NEWS ROUNDUP
Two Utah Ranchers Can't Get Paid for their Hay The hay Trent Jorgensen feeds his cattle in Mount Pleasant, Utah he grows himself. But a huge portion of his annual income comes from hay he sells to others for animal feed. These animals 110 miles away at the Bureau of Land Management auction in Herriman, are eating Trent's hay. He made a deal last September to sell about 150 tons of hay to the government for about 15-thousand dollars. The government got the hay, but Trent called me because he never got his money. "I don't understand why they're not willing to come out and make it right 'cause their horses are eating my hay," said Trent Jorgensen. It is the same deal for Neil Sorenson. From his farm in Spring City, he grew and sold about 150 tons of hay, and sold it to the government for 16-thousand dollars. He also never got paid. “We honestly felt like it was a guaranteed thing, when the BLM showed up, state truck, and looked at the hay inspected it and said yep that's what they want,” said Neil Sorenson....
EPA budget cuts trouble environment groups Grants to state and local governments for land and water conservation would be cut 40 percent, and money for the Environmental Protection Agency's network of libraries for scientists would be slashed severely under President Bush's proposed budget. By contrast, Bush next year would spend $322 million for "cooperative conservation" - up from $312 million the Congress approved last year - to encourage more private landowners to protect endangered species, conserve wildlife habitats and do other nature work traditionally done by government. Other proposed increases are $50 million more for cleaner-burning diesel engines and $5 million more for drinking water improvements. Cuts and proposals to sell some of the government's vast land holdings have upset environmentalists. Early in his presidency, Bush called for restoring the federal Land and Water Conservation Fund to the full $900 million authorized by Congress. Last year, it was approved at $142 million. For 2007, he wants just $85 million in grants for creating and preserving non-federal parks, forest land and wildlife refuges, a 40 percent cut. "This is the most troubling budget we've seen from this White House," said Heather Taylor, deputy legislative director for Natural Resources Defense Council. The proposal sent to Congress this week would trim EPA's budget by nearly 5 percent, down to $7.2 billion, and the Interior Department's budget by 2.4 percent, to $9.1 billion....
Washington joins Oregon, California and New Mexico in challenging rule Washington is joining Oregon, California and New Mexico in a lawsuit challenging the Bush administration move to open roadless national forest lands to mining, logging, road-building and other development, Gov. Chris Gregoire said Thursday. ‘‘As a recovering attorney,’’ Gregoire, the state’s former attorney general, said she had tried to avoid litigation, asking the U.S. Agriculture Department for an expedited process would enable the state to adopt the protections of former President Clinton’s roadless rule, which barred development on 58 million acres of national forest across the country, and 2 million acres in Washington state. The Bush administration announced plans last spring to give states a voice in the decision making, with an 18-month span for land-use recommendations and the feds making the final call. Last week, Gregoire said, she got the response to her petition: No. So the state is joining the lawsuit filed last summer in San Francisco. Oral arguments are scheduled for July....
Judge rules against Forest Service in local grazing allotment case In a ruling with potentially far-reaching implications for public lands grazing, U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill on Tuesday ruled against the U.S. Forest Service, saying the agency's sheep grazing management plan for four separate grazing allotments in the Sawtooth National Forest violates federal law. Winmill said the management plan violates both the National Forest Management Act (NFMA) and the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) by failing to analyze at a site-specific level the capability of the lands to support domestic livestock grazing. In his written ruling, Winmill cited five sets of criteria the Forest Service uses to determine whether lands are incapable of supporting livestock grazing. The five criteria are: lands that are inaccessible to livestock, will not produce at least 200 pounds of forage per acre, are not within 1.2 miles of water, have unstable, highly erodible soils, or are on steep slopes. The Forest Service violated federal law when it failed to adequately assess the capability of the land to support grazing based on the five criteria, said Laurie Rule, an attorney for Advocates for the West, which is representing Hailey-based Western Watersheds Project and Dr. Randall Hermann of Ketchum, the plaintiffs in the lawsuit filed May 13, 2005. "They have to do this capability analysis in a site-specific manner," Rule said....
Officials to trap more grizzlies in eastern Idaho this summer Officials plan to trap more grizzly bears in eastern Idaho's Island Park this summer and fit them with radio collars to get a better understanding of how many grizzlies are in the area and where they roam. The Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team, which includes members from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Idaho Department of Fish and Game, trapped six grizzlies in Island Park last year and fitted them with radio collars. "It will be interesting to see if we trap the same bears or different ones (this summer)," Lauri Hanauska-Brown, a wildlife biologist with the state fish and game department, told the Standard Journal in Rexburg. Three of the bears trapped last year were released where they were captured, and three others were moved to more remote locations. Of the three relocated bears, one returned to Harriman State Park and was trapped again. Keith Hobbs, the park's manager, said the number of bears trapped, along with signals from two other radio collars, indicate more bears are in the area. U.S. Forest Service officials estimate the grizzly bear population in and around nearby Yellowstone National Park has increased from an estimated low of 136 in 1975, when the bears were listed as a threatened species, to more than 580 bears in 2004....
Roadless rage On oversized furry paws, big cats move silently through the deepest reaches of Colorado's national forests. They bound across frozen meadows, canyons and escarpments, miles away from any human contact. In other words, perfect lynx country. Since being reintroduced from Canada in 1999, the lynx has learned to prosper in these snowy climbs. Last summer brought welcome news to state scientists monitoring the 138 cats known living in Colorado: a baby boom of sorts. They found 46 kittens nestled in deep forest dens. But progress for scientists comes with setbacks. Where stretches of habitat, including Colorado's White River National Forest, intersect roads and highways, the swift and agile creatures can meet with fast-moving fenders. Nine times in the last six years, one of the rare cats has attempted to cross a road and had its tawny pelt plastered to the ground....
April hearing set in Reno on Jarbidge pact A shaky compromise agreement that provides Elko County right-of-way on the South Canyon Road in Jarbidge is set for review in April in Reno federal court. The 2001 pact nearly settled a lawsuit the federal government filed against Elko County that charged the county had undertaken illegal repairs in 1998 on the washed-out road, which runs alongside a fork in the Jarbidge River. The river's population of bull trout was declared threatened under the Endangered Species Act in 1999. Under the tentative settlement agreement, the U.S Forest Service promised not to challenge that Elko County has a right-of-way on South Canyon Road and the county pledged to not perform future repair work on the road without prior Forest Service approval. But after the agreement was reached, two environmental groups - The Wilderness Society and the Great Old Broads for Wilderness - were allowed to intervene in the case by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals....
Back from the brink The move to delist Rocky Mountain wolves has been expected since 2002, when wolf populations first exceeded recovery goals—30 breeding pairs and at least 300 wolves in the three-state region—set out by the feds. By the end of 2004, an estimated 835 wolves were spread among the states, with 153 in Montana, 422 in Idaho and 260 in Wyoming. Numbers for 2005 have edged higher still. But a second delisting requirement—that Montana, Idaho and Wyoming each develop federally approved wolf management plans—has yet to be fulfilled. Though Montana successfully took over management of its wolves in June 2005 with FWS’s blessing, and Idaho’s plan was approved in January 2006, Wyoming has so far refused to develop a plan the feds will approve. Wyoming’s proposed plan follows state law in classifying wolves as a “predatory animal,” and allows the killing of wolves outside protected park boundaries on sight, which just doesn’t cut it for the FWS. Wyoming is fighting FWS’s rejection of its plan, and the matter is now before an appeals court. Montana and Idaho’s eagerness to move ahead, and FWS Director H. Dale Hall’s announcement that Wyoming is the sole obstruction, increases the pressure on Wyoming to revise its plan, particularly since the Wyoming legislature will convene this month. At this point, though, Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal is holding strong: He fired back at the FWS Feb. 2 with a statement saying, “We will continue to pursue the delisting petition we have filed, as I doubt the Legislature is any more susceptible to blackmail than I am.” Wyoming and its plan may be the region’s highest profile issue regarding wolf delisting, but there’s no shortage of other matters....
Firm leaves rich history as aviation pioneer A World War II-vintage bomber flying low over a raging forest fire to drop flame retardant became a familiar sight in the Intermountain West, but four decades ago it was a radical idea. Realizing that vision took the right combination of circumstances, including affordable planes, veteran pilots willing to take the risk, and a large, well-equipped airport close to forest fires. That's how Hawkins & Powers Aviation of Greybull grew to be an aerial firefighting pioneer and industry powerhouse. At the height of its operations just a few years ago, H&P employed about 200 people and boasted the best fleet of aerial tankers in the business, according to former company executive Duane Powers.* Though a series of recent challenges -- including two deadly accidents and more than $14 million in debt -- may ultimately result in the dissolution of the company, it leaves behind a history rich in innovation and achievement....
Public sounds off on grizzly delisting If it had been a baseball game, it would have been a rout. At a Wednesday public hearing, 38 people opposed removing federal protections for the grizzly bear. Only two people supported removing protections. But it's not a baseball game. Removing an animal from the list of creatures and plants protected by the Endangered Species Act is a difficult and contentious process, as evidenced by the evening meeting at the Hilton Garden Inn. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is proposing to delist the grizzly bears living in and near Yellowstone National Park, a move strongly opposed by most environmental groups. Several themes emerged among delisting opponents;....
BLM gathers in a record sum for oil, gas leases The Bureau of Land Management collected a record $11.8 million Thursday from leasing oil and natural-gas prospects in Colorado. The record revenue reflects high energy prices and the increasing national prominence of Colorado's oil and gas fields, federal officials and energy-industry representatives said. But environmentalists said some of the leases are risky because drilling on the properties could put watersheds and wildlife habitats in danger. The quarterly BLM auction delivered 134,582 acres to energy companies - an area equivalent to about 42 percent of metro Denver. Most of the awarded leases were in western Colorado, although a few were in eastern Colorado's Weld and Yuma counties....
City hits dry hole in drilling-lease bid The West Slope's largest city tried a different approach to protecting its watershed from contamination by oil and gas development Thursday - bidding for the drilling leases itself. But it didn't work. "We were outbid, but I felt good about what we tried to do," said city utilities manager Greg Trainor, who went to the auction in Lakewood on the city's behalf. "Whoever bought them sure wanted them. Every time I bid he was right there topping it, and it was for prices much higher than earlier parcels." Thursday's auction was one of the largest sales of leases in Colorado since 1988, another indicator of the feverish interest in natural gas development in Colorado as prices soar. Leases for parcels on Grand Junction's watershed were included in the auction, despite requests to withdraw them from the sale by the cities of Grand Junction and Palisade, as well as Colorado Democrats Sen. Ken Salazar and Rep. John Salazar....
Federal weed spraying debated The federal government's largest land agency is proposing to triple the number of acres it sprays each year to kill weeds in the West. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) wants to treat nearly 932,000 acres — about the same area as Yosemite and Rocky Mountain national parks combined. The annual spraying would be in parts of 17 states from Alaska to Texas. The aim is to eliminate weeds like cheatgrass that can fuel catastrophic wildfires such as those that ravaged parts of Texas and Oklahoma this winter. Noxious weeds and other invasive plants are now the dominant vegetation on an estimated 35 million acres of the bureau's terrain. Vast tracts of sagebrush have been crowded out by non-native plants and destroyed by fires worsened by cheatgrass....
BLM whistleblower's ex-boss opposed firing in Nevada mine dispute The immediate supervisor of a former federal site manager for a contaminated Nevada mine said Thursday that he gave Earle Dixon a satisfactory job appraisal a month before Dixon was fired in an ongoing dispute with Atlantic Richfield Co. and state regulators. Two other higher ranking supervisors also testified at an administrative hearing that they opposed Dixon's firing in October 2004 by Bob Abbey, then state director of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management for Nevada. "Nobody consulted me as to whether it was a good idea or not," said Charles Pope, BLM's assistant field manager in Carson City. Pope testified he completed an appraisal in September 2004 that concluded Dixon had successfully completed his one-year probationary status and should be retained. "I believe technically, Earle was doing a good job," Pope told an administrative law judge for the U.S. Labor Department. Dixon accuses BLM in a federal whistleblower complaint of firing him in retaliation for speaking out about the dangers at the former Anaconda copper mine near Yerington, including health and safety threats posed by uranium, arsenic and heavy metals....
Boom brings flood of cultural reviews Because of Wyoming's energy boom, the State Historic Preservation Office has been inundated with requests to review surveys of cultural resources on federal lands, the office's interim director said. For example, Sara Needles said, the Bureau of Land Management's Buffalo Field Office submitted 4,000 review requests to the seven-person SHPO staff last year -- more than any other state had in total. "That tells you something about the impacts and the increase in energy development and the effect it's having on our office," she said. The surge in those requests is one factor behind a new proposal from SHPO and the BLM to change the guidelines governing how the federal government and the state assess potential effects of oil and gas development and other activities on historic and cultural sites in Wyoming. The BLM consults with states on cultural resources found on federal land, such as historical buildings and burial grounds, and whether they warrant protection from development and other projects. The new agreement allows the BLM to determine whether an area has historic properties, then tell SHPO of its findings....
Small desert pool is site of a species' fight for life The imperiled Devil's Hole pupfish, which has been clinging to existence in a remote rock tub in the Mojave Desert since the Ice Age, may not survive another year, federal biologists have warned. Regional groundwater pumping, mysterious changes in mating behaviors and habitat disruptions inadvertently caused by scientists who have been trying to protect the pupfish are being blamed for decimating the species, long regarded as a symbol of the desert conservation movement. In a tragedy that was not publicly announced, scientists two years ago accidentally killed 80 of the iridescent blue fish — about one-third of the population at the time. Fewer than 80 of the inch-long fish still swim in the spalike turquoise waters of a small pool at the bottom of an isolated limestone depression that became part of Death Valley National Monument — now a national park — by proclamation of President Truman in 1952....
Cowboy Cupid Bares His Horse Sense The “woman business” is a heck of a lot like the horse business, says rancher-turned-matchmaker Ivan Thompson. You’ve got to treat them right to ensure obedience. The politically incorrect but charismatic Thompson is the star of “Cowboy Del Amor,” the latest documentary by acclaimed Israeli filmmaker Michele Ohayon, which opens today at the Nuart Theatre. With cinematic tongue planted firmly in check, she profiles this self-professed “cowboy cupid” as he lassos Mexican brides for older gringos who find American women too demanding. It all began when the rancher sought his third (and now ex) wife from Mexico because he “couldn’t get to Afghanistan,” he says in the film. But she got “too Americanized” after being allowed her own car and cellphone. “Pretty soon, she was the boss of the house — of my business, and that only left me the pissants and the tumbleweeds,” he laments. So the horseman dumped wife No. 3 and in 1989, placed a personal ad in a remote Mexican town where he hoped the women might be tamer. He received 80 responses and realized he could rustle himself up a new career....
Friday, February 10, 2006
GAO
National Park Service: Opportunities Exist to Clarify and Strengthen Special Uses Permit Guidance on Setting Grazing Fees and Cost-Recovery. GAO-06-355R, February 9.
http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-06-355R
National Park Service: Opportunities Exist to Clarify and Strengthen Special Uses Permit Guidance on Setting Grazing Fees and Cost-Recovery. GAO-06-355R, February 9.
http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-06-355R
FLE
Border drug smugglers threaten deputy's family
Likely drug gangsters have threatened the families of county sheriff's deputies in Texas who thwarted two recent smuggling operations at the U.S.-Mexico border. The San Antonio Express-News quotes Hudspeth County Chief Deputy Mike Doyal as saying three men inside a black and red Ford Bronco approached the wife of one of the deputies last Thursday and made a threat before driving across the Rio Grande into Mexico. As WorldNetDaily reported, in the last several days, there have been two incursions into the U.S. about 50 miles east of El Paso, Texas, by armed men thought to be Mexican troops. The incident on Jan. 23 involved Mexican military Humvees towing what appeared to be thousands of pounds of marijuana across the Rio Grande. Thirty American agents were part of that standoff, including the sheriff's deputies. Speaking of last Thursday's threat to a deputy's wife, Doyal said, "They told her that her husband and the other officers needed to stay off the river down there." On Friday, a Hudspeth deputy in the Fort Hancock area received information a cartel was talking about putting together a "death squad" to target the deputies, Doyal told the Express-News. According to the report, the three deputies who were targeted were the same who witnessed the failed Jan. 23 incursion. On that day, Border Patrol agents called for backup after seeing that apparent Mexican army troops had several mounted machine guns on the ground more than 200 yards inside the U.S. border....
Texas boosts border watch
Gov. Rick Perry, declaring Thursday that Texans must combat escalating crime and drug violence along the Mexican border, announced "Operation Rio Grande" to ramp up law enforcement from El Paso to Brownsville. "There is a great concern that the drug trade is becoming more aggressive, but also terrorist organizations are seeking to exploit our porous border," Perry said, flanked by dozens of border-area sheriffs and deputies wearing cowboy hats and star-shaped badges. The governor also placed the State Operations Center on highest alert, meaning members of four state agencies will work around the clock supporting the new operation. The emergency status is typically reserved for natural disasters such as hurricanes. Perry declined to reveal the cost of Operation Rio Grande or how many extra law enforcement officers it deploys to the border. The new initiative follows his December announcement of $10 million in state aid for "Operation Linebacker," which lets local law enforcement provide greater support to U.S. border officers....
Border violence alarms Chertoff
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, concerned about rising border violence, said yesterday nearly $1 billion in next year's proposed $42.7 billion department budget will be used for new U.S. Border Patrol agents, upgraded electronic security measures, and more fences, roads, and detention beds. "There has been an over-100 percent increase in the last fiscal year in border violence aimed at our Border Patrol agents, and that ranges from gunshots fired across the border to rocks being thrown, sometimes flaming rocks, and let me tell you, rockings are serious," Mr. Chertoff said at a press conference in Washington. "We are not going to tolerate this kind of behavior ... if they think they're going to back us down or chase us away, the answer to that is no. Our Border Patrol is properly trained. They have rules of engagement. They are entitled to defend themselves. They will defend themselves. We will support them in applying these rules of engagement," he said. Border Patrol Chief David V. Aguilar noted there had already been 192 assaults on his agents since the start of the new fiscal year in October. Mr. Chertoff said much of the border violence has been the result of increased enforcement efforts by the U.S. government, but that the department was committed to securing the nation's borders as part of the strategy that "involves not only apprehensions at the border, but detention, removal and more vigorous work site enforcement." The new budget calls for $458.9 million for 1,500 new Border Patrol agents, doubling the number of agents added to 3,000 since 2005. This represents a 42 percent increase in the agent work force since the September 11 attacks....
Patriot Act Compromise Clears Way for Senate Vote
Efforts to extend the USA Patriot Act cleared a major hurdle yesterday when the White House and key senators agreed to revisions that are virtually certain to secure Senate passage and likely to win House approval, congressional leaders said. The proposal would restrict federal agents' access to library records, one of the Patriot Act's most contentious provisions. A form of secret subpoena known as a National Security Letter could no longer be used to obtain records from libraries that function "in their traditional capacity, including providing basic Internet access," Sununu and others said in a statement. But libraries that are "Internet service providers" would remain subject to the letters, Durbin said. The Senate proposal would no longer require National Security Letter recipients to tell the FBI the identity of their lawyers. The compromise bill also addresses "Section 215 subpoenas," which are granted by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court. Recipients of such subpoenas originally were forbidden to tell anyone about the action. The proposed Senate measure would allow them to challenge the "gag order" after one year, rather than the 90-day wait in earlier legislation. Sununu said the administration insisted on the longer waiting period. "You now have a process to challenge the gag order," he said, defending the concession. "That didn't exist before." Sununu said he and his allies were disappointed that the compromise does not require agents to "show a connection to a suspected terrorist or spy" before obtaining a Section 215 subpoena. Instead, a FISA judge would have to agree that there are reasonable grounds to believe the items being sought are relevant to an investigation into terrorism....
US plans massive data sweep
The US government is developing a massive computer system that can collect huge amounts of data and, by linking far-flung information from blogs and e-mail to government records and intelligence reports, search for patterns of terrorist activity. The system - parts of which are operational, parts of which are still under development - is already credited with helping to foil some plots. It is the federal government's latest attempt to use broad data-collection and powerful analysis in the fight against terrorism. But by delving deeply into the digital minutiae of American life, the program is also raising concerns that the government is intruding too deeply into citizens' privacy. The core of this effort is a little-known system called Analysis, Dissemination, Visualization, Insight, and Semantic Enhancement (ADVISE). Only a few public documents mention it. ADVISE is a research and development program within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), part of its three-year-old "Threat and Vulnerability, Testing and Assessment" portfolio. The TVTA received nearly $50 million in federal funding this year. A major part of ADVISE involves data-mining - or "dataveillance," as some call it. It means sifting through data to look for patterns. If a supermarket finds that customers who buy cider also tend to buy fresh-baked bread, it might group the two together. To prevent fraud, credit-card issuers use data-mining to look for patterns of suspicious activity. What sets ADVISE apart is its scope. It would collect a vast array of corporate and public online information - from financial records to CNN news stories - and cross-reference it against US intelligence and law-enforcement records. The system would then store it as "entities" - linked data about people, places, things, organizations, and events, according to a report summarizing a 2004 DHS conference in Alexandria, Va. The storage requirements alone are huge - enough to retain information about 1 quadrillion entities, the report estimated. If each entity were a penny, they would collectively form a cube a half-mile high - roughly double the height of the Empire State Building. But ADVISE and related DHS technologies aim to do much more, according to Joseph Kielman, manager of the TVTA portfolio....
Specter wants special court to supervise surveillance
A special federal court would be given power to supervise the Bush administration's warrantless surveillance program under a bill being written by a key Senate Republican. Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said in an interview Wednesday that he wants to "assert Congress' constitutional authority" while allowing the anti-terrorism program to continue under court supervision. Specter said he hopes to work with President Bush on the bill but is trying to build a bipartisan coalition to override a potential presidential veto. Bush and Specter haven't discussed the bill, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said. On Monday, Specter held a Judiciary Committee hearing in which he and other senators told Attorney General Alberto Gonzales they had doubts about the program's legality. "We welcome ideas that they have," McClellan said. Specter said his proposal would empower the court established by the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to review the National Security Agency's domestic anti-terrorist surveillance every 45 days to ensure it does not go beyond limits described by the administration. Currently, Bush himself reviews the program and signs off on its continuation every 45 days....
Judge Gives U.S. Wiretap Response Deadline
A federal judge gave the government two months to respond to an Ohio trucker's request that his terrorism conviction be thrown out on grounds that the government illegally spied on him. U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema cited "the potentially weighty issues raised in the defendant's motion" in an order Wednesday that set a 60-day timetable for the government to respond to Iyman Faris' arguments. Faris' challenge is among the first to seek evidence of warrantless electronic eavesdropping by the National Security Agency, a practice that began after the Sept. 11 terror attacks. Government officials have reportedly credited eavesdropping with uncovering terrorist plots, including one by Faris to destroy the Brooklyn Bridge. Critics say President Bush didn't have authority to order the wiretaps, but he has staunchly defended the practice. At his sentencing, prosecutors acknowledged that federal agents were led to Faris by a telephone call intercepted in another investigation....
Passenger Security Check Program Scrapped
An ambitious program to check every domestic airline passenger's name against government terrorist watch lists may not be immune from hackers, a congressional investigator said Thursday. And because of security concerns, the government is going back to the drawing board with the program called Secure Flight after spending nearly four years and $150 million on it, the Senate Commerce Committee was told. Transportation Security Administration chief Kip Hawley did not say whether any security breaches had been discovered. An agency spokeswoman, Amy von Valter, told reporters, "We don't believe any passenger information has been compromised." Cathleen Berrick, the investigator for the Government Accountability Office, said in written testimony that "TSA may not have proper controls in place to protect sensitive information." Currently, airlines check the names of passengers against watch lists that the government gives them. Under Secure Flight the government would take over from the airlines the task of checking names against watch lists. According to the GAO testimony, Secure Flight was given formal authority to go live in September, but a government team found that the system software and hardware had 82 security vulnerabilities....
Overkill: The Latest Trend in Policing
On Jan. 24, a SWAT team in Fairfax shot and killed Salvatore J. Culosi Jr., an optometrist who was under investigation for gambling. According to a Jan. 26 front-page story in The Post, Culosi had emerged from his home to meet an undercover officer when a police tactical unit swarmed around him. An officer's gun discharged, killing the suspect. Culosi, police said, was unarmed and had displayed no threatening behavior. It's unlikely that the officer who shot Culosi did so intentionally. But it's also unlikely that the investigation into this shooting will address why police sent a military-style unit to arrest an optometrist under investigation for a nonviolent crime and why the officers had their guns drawn when approaching a man with no history of violence. This isn't the first time a SWAT team in Virginia has killed someone while serving a gambling warrant. In 1998 a team in Virginia Beach conducted a 3 a.m. raid at a private club believed to be involved in organized gambling. Security guard Edward C. Reed was sitting in a parked car outside the club, which had been robbed a few months earlier. As the black-clad police team raided, a few officers confronted Reed, who had fallen asleep. Reid awoke and, probably startled by the sight of armed men outside his car, reached for his gun. The SWAT team shot and killed him. Reed's last words were, "Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book." During the past 15 years, The Post and other media outlets have reported on the unsettling "militarization" of police departments across the country. Armed with free surplus military gear from the Pentagon, SWAT teams have multiplied at a furious pace. Tactics once reserved for rare, volatile situations such as hostage takings, bank robberies and terrorist incidents increasingly are being used for routine police work. Eastern Kentucky University's Peter Kraska -- a widely cited expert on police militarization -- estimates that SWAT teams are called out about 40,000 times a year in the United States; in the 1980s, that figure was 3,000 times a year. Most "call-outs" were to serve warrants on nonviolent drug offenders....
First duty is to yourself
The law says you must act like a coward. In your own home. Even when your life is threatened. Many states have criminal-friendly "duty to retreat" laws. A victim in his house is mandated to retreat from an attacker until he is cornered. Only then is the prey allowed to use lethal force on the predator. Prosecutors in those states have been known to victimize the victim (such as charging him with manslaughter) who prefers to fire back rather than to back off. The National Rifle Association has been trying to end the insanity state by state. Florida came to its senses last year. It enacted a law based on the "Castle Doctrine" -- that one's home is one's castle. A person now is not legally required to be hunted down room by room by an intruder before the victim pulls the trigger. The law allows the victim to shoot back without fear of being prosecuted for being overzealous about protecting his life. And it prohibits criminals from suing their more aggressive victims. All their victims, actually. "Somebody should not be twice victimized, first by the assailant and then by the legal system trying to destroy his life," says Larry Pratt, executive director of Gun Owners of America, the largest organization representing gun owners after the NRA. But the Florida law does more. Car-jackers beware; now one's car is his mobile castle. And better still, if a victim is not in a home or car, now he legally can use deadly force. Sunshine State criminals without a death wish might want to consider career counseling. Or take Horace Greeley's advice to go west. But if they do, they had better hurry. Wyoming is the latest battleground. The NRA is lobbying there and in 11 other states to repeal duty-to-retreat laws....
Border drug smugglers threaten deputy's family
Likely drug gangsters have threatened the families of county sheriff's deputies in Texas who thwarted two recent smuggling operations at the U.S.-Mexico border. The San Antonio Express-News quotes Hudspeth County Chief Deputy Mike Doyal as saying three men inside a black and red Ford Bronco approached the wife of one of the deputies last Thursday and made a threat before driving across the Rio Grande into Mexico. As WorldNetDaily reported, in the last several days, there have been two incursions into the U.S. about 50 miles east of El Paso, Texas, by armed men thought to be Mexican troops. The incident on Jan. 23 involved Mexican military Humvees towing what appeared to be thousands of pounds of marijuana across the Rio Grande. Thirty American agents were part of that standoff, including the sheriff's deputies. Speaking of last Thursday's threat to a deputy's wife, Doyal said, "They told her that her husband and the other officers needed to stay off the river down there." On Friday, a Hudspeth deputy in the Fort Hancock area received information a cartel was talking about putting together a "death squad" to target the deputies, Doyal told the Express-News. According to the report, the three deputies who were targeted were the same who witnessed the failed Jan. 23 incursion. On that day, Border Patrol agents called for backup after seeing that apparent Mexican army troops had several mounted machine guns on the ground more than 200 yards inside the U.S. border....
Texas boosts border watch
Gov. Rick Perry, declaring Thursday that Texans must combat escalating crime and drug violence along the Mexican border, announced "Operation Rio Grande" to ramp up law enforcement from El Paso to Brownsville. "There is a great concern that the drug trade is becoming more aggressive, but also terrorist organizations are seeking to exploit our porous border," Perry said, flanked by dozens of border-area sheriffs and deputies wearing cowboy hats and star-shaped badges. The governor also placed the State Operations Center on highest alert, meaning members of four state agencies will work around the clock supporting the new operation. The emergency status is typically reserved for natural disasters such as hurricanes. Perry declined to reveal the cost of Operation Rio Grande or how many extra law enforcement officers it deploys to the border. The new initiative follows his December announcement of $10 million in state aid for "Operation Linebacker," which lets local law enforcement provide greater support to U.S. border officers....
Border violence alarms Chertoff
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, concerned about rising border violence, said yesterday nearly $1 billion in next year's proposed $42.7 billion department budget will be used for new U.S. Border Patrol agents, upgraded electronic security measures, and more fences, roads, and detention beds. "There has been an over-100 percent increase in the last fiscal year in border violence aimed at our Border Patrol agents, and that ranges from gunshots fired across the border to rocks being thrown, sometimes flaming rocks, and let me tell you, rockings are serious," Mr. Chertoff said at a press conference in Washington. "We are not going to tolerate this kind of behavior ... if they think they're going to back us down or chase us away, the answer to that is no. Our Border Patrol is properly trained. They have rules of engagement. They are entitled to defend themselves. They will defend themselves. We will support them in applying these rules of engagement," he said. Border Patrol Chief David V. Aguilar noted there had already been 192 assaults on his agents since the start of the new fiscal year in October. Mr. Chertoff said much of the border violence has been the result of increased enforcement efforts by the U.S. government, but that the department was committed to securing the nation's borders as part of the strategy that "involves not only apprehensions at the border, but detention, removal and more vigorous work site enforcement." The new budget calls for $458.9 million for 1,500 new Border Patrol agents, doubling the number of agents added to 3,000 since 2005. This represents a 42 percent increase in the agent work force since the September 11 attacks....
Patriot Act Compromise Clears Way for Senate Vote
Efforts to extend the USA Patriot Act cleared a major hurdle yesterday when the White House and key senators agreed to revisions that are virtually certain to secure Senate passage and likely to win House approval, congressional leaders said. The proposal would restrict federal agents' access to library records, one of the Patriot Act's most contentious provisions. A form of secret subpoena known as a National Security Letter could no longer be used to obtain records from libraries that function "in their traditional capacity, including providing basic Internet access," Sununu and others said in a statement. But libraries that are "Internet service providers" would remain subject to the letters, Durbin said. The Senate proposal would no longer require National Security Letter recipients to tell the FBI the identity of their lawyers. The compromise bill also addresses "Section 215 subpoenas," which are granted by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court. Recipients of such subpoenas originally were forbidden to tell anyone about the action. The proposed Senate measure would allow them to challenge the "gag order" after one year, rather than the 90-day wait in earlier legislation. Sununu said the administration insisted on the longer waiting period. "You now have a process to challenge the gag order," he said, defending the concession. "That didn't exist before." Sununu said he and his allies were disappointed that the compromise does not require agents to "show a connection to a suspected terrorist or spy" before obtaining a Section 215 subpoena. Instead, a FISA judge would have to agree that there are reasonable grounds to believe the items being sought are relevant to an investigation into terrorism....
US plans massive data sweep
The US government is developing a massive computer system that can collect huge amounts of data and, by linking far-flung information from blogs and e-mail to government records and intelligence reports, search for patterns of terrorist activity. The system - parts of which are operational, parts of which are still under development - is already credited with helping to foil some plots. It is the federal government's latest attempt to use broad data-collection and powerful analysis in the fight against terrorism. But by delving deeply into the digital minutiae of American life, the program is also raising concerns that the government is intruding too deeply into citizens' privacy. The core of this effort is a little-known system called Analysis, Dissemination, Visualization, Insight, and Semantic Enhancement (ADVISE). Only a few public documents mention it. ADVISE is a research and development program within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), part of its three-year-old "Threat and Vulnerability, Testing and Assessment" portfolio. The TVTA received nearly $50 million in federal funding this year. A major part of ADVISE involves data-mining - or "dataveillance," as some call it. It means sifting through data to look for patterns. If a supermarket finds that customers who buy cider also tend to buy fresh-baked bread, it might group the two together. To prevent fraud, credit-card issuers use data-mining to look for patterns of suspicious activity. What sets ADVISE apart is its scope. It would collect a vast array of corporate and public online information - from financial records to CNN news stories - and cross-reference it against US intelligence and law-enforcement records. The system would then store it as "entities" - linked data about people, places, things, organizations, and events, according to a report summarizing a 2004 DHS conference in Alexandria, Va. The storage requirements alone are huge - enough to retain information about 1 quadrillion entities, the report estimated. If each entity were a penny, they would collectively form a cube a half-mile high - roughly double the height of the Empire State Building. But ADVISE and related DHS technologies aim to do much more, according to Joseph Kielman, manager of the TVTA portfolio....
Specter wants special court to supervise surveillance
A special federal court would be given power to supervise the Bush administration's warrantless surveillance program under a bill being written by a key Senate Republican. Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said in an interview Wednesday that he wants to "assert Congress' constitutional authority" while allowing the anti-terrorism program to continue under court supervision. Specter said he hopes to work with President Bush on the bill but is trying to build a bipartisan coalition to override a potential presidential veto. Bush and Specter haven't discussed the bill, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said. On Monday, Specter held a Judiciary Committee hearing in which he and other senators told Attorney General Alberto Gonzales they had doubts about the program's legality. "We welcome ideas that they have," McClellan said. Specter said his proposal would empower the court established by the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to review the National Security Agency's domestic anti-terrorist surveillance every 45 days to ensure it does not go beyond limits described by the administration. Currently, Bush himself reviews the program and signs off on its continuation every 45 days....
Judge Gives U.S. Wiretap Response Deadline
A federal judge gave the government two months to respond to an Ohio trucker's request that his terrorism conviction be thrown out on grounds that the government illegally spied on him. U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema cited "the potentially weighty issues raised in the defendant's motion" in an order Wednesday that set a 60-day timetable for the government to respond to Iyman Faris' arguments. Faris' challenge is among the first to seek evidence of warrantless electronic eavesdropping by the National Security Agency, a practice that began after the Sept. 11 terror attacks. Government officials have reportedly credited eavesdropping with uncovering terrorist plots, including one by Faris to destroy the Brooklyn Bridge. Critics say President Bush didn't have authority to order the wiretaps, but he has staunchly defended the practice. At his sentencing, prosecutors acknowledged that federal agents were led to Faris by a telephone call intercepted in another investigation....
Passenger Security Check Program Scrapped
An ambitious program to check every domestic airline passenger's name against government terrorist watch lists may not be immune from hackers, a congressional investigator said Thursday. And because of security concerns, the government is going back to the drawing board with the program called Secure Flight after spending nearly four years and $150 million on it, the Senate Commerce Committee was told. Transportation Security Administration chief Kip Hawley did not say whether any security breaches had been discovered. An agency spokeswoman, Amy von Valter, told reporters, "We don't believe any passenger information has been compromised." Cathleen Berrick, the investigator for the Government Accountability Office, said in written testimony that "TSA may not have proper controls in place to protect sensitive information." Currently, airlines check the names of passengers against watch lists that the government gives them. Under Secure Flight the government would take over from the airlines the task of checking names against watch lists. According to the GAO testimony, Secure Flight was given formal authority to go live in September, but a government team found that the system software and hardware had 82 security vulnerabilities....
Overkill: The Latest Trend in Policing
On Jan. 24, a SWAT team in Fairfax shot and killed Salvatore J. Culosi Jr., an optometrist who was under investigation for gambling. According to a Jan. 26 front-page story in The Post, Culosi had emerged from his home to meet an undercover officer when a police tactical unit swarmed around him. An officer's gun discharged, killing the suspect. Culosi, police said, was unarmed and had displayed no threatening behavior. It's unlikely that the officer who shot Culosi did so intentionally. But it's also unlikely that the investigation into this shooting will address why police sent a military-style unit to arrest an optometrist under investigation for a nonviolent crime and why the officers had their guns drawn when approaching a man with no history of violence. This isn't the first time a SWAT team in Virginia has killed someone while serving a gambling warrant. In 1998 a team in Virginia Beach conducted a 3 a.m. raid at a private club believed to be involved in organized gambling. Security guard Edward C. Reed was sitting in a parked car outside the club, which had been robbed a few months earlier. As the black-clad police team raided, a few officers confronted Reed, who had fallen asleep. Reid awoke and, probably startled by the sight of armed men outside his car, reached for his gun. The SWAT team shot and killed him. Reed's last words were, "Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book." During the past 15 years, The Post and other media outlets have reported on the unsettling "militarization" of police departments across the country. Armed with free surplus military gear from the Pentagon, SWAT teams have multiplied at a furious pace. Tactics once reserved for rare, volatile situations such as hostage takings, bank robberies and terrorist incidents increasingly are being used for routine police work. Eastern Kentucky University's Peter Kraska -- a widely cited expert on police militarization -- estimates that SWAT teams are called out about 40,000 times a year in the United States; in the 1980s, that figure was 3,000 times a year. Most "call-outs" were to serve warrants on nonviolent drug offenders....
First duty is to yourself
The law says you must act like a coward. In your own home. Even when your life is threatened. Many states have criminal-friendly "duty to retreat" laws. A victim in his house is mandated to retreat from an attacker until he is cornered. Only then is the prey allowed to use lethal force on the predator. Prosecutors in those states have been known to victimize the victim (such as charging him with manslaughter) who prefers to fire back rather than to back off. The National Rifle Association has been trying to end the insanity state by state. Florida came to its senses last year. It enacted a law based on the "Castle Doctrine" -- that one's home is one's castle. A person now is not legally required to be hunted down room by room by an intruder before the victim pulls the trigger. The law allows the victim to shoot back without fear of being prosecuted for being overzealous about protecting his life. And it prohibits criminals from suing their more aggressive victims. All their victims, actually. "Somebody should not be twice victimized, first by the assailant and then by the legal system trying to destroy his life," says Larry Pratt, executive director of Gun Owners of America, the largest organization representing gun owners after the NRA. But the Florida law does more. Car-jackers beware; now one's car is his mobile castle. And better still, if a victim is not in a home or car, now he legally can use deadly force. Sunshine State criminals without a death wish might want to consider career counseling. Or take Horace Greeley's advice to go west. But if they do, they had better hurry. Wyoming is the latest battleground. The NRA is lobbying there and in 11 other states to repeal duty-to-retreat laws....
Thursday, February 09, 2006
NEWS ROUNDUP
Illegal discharge ignites criticism State regulators are investigating what they believe to be a rogue attempt to hide an illegal water discharge by a coal-bed methane operator in the Powder River Basin. A suspicious rancher in the Spotted Creek area recently discovered what appeared to be an underground water pipeline deliberately directed into a roadway culvert, hidden well out of view of passersby. "It's a serious situation. It appears somebody was trying to hide the fact that they had a discharge that was not permitted," said John Wagner, administrator of the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality's Water Quality Division. Wagner said DEQ is seeking legal action against Lance Oil & Gas Co., a wholly owned subsidiary of Western Gas Resources. Krista Johnson, a spokeswoman for Western Gas, said the company has launched its own investigation into the incident. It's not the first time Lance Oil & Gas has broken the rules. The company was assessed $72,000 in penalties in 2004 and 2005 for six illegal discharges in the coal-bed methane fields, according to DEQ records....
University says it complied with terms of grant for logging study A federal agency restored funding Wednesday for a study that has provided hard evidence for conservationists opposing the Bush administration's policy of logging after wildfires. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management's decision to lift its suspension of the final year of a three-year grant came after Oregon State University said it had complied with provisions that barred it from using any grant money to lobby Congress and required its researchers to inform a BLM scientist about plans to publish in a journal. "Both sides have agreed to work together to continue the long productive relationship gathering science and data on the ground," said BLM spokesman Chris Strebig. In a letter to BLM, OSU noted that the editor in chief of Science magazine had acknowledged his staff included the reference to "informing the debate" over a salvage logging bill pending in Congress in supplemental material posted online, not the actual article, even after the researchers had told them to remove it. The Bush administration has backed the bill. Moreover, Peggy S. Lowry, institutional authorizing official at OSU, wrote that the two lead researchers had shown a PowerPoint presentation of their findings to the BLM scientist overseeing their work and explained that they were submitting it for publication....
U.S. Will Cover O.C. Wildfire Cost As a stubborn wildfire continued to burn across the canyon lands in northeast Orange County on Wednesday, the U.S. Forest Service said it would cover all firefighting costs because it accidentally started the blaze. The fire, which has changed direction several times since it broke out before dawn Monday, grew Wednesday to about 8,635 acres. More than 2,000 firefighters were working to bring it under control. The forest service apologized for letting a small, controlled burn spark a blaze that threatened homes, forcing the evacuation of 2,100 homes in Anaheim Hills and the city of Orange. Residents were allowed to return late Tuesday. The cost of battling what's called the Sierra fire, named after the peak where it started, exceeds $2.25 million so far, officials said. The fire was 35% contained by Wednesday evening. Full containment is not expected before the weekend....
Key Challenges for Science Identified by the USGS to Support Western Water Management Ensuring stable water supplies has grown more complex as the challenges facing water managers continue to mount, especially in the West. Informed decisions of water users and public officials will be necessary to ensure sufficient freshwater resources in the future to support a growing population and economy. The USGS has released a report that examines Western water availability, the modern role for science, and the value of monitoring and research to ensure an adequate water supply for the Nation’s future. According to USGS scientist and coauthor of the report, Mark T. Anderson, "Effective water management in the West is challenged by increasing and often competing needs among various water users: agricultural use and consumption by cities, maintaining water reservoirs and ensuring in-stream flows for aquatic ecosystems, industrial and energy production, and recreation. Scientific information becomes a crucial factor for resource managers to support their decision-making." Such factors as a demographic shift, climate variability (including the potential for severe sustained droughts), climate change, water-rights issues, depletion of ground water in storage, introduction of new storage and water use technologies, and protection of endangered species, add to a growing complexity for water management. Several of the key scientific challenges are examined in this report, including the determination of sustainable ground-water use and the physical habitat needs of ecosystems and individual endangered species....Go here to view the report.
Winnemucca Ranch developers plan thousands of homes Saying they will spare the meadows, developers of the Winnemucca Ranch plan to build up to 8,700 homes in the hills overlooking the green fields and nearby ponds. "We're trying to do things the right way," spokesman Jim Bauserman, representing Reno developers Stan Jaksick and Randy Venturacci, said. In March, they bought the 8,687-acre ranch 30 miles north of Reno that is proposed for annexation. Up to 50 percent of the land would be left as natural areas, including 1,400 acres of meadows used for pasture and wildlife corridors, Venturacci said. The project hinges on the U.S. Bureau of Land Management approving a land exchange. The developers would gain Winnemucca Valley and Upper Dry Valley for their project on 8,687 acres....
Critics alarmed: The area along the Green and San Rafael is popular with rafters and tourists A stretch of the Green River popular among rafting enthusiasts and touted by the state's travel Web site for its scenic and peaceful qualities could now also be sought out by energy companies for exploration. The state Bureau of Land Management office has announced that a Feb. 21 oil and gas lease sale will include parcels in and around the Green and San Rafael rivers between Green River and Moab. Included are three parcels encompassing 3,700 acres along the Green River in Labyrinth Canyon, long a popular spot among river runners. The sale also takes in about 100,000 acres around the San Rafael River and in the San Rafael Desert, at least parts of which have been identified as potential wilderness areas. Local river outfitters are also opposing the lease sale, arguing that it will not only spoil the solitude of the area, but harm their businesses. "We use the canyon corridor in the course of our regular business for canoeing, camping and hiking. The wilderness qualities of the corridor and the side canyons are essential to our business," Theresa Butler, co-owner of the Red River Canoe Co., said in a letter to the BLM protesting the lease sale. "Oil and gas development in these parcels would be in direct conflict with our business."....
Proposed guidelines changes on cultural sites in works Proposed changes in guidelines governing how the federal government and the state assess potential effects of oil and gas development and other activities on historic and cultural sites in Wyoming has raised concerns from a group that advocates protecting such sites. Lesley Wischmann, co-founder of the Alliance for Historic Wyoming, said Wednesday that her organization worries the proposal would give the Bureau of Land Management too much authority over deciding what cultural sites would be protected. But Judyth Reed, BLM historic preservation coordinator in Wyoming, maintains the proposed changes do nothing to increase the BLM's authority and are aimed simply at helping the agency and the state streamline the process. In states where it manages a large amount of federal land, the BLM consults with states on cultural resources found on federal land, such as historical buildings and burial grounds, and whether they warrant protections from development and other projects....
Gibbons urged change in BLM mine oversight before manager fired Rep. Jim Gibbons urged the Bureau of Land Management to shift oversight of a contaminated mine the month before the agency fired its site manager, according to documents submitted Wednesday at a whistleblower hearing. Bob Abbey, ex-BLM director for the state of Nevada, testified at the administrative hearing that Gibbons' request to transfer responsibility for the former Anaconda copper mine from its Carson City field office to BLM state headquarters in Reno had nothing to do with Abbey's decision to fire Earle Dixon in October 2004. Dixon, who had been BLM's site manager in charge of leading its cleanup efforts, accuses the agency of retaliating against him for speaking out about the dangers of uranium, arsenic and other toxic materials at the mine near Yerington, 65 miles southeast of Reno. Abbey transferred lead oversight of the mine to Reno headquarters shortly after Dixon's firing, but he said that Gibbons' request had "little bearing" on that decision....
Off-road scramble on tap Off-road motorcycle enthusiasts from throughout the country will be zooming through washes and along old Jeep trails Saturday during the Holy Joe Hare Scramble. The national event along an 11-mile course near Mammoth is expected to attract 220 riders, said Adam Johnston, president of the nonprofit Arizona Motorcycle Riders Association, which puts on eight races a year in the state, including the Holy Joe. As part of the motorcycle association's agreement with the Bureau of Land Management, volunteers will repair any damage the race causes on the pre-existing trails along the course. Before and after races, volunteers also clean up trash left by other outdoorsmen....
Park County, feds cooperate on wolves With wolf numbers on the rise in Park County, and state and federal officials unable to agree on a plan to manage them, one little-known federal program continues to work at mitigating their impact. Field agents from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Wildlife Services program met with Park County commissioners this week and reported on their efforts to manage conflicts between ranchers and wolves. A report of recent Wildlife Services activities in the region listed 17 wolves killed since Nov. 1 as a result of livestock depredation problems. That number, covering a period of just more than three months, appears to indicate a steep increase from the 13 wolves killed for depredation countywide, and 37 killed statewide, in the previous fiscal year ending in September. Wildlife Services agents declined to comment on the specifics of the apparent increase, citing pending litigation over wolf management issues among local, state and federal governments. But the increase may be due in part to a 25 percent increase in Park County's overall wolf population....
Cattle kills by wolves cost ranchers $20,000 Twenty domestic animals, primarily cattle, valued at a total of $20,000 were confirmed killed by wolves in Park County last year. Craig Acres, eastern district supervisor for Wildlife Services, told the county commissioners Tuesday the predation took place between Oct. 1, 2004, and late September 2005. He added that the confirmed kills varied from the reported animal deaths and values, which came to 40 animals valued at roughly $40,000. Confirmed wolf kills result in reimbursement to producers. He cautioned people not to draw conclusions about the confirmed numbers, because unconfirmed kills are often those in which the livestock is discovered too late to actually identify, by tracks, tooth marks or other means, the actual cause of death....
FWS expands Idaho habitat for endangered sturgeon The federal government Wednesday set aside more critical habitat in the Idaho Panhandle for the Kootenai River white sturgeon, an endangered wild fish that has not successfully reproduced in more than 30 years. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service added another 6.9 miles of the Kootenai River in Boundary County on the Canadian border to the 11.2 miles that were protected in 2001 for the largest freshwater fish in North America. The designation means federal and state agencies must consult with the service before undertaking projects that might affect the habitat. The additional habitat will result in an estimated $370 million to $790 million loss to farmers, hydropower operators and other river-dependent industries over the next 20 years, according to a draft economic analysis done by a Washington-state firm under contract to the service....
New Ammo Regs Help Combat Lead Poisoning In Waterfowl No one knows exactly how many waterfowl, wading birds and other kinds of avians have died accidentally from lead poisoning linked to hunters' ammunition loads, but over the years the toll has been substantial, experts say. Doomed birds have perished from lead exposure but not as a result of being struck by gunshot. Rather, they succumb from ingesting beebees that gather on the bottoms of ponds, lakes, marshes and in the fields where sportsmen and women hunt. Now the Fish and Wildlife Service is breaking new ground in the campaign against lead poisoning by working with ammo manufacturers to make the stuff in shotgun and bullet shells easier on avians that accidentally swallow the errant shot. The federal agency, which oversees waterfowl management in the U.S. and has strongly advocated for wetlands protection, announced that hunters will have four new shot types, all non lead, to put in their guns. "The Service's approval of these four shot types demonstrates our determination to make it easier for waterfowl hunters to comply with the restrictions on lead shot. Hunters now have a wider choice of shot types and this will continue to lessen the exposure of waterfowl to lead," said Service Director H. Dale Hall in a press release....
Water-use lawsuit nears settlement An 18-year-old court battle over how much San Joaquin River water should flow from a dam to bring back the salmon that once lived there could be nearing an end as environmental activists, farm representatives and federal water officials close in on an agreement. A hearing on the case was postponed Tuesday for 30 days after the parties filed a document telling Sacramento U.S. District Judge Lawrence Karlton they hoped to settle within the next month. "The goal is to be expeditious and try to wrap it up as quick as we can," said Cole Upton, chairman of Friant Water Users Authority, which delivers river water to about 15,000 farmers and is a defendant. Last week, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger became the first governor to weigh in on the dispute, increasing the pressure on the Department of the Interior to join Friant and the Natural Resources Defense Council in a three-part settlement....
U.S. Proposes Energy Leasing in Eastern Gulf The government is proposing to open a large area of the eastern Gulf of Mexico to oil and gas leasing despite strong opposition from Florida officials. The Interior Department's leasing proposal, released Wednesday, would encompass more than two-thirds of an area known as Lease 181, while continuing to ban oil and gas development in waters within 100 miles of the Florida coast. President Bush in 2001 assured Florida officials, including Gov. Jeb Bush, his brother, that the Lease 181 area would be protected through this year. The new proposal, expected to become final early next year, would cover the 2007-12 leasing period. Separately, the department expressed continued interest in possibly opening waters off Virginia to gas drilling. Congress would have to come up with an arrangement whereby the state would seek permission to develop the offshore area....
Illegal discharge ignites criticism State regulators are investigating what they believe to be a rogue attempt to hide an illegal water discharge by a coal-bed methane operator in the Powder River Basin. A suspicious rancher in the Spotted Creek area recently discovered what appeared to be an underground water pipeline deliberately directed into a roadway culvert, hidden well out of view of passersby. "It's a serious situation. It appears somebody was trying to hide the fact that they had a discharge that was not permitted," said John Wagner, administrator of the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality's Water Quality Division. Wagner said DEQ is seeking legal action against Lance Oil & Gas Co., a wholly owned subsidiary of Western Gas Resources. Krista Johnson, a spokeswoman for Western Gas, said the company has launched its own investigation into the incident. It's not the first time Lance Oil & Gas has broken the rules. The company was assessed $72,000 in penalties in 2004 and 2005 for six illegal discharges in the coal-bed methane fields, according to DEQ records....
University says it complied with terms of grant for logging study A federal agency restored funding Wednesday for a study that has provided hard evidence for conservationists opposing the Bush administration's policy of logging after wildfires. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management's decision to lift its suspension of the final year of a three-year grant came after Oregon State University said it had complied with provisions that barred it from using any grant money to lobby Congress and required its researchers to inform a BLM scientist about plans to publish in a journal. "Both sides have agreed to work together to continue the long productive relationship gathering science and data on the ground," said BLM spokesman Chris Strebig. In a letter to BLM, OSU noted that the editor in chief of Science magazine had acknowledged his staff included the reference to "informing the debate" over a salvage logging bill pending in Congress in supplemental material posted online, not the actual article, even after the researchers had told them to remove it. The Bush administration has backed the bill. Moreover, Peggy S. Lowry, institutional authorizing official at OSU, wrote that the two lead researchers had shown a PowerPoint presentation of their findings to the BLM scientist overseeing their work and explained that they were submitting it for publication....
U.S. Will Cover O.C. Wildfire Cost As a stubborn wildfire continued to burn across the canyon lands in northeast Orange County on Wednesday, the U.S. Forest Service said it would cover all firefighting costs because it accidentally started the blaze. The fire, which has changed direction several times since it broke out before dawn Monday, grew Wednesday to about 8,635 acres. More than 2,000 firefighters were working to bring it under control. The forest service apologized for letting a small, controlled burn spark a blaze that threatened homes, forcing the evacuation of 2,100 homes in Anaheim Hills and the city of Orange. Residents were allowed to return late Tuesday. The cost of battling what's called the Sierra fire, named after the peak where it started, exceeds $2.25 million so far, officials said. The fire was 35% contained by Wednesday evening. Full containment is not expected before the weekend....
Key Challenges for Science Identified by the USGS to Support Western Water Management Ensuring stable water supplies has grown more complex as the challenges facing water managers continue to mount, especially in the West. Informed decisions of water users and public officials will be necessary to ensure sufficient freshwater resources in the future to support a growing population and economy. The USGS has released a report that examines Western water availability, the modern role for science, and the value of monitoring and research to ensure an adequate water supply for the Nation’s future. According to USGS scientist and coauthor of the report, Mark T. Anderson, "Effective water management in the West is challenged by increasing and often competing needs among various water users: agricultural use and consumption by cities, maintaining water reservoirs and ensuring in-stream flows for aquatic ecosystems, industrial and energy production, and recreation. Scientific information becomes a crucial factor for resource managers to support their decision-making." Such factors as a demographic shift, climate variability (including the potential for severe sustained droughts), climate change, water-rights issues, depletion of ground water in storage, introduction of new storage and water use technologies, and protection of endangered species, add to a growing complexity for water management. Several of the key scientific challenges are examined in this report, including the determination of sustainable ground-water use and the physical habitat needs of ecosystems and individual endangered species....Go here to view the report.
Winnemucca Ranch developers plan thousands of homes Saying they will spare the meadows, developers of the Winnemucca Ranch plan to build up to 8,700 homes in the hills overlooking the green fields and nearby ponds. "We're trying to do things the right way," spokesman Jim Bauserman, representing Reno developers Stan Jaksick and Randy Venturacci, said. In March, they bought the 8,687-acre ranch 30 miles north of Reno that is proposed for annexation. Up to 50 percent of the land would be left as natural areas, including 1,400 acres of meadows used for pasture and wildlife corridors, Venturacci said. The project hinges on the U.S. Bureau of Land Management approving a land exchange. The developers would gain Winnemucca Valley and Upper Dry Valley for their project on 8,687 acres....
Critics alarmed: The area along the Green and San Rafael is popular with rafters and tourists A stretch of the Green River popular among rafting enthusiasts and touted by the state's travel Web site for its scenic and peaceful qualities could now also be sought out by energy companies for exploration. The state Bureau of Land Management office has announced that a Feb. 21 oil and gas lease sale will include parcels in and around the Green and San Rafael rivers between Green River and Moab. Included are three parcels encompassing 3,700 acres along the Green River in Labyrinth Canyon, long a popular spot among river runners. The sale also takes in about 100,000 acres around the San Rafael River and in the San Rafael Desert, at least parts of which have been identified as potential wilderness areas. Local river outfitters are also opposing the lease sale, arguing that it will not only spoil the solitude of the area, but harm their businesses. "We use the canyon corridor in the course of our regular business for canoeing, camping and hiking. The wilderness qualities of the corridor and the side canyons are essential to our business," Theresa Butler, co-owner of the Red River Canoe Co., said in a letter to the BLM protesting the lease sale. "Oil and gas development in these parcels would be in direct conflict with our business."....
Proposed guidelines changes on cultural sites in works Proposed changes in guidelines governing how the federal government and the state assess potential effects of oil and gas development and other activities on historic and cultural sites in Wyoming has raised concerns from a group that advocates protecting such sites. Lesley Wischmann, co-founder of the Alliance for Historic Wyoming, said Wednesday that her organization worries the proposal would give the Bureau of Land Management too much authority over deciding what cultural sites would be protected. But Judyth Reed, BLM historic preservation coordinator in Wyoming, maintains the proposed changes do nothing to increase the BLM's authority and are aimed simply at helping the agency and the state streamline the process. In states where it manages a large amount of federal land, the BLM consults with states on cultural resources found on federal land, such as historical buildings and burial grounds, and whether they warrant protections from development and other projects....
Gibbons urged change in BLM mine oversight before manager fired Rep. Jim Gibbons urged the Bureau of Land Management to shift oversight of a contaminated mine the month before the agency fired its site manager, according to documents submitted Wednesday at a whistleblower hearing. Bob Abbey, ex-BLM director for the state of Nevada, testified at the administrative hearing that Gibbons' request to transfer responsibility for the former Anaconda copper mine from its Carson City field office to BLM state headquarters in Reno had nothing to do with Abbey's decision to fire Earle Dixon in October 2004. Dixon, who had been BLM's site manager in charge of leading its cleanup efforts, accuses the agency of retaliating against him for speaking out about the dangers of uranium, arsenic and other toxic materials at the mine near Yerington, 65 miles southeast of Reno. Abbey transferred lead oversight of the mine to Reno headquarters shortly after Dixon's firing, but he said that Gibbons' request had "little bearing" on that decision....
Off-road scramble on tap Off-road motorcycle enthusiasts from throughout the country will be zooming through washes and along old Jeep trails Saturday during the Holy Joe Hare Scramble. The national event along an 11-mile course near Mammoth is expected to attract 220 riders, said Adam Johnston, president of the nonprofit Arizona Motorcycle Riders Association, which puts on eight races a year in the state, including the Holy Joe. As part of the motorcycle association's agreement with the Bureau of Land Management, volunteers will repair any damage the race causes on the pre-existing trails along the course. Before and after races, volunteers also clean up trash left by other outdoorsmen....
Park County, feds cooperate on wolves With wolf numbers on the rise in Park County, and state and federal officials unable to agree on a plan to manage them, one little-known federal program continues to work at mitigating their impact. Field agents from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Wildlife Services program met with Park County commissioners this week and reported on their efforts to manage conflicts between ranchers and wolves. A report of recent Wildlife Services activities in the region listed 17 wolves killed since Nov. 1 as a result of livestock depredation problems. That number, covering a period of just more than three months, appears to indicate a steep increase from the 13 wolves killed for depredation countywide, and 37 killed statewide, in the previous fiscal year ending in September. Wildlife Services agents declined to comment on the specifics of the apparent increase, citing pending litigation over wolf management issues among local, state and federal governments. But the increase may be due in part to a 25 percent increase in Park County's overall wolf population....
Cattle kills by wolves cost ranchers $20,000 Twenty domestic animals, primarily cattle, valued at a total of $20,000 were confirmed killed by wolves in Park County last year. Craig Acres, eastern district supervisor for Wildlife Services, told the county commissioners Tuesday the predation took place between Oct. 1, 2004, and late September 2005. He added that the confirmed kills varied from the reported animal deaths and values, which came to 40 animals valued at roughly $40,000. Confirmed wolf kills result in reimbursement to producers. He cautioned people not to draw conclusions about the confirmed numbers, because unconfirmed kills are often those in which the livestock is discovered too late to actually identify, by tracks, tooth marks or other means, the actual cause of death....
FWS expands Idaho habitat for endangered sturgeon The federal government Wednesday set aside more critical habitat in the Idaho Panhandle for the Kootenai River white sturgeon, an endangered wild fish that has not successfully reproduced in more than 30 years. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service added another 6.9 miles of the Kootenai River in Boundary County on the Canadian border to the 11.2 miles that were protected in 2001 for the largest freshwater fish in North America. The designation means federal and state agencies must consult with the service before undertaking projects that might affect the habitat. The additional habitat will result in an estimated $370 million to $790 million loss to farmers, hydropower operators and other river-dependent industries over the next 20 years, according to a draft economic analysis done by a Washington-state firm under contract to the service....
New Ammo Regs Help Combat Lead Poisoning In Waterfowl No one knows exactly how many waterfowl, wading birds and other kinds of avians have died accidentally from lead poisoning linked to hunters' ammunition loads, but over the years the toll has been substantial, experts say. Doomed birds have perished from lead exposure but not as a result of being struck by gunshot. Rather, they succumb from ingesting beebees that gather on the bottoms of ponds, lakes, marshes and in the fields where sportsmen and women hunt. Now the Fish and Wildlife Service is breaking new ground in the campaign against lead poisoning by working with ammo manufacturers to make the stuff in shotgun and bullet shells easier on avians that accidentally swallow the errant shot. The federal agency, which oversees waterfowl management in the U.S. and has strongly advocated for wetlands protection, announced that hunters will have four new shot types, all non lead, to put in their guns. "The Service's approval of these four shot types demonstrates our determination to make it easier for waterfowl hunters to comply with the restrictions on lead shot. Hunters now have a wider choice of shot types and this will continue to lessen the exposure of waterfowl to lead," said Service Director H. Dale Hall in a press release....
Water-use lawsuit nears settlement An 18-year-old court battle over how much San Joaquin River water should flow from a dam to bring back the salmon that once lived there could be nearing an end as environmental activists, farm representatives and federal water officials close in on an agreement. A hearing on the case was postponed Tuesday for 30 days after the parties filed a document telling Sacramento U.S. District Judge Lawrence Karlton they hoped to settle within the next month. "The goal is to be expeditious and try to wrap it up as quick as we can," said Cole Upton, chairman of Friant Water Users Authority, which delivers river water to about 15,000 farmers and is a defendant. Last week, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger became the first governor to weigh in on the dispute, increasing the pressure on the Department of the Interior to join Friant and the Natural Resources Defense Council in a three-part settlement....
U.S. Proposes Energy Leasing in Eastern Gulf The government is proposing to open a large area of the eastern Gulf of Mexico to oil and gas leasing despite strong opposition from Florida officials. The Interior Department's leasing proposal, released Wednesday, would encompass more than two-thirds of an area known as Lease 181, while continuing to ban oil and gas development in waters within 100 miles of the Florida coast. President Bush in 2001 assured Florida officials, including Gov. Jeb Bush, his brother, that the Lease 181 area would be protected through this year. The new proposal, expected to become final early next year, would cover the 2007-12 leasing period. Separately, the department expressed continued interest in possibly opening waters off Virginia to gas drilling. Congress would have to come up with an arrangement whereby the state would seek permission to develop the offshore area....
Wednesday, February 08, 2006
FLE
Alien smuggling suspect shoots at Ariz. Border Patrol officers
U.S. Border Patrol agents were fired on by a suspected immigrant smuggler west of Yuma Tuesday night, officials said. The gunfire came at the end of a 20-mile chase of a motorhome packed with illegal immigrants, U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman Michael Gramley said. The incident began about 10 p.m. Tuesday when a citizen called in a tip about a large group of apparent immigrants who were seen getting in the motor home several miles west of Yuma. Agents tried to stop the motor home as it drove west on Interstate 8 near Andrade, Calif., but the driver wouldn't stop until the tires were flattened by a spike strip after about 20 miles. As the vehicle stopped, the driver reportedly fired one shot from a pistol at the agents, striking the rear tail light of a Border Patrol vehicle. The driver and 22 illegal immigrants got out of the motor home and began running. All were captured....
Mexican incursions inflame border situation
Armed men in Mexican military uniforms have illegally crossed into the United States to provide cover for drug smugglers, and have fired upon U.S. Border Patrol agents on several occasions, a congressional panel was told Tuesday. Border Patrol Union President T.J. Bonner detailed three incidents since 2000 in which U.S. agents were chased and fired upon by what he characterized as Mexican soldiers operating inside U.S. borders. Bonner testified before the House Homeland Security Investigations Subcommittee on Tuesday. The Department of Homeland Security said there have been 231 documented incursions by Mexican military and law enforcement personnel into the U.S. since 1996. “There is little doubt that the majority of these incidences are accidental,” said Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas., chairman of the Security Investigations Subcommittee. “However, there are several reports of intentional violations of U.S. sovereignty by groups, often smuggling hundreds of pounds of drugs, which appear to be associated with members of the Mexican military or police forces,” McCaul said....
Border Patrol and sheriffs take differing views on border incursion
The chief of the Border Patrol urged U.S. House members Tuesday not to lose sight of the daily dangers faced by federal agents as the lawmakers respond to a recent confrontation between law enforcement and military-uniformed drug smugglers along the Rio Grande. He urged the lawmakers to "not allow the high media profile" of the recent confrontation to cause them to "lose sight of the everyday threats" agents face. But his characterizations of the border were not shared by Texas sheriffs who followed Aguilar as witnesses in a hearing before the House Homeland Security subcommittee on investigations. Hudspeth County Deputy Sheriff Esequiel Legarreta, who was one of the first on the scene at the river Jan. 23, showed a video in which a Humvee can be seen amid desert brush and bales are being tossed from a vehicle before heavy smoke and flames appear. The Humvee was parked on the American side of the river. Their skepticism was shared by McCaul, R-Austin, and New Mexico Republican Rep. Steve Pearce, a Homeland Security member who sat in on the hearing. Holding up a photo showing individuals firing on border agents from Mexico, McCaul said: "It just seems to me it's getting worse, not better and cartels are getting more dangerous." Pearce disagreed that the border is not under siege as Aguilar said. "My constituents believe it to be and seeing that video makes me believe it to be," Pearce said....
Border guards seek military's help
The U.S. military should be called out to protect the border against military-style incursions from Mexico, the head of the Border Patrol union told a congressional homeland-security committee Tuesday. T.J. Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council, which represents 10,500 agents, recommended active or reserve military units be put "on standby" at strategic locations along the border. "If the Mexican military is coming into the United States, our law-enforcement agents do not have the training to deal with that," Bonner told the House Homeland Security subcommittee on Investigations. The Mexican Embassy maintains the suspected smugglers, who were not arrested, were members of a drug cartel posing as soldiers, not members of the Mexican military. But Texas officials testifying Tuesday said they think the suspects might be both. "It's everything,' said El Paso County Sheriff Leo Samaniego. "It's the military, it's cartels buying off military, buying off civilians and dressing as the military." Bonner, who said he also believes the incursions are the work of military officials, added, "It's immaterial. If Mexico is allowing this to happen, they bear a large part of the responsibility."....
US Marines Convicted of Alien Smuggling to Be Sentenced
A US Marine Corps recruiter stationed in Laredo, TX who was convicted of transporting three illegal Mexican alien women on July 22, 2005 will be sentenced on February 13, 2006. Victor Domingo Ramirez, 27, faces up to 10 years in prison and up to a $250,000.00 fine for his crime. During the re-arraignment hearing, the United States presented evidence proving that on July 22, while in uniform and driving a US Government van, Ramirez knowingly transported three illegal aliens. At the time, Sergeant Ramirez was an active-duty member of the US Marine Corps stationed in Laredo, Texas, as a recruiter. The minivan was an official government vehicle assigned to the Marine Corps recruiting station in Laredo, and Ramirez was wearing his Marine uniform. The second US Marine recruiter charged in this case, Sergeant Vic Martin Martinez, 31, also of Laredo, has also been convicted after pleading guilty to knowingly making a materially false statement to federal agents. Martinez, who rode as a passenger in the government vehicle driven by Ramirez, lied to federal agents about his reasons for traveling to San Antonio in the government minivan with Ramirez. Martinez pleaded guilty Oct. 11, and faces a maximum punishment of five years in federal prison and a $250,000 fine....
Activists on Right, GOP Lawmakers Divided on Spying
Despite President Bush's warnings that public challenges to his domestic surveillance program could help terrorists, congressional Republicans and conservative activists are split on the issue and are showing no signs of reconciling soon. GOP lawmakers and political activists were nearly unanimous in backing Bush on his Supreme Court nominations and Iraq war policy, but they are divided on how to resolve the tension between two principles they hold dear: avoiding government intrusion into private lives, and combating terrorism. The rift became evident at yesterday's Senate Judiciary Committee hearing into the surveillance program, and it may reemerge at Thursday's intelligence committee hearing. "There are a lot of people who think you're wrong," the committee chairman, Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), told Gonzales. Specter asked why surveillance requests were not taken to the FISA court "as matter of public confidence." "The overriding issue that's at stake in these hearings is the stance of the administration that they're going to decide in secrecy which laws they're going to follow and which laws they can bypass," said Timothy Lynch, director of Cato's project on criminal justice. Conservative Web sites and blogs appear to be "fairly evenly divided" on the NSA program, he said. Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) joined Specter in challenging Gonzales's assertion that Congress implicitly approved the surveillance tactics when it voted to authorize military force in combating terrorism shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks....
Republican Who Oversees N.S.A. Calls for Wiretap Inquiry
A House Republican whose subcommittee oversees the National Security Agency broke ranks with the White House on Tuesday and called for a full Congressional inquiry into the Bush administration's domestic eavesdropping program. The lawmaker, Representative Heather A. Wilson of New Mexico, chairwoman of the House Intelligence Subcommittee on Technical and Tactical Intelligence, said in an interview that she had "serious concerns" about the surveillance program. By withholding information about its operations from many lawmakers, she said, the administration has deepened her apprehension about whom the agency is monitoring and why. Ms. Wilson, who was a National Security Council aide in the administration of President Bush's father, is the first Republican on either the House's Intelligence Committee or the Senate's to call for a full Congressional investigation into the program, in which the N.S.A. has been eavesdropping without warrants on the international communications of people inside the United States believed to have links with terrorists. The congresswoman's discomfort with the operation appears to reflect deepening fissures among Republicans over the program's legal basis and political liabilities....
Senior House Republican wants answers on wiretap program
The Republican Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee F. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) has issued 51 questions to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on President Bush's warrantless wiretap program. The letter, issued to Gonzales today and acquired by RAW STORY, demands answers to myriad legal questions on the program, which involved eavesdropping on Americans' calls overseas. Sensenbrenner has given Gonzales a Mar. 2 deadline to respond. Combined with a move by the chairman of a House subcommittee on intelligence, and hearings in the Senate, the move is likely to signal that Republicans are not going to swallow the President's justification for the surveillance, and may be a precursor to hearings in the House. Still, Sensenbrenner seems to leave room for accepting the taps, at one point referring to them as "terrorist surveillance," the Administration phrase for the program....you can view the letter here.
Bush faces Congress revolt over spying
Congressional Republicans are threatening to force a legal showdown with President George W. Bush over his claim that he has the constitutional power to order domestic surveillance of Americans in the name of national security. Arlen Specter, Republican chairman of the Senate judiciary committee, said on Wednesday he was drafting legislation that would require the administration to seek a ruling from a special US intelligence court on whether the spying programme was legal. The move could put the Republican-controlled Congress on a collision course with the administration, which has insisted that it is acting legally in monitoring calls and e-mails that might help disrupt future terrorist plots. Mr Specter said his proposed legislation would require the administration to take that issue to the Fisa court. He said the administration's claim "may be right, but on the other hand they may be wrong". He said the Fisa court should determine whether the programme is legal, and if it is not what changes would be required. Mr Specter's threat is only the latest sign that the NSA spying revelations have divided Republicans, with some in the party fearing that Mr Bush's expansive claims may pose a danger to civil liberties....
Secret Court's Judges Were Warned About NSA Spy Data
Twice in the past four years, a top Justice Department lawyer warned the presiding judge of a secret surveillance court that information overheard in President Bush's eavesdropping program may have been improperly used to obtain wiretap warrants in the court, according to two sources with knowledge of those events. The revelations infuriated U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly -- who, like her predecessor, Royce C. Lamberth, had expressed serious doubts about whether the warrantless monitoring of phone calls and e-mails ordered by Bush was legal. Both judges had insisted that no information obtained this way be used to gain warrants from their court, according to government sources, and both had been assured by administration officials it would never happen. The two heads of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court were the only judges in the country briefed by the administration on Bush's program. The president's secret order, issued sometime after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, allows the National Security Agency to monitor telephone calls and e-mails between people in the United States and contacts overseas. James A. Baker, the counsel for intelligence policy in the Justice Department's Office of Intelligence Policy and Review, discovered in 2004 that the government's failure to share information about its spying program had rendered useless a federal screening system that the judges had insisted upon to shield the court from tainted information. He alerted Kollar-Kotelly, who complained to Justice, prompting a temporary suspension of the NSA spying program, the sources said. Yet another problem in a 2005 warrant application prompted Kollar-Kotelly to issue a stern order to government lawyers to create a better firewall or face more difficulty obtaining warrants. The two judges' discomfort with the NSA spying program was previously known. But this new account reveals the depth of their doubts about its legality and their behind-the-scenes efforts to protect the court from what they considered potentially tainted evidence. The new accounts also show the degree to which Baker, a top intelligence expert at Justice, shared their reservations and aided the judges....
Homeland security keeping our country safe from kindergarteners
WHILE ATTORNEY GENERAL Alberto Gonzalez assures the U.S. Senate that the Bush Administration’s domestic eavesdropping program is a vital “early warning system” for terrorists, another homeland security measure strikes at a local elementary school. The kindergarten class at Lakewood’s Taft Elementary was planning a field trip to NASA Glenn Research Center. It’s a popular trip because it’s free, because the NASA staff already has age-appropriate tours that fit well with school curriculum, and, well, it’s outer space, for pete’s sake. They’ve got rocket ships. And NASA works the education angle hard. According to the agency, “A major part of the NASA mission is ‘To inspire the next generation of explorers . . . as only NASA can.’” And of course they talk about math and science. NASA says about 400 school groups took tours last year. But school principal Margaret Seibel says this year’s trip for Taft kindergarteners — we’re talking 6-year-olds here — had to be canceled due to homeland security concerns. Since new security regulations went into effect in May 1, 2005, access to the Visitor Center is restricted to United State citizens. All others might be terrorists. No tourists from France, no exchange students from Tokyo and, no foreign national kindergarteners on field trips. “I was told they would not make any exceptions,” Seibel says. Because two kids in the kindergarten class are not U.S. citizens, the teacher had to cancel the trip....
Alien smuggling suspect shoots at Ariz. Border Patrol officers
U.S. Border Patrol agents were fired on by a suspected immigrant smuggler west of Yuma Tuesday night, officials said. The gunfire came at the end of a 20-mile chase of a motorhome packed with illegal immigrants, U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman Michael Gramley said. The incident began about 10 p.m. Tuesday when a citizen called in a tip about a large group of apparent immigrants who were seen getting in the motor home several miles west of Yuma. Agents tried to stop the motor home as it drove west on Interstate 8 near Andrade, Calif., but the driver wouldn't stop until the tires were flattened by a spike strip after about 20 miles. As the vehicle stopped, the driver reportedly fired one shot from a pistol at the agents, striking the rear tail light of a Border Patrol vehicle. The driver and 22 illegal immigrants got out of the motor home and began running. All were captured....
Mexican incursions inflame border situation
Armed men in Mexican military uniforms have illegally crossed into the United States to provide cover for drug smugglers, and have fired upon U.S. Border Patrol agents on several occasions, a congressional panel was told Tuesday. Border Patrol Union President T.J. Bonner detailed three incidents since 2000 in which U.S. agents were chased and fired upon by what he characterized as Mexican soldiers operating inside U.S. borders. Bonner testified before the House Homeland Security Investigations Subcommittee on Tuesday. The Department of Homeland Security said there have been 231 documented incursions by Mexican military and law enforcement personnel into the U.S. since 1996. “There is little doubt that the majority of these incidences are accidental,” said Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas., chairman of the Security Investigations Subcommittee. “However, there are several reports of intentional violations of U.S. sovereignty by groups, often smuggling hundreds of pounds of drugs, which appear to be associated with members of the Mexican military or police forces,” McCaul said....
Border Patrol and sheriffs take differing views on border incursion
The chief of the Border Patrol urged U.S. House members Tuesday not to lose sight of the daily dangers faced by federal agents as the lawmakers respond to a recent confrontation between law enforcement and military-uniformed drug smugglers along the Rio Grande. He urged the lawmakers to "not allow the high media profile" of the recent confrontation to cause them to "lose sight of the everyday threats" agents face. But his characterizations of the border were not shared by Texas sheriffs who followed Aguilar as witnesses in a hearing before the House Homeland Security subcommittee on investigations. Hudspeth County Deputy Sheriff Esequiel Legarreta, who was one of the first on the scene at the river Jan. 23, showed a video in which a Humvee can be seen amid desert brush and bales are being tossed from a vehicle before heavy smoke and flames appear. The Humvee was parked on the American side of the river. Their skepticism was shared by McCaul, R-Austin, and New Mexico Republican Rep. Steve Pearce, a Homeland Security member who sat in on the hearing. Holding up a photo showing individuals firing on border agents from Mexico, McCaul said: "It just seems to me it's getting worse, not better and cartels are getting more dangerous." Pearce disagreed that the border is not under siege as Aguilar said. "My constituents believe it to be and seeing that video makes me believe it to be," Pearce said....
Border guards seek military's help
The U.S. military should be called out to protect the border against military-style incursions from Mexico, the head of the Border Patrol union told a congressional homeland-security committee Tuesday. T.J. Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council, which represents 10,500 agents, recommended active or reserve military units be put "on standby" at strategic locations along the border. "If the Mexican military is coming into the United States, our law-enforcement agents do not have the training to deal with that," Bonner told the House Homeland Security subcommittee on Investigations. The Mexican Embassy maintains the suspected smugglers, who were not arrested, were members of a drug cartel posing as soldiers, not members of the Mexican military. But Texas officials testifying Tuesday said they think the suspects might be both. "It's everything,' said El Paso County Sheriff Leo Samaniego. "It's the military, it's cartels buying off military, buying off civilians and dressing as the military." Bonner, who said he also believes the incursions are the work of military officials, added, "It's immaterial. If Mexico is allowing this to happen, they bear a large part of the responsibility."....
US Marines Convicted of Alien Smuggling to Be Sentenced
A US Marine Corps recruiter stationed in Laredo, TX who was convicted of transporting three illegal Mexican alien women on July 22, 2005 will be sentenced on February 13, 2006. Victor Domingo Ramirez, 27, faces up to 10 years in prison and up to a $250,000.00 fine for his crime. During the re-arraignment hearing, the United States presented evidence proving that on July 22, while in uniform and driving a US Government van, Ramirez knowingly transported three illegal aliens. At the time, Sergeant Ramirez was an active-duty member of the US Marine Corps stationed in Laredo, Texas, as a recruiter. The minivan was an official government vehicle assigned to the Marine Corps recruiting station in Laredo, and Ramirez was wearing his Marine uniform. The second US Marine recruiter charged in this case, Sergeant Vic Martin Martinez, 31, also of Laredo, has also been convicted after pleading guilty to knowingly making a materially false statement to federal agents. Martinez, who rode as a passenger in the government vehicle driven by Ramirez, lied to federal agents about his reasons for traveling to San Antonio in the government minivan with Ramirez. Martinez pleaded guilty Oct. 11, and faces a maximum punishment of five years in federal prison and a $250,000 fine....
Activists on Right, GOP Lawmakers Divided on Spying
Despite President Bush's warnings that public challenges to his domestic surveillance program could help terrorists, congressional Republicans and conservative activists are split on the issue and are showing no signs of reconciling soon. GOP lawmakers and political activists were nearly unanimous in backing Bush on his Supreme Court nominations and Iraq war policy, but they are divided on how to resolve the tension between two principles they hold dear: avoiding government intrusion into private lives, and combating terrorism. The rift became evident at yesterday's Senate Judiciary Committee hearing into the surveillance program, and it may reemerge at Thursday's intelligence committee hearing. "There are a lot of people who think you're wrong," the committee chairman, Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), told Gonzales. Specter asked why surveillance requests were not taken to the FISA court "as matter of public confidence." "The overriding issue that's at stake in these hearings is the stance of the administration that they're going to decide in secrecy which laws they're going to follow and which laws they can bypass," said Timothy Lynch, director of Cato's project on criminal justice. Conservative Web sites and blogs appear to be "fairly evenly divided" on the NSA program, he said. Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) joined Specter in challenging Gonzales's assertion that Congress implicitly approved the surveillance tactics when it voted to authorize military force in combating terrorism shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks....
Republican Who Oversees N.S.A. Calls for Wiretap Inquiry
A House Republican whose subcommittee oversees the National Security Agency broke ranks with the White House on Tuesday and called for a full Congressional inquiry into the Bush administration's domestic eavesdropping program. The lawmaker, Representative Heather A. Wilson of New Mexico, chairwoman of the House Intelligence Subcommittee on Technical and Tactical Intelligence, said in an interview that she had "serious concerns" about the surveillance program. By withholding information about its operations from many lawmakers, she said, the administration has deepened her apprehension about whom the agency is monitoring and why. Ms. Wilson, who was a National Security Council aide in the administration of President Bush's father, is the first Republican on either the House's Intelligence Committee or the Senate's to call for a full Congressional investigation into the program, in which the N.S.A. has been eavesdropping without warrants on the international communications of people inside the United States believed to have links with terrorists. The congresswoman's discomfort with the operation appears to reflect deepening fissures among Republicans over the program's legal basis and political liabilities....
Senior House Republican wants answers on wiretap program
The Republican Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee F. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) has issued 51 questions to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on President Bush's warrantless wiretap program. The letter, issued to Gonzales today and acquired by RAW STORY, demands answers to myriad legal questions on the program, which involved eavesdropping on Americans' calls overseas. Sensenbrenner has given Gonzales a Mar. 2 deadline to respond. Combined with a move by the chairman of a House subcommittee on intelligence, and hearings in the Senate, the move is likely to signal that Republicans are not going to swallow the President's justification for the surveillance, and may be a precursor to hearings in the House. Still, Sensenbrenner seems to leave room for accepting the taps, at one point referring to them as "terrorist surveillance," the Administration phrase for the program....you can view the letter here.
Bush faces Congress revolt over spying
Congressional Republicans are threatening to force a legal showdown with President George W. Bush over his claim that he has the constitutional power to order domestic surveillance of Americans in the name of national security. Arlen Specter, Republican chairman of the Senate judiciary committee, said on Wednesday he was drafting legislation that would require the administration to seek a ruling from a special US intelligence court on whether the spying programme was legal. The move could put the Republican-controlled Congress on a collision course with the administration, which has insisted that it is acting legally in monitoring calls and e-mails that might help disrupt future terrorist plots. Mr Specter said his proposed legislation would require the administration to take that issue to the Fisa court. He said the administration's claim "may be right, but on the other hand they may be wrong". He said the Fisa court should determine whether the programme is legal, and if it is not what changes would be required. Mr Specter's threat is only the latest sign that the NSA spying revelations have divided Republicans, with some in the party fearing that Mr Bush's expansive claims may pose a danger to civil liberties....
Secret Court's Judges Were Warned About NSA Spy Data
Twice in the past four years, a top Justice Department lawyer warned the presiding judge of a secret surveillance court that information overheard in President Bush's eavesdropping program may have been improperly used to obtain wiretap warrants in the court, according to two sources with knowledge of those events. The revelations infuriated U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly -- who, like her predecessor, Royce C. Lamberth, had expressed serious doubts about whether the warrantless monitoring of phone calls and e-mails ordered by Bush was legal. Both judges had insisted that no information obtained this way be used to gain warrants from their court, according to government sources, and both had been assured by administration officials it would never happen. The two heads of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court were the only judges in the country briefed by the administration on Bush's program. The president's secret order, issued sometime after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, allows the National Security Agency to monitor telephone calls and e-mails between people in the United States and contacts overseas. James A. Baker, the counsel for intelligence policy in the Justice Department's Office of Intelligence Policy and Review, discovered in 2004 that the government's failure to share information about its spying program had rendered useless a federal screening system that the judges had insisted upon to shield the court from tainted information. He alerted Kollar-Kotelly, who complained to Justice, prompting a temporary suspension of the NSA spying program, the sources said. Yet another problem in a 2005 warrant application prompted Kollar-Kotelly to issue a stern order to government lawyers to create a better firewall or face more difficulty obtaining warrants. The two judges' discomfort with the NSA spying program was previously known. But this new account reveals the depth of their doubts about its legality and their behind-the-scenes efforts to protect the court from what they considered potentially tainted evidence. The new accounts also show the degree to which Baker, a top intelligence expert at Justice, shared their reservations and aided the judges....
Homeland security keeping our country safe from kindergarteners
WHILE ATTORNEY GENERAL Alberto Gonzalez assures the U.S. Senate that the Bush Administration’s domestic eavesdropping program is a vital “early warning system” for terrorists, another homeland security measure strikes at a local elementary school. The kindergarten class at Lakewood’s Taft Elementary was planning a field trip to NASA Glenn Research Center. It’s a popular trip because it’s free, because the NASA staff already has age-appropriate tours that fit well with school curriculum, and, well, it’s outer space, for pete’s sake. They’ve got rocket ships. And NASA works the education angle hard. According to the agency, “A major part of the NASA mission is ‘To inspire the next generation of explorers . . . as only NASA can.’” And of course they talk about math and science. NASA says about 400 school groups took tours last year. But school principal Margaret Seibel says this year’s trip for Taft kindergarteners — we’re talking 6-year-olds here — had to be canceled due to homeland security concerns. Since new security regulations went into effect in May 1, 2005, access to the Visitor Center is restricted to United State citizens. All others might be terrorists. No tourists from France, no exchange students from Tokyo and, no foreign national kindergarteners on field trips. “I was told they would not make any exceptions,” Seibel says. Because two kids in the kindergarten class are not U.S. citizens, the teacher had to cancel the trip....
NEWS ROUNDUP
Bush calls for sell-off of Western public land President Bush wants to sell more public land across the West to raise money for schools, conservation and deficit reduction. Bush's proposed 2007 federal budget, sent to Congress on Monday, calls for granting the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management new authority to sell off land. Those agencies together control hundreds of millions of acres in Western states. "We have 350,000 acres of small, isolated tracts that are difficult to manage and no longer serve National Forest System needs," said Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey, who oversees the Forest Service. He also said the agency adds more than 100,000 acres a year. The Forest Service proposes selling 150,000 to 200,000 acres to raise $800 million over five years. The agency is trying to maintain a program that supported rural schools with timber proceeds but ran into financial trouble when logging declined. The BLM doesn't have an estimate of how many acres it might sell under the plan, but it expects to sell land worth $40 million to $50 million per year. Some of the money would go to BLM conservation programs, but at least 70 percent would go to the Treasury. Neither agency has said what lands it expects to sell, but the Forest Service is expected to post a list of potential sites on its website by Friday....
Coyote controversy The coyote’s mischief and persistence have sometimes been played for laughs, as in the American Indian trickster tales or, more recently, “Road Runner” cartoons. Local farmers aren’t laughing. Especially not now. There are more coyotes than ever before in Benton County, said sheep ranchers, who added that they’re facing more problems from the wild canines. “Twenty years ago, we didn’t hardly have any at all,” said Dennis Gray, who farms near Adair Village. “It was really rare to see a coyote. I see two to three coyotes per day out here now,” he said. In the last three weeks, he’s shot a dozen of the varmints, who were snacking on voles flushed out or drowned by recent flooding. Rancher David Horning, who has about 800 ewes near Bellfountain, said he expects to lose about 100 lambs per birthing season to coyotes, or nearly $15,000 worth. “They’ve just hammered me,” he said. He added that it was most depressing when coyotes killed several sheep but ate only one. “They do it for fun for the most part.”....
Inquiry of OSU study flap urged A Washington Democrat wants an inspector general's investigation into whether the federal government suspended funding for an Oregon State University study because it undermined the Bush administration's position on logging. U.S. Rep. Jay Inslee, D-Wash., said in a Tuesday letter to the Interior Department's inspector general that he is concerned the funding was frozen "to punish researchers for reporting findings that are unpopular with the administration." Aides to Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said he has also inquired about the cutoff of funding. The Oregon office of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, an Interior agency, suspended the funding after a team of scientists from OSU and the U.S. Forest Service published a report last month in Science, a top research journal. They concluded that logging after the 2002 Biscuit fire in southwest Oregon set back the natural recovery of forests and littered the ground with tinder. The lead author of the research was Daniel Donato, a graduate student in OSU's College of Forestry. His professor, Beverly Law, was the senior author....
Montana methane wells target private, state holdings Pete Schoonmaker, president and CEO of Pinnacle Gas Resources Inc., believes in getting in, getting the job done and getting out. That's why things are little hectic in southeastern Montana this winter. Taking advantage of dry conditions, Pinnacle is in the midst of drilling 204 new coal-bed methane wells, building roads and digging trenches for gas and water pipelines all at once in its project area east of the Tongue River Reservoir. By spring, Pinnacle plans to begin producing natural gas found in the coal seams. The new wells are a major expansion to its initial 16-well pilot project near the reservoir. Pinnacle and two other companies, Fidelity Exploration and Production Co. and Powder River Gas LLC, are in various stages of developing their state and private leases in Montana. Activity on federal minerals is at a standstill because of legal challenges. The lawsuits have slowed another firm, Billings-based Nance Petroleum Corp., which has a federal lease, from expanding its Wyoming project into Montana....
Cleanup of salt water spill continues Crews in northwestern North Dakota are still working to clean up a salt water leak estimated at more than 900,000 gallons, a month after it was discovered, a state health official says. "We're seeing improvement. We're hoping by the end of this week, we should pretty much have it wrapped up," Dennis Fewless, the state Health Department's director of water quality, said Monday. State officials said the leak was discovered Jan. 4, from a Zenergy Inc. pipeline about six miles west of Alexander, near Charbonneau Creek. Salt water is a waste product of oil production that can kill vegetation and hurt livestock. Oil companies pipe it underground to dispose of it. Ranchers in the area were advised to move their livestock after the leak. The creek flows into the Yellowstone River....
Grand Mesa gas drilling will proceed Drilling for natural gas can go forward on the north edge of Grand Mesa, the Bureau of Land Management decided Tuesday. BLM officials will go ahead with the sale, scheduled for Thursday, because of relationships with local officials already in place, said BLM spokeswoman Theresa Sauer. The Grand Junction and Palisade governing boards opposed the leases because of fears they could harm their watersheds on the mesa. “We’re not going to allow a drill rig that’s obviously going to damage the watershed, and we’re not going to allow drilling where it might damage the watershed,” Sauer said. If adequate arrangements can’t be worked out with industry, leases will be withdrawn, she said....
Eco-Activists Fight the 'Terrorist' Label In an attempt to shield private property and development from saboteurs, business lobbyists are pushing new laws that would further criminalize the actions of radical ecological activists. Government officials and corporations are applying the rubric of anti-terrorism to penalize those who destroy company or government property when protesting mistreatment of animals and the ecosystem. Last month, federal grand juries in Oregon and California indicted 11 people on various conspiracy charges for their alleged involvement in the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) or the Earth Liberation Front (ELF) -- underground groups responsible for dozens of acts of property destruction as a strategy for protecting vulnerable species. While some federal officials and media reports liken the defendants to domestic terrorists, others, including some legal experts and free-speech groups, say the label is an intentional misnomer without legal basis....
Calif. wildfire sparked by controlled burn A 6,500-acre fire that triggered evacuations of more than 2,000 Southern California homes apparently was ignited by remnants of a controlled forest burn that escaped, a U.S. Forest Service official said Tuesday. Despite gusty Santa Ana winds, no homes had been lost in the blaze in northeastern Orange County. Evacuation orders were lifted Tuesday afternoon, and Chief Rich Hawkins of the Cleveland National Forest apologized to those displaced from neighborhoods in the cities of Orange and Anaheim about 35 miles southeast of Los Angeles. "I am very regretful of the situation I find myself in tonight," Hawkins told reporters. "The fact that nobody's home has burned down and no one's been killed, that's a godsend." The wildfire was 10 percent contained, but the dry winds were forecast to continue through Wednesday. Hawkins said fire crews ignited a prescribed burn last Thursday in a 10-acre forest area near Sierra Peak, and at the time no Santa Ana winds were predicted for at least five days....
Prairie dog won't find shelter on endangered list Efforts to have the Gunnison's prairie dog listed as an endangered species have been rebuffed, at least for now. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Tuesday that information presented by groups advocating protection was insufficient to warrant more detailed consideration of protections for the animal. The Gunnison's prairie dog scampers about the Four Corners region, including southwestern Colorado, and is distinct from the black-tailed prairie dog found along the Front Range. The announcement by federal wildlife officials comes just more than a year after the Biodiversity Conservation Alliance, Forest Guardians and other green groups sued the Fish and Wildlife Service, arguing that the agency had dragged its feet on determining whether the Gunnison's prairie dog needed protection under the Endangered Species Act....
Feds Move to Protect Polar Bears Amid concerns that global warming is melting away the icy habitats where polar bears live, the federal government is reviewing whether they should be considered a threatened species. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Tuesday that protection may be warranted under the Endangered Species Act, and began a review process to consider if the bears should be listed. The agency will seek information about population distribution, habitat, effects of climate change on the bears and their prey, potential threats from development, contaminants and poaching during the next 60 days....
Schweitzer takes first snowmobile trip through park Gov. Brian Schweitzer took his first snowmobile ride through Yellowstone National Park Tuesday, and immediately promised to do all he can to promote snowmobiling in the park. "I'll use the bully pulpit I've got," he said. "I'll talk about the great experience I've had." Schweitzer, a Democrat, rode from here to Old Faithful and back on a trip organized by Bill Howell, a partner in one of the large snowmobile rental shops. He said the park was uncrowded, the bison, elk and swans he passed seemed unconcerned and "I didn't see any clouds of exhaust." He rode one of the new "cleaner, quieter" machines that are allowed into the park under a temporary plan, then met with a group of West Yellowstone civic and business leaders....
Justice Alito's Green Day The first time he takes the bench later this month, new Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito Jr. will face a baptism -- not by fire but by water. Three cases challenging the scope of the Clean Water Act will be argued Feb. 21, testing themes of federalism and commerce clause power that were much at issue during Alito's confirmation hearings. The cases have environmentalists worried about how Alito and Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. will ultimately come down. "These are probably the most important environmental cases in a decade and will be an enormous test of the two new justices," says Douglas Kendall of the Community Rights Counsel, which filed a brief in two of the cases. The environmental cases, more than any other coming soon, will spotlight issues that got Democrats upset during Alito's contentious hearings last month. In two of the cases, Rapanos v. United States and Carabell v. United States Army Corps of Engineers, the issue is whether, under the commerce clause, the Clean Water Act protects certain wetlands that are adjacent to tributaries of navigable waters covered by the law. In the third case, S.D. Warren Co. v. Maine Board of Environmental Protection, the justices will decide whether the mere fact that a river flows through a dam produces a "discharge" that triggers federal jurisdiction under the act. In all three cases, the Bush administration is arguing for a broad view that would preserve a "landmark" law that is "a permissible exercise of Congress' power," in the words of Solicitor General Paul Clement, who will argue the cases himself....
County supervisors plan to abandon conservation program In the mid-1990s, San Bernardino County set out to satisfy local developers and federal officials with a countywide plan to save endangered species from extinction. A decade later, the plan itself is pushing up daisies, and neither environmentalists nor developers are happy. This morning, the county Board of Supervisors was expected to formally abandon its bid to create a Multi Species Habitat Conservation Plan, a regional agreement with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that would have earmarked some county land as habitats for endangered species, including the San Bernardino kangaroo rat and the Delhi Sands flower-loving fly. In exchange, developers in other areas would have been able to build with fewer environmental restrictions. The county¹s new move is not unexpected. County officials frequently tangled with Fish and Wildlife over the reach of the habitat-conservation program as well as its cost, and supervisors put the program on hold in 2002....
86 Evangelical Leaders Join to Fight Global Warming Despite opposition from some of their colleagues, 86 evangelical Christian leaders have decided to back a major initiative to fight global warming, saying "millions of people could die in this century because of climate change, most of them our poorest global neighbors." Among signers of the statement, which will be released in Washington on Wednesday, are the presidents of 39 evangelical colleges, leaders of aid groups and churches, like the Salvation Army, and pastors of megachurches, including Rick Warren, author of the best seller "The Purpose-Driven Life." The statement calls for federal legislation that would require reductions in carbon dioxide emissions through "cost-effective, market-based mechanisms" — a phrase lifted from a Senate resolution last year and one that could appeal to evangelicals, who tend to be pro-business. The statement, to be announced in Washington, is only the first stage of an "Evangelical Climate Initiative" including television and radio spots in states with influential legislators, informational campaigns in churches, and educational events at Christian colleges. Some of the nation's most high-profile evangelical leaders, however, have tried to derail such action. Twenty-two of them signed a letter in January declaring, "Global warming is not a consensus issue." Among the signers were Charles W. Colson, the founder of Prison Fellowship Ministries; James C. Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family; and Richard Land, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention....
World has 7 years for key climate decisions: Blair The world has seven years to take vital decisions and implement measures to curb greenhouse gas emissions or it could be too late, British Prime Minister Tony Blair said on Tuesday. Blair said the battle against global warming would only be won if the United States, India and China were part of a framework that included targets and that succeeded the 1992 Kyoto Protocol climate pact. "If we don't get the right agreement internationally for the period after which the Kyoto protocol will expire -- that's in 2012 -- if we don't do that then I think we are in serious trouble," he told a parliamentary committee. Asked if the world had seven years to implement measures on climate change before the problem reached "tipping point," Blair answered: "Yes."
40 states re-examining eminent domain The city wants Anna DeFaria's home, and if she doesn't sell willingly, officials are going to take it from the 80-year-old retired pre-school teacher. In place of her "tiny slip of a bungalow" - and two dozen other weathered, working-class beachfront homes - city officials want private developers to build upscale townhouses. Is this the work of a cruel government? Or the best hope for resurrecting an ocean resort town that is finally showing signs of reviving after decades of hard times? After the court ruling, four states passed laws reining in eminent domain. Roughly another 40 are considering legislation. In Congress, the House voted to deny federal funds to any project that used eminent domain to benefit a private development, and a federal study aims to examine how widely it is used. The Washington-based Institute for Justice, a libertarian advocacy group that worked for homeowners in the New London case and in Long Branch, argues that state laws should be changed so property can only be seized for public uses like a park or a school - not urban redevelopment that benefits private developers....Go here for an interactive map of the states
Snakes for catching and for eating at round-up It may not be pretty or clean or even completely safe, but it’s a time-honored tradition that looks like it’s gaining momentum with time. For the 48th year, the Sweetwater Jaycees of Sweetwater will host the World’s Largest Rattlesnake Round-Up from March 9 to March 12. The weekend will start with a parade, queen contest and dance, then move to snake hunting sessions, snake milking demonstrations and a cook-off featuring rattlesnake meat. According to information from the Sweetwater Jaycees, the roundup began in 1958 when a group of area ranchers and farmers conceived of the idea to rid themselves and their livestock of rattlesnakes. To date, there have been more than 125 tons of Western diamondback Rattlesnakes turned in. Scott Fortin, Jaycee president, said that normally 20,000 to 30,000 people come to the event. Many vendors, demonstrations, a cook-off and several dances help draw people, he said. About 120 cooks participate in the cook-off, Fortin said. Many people akin rattlesnake to greasy chicken, Fortin said. “It tastes more like frog legs to me,” Fortin said....
Bush calls for sell-off of Western public land President Bush wants to sell more public land across the West to raise money for schools, conservation and deficit reduction. Bush's proposed 2007 federal budget, sent to Congress on Monday, calls for granting the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management new authority to sell off land. Those agencies together control hundreds of millions of acres in Western states. "We have 350,000 acres of small, isolated tracts that are difficult to manage and no longer serve National Forest System needs," said Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey, who oversees the Forest Service. He also said the agency adds more than 100,000 acres a year. The Forest Service proposes selling 150,000 to 200,000 acres to raise $800 million over five years. The agency is trying to maintain a program that supported rural schools with timber proceeds but ran into financial trouble when logging declined. The BLM doesn't have an estimate of how many acres it might sell under the plan, but it expects to sell land worth $40 million to $50 million per year. Some of the money would go to BLM conservation programs, but at least 70 percent would go to the Treasury. Neither agency has said what lands it expects to sell, but the Forest Service is expected to post a list of potential sites on its website by Friday....
Coyote controversy The coyote’s mischief and persistence have sometimes been played for laughs, as in the American Indian trickster tales or, more recently, “Road Runner” cartoons. Local farmers aren’t laughing. Especially not now. There are more coyotes than ever before in Benton County, said sheep ranchers, who added that they’re facing more problems from the wild canines. “Twenty years ago, we didn’t hardly have any at all,” said Dennis Gray, who farms near Adair Village. “It was really rare to see a coyote. I see two to three coyotes per day out here now,” he said. In the last three weeks, he’s shot a dozen of the varmints, who were snacking on voles flushed out or drowned by recent flooding. Rancher David Horning, who has about 800 ewes near Bellfountain, said he expects to lose about 100 lambs per birthing season to coyotes, or nearly $15,000 worth. “They’ve just hammered me,” he said. He added that it was most depressing when coyotes killed several sheep but ate only one. “They do it for fun for the most part.”....
Inquiry of OSU study flap urged A Washington Democrat wants an inspector general's investigation into whether the federal government suspended funding for an Oregon State University study because it undermined the Bush administration's position on logging. U.S. Rep. Jay Inslee, D-Wash., said in a Tuesday letter to the Interior Department's inspector general that he is concerned the funding was frozen "to punish researchers for reporting findings that are unpopular with the administration." Aides to Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said he has also inquired about the cutoff of funding. The Oregon office of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, an Interior agency, suspended the funding after a team of scientists from OSU and the U.S. Forest Service published a report last month in Science, a top research journal. They concluded that logging after the 2002 Biscuit fire in southwest Oregon set back the natural recovery of forests and littered the ground with tinder. The lead author of the research was Daniel Donato, a graduate student in OSU's College of Forestry. His professor, Beverly Law, was the senior author....
Montana methane wells target private, state holdings Pete Schoonmaker, president and CEO of Pinnacle Gas Resources Inc., believes in getting in, getting the job done and getting out. That's why things are little hectic in southeastern Montana this winter. Taking advantage of dry conditions, Pinnacle is in the midst of drilling 204 new coal-bed methane wells, building roads and digging trenches for gas and water pipelines all at once in its project area east of the Tongue River Reservoir. By spring, Pinnacle plans to begin producing natural gas found in the coal seams. The new wells are a major expansion to its initial 16-well pilot project near the reservoir. Pinnacle and two other companies, Fidelity Exploration and Production Co. and Powder River Gas LLC, are in various stages of developing their state and private leases in Montana. Activity on federal minerals is at a standstill because of legal challenges. The lawsuits have slowed another firm, Billings-based Nance Petroleum Corp., which has a federal lease, from expanding its Wyoming project into Montana....
Cleanup of salt water spill continues Crews in northwestern North Dakota are still working to clean up a salt water leak estimated at more than 900,000 gallons, a month after it was discovered, a state health official says. "We're seeing improvement. We're hoping by the end of this week, we should pretty much have it wrapped up," Dennis Fewless, the state Health Department's director of water quality, said Monday. State officials said the leak was discovered Jan. 4, from a Zenergy Inc. pipeline about six miles west of Alexander, near Charbonneau Creek. Salt water is a waste product of oil production that can kill vegetation and hurt livestock. Oil companies pipe it underground to dispose of it. Ranchers in the area were advised to move their livestock after the leak. The creek flows into the Yellowstone River....
Grand Mesa gas drilling will proceed Drilling for natural gas can go forward on the north edge of Grand Mesa, the Bureau of Land Management decided Tuesday. BLM officials will go ahead with the sale, scheduled for Thursday, because of relationships with local officials already in place, said BLM spokeswoman Theresa Sauer. The Grand Junction and Palisade governing boards opposed the leases because of fears they could harm their watersheds on the mesa. “We’re not going to allow a drill rig that’s obviously going to damage the watershed, and we’re not going to allow drilling where it might damage the watershed,” Sauer said. If adequate arrangements can’t be worked out with industry, leases will be withdrawn, she said....
Eco-Activists Fight the 'Terrorist' Label In an attempt to shield private property and development from saboteurs, business lobbyists are pushing new laws that would further criminalize the actions of radical ecological activists. Government officials and corporations are applying the rubric of anti-terrorism to penalize those who destroy company or government property when protesting mistreatment of animals and the ecosystem. Last month, federal grand juries in Oregon and California indicted 11 people on various conspiracy charges for their alleged involvement in the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) or the Earth Liberation Front (ELF) -- underground groups responsible for dozens of acts of property destruction as a strategy for protecting vulnerable species. While some federal officials and media reports liken the defendants to domestic terrorists, others, including some legal experts and free-speech groups, say the label is an intentional misnomer without legal basis....
Calif. wildfire sparked by controlled burn A 6,500-acre fire that triggered evacuations of more than 2,000 Southern California homes apparently was ignited by remnants of a controlled forest burn that escaped, a U.S. Forest Service official said Tuesday. Despite gusty Santa Ana winds, no homes had been lost in the blaze in northeastern Orange County. Evacuation orders were lifted Tuesday afternoon, and Chief Rich Hawkins of the Cleveland National Forest apologized to those displaced from neighborhoods in the cities of Orange and Anaheim about 35 miles southeast of Los Angeles. "I am very regretful of the situation I find myself in tonight," Hawkins told reporters. "The fact that nobody's home has burned down and no one's been killed, that's a godsend." The wildfire was 10 percent contained, but the dry winds were forecast to continue through Wednesday. Hawkins said fire crews ignited a prescribed burn last Thursday in a 10-acre forest area near Sierra Peak, and at the time no Santa Ana winds were predicted for at least five days....
Prairie dog won't find shelter on endangered list Efforts to have the Gunnison's prairie dog listed as an endangered species have been rebuffed, at least for now. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Tuesday that information presented by groups advocating protection was insufficient to warrant more detailed consideration of protections for the animal. The Gunnison's prairie dog scampers about the Four Corners region, including southwestern Colorado, and is distinct from the black-tailed prairie dog found along the Front Range. The announcement by federal wildlife officials comes just more than a year after the Biodiversity Conservation Alliance, Forest Guardians and other green groups sued the Fish and Wildlife Service, arguing that the agency had dragged its feet on determining whether the Gunnison's prairie dog needed protection under the Endangered Species Act....
Feds Move to Protect Polar Bears Amid concerns that global warming is melting away the icy habitats where polar bears live, the federal government is reviewing whether they should be considered a threatened species. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Tuesday that protection may be warranted under the Endangered Species Act, and began a review process to consider if the bears should be listed. The agency will seek information about population distribution, habitat, effects of climate change on the bears and their prey, potential threats from development, contaminants and poaching during the next 60 days....
Schweitzer takes first snowmobile trip through park Gov. Brian Schweitzer took his first snowmobile ride through Yellowstone National Park Tuesday, and immediately promised to do all he can to promote snowmobiling in the park. "I'll use the bully pulpit I've got," he said. "I'll talk about the great experience I've had." Schweitzer, a Democrat, rode from here to Old Faithful and back on a trip organized by Bill Howell, a partner in one of the large snowmobile rental shops. He said the park was uncrowded, the bison, elk and swans he passed seemed unconcerned and "I didn't see any clouds of exhaust." He rode one of the new "cleaner, quieter" machines that are allowed into the park under a temporary plan, then met with a group of West Yellowstone civic and business leaders....
Justice Alito's Green Day The first time he takes the bench later this month, new Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito Jr. will face a baptism -- not by fire but by water. Three cases challenging the scope of the Clean Water Act will be argued Feb. 21, testing themes of federalism and commerce clause power that were much at issue during Alito's confirmation hearings. The cases have environmentalists worried about how Alito and Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. will ultimately come down. "These are probably the most important environmental cases in a decade and will be an enormous test of the two new justices," says Douglas Kendall of the Community Rights Counsel, which filed a brief in two of the cases. The environmental cases, more than any other coming soon, will spotlight issues that got Democrats upset during Alito's contentious hearings last month. In two of the cases, Rapanos v. United States and Carabell v. United States Army Corps of Engineers, the issue is whether, under the commerce clause, the Clean Water Act protects certain wetlands that are adjacent to tributaries of navigable waters covered by the law. In the third case, S.D. Warren Co. v. Maine Board of Environmental Protection, the justices will decide whether the mere fact that a river flows through a dam produces a "discharge" that triggers federal jurisdiction under the act. In all three cases, the Bush administration is arguing for a broad view that would preserve a "landmark" law that is "a permissible exercise of Congress' power," in the words of Solicitor General Paul Clement, who will argue the cases himself....
County supervisors plan to abandon conservation program In the mid-1990s, San Bernardino County set out to satisfy local developers and federal officials with a countywide plan to save endangered species from extinction. A decade later, the plan itself is pushing up daisies, and neither environmentalists nor developers are happy. This morning, the county Board of Supervisors was expected to formally abandon its bid to create a Multi Species Habitat Conservation Plan, a regional agreement with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that would have earmarked some county land as habitats for endangered species, including the San Bernardino kangaroo rat and the Delhi Sands flower-loving fly. In exchange, developers in other areas would have been able to build with fewer environmental restrictions. The county¹s new move is not unexpected. County officials frequently tangled with Fish and Wildlife over the reach of the habitat-conservation program as well as its cost, and supervisors put the program on hold in 2002....
86 Evangelical Leaders Join to Fight Global Warming Despite opposition from some of their colleagues, 86 evangelical Christian leaders have decided to back a major initiative to fight global warming, saying "millions of people could die in this century because of climate change, most of them our poorest global neighbors." Among signers of the statement, which will be released in Washington on Wednesday, are the presidents of 39 evangelical colleges, leaders of aid groups and churches, like the Salvation Army, and pastors of megachurches, including Rick Warren, author of the best seller "The Purpose-Driven Life." The statement calls for federal legislation that would require reductions in carbon dioxide emissions through "cost-effective, market-based mechanisms" — a phrase lifted from a Senate resolution last year and one that could appeal to evangelicals, who tend to be pro-business. The statement, to be announced in Washington, is only the first stage of an "Evangelical Climate Initiative" including television and radio spots in states with influential legislators, informational campaigns in churches, and educational events at Christian colleges. Some of the nation's most high-profile evangelical leaders, however, have tried to derail such action. Twenty-two of them signed a letter in January declaring, "Global warming is not a consensus issue." Among the signers were Charles W. Colson, the founder of Prison Fellowship Ministries; James C. Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family; and Richard Land, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention....
World has 7 years for key climate decisions: Blair The world has seven years to take vital decisions and implement measures to curb greenhouse gas emissions or it could be too late, British Prime Minister Tony Blair said on Tuesday. Blair said the battle against global warming would only be won if the United States, India and China were part of a framework that included targets and that succeeded the 1992 Kyoto Protocol climate pact. "If we don't get the right agreement internationally for the period after which the Kyoto protocol will expire -- that's in 2012 -- if we don't do that then I think we are in serious trouble," he told a parliamentary committee. Asked if the world had seven years to implement measures on climate change before the problem reached "tipping point," Blair answered: "Yes."
40 states re-examining eminent domain The city wants Anna DeFaria's home, and if she doesn't sell willingly, officials are going to take it from the 80-year-old retired pre-school teacher. In place of her "tiny slip of a bungalow" - and two dozen other weathered, working-class beachfront homes - city officials want private developers to build upscale townhouses. Is this the work of a cruel government? Or the best hope for resurrecting an ocean resort town that is finally showing signs of reviving after decades of hard times? After the court ruling, four states passed laws reining in eminent domain. Roughly another 40 are considering legislation. In Congress, the House voted to deny federal funds to any project that used eminent domain to benefit a private development, and a federal study aims to examine how widely it is used. The Washington-based Institute for Justice, a libertarian advocacy group that worked for homeowners in the New London case and in Long Branch, argues that state laws should be changed so property can only be seized for public uses like a park or a school - not urban redevelopment that benefits private developers....Go here for an interactive map of the states
Snakes for catching and for eating at round-up It may not be pretty or clean or even completely safe, but it’s a time-honored tradition that looks like it’s gaining momentum with time. For the 48th year, the Sweetwater Jaycees of Sweetwater will host the World’s Largest Rattlesnake Round-Up from March 9 to March 12. The weekend will start with a parade, queen contest and dance, then move to snake hunting sessions, snake milking demonstrations and a cook-off featuring rattlesnake meat. According to information from the Sweetwater Jaycees, the roundup began in 1958 when a group of area ranchers and farmers conceived of the idea to rid themselves and their livestock of rattlesnakes. To date, there have been more than 125 tons of Western diamondback Rattlesnakes turned in. Scott Fortin, Jaycee president, said that normally 20,000 to 30,000 people come to the event. Many vendors, demonstrations, a cook-off and several dances help draw people, he said. About 120 cooks participate in the cook-off, Fortin said. Many people akin rattlesnake to greasy chicken, Fortin said. “It tastes more like frog legs to me,” Fortin said....
Tuesday, February 07, 2006
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....
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....
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