OPINION/COMMENTARY

EPA Loses Clean Air Case against TVA

The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to review an appellate court's determination that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) exceeded its authority in seeking to enforce a controversial interpretation of the Clean Air Act (CAA) against the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA).

In 1999, the Clinton administration EPA decided to retroactively enforce against TVA a new interpretation of New Source Review (NSR) requirements of the Clean Air Act. EPA claimed TVA violated NSR 14 times between 1982 and 1996 when it performed work on nine of its power plants.

At the time TVA performed its contested maintenance, the federal government's longstanding interpretation of NSR did not require TVA to obtain an EPA permit or install best-available pollution abatement technology. Nevertheless, EPA filed an "administrative compliance order" in 1999 ordering TVA to install expensive new equipment and pay hefty fines for the maintenance work it had done.

TVA objected to retroactive enforcement of the new NSR interpretation and ultimately filed a federal suit seeking to prevent EPA from enforcing its compliance order. According to TVA, EPA had acted in an "arbitrary and capricious" manner in interpreting NSR and issuing its compliance order....

Federalism for Forests

On July 12th, the Bush Administration decided to devolve more decision-making over roadless areas to the states. The decision, which replaces the 2001 Clinton Roadless Area Conservation Rule, drew sharp rebuke from national environmentalist lobbyists such as the Wilderness Society. But such applied federalism (i.e. devolution of decision-making to the states) by the Bush Administration offers hope for better management of our forests by acting on the old maxim: think globally, act locally.

Historically, the Forest Service placed a high level of emphasis on local input in the management process. According to Roger Sedjo, a Senior Fellow at Resources for the Future in Washington, D.C. and world-renowned scholar on forest policy, this allowed for decision-making which recognized that forests near urban centers require different management than those in rural areas. (Sedjo’s research can be found here.) Similarly, forests in arid Arizona require different management than those in rain-washed Washington. Disregarding these basic common-sense concepts, the past fifty years’ forest policy has been one of centralized, one-size-fits-all management that has increasingly led to one-size-fits-no-one forests where increased disease and fire risk predominate over forest health....

State AGs Attempt to Hijack Climate Policy

Tomorrow, seven state attorneys general and counsel for New York City plan to file lawsuits against five major electric utility companies, asking that the courts require them to reduce their emissions of carbon dioxide. The plaintiffs seek, in effect, a version of emissions control policy repeatedly rejected by the Congress, most recently in the failed so-called “Climate Stewardship Act,” which was defeated on the floor of the U. S. Senate last October 30 by a 55 to 43 vote.

“The AGs are seeking to take over setting national policy from the Congress and the president. Moreover, the costs would largely be paid by residents of states other than those whose attorneys general are bringing the suit,” said Myron Ebell, Director of Global Warming and International Environmental Policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute....

Now They Want to Be Caesar: Eight State Attorneys General Decide to End-Run Legislatures, Set National Global Warming Policies Themselves

According to a press release announcing the events, "New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, New Jersey Attorney General Peter C. Harvey, Rhode Island Attorney General Patrick Lynch, Vermont Attorney General William H. Sorrell and the office of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg will announce on July 21, 2004 the filing of a major lawsuit to curb global warming in the United States, in conjunction with the attorneys general of California, Iowa and Wisconsin."(1)

The announcement, according to the release, is to take place at not one but four press conferences, to be held simultaneously at noon Eastern in New York City, Los Angeles, Milwaukee and Des Moines.

Environmental policies properly are established by legislators voting in view of the public, not by lawyers in courtrooms....

Court decisions are blunt instruments and ill-suited for determining policies on such matters as global warming, where opinions are constantly undergoing change as new scientific knowledge is gained. The judicial branch, unlike the legislative, is not designed to accommodate the easy repeal or amendment of flawed policies....

Sir David King's Queenie Fit: Shutting Down Dissent

The scene was a scientific workshop set up to discuss the science of global warming. It took place in a non-Western country and was convened by the country's Academy of Sciences. Delegates came from all over the world. Yet the delegation from one major Western power behaved in a most undiplomatic fashion. The way the science was being presented was inconvenient to their political agenda, so they tried to get the scientists they disagreed with silenced. The organizers refused, so the delegation went to its government to exert political pressure. The organizers still refused, so the delegation disrupted the conference. When it became apparent they weren't going to get their way, they walked out.

The chairman of the conference told the press that the leader of the disruptive delegation "had brought several scientists along with him and he insisted that the program should include among the speakers only those scientists and no other. So, he came over, selected scientists at his discretion, scientists who were to be given the floor in his opinion and scientists who were to be denied an opportunity to speak." A top official of the host government commented, "For some participants the main goal was the search for the truth, understanding of real processes. Other people had the task of disrupting the seminar, so that other people who were seeking the truth could not do so."

Yet another example of arrogant America disrupting the world's attempts to solve the climate change program? No. The delegation in question was that of the United Kingdom, and the conference was that held last week in Moscow, hosted by the Russian Academy of Sciences....

The Fight Over the Roadless Rule

The Bush administration set-off a political firestorm on July 12 when it announced that the Clinton administration's rule blocking road construction on 60 million acres of U.S. Forest Service lands will soon go up in smoke. The Bush administration plans to replace it with a regime that essentially allows a state's governor, in consultation with the U.S. Forest Service, to decide how much logging will occur on federal forest lands in that state. While environmentalists predictably went berserk and conservatives naturally applauded the re-embrace of states rights, both camps are increasingly lost in the intellectual woods.

For their part, the environmental lobby is brazenly rewriting history by suggesting that the National Forests are primarily there to save trees from the woodsman's axe. As environmentalist icon Gifford Pinchot, the first director of the U.S. Forest Service, wrote in a speech for Teddy Roosevelt in 1901, "Forest protection is not an end in itself; it is a means to increase and sustain the resources of our country and the industries which depend on them." In short, the National Forests were created not to dance in but to cut in (the reason, by the way, that the Forest Service is an arm of the U.S. Department of Agriculture and not the U.S. Department of the Interior). Public ownership was embraced because, back then, politicians were convinced that scientific management of the forests by federal rangers could maximize timber yields over the long run....

Pam Anderson's PETA Hypocrisy Hits the Editorial Page

"The Center for Consumer Freedom," writes the Wall Street Journal on this morning's editorial page, "raises a good question." [subscription required] Should "Baywatch" star and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) celebrity supporter Pamela Anderson be held to her own rhetorical standards? The buxom star has criticized NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt Jr. for endorsing KFC, saying: "When you take a multimillion-dollar endorsement from a company, you must also take some responsibility for the company's practices." But Anderson lends her name to the radical PETA, which supports the restaurant-firebombing Animal Liberation Front. And PETA also opposes research that may lead to a cure for Anderson's own disease.

The Journal points out a striking contradiction from the silicone-enhanced screen goddess. PETA opposes all animal testing:

That ought to be of interest to Ms. Anderson, who suffers from Hepatitis C, a virus that puts her at high risk for liver disease and liver cancer. The American Liver Foundation believes that animal testing is essential for finding a cure, and Ms. Anderson herself served in 2002 as grand marshal for an American Liver Foundation fund-raiser. Must have left her PETA T-shirt at home that day....

PARTNERS & AGENDAS

Why is it that Congressional Committees can find no one to oppose Federal Invasive Species Authority proposals? Such authority will jeopardize and probably spell doom for pheasants, chukars, Hungarian partridge, brown trout, Great Lakes salmon, largemouth bass west of the 100th meridian, and other such critters that grace the walls of Cabelas and Bass Pro and sportsmen’s family rooms and dinner tables across the country. Where are the Pheasants Forevers and the shotgun and fishing tackle manufacturers? Where are the guides and outfitters and rural folks who profit from and enjoy the presence of these welcome species brought here from far away to enhance our lives? Where are the State fish and wildlife agencies that manage and profit from the uses of these species?

Why is it that growing Endangered Species complaints ignore the impacts of wolves on deer and elk and other game? Why is it that decreasing permit availability for big game is blamed on weather and “too many formerly” and habitat change and everything EXCEPT the growing wolf densities in these areas? Why is it that Universities and State fish and wildlife agencies (with one or two exceptions) rubber stamp Federal wolf “experts” forecasts that are patently untrue about future wolf behavior and future management relief of serious problems? Where are the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundations and Deer Hunters organizations as future decreases in big game availability become realities?

Why is it that the explosion of Federal land acquisition in recent years is not questioned by State fish and wildlife agencies or sportsmen’s organizations? The increasing Federal acreage and increasing Federal control of State lands purchased with Federal funding (even only in part) coupled with increasing inaccessibility; decreasing fish, wildlife, and forest management; increasing elimination of the full gamut of human uses; and the decrease in fish and wildlife numbers, diversity, and habitats seems of no importance when mention of the old saw about “save the dirt” is brought up....

Libraries ordered to destroy US pamphlets

The federal Government Printing Office has ordered libraries across the country to destroy five US Department of Justice pamphlets that provide how-to instructions on prosecuting asset forfeiture cases, invoking a rarely-used authority to order the removal of items the government routinely sends to hundreds of libraries...

The office's one-paragraph directive listed the five pamphlets, with titles such as "Civil and Criminal Forfeiture Procedure" and "Select Federal Assets Forfeiture Statutes," and instructed librarians to "withdraw these materials immediately and destroy all copies by any means to prevent disclosure of their content," according to a copy of the e-mail sent to the Boston Public Library and all other depository libraries.

The directive concluded that "the Department of Justice has determined that these materials are for internal use only."....

Price of Everglades restoration project keeps rising

Restoring about 2.4 million acres of the Florida Everglades is costing more than expected, federal and state overseers told a House subcommittee Thursday. The initial $1.1 billion estimate for two of the first major projects now approaches $1.6 billion.
The costs have added to the massive 30-year restoration effort's initial price tag of $7.8 billion, which is to be split 50-50 among the state and federal governments.
The two projects involve building reservoirs and stormwater treatment areas and reclaiming 260 miles of roads. The projects set up the broader restoration effort by helping control or capture water from canals and roads in southern Florida.
At a hearing on their costs, Rep. John Duncan, R-Tenn., asked why projects that don't "directly benefit" the Everglades were slated first.
Duncan, who chairs the House Transportation and Infrastructure subcommittee on water resources and environment, also questioned why the cost estimates had grown and the state had paid $915 million so far - six times as much as the federal government's $150 million....

ENDANGERED SPECIES

American Forest and Paper Association
Natural Resources Counsel
1111 19th Street, NW, Suite 800
Washington, D.C. 20036
Phone: 202.463.2782
Department Fax: 202.463.2052

July 21, 2004

TO: Endangered Species Task Group

FROM: Chip Murray

SUBJECT: House Committee Reports two ESA bills

The House Resources Committee today voted favorably on two bills to amend the Endangered Species Act. The two bills are:

H.R. 1662 - Endangered Species Data Quality Act of 2004

The Committee reported this bill, introduced by Rep. Greg Walden (R-OR), by a vote of 26-15. Key provisions are:

. Directs Secretary to ensure that use of "best scientific and commercial data available" complies with guidelines issued under the "data Quality Act" adopted by Congress in 2000, emphasizes filed survey data and requires greater weight to peer reviewed filed survey data;
. Directs adoption of criteria for the use of best scientific and commercial data for listings;
. Requires field survey data in order to list;
. Directs consideration of data from landowners and operators for listing;
. All listings must include a description of additional data that would assist in the development of a recovery plan and describe what steps will be taken to "acquire" the data.
. Specifies independent peer review process for all listings and delistings, recovery plans and biological opinions with a jeopardy conclusion;
. Requires peer review by three unbiased, which the bill defines, reviewers appointed by the Secretary from recommendations submitted by the National Academy of Sciences and affected Governors;
. Requires specific determination of best data available and opportunity for public review;
. Information must be requested from State agency during a consultation; and
. Expands role of applicants for Federal actions during consultation and specifies that existing Federal permit holders should be treated as applicants.

H.R. 2933 - Critical Habitat Reform Act of 2004

The Committee reported this bill, introduced by Rep. Dennis Cardoza (D-CA), by a vote of 28-14. Key provisions are:

. Requires critical habitat designation to the extent "practicable, prudent, and determinable."
. Moves critical habitat designation from listing to the earlier of three years after listing or one year after adoption of a recovery plan;
. Land subject to a section 10 agreement or permit, e.g. habitat conservation plans and safe harbor agreements, to an incidental take statement following consultation, and to State or federal conservation programs are not subject to designation as critical habitat;
. Designations must first consider areas known to be occupied;
. Consider data from local governments and economic loss and costs of landowners;
. Notice to local governments and GIS maps on internet;
. Defines "occupied" habitat as determined to be occupied by field survey, which is in turn defined as being used essential behavior, and necessary to avoid jeopardizing the continued existence of the species; and
. Defines "unoccupied" habitat as areas "essential for the survival of the species."

AF&PA supports both bills, as they contain improvements to the ESA that we have sought since the reauthorization tango began in 1992. While the prospect for floor action on either bill is not high, Chairman Richard Pombo (R-CA) has set a starting point for the next Congress and has shown that he
can obtain bi-partisan support for targeted ESA amendments.

It would be appropriate to thank the key members for their efforts today either by an e-mail to their staff (in parentheses below) if you work with the office or a fax to the congressman at the general office number:

Rep. Greg Walden (Paul Griffin)
Fax: 202/225-5774

Rep. Dennis Cardoza (Anne Cannon)
Fax: 202/225-0819

Rep. Richard Pombo, Chairman, House Resources Committee (Todd Willens,
committee staff)
Fax: 202/225-0861

NEWS ROUNDUP
 
Bold bears break into homes In 11 years of installing garage doors, Flip Rys has never had to replace ones damaged by bears - until now.On Soda Ridge Road in Keystone, a woman had eaten salmon for dinner, double-wrapped what was left and placed it in her trash in the garage. A bear broke through a panel in the garage door to get to the fish.The second, which backed the woods at the top of Mesa Cortina, was where the bear just "went through the garage door," apparently on the hunt for bird food, Rys said.The third, Monday, was in Blue River, where a bear broke into a garage in which there was nothing to eat. The DOW has deemed that bear a "problem bear" and have set traps to catch and relocate it....
Calif. Fires May Foretell Fall Disaster  When they weren't racing to mountainsides and canyons to fight fast-moving, potentially deadly blazes this week, firefighters sometimes found themselves scratching their heads. They do not usually see such major blazes in Southern California before Aug. 1. Most happen in October the height of fire season when hot Santa Ana winds can push flames across huge areas. "A lot of us are looking at each other and saying, `Wait a minute, it's mid-July and this is happening,'" said Angeles National Forest spokesman Stanton Florea....
Bill would require Forest Service to replant after wildfires  Dissatisfied with the low level of reforestation in the area scorched by the 2002 Biscuit fire, Sen. Gordon Smith on Thursday introduced a bill to require the U.S. Forest Service to replant burned areas within five years. The bill would triple reforestation funding to $90 million from tariffs on lumber imports in an effort to overcome a backlog approaching 1 million acres, the Oregon Republican said in a statement from Washington....
Diverse Groups Vow Vigorous Opposition to Administration's National Forest Assault  Groups representing hunters and anglers and environmentalists formally announced plans to mount a unified effort opposing the Administration's changes to national forest policies announced last week. Leaders for these diverse groups vowed to draw a million public comments in opposition to the rollback, and groups around the country are holding a series of events in a number of states to urge citizens to write the US Forest Service. "The Bush Administration is out of touch with the vast majority of Americans who want our last pristine National Forests protected," said Robert Vandermark, co-director of Heritage Forests Campaign (HFC). "When their mailboxes are jammed with letters overwhelmingly opposing their special interest giveaway, we hope they will get the message."....
Officials say state will revise its prairie dog management plan  State officials are revamping South Dakota's prairie dog management plan and will ask the Legislature for more money to poison the animals in an effort to keep them from moving onto private land from nearby federal land. The decision comes after the U.S. Forest Service delayed control efforts on grasslands it oversees for at least another year, said John Cooper, secretary of the Game, Fish and Parks Department. State officials had hoped the Forest Service would start poisoning prairie dogs this summer. But Cooper said the federal agency has decided it wants to conduct an environmental impact statement before any poisoning or other controls could begin. The EIS could take up to a year or more....
Logging in limbo  The battle over logging in rural Rio Arriba County is heating up again.Three environmental groups are asking the regional forest supervisor to halt a proposed commercial-logging project in an area of the Carson National Forest that environmentalists and local residents have argued over during the last decade. Congress set aside the section of forest a half century ago with a mandate that forest products should help support beleaguered economies in that part of Northern New Mexico....
Feds exterminate Idaho's largest wolf pack  The largest wolf pack in Idaho has been exterminated by federal agents after killing more than 100 sheep in central Idaho. "Non-lethal methods were tried, but they didn't work and the wolves continued to kill sheep," said Carter Niemeyer, wolf recovery coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. "We won't tolerate wolves that are confirmed to be chronically killing livestock." Niemeyer said the nine wolves in the Cook pack were killed earlier this week and members of two other packs roaming the McCall area could also be killed because they have been attacking livestock. No decision has been made on those packs yet, however....
Owls Face Spotted Future   Habitat loss may no longer be the primary threat to spotted owls' survival. "There is a new wrinkle in an old problem," Forsman said. That wrinkle is the invasion of the larger, more aggressive barred owl into spotted owl territory. "The barred owl either eats [spotted owls], kicks them out of their habitat, or mates with them—and sometimes the offspring are fertile," said Steven Courtney, vice president of the Sustainable Ecosystems Institute (SEI) in Portland, Oregon. These hybrids fall into a legal gray area because northern spotted owls are listed as threatened, while their California cousins are not—so they are not protected under the ESA....
Column: Give states a chance with sage grouse  The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service should give the states, including North Dakota, a chance to improve conditions for the sage grouse, rather than list the bird as endangered.The sage grouse, notable for the colorful dance of the male in the two-month breeding season, lives in 11 western states and Alberta province, in Canada. In North Dakota, it is found only in western Bowman and Slope counties, where it rubs up against oil and gas development.This spring, the Bureau of Land Management restricted energy activity on the land it controls there so breeding would not be disturbed. Sage grouse numbers were down 17 percent from 2003 (although up from eight years ago)....
Industry, greens share ideas  So Sharp joined up with the Upper Green River Valley Coalition to develop a "citizens' proposal" for energy development in the area. The goal, the group says, is not to stop drilling but work with industry to create sustainable practices that will protect wildlife, the environment and jobs in the years to come.The group publicly released its "Responsible Energy Development Proposal" last week, after delivering it to the Bureau of Land Management in April. The BLM will ultimately be in charge of how energy development will take place....
Wilderness falls on Ketchum’s doorstep  As a Central Idaho hunter and flyfisherman, Ernest Hemingway likely would have been proud to hear that a new wilderness area adjacent to Ketchum and Sun Valley might bear his name. In revising his wilderness proposal for the Boulder and White Cloud mountains, Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, has announced he hopes to designate an additional 40,000 acres of road-free country immediately northeast of Ketchum and Sun Valley as wilderness....
Nine Mile testing gets OK   Seismic testing on a plateau south of Nine Mile Canyon can continue, a district judge ruled Wednesday, even in two wilderness study areas. Plaintiffs, including Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance and the Utah Rock Art Research Association, had argued that the cumulative effects of the testing and eventual drilling on the West Tavaputs Plateau had not been adequately analyzed and that the project could harm cultural artifacts, especially in side canyons and on the Nine Mile Canyon rim....
Lake Powell is at the heart of the battle over restoring natural flow  The scars chiseled by five years of drought on the Colorado River are impossible to ignore here in the shadow of Glen Canyon Dam, no matter how many boaters or fishermen continue to use the reservoir. To the West's water managers, they are battle scars, proof that the system works. Store water in amounts this vast and the 30 million people tethered to the river can survive the worst of dry spells. But to others, the reservoir and the dam are ugly symbols of a good idea taken too far. The lake's declining volume - it is at its lowest level since it was first filled in the early 1970s - has revived talk of draining it and decommissioning the dam. At the very least, some conservationists say the conditions here, nearly 700 miles from the river's pristine headwaters, are evidence that the West's growth has come at a destructive cost to its rivers and the environment....
Farmers fear dry future  Almost all of the water soaking into the ground here was diverted from the Colorado River, which gives up more than 600,000 acre-feet each year to Yuma fields. Without the river, nothing would grow. In an average year, Yuma gets maybe 3 inches; for 30 months, from mid-2000 to late-2002, no rain fell at all. In the same period, annual cash receipts from crops increased from $725 million to $1.2 billion, underscoring the Colorado's value to Yuma and Yuma's value to the region's economy. What some people outside Yuma have started to ask is whether drought makes the water of more value to the thirsty cities that are reshaping the West and escalating demands on the river. With so much water taken out of the Colorado along the final miles of its journey, it is here in the fields of Arizona and California where the river's future could take a new turn....
Drought diminishes river  Down the hill from the hayfields where Duane Scholl isn't growing hay and the pastures where he isn't grazing cattle, the Colorado River carves a narrow path, weakened by another poor snowmelt at its headwaters 40 miles upstream but still strong enough to dominate the landscape.  Five years into the worst drought to hit the Colorado River in 500 years, the picture appears bleakest at the headwaters, where the water is the most finite. This is where the West's 1,450-mile lifeline begins, in the Rocky Mountains northwest of Denver. This is also where a new front in the West's water wars is most likely to erupt....
States deal for water  On a spit of land about five miles upstream from Hoover Dam, less than an hour's drive from the frenetic Las Vegas Strip, crews are drilling an enormous tunnel below the surface of Lake Mead, dipping deeper into the region's drought-stricken water supply.The tunnel will lower by 50 feet the subterranean intake pipe that draws water from the lake for use by the cities and suburbs on the other side of the River Mountains. The official goal of the project is to improve water quality, which suffers as the lake's level falls. But sinking the tunnel farther also buys southern Nevada time if the drought persists, putting more distance between the intake and a reservoir surface that has dropped nearly 100 feet since 1998....
How Drought Just Might Bring Water to the Navajo  The Navajo struggle for water on these unforgiving lands long predates the drought that has settled over the West in the last five years. On a reservation nearly five times the size of Connecticut, more than a third of the residents have no running water for themselves, their gardens or their livestock. So they go to water stations like White Rock, 50 miles from the nearest real town, to shower, wash clothes or socialize, making the best of a situation that would make most Americans shudder with its matter-of-fact adversities. But in an odd and deeply paradoxical way, the drought itself - and the fundamental ways it is making many Westerners rethink the future - may finally bring running water to the Navajo. The tribal council could vote at any time on a settlement to end a 30-year legal standoff with New Mexico over how to divide the waters of the San Juan River, a major tributary of the Colorado River. Tribal leaders had contended that history and treaty entitled them to the entire flow of the river; the state said the tribe was overreaching....
Drought has some thinking litigation  Continuing drought and an unintentional overestimate of the Colorado River’s hydrology have created huge obstacles for the states that depend on the river, said Scott Balcomb, Colorado’s commissioner for the Upper Colorado River Commission. During a visit Wednesday to the quarterly meeting of the Colorado River Water Conservation District, Balcomb said the compact that governs the use of the river was created in a time of tremendous water surplus.  With the current drought and possibility for future drier years, there is an “opportunity for intense litigation regarding the compact,” Balcomb said. “I would hate to see Colorado put its water rights at that degree of risk.”....
Second CJD case from transfusion  The first strong evidence that the human form of BSE might strike a wider group of people than those affected so far was revealed yesterday as the Department of Health announced that the disease could have been spread for the second time through a blood transfusion. The deadly rogue form of the prion protein linked to the disease was found in the spleen of a patient who died from an unrelated cause but had received blood from a donor who later developed variant CJD. The genetic signature in this person was different from the one found in the 142 patients who have died from vCJD in Britain. The patient, who received blood in 1999, had displayed no symptoms of vCJD but it is unclear how advanced the infection was. The double dose of disturbing news coincided with tighter controls over blood donations, already limited after the first transfusion incident was reported in December....
Enzi: USDA mad cow policy hurting producers  The federal government's testing policy for mad cow disease is creating doubts among consumers and nervousness in cattle markets, Sen. Mike Enzi said.The Republican senator wrote a letter Wednesday to Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman decrying the release of preliminary test results on cattle to determine if they have mad cow disease, scientifically known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy....
Japan Says No Talk of Lifting U.S. Beef Ban This Year  Japan has not discussed lifting its ban on imports of U.S. beef this year, said Yoshiyuki Kamei, Japan's minister of agriculture, forestry and fisheries.  Japan aims to reach an agreement with the U.S. on cattle testing when officials from both countries meet in August, and an accord on the standards may lead to a resumption of beef shipments, Kamei said. Japan in December banned U.S. beef imports, valued at more than $1 billion a year, after a case of mad cow was discovered in Washington state. Kamei also said additional talks should address the findings contained in a joint report on test standards, released earlier in Washington. The report was based upon two days of technical discussions in Tokyo this week....

Federal government: Wyoming can't sue over wolves

CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) - The federal government says Wyoming does not have the legal right to sue over wolf management in the state.
In documents filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court, the U.S. Department of the Interior also claims that the court does not have jurisdiction over the issue and that Wyoming failed to exhaust administrative remedies before filing suit over wolves.
The documents responded to a lawsuit Wyoming filed in April after the U.S. Fish and Wildlife rejected the state's wolf-management plan. The agency is requiring Montana, Idaho and Wyoming to submit plans it deems acceptable before removing wolves from Endangered Species Act protection.
Wyoming's classification of wolves as predators outside the national parks and wilderness areas of northwest Wyoming - and open to be shot with little oversight - contributed to the rejection.
''To the extent a response may be deemed necessary, defendants deny that the plaintiff is entitled to the relief requested or to any relief whatsoever,'' the response said.
Wyoming Attorney General Pat Crank took issue with that and other claims. ''If the state and its citizens, who have been subjected to this federal action, don't have the ability to question that action at all, I'm left to wonder who the heck does,'' he said.
He said the federal government's contention that Wyoming cannot legally sue is made regardless of whether the Interior Department or its officials violated federal laws or the U.S. Constitution.
''It's sad, but that's the kind of absurdity and arrogance that this administration has shown toward states and particularly the state of Wyoming,'' Crank said.
He said the refusal to address the issues of the case is a tactic often employed by federal attorneys.
''Why don't they defend on the merits, the question that we put squarely in front of the court: Did you reject the Wyoming wolf management plan under the dictates of the Endangered Species Act? I'm flabbergasted that they just won't answer that question.''
Assistant U.S. Attorney Carol Statkus declined to respond because she had not heard Crank's remarks firsthand. She said only that the answer to the lawsuit is a matter of public record and raises a number of defenses.

NEWS ROUNDUP 
 
Officials investigating why firefighters had to flee Idaho wildfire  Officials are investigating why 20 firefighters had to abandon gear and flee rising flames while working the Cabin Creek fire, which was fully contained Wednesday.The fire burned 783 acres in the Salmon Challis National Forest about 8 miles west of North Fork. Firefighters were aided by rainy weather over the past few days, officials said, including three-quarters of an inch on Monday.But Friday, the fire was behaving erratically and a 20-person crew that was digging a fire line on a steep slope was forced to make a dash to a previously identified safety zone uphill. Some firefighters shed gear as they ran up the mountain. An after-action review team, including fire experts from the Ashley National Forest in Utah and the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest in Montana, has been called in to investigate the incident....
Panel passes bills easing species law  In what is beginning to resemble a perennial exercise in futility, the House Resources Committee approved two bills on Wednesday that aim to overhaul the Endangered Species Act. One bill would require outside scientists to review government decisions on endangered animals and plants. The other would reduce the amount of animal habitat that could be protected. The measures - which representatives Barbara Cubin, R-Wyo., and Denny Rehberg, R-Mont. - hailed, may pass in the House. But they aren't likely to pass in the Senate. Similar efforts to make changes to the 31-year-old law have died in the Senate in recent years....
Fish and Wildlife keeps suckers on endangered list Two species of fish at the heart of battles over water in the Klamath Basin will remain on the endangered species list, but their protected status will undergo a comprehensive review, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Wednesday. A petition to take the Lost River sucker and shortnosed sucker off the endangered species list submitted two years ago by the group Interactive Citizens United did not contain any persuasive new information, the agency said from its regional office in Sacramento, Calif. Meanwhile, the agency will embark on a five-year review of the suckers to assemble new information and evaluate whether the fish still need to be protected under the Endangered Species Act, Fish and Wildlife said....
Permanent de-listing of coastal coho an option  While it is not the only possible outcome of the federal review of Northwest salmon now in process, the Oregon coast coho and other salmonids could be taken off the Endangered Species list by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Fisheries when it finishes the review in late 2005. This is an outcome Governor Ted Kulongoski hopes to make more possible through a major assessment he has begun of the Oregon Plan for Salmon. The assessment has other goals, too, says Tom Byler, the governor's Natural Resource Policy Adviser, but strengthening the possibility of a de-listing is clearly one of its top goals....
Listing status of coast coho listed question It is difficult to describe the current legal status of the Oregon coast coho, and that of numerous other salmon and trout runs in the Northwest. The current confusing legal status of 27 of the region's salmonid runs began in Lincoln County, when the Alsea Valley Alliance in October 1999 sued in Circuit Court to stop the killing of hatchery coho salmon by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW). The Alliance argued that ODFW was wrong in insisting the hatchery fish were different from, and a risk to, wild-born fish, and wrong to kill off the hatchery run. The Alliance lost that case, but had more success at the federal level. The success left the fish no longer listed, though not formally de-listed, under the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA)....
Oregon eases beach rules on plover  State officials, responding to public outcry, have backed away from some restrictions they had proposed on flying kites, walking dogs and other beach pursuits to help a threatened shorebird along the Oregon coast. Although certain limits to protect the western snowy plover would remain on beaches up and down Oregon's coast, the move lessens some of the more contentious rules. Final decisions will come later this year....
High School Construction Plan Will Save Bat Habitat   U.S. Rep. Steven C. LaTourette says construction of Lakeside High School could begin immediately under a compromise construction plan tentatively approved by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Work at the school was halted more than a month ago after a routine bat survey located a pregnant Indiana bat off school property. The Indiana Bat is an endangered species at the federal and state levels....
Fishing Lines Pose Threat to Ospreys  Every scientist who studies ospreys has a story about finding odd, man-made objects in the birds' nests. But the ospreys' pack-rat tendencies can pose a problem, scientists say, when they pick up one common bit of man-made debris: fishing line. When brought back to the nest, the line can entangle osprey chicks and sometimes parents, causing serious injury or even death by starvation....
Norton defends parks spending during tour of Colo. projects Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton visited Rocky Mountain National Park on Wednesday, where she defended the administration's spending on the park system. Norton spoke specifically about the commitment to relieve in five years a backlog of maintenance and repairs estimated to cost $4.9 billion. Norton said she is confident despite tightening federal budgets, though she tempered expectations....
Workers clearing mud from Yellowstone road Crews are about halfway done removing 30,000 tons of hillside muck that spilled onto a road in Yellowstone National Park Sunday night, but it remains unclear when the road will reopen. Workers on Wednesday punched an emergency road through the mudslide - enough of a clearing to allow dump trucks and emergency vehicles through, but not much else....
New framework for biodiversity conservation  A new study published in the August issue of Ecology Letters shows that elaborate modeling efforts used to guide land conservation result in plans that are rarely achievable in the real world and may actually be counter-productive to achieving long term protection of plants and animals. Author Sandy Andelman says "Conservation agencies are spending ten's of millions of dollars on systematic planning, but it doesn't translate to saving wildlife". "We need to reallocate dollars spent on 'perfect world' planning scenarios to aggressively pursue opportunities to safeguard habitat for species that are most in need." Creating networks of parks and protected areas is a cornerstone of global conservation strategies. Yet 40% of highly threatened vertebrates – mammals, birds, amphibians and reptiles – do not occur in a single protected area around the globe....
Editorial: Barriers may save lives in brutal desert  Metal barriers to block smugglers' vehicles at popular crossings could be worth their weight in gold, despite outcries from some in the Tohono O'odham Nation. At Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, 30 of the 36 miles of border will be barricaded. Longtime Tucsonans will remember the case of 30 El Salvadorans abandoned in Organ Pipe in the blazing summer of 1980. Thirteen women and children died as the heat hit 109 degrees and the ground temperature reached 150 degrees. Smugglers had robbed and raped the illegal immigrants, then abandoned them. Survivors fought over drops of cologne and urine to quench their relentless thirst. Then in 2001, smugglers killed Kris Eggle, a National Park Service ranger in Organ Pipe....
Editorial: A remarkable commitment  It's difficult keeping up with the detractors of the Hearst Ranch conservation deal. Mostly comprised of a small group of local Sierra Club executive council members, these folks have changed their concerns and objectives about the deal so many times that their credibility is pretty well shot. Initially they wanted to overlay negotiations with their own blueprint of demands for the deal. That was pretty well ignored. Then they wanted the 82,000-acre ranch bought lock, stock and barrel. The only problem was that Hearst Corp. wasn't looking to sell the ranch....
Tests show high radioactivity at old mine  New soil tests show significantly high levels of radioactivity at an abandoned Northern Nevada mine, renewing health and safety concerns and prompting federal land managers to restrict access to the 3,600-acre site, U.S. regulators told the Associated Press. State and federal experts said there is no imminent danger to residents of the rural community of nearby Yerington. But for the first time, soil samples show high levels of uranium and radium are present at the old Anaconda copper mine. The levels are far above what occurs naturally and are likely the result of decades of chemical processing of heavy metals....
Some ranchers become 'predator friendly'  While some of their neighbors opposed reintroduction of the Mexican gray wolf, Arizona cattle producers Will and Jan Holder saw a business opportunity. The Holders are part of a small group of livestock and wool producers considered "predator-friendly." They view peaceful coexistence with predators such as wolves as a basic principle, sound business decision and potentially profitable selling point to consumers. They refuse to take lethal measures against predators — even those that might kill livestock — and instead change their practices to try to avoid conflicts. "We don't believe it solves anything by killing a predator, and we like to see wildlife," said Jan Holder, whose family runs a cattle ranch in eastern Arizona and has encountered such predators as mountain lions, coyotes, bears and wolves....
Hualapai Nation to build overhang at Grand Canyon  The Hualapai Nation has plans to build a 60-foot long horseshoe-shaped skywalk that overhangs the west rim of the Grand Canyon.Grand Canyon West Operations Manager Robert Bravo said on Tuesday that the overhang’s flooring will be made partially of glass so that visitors can look down into the Canyon. The Hualapai Nation plans to have the skywalk completed by March 2005. The skywalk will be built at Eagle Point, one of three overlooks the 2,100-member tribe offers as part of its Grand Canyon West experience....
Calif. Groups Sue to Stop Conoco Refinery Expansion  Environmentalists and a labor union have sued to stop ConocoPhillips Co. from expanding two Los Angeles-area refineries, saying the company and region's air quality agency ignored evidence that the project will spew toxic emissions into already tainted air. The twin lawsuits, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, accuse the South Coast Air Quality Management District of abdicating its legal duty to analyze the refinery projects and mitigate the resulting pollution....
Range rider arrested at camp on decade-old warrant  A range rider hired to protect livestock from wolves in the Madison Valley was arrested Monday on charges related to a 1994 conviction for stealing a horse.Law officers drove into Antelope Basin near Raynolds Pass and arrested Robert Kunesh Monday morning, Beaverhead County Sheriff Bill Briggs said. Kunesh was booked into the Beaverhead County jail and posted $5,000 bail. But Kunesh's wife, Ebbie, who is also a range rider, said Tuesday that they thought the legal matter had been taken care of....
It's All Trew: The hog, the whole hog, nothin' but the hog   Sooner or later, all conversations with old-timers feature a hog story or two. Several of my earlier columns recalled hog adventures of one kind or another. Here are a few more. Without hogs, the homesteaders of the west would have had a much harder time surviving. Raw pork could be kept from spoiling merely by adding salt. Salt solutions kept many food items from spoiling. Grandma Trew packed fresh eggs into crocks filled with salt to extend their useful life. Buffalo tongues were packed in wooden barrels filled with salty water and shipped to markets....

NEWS ROUNDUP 
 
How they're fighting fires  Where in past summers there would have been a dozen two- and four-engine air tankers flying out of Fox Field to blazes like the Pine and Foothill fires, this week there were two. In May, the U.S. Forest Service canceled contracts with the private companies that operate heavy air tankers -- mostly converted military surplus planes -- over safety questions following three fatal tanker crashes. After new inspections, it has renewed contracts on just seven planes nationwide. "We're missing an important tool in the toolbox," said Bureau of Land Management lead pilot Mike Lynn, walking by the two heavy tankers stationed Tuesday at Fox....
Drought kindles big fire season in West  As the story goes, it was Mrs. Murphy's cow kicking over a lantern that started the Great Chicago Fire in 1871. In southern California this week, a hapless red-tailed hawk got zapped on a power line, sparking a conflagration that drove hundreds of people from their homes, torched several thousand acres, and has yet to be contained. So far this year, the summer fire season has taken off like sparks through dry tinder. Up to this point in the June to October wildfire season, the number of acres burned is double the average for the past decade - already more than what burned in all of 2003. As the week started, 28 large fires were burning over 3.4 million acres....
Democrats see campaign issue in Bush forest rule  Democrats Tuesday sought to make a campaign issue of a Bush administration plan to scrap proposed protections for federal forests and said the move represented a broken environmental promise to the public. "This will be an election-year issue because the administration has gone back on its promise," Sen. Maria Cantwell, a Washington Democrat, said at a Capitol Hill news conference. "They never intended to defend the (forest-protection) rule in the first place."....
Editorial: Another bureaucratic level  To Gail Kimbell, the Forest Service's newly appointed Region 1 chief, changing politics might alter the rhetoric over management of this country's national forests, but the work on the ground remains essentially unchanged. Kimbell, who visited the IR's Editorial Board Tuesday as part of her get-acquainted tour of the national forests under her direction, said the agency's passion for managing the land is the same today as it was at the start of her career three decades ago. But distractions - from endless litigation over Forest Service operations to the pendulum swings of presidential politics - are impossible to ignore....
Healthy Forests rules please new forester  In a lively discussion with the Independent Record's editorial board on Tuesday, Gail Kimbell — the new regional forester for Montana and parts of the Dakotas, Wyoming and Idaho — touched upon issues ranging from proposed federal guidelines on roadless areas and off-highway vehicle use to gas and oil leasing on the Rocky Mountain Front. Kimbell hasn't made many changes since March, when she took the helm of Region 1, an area that includes about 25 million acres of federally managed grassland and national forests. She noted that her ultimate goal is the restoration of robust forest ecosystems under the Healthy Forests Initiative, an act that she worked on in recent years in the Washington, D.C., office. "I was very involved with pieces of the Healthy Forests Initiative," Kimbell said. "I'm pleased to see ranger districts using the tools developed as part of the Healthy Forests Initiative."....
Column: Using Bush’s Playbook, Kerry could Employ Executive Orders to Create a Sustainable Century  When John Kerry assumes the presidency in January, he’ll most likely face the same divided Congress George W. Bush did, and, like Bush he’ll need to rely on historic events and gullible senators from the opposite party to push through even a modest legislative agenda. Facing these challenges, Bush has achieved far more of his environmental agenda of self-regulation and under-enforcement through executive action than legislative proposals before Congress. It’s hard to imagine that Congress would vote to transfer billions of dollars from California consumers to energy companies—or stop enforcing the nation’s environmental laws and let corporate polluters off the hook for paying to clean up toxic waste—yet Bush has achieved all this and more through executive action. With acknowledgements to the current president, what follows is a list of four executive actions President Kerry could rip from President Bush’s playbook to create a new sustainable century....
FOREST SHOWDOWN: EQUESTRIAN CAMPGROUND OWNERS BATTLING FOREST SERVICE OFFICIALS OVER OPERATING PERMIT POLICY    Owners of equestrian campgrounds adjacent to the Shawnee National Forest are circling their wagons in preparation for a showdown with the U.S. Forest Service over a new operating permit policy. Campground owners are upset at what they say is unwarranted intrusion and discrimination against their businesses. They cite new fees and new regulations that potentially would allow the government to set the fees they charge their customers. Forest service officials, however, say they are trying to do what's fair....
Column: Off-road vehicles out of control   Herds of monsters are defiling the woods, and forest officials admit they can't control the destruction and disruption. It's those darn "minibikes, amphibious vehicles, snowmobiles, off-highway motorcycles, go-carts, motorized trail bikes and dune buggies," according to proposed rules that aim to reign in the stampede.  While the Bush administration contrives to overturn roadless protection and open vast areas of backcountry to more road-building for logging and energy development, the U.S. Forest Service can't handle vehicle abuse on roads and trails it already owns....
Group pushes buyout of mineral rights below Padre Island  The Sierra Club on Tuesday renewed its push for a federal buyout of the mineral rights below Padre Island National Seashore and called on Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson to help. Patterson, however, said his position has not changed. "The minerals are not for sale," Patterson said. "We get a better deal for developing the resource over time than we do from some arbitrary buyout." The Sierra Club made the pitch as it released a report, "Wildlands at Risk," that highlights 25 places across the country, including Padre Island National Seashore, it says are at risk because of Bush administration policies....
New plan for snowy plover drops most contentious restrictions   Oregon officials are backing away from some of the most severe beach restrictions they proposed earlier this year in an effort to save the snowy plover, one of Oregon's threatened shorebirds. Earlier, the Oregon Department of Parks and Recreation suggested closing 25 percent of the state's sandy beaches to kite flying, dog walking and other recreational activities in the hopes of boosting the numbers of plovers, which make their nest in the sand where they are easily crushed underfoot....
Mountain Lion Blamed For Horses' Injuries  Two horses were seriously injured when they were attacked by a mountain lion or fled from one, wildlife officials and the horses' owner said.  A thoroughbred mare's chest was cut deeply on July 11 and an Appaloosa mare's underbelly was slashed open two days later, said Woody Capper, the horses' owner.  Capper believes both were attacked by a mountain lion. Perry Will, a Colorado Division of Wildlife officer, said it was more likely the animals were hurt when they ran into a tree or a fence when trying to escape a lion....
Otero Mesa protections adopted  The state Oil Conservation Commission has passed additional environmental protections for the Otero Mesa, in the event of future gas and oil drilling there.The commission voted last week to prohibit the use of evaporation pits and to impose additional requirements for injection wells, which are used to return produced water into the ground, in specified parts of Otero and Sierra counties.The decision follows an executive order signed Jan. 31 by Gov. Bill Richardson urging the Commission to ban pits at Otero Mesa....
Judge axes grazing preference A judge has issued a stunning reversal of state grazing law, saying current holders of state livestock grazing leases cannot renew their lease simply by matching the highest competing bid. State District Judge Jeffery Sherlock of Helena said the long-standing "preference right" law is unconstitutional because it prevents the state Land Board from deciding who would be the best lessee of state lands. Tommy Butler, chief attorney for the Department of Natural Resources and Conservation, said Tuesday the ruling is "the most profound case I've encountered since I've been here as far as state lessees," affecting more than 10,000 lessees on millions of acres of state land....
Ex-EPA director dies Anne McGill Gorsuch Burford, a 1970s Colorado legislator who served two stormy years as Ronald Reagan's first Environmental Protection Agency director, died Sunday at the age of 62. Burford was an early proponent of the policies made part of U.S. culture by President Reagan, recalled Steve Durham, who served in the state legislature with her and later was regional administrator of the EPA while she ran the entire agency....
Landmark tribal water rights deal nears Senate floor  Senate committee members Tuesday assured quick passage of one of the largest tribal water rights agreements in the West.Nez Perce tribal leaders and Idaho officials testified before the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs for the Nez Perce-Snake River Water Rights Act. Both sides declared victory for tribal and non-tribal water users. The estimated $193 million agreement could put to rest 180,000 river water claims....
Pipeline proposal creates demand for study  The Bush administration wants to broaden opportunities to use a utility corridor designed for a water pipeline from Lincoln County to Las Vegas, while a county official and environmentalists are asking for a study of how much water is available. The Southern Nevada Water Authority and the Lincoln County Water District should not be the only utilities allowed to use the proposed corridor on federal land, said Rebecca Watson, Interior Department assistant secretary of land and minerals management....
Column: One for the Ninth  This afternoon, the U.S. Senate will consider President Bush's nomination of my friend Bill Myers to serve on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. To say the least, the Ninth Circuit is not a centrist court. Rather, it is widely known as the most liberal circuit court in the land.  Given the Ninth Circuit's extremely bizarre record, it should come as no surprise that the vast majority of its judges, 17 out of 26, were appointed by Democratic presidents. In light of this obvious imbalance, one would think that U.S. senators from across the political spectrum might welcome the nomination of Bill Myers, a mainstream conservative from Idaho, to serve on that court. Unfortunately, however, many of the Democratic senators are now threatening to filibuster this fine nominee, who would assure a restoration of badly needed balance to the Ninth Circuit....
GOP can't break filibuster on judicial nomination  The Senate rejected a judicial nominee on Tuesday who Republican lawmakers from Wyoming said would have added a much-needed conservative voice on Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.Republicans were unable to gather the 60 votes needed to cut off debate on the nomination of William G. Myers III. The effort failed by a vote of 53 to 44. It is unclear if his nomination will be brought up again....
States to Sue Over Global Warming Dissatisfied with the Bush administration's policies on global warming, attorneys general from California and seven other states plan today to sue five large energy producers who they contend are responsible for nearly 10% of the heat-trapping gases that the United States is releasing into the atmosphere.In an unusual legal maneuver, the states are seeking to force the electricity providers to curb carbon dioxide emissions by arguing that the releases violate an arcane series of "public nuisance" prohibitions against endangering the health of the commons that the U.S. copied from English common law.  The lawsuit is expected to be filed by Democratic attorneys general from California, New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, Iowa, Wisconsin, Rhode Island and Vermont. New York City's corporations counsel, also a Democrat, is expected to join the suit as well. It is aimed at four private companies — Cinergy Corp., Southern Co., Xcel Energy and American Electric Power Co. — as well as one public utility, the Tennessee Valley Authority....
Brucellosis revives feedground debate   Some conservationists want some of western Wyoming's state elk feedgrounds closed after the discovery of brucellosis in cattle in Sublette, Washakie and Teton counties. They say feedgrounds help spread the disease from elk to livestock. A 19-member task force appointed by Gov. Dave Freudenthal is studying the feedground issue and could recommend changes later this year. Elk have been known to overrun cattle pasture near feedgrounds. It happened during the winter of 1995-96, when deep snow forced elk to lower elevations, including the state's Bench Corral feedground near Boulder....
Horses help people turn lives around  The chief therapist in Megan Keller’s practice weighs 1,000 pounds, wears horseshoes and answers to “Cowboy.”  For a year, Keller has been offering equine-assisted psychotherapy.  Keller calls the therapy Equassist. She is a member of EAGALA, Equine-Assisted Growth and Learning Association....
Cattle ranches nudged into computer age on branding  Ranchers are being nudged further into the computer age by a former New Mexico state brands supervisor who has developed software that instantly matches hot-iron brands with cattle owners and ranch locations. The software, expected to be commercially available this fall, comes at a time when the government is seeking faster, more detailed information about livestock, particularly during disease outbreaks....
'Alamo' at home in Hill Country  Standing in the middle of the movie set built for the recently-released "The Alamo," you can almost imagine the action and feel the passion of less than 200 men who stood up to General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, dictator of Mexico, that fateful day, March 6, 1836.  As a fourth-generation rancher, Eugene grew up on the ranch, and he and Jean, who grew up in Dripping Springs, have lived on the ranch for the last 42 years. Daughter Tara lives in Austin, but worked with the filming of the movie as an assistant to one of the actors. Because Tara has worked with the Texas Film Commission in Austin, the "powers that be" were aware of the Reimers' ranch. The scenic ranch was selected over 80 other locations in 13 western states and Calgary, Canada, according to Touchstone Pictures.  According to information released by Touchstone Pictures, the set stands on 51 acres and is said to be "the largest free-standing set ever built in North America."....

NEWS ROUNDUP
 
Wildfire in California started by bird flying into power line  Fire officials say a bird sparked the huge wildfire threatening hundreds of homes in Southern California.They say a red-tailed hawk flew into a power line, was electrocuted, and its flaming body fell into tinder-dry brush.  No houses have been lost but nearly 16-hundred homes have been evacuated since the fire began Saturday. It's spread across six-thousand acres in northern Los Angeles County and is about 45 percent contained....
Restoration effort outlined as firefighters complete work on Carson City fire   Local, state and federal officials outlined plans Monday to restore land blackened by a fast-moving wildland fire that destroyed 15 homes in Nevada's capital city and forced the evacuation of hundreds more. Jack Troyer, regional forester for the intermountain region of the U.S. Forest Service, said a multi-agency effort will include seeding and tree-planting on the 7,600 acres scorched by the Waterfall fire.  Rehabilitation began Sunday with the construction of artificial terraces to slow runoff this fall. Planting will come later in what's expected to be a yearlong process....
Column: Logging old growth should become old hat   In 30 years, can you imagine looking back and wishing we had more 6-foot-wide stumps or more logging roads? Now more than ever, federal foresters' primary mission should be to thin young tree plantations and address fire hazards. Yet every day, the Bush administration, despite its rhetoric of "healthy forests," is taking us back to the dark ages of forest management by opening ancient forests and wild, roadless lands to more logging....
Hopi tribe signs forest service deal  The Hopi Tribe has signed an agreement with officials from the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest that formally gives the tribe’s Cultural Preservation Office consultation authority. The Hopi Tribal Council in the form of a resolution originally approved the agreement, formally called a “Memorandum of Understanding”, on June 8. According to the tribe, the MOU gives the tribe authority under the National Historic Preservation Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act and other laws as the Cultural Preservation Office represents Hopi tribal interests on forestlands. Until now, the CPO only had informal power....
Bush, Kerry campaigns build on forest issue  To hear the Bush and Kerry campaigns tell it, the very fate of Western forests hinges on the next presidential election.  Environmentalists backing Sen. John Kerry last week blamed the Bush administration for abandoning protections for roadless lands -- with one, Portland's Ken Rait, accusing the president of "dealing our wild forests away as payola for campaign contributors." Meanwhile, Republican officials reacted with disdain when Kerry released his plan for coping with the catastrophic wildfire threat facing the West....
McInnis' rush to seal deal on forest bill upsets Udall   U.S. Rep. Scott McInnis is stepping on some toes on his rush out the door.  As time winds down on McInnis' last year in Congress, the four-term Grand Junction Republican recently introduced legislation meant to improve one of the national treasures in his district, the White River National Forest.  It would allow the U.S. Forest Service to dispose of 16 surplus properties and keep the money for improvements to the forest.  Most of the parcel is in U.S. Rep. Mark Udall's neighboring 2nd District. Udall's staff is upset that in McInnis' rush to get the bill approved under his watch, he has left Udall and various affected communities out of the loop....
Critical FWS scientist notified of job loss  A scientist who publicly criticized his supervisors at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for failing to adequately protect the Florida panther has received a letter from the federal agency citing plans to remove him from his job.  The notice came a week after Fish and Wildlife denied a formal complaint filed by Andrew Eller Jr. The Vero Beach man had contended flawed science led officials to approve eight developments on land needed for the survival of the endangered Florida panther....
French wolves return only to become prey   France yesterday defied environmentalists by permitting a limited cull of the country's small and protected wolf population, which is blamed for causing havoc among sheep farmers in the south-east. On Sunday 140 sheep died after jumping into a steep ravine in the Alpes-de-Haute Provence department fleeing a suspected wolf. The predators were hunted to near-extinction in France in the 1920s but have made a startling return in the last decade. The French wolf population is still no more than 40-50 strong but the animals have been blamed for the deaths of nearly 2,200 sheep last year, up from fewer than 200 in 1994....
BLM between a rock and a hard place with management area  The release of an administrative plan concerning the Clear Creek Management Area has spurred a flurry of controversy between off-road vehicle users and environmentalists, and placed the Bureau of Land Management in the middle.For the past 30 years, Clear Creek has become one of the premier spots for off-highway vehicle (OHV) users to participate in their sport. But a BLM management plan released to the public Thursday could soon limit the surplus of routes and trails available to them because of growing environmental concerns and pressure from environmentalists....
Massive wetlands restoration project begins on San Francisco Bay   One of the nation's most ambitious environmental projects got underway Monday when state and federal wildlife officials released thousands of gallons of brackish water from salt ponds they will convert to tidal marsh along the southern fringe of San Francisco Bay.  The 30-year project aims to restore habitat for endangered species and migratory birds, improve flood control and create recreational areas in 15,100 acres of salt ponds formerly owned by Cargill Salt of Minneapolis....
Hear us out   The movement to change the Endangered Species Act to prevent another Klamath Basin 2001 is gathering steam, a quintet of U.S. representatives said Saturday.  U.S. Rep. Greg Walden said his bill calling for more peer review of decisions under the 30-year-old ESA should be fine-tuned next week and ready for a vote. Peer review is a second look in deciding how to administer the act.  Emotions ran high outside the theater Saturday morning as two marches converged in front of the theater before the hearing. Members of the Klamath Tribes and environmentalists came in support of the ESA and water users and others from the agricultural community came to call for change in the ESA....
Witness by witness: What they said   Here are summaries of the testimony and answers of the witnesses and those who accompanied them at the congressional hearing Saturday morning at the Ross Ragland Theater....
Opposing viewpoints converge  From opposite ends of Main Street and opposite viewpoints on the Endangered Species Act, residents of the Klamath Basin converged on the Ross Ragland Theater Saturday morning. It got a little rowdy, but it stayed peaceable as groups representing Klamath Basin irrigators and the Klamath Tribes met in front of the theater, later the venue for a congressional field hearing.  About 100 members of the Klamath Tribes and environmentalists started at the Klamath County Museum and walked to the beat of a drumming group.About 250 water users and others in the agriculture community, some singing a soft chorus of "God Bless America," set out from Veterans Park and walked ahead of the clomp of horse hoofs....
Suit threatened over cleanup  The Natural Resources Defense Council announced Monday that it intends to sue the U.S. Department of Energy over its plan to leave 99 percent of contaminated soil at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory where nuclear testing was conducted for decades.  The lawsuit threat comes after several failed attempts by California's two senators and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to have a new analysis of radiological contamination at the lab and a recent discovery of high levels of radioactivity in groundwater....
Groups' petition seeking protection for insects   Environmental groups on Monday filed a petition with federal wildlife officials requesting protection under the U.S. Endangered Species Act for 16 bees, beetles, wasps and other insects unique to the Imperial Sand Dunes.  The move, seeking to keep portions of the towering, wind-sculpted dunes in Imperial County closed to off-roading, is the latest in a four-year tug-of-war over the California desert's most popular off-roading area. Known as the Imperial Sand Dunes Recreation Area, major portions of the dunes were closed in 2000 to protect a threatened plant. However, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management has proposed reopening roughly 50,000 acres, about a third of the dunes....
Rio Grande Dries Out  The Rio Grande River has dried out in a 23-mile stretch between Isleta Pueblo and Elephant Butte.  Scientists are working on what's become an annual event.  U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologists have been working seven days a week for a month, trying to rescue endangered Rio Grande silvery minnows stranded in isolated pools....
Wolf that killed cows destroyed   A male wolf that killed four cows was removed from a pack southwest of Cody on Carter Mountain and destroyed, federal wildlife officials said.  "I hope that will stop the cow killing," said Mike Jimenez, Wyoming wolf recovery coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.  A female with pups was left behind.  Five other wolves in the region have been removed this year....
Tortoise effort targets ravens   Federal and state agencies, seeking to protect the federally threatened desert tortoise, are considering shooting and poisoning ravens to control the soaring population of the birds, which are the lumbering reptile's major predator.  Ravens, whose numbers have increased more than 1,000 percent in the past 25 years, prey on young tortoises with soft shells, preventing 40 percent to 60 percent of them from surviving into adulthood, U.S. Bureau of Land Management spokesman Doran Sanchez said Monday....
Study evaluates effects of CBM on Tongue River  The U.S. Geological Survey recently started an intensive streamflow and water quality monitoring program on the Tongue River to collect scientific information about areas with potential for coalbed methane development in Montana and Wyoming.  The 11-site network monitors streamflow and water quality along the Tongue River and its major tributaries. Information from the monitors is intended for use by irrigators, industry and regulators in Montana and Wyoming....
U.S. House OKs reduction in trona royalties   Lawmakers ignored Bush administration opposition on Monday and passed a bill that would reduce the federal royalty trona companies pay from 6 percent to 2 percent.  By an overwhelming voice vote, the House passed the bill, HR4625, authorizing the reduction in royalty payments. The vote came less than one week after the Interior Department issued a written statement opposing the bill.  In the written testimony, the department noted that the fair-market value of the royalties is "estimated to be above the current 6 percent rate."....
Wilderness protection sought for rock-art site 80 miles north of Vegas   Wilderness advocates are asking Nevada’s federal lawmakers to add protection for a remote site with ancient American Indian rock art to a Lincoln County lands bill Congress is due to discuss today.  The site, known as the Shooting Gallery, features 5,000 petroglyph images including raindrops, reptiles, waterfalls, bighorn sheep and hunters in a two-mile stretch of the Pahranagat Range, about 80 miles north of Las Vegas. In recent years, looters have dug for artifacts beneath the prehistoric etchings....
Draft Strategy comes under fire  True Oil's Rene Taylor called the document blackmail. She said it will pit the oil and gas industry against the livestock industry in the hopes that one will survive and one won't. Jim Magagna with the Wyoming Stock Growers Association agreed the document was ominous. He said it will shift the problems of the oil and gas industry onto the backs of the livestock industry.  One main option advocated in the strategy is habitat acquisition. The document said acquiring fee title properties and associated federal grazing allotments would address the needs of the most crucial habitats. Other options included the voluntary retirement, or purchase of grazing allotments on public lands, a call for stricter grazing/AUM management program, conservation easements and long and short-term habitat improvement projects, among others....
William Myers: Unfit Nominee Pushed by GOP Leaders  Senate Republican leaders have scheduled a July 20 cloture vote on the appeals court nomination of William Myers, whose blatant use of his government position to undermine environmental protections and disregard the rights of Indian tribes has drawn unprecedented opposition and widespread editorial denunciation. People For the American Way President Ralph G. Neas said the push to confirm the underqualified ideologue to the federal appeals court reflects Republican leaders’ election-year strategy to manipulate the judicial confirmation process for political gain....
Column: Access to forests clouded by politics  When Montanan Jack Atcheson was presented with Outdoor Life magazine's Conservation Award a while back, he felt compelled to comment on the basic nature of politics as it pertains to public land management.  "If the Democrats are in power, they try to lock the outdoors up and keep us away from it," Atcheson observed. "If the Republicans are in, they want to cut it down or sell it."  Atcheson easily might have had the current hair-pull over roadless areas in mind when he issued this cynical assessment....
Republican Environmentalists Blast Bush Record  One of the Environmental Protection Agency's earliest leaders, flanked by Republican state politicians, blasted the president's record on the environment Monday during a news conference organized by an anti-Bush environmental group.  Russell Train, a Republican, was the EPA's second chief under presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. But he said President George W. Bush's record is so dismal that he's casting his presidential vote for Democrat John Kerry in November.  Environment2004, the environmental group, released a report Monday titled "Damaging the Granite State." It criticizes presidential policies on energy, global warming, toxic waste and air and water pollution....
Members of Congress, Environmentalists Blast Bush Plan to Give Away Federal Forests     Members of Congress and environmental groups will announce their opposition to the Administration's proposal to dismantle the Roadless Rule, "one of the most important and popular land preservation initiatives of the last 30 years. (New York Times, 7/18/04)" The plan, to permit logging, mining and drilling in millions of acres of roadless areas of national forests was announced by the Administration on July 12. A 60 day public comment period was announced on July 16 in the Federal Register. Environmental groups are also running ads next week in Congress Daily.  Day: Tuesday, July 20th Time: 11 AM EST Location: Cannon House Office Building Terrace, Capitol Hill, Washington, DC. (In the event of rain, the event will be held in Cannon room 441) Attendees: Sen. Maria Cantwell, Reps. Rosa DeLauro, Jay Inslee, Maurice Hinchey, members of Heritage Forests Campaign, U.S. PIRG, National Environmental Trust, others....
Residents hope idea holds water  This community in the Boulder foothills was parched and frustrated, so much so that residents hatched what they hope will be a do-it-yourself model for Front Range water woes.  Their plan: Build a 5-acre reservoir in the valley that cuts through Pine Brook Hills. Already, residents have ponied up the land and the cash to complete the project....
Bard plays Big Sky Country  On a perfect summer evening, in the middle of what even many Montanans refer to as the middle of nowhere, ranchers and others from a hundred miles away or more made their way past this tiny town and drove half an hour more on a rutted, boulder-studded pink gravel road that winds through green meadows and pine forests to the top of an island in the sky called Poker Jim Butte.It is live theater, Montana style. Not in the round, but on top of the world.  The troupe's visit is a major event in this town of 13-- "14 when my granddaughter is here," Fjell said."This is our one shot at culture all year," said Butch Fjell, her husband, and they make the most of it.Not only is the play an important cultural occasion, but the injection of 10 energetic actors into a quiet ranching town is also a treat--families offer beds for the actors and make potluck suppers to share after the play ends."The people of Birney have probably seen more Shakespeare than 99 percent of the people in New York City," Jahnke said....
 

NEWS ROUNDUP
 
California's 'crown jewel' may finally be open to the public  After 25 years of debate, one of the last, stretches of breathtaking California coastline - the southern end of Big Sur's ragged beaches, where the scenic highway dips and rises - may be finally closing in on its future.  With details unveiled last week and a brief comment period open before state agencies act, one longtime California conservationist calls the tentative plan "the deal of the century. A leading national environmental group spokesman calls it a "bald-faced, end-run development plan masquerading as a conservation deal."  Either way, national land trust experts say it is an example of the increasing trend by local and state governments to make complicated compromises that may irk purists but protect far more land than fund-strapped public entities and conservation groups can afford....
Tensions at home on the range  Susan Weaver just wants people to give her cows a little consideration.  Her family has ranched in northern Colorado since 1886, when her father's grandparents homesteaded near Virginia Dale. Over the years they sold all but 4,000 acres of the ranch and replaced it with more remote land in southern Wyoming and Colorado's Eastern Plains.  But on the remaining acres north of Fort Collins, they endure the torment of new "exurban" commuters who zoom past on Owl Canyon Road, a narrow side road that connects Interstate 25 with U.S. 287....
Editorial: Surrender in the Forests  The Bush administration has taken apart so many environmental regulations that one more rollback should not surprise us. Even so, it boggles the mind that the White House should choose an election year to dismantle one of the most important and popular land preservation initiatives of the last 30 years — a Clinton administration rule that placed 58.5 million acres of the national forests off limits to new road building and development.  There are no compelling reasons to repudiate that rule and no obvious beneficiaries besides a few disgruntled Western governors and the timber, oil and gas interests that have long regarded the national forests as profit centers....
House panel reviews species act  A House subcommittee looking for ways to change the Endangered Species Act came to the Klamath Basin on Saturday, where irrigation water was cut off to 1,400 farms in 2001 to conserve water for threatened and endangered fish.  Witnesses representing farmers, Indian tribes, waterfowl hunters, the National Research Council, and federal agencies gave qualified support to the idea of having a scientific panel review major decisions made under the Endangered Species Act.  ``Peer review can be very useful, but it can also be a burden,'' said William Lewis, a University of Colorado scientist who was chairman of the National Research Council review of the Klamath irrigation cutbacks....
Big cats uncomfortably close  Florida panthers may be loved symbolically, as a state mascot, but in the past half-year or so they've started prowling around people's backyards, making fur fly -- literally.  Last month a panther killed livestock at a campground near Everglades City. In May, others lurked around the site of the sacred Miccosukee Green Corn Dance, coming uncomfortably close to people. In both cases a panther was captured and moved -- a step so frowned upon by wildlife biologists that it had been taken only once before, in 1998....
Sheriff in Owyhee County, Idaho no friend of BLM  To blow up his own image, Aman issued a "no trespass" policy to the BLM in 2000, a pronouncement as flammable as cheatgrass on a July afternoon. He told the BLM to give him at least two days notice when agency officials planned to cross private property to view allotments. He also insisted BLM officials get permission in advance from landowners."I don't foresee any problems as long as the BLM adheres to the terms of the agreement," he said at the time. "They expect ranchers to obey the law. I expect the same of them."....
BLM lives with legacy of 'chaining'    From the mid-1960s to the early 1970s, the Bureau of Land Management was pursuing a policy of converting the high desert woodland of Canyons of the Ancients National Monument near Cortez into grass-filled pastures for grazing cows.  They called it "site conversion," an experiment that was doomed to failure - a failure the bureau is today trying to rectify by restoring the "converted" areas to their former natural state....
Stewardship program recognizes those who care for land  The grass is lush and more than knee-high along the banks of Mission Spring Creek, a sparkling little tributary in the Yellowstone Valley about 10 miles east of Livingston.Doug Ensign, who owns the Mission Ranch here, has fenced off the riparian area and pastures it just twice a year, moving his whole herd in for 12 to 24 hours. That brief, intensive grazing rejuvenates the grass, but the cattle aren't in the pasture long enough to break down stream banks and silt up the stream, which is an excellent brown trout fishery....
Poisonous plants killing more livestock  A conflicting combination of drought and rain has led to a bumper crop of poisonous plants experts say are killing sheep and cattle statewide. Although a welcome relief, this year's early summer rains also ushered in more death camas and larkspur, which can be fatal in sheep and cattle, and lupine, which can cause birth defects in calves.‘‘The number of ranchers suffering cattle losses to larkspur stunned me,'' said John Paterson, an Extension Service beef specialist with Montana State University....
Column: Our lands are under attack Colorado is under attack, and most of us are totally oblivious to the threat. We just assume it will always remain a beautiful place, uncrowded, untrammeled, untouched. Summer shows the fallacy of that belief. We get out and about more, and the tears in the image begin to show up.  Head to a wilderness area or climb a fourteener for solitude; you may decide a traffic light is needed to handle the crowds....
Davis Mountains folks between rock, hard place  With the recent announcement of the $4.4 million purchase of another large Davis Mountains tract — a 10,000-acre chunk of the Eppenauer Ranch — the conservancy continued an accumulation of property here that began more than a decade ago.  The land will be maintained as a private nature reserve, available to research scientists and university students but with very limited public access, conservancy spokeswoman Nikki McDaniel said.  Predictably, the purchase was met with grumbles by some locals and private-property advocates who long have distrusted the organization's expansionist presence.  In acquiring the Eppenauer Ranch land, the nonprofit organization connected two large tracts it already owned, creating a contiguous 32,000-acre, or 50-square-mile, reserve.... 
An era turns to dust  One of San Bernardino County's last agricultural outposts is fading away, quietly succumbing to urban development and historic drought. With it, some fear, will go the remnants of Old West life on this parched sliver of desert along the once steady, now anemic, Mojave River.  The West is six years into a drought that some experts say is the worst to hit in five centuries, eclipsing even the Dust Bowl era. Thanks to the state's massive water-storage and distribution system, experts believe the consequences will be more subtle than the great drought of the 1930s.  But in the High Desert, some farmers and ranchers must choose between going to more fertile ground or finding some other way to make a living. Either choice means leaving a once-cherished lifestyle....
Watermaster balances competing water needs  Jeremy Giffin has dodged rocks, swallowed insults and run for his life in the face of a charging llama.  And Giffin still thinks he has the best job in Central Oregon.  Welcome to the world of the watermaster.  Giffin is the water sheriff for an area that encompasses roughly 5,000 miles of thirsty High Desert country touching five counties....
Compact would make it all but impossible to divert water from Great Lakes  It would be nearly impossible to divert large amounts of water from the Great Lakes to other areas of the country under provisions of a sweeping interstate compact and international agreement aimed at protecting and improving the water system.  The proposed Great Lakes Charter Annex, set to be released Monday, only would allow new or increased withdrawals on any of the five Great Lakes if water immediately were returned and the condition of the lakes were improved.  The measure would leave the door open for Great Lakes water to be shipped to areas in the region that are outside the basin but prevent it from heading to other areas, such as the Southwest....
Proposal to rename lake goes against tide    Calls by environmentalists to drain Lake Powell stirred controversy. The idea of merely renaming it has also.The Arizona State Board on Geographic and Historic Names today is scheduled to consider a Colorado woman's request, backed by a handful of conservation and outdoors groups, to change Lake Powell's name to Glen Canyon Reservoir....
Water battle part of desert legend   The story of how old-timer "Papa" Wakula stood up for his water rights is one of the most frequently told tales at the Iron Hog saloon, the unofficial meeting place for many residents here in San Bernardino County's dwindling farm country.  The slight, weathered Polish immigrant was one of only a few landowners who challenged officials in the late 1980s when water restrictions were imposed across the High Desert....
Peruvian shepherds live rugged days tending American flocks  The program is an offshoot of a 1950 law that brought Basque shepherds to this country from northern Spain. But that source dried up as conditions there improved so American sheep owners turned to South America.  The men are screened in Peru to assure they know sheep herding and to winnow out those who see the program as nothing more than a ticket to the United States.  There are roughly 800 foreign herders in 10 Western states, about 80 percent Peruvian and most of the rest from Chile, said Dennis Richins, director of the Fair Oaks, Calif.-based Western Range Association, a nonprofit cooperative that recruits foreign herders and helps file their paperwork....
Karnes City animal redefines 'longhorn' with his 117-inch spread and unique coloring  Step aside, Bevo — there's a new longhorn in Texas winning the hearts of admirers young and old.  This one is even bigger than the famed University of Texas mascot. Much bigger.  This one is Wow.  That's what most people say upon seeing the 2,200-pound animal for the first time — Wow.  The longhorn, which sports 117 inches of horns, has become the most prized steer in Texas.  That's 9 feet 9 inches — nearly as long as a basketball goal is high, or the height of Goliath in the Bible.  Wow recently won his third World Grand Championship title from the Texas Longhorn Breeders Association of America competition in Fort Worth. No other longhorn steer has accomplished such a feat....
Column: Cruelty argument is bull Eric Mills does not like rodeos much. And the gray-haired animal rights activist from Oakland gets as mad as a Brahma bull when he talks about the competition at the California Rodeo.  "Anybody who does calf-roping should be put in jail," Mills said Saturday, as he handed out protest pamphlets on the corner of North Main and Iris streets, as rodeo fans walked to the Salinas Sports Complex.  "The percentage of calves injured to the number of those roped is pretty minute," said T.J. Korkow, of Korkow Rodeos, a national stock contracting company is in its 55th year of providing animals for rodeos. "It happens. But a good analogy would be to horse racing, and the number of horses that break a leg."  Fowler, a Salinas native who, like all the California Rodeo veterinarians, volunteers his time for the event, said that the animals are bred along specific genetic lines for what they do....
Wagons circle for great grub at Frontier Days cattle drive   How do you make a chuck wagon breakfast for 125 hungry cowboys?  Get up at dawn and keep cooking. That is how Don and Shirley Creacy managed to feed the crew working the annual Cheyenne Frontier Days cattle drive Sunday morning.  The Fritch, Texas, couple - aided by their 8-year-old grandson Rhett - served up scrambled eggs, sausages, gravy and biscuits from their 1912 John Deere wagon. Then they hooked up their mules, Jack and Redman, and followed the 60 riders who drove 500 head of Corriente-longhorn cattle into Cheyenne....
Blacksmiths forge into future  Saturday is a sweltering day, and most Grand Valley residents are seeking shade or swamp coolers. But at Roy Bradley's Bitter Creek Forge near Loma, blacksmiths are gathering around red-hot forges like moths to flames.  They have come here from eastern Utah and throughout the Western Slope - or the "Back Range" as they call it - to fire up forges, pound metal and trade smithing tips....
Cribs, brothels served Durango's rowdier element  Where the red lights of the Durango Fire & Rescue Authority vehicles are parked sits a tribute to another type of red light. One that speaks to Durango's more raucous days.  Iris Park, the small, green triangle of land that sits between the River City Hall and the Animas River is named after Nellie "Iris" Spencer, a well-known madam who ran one of Durango's brothels.  While organized prostitution ended in the 1950s in Durango, at the turn of the century it was a booming industry, thriving off the desires of miners, ranchers and railroad workers....