NEWS ROUNDUP

Bison hunt nears close, officials calling it a success Hunters have killed 39 bison to date in Montana's first bison hunt in 15 years, and some lawmakers already are talking about expanding the hunt for next season. Mel Frost, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks, said 39 bison were killed as of Saturday in the hunt that began Nov. 15 and is set to end Feb. 15. The number included six bison killed under licenses issued to American Indian tribes in Montana, she said. An additional five bison were killed over the weekend by members of the Nez Perce Indian tribe of Idaho, she said. Those animals were killed under an 1855 treaty between the United States and the tribe, and the hunters were not subject to the rules of the state-run hunt of bison that leave Yellowstone National Park. Frost said only one of the general public tags has yet to be filled, but she expects the hunter who has the tag will kill a bison before the season ends....
BLM suspends funding for logging study A federal agency has suspended funding for the final year of a study originating at Oregon State University that raised questions about whether logging is the best way to restore national forests burned by wildfires, further inflaming a debate over how to treat the millions of acres of national forest that burn each year. The Bureau of Land Management acknowledged Monday that it asked OSU whether the three-year study, led by graduate student Daniel Donato and published last month in the journal Science, violated provisions of a $300,000 federal fire research grant that prohibits using any of the money to lobby Congress and requires that a BLM scientist be consulted before the research is published. "We are not questioning the data or the science," but rather whether researchers strictly followed provisions of the grant, BLM Oregon spokesman Chris Strebig said. The study, which found that salvage logging killed naturally regenerated seedlings and increased, in the short term, the amount of fuel on the ground to feed future fires, was embraced by environmentalists fighting a House bill to speed salvage logging on national forests....
Bush budget would phase out funding for timber counties in 41 states The Bush administration proposed Monday phasing out a program that has pumped more than $2 billion into rural states hurt by logging cutbacks on federal land. The plan would cut in half payments made to rural counties in 41 states and Puerto Rico for schools, roads and other infrastructure needs. The six-year-old "county payments" law has helped offset sharp declines in timber sales in western states in the wake of federal forest policy that restricts logging to protect endangered species such as the spotted owl. Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey, who directs U.S. forest policy, called the proposal painful but necessary in a tight budget year. Rey said the 2000 law was designed to help rural counties make the transition from dependence on timber receipts to a more broad-based economy. Western lawmakers said the proposal amounted to a death knell for a law that many described as the most successful federal forestry initiative in decades....
Judge hears arguments in lawsuit over ivory-billed woodpecker Environmentalists asked a federal judge Monday to stop a $319 million eastern Arkansas public works project to protect the habitat of the newly discovered ivory-billed woodpecker. Attorneys for the National Wildlife Federation contend that continued construction of the Grand Prairie irrigation project would irreversibly damage the habitat of the bird thought extinct until sighted last spring. The federal government says otherwise. Attorneys for the Department of Justice argued before U.S. District Judge Bill Wilson that the project would affect only a few of the thousands of acres that make up the bird's habitat in the woods of eastern Arkansas. Proponents say without the project, the region's underground water source could dry up in a decade. The contrasting arguments prompted Wilson to ponder his role in the case. "Do I have to weigh the value of the aquifer against the value of the ivory-billed woodpecker?" The judge asked at a hearing in the federation's lawsuit to halt the water project. Lawyers for the organization asked Wilson to stop construction, at least until the government could complete a comprehensive environmental impact study....
Nonprofit buys key watershed parcels The Western River Conservancy has quietly bought more than 400 mountainous and forested acres for conservation in the Sandy, Little Sandy and Bull Run watersheds in the past two months. The purchases are part of a six-year effort by the Portland-based nonprofit and Portland General Electric to preserve 4,500 acres along the river and near the Mount Hood National Forest. The push comes as PGE prepares to demolish the Marmot and Little Sandy dams, said conservancy vice president and cofounder Sue Doroff. The conservancy frequently sells the land it acquires to the Bureau of Land Management or other federal agencies for conservation, recreation and wildlife uses....
Phelps Dodge to open new mine near Safford Phelps Dodge Corp.'s board of directors last week gave the go-ahead for the company to open the first new major copper mine in the United States in more than 30 years. And with that, gave a shot in the arm to the economy of Graham County. "It will kick off a new wave of development for the valley," said Ron Green, mayor of the 9,500-resident community of Safford. The $550 million mine near Safford is expected to create 1,000 construction jobs and 400 permanent positions when it commences operations in the second half of 2008. The development consists of two open-pit copper mines, a mile apart, known as the Dos Pobres and San Juan. It is expected to more than double the tax base in Graham County, which has a population of about 25,000 people and one of the lowest assessed valuations of Arizona's 15 counties....
Science, energy spending increased The emphasis would be on research that is most likely to boost economic competitiveness, including alternative fuels, faster computers and energy-efficient lighting. For 2007, NSF funding would increase by 7.9 percent to $5.8 billion, the Office of Science would receive $505 million more than last year, and the NIST would gain $75 million more for research. The president's energy initiative aims to reduce dependence on oil from the Middle East, replacing 75 percent of oil imports from that region by 2025. Part of this would come through the investment in scientific research for alternative fuels. The budget also includes a $42 million package aimed at enhancing the availability of affordable gas, oil and other energy resources. The Bureau of Land Management would receive an increase of $9 million, under Mr. Bush's request, to process an anticipated record number of permit applications to drill for oil on federal land....
Budget Glance Interior Agency: Department of Interior Spending: $9.1 billion Percentage change from 2005: -2.4 percent Highlights: _Cuts $312 million from the Office of Surface Mining program to reclaim abandoned mines, because of the expiration of coal mining fees next June. The department says the more than $3 billion in health and safety work under the program remains undone. _Cuts the National Park Service budget by $89 million, to $2.484 billion, in what department officials call a return to "sustainable levels" after a five-year initiative to address a maintenance backlog. Much of the backlog remains. _Cuts $35 million from the budget for the Bureau of Land Management, which handles permits for oil and gas drilling. That would decrease the agency's budget to $2.834 billion. _Adds $250 million for coastal impact assistance, in the wake of hurricanes Katrina and Rita. _Spends $322 million on "cooperative conservation" - the theme of a White House conference last summer. The Bush administration hopes the money will promote local conservation efforts and reduce federal regulatory red tape....
Appeal begins for BLM whistleblower at polluted Nevada mine A former federal employee who was helping to lead the cleanup of a contaminated Nevada mine is expected to testify at an administrative hearing this week that he was fired because he spoke out about dangers at the toxic waste site. Earle Dixon's appeal of his firing from the U.S. Bureau of Land Management opens Tuesday before an administrative law judge for the U.S. Labor Department. The hearing is expected to run through Thursday at the federal courthouse in Reno. Christopher Lee, deputy regional administrator for the Labor Department's Office of Safety and Health Administration, rejected Dixon's initial whistleblower complaint in October and concluded BLM "met its burden of showing legitimate business reasons" for firing him. BLM officials will be among those testifying on Dixon's complaint, which seeks up to $1 million in damages and is required under federal law before he can file a lawsuit....
Salazar pressures BLM over gas In four days, part of San Miguel County will be on the auction block in Denver, as about 40,000 acres worth of mineral rights will be up for sale in the first of two mineral rights auctions. But Congressman John Salazar wants to stop - or at least slow - some of the sales. A week ago Salazar wrote to officials at the Bureau of Land Management asking them to allow San Miguel County officials for more time to consider mining's impacts on the San Miguel River Corridor, water quality and surface owner's rights. But last Thursday, Salazar was able to speak with the BLM's State Director, Sally Wisely. In their conversation, Salazar "explained our concerns that development activities on certain parcels could contaminate drinking water for thousands of my constituents," he wrote in a press release....
Evicting David Souter LOGAN DARROW CLEMENTS doesn't seem like the sort of fellow who'd go around stealing the houses of Supreme Court justices. He's mild mannered and laughs easily, often at his own jokes. Physically he resembles a less creepy Ralph Reed: He looks like a 36-year-old altar boy whose mom made him scrub up and dress for dinner. An Ayn Rand devotee, he heads an objectivist discussion group back home in Los Angeles. A zippy evening for the group might entail a field trip to the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center or sitting through a presentation on The Force Minimization Theory of Ethical Taxation. Clements decided to use the Supreme Court's own ruling, effectively permitting cities to seize homes for private economic gain, to go after the home of one of the Supreme Court's own, David Souter. If he succeeds in getting the town of Weare, New Hampshire, where Souter's house is located, to marshal eminent domain against Souter, Clements will raise funds to build his Lost Liberty Hotel on Souter's land. The hotel will also house a small museum that commemorates our trampled freedoms. His current plans call for the original house to be left standing as the site for the Just Deserts Café. Instead of a Gideon Bible in each room, Clements plans to stock a copy of the book that a Library of Congress poll said is the second most influential of all time, Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. As one might have guessed, it's the most influential to Clements. In Atlas Shrugged, the creative class ceases to create, withholding the benefits of what it most values, in order to protest statist interference. Similarly, Clements aims to abuse eminent domain in order to stop the abuse of eminent domain. If David Souter's 200-year-old home, inherited from his late mother who inherited it from her parents, can be seized for cockamamie reasons under the guise of economic development, so can anybody's....
N.H. Town Rejects Plan to Evict Souter Residents on Saturday rejected a proposal to evict U.S. Supreme Court Justice David Souter from his farmhouse to make way for the "Lost Liberty Hotel." A group angered by last year's court decision that gave local governments more power to seize people's homes for economic development had petitioned to use the ruling against the justice. But voters deciding which issues should go on the town's March ballot replaced the group's proposal with a call to strengthen New Hampshire's law on eminent domain. "This is a game," said Walter Bohlin. "Why would we take something from one of ours? This is not the appropriate way." Souter, who grew up in Weare, a central New Hampshire town of 8,500, has not commented on the matter and was not at the meeting. Joshua Solomon, a member of the Committee for the Protection of Natural Rights, was disappointed with the vote....
Public Agency Faulted in Eminent Domain Case A city agency violated the separation of church and state when it seized a woman's home to help a religious group build a private school in a blighted Philadelphia neighborhood, a state appeals court ruled Monday. In a 4 to 3 ruling, the Commonwealth Court said the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority should not have taken the property in 2003 so the Hope Partnership for Education could build a middle school. The court said the seizure by eminent domain ran afoul of a clause in the Constitution that keeps Congress from establishing religion or preventing its free exercise. The Hope Partnership is a venture of the Society of the Holy Child Jesus and the Sisters of Mercy, two Roman Catholic religious orders. "The evidence shows that the Hope Partnership designated the land that it wanted and requested the authority to acquire it, and the authority proceeded to do so," Judge Doris A. Smith-Ribner wrote for the majority. "This joint effort demonstrates the entanglement between church and state."....
Bull Riding Fastest Growing Sport Will the next big American sports superstar weigh over 2,000 pounds and come with two horns on his head and a name like “Little Yellow Jacket” or “Reindeer Dippin’”? Yes, he will, according to the guys who want to make professional bull riding the next big American pastime. So far, the numbers seem to bear out Bernard’s and McBride's optimism. In 1998, PBR events had 33,912,988 television viewers. In 2004, that number grew to a whopping 104,277,264. Its growth from 2002 to 2004 alone was 51.93 percent, qualifying bull riding as the fastest-growing sport in America. The latest stats about the in-person audience are just as impressive. In 2004, the PBR had 16,355,000 fans who attended events. In 2005, that number was 18,569,000 — a single-year growth of 14 percent. From 2002, that figure's risen a jaw-dropping 72 percent — an increase big enough to make even a bull like Moss Oak Mudslinger stop in its tracks....
Cowboys paying homage to Tyson He now refers to himself as an "old man," but give Ian Tyson credit. The battered and bruised 71-year-old Alberta rancher and singer-songwriter, sometimes cranky, sometimes mellow — "I'm king of the mood swings," he sings in "Gravel Road" — has never given up. He's in there pitching. Nowhere is the meaning of his work more evident and more cherished than at the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko, Nev., a festival drawing about 8,000 spectators. Of the 50 or so performers at the gathering last week — cowboy poets and cowboy musicians alike — no one is cheered like Tyson. For the seven days of the event, he owns Elko. "He's a legend and an icon," says Charlie Seemann, executive director of the Western Folklife Center in Elko, which hosts the gathering. "He has a huge cult following in the ranching world." Curly Musgrave, a California singer-songwriter who enjoys a huge eminence in cowboy music, is equally emphatic. "If there's a cowboy singer who is appreciated in the United States, it's Ian Tyson. He set the stage for the rest of us to come on. He certainly has been an influence for me, particularly in songwriting, in capturing the style and essence of what a cowboy is, and really speaking to the heart of the cowboy."....
It's All Trew: Neighbors quick to help those in need I can remember at least a dozen times when sudden injury, disease or catastrophe laid a good man low in spite of his best efforts. Depending on the season or occupation, neighbors planned and provided the help needed by the helpless victim to survive and continue on. Several times, like in the Conrad story, they brought combines and trucks to harvest ripened crops and haul them to the elevators, usually free of any cost to the owner. At other times I have helped plow or plant crops as needed to keep the farm going. Time and again I remember the victim’s church providing meals and snacks or the wives nearby bringing food to the harvest crews. Numerous recollections down through the years bring pictures to mind of cowboys and ranchers coming together to round up, brand or ship the cattle of an injured or deceased neighbor....