Friday, November 16, 2007
Climate Scientist Survey Reveals Little Consensus A new survey of American members of the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) suggests that there is not firm scientific consensus on global warming, as proponents of swift action to curb carbon emissions have suggested. DemandDebate.com, a Web site skeptical of global warming "alarmism" that advocates more debate on the topic, released the results of its poll on Nov. 8. The group attempted to survey the 345 American scientists affiliated with the IPCC. Of the 54 scientists who completed the survey, less than half said a 1-degree Celsius increase is "flatly undesirable." Sixty-one percent of the respondents said there is no such thing as an "ideal climate." While as many as 90 percent of respondents said man-made carbon emissions "are driving or helping to drive global climate change," only 20 percent said human activity is the "principle driver of climate change." Sixty-three percent said human activity is a driver but that "natural variability is also important."....
Fighting climate change is pricey, farmers are told Utah farmers heard Thursday that cutting carbon emissions to curb global warming might cost the state as much as $5 billion and 50,000 jobs. The Utah Farm Bureau Federation, holding its annual convention this week in downtown Salt Lake City, presented findings from a report by the coal industry think tank, the Center for Energy & Economic Development (CEED). Randy Parker, the farm bureau's chief executive officer - and a member of the governor's Blue Ribbon Advisory Council on Climate Change - said studying the issue in the past year has convinced him that the benefits gained in the past 150 years in lifestyle and economic productivity outweigh the danger posed by a 1 degree increase in world average temperatures. "Was that a good investment? Yes," he said. Meanwhile, Utah farmers and ranchers are eagerly looking at ways to improve energy security, he said....
Reseeding fire-ravaged land A mile or two west of here a gravel road threads Antelope Valley, a broad stretch of burned-over grassland below Bearskin Mountain and the Mineral Range. Neither that peak nor that range slowed the Milford Flat fire when it blew up July 6. During the next four days, the fire skipped across dozens of roads and jumped Interstate 15 to burn more than 325,000 acres in Millard and Beaver counties. The fire burned for 2 1/2 months, ultimately torching more than 363,000 acres to make it the biggest blaze in Utah history. But the fire slowed in those early days when it hit the gravel track in Antelope Valley, because on either side of the road, grasses planted after a 1996 fire were hardy enough to withstand the inferno. For the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, that is proof its current $17 million project to reseed 300 square miles of federal, state and private rangeland lost to the Milford fire will be a good investment. On Thursday, teams of archaeologists walked five abreast across the range, looking for artifacts and planting flags when they found ancient broken pottery, stone tools and even a pile of trash left here some 50 years ago. They'd already finished their work in the area farther west, a necessary first step before bulldozers dragging anchor chains studded with iron teeth arrive to clear out charred tree carcasses....
Ranchers wary but hope seed plan works Ranchers in southern Utah who have promised to keep cattle off their land for two years in exchange for free seed hope the government's prescription for revegetation will work. "I'm a little worried that if you stay off for two years, you let the June grass in," Beaver County rancher Mike Yardley said Thursday during a tour of revegetation areas from this summer's 363,000-acre Milford Flat fire. The fire ravaged Yardley's 4,000 acres. He is one of about a dozen ranchers to receive free seed from the state in the past month. During the two years state and federal officials believe are necessary for the seeds to take root, the overpopulation of June grass, also called cheat grass, is a possibility. Cheat grass is described as gasoline to wildfires, quickly burning when the plant dries each midsummer. During the spring, however, cheat grass is tender and cattle will graze upon it. Thursday, Yardley wanted to know why he couldn't allow cattle in revegetation areas most vulnerable to the dreaded cheat grass....
Federal judge upholds sheep grazing ban in western Idaho A federal judge has denied a motion by a sheep rancher who sought to return domestic sheep to a grazing allotment along the Salmon River, citing concerns they might transmit deadly pneumonia to wild bighorn sheep. U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill ruled earlier this week that the risk of losing genetic diversity in native populations of bighorn herds in western Idaho outweighed the financial loss of $75,600 to the sheep rancher, Guy Carlson of the Riggins, Idaho-based, Carlson Company. The group had planned to return the domestic sheep to the grazing allotment Thursday. In his decision, Winmill noted that none of the experts on either side provided definitive proof on whether domestic sheep transmit fatal diseases to bighorns. However, he noted that reports by experts on each side, when taken together, "warn that the preponderance of evidence suggests that domestic sheep transmit a deadly respiratory disease to bighorns." He said the risk of wiping out the native herd of bighorn sheep outweighed Carlson's financial loss, which Winmill called substantial but not enough to put the company at risk....
A grizzly tale The Falls Creek bear terrorized livestock along the Rocky Mountain Front. For years, he escaped bear managers who tried to catch him. And, albeit begrudgingly, he earned the respect of some ranchers for his smarts and strength. Now, postmortem, the 22-year-old male, put down in 2001, has inspired a book: "The Falls Creek Grizzly: Stories and Histories Along Montana's Rocky Mountain Front." The author is Mark Ratledge of Missoula. The book isn't just about the notorious Falls Creek bear. It will explore the relationship between grizzly bears and people who live near Augusta, Choteau, Dupuyer. The bear became known as the "Falls Creek bear" because its first livestock kill, in the late 1980s, came near the creek by the same name, which is located near Augusta. In 2001, the 650-pound male was finally captured southwest of Augusta and later killed by lethal injection. In between, the bear was suspected of killing dozens of cattle worth some $200,000 and became renowned up and down the Front. "Once he was eliminated, it seemed like our losses dropped considerably," recalled Bill Mosher, an Augusta-area rancher who had dealings with Falls Creek bear....
Ranching Ban Proposal Discussed in Pocatello Sixty-seven percent of Idaho's territory is public land - something that Jon Marvel with the Western Watersheds Project says he wants to preserve and protect. Marvel presented his view to a packed crowd at a meeting Thursday night on ISU's Pocatello campus. He believes doing away with ranching plays a big role in accomplishing his group's goal of improving fishing, hunting and recreation in the West. Marvel, along with representatives from five other states are trying to get federal legislation passed to offer a buy-out option for ranchers to compensate their losses....
Reaction to "Four Good Reasons For Ending Public Lands Ranching" A presentation tonight at the Idaho Museum of Natural History is causing quite a heated debate before it even starts. The topic is 'Four Good Reasons For Ending Public Land Ranching', but most cattle and sheep ranchers in Idaho depend on public land for grazing. John Thompson, Idaho Farm Bureau Director of Information: "Public lands are for public use." ...And it has been that way since settlers moved West, depending on that land to establish a successful economy. John Thompson, Idaho Farm Bureau Director of Information: "We don't think it's fair now to have an architect from Hailey come over and say he doesn't want cattle on public lands anymore. That's part of what the state's, the foundation of this state's, economy was built on." Thompson is referring to Jon Marvel, the executive director of Western Watersheds Project, a nonprofit conservation group....
EPA Seeks Nominations to New Agricultural Advisory Committee Continuing efforts to strengthen relations with the agriculture community, EPA announced in today's Federal Register a request for member nominations to the first-ever Farm, Ranch and Rural Communities Federal Advisory Committee. The committee is being formed under the guidelines of EPA's National Strategy for Agriculture, and it will advise the EPA Administrator on environmental policy issues impacting farms, ranches and rural communities. It will operate under the rules of the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA). The committee will meet approximately twice yearly and is intended to consist of approximately 25 members representing: (1) large and small farmers, ranchers and rural communities; (2) rural suppliers, marketers and processors; (3) academics and researchers who study environmental issues impacting agriculture; (4) tribal agricultural groups; and (5) environmental and conservation groups. The U.S. Dept. of Agriculture and other federal agencies will also be invited to nominate members. EPA expects to make a decision on membership by early January....
Safety of Predator Control Criticized Wildlife advocates are accusing federal officials of doing little to improve the safety of a program designed to protect livestock from coyotes and other predators. Their criticism follows an announcement earlier this month by the Wildlife Services branch of the U.S. Department of Agriculture that it has launched a safety review of its methods of killing livestock predators. The agency began the review following the deaths of two people killed in June when their small plane crashed in Utah as they shot coyotes from the air. Their deaths marked the ninth and 10th fatalities related to Wildlife Services operations since 1979. The review is expected to be completed next June, agency spokeswoman Carol Bannerman said Wednesday. The agency hasn't conducted a safety review in 10 years, she said. But critics say past reviews have been incomplete and brought about few changes....
Hurricanes' toll: 320 million trees New satellite imaging has revealed that hurricanes Katrina and Rita produced the largest single forestry disaster on record in America — an essentially unreported ecological catastrophe that killed or severely damaged about 320 million trees in Mississippi and Louisiana. The die-off, caused initially by wind and later by weeks-long pooling of stagnant water, was so massive that researchers say it will add significantly to the global greenhouse-gas buildup — ultimately putting as much carbon from dying vegetation into the air as the rest of the nation's forests take out in a year of photosynthesis. In addition, the downing of so many trees has opened vast and sometimes fragile tracts to several aggressive and fast-growing exotic species that are already squeezing out far more environmentally productive native species....
Forest Service makes green push Energy saving “miser” vending machines, more car-pooling and increased use of alternative fuels are just a few of the ways the U.S. Forest Service will try integrate sustainability into its day-to-day operations. The federal land management agency is launching its national sustainability push at a three-day conference in Denver this week, but the real impetus came from the ranks, said White River National Forest spokesman Bill Kight. “Conservation is our mission. It’s only natural that we ... conserve fuel, energy and water, reduce waste ... seek out renewable energy options and much more,” said Rocky Mountain Regional Forester Rick Cables. The five-state region, including Colorado, has led the way in nurturing a green ethic in the agency, and is now passing the torch to the national level, according to a Forest Service press release....
'Energy corridors' in West assailed The Bush administration has proposed "energy corridors" that could mar the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Arches National Park, Flaming Gorge and about 20 other protected areas in Utah, according to an analysis released Thursday by the Wilderness Society. The administration has proposed 6,000 miles of 3,500-foot-wide energy corridors in 11 Western states — including 640 miles in Utah — that could be used for future oil, gas and hydrogen pipelines, as well as electric transmission and distribution facilities. "That's where a significant amount of our industrial and consumer growth is going to happen in the United States — in the West and Southwest," Department of Energy spokesman Jonathan Shradar said. "Demand for electricity will increase, and on the federal lands, these corridors will be sufficient to meet that demand." In the 2005 Energy Bill, Congress asked several federal agencies to identify potential corridors on federal lands to help keep up with the nation's growing energy needs. The Departments of Interior, Energy, Agriculture, Commerce and Defense issued the West-Wide Energy Corridor Draft Programmatic environmental impact statement on Nov. 8, and a notice is scheduled to appear in the Federal Register today....
GM unveils hybrid version of popular pick-up General Motors unveiled a hybrid version of its Silverado pick-up on Wednesday, highlighting the automaker's desire to offer environmentally conscious vehicles without compromising on size. The 2009 Chevrolet Silverado -- based on the model beloved with ranchers or vacationers towing boats -- was one of the highlights of the LA Auto Show, which got underway here Wednesday. "We get asked often about why we're making hybrid versions of big trucks and SUVs," Ed Peper, general manager of Chevrolet said on the company's blog. "There are two answers, and they're both simple: because Americans still need, buy, and love trucks; and because we want to do what we can to lessen the environmental impact when we drive them."....
'Mesozoic Cow' Rises from the Sahara Desert The sands of the Sahara Desert have delivered up a new and very strange dinosaur: an elephant-sized beast whose skull and jaw are unlike anything scientists have ever seen. They are calling it the "Mesozoic Cow." Paleontologist Paul Sereno, who discovered the bones, has a reputation for finding new kinds of dinosaurs in out-of-the-way places. This find was unearthed in Niger, where it had been buried under the sand since the Mesozoic era, 110 million years ago. Sereno spent years piecing together the creature's bones. When he got the head and jaw together, he was shocked. "Well the first thing that comes to my mind is that this is the weirdest dinosaur I've ever seen," he says. "It's some kind of Darth Vader dinosaur when you look at the skull. You put the skin on it and … most people think it looks like a vacuum."....
Green Cowboy Hats
Ranchers step up to protect federal lands
By Jim Scarantino
On the environment front, good news arrives from an unexpected quarter.
Out of Las Cruces, a group called People for Preserving Our Western Heritage has made a historic proposition. With the support of a growing list of businesses and organizations, they are calling for the permanent protection of 302,000 acres of federal lands in Doña Ana County.
Why “historic”? The proposal comes from ranchers.
This isn’t the first grand vision for protecting expanses of land encircling New Mexico’s fastest-growing city. Several years go, the New Mexico Wilderness Alliance, The Wilderness Society and other environmental organizations also proposed protecting a huge chunk of federal land. They advocated using the Wilderness Act and a National Conservation Area to ensure the land remained undeveloped. They gained a lot of quick support. But miscalculations and missteps have brought their effort to a standstill.
The Doña Ana County Sheriff and Sheriff’s Posse, as well as the National Association of Former Border Patrol Agents, opposed the plan. They argued it would unwisely restrict law enforcement and hamper rescue operations. They were particularly concerned about any wilderness designation limiting motorized vigilance in border areas.
The Elephant Butte Irrigation District spoke out. It raised concerns about obstacles wilderness designation would create for flood control and ideas for augmenting water supplies in New Mexico’s lower Rio Grande valley.
Ranchers, farm credit institutions and the agricultural industry objected. They concluded the stringent restrictions of wilderness designation would make it more difficult for ranchers to continue already hard-pressed enterprises. Ranchers supported the goal of preserving open space. But they warned that ranch failures meant subdivision of their properties, a consequence directly contrary to the goal of preserving rural Doña Ana County.
Wilderness people seriously mishandled relations with Sen. Pete Domenici. They had looked to him to lead the legislative effort. Working with local governments, his staff drafted an ambitious wilderness protection bill. Because it contained a land disposal provision—a provision already present in long-standing federal management plans—environmentalists turned on Domenici. A man responsible for protecting well more than 1 million acres of land in this state became the target of personal attacks. Poking a stick at Domenici proved predictably counterproductive.
The Village of Hatch recently rescinded support for the wilderness proposal claiming, among other things, deception by wilderness activists. Congressman Steve Pearce, once on board with Domenici’s bill, has announced reservations about any new wilderness designations. Sen. Bingaman is steering clear of the mess. The Internet homepage of the Doña Ana Wilderness Coalition (www.donaanawild.org) has been reduced to a lifeless placeholder site directing traffic elsewhere.
In contrast, the ranchers’ volunteer-operated website www.peopleforwesternheritage.com offers audio-visual presentations, position papers, access to public documents and nearly daily updates. It blows away anything the well-funded environmentalists are serving up. That’s but one indication of who’s got momentum in this contest.
Ranchers, though, are not playing the role of single-minded obstructionists. It appears they meant what they said about wanting to protect open space. They propose to do it principally by protecting undeveloped land without calling it “wilderness.”
The draft legislation, titled “Doña Ana County Planned Growth, Open Space and Rangeland Preservation Act,” would prohibit the federal lands at issue from ever being sold, mined or drilled. The proposal’s innovative “special preservation area” designations set aside vast stretches of open space around Las Cruces but are flexible enough to accommodate law enforcement, agriculture, recreational needs of a growing urban population, and irrigation and floodwater authorities.
In a bill covering 302,000 acres there will certainly be many contentious details. And, no, this bill won’t create a formal wilderness like the Gila or the Pecos. But the promise of the ranchers’ initiative, coming from a group many environmentalists malign as “anti-environment,” is too important to ignore.
New Mexico is split down the middle on most issues. Environmentalists frequently think rallying their own regiments suffices. Perhaps that’s why we’ve only seen one small citizen-initiated wilderness bill pass in the last two decades. That bill, protecting the Ojito Wilderness, succeeded because it had bipartisan leadership and buy-in from local landowners and ranchers. The same can be said for the legislation that saved Valle Vidal from natural gas drilling.
This initiative from Doña Ana ranchers offers hope for protecting public lands in Doña Ana County and elsewhere in New Mexico. Environmental organizations that have claimed a monopoly over that particular line of conservation work have shown they can’t get the job done. The fizzled Doña Ana wilderness campaign is only the latest golden opportunity bungled by professional activists. While they stumble yet again, the state is filling up fast with new people. We don’t have decades to waste any longer.
Maybe it’s past time to let someone else, someone outside the usual enviro circles, have a shot at it. Some fresh faces, shaded by the broad rims of cowboy hats, are volunteering for the job.
Ranchers step up to protect federal lands
By Jim Scarantino
On the environment front, good news arrives from an unexpected quarter.
Out of Las Cruces, a group called People for Preserving Our Western Heritage has made a historic proposition. With the support of a growing list of businesses and organizations, they are calling for the permanent protection of 302,000 acres of federal lands in Doña Ana County.
Why “historic”? The proposal comes from ranchers.
This isn’t the first grand vision for protecting expanses of land encircling New Mexico’s fastest-growing city. Several years go, the New Mexico Wilderness Alliance, The Wilderness Society and other environmental organizations also proposed protecting a huge chunk of federal land. They advocated using the Wilderness Act and a National Conservation Area to ensure the land remained undeveloped. They gained a lot of quick support. But miscalculations and missteps have brought their effort to a standstill.
The Doña Ana County Sheriff and Sheriff’s Posse, as well as the National Association of Former Border Patrol Agents, opposed the plan. They argued it would unwisely restrict law enforcement and hamper rescue operations. They were particularly concerned about any wilderness designation limiting motorized vigilance in border areas.
The Elephant Butte Irrigation District spoke out. It raised concerns about obstacles wilderness designation would create for flood control and ideas for augmenting water supplies in New Mexico’s lower Rio Grande valley.
Ranchers, farm credit institutions and the agricultural industry objected. They concluded the stringent restrictions of wilderness designation would make it more difficult for ranchers to continue already hard-pressed enterprises. Ranchers supported the goal of preserving open space. But they warned that ranch failures meant subdivision of their properties, a consequence directly contrary to the goal of preserving rural Doña Ana County.
Wilderness people seriously mishandled relations with Sen. Pete Domenici. They had looked to him to lead the legislative effort. Working with local governments, his staff drafted an ambitious wilderness protection bill. Because it contained a land disposal provision—a provision already present in long-standing federal management plans—environmentalists turned on Domenici. A man responsible for protecting well more than 1 million acres of land in this state became the target of personal attacks. Poking a stick at Domenici proved predictably counterproductive.
The Village of Hatch recently rescinded support for the wilderness proposal claiming, among other things, deception by wilderness activists. Congressman Steve Pearce, once on board with Domenici’s bill, has announced reservations about any new wilderness designations. Sen. Bingaman is steering clear of the mess. The Internet homepage of the Doña Ana Wilderness Coalition (www.donaanawild.org) has been reduced to a lifeless placeholder site directing traffic elsewhere.
In contrast, the ranchers’ volunteer-operated website www.peopleforwesternheritage.com offers audio-visual presentations, position papers, access to public documents and nearly daily updates. It blows away anything the well-funded environmentalists are serving up. That’s but one indication of who’s got momentum in this contest.
Ranchers, though, are not playing the role of single-minded obstructionists. It appears they meant what they said about wanting to protect open space. They propose to do it principally by protecting undeveloped land without calling it “wilderness.”
The draft legislation, titled “Doña Ana County Planned Growth, Open Space and Rangeland Preservation Act,” would prohibit the federal lands at issue from ever being sold, mined or drilled. The proposal’s innovative “special preservation area” designations set aside vast stretches of open space around Las Cruces but are flexible enough to accommodate law enforcement, agriculture, recreational needs of a growing urban population, and irrigation and floodwater authorities.
In a bill covering 302,000 acres there will certainly be many contentious details. And, no, this bill won’t create a formal wilderness like the Gila or the Pecos. But the promise of the ranchers’ initiative, coming from a group many environmentalists malign as “anti-environment,” is too important to ignore.
New Mexico is split down the middle on most issues. Environmentalists frequently think rallying their own regiments suffices. Perhaps that’s why we’ve only seen one small citizen-initiated wilderness bill pass in the last two decades. That bill, protecting the Ojito Wilderness, succeeded because it had bipartisan leadership and buy-in from local landowners and ranchers. The same can be said for the legislation that saved Valle Vidal from natural gas drilling.
This initiative from Doña Ana ranchers offers hope for protecting public lands in Doña Ana County and elsewhere in New Mexico. Environmental organizations that have claimed a monopoly over that particular line of conservation work have shown they can’t get the job done. The fizzled Doña Ana wilderness campaign is only the latest golden opportunity bungled by professional activists. While they stumble yet again, the state is filling up fast with new people. We don’t have decades to waste any longer.
Maybe it’s past time to let someone else, someone outside the usual enviro circles, have a shot at it. Some fresh faces, shaded by the broad rims of cowboy hats, are volunteering for the job.
Thursday, November 15, 2007
FLE
Lawmen under siege along Mexico border Alien and drug smugglers along the U.S.-Mexico border have spawned a rise in violence against federal, state and local law-enforcement authorities, who say they are outmanned and outgunned. "They've got weapons, high-tech radios, computers, cell phones, Global Positioning Systems, spotters and can react faster than we are able to," said Shawn P. Moran, a 10-year U.S. Border Patrol veteran who serves as vice president of the National Border Patrol Council Local 1613 in San Diego. "And they have no hesitancy to attack the agents on the line, with anything from assault rifles and improvised Molotov cocktails to rocks, concrete slabs and bottles," he said. "There are so many agent 'rockings' that few are even reported anymore. If we wrote them all up, that's all we would be doing." Assaults against Border Patrol agents have more than doubled over the past two years, many by Mexico-based alien and drug gangs more inclined than ever to use violence as a means of ensuring success in the smuggling of people and contraband....
How big a role did disgraced CIA officer have? There’s new information about the young Lebanese woman who pleaded guilty Tuesday to charges she lied about her background to get jobs at the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Central Intelligence Agency. Current and former intelligence officials tell NBC News that Nada Nadim Prouty had a much bigger role than officials at the FBI and CIA first acknowledged. In fact, Prouty was assigned to the CIA’s most sensitive post, Baghdad, and participated in the debriefings of high-ranking al-Qaida detainees. A former colleague called Prouty “among the best and the brightest” CIA officers at the government's most sensitive post - Baghdad. A second colleague added she was "quite highly thought of: and had received some prime assignments. Among them: the investigation of the USS Cole bombing in Yemen and the investigation of war crimes in Rwanda, the East African nation racked by genocide. “Early on, she was an active agent in the debriefings,” said one former intelligence official. “It was more than translation.”....
House to consider FISA update without telecom immunity House Democrats plan Thursday to consider a foreign surveillance law update that would restore judicial oversight to foreign intelligence gathering efforts aimed at Americans and would not grant legal immunity to telecommunications companies that facilitated the warrantless surveillance of Americans. On a 224-192 vote, largely along party lines, the House decided to move forward with a vote that would update the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The measure to be considered, known as the RESTORE Act, would replace a temporary FISA update approved in August. The bill, which will be voted on later Thursday, does not include a provision to grant legal immunity to telecommunications companies that the Bush administration has demanded and it restores the role of the FISA court in approving surveillance methods used by the National Security Agency that could ensnare Americans....
Unholster the 2nd Amendment It's been 68 years since the U.S. Supreme Court examined the right to keep and bear arms secured by the 2nd Amendment. It's been 31 years since the District of Columbia enacted its feckless ban on all functional firearms in the capital. It's been eight months since the second most important court in the country, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, declared the D.C. ban — among the most restrictive in the nation — unconstitutional. The obvious incongruity of those three events could be resolved soon. Later this month, the Supreme Court will decide whether to review the circuit court's blockbuster opinion in Parker vs. District of Columbia, the first federal appellate opinion to overturn a gun control law on the ground that the 2nd Amendment protects the rights of individuals. If the high court takes the case, oral arguments likely will be held this spring, with a decision expected before June 30. The stakes are immense. Very few legal questions stir the passions like gun control. And this round of the courtroom battle will be fought during the heat of the 2008 election. Further, Washington is home to the federal government, making it an appropriate venue to challenge all federal gun laws, no matter where an alleged 2nd Amendment violation might have occurred. Thus, Parker could have an immediate effect not only on D.C. gun regulations but on federal regulations....
Lawmen under siege along Mexico border Alien and drug smugglers along the U.S.-Mexico border have spawned a rise in violence against federal, state and local law-enforcement authorities, who say they are outmanned and outgunned. "They've got weapons, high-tech radios, computers, cell phones, Global Positioning Systems, spotters and can react faster than we are able to," said Shawn P. Moran, a 10-year U.S. Border Patrol veteran who serves as vice president of the National Border Patrol Council Local 1613 in San Diego. "And they have no hesitancy to attack the agents on the line, with anything from assault rifles and improvised Molotov cocktails to rocks, concrete slabs and bottles," he said. "There are so many agent 'rockings' that few are even reported anymore. If we wrote them all up, that's all we would be doing." Assaults against Border Patrol agents have more than doubled over the past two years, many by Mexico-based alien and drug gangs more inclined than ever to use violence as a means of ensuring success in the smuggling of people and contraband....
How big a role did disgraced CIA officer have? There’s new information about the young Lebanese woman who pleaded guilty Tuesday to charges she lied about her background to get jobs at the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Central Intelligence Agency. Current and former intelligence officials tell NBC News that Nada Nadim Prouty had a much bigger role than officials at the FBI and CIA first acknowledged. In fact, Prouty was assigned to the CIA’s most sensitive post, Baghdad, and participated in the debriefings of high-ranking al-Qaida detainees. A former colleague called Prouty “among the best and the brightest” CIA officers at the government's most sensitive post - Baghdad. A second colleague added she was "quite highly thought of: and had received some prime assignments. Among them: the investigation of the USS Cole bombing in Yemen and the investigation of war crimes in Rwanda, the East African nation racked by genocide. “Early on, she was an active agent in the debriefings,” said one former intelligence official. “It was more than translation.”....
House to consider FISA update without telecom immunity House Democrats plan Thursday to consider a foreign surveillance law update that would restore judicial oversight to foreign intelligence gathering efforts aimed at Americans and would not grant legal immunity to telecommunications companies that facilitated the warrantless surveillance of Americans. On a 224-192 vote, largely along party lines, the House decided to move forward with a vote that would update the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The measure to be considered, known as the RESTORE Act, would replace a temporary FISA update approved in August. The bill, which will be voted on later Thursday, does not include a provision to grant legal immunity to telecommunications companies that the Bush administration has demanded and it restores the role of the FISA court in approving surveillance methods used by the National Security Agency that could ensnare Americans....
Unholster the 2nd Amendment It's been 68 years since the U.S. Supreme Court examined the right to keep and bear arms secured by the 2nd Amendment. It's been 31 years since the District of Columbia enacted its feckless ban on all functional firearms in the capital. It's been eight months since the second most important court in the country, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, declared the D.C. ban — among the most restrictive in the nation — unconstitutional. The obvious incongruity of those three events could be resolved soon. Later this month, the Supreme Court will decide whether to review the circuit court's blockbuster opinion in Parker vs. District of Columbia, the first federal appellate opinion to overturn a gun control law on the ground that the 2nd Amendment protects the rights of individuals. If the high court takes the case, oral arguments likely will be held this spring, with a decision expected before June 30. The stakes are immense. Very few legal questions stir the passions like gun control. And this round of the courtroom battle will be fought during the heat of the 2008 election. Further, Washington is home to the federal government, making it an appropriate venue to challenge all federal gun laws, no matter where an alleged 2nd Amendment violation might have occurred. Thus, Parker could have an immediate effect not only on D.C. gun regulations but on federal regulations....
EMINENT DOMAIN - DREW CAREY VIDEO
Reason.tv host Drew Carey visits National City, California, where the local government is taking eminent domain abuse to new lows. Eminent domain is the constitutionally sanctioned practice of taking land for legitimate public uses. Traditionally, that's meant things like roads and schools. Over the past several decades, however, governments have gone hog wild with eminent domain, routinely condemning property and turning it over to well-connected private developers as a way of subsidizing economic development and increasing tax revenues (never mind that it doesn't always work out that way). Officials in National City, a predominantly Hispanic community near San Diego, have pushed to bulldoze a popular athletic center for struggling kids to pave the way for private developers to build new luxury condos. As tragic and absurd as this may sound, such outrageous affronts to property rights are an almost daily occurrence. Episode 3 of The Drew Carey Project chronicles the devastating impact of eminent domain abuse on the lives of people whose property the government can threaten to take, not for public use, but for the benefit of wealthy developers....Go here to see the video
Reason.tv host Drew Carey visits National City, California, where the local government is taking eminent domain abuse to new lows. Eminent domain is the constitutionally sanctioned practice of taking land for legitimate public uses. Traditionally, that's meant things like roads and schools. Over the past several decades, however, governments have gone hog wild with eminent domain, routinely condemning property and turning it over to well-connected private developers as a way of subsidizing economic development and increasing tax revenues (never mind that it doesn't always work out that way). Officials in National City, a predominantly Hispanic community near San Diego, have pushed to bulldoze a popular athletic center for struggling kids to pave the way for private developers to build new luxury condos. As tragic and absurd as this may sound, such outrageous affronts to property rights are an almost daily occurrence. Episode 3 of The Drew Carey Project chronicles the devastating impact of eminent domain abuse on the lives of people whose property the government can threaten to take, not for public use, but for the benefit of wealthy developers....Go here to see the video
November 15, 2007
Jaguar Conservation Team Update
I’ve been remiss is not sending this out earlier, but it’s a very busy time of the year for ranchers so please accept my apologies for not getting this done earlier.
The Jaguar Conservation Team met October 22nd in Tucson Arizona at the Botanical Gardens. If you’ve never had occasion to visit the gardens, I’d encourage you to do so. Very, very nice place!!
Many individuals and representatives from several organizations were in attendance. In fact, the small room was packed. The meeting began with an explanation from Bill VanPelt, AZ Game and Fish, about Terry Johnson’s absence. According to Bill, Terry was injured during a camping trip and has taken a medical leave of absence until the doctors can figure out what's happening.
After going through the usual ground rules and review of the agenda, we heard the most recent reports of sighting. Jim Stuart, NM Game and Fish, stated there had been one report from the Via Nuevo area, northwest of Albuquerque. It was a second hand account. The person calling in the report was not sure what the individual saw, however, they did get some contact information. NMG&F is in the process of contacting the individual who saw the feline.
Tim Snow reported 5 sightings in Arizona since the last meeting in the following areas; Bowie, Benson, Naco, Tucson and White Hills. They were all Class 3 sightings which means there was no physical evidence available to substantiate the reports.
According to Jack Childs, depredation committee, there have been no depredations since last spring (February 2007). Emil McCain, Jaguar Detection Project, reported they had a cluster of photos in April and May but the last photo was taken in June. They have had a lot of camera vandalism and a huge increase in illegal traffic. He suggested radio collaring Macho B would be the best way to track his activities and a collar had been donated for this activity. For more information on the Borderlands Jaguar Detection Project go to: www.borderjag.org
Bill VanPelt reported on coordination efforts with Mexico. There are 5 regions for jaguar, the closest is in Sinoloa, Mexico. A group of wildlife biologists have determined the greatest threat to jaguars is loss of habitat. Recently a group has been organized in Mexico. They are working on their charter and establishing protocols. They have broken up the area into counties and are identifying contacts in each county. They intend to meet monthly to discuss sightings and activities.
Bill also reported the jaguar website is on hold until AZ Game and Fish gets moved to their new location. He also reported on the recommendations from the research committee that a jaguar be radio-collared, adding Dr. Tuggle has asked for additional information before endorsing this activity.
Under Other Business, Michael Robinson, Center for Biological Diversity, read a resolution passed by the American Society of Mammalogists recommending U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service develop a recovery plan, designate critical habitat and address issues related to dispersal of jaguars across the international border.
It was noted that none of Dr. Alan Rabinowitz’s work was included in the Literature Citations underpinning the resolution. Bill Van Pelt stated Dr. Joe Cook, American Society of Mammalogists, would be invited to the next Jaguar Conservation Team meeting.
Information on the Center for Biological Diversity’s lawsuit against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife is available on their website - http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/swcbd/PRESS/jaguar-08-02-2007.html
U.S. Fish and Wildlife reported on the fencing project along the border.
The next meeting of the JAGCT will be January 24th at 10:00 a.m. in Lordsburg, New Mexico.
Judy
Jaguar Conservation Team Update
I’ve been remiss is not sending this out earlier, but it’s a very busy time of the year for ranchers so please accept my apologies for not getting this done earlier.
The Jaguar Conservation Team met October 22nd in Tucson Arizona at the Botanical Gardens. If you’ve never had occasion to visit the gardens, I’d encourage you to do so. Very, very nice place!!
Many individuals and representatives from several organizations were in attendance. In fact, the small room was packed. The meeting began with an explanation from Bill VanPelt, AZ Game and Fish, about Terry Johnson’s absence. According to Bill, Terry was injured during a camping trip and has taken a medical leave of absence until the doctors can figure out what's happening.
After going through the usual ground rules and review of the agenda, we heard the most recent reports of sighting. Jim Stuart, NM Game and Fish, stated there had been one report from the Via Nuevo area, northwest of Albuquerque. It was a second hand account. The person calling in the report was not sure what the individual saw, however, they did get some contact information. NMG&F is in the process of contacting the individual who saw the feline.
Tim Snow reported 5 sightings in Arizona since the last meeting in the following areas; Bowie, Benson, Naco, Tucson and White Hills. They were all Class 3 sightings which means there was no physical evidence available to substantiate the reports.
According to Jack Childs, depredation committee, there have been no depredations since last spring (February 2007). Emil McCain, Jaguar Detection Project, reported they had a cluster of photos in April and May but the last photo was taken in June. They have had a lot of camera vandalism and a huge increase in illegal traffic. He suggested radio collaring Macho B would be the best way to track his activities and a collar had been donated for this activity. For more information on the Borderlands Jaguar Detection Project go to: www.borderjag.org
Bill VanPelt reported on coordination efforts with Mexico. There are 5 regions for jaguar, the closest is in Sinoloa, Mexico. A group of wildlife biologists have determined the greatest threat to jaguars is loss of habitat. Recently a group has been organized in Mexico. They are working on their charter and establishing protocols. They have broken up the area into counties and are identifying contacts in each county. They intend to meet monthly to discuss sightings and activities.
Bill also reported the jaguar website is on hold until AZ Game and Fish gets moved to their new location. He also reported on the recommendations from the research committee that a jaguar be radio-collared, adding Dr. Tuggle has asked for additional information before endorsing this activity.
Under Other Business, Michael Robinson, Center for Biological Diversity, read a resolution passed by the American Society of Mammalogists recommending U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service develop a recovery plan, designate critical habitat and address issues related to dispersal of jaguars across the international border.
It was noted that none of Dr. Alan Rabinowitz’s work was included in the Literature Citations underpinning the resolution. Bill Van Pelt stated Dr. Joe Cook, American Society of Mammalogists, would be invited to the next Jaguar Conservation Team meeting.
Information on the Center for Biological Diversity’s lawsuit against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife is available on their website - http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/swcbd/PRESS/jaguar-08-02-2007.html
U.S. Fish and Wildlife reported on the fencing project along the border.
The next meeting of the JAGCT will be January 24th at 10:00 a.m. in Lordsburg, New Mexico.
Judy
NEWS ROUNDUP
Retired judge: This land is my land A judge has ruled in favor of another judge – now retired – in an unusual "adverse possession" land dispute in pricey Boulder, Colo., giving the retired judge a large part of his neighbor's $1 million parcel of land for a pathway to his backyard. The recent ruling came from James Klein a judge in Colorado's 20th Judicial District covering Boulder, and was in favor of Richard McLean, who retired from the judiciary in Boulder several years ago. The loser in the case was Boulder resident Don Kirlin, who is publicizing his situation on the landgrabber.org website. On the radio show Kirlin explained his shock when the land on which he's paid taxes of about $16,000 a year, plus $65 per month homeowner association dues, on which he's sprayed for weeds and repaired fences, suddenly was made unusable by Klein's decision. He passed it regularly en route to his hikes into the mountains, and never saw any "encroachments," he said. The law under which Klein gave the property to McLean requires someone to "possess" property by using it, without permission of the owner, continuously for 18 years, and most commonly comes up when a building built before mapping technologies were accurate, extends onto another parcel of land....
Brazil reports massive oil discovery Brazil has announced the discovery of a huge offshore oil field that could contain between 5 to 8 billion barrels of oil, enough to expand the country's proven reserves by 40 to 50 percent. The "ultra-deep" Tupi field was found under 7,060 feet of water, another 10,000 feet of sand and rocks and a further 6,600 feet of salt – a total of 4.48 miles below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean. Sergio Gabrielli, the chief executive officer of the state-run oil firm Petroleo Brasileiro SA told Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva Monday that reserves in the pre-salt area off Brazil's coast are much larger than the Tupi field, possibly containing as much as 80 billion barrels in oil reserves. By specializing in advanced ultra-deep offshore oil exploration, Brazil has moved from being a country dependent on Ethanol for its gasoline consumption to becoming a net exporter of oil within less than a decade....
N. American landscape is oversaturated in CO2 North America's ability to absorb global-warming gases created by the USA, Canada and Mexico is smaller than some experts thought and likely to shrink further, a federal climate study said Tuesday. The report by the U.S. Climate Change Science Program, the Bush administration's climate research arm, estimated the continent produces three to four times more carbon dioxide than its forests, croplands, wetlands and coastal waters can soak up. The rest adds to the warming. North America emits 27% of the carbon dioxide — the most plentiful of man-made greenhouse gases and the byproduct of burning fossil fuels — released worldwide. The USA creates 85% of North America's total and is the world's largest emitter, though China is forecast to exceed that soon, according to the International Energy Agency. Canada produces 9%, and Mexico, 6%. Plants, trees, soil, water and other components absorb only about one-fourth of the continent's carbon emissions. The report said much of the continent's emissions, 42%, comes from extracting and burning fossil fuels for electricity. Exhaust from cars and other transportation accounts for 31%, it said....
Bearing the burden A record-breaking year for bear activity is finally winding down, but the number of human-bear interactions is sparking a conversation about thinning the bruin population, state Division of Wildlife officials said Wednesday. “We’re talking about, biologically, if development, human population growth, recreation use and energy use have reduced bear habitat to the point where we need to reduce the bear population in the state of Colorado,” said Wildlife Division spokesman Randy Hampton. This year might break state records. It certainly did so in Pitkin County, where 13 bears were euthanized, 24 relocated and four cubs were taken to a rehabilitation center. “It’s a record year for relocations, cubs taken to the rehabilitation center, road kill, bears that we had to put down, all of those things,” Hampton said. “It was — I say was — I’m hoping it has passed, it was a tough year.” The possibility of thinning the bear population or of increasing the number of bear hunting permits, however, has some locals and state environmental groups worried....
Annual buffalo roundup healing Antelope Island herd Instructions were simple enough: Watch the tail. If it comes up, stop, turn and slowly ride away. Otherwise, stay in the saddle and herd the buffalo to their annual physical. Roughly 150 riders gathered at the Fielding Garr Ranch on the eastern shores of Antelope Island a few weeks ago. It was the start of the annual buffalo roundup. Once a year, the island buffalo, about 750 head, are pushed from their grazing areas to the holding corrals on the northern tip of the island. The work was once done by helicopter, and horses and riders were simply there to pick up stragglers. Three years ago, the helicopters were grounded and the entire roundup was put in the hands of the wranglers. Once corralled, the buffalo rested, fed on fresh-cut hay and then patiently waited for the doctors to make their island call. It took three days to round up most of the buffalo. The larger bulls, because of their weight — upwards of 1,800 pounds — and temperament, for the most part, were left alone....
Governors Join in Creating Regional Pacts on Climate Change Frustrated with the slow progress of legislation in Washington on energy and global warming, the nation’s governors have created regional agreements to cap greenhouse gases and are engaged in a concerted lobbying effort to prod Congress to act. Beginning Monday, three Western governors will appear in a nationwide television advertising campaign sponsored by an environmental group trying to generate public and political support for climate change legislation now before the Senate. The 30-second ad features Arnold Schwarzenegger, Republican of California; Jon Huntsman Jr., Republican of Utah; and Brian Schweitzer, Democrat of Montana, standing in casual clothes in scenic spots talking about the threat posed by greenhouse gas emissions. The nation’s governors are acting, but Congress is not, they say. “Now it’s their turn,” Mr. Schwarzenegger says. Separately, in Milwaukee on Wednesday, nine Midwestern governors and the premier of Manitoba signed an agreement to reduce carbon emissions and set up a trading system to meet the reduction targets. The Midwestern accord is modeled on similar regional carbon-reduction and energy-saving arrangements among Northeastern, Southwestern and West Coast states....
War of the species The sesame seed-sized milfoil weevil has its own fan club. At Paradise Lake in northern Michigan, residents hold an annual Weevil Festival in July, dressing up in weevil costumes and holding street and boat parades to honor the critter. An Ohio company that raises and releases the weevils, including in 50 Michigan lakes, sells a popular weevil plush toy. Why the love? When planted by the thousands in lakes infested by the invasive Eurasian milfoil, the weevil larvae burrow into the plants' stems, chewing away until weakened plants collapse. Weevils, beetles, wasps and fungi are the new heroes in a David-and-Goliath battle. Scientists are unleashing them to attack invasive species that kill trees and dominate native plants, robbing wildlife of food and habitat. Because they are foreign, invasive species have no native enemies. Scientists search out their natural enemies, often in the invasives' home countries, and bring them here. The goal is to use biological control instead of expensive chemicals or machine harvesting....
Beetle kill gives industry new life On the listing steps of his cluttered office trailer, Mike Jolovich spreads his arms wide, as if to embrace the muddy yard of timber, wood chips and machinery at his Ranch Creek Ranch sawmill outside Granby. "I've staked my whole career, everything I own on what you see today. It's all a big gamble," he said, looking over a cavernous warehouse for a new computerized sawmill that will soon be used to create log homes. "What you see is three-quarters of a million dollars' worth of equipment. ... It's all gambled on people, it's all gambled on the market." And it's all gambled on the pine bark beetle. As countless bark beetles the size of this "i" ravage the state's ample stands of lodgepole, dozens of big and small dreamers are vying to eke their fortune from the state's surging tide of beetle-ravaged timber. Their efforts won't come close to using up the acres of deadwood. But it is a start. Some of these entrepreneurs are felling trees, seeking to revive the state's timber industry. Others use the wood, tinted blue from a fungus the beetles inject into the pine, for cabinets and trim....
Bear Canyon Road case still unresolved The dispute between Gallatin County and the U.S. Forest Service over the Bear Canyon Road remains unresolved, but at least both sides are talking to each other. “Over the last two months we've had several productive and encouraging meetings,” said Bob Dennee, a lands specialist with the Gallatin National Forest who has worked on many complicated issues. The dispute arose this fall when the Forest Service used heavy equipment to obliterate an old road in the canyon southeast of Bozeman, and replace it with a trail a few hundred yards away. That angered county officials, partly because the new road was harder for cattle to use and partly because the Forest Service wiped out a county road. Gallatin County Commissioner Bill Murdock said Wednesday the county will continue to work in good faith with the federal government, but the commission wants the road back. “We're sticking to our guns,” Murdock said. “We want the old road back.”....
Ants could hold key to keeping Tahoe Blue A group of scientists at the University of Nevada, Reno have announced new research that suggests ants could play an important role in improving water clarity at Lake Tahoe. They found that ants give them important clues about how Tahoe's ecosystem reacts to human interference. Monte Sanfor, a Ph.D. student and Dennis Murphy, a professor in the Biology Department are working with a team of scientists from the U.S. Forest Service and the University of California at Davis. Their research focused on a species of ants that make extensive tunnel networks in the ground. These ants are called aerator ants, and their tunnels can help water infiltrate the forests in the Tahoe Basin and can help the clarity of Tahoe's water. The research team says human interference has both helped and hurt this population of ants....
BLM report shows border trash is major issue for So. Arizona land It's a long-standing concern of border-security proponents: Illegal immigration and smuggling cause significant environmental damage, says a report recently released by the Bureau of Land Management. More than 225,000 pounds of trash related to smuggling were collected, according to a press release on the report. Another 900,000 pounds of litter that resulted from both smuggling and illegal dumping were removed. About 24 million pounds of trash cover thousands of acres of public and tribal lands. The most visible items are drinking bottles, clothing and food refuse. Illegal roads and trails cause damages to resources on the landscape. There are also damages to infrastructure, such as gates, ranges, fences and water tanks....Go here to get this report and several previous years' reports.
Rock climbing is taking a toll on peaks Evidence of rock climbing's excesses are visible everywhere around the base of a popular summer ascent here. Dead pines lie decomposing on the eroded rock, their roots exposed by thousands of boot soles. The approach is marred by 40 separate trails braiding around the granite face. Then, there's the garbage. In September, volunteers packed out 900 pounds of abandoned rope, snack wrappers and toilet paper strewn around some of Yosemite National Park's most cherished crags. Millions of Americans have developed a taste for rock climbing, a fad fueled by a proliferation of urban climbing gyms and glamorized by programs like America's Next Top Model, which recently showed its models hanging from climbing ropes. But as neophyte rock jocks head to national parks to test their skills in the great outdoors, some are unwittingly breaking the wilderness ethic governing the sport. Others are violating federal wilderness regulations by drilling into the bare rock face with power tools....
Ex-park service agent pleads guilty to theft A Bar Harbor woman who served as the national special agent in charge for the National Park Service faces up to six months in prison after pleading guilty in federal court recently to theft of public money. Patricia Buccello, 55, entered a guilty plea to one count of theft of public money at a hearing on Oct. 31 in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., before Magistrate Judge Deborah A. Robinson, according to U.S. Attorney Jeffrey A. Taylor and Inspector General Earl E. Devaney of the Department of the Interior. In a press release, they announced that, during the plea hearing, Buccello admitted to fraudulently billing the government for all or a portion of the airfare associated with personal trips she took between Maine and Washington, D.C., from April 2005 through March 2007. As part of her plea, Buccello agreed to pay back the government a total of $10,864,95. Buccello has worked for the National Park Service since 1978, first as a park ranger and then as a criminal investigator. She served as acting national special agent in charge, or SAC, for 16 months before being named to the post in February 2005....
Farm bill may not be done this year Chances are fading that the Senate can finish its $286 billion farm bill before December. The Senate formally took up the bill Nov. 5, but on Tuesday Democratic and Republican leaders were still trying to agree on which amendments would be allowed for consideration. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said that senators were "highly unlikely" to finish work on this bill this week. The Senate is due to start a two-week recess this weekend. It will return to business Dec. 3. The chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, Iowa Democrat Tom Harkin, accused Republicans of holding up the bill. "At this rate we may not have a farm bill," he said. Among the issues involved in the dispute was a plan by Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., to increase the amount of biofuels that refiners must use. The mandate is part of an energy bill that has been stalled in Congress for several months. Because of the dispute over the farm bill, the Senate chamber was quiet for long stretches of time Tuesday afternoon. The Senate delay increases the odds that the Democrat-controlled Congress won't get a final version of the bill to President Bush until 2008. The farm bill increases spending for a range of programs, including crop subsidies, land conservation, food stamps and bioenergy. The House passed its version of the bill in July....
Retired judge: This land is my land A judge has ruled in favor of another judge – now retired – in an unusual "adverse possession" land dispute in pricey Boulder, Colo., giving the retired judge a large part of his neighbor's $1 million parcel of land for a pathway to his backyard. The recent ruling came from James Klein a judge in Colorado's 20th Judicial District covering Boulder, and was in favor of Richard McLean, who retired from the judiciary in Boulder several years ago. The loser in the case was Boulder resident Don Kirlin, who is publicizing his situation on the landgrabber.org website. On the radio show Kirlin explained his shock when the land on which he's paid taxes of about $16,000 a year, plus $65 per month homeowner association dues, on which he's sprayed for weeds and repaired fences, suddenly was made unusable by Klein's decision. He passed it regularly en route to his hikes into the mountains, and never saw any "encroachments," he said. The law under which Klein gave the property to McLean requires someone to "possess" property by using it, without permission of the owner, continuously for 18 years, and most commonly comes up when a building built before mapping technologies were accurate, extends onto another parcel of land....
Brazil reports massive oil discovery Brazil has announced the discovery of a huge offshore oil field that could contain between 5 to 8 billion barrels of oil, enough to expand the country's proven reserves by 40 to 50 percent. The "ultra-deep" Tupi field was found under 7,060 feet of water, another 10,000 feet of sand and rocks and a further 6,600 feet of salt – a total of 4.48 miles below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean. Sergio Gabrielli, the chief executive officer of the state-run oil firm Petroleo Brasileiro SA told Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva Monday that reserves in the pre-salt area off Brazil's coast are much larger than the Tupi field, possibly containing as much as 80 billion barrels in oil reserves. By specializing in advanced ultra-deep offshore oil exploration, Brazil has moved from being a country dependent on Ethanol for its gasoline consumption to becoming a net exporter of oil within less than a decade....
N. American landscape is oversaturated in CO2 North America's ability to absorb global-warming gases created by the USA, Canada and Mexico is smaller than some experts thought and likely to shrink further, a federal climate study said Tuesday. The report by the U.S. Climate Change Science Program, the Bush administration's climate research arm, estimated the continent produces three to four times more carbon dioxide than its forests, croplands, wetlands and coastal waters can soak up. The rest adds to the warming. North America emits 27% of the carbon dioxide — the most plentiful of man-made greenhouse gases and the byproduct of burning fossil fuels — released worldwide. The USA creates 85% of North America's total and is the world's largest emitter, though China is forecast to exceed that soon, according to the International Energy Agency. Canada produces 9%, and Mexico, 6%. Plants, trees, soil, water and other components absorb only about one-fourth of the continent's carbon emissions. The report said much of the continent's emissions, 42%, comes from extracting and burning fossil fuels for electricity. Exhaust from cars and other transportation accounts for 31%, it said....
Bearing the burden A record-breaking year for bear activity is finally winding down, but the number of human-bear interactions is sparking a conversation about thinning the bruin population, state Division of Wildlife officials said Wednesday. “We’re talking about, biologically, if development, human population growth, recreation use and energy use have reduced bear habitat to the point where we need to reduce the bear population in the state of Colorado,” said Wildlife Division spokesman Randy Hampton. This year might break state records. It certainly did so in Pitkin County, where 13 bears were euthanized, 24 relocated and four cubs were taken to a rehabilitation center. “It’s a record year for relocations, cubs taken to the rehabilitation center, road kill, bears that we had to put down, all of those things,” Hampton said. “It was — I say was — I’m hoping it has passed, it was a tough year.” The possibility of thinning the bear population or of increasing the number of bear hunting permits, however, has some locals and state environmental groups worried....
Annual buffalo roundup healing Antelope Island herd Instructions were simple enough: Watch the tail. If it comes up, stop, turn and slowly ride away. Otherwise, stay in the saddle and herd the buffalo to their annual physical. Roughly 150 riders gathered at the Fielding Garr Ranch on the eastern shores of Antelope Island a few weeks ago. It was the start of the annual buffalo roundup. Once a year, the island buffalo, about 750 head, are pushed from their grazing areas to the holding corrals on the northern tip of the island. The work was once done by helicopter, and horses and riders were simply there to pick up stragglers. Three years ago, the helicopters were grounded and the entire roundup was put in the hands of the wranglers. Once corralled, the buffalo rested, fed on fresh-cut hay and then patiently waited for the doctors to make their island call. It took three days to round up most of the buffalo. The larger bulls, because of their weight — upwards of 1,800 pounds — and temperament, for the most part, were left alone....
Governors Join in Creating Regional Pacts on Climate Change Frustrated with the slow progress of legislation in Washington on energy and global warming, the nation’s governors have created regional agreements to cap greenhouse gases and are engaged in a concerted lobbying effort to prod Congress to act. Beginning Monday, three Western governors will appear in a nationwide television advertising campaign sponsored by an environmental group trying to generate public and political support for climate change legislation now before the Senate. The 30-second ad features Arnold Schwarzenegger, Republican of California; Jon Huntsman Jr., Republican of Utah; and Brian Schweitzer, Democrat of Montana, standing in casual clothes in scenic spots talking about the threat posed by greenhouse gas emissions. The nation’s governors are acting, but Congress is not, they say. “Now it’s their turn,” Mr. Schwarzenegger says. Separately, in Milwaukee on Wednesday, nine Midwestern governors and the premier of Manitoba signed an agreement to reduce carbon emissions and set up a trading system to meet the reduction targets. The Midwestern accord is modeled on similar regional carbon-reduction and energy-saving arrangements among Northeastern, Southwestern and West Coast states....
War of the species The sesame seed-sized milfoil weevil has its own fan club. At Paradise Lake in northern Michigan, residents hold an annual Weevil Festival in July, dressing up in weevil costumes and holding street and boat parades to honor the critter. An Ohio company that raises and releases the weevils, including in 50 Michigan lakes, sells a popular weevil plush toy. Why the love? When planted by the thousands in lakes infested by the invasive Eurasian milfoil, the weevil larvae burrow into the plants' stems, chewing away until weakened plants collapse. Weevils, beetles, wasps and fungi are the new heroes in a David-and-Goliath battle. Scientists are unleashing them to attack invasive species that kill trees and dominate native plants, robbing wildlife of food and habitat. Because they are foreign, invasive species have no native enemies. Scientists search out their natural enemies, often in the invasives' home countries, and bring them here. The goal is to use biological control instead of expensive chemicals or machine harvesting....
Beetle kill gives industry new life On the listing steps of his cluttered office trailer, Mike Jolovich spreads his arms wide, as if to embrace the muddy yard of timber, wood chips and machinery at his Ranch Creek Ranch sawmill outside Granby. "I've staked my whole career, everything I own on what you see today. It's all a big gamble," he said, looking over a cavernous warehouse for a new computerized sawmill that will soon be used to create log homes. "What you see is three-quarters of a million dollars' worth of equipment. ... It's all gambled on people, it's all gambled on the market." And it's all gambled on the pine bark beetle. As countless bark beetles the size of this "i" ravage the state's ample stands of lodgepole, dozens of big and small dreamers are vying to eke their fortune from the state's surging tide of beetle-ravaged timber. Their efforts won't come close to using up the acres of deadwood. But it is a start. Some of these entrepreneurs are felling trees, seeking to revive the state's timber industry. Others use the wood, tinted blue from a fungus the beetles inject into the pine, for cabinets and trim....
Bear Canyon Road case still unresolved The dispute between Gallatin County and the U.S. Forest Service over the Bear Canyon Road remains unresolved, but at least both sides are talking to each other. “Over the last two months we've had several productive and encouraging meetings,” said Bob Dennee, a lands specialist with the Gallatin National Forest who has worked on many complicated issues. The dispute arose this fall when the Forest Service used heavy equipment to obliterate an old road in the canyon southeast of Bozeman, and replace it with a trail a few hundred yards away. That angered county officials, partly because the new road was harder for cattle to use and partly because the Forest Service wiped out a county road. Gallatin County Commissioner Bill Murdock said Wednesday the county will continue to work in good faith with the federal government, but the commission wants the road back. “We're sticking to our guns,” Murdock said. “We want the old road back.”....
Ants could hold key to keeping Tahoe Blue A group of scientists at the University of Nevada, Reno have announced new research that suggests ants could play an important role in improving water clarity at Lake Tahoe. They found that ants give them important clues about how Tahoe's ecosystem reacts to human interference. Monte Sanfor, a Ph.D. student and Dennis Murphy, a professor in the Biology Department are working with a team of scientists from the U.S. Forest Service and the University of California at Davis. Their research focused on a species of ants that make extensive tunnel networks in the ground. These ants are called aerator ants, and their tunnels can help water infiltrate the forests in the Tahoe Basin and can help the clarity of Tahoe's water. The research team says human interference has both helped and hurt this population of ants....
BLM report shows border trash is major issue for So. Arizona land It's a long-standing concern of border-security proponents: Illegal immigration and smuggling cause significant environmental damage, says a report recently released by the Bureau of Land Management. More than 225,000 pounds of trash related to smuggling were collected, according to a press release on the report. Another 900,000 pounds of litter that resulted from both smuggling and illegal dumping were removed. About 24 million pounds of trash cover thousands of acres of public and tribal lands. The most visible items are drinking bottles, clothing and food refuse. Illegal roads and trails cause damages to resources on the landscape. There are also damages to infrastructure, such as gates, ranges, fences and water tanks....Go here to get this report and several previous years' reports.
Rock climbing is taking a toll on peaks Evidence of rock climbing's excesses are visible everywhere around the base of a popular summer ascent here. Dead pines lie decomposing on the eroded rock, their roots exposed by thousands of boot soles. The approach is marred by 40 separate trails braiding around the granite face. Then, there's the garbage. In September, volunteers packed out 900 pounds of abandoned rope, snack wrappers and toilet paper strewn around some of Yosemite National Park's most cherished crags. Millions of Americans have developed a taste for rock climbing, a fad fueled by a proliferation of urban climbing gyms and glamorized by programs like America's Next Top Model, which recently showed its models hanging from climbing ropes. But as neophyte rock jocks head to national parks to test their skills in the great outdoors, some are unwittingly breaking the wilderness ethic governing the sport. Others are violating federal wilderness regulations by drilling into the bare rock face with power tools....
Ex-park service agent pleads guilty to theft A Bar Harbor woman who served as the national special agent in charge for the National Park Service faces up to six months in prison after pleading guilty in federal court recently to theft of public money. Patricia Buccello, 55, entered a guilty plea to one count of theft of public money at a hearing on Oct. 31 in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., before Magistrate Judge Deborah A. Robinson, according to U.S. Attorney Jeffrey A. Taylor and Inspector General Earl E. Devaney of the Department of the Interior. In a press release, they announced that, during the plea hearing, Buccello admitted to fraudulently billing the government for all or a portion of the airfare associated with personal trips she took between Maine and Washington, D.C., from April 2005 through March 2007. As part of her plea, Buccello agreed to pay back the government a total of $10,864,95. Buccello has worked for the National Park Service since 1978, first as a park ranger and then as a criminal investigator. She served as acting national special agent in charge, or SAC, for 16 months before being named to the post in February 2005....
Farm bill may not be done this year Chances are fading that the Senate can finish its $286 billion farm bill before December. The Senate formally took up the bill Nov. 5, but on Tuesday Democratic and Republican leaders were still trying to agree on which amendments would be allowed for consideration. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said that senators were "highly unlikely" to finish work on this bill this week. The Senate is due to start a two-week recess this weekend. It will return to business Dec. 3. The chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, Iowa Democrat Tom Harkin, accused Republicans of holding up the bill. "At this rate we may not have a farm bill," he said. Among the issues involved in the dispute was a plan by Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., to increase the amount of biofuels that refiners must use. The mandate is part of an energy bill that has been stalled in Congress for several months. Because of the dispute over the farm bill, the Senate chamber was quiet for long stretches of time Tuesday afternoon. The Senate delay increases the odds that the Democrat-controlled Congress won't get a final version of the bill to President Bush until 2008. The farm bill increases spending for a range of programs, including crop subsidies, land conservation, food stamps and bioenergy. The House passed its version of the bill in July....
FLE
GOP split on repeal of Real ID Congressional Republicans are scrambling to defuse the political time bomb they created in 2005 when they allowed states to issue driver's licenses to illegal aliens — but a key Republican and author of the Real ID Act says their new bill is unconstitutional. "Driver's licenses are issued by the states, not the federal government. I do not believe it is constitutional for the federal government to tell the states who they can issue driver's licenses to and who they can't issue driver's licenses to," said Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., the Wisconsin Republican who wrote the 2005 law and its provision allowing states the option of giving licenses to illegal aliens. Rep. Vito J. Fossella, New York Republican, yesterday introduced a bill to repeal part of Mr. Sensenbrenner's 2005 law and prevent states from issuing licenses to illegal aliens. He also threatened states' highway funds if they fail to comply with the law. Mr. Sensenbrenner also said he doubts the interstate commerce clause of the Constitution would give Congress the power to tell states who they can issue licenses to. At the time he wrote the act, Mr. Sensenbrenner's own state of Wisconsin was among those that allowed illegal aliens to get driver's licenses. The state has since changed its policy. Mr. Sensenbrenner also said changing Real ID would open the bill up to amendments on the House or Senate floor that could gut the 2005 law, could give the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) new grounds for a court challenge, and would stoke the fears of a national identification card....
Panel Wants Troopers on Immigration Enforcement The Virginia Crime Commission called on the General Assembly on Tuesday to ask Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D) to require state troopers to help federal authorities detain and deport illegal immigrants. The commission's recommendation, one of a series of actions it took Tuesday related to illegal immigration, will put pressure on Kaine and the newly elected Senate Democratic majority to take up an issue that split state lawmakers during the fall campaign and caused local governments such as Prince William County's to enact their own measures. According to a recent Washington Post poll, an overwhelming majority of Virginians want the state and local governments to do more about illegal immigration. Eight in 10 state residents said they would support a measure requiring local police to check the immigration status of people they suspect of a crime and think may be undocumented. Prince William County police officers soon will check the immigration status of anyone suspected of breaking the law, whether for speeding or shoplifting, if they believe that person is in the country illegally. The 13-member Crime Commission, which is dominated by Republicans, was more guarded, recommending that state police limit their checks of immigration status to people suspected of committing violent, drug-related or gang-related crimes....
High court postpones decision on city gun law The U.S. Supreme Court yesterday postponed a decision on whether it will hear the District's appeal of a federal court ruling that overturned the city's gun ban. The nine-member court was expected to announce yesterday whether it would hear the appeal. No reason was given for the delay, and the next time the court could announce its decision is Nov. 26. "We would not begin to speculate on the inner workings of the court," said Melissa Merz, a spokeswoman for D.C. Attorney General Linda Singer. "Obviously, we're waiting for [the decision], but we believe it will come, and we'll be ready." Four justices must vote in the affirmative to hear the District's appeal of a March ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, which found that restricting residents from keeping guns in their homes is unconstitutional. The justices were scheduled to discuss two petitions related to the case at their conference Friday....
Airport screeners missed bomb parts Government investigators smuggled liquid explosives and detonators past airport security, exposing a dangerous hole in the nation's ability to keep these forbidden items off of airplanes, according to a report made public Wednesday. The investigators learned about the components to make an improvised explosive device and an improvised incendiary device on the Internet and purchased the parts at local stores, said the report by the Government Accountability Office. Investigators were able to purchase the components for the two devices for under $150, and they studied the published guidelines for screening to determine how to conceal the prohibited items as they went through checkpoint security. At the end of the testing, investigators concluded that terrorists could use publicly available information and a few cheaply available supplies to damage an airplane and threaten passenger safety. "It is possible to bring the components for several IEDs and one IID through TSA checkpoints and onto airline flights without being challenged by transportation security officers," said the GAO, Congress' investigative arm. The covert tests were conducted at Transportation Security Administration checkpoints at 19 airports in March, May and June of this year....
TSA: No Intent to Tip Off Screeners The head of the Transportation Security Administration denied Wednesday that top agency officials intended to tip off airport security screeners that they were being covertly tested last year. An April 28, 2006 e-mail sent by a TSA employee to airport security officials across the country described an undercover Transportation Department test of screening checkpoints. But agency Administrator Kip Hawley said the message was sent not as a tip-off, but out of concern that al-Qaida or other terrorists might be posing as transportation officials. The incident, now under investigation by the Department of Homeland Security's watchdog, was the topic of a heated congressional hearing on Wednesday. At issue is whether aviation security screeners have been told ahead of time that there would be covert testing at their airports. Doing so would defeat the point of the covert tests. TSA, which is part of the Homeland Security Department, conducts thousands of these tests each year in an effort to spot weaknesses in the screening system. Former Homeland Security Inspector General Clark Kent Ervin said the April incident is part of a pattern of tip-offs. Past investigations found cheating by screeners at Jackson-Evers International Airport in Mississippi and at San Francisco International Airport, the IGs report found....
Canadian firetruck responding to U.S. call held up at border A Canadian firetruck responding with lights and sirens to a weekend fire in Rouses Point, New York, was stopped at the U.S. border for about eight minutes, U.S. border officials said Tuesday. Fire officials battling the blaze called for help from fire departments in nearby Quebec, using a longstanding and often-used mutual aid agreement. But the first truck that arrived at the small Rouses Point border crossing was delayed as officials checked documentation of the firefighters and their truck, officials confirmed. Two other trucks that arrived at the crossing next were cleared in less then two minutes each, a time that one fire official said was still too long considering the situation. "It's embarrassing," said Chris Trombley, chief of the Champlain [New York] Volunteer Fire Department and deputy fire coordinator for Clinton County Emergency Services. "We're calling for help from another country and the first roadblock they hit is at our border." The Canadian firefighters "were asked for IDs," Trombley said. "I believe they even ran the license plate on the truck to make sure it was legal." In the past, firetrucks on emergency calls cleared border checkpoints in 30 seconds or less, Trombley said, although he said identification is sometimes checked upon their return....
GOP split on repeal of Real ID Congressional Republicans are scrambling to defuse the political time bomb they created in 2005 when they allowed states to issue driver's licenses to illegal aliens — but a key Republican and author of the Real ID Act says their new bill is unconstitutional. "Driver's licenses are issued by the states, not the federal government. I do not believe it is constitutional for the federal government to tell the states who they can issue driver's licenses to and who they can't issue driver's licenses to," said Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., the Wisconsin Republican who wrote the 2005 law and its provision allowing states the option of giving licenses to illegal aliens. Rep. Vito J. Fossella, New York Republican, yesterday introduced a bill to repeal part of Mr. Sensenbrenner's 2005 law and prevent states from issuing licenses to illegal aliens. He also threatened states' highway funds if they fail to comply with the law. Mr. Sensenbrenner also said he doubts the interstate commerce clause of the Constitution would give Congress the power to tell states who they can issue licenses to. At the time he wrote the act, Mr. Sensenbrenner's own state of Wisconsin was among those that allowed illegal aliens to get driver's licenses. The state has since changed its policy. Mr. Sensenbrenner also said changing Real ID would open the bill up to amendments on the House or Senate floor that could gut the 2005 law, could give the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) new grounds for a court challenge, and would stoke the fears of a national identification card....
Panel Wants Troopers on Immigration Enforcement The Virginia Crime Commission called on the General Assembly on Tuesday to ask Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D) to require state troopers to help federal authorities detain and deport illegal immigrants. The commission's recommendation, one of a series of actions it took Tuesday related to illegal immigration, will put pressure on Kaine and the newly elected Senate Democratic majority to take up an issue that split state lawmakers during the fall campaign and caused local governments such as Prince William County's to enact their own measures. According to a recent Washington Post poll, an overwhelming majority of Virginians want the state and local governments to do more about illegal immigration. Eight in 10 state residents said they would support a measure requiring local police to check the immigration status of people they suspect of a crime and think may be undocumented. Prince William County police officers soon will check the immigration status of anyone suspected of breaking the law, whether for speeding or shoplifting, if they believe that person is in the country illegally. The 13-member Crime Commission, which is dominated by Republicans, was more guarded, recommending that state police limit their checks of immigration status to people suspected of committing violent, drug-related or gang-related crimes....
High court postpones decision on city gun law The U.S. Supreme Court yesterday postponed a decision on whether it will hear the District's appeal of a federal court ruling that overturned the city's gun ban. The nine-member court was expected to announce yesterday whether it would hear the appeal. No reason was given for the delay, and the next time the court could announce its decision is Nov. 26. "We would not begin to speculate on the inner workings of the court," said Melissa Merz, a spokeswoman for D.C. Attorney General Linda Singer. "Obviously, we're waiting for [the decision], but we believe it will come, and we'll be ready." Four justices must vote in the affirmative to hear the District's appeal of a March ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, which found that restricting residents from keeping guns in their homes is unconstitutional. The justices were scheduled to discuss two petitions related to the case at their conference Friday....
Airport screeners missed bomb parts Government investigators smuggled liquid explosives and detonators past airport security, exposing a dangerous hole in the nation's ability to keep these forbidden items off of airplanes, according to a report made public Wednesday. The investigators learned about the components to make an improvised explosive device and an improvised incendiary device on the Internet and purchased the parts at local stores, said the report by the Government Accountability Office. Investigators were able to purchase the components for the two devices for under $150, and they studied the published guidelines for screening to determine how to conceal the prohibited items as they went through checkpoint security. At the end of the testing, investigators concluded that terrorists could use publicly available information and a few cheaply available supplies to damage an airplane and threaten passenger safety. "It is possible to bring the components for several IEDs and one IID through TSA checkpoints and onto airline flights without being challenged by transportation security officers," said the GAO, Congress' investigative arm. The covert tests were conducted at Transportation Security Administration checkpoints at 19 airports in March, May and June of this year....
TSA: No Intent to Tip Off Screeners The head of the Transportation Security Administration denied Wednesday that top agency officials intended to tip off airport security screeners that they were being covertly tested last year. An April 28, 2006 e-mail sent by a TSA employee to airport security officials across the country described an undercover Transportation Department test of screening checkpoints. But agency Administrator Kip Hawley said the message was sent not as a tip-off, but out of concern that al-Qaida or other terrorists might be posing as transportation officials. The incident, now under investigation by the Department of Homeland Security's watchdog, was the topic of a heated congressional hearing on Wednesday. At issue is whether aviation security screeners have been told ahead of time that there would be covert testing at their airports. Doing so would defeat the point of the covert tests. TSA, which is part of the Homeland Security Department, conducts thousands of these tests each year in an effort to spot weaknesses in the screening system. Former Homeland Security Inspector General Clark Kent Ervin said the April incident is part of a pattern of tip-offs. Past investigations found cheating by screeners at Jackson-Evers International Airport in Mississippi and at San Francisco International Airport, the IGs report found....
Canadian firetruck responding to U.S. call held up at border A Canadian firetruck responding with lights and sirens to a weekend fire in Rouses Point, New York, was stopped at the U.S. border for about eight minutes, U.S. border officials said Tuesday. Fire officials battling the blaze called for help from fire departments in nearby Quebec, using a longstanding and often-used mutual aid agreement. But the first truck that arrived at the small Rouses Point border crossing was delayed as officials checked documentation of the firefighters and their truck, officials confirmed. Two other trucks that arrived at the crossing next were cleared in less then two minutes each, a time that one fire official said was still too long considering the situation. "It's embarrassing," said Chris Trombley, chief of the Champlain [New York] Volunteer Fire Department and deputy fire coordinator for Clinton County Emergency Services. "We're calling for help from another country and the first roadblock they hit is at our border." The Canadian firefighters "were asked for IDs," Trombley said. "I believe they even ran the license plate on the truck to make sure it was legal." In the past, firetrucks on emergency calls cleared border checkpoints in 30 seconds or less, Trombley said, although he said identification is sometimes checked upon their return....
Land Rights Network
American Land Rights Association
PO Box 400 - Battle Ground, WA 98604
Phone: 360-687-3087 - Fax: 360-687-2973
E-mail: alra@pacifier.com
Web Address: http://www.landrights.org
Legislative Office: 507 Seward Square SE - Washington, DC 20003
Nationwide Rahall (D-WV) West Virginia Boycott. Call Now.
This may be the most important e-mail we have ever sent. Please read down to the Action Items and make your calls, send your faxes and e-mails.
Rep. Nick Rahall (D-WV) is the Chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee.
You'll see from the Wall Street Journal article below that Chairman Rahall and the Democrats on the Natural Resources Committee have declared war on rural America and the West.
They have hired advocates from the Wilderness Society and other giant green fundraising groups to help pass land grab legislation like the National Landscape Conservation System (HR 2016), (HR 986 - Eminent Domain), (Rim of the Valley, Mississippi River (HR 3998) and other bills similar to them. This seems to be a clear case of conflict of interest.
Especially notable are the very close links between Mr. Rahall and the Defenders of Wildlife, a green fundraising group that rode point in the national Big Green effort last year to defeat Chairman Richard Pombo.
Through their closely-linked "Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund," they funded and operated a full-time office devoted to throwing mud at one of Rural America's greatest champions, Richard Pombo.
Fueled by PAC contributions from urban elites, and working with other left wing groups and their media toadies, they created a new model that others are now seeking to emulate in the War on the West.... and on Rural America, generally.
The message: If you stand up for the people and the way of life that built America, we will attack you until you lose, and we will employ every dirty trick in the book. This is meant to intimidate Congress and it is working.
It is therefore no mistake that the relationship between the man who now has the Chairmanship of the Natural Resources Committee and former Chairman Richard Pombo, who tried to work closely with Rahall to reform the Endangered Species Act and other issues, brought down the wrath of the greens.
The apparently close working relationship worried the Defenders of Wildlife and other green groups as Pombo, tried to work with Rahall to bring sanity to our land use laws, stop our forests from burning uncontrollably and create economic opportunity for our rural communities and residents.
The greens sought to break this effort by destroying Pombo. In the process they became very close and supportive of Rahall. When a crime boss buys the election of a Big City Mayor, the Mayor usually pays back the debt. Rural Americans are now paying the debt. Rahall is now supporting the greens in their effort toward carrying out a cultural genocide in rural America and the West.
The greens want to buy you out, drive you out, and regulate you out of rural America and the West.
Here are just a few examples about the Natural Resources Committee and how Chairman Rahall and his staff are treating other Members of the Committee and other Members of Congress as well as Chairman Rahall's own constituents in West Virginia.
-----1. The Committee with Rahall as Chairman is deliberately giving very late notice about hearings so that potential witnesses who live a long way away must pay last minute high airfare if they can get a ticket at all. This prevents many good witnesses from testifying and deprives Congress of information needed to make informed decisions.
-----2. The Rahall led Natural Resources Committee kicked several Democrat Members of Congress off the Committee who appeared to care about rural America and the West. They want to win the votes they need to wipe out families and communities who depend on grazing, mining, forestry, recreation and other industries. They want to eliminate as many votes for Private Property Rights as possible. Read the Wall Street Journal article reprinted below.
-----3. You may be surprised that Rahall is supporting legislation that actually hurts many people in his district and the economy of West Virginia.
Worst of all, Nick Rahall seems to have lost sight of his rural roots in the Big City lights of Washington and the salons of Georgetown. That's not uncommon in Washington, but the degree to which he has done so is stunning.
In order to "make our nation more energy independent," he sponsored a bill this year whose only support came from National Green Fundraising groups, whose only position has been that if it has to be mined or drilled or piped in the US, it is bad.
In fact, they see affordable energy as a bad thing in general, and seem to only support forms of energy that cost more than any other kind of energy. This is from a man who represents constituents who like to drive trucks to or for their work. Representing coal miners while taking positions that will just lead to more foreign oil imports doesn't make sense.
And as for mining, Nick Rahall is enemy number 1 of mining in the US. No one in Congress has done more to stop our domestic mining industry from competing with foreign sources for the minerals that have made our nation great.
If you've bought any copper pipe lately, or have heard about someone whose air conditioner or plumbing was stolen out of their home for copper scrap, you'll understand how the demand from China and India is driving prices of minerals through the roof, offering new opportunities for good jobs in rural America.
The only thing standing between affordable supplies of American-made minerals is Nick Rahall's "Mining Reform Bill (HR 2262) that has now passed the House." Experts who have reviewed the bill say it would have a breathtakingly negative impact on the US mining industry, and lead to economic genocide through many western communities where mining is a proud part of the heritage and culture and where mining jobs are the best paying jobs with the best benefits in a county. Here, too, the National Green Fundraising Groups are leading the way, praising him for his work while all other voices are silent.
The truth is, Nick Rahall seems to forget that people have to work for a living before they can get to the weekend. He appears to think that the 1/3 of the US that is owned by the government ought to be reserved for only those uses approved by urban green environmental elite.
The only way to fight back is to make Mr. Rahall and his running buddies hurt at home. We all need to examine every product we buy to make sure it does not come from West Virginia.
As the Rahall West Virginia Boycott goes on, we'll be sending out lists of companies, economic development districts and more. And don't think this boycott will be over quickly. All of us must work as a team and recognize that this boycott could take several years.
As the Rahall West Virginia boycott continues, we'll send copies of this e-mail and others to every Chamber of Commerce and Economic Development District in West Virginia and to hundreds of thousands across the nation. Boycotts tend to start slowly and build steam. We've run or participated in a number of successful boycotts over the years so this is not a new concept. This boycott gives you a chance to make a difference and make the Resources Committee fairer.
-----You may remember ALRA is leading the boycott against the Minneapolis St Paul Airport to help Senator Larry Craig (R-ID) which still continues and will continue into the future. Senator Craig remains in the Senate. From our perspective that is a sure sign of success.
Just type Minneapolis St Paul Airport Boycott into Google for more information about the success of that boycott. Travel agents and others keep telling us that people are steering away from the Minneapolis St Paul Airport.
American Land Rights has over 600,000 e-mails, 900,000 fax numbers and over 2,000,000 names and addresses. Fortunately, many people forward our messages to their list so our e-mails have a significant reach. Well in the millions. We will continue to keep you up to date on the Rahall West Virginia Boycott.
Other groups need to get behind this effort and contact your members and everyone you know in West Virginia. Pass the word to others outside West Virginia not to buy West Virginia products or do business with West Virginia Companies until Chairman Rahall starts treating Rural America and the West in a fair manner. At the very least, he needs to treat the Natural Resources Committee fairly.
Urge companies planning on meetings or development in West Virginia to cancel those plans. We may have to include a few companies specifically in the boycott to make sure they understand the urgency of a fair Congressional process.
Chairman Rahall and his friends have basically sold out to the Wilderness Society, Sierra Club, Natural Resources Defense Council and a host of other giant green fundraising groups.
They don't care about rural America or the West.
- - - - - - - - - - -
Here are the names of some of Chairman Nick Rahall's Staff after he took over as Chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee. Look at their former employers. All these were available on Google.
Lisa James .Defenders of Wildlife
Laurel Angell..Defenders of Wildlife
Leslie Duncan.reporter with Green Sheets
Amelia Jenkins.Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics, the Wild Utah Forest Campaign, Western Ancient Forest Campaign,
Wendy Van Asselt.Wilderness Society
Meghan Conklin, Greenpeace and Ozone Action
The question each reader must ask is "can I get fair and balanced help from these former environmental group employees?"
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
This is an urgent call to action. In later e-mails we will send a list of Chambers of Commerce in West Virginia and other helpful information.
Any suggestions you have for making this boycott more successful will be welcome.
If you are as outraged as we are about what Rep. Nick Rahall and his allies have done to the Natural Resources Committee, join with other groups who are participating in the Rahall West Virginia Boycott.
American Land Rights Association
PO Box 400 - Battle Ground, WA 98604
Phone: 360-687-3087 - Fax: 360-687-2973
E-mail: alra@pacifier.com
Web Address: http://www.landrights.org
Legislative Office: 507 Seward Square SE - Washington, DC 20003
Nationwide Rahall (D-WV) West Virginia Boycott. Call Now.
This may be the most important e-mail we have ever sent. Please read down to the Action Items and make your calls, send your faxes and e-mails.
Rep. Nick Rahall (D-WV) is the Chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee.
You'll see from the Wall Street Journal article below that Chairman Rahall and the Democrats on the Natural Resources Committee have declared war on rural America and the West.
They have hired advocates from the Wilderness Society and other giant green fundraising groups to help pass land grab legislation like the National Landscape Conservation System (HR 2016), (HR 986 - Eminent Domain), (Rim of the Valley, Mississippi River (HR 3998) and other bills similar to them. This seems to be a clear case of conflict of interest.
Especially notable are the very close links between Mr. Rahall and the Defenders of Wildlife, a green fundraising group that rode point in the national Big Green effort last year to defeat Chairman Richard Pombo.
Through their closely-linked "Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund," they funded and operated a full-time office devoted to throwing mud at one of Rural America's greatest champions, Richard Pombo.
Fueled by PAC contributions from urban elites, and working with other left wing groups and their media toadies, they created a new model that others are now seeking to emulate in the War on the West.... and on Rural America, generally.
The message: If you stand up for the people and the way of life that built America, we will attack you until you lose, and we will employ every dirty trick in the book. This is meant to intimidate Congress and it is working.
It is therefore no mistake that the relationship between the man who now has the Chairmanship of the Natural Resources Committee and former Chairman Richard Pombo, who tried to work closely with Rahall to reform the Endangered Species Act and other issues, brought down the wrath of the greens.
The apparently close working relationship worried the Defenders of Wildlife and other green groups as Pombo, tried to work with Rahall to bring sanity to our land use laws, stop our forests from burning uncontrollably and create economic opportunity for our rural communities and residents.
The greens sought to break this effort by destroying Pombo. In the process they became very close and supportive of Rahall. When a crime boss buys the election of a Big City Mayor, the Mayor usually pays back the debt. Rural Americans are now paying the debt. Rahall is now supporting the greens in their effort toward carrying out a cultural genocide in rural America and the West.
The greens want to buy you out, drive you out, and regulate you out of rural America and the West.
Here are just a few examples about the Natural Resources Committee and how Chairman Rahall and his staff are treating other Members of the Committee and other Members of Congress as well as Chairman Rahall's own constituents in West Virginia.
-----1. The Committee with Rahall as Chairman is deliberately giving very late notice about hearings so that potential witnesses who live a long way away must pay last minute high airfare if they can get a ticket at all. This prevents many good witnesses from testifying and deprives Congress of information needed to make informed decisions.
-----2. The Rahall led Natural Resources Committee kicked several Democrat Members of Congress off the Committee who appeared to care about rural America and the West. They want to win the votes they need to wipe out families and communities who depend on grazing, mining, forestry, recreation and other industries. They want to eliminate as many votes for Private Property Rights as possible. Read the Wall Street Journal article reprinted below.
-----3. You may be surprised that Rahall is supporting legislation that actually hurts many people in his district and the economy of West Virginia.
Worst of all, Nick Rahall seems to have lost sight of his rural roots in the Big City lights of Washington and the salons of Georgetown. That's not uncommon in Washington, but the degree to which he has done so is stunning.
In order to "make our nation more energy independent," he sponsored a bill this year whose only support came from National Green Fundraising groups, whose only position has been that if it has to be mined or drilled or piped in the US, it is bad.
In fact, they see affordable energy as a bad thing in general, and seem to only support forms of energy that cost more than any other kind of energy. This is from a man who represents constituents who like to drive trucks to or for their work. Representing coal miners while taking positions that will just lead to more foreign oil imports doesn't make sense.
And as for mining, Nick Rahall is enemy number 1 of mining in the US. No one in Congress has done more to stop our domestic mining industry from competing with foreign sources for the minerals that have made our nation great.
If you've bought any copper pipe lately, or have heard about someone whose air conditioner or plumbing was stolen out of their home for copper scrap, you'll understand how the demand from China and India is driving prices of minerals through the roof, offering new opportunities for good jobs in rural America.
The only thing standing between affordable supplies of American-made minerals is Nick Rahall's "Mining Reform Bill (HR 2262) that has now passed the House." Experts who have reviewed the bill say it would have a breathtakingly negative impact on the US mining industry, and lead to economic genocide through many western communities where mining is a proud part of the heritage and culture and where mining jobs are the best paying jobs with the best benefits in a county. Here, too, the National Green Fundraising Groups are leading the way, praising him for his work while all other voices are silent.
The truth is, Nick Rahall seems to forget that people have to work for a living before they can get to the weekend. He appears to think that the 1/3 of the US that is owned by the government ought to be reserved for only those uses approved by urban green environmental elite.
The only way to fight back is to make Mr. Rahall and his running buddies hurt at home. We all need to examine every product we buy to make sure it does not come from West Virginia.
As the Rahall West Virginia Boycott goes on, we'll be sending out lists of companies, economic development districts and more. And don't think this boycott will be over quickly. All of us must work as a team and recognize that this boycott could take several years.
As the Rahall West Virginia boycott continues, we'll send copies of this e-mail and others to every Chamber of Commerce and Economic Development District in West Virginia and to hundreds of thousands across the nation. Boycotts tend to start slowly and build steam. We've run or participated in a number of successful boycotts over the years so this is not a new concept. This boycott gives you a chance to make a difference and make the Resources Committee fairer.
-----You may remember ALRA is leading the boycott against the Minneapolis St Paul Airport to help Senator Larry Craig (R-ID) which still continues and will continue into the future. Senator Craig remains in the Senate. From our perspective that is a sure sign of success.
Just type Minneapolis St Paul Airport Boycott into Google for more information about the success of that boycott. Travel agents and others keep telling us that people are steering away from the Minneapolis St Paul Airport.
American Land Rights has over 600,000 e-mails, 900,000 fax numbers and over 2,000,000 names and addresses. Fortunately, many people forward our messages to their list so our e-mails have a significant reach. Well in the millions. We will continue to keep you up to date on the Rahall West Virginia Boycott.
Other groups need to get behind this effort and contact your members and everyone you know in West Virginia. Pass the word to others outside West Virginia not to buy West Virginia products or do business with West Virginia Companies until Chairman Rahall starts treating Rural America and the West in a fair manner. At the very least, he needs to treat the Natural Resources Committee fairly.
Urge companies planning on meetings or development in West Virginia to cancel those plans. We may have to include a few companies specifically in the boycott to make sure they understand the urgency of a fair Congressional process.
Chairman Rahall and his friends have basically sold out to the Wilderness Society, Sierra Club, Natural Resources Defense Council and a host of other giant green fundraising groups.
They don't care about rural America or the West.
- - - - - - - - - - -
Here are the names of some of Chairman Nick Rahall's Staff after he took over as Chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee. Look at their former employers. All these were available on Google.
Lisa James .Defenders of Wildlife
Laurel Angell..Defenders of Wildlife
Leslie Duncan.reporter with Green Sheets
Amelia Jenkins.Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics, the Wild Utah Forest Campaign, Western Ancient Forest Campaign,
Wendy Van Asselt.Wilderness Society
Meghan Conklin, Greenpeace and Ozone Action
The question each reader must ask is "can I get fair and balanced help from these former environmental group employees?"
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
This is an urgent call to action. In later e-mails we will send a list of Chambers of Commerce in West Virginia and other helpful information.
Any suggestions you have for making this boycott more successful will be welcome.
If you are as outraged as we are about what Rep. Nick Rahall and his allies have done to the Natural Resources Committee, join with other groups who are participating in the Rahall West Virginia Boycott.
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
NEWS ROUNDUP
In Farm Belt, Ethanol Plants Hit Resistance For years, the arrival of an ethanol distillery in agricultural America was greeted mainly with delight, a ticket to the future in places plagued by economic uncertainty. But in the nation’s middle, the engine of ethanol country, the glow is dimming. In Kansas, Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota and even Iowa, the nation’s largest corn and ethanol producer, this next-generation fuel finds itself facing the oldest of hurdles: opposition from residents who love the idea of an ethanol distillery so long as it is someplace else. “What they are trying to sell we aren’t buying,” said Deb Moore, who owns a sandwich shop and soda fountain here. The disputes have left some proposed plants waiting, mired in lawsuits; a few have given up. “There is a campaign of sorts that is seeking to slow and preferably to stop the growth of the ethanol industry,” said Matt Hartwig, a spokesman for the Renewable Fuels Association, a trade group based in Washington....
W. Slope rep calls for fair Roan study Colorado's ranking Republican on the legislature's Joint Budget Committee has joined the debate on drilling for natural gas on the Roan Plateau, warning state officials not to "play politics" with a pending study. State Rep. Al White, whose western Colorado district includes the targeted drilling area, said the state could lose billions of dollars in needed revenue if a study by the Colorado Department of Natural Resources discourages development of the area. White said he is undecided on whether the scenic plateau should be opened to large-scale energy development. But he's concerned, he said, that the DNR study, ordered by Gov. Bill Ritter, may underestimate the value of the Roan's gas and the economic benefit to Colorado. A politically motivated underestimate of the resource would "increase the perceived political risk of execution by the private sector and will actually end up reducing Colorado's future receipts," White said in a Nov. 1 letter to Harris Sherman, executive director of the DNR....
National park awaits compromise A protracted disagreement between the Bush administration and a Fort Collins company is stalling legislation that would protect much of Rocky Mountain National Park from future development, a House panel learned Tuesday. A bill designating 250,000 park acres as wilderness also would insulate the manager of the Grand River Ditch from many lawsuits, a BLM official said. "This would set a dangerous precedent for all national parks and other public lands," testified Elena Daly, director of the Natural Landscape Conservation System at the Bureau of Land Management. The testimony came during a House subcommittee hearing examining wilderness legislation from Reps. Mark Udall, an Eldorado Springs Democrat, and Marilyn Musgrave, a Fort Morgan Republican. Their bill matches one from Sens. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., and Ken Salazar, D-Colo. The ditch, a 17-mile water diversion project built before the park was created, supplies water to 40,000 acres of farmland in Weld and Larimer counties. Water Supply & Storage Co. of Fort Collins operates the diversion. Currently, Water Supply & Storage Co. has an "absolute" liability for damage, which means the company must pay even for damages caused by a third party or an "act of God."....
Protection sought for Joshua Tree wilderness About 200,000 acres of public land in and around the Coachella Valley would be designated as wilderness areas under a bill the House is considering. Such a designation provides the highest level of protection under federal law. "These areas are an impressive example of our continually changing landscape, as the San Andreas fault quite literally cuts through the region, creating unique peaks and views of the nearby Salton Sea," Rep. Mary Bono said during a hearing Tuesday in front of the House Natural Resources Committee. Bono, R-Palm Springs, the main House sponsor, is working with Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., on the legislation. The legislation would expand the Santa Rosa and San Jacinto Mountains National Monument and designate nearly 40,000 acres in Joshua Tree National Park for conservation. Another 40,000 acres in the park would be designated as potential wilderness until the National Park Service settles property claims....
Ranching as a Means of Conservation Ranch families working viable ranches that sustain ecosystem services and contribute to the social fabric and local economies are critical to a West that works, says Dr. Richard Knight. This perspective is provided in more depth in a new article from the latest issue of Rangelands. Ranching has been found to support biodiversity, because it encompasses large amounts of land with low human densities and it alters native vegetation in modest ways. Private lands, Knight says, are more important than public lands in maintenance of the region’s biodiversity. When ranches support viable populations of species that are sensitive to harmful effects of sprawl, they serve much the same role as protected areas because they act as “sources,” or areas where birth rates of species exceed death rates, of sensitive plant and animal species. Outdoor recreation is the second leading cause for the decline of federally threatened and endangered species on public lands, and residential development is the second. Exurban development and outdoor recreation are year-round activities of elevated human densities that both perforate and internally dissect land with roads, trails, house sites, and recreational facilities....
Navy Buoyed by Appeals Court Ruling Navy officials said they are optimistic that a three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals today ordered a lower court to rewrite restrictions on the Navy’s use of sonar in certain Southern California exercises. That ruling was part of a lawsuit challenging the Navy’s ability to train sailors before they deploy to potential hotspots. The Navy had asked the appeals court to overturn a preliminary injunction that was granted by a U.S. district judge on Aug. 6, 2007, that bars the Navy from using active sonar in certain multi-ship exercises off Southern California through January 2009. That injunction was granted in a lawsuit filed by the Natural Resources Defense Council and other environmental and animal protection groups. In over 40 years of sonar training in the Southern California Operating Area, no stranding or injury of a marine mammal has been associated with the Navy’s use of sonar. “We are encouraged that the appeals court found the original injunction was too broad and ordered the district court to tailor mitigation conditions under which the Navy may conduct its training,” said Navy spokesman Capt. Scott Gureck....
Don't let Canadian cows back in, foes tell USDA Nearly four years after a Canadian-born cow turned up in the Yakima Valley with mad-cow disease, the federal government plans to loosen restrictions on imports of beef across the Canadian border. The Department of Agriculture maintains that the risk of importing another infected cow into the United States is extremely small. But the plan is continuing to meet loud protest from Washington state ranchers and national consumer advocates. Both are suing to block the move and have asked a judge to halt the Nov. 19 reopening, saying the government still has not kept its promises to ensure that the disease is kept out of the U.S. meat supply. The Department of Agriculture (USDA) says that beginning Monday, it will once again allow live cattle 30 months of age and older — considered to have the highest risk of infection with mad cow disease — to be imported from Canada. It would be the first time since December 2003, when the slaughtered cow from Mabton, Yakima County, was found to have the brain-wasting disease....
Bluetongue claims 300 Wyoming sheep Sheep producers in the Big Horn Basin and surrounding areas are urged to closely monitor their flocks for bluetongue, an infectious disease due to a potentially fatal virus. An outbreak of bluetongue this fall has killed more than 300 sheep in the Worland, Otto, Basin and Greybull areas of the Big Horn Basin and led to sickness in hundreds of other sheep. The virus also killed pronghorn antelope, white-tailed deer and mule deer in the Big Horn Basin as well as antelope and mule deer in the Cody, Wyo., Sinclair, Wyo., and Douglas, Wyo., areas. The disease is also present in southern Montana. Sheep owners are urged to contact their veterinarian if they notice symptoms of bluetongue in their flocks, says Don Montgomery, director of the Wyoming State Veterinary Laboratory (WSVL), which is managed by the University of Wyoming’s College of Agriculture....
SPJ Signs Letter Opposing Senate Agriculture Committee's Attempt to Keep Livestock Information Secret The Society of Professional Journalists and 28 journalism-advocacy organizations signed onto a Nov. 7 letter to members of the U.S. Senate that opposes non-disclosure provisions in the 2007 Farm Bill approved by the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee on Oct. 25. The language was drafted by Agriculture Committee Chairman Tom Harkin, D-Iowa. The bill in question stems from the outbreak of mad cow disease that tainted the U.S. beef supply in 2003-04. Federal officials tracked shipments of suspected meat to individual supermarkets, but failed to tell citizens which supermarkets received contaminated meat. Consequently, the public was forced to take a risk with their health when eating red meat. As a result, the Agriculture Department and the Food and Drug Administration developed a tracking system to follow the lifecycle of a food animal. Despite the government's efforts to prevent further outbreaks, farmers and food industry groups contested, amid concerns the system could hurt business. "It's essential that citizens be made aware of dangers in their own communities, including livestock that can cause serious illness and death," said SPJ Freedom of Information Committee Chairman David Cuillier....
In Farm Belt, Ethanol Plants Hit Resistance For years, the arrival of an ethanol distillery in agricultural America was greeted mainly with delight, a ticket to the future in places plagued by economic uncertainty. But in the nation’s middle, the engine of ethanol country, the glow is dimming. In Kansas, Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota and even Iowa, the nation’s largest corn and ethanol producer, this next-generation fuel finds itself facing the oldest of hurdles: opposition from residents who love the idea of an ethanol distillery so long as it is someplace else. “What they are trying to sell we aren’t buying,” said Deb Moore, who owns a sandwich shop and soda fountain here. The disputes have left some proposed plants waiting, mired in lawsuits; a few have given up. “There is a campaign of sorts that is seeking to slow and preferably to stop the growth of the ethanol industry,” said Matt Hartwig, a spokesman for the Renewable Fuels Association, a trade group based in Washington....
W. Slope rep calls for fair Roan study Colorado's ranking Republican on the legislature's Joint Budget Committee has joined the debate on drilling for natural gas on the Roan Plateau, warning state officials not to "play politics" with a pending study. State Rep. Al White, whose western Colorado district includes the targeted drilling area, said the state could lose billions of dollars in needed revenue if a study by the Colorado Department of Natural Resources discourages development of the area. White said he is undecided on whether the scenic plateau should be opened to large-scale energy development. But he's concerned, he said, that the DNR study, ordered by Gov. Bill Ritter, may underestimate the value of the Roan's gas and the economic benefit to Colorado. A politically motivated underestimate of the resource would "increase the perceived political risk of execution by the private sector and will actually end up reducing Colorado's future receipts," White said in a Nov. 1 letter to Harris Sherman, executive director of the DNR....
National park awaits compromise A protracted disagreement between the Bush administration and a Fort Collins company is stalling legislation that would protect much of Rocky Mountain National Park from future development, a House panel learned Tuesday. A bill designating 250,000 park acres as wilderness also would insulate the manager of the Grand River Ditch from many lawsuits, a BLM official said. "This would set a dangerous precedent for all national parks and other public lands," testified Elena Daly, director of the Natural Landscape Conservation System at the Bureau of Land Management. The testimony came during a House subcommittee hearing examining wilderness legislation from Reps. Mark Udall, an Eldorado Springs Democrat, and Marilyn Musgrave, a Fort Morgan Republican. Their bill matches one from Sens. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., and Ken Salazar, D-Colo. The ditch, a 17-mile water diversion project built before the park was created, supplies water to 40,000 acres of farmland in Weld and Larimer counties. Water Supply & Storage Co. of Fort Collins operates the diversion. Currently, Water Supply & Storage Co. has an "absolute" liability for damage, which means the company must pay even for damages caused by a third party or an "act of God."....
Protection sought for Joshua Tree wilderness About 200,000 acres of public land in and around the Coachella Valley would be designated as wilderness areas under a bill the House is considering. Such a designation provides the highest level of protection under federal law. "These areas are an impressive example of our continually changing landscape, as the San Andreas fault quite literally cuts through the region, creating unique peaks and views of the nearby Salton Sea," Rep. Mary Bono said during a hearing Tuesday in front of the House Natural Resources Committee. Bono, R-Palm Springs, the main House sponsor, is working with Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., on the legislation. The legislation would expand the Santa Rosa and San Jacinto Mountains National Monument and designate nearly 40,000 acres in Joshua Tree National Park for conservation. Another 40,000 acres in the park would be designated as potential wilderness until the National Park Service settles property claims....
Ranching as a Means of Conservation Ranch families working viable ranches that sustain ecosystem services and contribute to the social fabric and local economies are critical to a West that works, says Dr. Richard Knight. This perspective is provided in more depth in a new article from the latest issue of Rangelands. Ranching has been found to support biodiversity, because it encompasses large amounts of land with low human densities and it alters native vegetation in modest ways. Private lands, Knight says, are more important than public lands in maintenance of the region’s biodiversity. When ranches support viable populations of species that are sensitive to harmful effects of sprawl, they serve much the same role as protected areas because they act as “sources,” or areas where birth rates of species exceed death rates, of sensitive plant and animal species. Outdoor recreation is the second leading cause for the decline of federally threatened and endangered species on public lands, and residential development is the second. Exurban development and outdoor recreation are year-round activities of elevated human densities that both perforate and internally dissect land with roads, trails, house sites, and recreational facilities....
Navy Buoyed by Appeals Court Ruling Navy officials said they are optimistic that a three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals today ordered a lower court to rewrite restrictions on the Navy’s use of sonar in certain Southern California exercises. That ruling was part of a lawsuit challenging the Navy’s ability to train sailors before they deploy to potential hotspots. The Navy had asked the appeals court to overturn a preliminary injunction that was granted by a U.S. district judge on Aug. 6, 2007, that bars the Navy from using active sonar in certain multi-ship exercises off Southern California through January 2009. That injunction was granted in a lawsuit filed by the Natural Resources Defense Council and other environmental and animal protection groups. In over 40 years of sonar training in the Southern California Operating Area, no stranding or injury of a marine mammal has been associated with the Navy’s use of sonar. “We are encouraged that the appeals court found the original injunction was too broad and ordered the district court to tailor mitigation conditions under which the Navy may conduct its training,” said Navy spokesman Capt. Scott Gureck....
Don't let Canadian cows back in, foes tell USDA Nearly four years after a Canadian-born cow turned up in the Yakima Valley with mad-cow disease, the federal government plans to loosen restrictions on imports of beef across the Canadian border. The Department of Agriculture maintains that the risk of importing another infected cow into the United States is extremely small. But the plan is continuing to meet loud protest from Washington state ranchers and national consumer advocates. Both are suing to block the move and have asked a judge to halt the Nov. 19 reopening, saying the government still has not kept its promises to ensure that the disease is kept out of the U.S. meat supply. The Department of Agriculture (USDA) says that beginning Monday, it will once again allow live cattle 30 months of age and older — considered to have the highest risk of infection with mad cow disease — to be imported from Canada. It would be the first time since December 2003, when the slaughtered cow from Mabton, Yakima County, was found to have the brain-wasting disease....
Bluetongue claims 300 Wyoming sheep Sheep producers in the Big Horn Basin and surrounding areas are urged to closely monitor their flocks for bluetongue, an infectious disease due to a potentially fatal virus. An outbreak of bluetongue this fall has killed more than 300 sheep in the Worland, Otto, Basin and Greybull areas of the Big Horn Basin and led to sickness in hundreds of other sheep. The virus also killed pronghorn antelope, white-tailed deer and mule deer in the Big Horn Basin as well as antelope and mule deer in the Cody, Wyo., Sinclair, Wyo., and Douglas, Wyo., areas. The disease is also present in southern Montana. Sheep owners are urged to contact their veterinarian if they notice symptoms of bluetongue in their flocks, says Don Montgomery, director of the Wyoming State Veterinary Laboratory (WSVL), which is managed by the University of Wyoming’s College of Agriculture....
SPJ Signs Letter Opposing Senate Agriculture Committee's Attempt to Keep Livestock Information Secret The Society of Professional Journalists and 28 journalism-advocacy organizations signed onto a Nov. 7 letter to members of the U.S. Senate that opposes non-disclosure provisions in the 2007 Farm Bill approved by the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee on Oct. 25. The language was drafted by Agriculture Committee Chairman Tom Harkin, D-Iowa. The bill in question stems from the outbreak of mad cow disease that tainted the U.S. beef supply in 2003-04. Federal officials tracked shipments of suspected meat to individual supermarkets, but failed to tell citizens which supermarkets received contaminated meat. Consequently, the public was forced to take a risk with their health when eating red meat. As a result, the Agriculture Department and the Food and Drug Administration developed a tracking system to follow the lifecycle of a food animal. Despite the government's efforts to prevent further outbreaks, farmers and food industry groups contested, amid concerns the system could hurt business. "It's essential that citizens be made aware of dangers in their own communities, including livestock that can cause serious illness and death," said SPJ Freedom of Information Committee Chairman David Cuillier....
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
FLE
Texas mayors want wider Rio Grande Texan mayors opposed to a planned border fence with Mexico want to widen and deepen the Rio Grande river instead, and say it will be more effective in keeping out illegal immigrants. The U.S. government aims to build 700 miles of new fencing along the frontier with Mexico to boost security and try to stem the tide of immigration from the south. But the Texas stretch of the fence, which would be built on the Rio Grande's desert flood plain, would cut off some ranchers' access to the river, the main source of fresh water in the arid region. Mayors say it would also damage trade and centuries-old ties with Mexico. Six mayors in mainly Hispanic south Texas on the Mexico border call the fence a wall of shame and have vowed to take the federal government to court to block its construction. They say a wider, deeper waterway along the lower Rio Grande would create a more formidable barrier than a fence that immigrants can cut, climb over and tunnel under....
NY governor dropping immigrant license plan New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer is dropping a controversial plan to issue driver's licenses to illegal immigrants because of overwhelming opposition to the policy, The New York Times reported on Tuesday. Spitzer's plan sparked a national debate over the extension of certain privileges to illegal immigrants and haunted Democratic presidential front-runner New York Sen. Hillary Clinton on the campaign trail. Clinton's equivocating answer to a question in a debate about whether she supported Spitzer's plan prompted lingering criticism from her closest Democratic rivals, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama and former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards. Republicans also were using it as a new line of attack against their old foe. Spitzer planned to formally announce on Wednesday his decision to abandon the license proposal, The New York Times said....
Ex-FBI Employee's Case Raises New Security Concerns A Lebanese national who fraudulently gained U.S. citizenship through a sham marriage managed to obtain sensitive jobs at both the FBI and CIA, and at one point used her security clearance to access restricted files about the terrorist group Hezbollah, according to court documents filed yesterday. U.S. officials say there is no evidence that Nada Nadim Prouty, 37, passed secrets to Hezbollah or to other groups the United States considers terrorist. But Prouty's ability to conceal her past from two of the nation's top anti-terrorism agencies raised new concerns about their vulnerability to infiltration. "It is hard to imagine a greater threat than the situation where a foreign national uses fraud to attain citizenship and then, based on that fraud, insinuates herself into a sensitive position in the U.S. government," said U.S. Attorney Stephen J. Murphy in a statement announcing a plea agreement with Prouty. The case marks yet another serious security breach at the FBI, which has come under repeated criticism for lackluster security procedures after the 2001 arrest of Robert P. Hanssen, a longtime Soviet and Russian spy. In an October report, the Justice Department's inspector general concluded that the FBI is still vulnerable to espionage because it has not implemented several key security measures after that case, including improvements to its background check system....
Crime Data Underscore Limits Of D.C. Gun Ban's Effectiveness Three decades ago, at the dawn of municipal self-government in the District, the city's first elected mayor and council enacted one of the country's toughest gun-control measures, a ban on handgun ownership that opponents have long said violates the Second Amendment. All these years later, with the constitutionality of the ban now probably headed for a U.S. Supreme Court review, a much-debated practical question remains unsettled: Has a law aimed at reducing the number of handguns in the District made city streets safer? Opponents of the ban, who won a March ruling in which the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit declared the law unconstitutional, contend in a legal filing that the District's "31-year experiment with gun prohibition" has been a "complete failure." Meanwhile, D.C. officials, who have asked the Supreme Court to reverse the March decision, say the ban is a legally permissible public-safety measure that has saved lives. But you can measure the violence that did occur, using the bellwether offense of homicide to chart the ebb and flow of crime in the District since the ban was enacted. And the violence here over those years was worse than in most other big cities, many of them in states with far less restrictive gun laws....
Rogue Prosecutors the Rule or the Exception? Last week by a margin of 53-40 A divided Senate narrowly confirmed former federal judge Michael B. Mukasey as the 81st attorney general of the United States. Mukasey, had outraged many lawmakers and human rights groups by repeatedly refusing to classify waterboarding, a simulated-drowning technique, as torture. What was not focused on in the hearings or the senate floor debate was the Senators failure to find out what Judge Mukasey intends to do about rogue prosecutors within the Department of Justice he may lead, and how the damage they cause affects public confidence in the department and its mission. While Judge Mukasey’s answer on water boarding may be important to the future of the country and the War on Terror, of at least equal importance is the whether Judge Mukasey would commit to taking strong disciplinary action against overzealous prosecutors by using all the tools at his disposal, including the Office of Professional Responsibility. In USA v. Stein, Assistant United States Attorney Stanley Okula of the Southern District of New York (SDNY) was one of the lead prosecutors in a case against executives from accounting giant KPMG. In three cases against members of the Tollman family, he prosecuted cases against a wealthy family living in Britain and Canada. In the KPMG case, the government prosecution was found to have violated the defendant’s Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights. The judge wrote that the prosecutors “used their life and death power over KPMG to coerce its personnel to bend to the government’s wishes” and described the prosecutors actions as “outrageous and shocking”. In the Tollman cases—Okula has gone after the family in Canada, Britain and the United States—judges have been similarly critical, including a British judge describing Okula’s actions as “reprehensible” and a Canadian judge saying “misconduct of this sort cannot ever be tolerated”. Despite this extraordinarily harsh criticism by three courts in three different countries, the prosecutor endures, ready to once again run roughshod over Constitutional rights in pursuit of his unique and perverted notions of justice....
Bush Approves Clearances for N.S.A. Inquiry Just four days after Michael B. Mukasey was sworn in as attorney general, Justice Department officials said Tuesday that President Bush had reversed course and approved long-denied security clearances for the Justice Department’s ethics office to investigate the National Security Agency’s warrantless surveillance program. The department’s inspector general has been investigating the department’s involvement with the N.S.A. program for about a year, but the move suggested both that Mr. Mukasey wanted to remedy what many in Congress saw as an improper decision by the president to block the clearances and that the White House chose to back him. Tony Fratto, a White House spokesman, and Brian Roehrkasse, a Justice Department spokesman, declined to say whether Mr. Mukasey had pressed Mr. Bush on the clearances for the department’s Office of Professional Responsibility. Mr. Mukasey himself had indicated in a written answer to senators on Oct. 30, before his confirmation, that the clearance issue had been resolved. But Democrats said they thought Mr. Mukasey deserved credit. In response to appeals from Mr. Hinchey and other members of Congress, the head of the Office of Professional Responsibility, H. Marshall Jarrett, said in February 2006 that he had opened an investigation of the conduct of department lawyers in approving and overseeing the N.S.A. program. But three months later he said the inquiry had been dropped because his staff had been denied the necessary high-level clearances. The Justice Department later said that Alberto R. Gonzales, the attorney general at the time, had recommended that the clearances be granted but that Mr. Bush declined to approve them. Mr. Roehrkasse said the Office of Professional Responsibility’s investigation “will focus on whether the D.O.J. attorneys who were involved complied with their ethical obligations of providing competent legal advice to their client and of adhering to their duty of candor to the court.”....
Texas mayors want wider Rio Grande Texan mayors opposed to a planned border fence with Mexico want to widen and deepen the Rio Grande river instead, and say it will be more effective in keeping out illegal immigrants. The U.S. government aims to build 700 miles of new fencing along the frontier with Mexico to boost security and try to stem the tide of immigration from the south. But the Texas stretch of the fence, which would be built on the Rio Grande's desert flood plain, would cut off some ranchers' access to the river, the main source of fresh water in the arid region. Mayors say it would also damage trade and centuries-old ties with Mexico. Six mayors in mainly Hispanic south Texas on the Mexico border call the fence a wall of shame and have vowed to take the federal government to court to block its construction. They say a wider, deeper waterway along the lower Rio Grande would create a more formidable barrier than a fence that immigrants can cut, climb over and tunnel under....
NY governor dropping immigrant license plan New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer is dropping a controversial plan to issue driver's licenses to illegal immigrants because of overwhelming opposition to the policy, The New York Times reported on Tuesday. Spitzer's plan sparked a national debate over the extension of certain privileges to illegal immigrants and haunted Democratic presidential front-runner New York Sen. Hillary Clinton on the campaign trail. Clinton's equivocating answer to a question in a debate about whether she supported Spitzer's plan prompted lingering criticism from her closest Democratic rivals, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama and former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards. Republicans also were using it as a new line of attack against their old foe. Spitzer planned to formally announce on Wednesday his decision to abandon the license proposal, The New York Times said....
Ex-FBI Employee's Case Raises New Security Concerns A Lebanese national who fraudulently gained U.S. citizenship through a sham marriage managed to obtain sensitive jobs at both the FBI and CIA, and at one point used her security clearance to access restricted files about the terrorist group Hezbollah, according to court documents filed yesterday. U.S. officials say there is no evidence that Nada Nadim Prouty, 37, passed secrets to Hezbollah or to other groups the United States considers terrorist. But Prouty's ability to conceal her past from two of the nation's top anti-terrorism agencies raised new concerns about their vulnerability to infiltration. "It is hard to imagine a greater threat than the situation where a foreign national uses fraud to attain citizenship and then, based on that fraud, insinuates herself into a sensitive position in the U.S. government," said U.S. Attorney Stephen J. Murphy in a statement announcing a plea agreement with Prouty. The case marks yet another serious security breach at the FBI, which has come under repeated criticism for lackluster security procedures after the 2001 arrest of Robert P. Hanssen, a longtime Soviet and Russian spy. In an October report, the Justice Department's inspector general concluded that the FBI is still vulnerable to espionage because it has not implemented several key security measures after that case, including improvements to its background check system....
Crime Data Underscore Limits Of D.C. Gun Ban's Effectiveness Three decades ago, at the dawn of municipal self-government in the District, the city's first elected mayor and council enacted one of the country's toughest gun-control measures, a ban on handgun ownership that opponents have long said violates the Second Amendment. All these years later, with the constitutionality of the ban now probably headed for a U.S. Supreme Court review, a much-debated practical question remains unsettled: Has a law aimed at reducing the number of handguns in the District made city streets safer? Opponents of the ban, who won a March ruling in which the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit declared the law unconstitutional, contend in a legal filing that the District's "31-year experiment with gun prohibition" has been a "complete failure." Meanwhile, D.C. officials, who have asked the Supreme Court to reverse the March decision, say the ban is a legally permissible public-safety measure that has saved lives. But you can measure the violence that did occur, using the bellwether offense of homicide to chart the ebb and flow of crime in the District since the ban was enacted. And the violence here over those years was worse than in most other big cities, many of them in states with far less restrictive gun laws....
Rogue Prosecutors the Rule or the Exception? Last week by a margin of 53-40 A divided Senate narrowly confirmed former federal judge Michael B. Mukasey as the 81st attorney general of the United States. Mukasey, had outraged many lawmakers and human rights groups by repeatedly refusing to classify waterboarding, a simulated-drowning technique, as torture. What was not focused on in the hearings or the senate floor debate was the Senators failure to find out what Judge Mukasey intends to do about rogue prosecutors within the Department of Justice he may lead, and how the damage they cause affects public confidence in the department and its mission. While Judge Mukasey’s answer on water boarding may be important to the future of the country and the War on Terror, of at least equal importance is the whether Judge Mukasey would commit to taking strong disciplinary action against overzealous prosecutors by using all the tools at his disposal, including the Office of Professional Responsibility. In USA v. Stein, Assistant United States Attorney Stanley Okula of the Southern District of New York (SDNY) was one of the lead prosecutors in a case against executives from accounting giant KPMG. In three cases against members of the Tollman family, he prosecuted cases against a wealthy family living in Britain and Canada. In the KPMG case, the government prosecution was found to have violated the defendant’s Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights. The judge wrote that the prosecutors “used their life and death power over KPMG to coerce its personnel to bend to the government’s wishes” and described the prosecutors actions as “outrageous and shocking”. In the Tollman cases—Okula has gone after the family in Canada, Britain and the United States—judges have been similarly critical, including a British judge describing Okula’s actions as “reprehensible” and a Canadian judge saying “misconduct of this sort cannot ever be tolerated”. Despite this extraordinarily harsh criticism by three courts in three different countries, the prosecutor endures, ready to once again run roughshod over Constitutional rights in pursuit of his unique and perverted notions of justice....
Bush Approves Clearances for N.S.A. Inquiry Just four days after Michael B. Mukasey was sworn in as attorney general, Justice Department officials said Tuesday that President Bush had reversed course and approved long-denied security clearances for the Justice Department’s ethics office to investigate the National Security Agency’s warrantless surveillance program. The department’s inspector general has been investigating the department’s involvement with the N.S.A. program for about a year, but the move suggested both that Mr. Mukasey wanted to remedy what many in Congress saw as an improper decision by the president to block the clearances and that the White House chose to back him. Tony Fratto, a White House spokesman, and Brian Roehrkasse, a Justice Department spokesman, declined to say whether Mr. Mukasey had pressed Mr. Bush on the clearances for the department’s Office of Professional Responsibility. Mr. Mukasey himself had indicated in a written answer to senators on Oct. 30, before his confirmation, that the clearance issue had been resolved. But Democrats said they thought Mr. Mukasey deserved credit. In response to appeals from Mr. Hinchey and other members of Congress, the head of the Office of Professional Responsibility, H. Marshall Jarrett, said in February 2006 that he had opened an investigation of the conduct of department lawyers in approving and overseeing the N.S.A. program. But three months later he said the inquiry had been dropped because his staff had been denied the necessary high-level clearances. The Justice Department later said that Alberto R. Gonzales, the attorney general at the time, had recommended that the clearances be granted but that Mr. Bush declined to approve them. Mr. Roehrkasse said the Office of Professional Responsibility’s investigation “will focus on whether the D.O.J. attorneys who were involved complied with their ethical obligations of providing competent legal advice to their client and of adhering to their duty of candor to the court.”....
Target seeks to add warning to treated meat
Discount retailer Target Corp is requesting U.S. government approval to add a warning to the labels of meat sold in its stores that have been treated with carbon monoxide to keep the product looking fresh. "Because certain modified atmosphere packaging preserves the color of meat, Target is working to add labels to those products that encourage guests not to rely on color or the 'use or freeze by' date alone to judge the freshness of the product," Target said in a statement. Target sent the request to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service requires a use-by/sell-by date on meats sold in packages containing carbon monoxide to ensure the shelf life of the product ends before spoilage occurs, according to agency officials. "We received the letter Friday evening and will consider the request for approval as the FSIS does for all label requests," USDA spokeswoman Amanda Eamich said, referring to the Target letter. Meat packers sometimes add carbon monoxide to sealed packages to preserve the bright red color of fresh meat but some lawmakers have tried to ban the practice, saying it is unsafe. They have also pushed for a campaign that would inform consumers of the packaging practice and caution them against relying on color rather than a sell-by date when buying meat....
Discount retailer Target Corp is requesting U.S. government approval to add a warning to the labels of meat sold in its stores that have been treated with carbon monoxide to keep the product looking fresh. "Because certain modified atmosphere packaging preserves the color of meat, Target is working to add labels to those products that encourage guests not to rely on color or the 'use or freeze by' date alone to judge the freshness of the product," Target said in a statement. Target sent the request to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service requires a use-by/sell-by date on meats sold in packages containing carbon monoxide to ensure the shelf life of the product ends before spoilage occurs, according to agency officials. "We received the letter Friday evening and will consider the request for approval as the FSIS does for all label requests," USDA spokeswoman Amanda Eamich said, referring to the Target letter. Meat packers sometimes add carbon monoxide to sealed packages to preserve the bright red color of fresh meat but some lawmakers have tried to ban the practice, saying it is unsafe. They have also pushed for a campaign that would inform consumers of the packaging practice and caution them against relying on color rather than a sell-by date when buying meat....
NEWS ROUNDUP
Warnings of Long-Term Damage After Russian Oil Spill An environmental disaster began to unfold in southern Russia on Monday as tens of thousands of oil-slicked seabirds and globules of heavy oil dotted the shoreline, a day after at least 11 ships, including a small oil tanker, sank or broke apart in a fierce storm, Russian officials said. Three bodies washed ashore, and 20 sailors were missing when searches were called off late Monday because of rough weather, the news agency Interfax reported, citing officials with the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations. But officials added that any survivors were at risk of freezing to death before they could be found. A local official, Alexander Tkachyov, governor of the Krasnodar region, said 30,000 seabirds were covered with oil and would probably die, Interfax said. The World Wide Fund for Nature, a conservation group, said the heavy fuel oil also settled onto the seabed, surely destroying marine habitat and killing fish. The tanker, Volganeft-139, split apart as it was pounded by 18-foot waves in the Kerch Strait which links the Sea of Azov with the Black Sea, a strategic pathway for oil exported by tanker from Russia and the Caspian basin to Europe. Its 13 crew members were rescued, but 1,300 tons of heavy, viscous oil — the equivalent of 560,000 gallons — were discharged into the sea....
Ranchers donate cattle to fight Army’s Pinon plans The fight against the Army's proposed expansion of the Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site has invaded the dusty environs of the Winter Livestock Auction sale barn. Calves and cows donated by ranchers across Southern Colorado were auctioned off Monday to raise funds for landowners who are fighting the planned 414,000-acre expansion. The battle has been an intense one, pitting the Army's need to train soldiers against ranch families who have been on their land for several generations. "We are here to sell our cattle to help with the opposition of this expansion. This is something important to all of us here," said Stan White, a rancher from Aguilar who donated a steer to be auctioned Monday. White and his wife, Dee, also are donating a steer to be auctioned across U.S. 50 at La Junta Livestock on Wednesday. White, who helped organize the auction, said he and others wanted to give people a new way to help stop the expansion. "Everyone involved donated something here. Ranchers from all over donated cattle and the two sale barns have donated their time," White said....
Concerns grow about disappearing prairie potholes ecosystem The humble name given to "prairie potholes" - the ponds, wetlands and small lakes dimpling Minnesota and the eastern Dakotas - belies the mounting concerns here and nationally about their disappearance from the landscape. Potholes are considered key habitat for almost 200 species of migratory birds. But with federal inducements to plant more crops and the financial rewards of renting out the land, many farmers are ending land-preservation agreements. With a federal report warning of the need to protect them, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources is doing flyovers to investigate whether potholes are being drained illegally. At stake is "arguably the most endangered ecosystem in the world," said Rex Johnson, a wetlands expert and wildlife biologist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Fergus Falls....
House Buys Carbon Credits Through Chicago Climate Exchange The Chicago Climate Exchange, which began its greenhouse gas trading operations in 2003, has announced the results of its auction of Carbon Financial Instrument contracts conducted on behalf of the U.S. House of Representatives at its request. The reverse auction was a bid for 300 contracts representing 30,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent from a pool of U.S. based projects that have offset a proportionate amount of greenhouse gas emissions. The House purchased these carbon credits to offset the impact of 30,000 tons of carbon emitted by the U.S. Capitol's coal-burning power plant each year. The funds will be used on carbon reducing measures, such as planting trees and underground storage of carbon dioxide, as well as green technologies like wind and solar power. As part of its "Greening of the Capitol Initiative," the House will retire the tons purchased as one of several strategies to reduce the contribution to greenhouse gas accumulation derived from its operations....That's ok for the coal plant, but what about all that hot air that emanates from the House? Don't we need a "Hot Air Capitol Initiative"?
Old maps give clues to California's ecological past Grossinger is director of the historical ecology program. He works with a team of scientists and researchers who pour over old photos and paintings. They're searching for clues about what the Bay Area looked like before the first settlers tore into the soft earth of the bay's creeks, streams and marshes creating today's urban landscape. "We use that information to reconstruct an understanding of how the landscape used to look and function," said Grossinger. But it is old maps that provide the best clues to our ecological past. "I think of these maps almost like treasure maps - because they are like of a far away land that is completely different from the place we know even though it is of the same place," said Grossinger. Each map tells a story, such as willow groves or river routes and the one-time boundaries of rancheros and pasture lands. "These maps were made largely to define properties and boundaries. They used all the natural features - creeks and ponds and willow groves," said Grossinger. Those ranchers hired some of the best map makers of the time to lay out property rights. "A map like this was made in 1850 but is so accurate that when we scan it, geo-reference it and bring it into a modern computer and overlay it onto aerial photography - many of these features will be within 50 to a hundred feet," said Grossinger....
Grants looks to reclaim title of "Uranium Capital of the World" It might have been the tombstone for an industry. The neatly inscribed chunk of rock 25 miles north of Grants marks the final resting place of about 7 million dry tons of tailings - the finely crushed radioactive leftovers of extracting uranium from rock - from the mill site at Ambrosia Lake. It's meant as a warning sign of the 1,850 curies of radon located within the massive pile. But it's also a symbol of what's left of a town that once was - a tombstone for the "Uranium Capital of the World." Grants, as the locals are proud to say, isn't dead. But its role as the uranium capital, as headquarters of a district that mined more uranium than any other in the United States, fell just as the price of the commodity plummeted in the early 1980s. "We're talking about bringing them back." Rick Van Horn says this on a drive through the old Ambrosia Lake mining site north of Grants. It's his company, Uranium Resources Inc. of Lewisville, Texas, that has renewed hope among many that Grants could soon reclaim its old title. URI last month agreed to buy Rio Algom Mining LLC and a mill license from BHP Billiton Ltd. for about $126.5 million in cash....
Nevada BLM's Wild Horses Money, Where Is It? Wild horse advocates think the Bureau of Land Management is systematically trying to eliminate mustangs from the open ranges of Nevada. The most telling sign, they say, is the BLM's lack of interest in promoting horse adoptions. This is a wild horse story that isn't about wild horses. It's about the agency, which is supposed to manage the herds and what it does with millions of taxpayer dollars. We asked the BLM what we thought was a simple question. How much do you spend on rounding up horses and on finding them homes? Both responsibilities are outlined in federal law. You might think it would be easy for BLM to retrieve those numbers, but it took the I-Team seven months and numerous phone calls emails and letters to get the data. Essentially, the figures confirm the suspicions of the critics....
No Straight Answers From Nevada's Top Wild Horse Official More than 30,000 wild horses are now being held in government pens. That is more horses than exist out on the open range. Critics say the reason for the logjam is that the Bureau of Land Management, which is supposed to manage wild horses and burros, spends most of its budget on roundups but very little on adoptions. Are the charges true? Put it this way -- suspicions confirmed. No matter where you stand on wild horses, your tax dollars are being spent in this program. The I-Team filed an information request with the BLM back in February to find out what they spend on the wild horse program. It took until August to get the answer. And then the spin campaign began courtesy of the BLM-Nevada's top wild horse official, whose statements to us were simply incredulous. Susie Stokke, with the Nevada BLM, said, "These last three days, without question, has been the highlight of my career." It seemed odd that BLM's Suzie Stokke would be so bubbly. Less than 24 hours earlier, 129 wild horses in the BLM's Palomino Valley facility had died horrible deaths. And days before that, more than 70 wild horses were found dead of nitrate poisoning on the Tonopah Test Range....
Off Endangered List, but What Animal Is It Now? Amid much fanfare this year, the federal Fish and Wildlife Service declared the western Great Lakes gray wolf successfully recovered from an encounter with extinction and officially removed it from the endangered species list. Under the protection of the Endangered Species Act, the wolf boomed in population to 4,000 in Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin today, up from just several hundred in northern Minnesota in 1974. But the victory celebration was premature, according to two evolutionary biologists, Jennifer A. Leonard of Uppsala University in Sweden and Robert K. Wayne of the University of California, Los Angeles. The historic Great Lakes wolf did not return intact from the edge of oblivion. Instead, the scientists report in the online edition of the journal Biology Letters, it hybridized with gray wolves moving in from Canada, coyotes from the south and west and the hybrids born of that mixing. Wolf eradication programs and habitat destruction, followed by protection of the remaining wolves and habitat, created conditions for producing the hybrid animals, Dr. Leonard said. These animals should remain protected, she added, while researchers determine the full extent of hybridization with coyotes, whether it is continuing and whether it threatens to swamp the genetic heritage of the native wolf....
Cowboy Crosses Country on Horseback to Reveal Unseen American Culture When rancher Bill Inman decided to show there's more to America than what's seen on the nightly news, he hopped on his horse Blackie and started riding. And riding, and riding. Weary of the daily drumbeat over war, crime, poverty and assorted social ills, he and his wife are burning through their life savings to tell the stories of hardworking, honest everyday people in rural America. Inman soaks it all in atop Blackie, a 16-year thoroughbred-quarter horse mix who's averaging 20-25 miles a day along backroads from Oregon to North Carolina. "Unfortunately, the image they are portraying is there's corruption in every politician and there's criminals running everywhere," he said. "I guess guys that rope like me, we wouldn't need to rope steers. You could just sit out there and rope a criminal because they're coming by every 10 minutes." Inman, 48, started June 2 from his hometown of Lebanon, Ore. Halfway through his cross-country trek dubbed Uncovering America by Horseback, he's rolled up 1,700 miles....
It's All Trew: Old-time improvisation in branding and jailing During the old days many storekeepers and especially bartenders seemed to have large thumbs and fingers. Some kept their thumb and forefinger pressed together in an effort to widen the surfaces while others used exercises for widening the digits. Why? Because in the absence of coin or cash money, a "pinch" was used as a handy measurement. An example, when salt was used to pay the salaries of Roman soldiers, the bigger the pinch the higher the pay. During the gold rush days, food, supplies, a drink of whiskey or whatever, was paid for with a pinch of gold dust. A bartender with slender boney fingers couldn't hold a job. The term "running iron" is given to any branding tool used to change legitimate brands on stolen livestock. Some thieves used cinch rings from a saddle while others used heavy wire bent into the design needed. Oddly enough, a branding iron made in the shape of a "J" without the top bar, when used in a crude manner, can make every number and letter of the alphabet. I can prove it and you might want to try. Early day jails in many newly established towns took on many forms depending on the imagination of the officer in charge and the city finances at the time. The first jail in Dodge City was an abandoned water well about eight feet deep and 10 feet across....
Warnings of Long-Term Damage After Russian Oil Spill An environmental disaster began to unfold in southern Russia on Monday as tens of thousands of oil-slicked seabirds and globules of heavy oil dotted the shoreline, a day after at least 11 ships, including a small oil tanker, sank or broke apart in a fierce storm, Russian officials said. Three bodies washed ashore, and 20 sailors were missing when searches were called off late Monday because of rough weather, the news agency Interfax reported, citing officials with the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations. But officials added that any survivors were at risk of freezing to death before they could be found. A local official, Alexander Tkachyov, governor of the Krasnodar region, said 30,000 seabirds were covered with oil and would probably die, Interfax said. The World Wide Fund for Nature, a conservation group, said the heavy fuel oil also settled onto the seabed, surely destroying marine habitat and killing fish. The tanker, Volganeft-139, split apart as it was pounded by 18-foot waves in the Kerch Strait which links the Sea of Azov with the Black Sea, a strategic pathway for oil exported by tanker from Russia and the Caspian basin to Europe. Its 13 crew members were rescued, but 1,300 tons of heavy, viscous oil — the equivalent of 560,000 gallons — were discharged into the sea....
Ranchers donate cattle to fight Army’s Pinon plans The fight against the Army's proposed expansion of the Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site has invaded the dusty environs of the Winter Livestock Auction sale barn. Calves and cows donated by ranchers across Southern Colorado were auctioned off Monday to raise funds for landowners who are fighting the planned 414,000-acre expansion. The battle has been an intense one, pitting the Army's need to train soldiers against ranch families who have been on their land for several generations. "We are here to sell our cattle to help with the opposition of this expansion. This is something important to all of us here," said Stan White, a rancher from Aguilar who donated a steer to be auctioned Monday. White and his wife, Dee, also are donating a steer to be auctioned across U.S. 50 at La Junta Livestock on Wednesday. White, who helped organize the auction, said he and others wanted to give people a new way to help stop the expansion. "Everyone involved donated something here. Ranchers from all over donated cattle and the two sale barns have donated their time," White said....
Concerns grow about disappearing prairie potholes ecosystem The humble name given to "prairie potholes" - the ponds, wetlands and small lakes dimpling Minnesota and the eastern Dakotas - belies the mounting concerns here and nationally about their disappearance from the landscape. Potholes are considered key habitat for almost 200 species of migratory birds. But with federal inducements to plant more crops and the financial rewards of renting out the land, many farmers are ending land-preservation agreements. With a federal report warning of the need to protect them, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources is doing flyovers to investigate whether potholes are being drained illegally. At stake is "arguably the most endangered ecosystem in the world," said Rex Johnson, a wetlands expert and wildlife biologist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Fergus Falls....
House Buys Carbon Credits Through Chicago Climate Exchange The Chicago Climate Exchange, which began its greenhouse gas trading operations in 2003, has announced the results of its auction of Carbon Financial Instrument contracts conducted on behalf of the U.S. House of Representatives at its request. The reverse auction was a bid for 300 contracts representing 30,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent from a pool of U.S. based projects that have offset a proportionate amount of greenhouse gas emissions. The House purchased these carbon credits to offset the impact of 30,000 tons of carbon emitted by the U.S. Capitol's coal-burning power plant each year. The funds will be used on carbon reducing measures, such as planting trees and underground storage of carbon dioxide, as well as green technologies like wind and solar power. As part of its "Greening of the Capitol Initiative," the House will retire the tons purchased as one of several strategies to reduce the contribution to greenhouse gas accumulation derived from its operations....That's ok for the coal plant, but what about all that hot air that emanates from the House? Don't we need a "Hot Air Capitol Initiative"?
Old maps give clues to California's ecological past Grossinger is director of the historical ecology program. He works with a team of scientists and researchers who pour over old photos and paintings. They're searching for clues about what the Bay Area looked like before the first settlers tore into the soft earth of the bay's creeks, streams and marshes creating today's urban landscape. "We use that information to reconstruct an understanding of how the landscape used to look and function," said Grossinger. But it is old maps that provide the best clues to our ecological past. "I think of these maps almost like treasure maps - because they are like of a far away land that is completely different from the place we know even though it is of the same place," said Grossinger. Each map tells a story, such as willow groves or river routes and the one-time boundaries of rancheros and pasture lands. "These maps were made largely to define properties and boundaries. They used all the natural features - creeks and ponds and willow groves," said Grossinger. Those ranchers hired some of the best map makers of the time to lay out property rights. "A map like this was made in 1850 but is so accurate that when we scan it, geo-reference it and bring it into a modern computer and overlay it onto aerial photography - many of these features will be within 50 to a hundred feet," said Grossinger....
Grants looks to reclaim title of "Uranium Capital of the World" It might have been the tombstone for an industry. The neatly inscribed chunk of rock 25 miles north of Grants marks the final resting place of about 7 million dry tons of tailings - the finely crushed radioactive leftovers of extracting uranium from rock - from the mill site at Ambrosia Lake. It's meant as a warning sign of the 1,850 curies of radon located within the massive pile. But it's also a symbol of what's left of a town that once was - a tombstone for the "Uranium Capital of the World." Grants, as the locals are proud to say, isn't dead. But its role as the uranium capital, as headquarters of a district that mined more uranium than any other in the United States, fell just as the price of the commodity plummeted in the early 1980s. "We're talking about bringing them back." Rick Van Horn says this on a drive through the old Ambrosia Lake mining site north of Grants. It's his company, Uranium Resources Inc. of Lewisville, Texas, that has renewed hope among many that Grants could soon reclaim its old title. URI last month agreed to buy Rio Algom Mining LLC and a mill license from BHP Billiton Ltd. for about $126.5 million in cash....
Nevada BLM's Wild Horses Money, Where Is It? Wild horse advocates think the Bureau of Land Management is systematically trying to eliminate mustangs from the open ranges of Nevada. The most telling sign, they say, is the BLM's lack of interest in promoting horse adoptions. This is a wild horse story that isn't about wild horses. It's about the agency, which is supposed to manage the herds and what it does with millions of taxpayer dollars. We asked the BLM what we thought was a simple question. How much do you spend on rounding up horses and on finding them homes? Both responsibilities are outlined in federal law. You might think it would be easy for BLM to retrieve those numbers, but it took the I-Team seven months and numerous phone calls emails and letters to get the data. Essentially, the figures confirm the suspicions of the critics....
No Straight Answers From Nevada's Top Wild Horse Official More than 30,000 wild horses are now being held in government pens. That is more horses than exist out on the open range. Critics say the reason for the logjam is that the Bureau of Land Management, which is supposed to manage wild horses and burros, spends most of its budget on roundups but very little on adoptions. Are the charges true? Put it this way -- suspicions confirmed. No matter where you stand on wild horses, your tax dollars are being spent in this program. The I-Team filed an information request with the BLM back in February to find out what they spend on the wild horse program. It took until August to get the answer. And then the spin campaign began courtesy of the BLM-Nevada's top wild horse official, whose statements to us were simply incredulous. Susie Stokke, with the Nevada BLM, said, "These last three days, without question, has been the highlight of my career." It seemed odd that BLM's Suzie Stokke would be so bubbly. Less than 24 hours earlier, 129 wild horses in the BLM's Palomino Valley facility had died horrible deaths. And days before that, more than 70 wild horses were found dead of nitrate poisoning on the Tonopah Test Range....
Off Endangered List, but What Animal Is It Now? Amid much fanfare this year, the federal Fish and Wildlife Service declared the western Great Lakes gray wolf successfully recovered from an encounter with extinction and officially removed it from the endangered species list. Under the protection of the Endangered Species Act, the wolf boomed in population to 4,000 in Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin today, up from just several hundred in northern Minnesota in 1974. But the victory celebration was premature, according to two evolutionary biologists, Jennifer A. Leonard of Uppsala University in Sweden and Robert K. Wayne of the University of California, Los Angeles. The historic Great Lakes wolf did not return intact from the edge of oblivion. Instead, the scientists report in the online edition of the journal Biology Letters, it hybridized with gray wolves moving in from Canada, coyotes from the south and west and the hybrids born of that mixing. Wolf eradication programs and habitat destruction, followed by protection of the remaining wolves and habitat, created conditions for producing the hybrid animals, Dr. Leonard said. These animals should remain protected, she added, while researchers determine the full extent of hybridization with coyotes, whether it is continuing and whether it threatens to swamp the genetic heritage of the native wolf....
Cowboy Crosses Country on Horseback to Reveal Unseen American Culture When rancher Bill Inman decided to show there's more to America than what's seen on the nightly news, he hopped on his horse Blackie and started riding. And riding, and riding. Weary of the daily drumbeat over war, crime, poverty and assorted social ills, he and his wife are burning through their life savings to tell the stories of hardworking, honest everyday people in rural America. Inman soaks it all in atop Blackie, a 16-year thoroughbred-quarter horse mix who's averaging 20-25 miles a day along backroads from Oregon to North Carolina. "Unfortunately, the image they are portraying is there's corruption in every politician and there's criminals running everywhere," he said. "I guess guys that rope like me, we wouldn't need to rope steers. You could just sit out there and rope a criminal because they're coming by every 10 minutes." Inman, 48, started June 2 from his hometown of Lebanon, Ore. Halfway through his cross-country trek dubbed Uncovering America by Horseback, he's rolled up 1,700 miles....
It's All Trew: Old-time improvisation in branding and jailing During the old days many storekeepers and especially bartenders seemed to have large thumbs and fingers. Some kept their thumb and forefinger pressed together in an effort to widen the surfaces while others used exercises for widening the digits. Why? Because in the absence of coin or cash money, a "pinch" was used as a handy measurement. An example, when salt was used to pay the salaries of Roman soldiers, the bigger the pinch the higher the pay. During the gold rush days, food, supplies, a drink of whiskey or whatever, was paid for with a pinch of gold dust. A bartender with slender boney fingers couldn't hold a job. The term "running iron" is given to any branding tool used to change legitimate brands on stolen livestock. Some thieves used cinch rings from a saddle while others used heavy wire bent into the design needed. Oddly enough, a branding iron made in the shape of a "J" without the top bar, when used in a crude manner, can make every number and letter of the alphabet. I can prove it and you might want to try. Early day jails in many newly established towns took on many forms depending on the imagination of the officer in charge and the city finances at the time. The first jail in Dodge City was an abandoned water well about eight feet deep and 10 feet across....
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