NEWS ROUNDUP

Burns pitches ban on oil, gas leases on federal land in Rocky Mountain Front A law that provides permanent protection of the Rocky Mountain Front by banning new oil and gas leases on federal land was delivered Tuesday from an unlikely source. Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., who in 2002 said tapping into oil and gas reserves is in the national interest, took steps to prevent new leases from being approved on Forest Service land in the Lewis and Clark National Forest and adjacent Bureau of Land Management property on the Front. Conservation organizations applauded the efforts, while some questioned Burns' motivation. "I think this is tremendous," said Karl Rappold, a rancher on the Front and a member of the Coalition to Protect the Rocky Mountain Front. "This is what we've been working on for years. I want to thank Sen. Burns." The Coalition to Protect the Rocky Mountain Front is an organization of ranchers, hunters, anglers, outfitters, guides, local business owners, public officials, conservationists and other Montanans working to protect the Front....
Energy Company Donates Gas Leases, Is It a Harbinger for a Western Shift? A day after Sen. Conrad Burns made the first step in banning all new oil and gas leases on Montana's Rocky Mountain Front, Questar E&P, a natural gas company, announced it is handing 1,691 acres of oil and gas leases in the Front's Blackleaf Canyon area over to Trout Unlimited. Trout Unlimited's Vice President for Conservation, Chris Wood, said TU had been in negotiations for some time on the Front leases, but the Burns language introduced yesterday in the Interior Appropriations Bill was a final piece of the puzzle. "It's fair to say (the donation) is a direct result of the concept of permanently retiring the area," Wood said. "They saw the big picture just as much as we did." This deal is a first of its kind, Wood said, but hopefully not the last -- on the Front or West-wide. "This could be precedential," he said. "With Questar stepping to the place, this could be a larger trend." He said TU is actively pursuing similar deals in the West. The Burns move is one of a few such surprises in the last two weeks on the issue of oil, gas and public lands. Last week, Republican congresswoman Heather Wilson signed on with Democrat Stuart Udall to support legislation to keep oil and gas development out of New Mexico's Valle Vidal. A few days earlier, Wyoming Republican Sen. Craig Thomas had a bombshell of his own, saying generally, national forests should be off limits to energy exploration....
Supreme Court Takes Up States' Carbon-Emissions Challenge to Feds The Supreme Court agreed Monday to consider whether the Bush administration must regulate carbon dioxide to combat global warming, setting up what could be one of the court's most important decisions on the environment. The decision means the court will address whether the administration's decision to rely on voluntary measures to combat climate change are legal under federal clean air laws. "This is the whole ball of wax. This will determine whether the Environmental Protection Agency is to regulate greenhouse gases from cars and whether EPA can regulate carbon dioxide from power plants," said David Bookbinder, an attorney for the Sierra Club. The EPA said in a statement that the agency "is confident in its decision (not to regulate carbon dioxide) and will address the issue before the court." It said voluntary programs "are helping achieve reductions" in carbon emissions "while saving millions of dollars." Bookbinder said if the court upholds the administration's argument it also could jeopardize plans by California and 10 other states, including most of the Northeast, to require reductions in carbon dioxide emissions from motor vehicles....
U.S. Coral Eden Found; Others Saved From Destructive Fishing Large and diverse coral communities have been discovered in the deep, cold waters of the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary off Washington State (map of Washington), scientists announced this week. And in a separate but related development, coral and other seafloor communities in the North Pacific were today given sweeping new protections from destructive fishing practices. Bottom trawling—fishing by dragging heavily weighted nets across the seafloor—has been a major concern for conservationists worried about protecting deep-sea ecosystems (read "Trawlers Destroying Deep-Sea Reefs, Scientists Say"). A new ruling by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) bans tom trawling in a 370,000-square-mile (958,000-square-kilometer) area off Alaska's Aleutian Islands (map of Alaska). The closure creates the largest no-trawl zone in U.S. waters....
Ranchers pushed from Aspen area Cowpokes are officially an endangered species in the Roaring Fork Valley. More than 11,000 acres of ranch land was sold in the area in the last year, and most of that land was sold to development firms, said Martha Cochran, director of the Aspen Valley Land Trust, a conservation organization. "The core of the ranching community is getting pushed out," said Cochran, whose group is battling to preserve some of the last remaining large tracts on the valley floor. The ongoing real estate frenzy that shattered sales volume records for the last two years and is on a record pace this year is also giving the area a facelift by bringing urbanization to the remaining rural corners. Cochran said only a handful of ranches larger than 1,000 acres remain between Aspen and Glenwood Springs. "It's gone," she said. "Other than Capitol Creek, it's gone."....
Rainbow trials need more room, lawyer says The trials for the Rainbow Family members in a small, rural firehouse on charges of camping without a permit should stop and resume in a public courtroom, attorney David Lane said Wednesday. In a complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Denver, Lane said that access to the first round of trials was denied to the public and some of the attorneys for the Rainbow Family members. He said the firehouse's limited space effectively turned the trials into "secret proceedings" and asked for a temporary restraining order to halt the trials. An estimated 20,000 members of the Rainbow Family will gather next week in the Routt National Forest but were unable to get a camping permit because of the fire danger. About 4,000 Rainbow Family members have already arrived. U.S. Marshals and Forest Service enforcement officers have arrested about 249 people for camping without a permit. Some also face alcohol and drug charges....
Grassland ownership fight grows A 79-year-old American Indian woman who lives on the Cimarron National Grassland is embroiled in a battle with the federal government over the land's boundaries. Bea Riley, who has lived the past 26 years encircled by the grassland in Morton County, said she wants to swap land with the federal government, which says the boundaries of her land are 70 feet off from where they should be. Joe Hartman, who manages the grassland for the U.S. Forest Service, said tepees Riley put on a campground she built would simply have to be moved so they are no longer on the disputed property. "We told her that we'd work with her in getting that corrected," Hartman said, adding that another problem is that Riley's daughter's home juts into the grassland. Hartman said that structure was an "intentional trespass" because it was built after the correct boundaries of Riley's plot had been determined. But Riley said work on her daughter's house started before the correct land lines were determined....
Inn Owner Furious About Handling of Grand Canyon Fire A fire on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon is among the hottest fires in the nation right now. It has already burned nearly 60,000 acres and is forcing evacuations. Among the evacuees are the famous mules that take tourists up and down the canyon. The calendar, says summer has barely started. But, the year's fire season has already made it's mark. Steve Rich of Salt Lake says the blackened landscape here has been heartbreaking for his family. His ancestors pioneered the area almost 150 years ago. He and many other locals tried to stop what happened. The Rich Family owns the Jacob Lake Inn, gateway to the Grand Canyon's North Rim. Their restaurant, lodge and gift shop is five miles from where the fire started almost three weeks ago. Steve Rich, Jacob Lake Inn: "The fire was this big. They decided to let that thing burn. And we begged them to put it out." But National Forest officials let it burn because it was in an area earmarked as overgrown with fire fuel....
Judge: Leave old dams alone A federal court judge has ruled that 18 small dams in the Emigrant Wilderness are not to be rebuilt, repaired or maintained by the Stanislaus National Forest. Instead, U.S. District Court Judge Anthony Ishii said the dams must remain until they decay naturally, which forest officials say could take a century or more. "We are still undecided on whether we are going to appeal or not," Stanislaus National Forest spokesman Jerry Snyder said yesterday. U.S. Department of Justice attorneys representing the Forest Service will make the final decision on whether to appeal the decision. Ishii's ruling, released earlier this month, is the latest chapter in a nearly two-decade-old debate over how the forest should manage the check dams....
Peru ratifies US trade deal Peru's Congress ratified a free-trade deal with the United States on Wednesday that the country's president promptly signed despite noisy street protests, clearing the way for its approval by U.S. lawmakers. Congress voted 79-14 for the accord, which was backed by businesses who say it will be a huge boost to Peru's export-driven economy and opposed by farmers who fear that U.S. imports will ruin their livelihoods. Six lawmakers abstained. Thousands of demonstrators in Lima protested against the deal, shouting "Down with the United States!" Stephen Norton of the U.S. Trade Representative's office welcomed the ratification and said it would create more jobs in Peru, "opening a market of 28 million consumers to U.S. manufacturers, farmers, ranchers, and service providers." Peru's President Alejandro Toledo signed the pact in a ceremony in Lima, allowing it to become law if the United States approves the accord. Peru's approval is a blow for Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and his allies -- the leftist leaders of Cuba and Bolivia -- who want Latin America to turn away from the United States and join an alternative regional pact....
Gene Autry's Legacy and an Indian Museum Merge (and Collide) When one of the country's premier collections of American Indian artifacts joined forces three years ago with the collectibles of the Singing Cowboy, Gene Autry, the move was officially billed as a merger of equals. This being Hollywood, however, the storyline was reduced to something simpler: the cowboys were once again battling the Indians. Guess which side won. Instead of celebrating the 100th anniversary of its founding next year, the Southwest Museum of the American Indian will lock its doors here on June 30. Over the next three years, the 240,000 objects in its collection, many of which have not been out of storage for decades, will be cleaned, cataloged and prepared for a move to a proposed new building next to Autry's Museum of the American West, in Griffith Park. That is where the Autry National Center, as the merged museum complexes are now known, will celebrate another 100th anniversary next year: the Gene Autry Centennial, a birthday exhibition that, according to the museum, will explore "the Singing Cowboy's influence on myth and history in the American West."....