NEWS ROUNDUP

Editorial: Market conservation in the cross-hairs A conservationist effort to restore depleted grazing land in southern Utah is in trouble because of local opposition. According to The New York Times, the Grand Canyon Trust has spent more than $1 million to end grazing on more than 400,000 acres near the Escalante River. The trust cut deals with willing ranchers whose cows couldn't get fat on the hard, dry soil anyway and were happy to sell off their grazing rights. But now these deals are under unfair attack by local politicians who've filed suit to roll back the agreements. The case is pending before an administrative law judge in the Interior Department, and could end up in federal court. Michael E. Noel, the Republican state representative leading the attack, claims that allowing the sale of some grazing rights means "we go down the path of eliminating all grazing on public lands." That's preposterous, but the fact that the deals are under attack points up how even the best-intentioned activities can be thwarted when they're conducted on public lands. The government is the owner, and the government is always subject to shifting political winds....
Supreme Court reviews Clean Water Act Several U.S. farm groups are raising concerns about a Supreme Court case that has two Michigan land owners pitted against the Army Corps of Engineers. In both instances, the residents were denied the right to develop land they own because of wetlands that exist on the properties. Both the National Pork Producers Council and the Farm Bureau have stepped into the case, concerned that the outcome could impact American farmers and ranchers. Late last week, NPPC asked the Court to reverse a lower court ruling on the Clean Water Act that could adversely affect livestock operations. The farm groups have asked for a ruling that ditches, drainage ways or wetlands with only indirect connections to navigable waters not be subject to the provisions of the Clean Water Act. That federal mandate requires a permit to release anything into a navigable body of water. Both Farm Bureau and NPPC filed friend-of-the-court briefs in the consolidated case – Rapanos, et., al. v. United States of America and Carabell, et. al. v. United States Army Corps of Engineers, et. al. It the two cases before the Supreme Court, neither property owner’s land adjoins or drains directly into navigable waterways, which are broadly defined as waters of the United States. The Corps of Engineers and EPA contend that the Clean Water Act prohibits without a permit discharges of pollutants, including agricultural waste, into waters with any hydrologic connection to navigable waters....
Timber sale reduced by 85% Helena National Forest officials and a local environmental group have reached a compromise over a timber sale near Lincoln, which reduces the amount to be logged by about 85 percent. The new agreement calls for 4 million board feet of timber to be logged from the mountainsides that burned two years ago during the Snow/Talon wildfires, instead of the almost 27 million board feet the Lincoln Ranger District initially had offered for sale. “It’s a sale we can live with and they’re still getting to cut 4 million board feet, which is a substantial amount by itself,” said Michael Garrity, executive director for the Alliance for the Wild Rockies. “We have a new (Helena National Forest) supervisor who worked things out with us, and we think this gets everybody off to a good start. “We’re glad we could talk and reach a compromise without going to court.” Kevin Riordan, who took over the helm of the Helena forest in July, said economics were the main reason to reduce the size of the timber sale, but added that lessening the threat of a lawsuit also played into his decision....
Global Warming Blues The 11th annual meeting of global warming enthusiasts in Montreal isn’t turning out to be a very happy event. Even though this is the first opportunity for the burgeoning global climate bureaucracy to celebrate the full implementation of the Kyoto Protocol, the realities of science, economics and politics are raining on its parade. First, a new study published this week in the journal Nature (Dec. 1) turns global warming alarmism on its head. British researchers reported that the ocean current responsible for the tropical winds that warm Europe’s climate has decreased by an estimated 30 percent since 1957. The headline of the New Scientist report (Nov. 30) on the study nicely captured its import, “Failing ocean current raises fear of mini ice age.” That conclusion, however, doesn’t jibe at all with the reality of European climate, which began warming 200 years ago and is now setting the modern records for warm temperatures that the pro-Kyoto crowd likes to hyperventilate about. The European Environment Agency, in fact, claimed on Nov. 29 that Europe is currently facing the “worst” warming in 5,000 years with 1998, 2002, 2003 and 2004 being the four hottest years on record. While temperatures can only go up or down at any given moment, global warmers seem to want to have it both ways so that any change in climate, regardless of direction, can be attributed to human activity....
Pact Signed for Prototype of Coal Plant Under pressure from other industrialized countries at talks here on global warming, the Bush administration announced on Tuesday that it had signed an agreement with a coalition of energy companies to build a prototype coal-burning power plant with no emissions. The project, called FutureGen, has been in planning stages since 2003. But the Energy Department said here that a formal agreement had been signed under which companies would contribute $250 million of a cost estimated at $1 billion. Environmental advocates at the talks criticized the announcement, saying it was intended to distract from continuing efforts by the American delegation to block discussion of new international commitments to cut emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases that scientists link to global warming....
Column: Pombo's plan must be stopped What is it, exactly, that makes the West special? There are certainly many answers to that question, but perhaps the one that Westerners would give more than any other is our "wide open spaces." Despite much development, there is still open space in the West: space to hike, to hunt, to breathe free, to escape the hemmed-in life that most of us lead too much of the time. That space is our birthright: It is America's public land, held in trust by the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management. The region is what it is because there is so much publicly owned land. California Republican Rep. Richard Pombo, chairman of the House Resources Committee, wants to change all that. Working behind the scenes, he succeeded in attaching a series of amendments to the Deficit Reduction Act (that is, the Budget Bill) that was recently passed by the House. These provisions, adopted with little debate, have the potential to destroy the West as we know it. The amendments are ostensibly reforms to the Mining Law of 1872, the antiquated statute that still governs mining claims on public land. But their impact would extend far beyond mineral extraction....
Toll Road Would Cross Park After six years of environmental studies, Orange County toll road agency staff members recommended Tuesday that a controversial tollway be built through San Onofre State Beach — a popular coastal park that contains endangered species, unspoiled wetlands and world-renowned surfing spots. The 16-mile route, one of eight options considered, would cause the least harm to natural resources and avoid the possibility of condemning hundreds of homes in San Clemente, the Transportation Corridor Agencies staff concluded. "This culminates a lot of years of work," said Macie Cleary-Milan, the TCA's deputy director of environmental planning. "We've balanced all the issues to come up with the best project that is environmentally sensitive and does not have community impacts." The recommended route, which also would cut through a preserve set aside by developers as permanent open space, represents the final link in Orange County's network of tollways....
The people’s champion But today, while PGE is still in the news, Tuttle bird-dogs a different cause. The 59-year-old Tuttle’s arch-nemesis is now a 133-year-old federal mining law that has for decades resisted reform efforts by both liberals and conservatives. His favorite issue recently became a hot topic in Washington, D.C., thanks to a push to rework the law to let private interests acquire pristine federal land — including property inside national forests — for just $1,000 an acre. While some environmental groups focus on publicity, membership and fundraising, Tuttle and his son, John, work quietly out of a nondescript, low-rent downtown Portland office, dispensing low-key wit and engaging in behind-the-scenes bureaucratic combat. Tuttle is considered the pre-eminent mining activist in Oregon. In his 2004 book, “Been Brown So Long It Looked Like Green to Me,” environmental writer Jeffrey St. Clair said Tuttle’s group “may be the mining industry’s biggest pain in the ass.”....
Grand Staircase manager leaving for new job in D.C. David Hunsaker is stepping up in his Bureau of Land Management career by stepping down as manager of southern Utah's Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. In March, Hunsaker will move to Washington, D.C., to become deputy director of the National Landscape Conservation System, which oversees the BLM's specially designated lands, including monuments, wilderness study areas and scenic rivers and trails. "I've been offered the job, and I've accepted," he said Tuesday. Hunsaker, who took the reins of the 1.9 million-acre Grand Staircase in 2001, said his departure has nothing to do with the BLM's ongoing road battles with Kane and Garfield counties....
Arizona, Sonora join up to promote 'geotourism' We all know about the world-class spas and golf resorts.
But Arizona is also home to the Sonoran Desert, and with help from the National Geographic Society, some regional tourism offices are hoping to capitalize on the Arizona-Sonora region's cultural heritage. In the process, they hope, they can keep a unique desert region safe from harmful tourist expansion. On Saturday, the directors of the Arizona Office of Tourism and the Sonora Commission for Tourism Promotion signed a bi-national charter to promote "geotourism." Geotourism is defined as tourism that sustains or enhances the geographical character of a place, its environment, culture and heritage, and the well-being of its residents. The concept is different from ecotourism, which focuses on the environment to the exclusion of local people, said Jonathan Tourtellot, director for the National Geographic Center of Sustainable Destinations in Washington, D.C....
A passion for the heartland: Rapid development doesn't deter hunters, erase memories It’s an hour before dawn on the plains about 50 miles northeast of Denver and this once-dark prairie is ablaze with lights. Development in the form of bi-level homes, three-car garages and 24-hour convenience stores has come to rural Weld County, where 20 years ago the few lights scattered across the short-grass prairie belonged to a sprinkling of oil wells or the occasional distant farmhouse. Headlamps would glimmer and then fade as ranchers and farmers drove the winding prairie roads, and the distant glow to the southwest was the only sign of the urban octopus reaching out its tentacles. The octopus’ warning lights aren’t so distant anymore....
Researchers trail horses in study of wayward seeds Bonnie Davis spent the past several months gathering horse manure. And she was paid to do it. Davis, a researcher working with a college north of San Francisco and the federal government, is trying to learn whether horses, by doing what comes naturally, are spreading non-native plants in California's parks. Davis gathered 270 samples of "road apples" on trails and at trailheads at several northern California national parks, including Point Reyes National Seashore in Marin County, to determine what makes it through a horse's digestive system. The project entails finding whole seeds in the manure and getting them to grow in a hothouse to identify what type of plant they produce. The National Park Service has given Dominican University in San Rafael $100,000 to study how non-native plants are creeping into parks, in many cases forcing out native plants....
Bill to let woman stay in national park stalls For the second time in a month, a procedural squabble in Congress on Tuesday stalled legislation to let octogenarian Betty Dick continue living at her seasonal home in Rocky Mountain National Park. Earlier this year, the National Park Service threatened to enforce a 25-year lease agreement and evict Dick from the land where she and her late husband had lived part- time since the 1970s. In 1979, they negotiated an agreement that they thought would allow them to stay on the land for the rest of their lives. But, Betty Dick told a congressional committee, a last-minute change converted it into a 25-year limit. The Senate and House of Representatives passed different versions of legislation to let her remain on the land for the rest of her life....
Administration keeps workers' names secret Breaking a tradition of openness that began in 1816, the Bush administration has without explanation withheld the names and work locations of about 900,000 of its civilian workers, according to a lawsuit filed Tuesday. "Citizens have a right to know who is working for the government," said Adina Rosenbaum, attorney for the co-directors of the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a research group at Syracuse University, who sued under the Freedom of Information act to get the data. Since 1989, TRAC has been posting on the Internet a database with the name, work location, salary and job category of all 2.7 million federal civilian workers except those in some law enforcement agencies. The data are often used by reporters and government watchdog groups to monitor policies and detect waste or abuse....
Retired park managers see danger signs Policies proposed by the Bush administration could weaken protections for the natural qualities that make national parks special places to visit, according to two dozen retired National Park Service managers. In a letter to Park Service Director Fran Mainella, the retirees said the rules - still in draft form - are a “drastic and dangerous departure from a longstanding national consensus” about how parks should be run. The rules could tip the scale in favor of recreation and lessen the importance of conserving and protecting the parks' natural resources, the retirees said. The letter released Tuesday is signed by 25 retirees who worked as park superintendents, regional supervisors for several states or others in executive positions. “None of the people on this list are zealots,” said Bob Barbee, Yellowstone National Park's superintendent from 1983 to 1994....
Ranchers' hopes evaporating With hay costing about twice its normal price, little if any feed on the ground and water levels in stock tanks receding daily, ranchers across Texas recognize that their run of good fortune may be drying up. "Ranchers hoped to put three good years of rainfall together, but 2005 did not work out that way," said Matt Brockman, executive vice president of the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association. "It's dealt us a setback this year." How much of a setback still is being calculated because the drought — a phenomenon nearly statewide that reminds ranchers of the severe conditions they faced in 1996 — is just getting started. Cattle prices have stayed high, but there are concerns they may not last much longer, especially if the drought forces ranchers to sell off their herds....
Nebraska farm leader concerned about proposed reality TV show We're not hayseeds, says a Nebraska farm leader, worried about how accurately a new TV reality show will portray farmers and their problems. John Hansen, the president of the Nebraska Farmers Union fears that The Farmer Wants a Wife intends to turn its rural reality cast into media fodder as naive bumpkins. And he has no plans to be of any assistance. "I'm not inclined to be helpful to any of those efforts that would trivialize the enormous problems that farm and ranch families face," he said. The premise of the show is to make a match between lonely young farmers with no time to date and women who dream of living a traditional, small-town lifestyle....
Cowboy Angel Fights Attack on Christmas! CHRISTMAS MOUNTAIN: THE STORY OF A COWBOY ANGEL has been released on DVD and is available through www.Customflix.com or www.Amazon.com “I’m tired of the unrelenting attack on Christmas and the Christmas spirit. It’s Holiday this. Happy Holiday that. Well, I got news for you. This film is about Christmas. Christmas Spirit and an Angel trying to earn his wings,” said actor-writer-producer Mark Miller about his reasons for re-releasing Christmas Mountain: The Story of a Cowboy Angel. “What has happened to Christmas films with heart, spirit and soul – that the whole family can watch?” Christmas Mountain: The Story of a Cowboy Angel is a heartwarming Christmas tale featuring American leading man Mark Miller - writer, producer and star of SAVANNAH SMILES - and his boisterous comic-sidekick, the immortal, eternally lovable, Slim Pickens. Imprisoned, down-on-his-luck drifter, Gabe Sweet (Mark Miller) is forced to seek redemption by undertaking a Christmas charity mission on behalf of the town. There's only one problem - the "charity" is as empty as the hearts of the townspeople themselves. But, with the help of a dearly-departed Angel wannabe (Slim Pickens), Gabe quickly learns that the ones truly in need are the ones who already have the most....