NEWS ROUNDUP

Western governors focus on wildlife A majority of Western governors gathered in San Diego yesterday said they favor significant revisions in the federal Endangered Species Act, one of the nation's landmark environmental laws. Colorado Gov. Bill Owens and others said the 31-year-old law often robs Westerners of their property rights and imposes broad rules after little consultation. "We want to recover the species," said Owens, a Republican. But, he added, "let's not use the species act as a way to try to manage public and private properties."....
Interior Official and Federal Biologists Clash on Danger to Bird The scientific opinions of a Bush administration appointee at the Interior Department with no background in wildlife biology were provided as part of the source material for the panel of Fish and Wildlife Service biologists and managers who recommended against giving the greater sage grouse protection under the endangered species act. The appointee, Julie MacDonald, a senior policymaker, criticized studies showing widespread loss of grouse territory and sporadic declines in grouse populations....
Encroaching homes silence Reacting to complaints from the Oxenfords and other neighbors, including former Gov. Roy Romer, Pike National Forest officials are preparing to close the area, known as Slaughterhouse Gulch, to recreational shooting. Whether a shooting range is an informal one such as Slaughterhouse Gulch or commercial, it runs into trouble when people begin building houses nearby....
Fur flies over Wolf Creek project The proposed village at Wolf Creek isn't going to happen without a fight, if recent events are an indication. An environmental group last week sued tiny Mineral County, population 800, for approving the development, which could bring jobs and millions of dollars annually to the depressed county. The same group has sued the U.S. Forest Service for giving the developer seasonal access to the village site. The owners of the Wolf Creek ski area, which lies adjacent to the proposed village, are suing the developers. And the developers are countersuing the resort owners in a convoluted contractual dispute....
Movement's roots go back a decade Fat cows, healthy ecosystems and intact rural communities are the goal of the Heart Mountain grass bank, according to grass bank project director Maria Sonett. The philosophy of the grass bank sprouted a decade ago with the Malpai Borderlands Group, a rancher-led nonprofit organization located in the boot heel of New Mexico and Arizona. The group formed in response to public lands grazing policy, loss and subdivision of private ranchland and frustration with mismanagement of land by federal and state agencies. Now the first grass banks are closing, having accomplished their goals, while new ones are forming in places such as Oregon and Nebraska....
Ranchers push 'corner jumping' bill Lawmakers jumped right over a proposed bill that would ban "corner jumping" in Wyoming. Without a vote, a joint interim legislative committee last week decided not to pursue an agriculture industry-sponsored draft bill that would restore the Wyoming Game and Fish Department authority's to cite hunters for the practice, also known as "corner cutting." Corner jumping describes the practice of stepping over the corner created where four sections of land meet in order to reach a cater-corner parcel of public land. Earlier this year, Game and Fish wardens quit citing hunters for corner jumping after an opinion from the state attorney general....
Alaska case goes to high court The U.S. Supreme Court next month will hear arguments on whether the federal government should give the state ownership of submerged lands in Glacier Bay and other spots in Southeast Alaska. The case began when Alaska commercial fishermen were angered by the National Park Service's decision in 1998 to phase out fishing in Glacier Bay. The state sued, saying that Congress never intended to include the bay itself when it created a national monument there in 1925. State attorneys are also asking the court to resolve a 34-year-old state-federal boundary dispute over the rest of Southeast Alaska's inland waters....
PERC gives Bush a C+ grade The Bush administration is doing only a middling job of implementing free market approaches to environmental issues, according to a Bozeman think tank. PERC, the Property and Environment Research Center, has given the administration a C+ for its first term. The grade is a slight improvement from the C- the administration earned from PERC after its first two years. PERC advocates free market environmentalism, which it defines, in part, as "adherence to respect for property rights, market trading and decentralization."....
Column: Death of the environmental movement? Environmentalism is a dead movement walking. So goes the theme of a controversial essay circulating among environmentalists and their funding organizations. Entitled "The Death of Environmentalism," the epistle was produced by longtime environmental activist Michael Shellenberger of the Breakthrough Institute in El Cerrito and Ted Nordhaus, vice president of Evans/McDonough, an opinion research firm. Its content was based on interviews with more than 25 of the environmental community's top leaders and thinkers. On Dec. 8, former Sierra Club president Adam Werbach will take up the cause, in a speech, also titled "The Death of Environmentalism," to be presented at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco. Several National Public Radio affiliates plan to broadcast the speech a few days later. In it, Werbach will argue that the modern environmentalism must die in order for a new movement to be born....
Column: Tough row to hoe The United States made $17 billion in direct government payments to farmers and ranchers in 2003 — amounting to 32 percent of net farm income. On top of this were additional billions in indirect assistance, delivered via subsidized loans and insurance, loan guarantees and tax breaks. If the farm lobby's argument that such largess is necessary to preserve the family farm ever applied, it doesn't now. According to the Agriculture Department, about 40 percent of all farms receive government payments of one kind or another. The bulk of these payments, however, go to larger farms. In fact, while just 7 percent of all U.S. farms have sales of $250,000 or more, this 7 percent receive almost half of all government payments....
Deep in his heart, still a cowboy As a boy, Dan Taylor had doggedly perfected his roping skills on the family's ranch near Brady. After his school classes and practice for the track team, he would go home and practice roping 20 calves every day, chasing them down, one by one, as the sun slowly slipped into the flat horizon, like an orange penny into a bank. Roping took him to the bright lights of New York City 14 times. One of those times, he made headlines when a bucking bull broke out of Madison Square Garden and was running wild through the streets, going the wrong way down one-way streets. Panicked officials turned to Mr. Taylor, who went in hot pursuit on his horse. "Roped it right there on Broadway just before 42nd Street," he says with a twinkle in his blue eyes....
On The Edge Of Common Sense: Keeping it clean is exception, not rule If one can get enteritis from eating with dirty hands and lung cancer from breathing dirty air, can one get potty ear from listening to dirty words? And does one get potty mouth from cussing? I think that it is an appropriate name for the malady of those who insist on using profane language when it is inappropriate and offensive. Recently I was in the company of a young professional man. He was handsome and dapper. Two women he knew came up and he introduced us. He did most of the talking and continued to spice up his discourse with cuss words ... all of 'em....