fighting the BLM and the Forest Service over his water and grazing rights. The mission of the government agencies was clearly to reclaim the use of the federal lands that Hage had permits on, by whatever means necessary, including fencing off Hage’s springs and the eventual confiscation of his cattle....
Lawyers for Brokaw say hunting on adjacent land is unsafe Lawyers for ''NBC Nightly News'' anchorman Tom Brokaw want a judge to require the Montana Board of Outfitters to review a decision that allows a Wyoming outfitter to guide big-game hunting trips on land next to Brokaw's Montana ranch. ''The complaint we have is safety, plain and simple,'' Clifford Edwards, a Billings attorney representing Brokaw, told District Judge Nels Swandal at a hearing Friday. ''Tom and (wife) Meredith are not anti-hunting - they are concerned for their safety.'' On Sept. 1, the Board of Outfitters granted Wyoming outfitter David Nelson's request to take up to 10 hunters onto more than 2,500 acres of private land bordering the Brokaws' West Boulder Ranch during archery season, court records said....
Column: Wise Use in the White House, Pt. 2 When George W. Bush stood in front of a giant sequoia in California in May 2001 and spoke of "A New Environmentalism for the Twenty-first Century" that would "protect the claims of nature while also protecting the legal rights of property owners," Norton was by his side nodding approvingly.13 In August 2003 she was again by his side as he toured the West burnishing his environmental image with talk of "protecting healthy forests" and "caring for National Parks." A Wise Use veteran, Norton helped Bush through his environmental tutorial as a presidential candidate, providing the intellectual arguments that deregulation, devolution, and free markets are the best way to achieve environmental goals....
Protection of desert is delicate balance From towering, white sand dunes to enormous boulders prized by world-class climbers, more than 7.7 million acres of the desert were protected in perpetuity 10 years ago this Sunday. Historic and hard-fought, the California Desert Protection Act expanded Joshua Tree and Death Valley national parks and boosted their status from national monuments, placing them in the company of Yosemite and Yellowstone and among the nation's most prized collection of public lands....
Burns asks bison plan delay Sen. Conrad Burns demanded this week that the U.S. Department of Interior and the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes "step back" and delay action for now on a controversial funding agreement to share federal responsibilities at the National Bison Range in Moiese and other wildlife facilities on the Flathead Reservation. "On behalf of my constituents, I am requesting that you slow this process down and move forward with slow and thoughtful deliberation," Burns said in a letter Thursday to Deputy Assistant Secretary of Interior Paul Hoffman in Washington. Hoffman has been leading the effort to get approval of the Annual Funding Agreement authorizing sharing of power and budget on the Bison Range....
Group charges feds with shady tinkering of Bison Range costs An environmental advocacy group charged Thursday that a high-ranking U.S. Department of Interior political appointee "cooked the books" to radically revise downward the anticipated extra cost of sharing management of the National Bison Range Complex with the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes. As a result, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service "was forced to publicly repudiate its own cost estimates and issue new figures estimating the first-year cost at $23,460 - an amount more than 90 percent below the $300,000 to $500,000 first-year costs that USFWS had been publicly stating," said a press release from Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, an nonprofit advocacy group made up of local, state and federal resource professionals....
Parks official opposes moving river channel A proposal to move a Hoback River channel to improve highway safety is "extreme and unacceptable," a national rivers program manager said. The Wyoming Department of Transportation is considering moving a segment of river channel as one of three alternatives to deal with a creeping landslide just east of Hoback Junction. By rerouting the river, WyDOT believes it can shore up the bottom of the landslide and stabilize the foundation for U.S. Highway 189-191....
Environmentalists Blast U.S-Utah Land Deal Known initially as the Sagebrush Rebellion, the anti-wilderness movement is a potent mix of rural, populist protest and corporate money from industries that benefit most from unrestricted access to federal land. Nowhere has the opposition been more formidable than in Utah, where less wilderness has been created than in any other Western state except Hawaii. The Clinton administration inflamed the anti-wilderness sentiment in 1996 by protecting 1.7 million acres as part of a new Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. The same year, Bruce Babbitt, Interior secretary under Clinton, renewed surveys of Utah lands with wilderness potential after numerous complaints that earlier surveys were faulty....
McGrath to sue Martz over Tongue River dispute Attorney General Mike McGrath plans to sue Gov. Judy Martz in a constitutional showdown over the governor's decision to get the state involved in a legal fight over ownership of an Eastern Montana river. McGrath, a Democrat, said Friday that he would file a lawsuit against the Republican governor next week, alleging that she has violated the Montana Constitution by having her attorney intervene in the federal court case on behalf of the state. The complaint, which will be filed Wednesday with the Montana Supreme Court, also will claim that she overstepped her legal bounds in ordering him to help represent the state in the lawsuit, he said....