Fighting Global Warming Block by Block King County Executive Ron Sims has a simple test for every new public works project, building plan or government land purchase: Will it increase the region's total greenhouse-gas emissions, or reduce them? Officials in King County and other places are rethinking the way their communities grow and operate, all with an eye toward reducing their overall carbon footprint. After decades of policies that encouraged people to move out to the suburbs in pursuit of larger homes and bigger back yards, some policymakers are now pushing aggressively to increase urban density and discourage the use of private cars. In Massachusetts, the state demands that developers calculate and disclose the climate impact of their projects. In California, Attorney General Edmund G. "Jerry" Brown Jr. has sued communities and power companies for failing to offset the greenhouse gases generated by their expansion plans. And Washington, D.C., officials are installing a new trolley line and bike rental kiosks in an effort to cut back on car trips within the city. Even though national politicians are beginning to eye a federal carbon cap more seriously, the flurry of activity in state and local jurisdictions highlights a little-noticed reality: Most of the measures to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions will be enacted outside the nation's capital....
Slaughter of bison roils ranch town his is not a place where buffalo are welcome to roam. When 32 bison lumbered across a fence that separated their owners' vast, wind-swept expanse of land from a neighboring ranch in March, they ended up dead. Some fell where they were shot. Others scattered, galloping for miles before they succumbed in the snow. They were victims, contend the bison's owners, of a murder plot hatched by the neighbor, a Texan frustrated by what he called the repeated trespassing of the herd onto his land. Law enforcement officials are closemouthed, saying only that they are investigating. At issue, said Park County Undersheriff Monte Gore, is whether the culprit violated Colorado's century-old open-range law, which says livestock may go pretty much where they please. Throughout the West, many states still adhere to the open-range principle, a throwback to the 1800s that says it is not a rancher's responsibility to keep livestock fenced in -- it's everyone else's job to keep them out. If you don't want someone else's cow on your land, the law goes, build a fence. If the cow crosses your fence, you can lock it up until its owner retrieves it, and you can sue the owner for damages. But you can't kill it, said Rick Wahlert, Colorado brand commissioner....
Shell makes run on water In its quest to melt oil out of western Colorado's shale, Royal Dutch Shell has been buying up land and water rights in anticipation of what is likely to be a thirsty new industry. Some officials, however, worry that the demands of the oil-shale industry could drain every drop of the region's remaining water. "On the upper end, we're looking at potentially several hundred thousand acre-feet of water — more than people think is commonly available to develop in the Colorado River," said Dan Birch, deputy general manager for the Colorado River Water Conservation District. Shell and other energy companies have amassed tens of thousands of acres of cropland, ranches and open space — including a state wildlife area — to gain water that would be needed to power the oil-shale process. "We've been acquiring land and associated water rights for a long time," Shell spokesman Tracy Boyd said. "We're just situating ourselves so that when the time comes, we'll have the resources we need."....
BLM: Plan will protect prairie chicken, lizard habitat in NM Two rare species found in southeastern New Mexico's oil and gas country will have added protections under a conservation plan approved by the Bureau of Land Management. About 465 square miles of habitat for the lesser prairie chicken and the sand dune lizard will be protected, and the agency has expanded restrictions on drilling activity during the prairie chicken's mating season in an effort to boost the bird's numbers. For Linda Rundell, state director for the BLM in New Mexico, the additional protections for the prairie chicken have been a long time coming. As a biologist more than 25 years ago, she spent time surveying the prairie chickens and their habitat. Under the BLM's plan, an area of critical environmental concern has been set aside for the prairie chicken. The agency said no oil and gas leasing will be allowed in this area. Areas of occupied habitat for the prairie chicken and the lizard also will be off limits to new oil and gas activity, said Tony Herrell, BLM's deputy director for minerals in New Mexico. In areas of existing operation, Herrell said drilling activity is restricted during the prairie chicken's mating season—March through June—and noise is limited so the birds can hear each other's calls....
Lease-sale of lynx habitat put on hold In a big victory for environmental protectionists, Colorado's Bureau of Land Management has deferred offering oil and gas leases for 84 parcels of U.S. Forest Service land encompassing 144,000 acres in the San Luis Valley at the BLM's May 8 lease sale. "Based on information we received from the public, local governments and our own internal review, we will defer offering these Forest Service parcels until additional analysis can be completed," said BLM Colorado State Director Sally Wisely. The parcels to be deferred are located in the Rio Grande National Forest in Colorado's San Luis Valley, where Colorado began reintroducing the endangered Canadian lynx in 2000. There are an estimated 250-300 of the species in the area today....
Uranium claims spring up along Grand Canyon rim Thanks to renewed interest in nuclear power, the United States is on the verge of a uranium mining boom, and nowhere is the hurry to stake claims more pronounced than in the districts flanking the Grand Canyon's storied sandstone cliffs. On public lands within five miles of Grand Canyon National Park, there are now more than 1,100 uranium claims, compared with just 10 in January 2003, according to data from the Department of the Interior. In recent months, the uranium rush has spawned a clash as epic as the canyon's 18-mile chasm, with both sides claiming to be working for the good of the planet. Environmental organizations have appealed to federal courts and Congress to halt any drilling on the grounds that mining so close to such a rare piece of the nation's patrimony could prove ruinous for the canyon's visitors and wildlife alike. Mining companies say the raw material they seek is important to the environment, too: The uranium would feed nuclear reactors that could -- unlike coal and natural gas -- produce electricity without contributing to global warming....
Plea further extends Thirtymile tragedy In a New Year's Eve editorial on the last day of 2006, we were willing to concede at the time that "four manslaughter charges brought against a U.S. Forest Service crew boss nearly 51/2 years after the deadly Thirtymile Fire in Okanogan County could finally be proof that justice delayed is not necessarily justice denied." That hope has been dashed now that a plea-bargaining deal has led to fire crew chief Ellreese Daniels pleading guilty in U.S. District Court in Spokane Tuesday to two misdemeanor charges of making false statements to investigators. The magnitude of the reduction in charges is staggering: In exchange, the government dropped four felony counts of involuntary manslaughter and seven felony counts of making false statements. Four people died and the only person charged in the incident gets a plea-bargaining slap on the wrist and won't have to face trial -- during which a more complete story of what happened up to and during that fateful day could unfold during testimony. Frankly, we've been less than impressed from the start with the federal government's handling, at all levels, of the Thirtymile incident. We remain convinced that Daniels must answer in part for the tragedy because he was directly responsible for the safety of his crew. But we also maintain that the blame for the Thirtymile debacle involves much more than just what happened on the fire line that day. Blame must also extend further up the chain of command and include a culture of stonewalling and cover-up so prevalent in the U.S. Forest Service at the time....
2 national forests combined The Wasatch-Cache National Forest just got more complicated. Now it's the Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest. The mouthful of a name is worth $2 million a year in administrative savings for U.S. Forest Service's Intermountain Region. Budgets are the biggest thing driving the consolidation. Funding has languished while demands for firefighting and recreation are rising. Some ranger districts are losing a recreation planner in the consolidation. A similar consolidation took place in 1973 when the Wasatch and Cache forests were combined.
Republicans senators push for oil shale development Colorado Sen. Wayne Allard has joined other Republican members of Congress in pushing for more domestic energy production by removing barriers to oil shale leasing in Colorado and other parts of the region. A bill introduced Thursday by Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., would repeal a one-year moratorium on approval of final regulations for commercial oil shale leases on federal land. It would also allow drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Colorado's other senator, Democrat Ken Salazar, pushed the one-year ban that prevents the U.S. Bureau of Land Management from using federal funds to draft final regulations for commercial leases. "U.S. oil shale resources alone exceed 2 trillion barrels of potential supply," Allard said in a written statement. "We in Congress should not be preventing this kind of progress."....
Western groups want BLM to consider climate change decisions Conservationists are shifting the debate over oil and gas development across the West from the preservation of a single species here or there to the potential impacts that development could have on entire landscapes due to climate change. At the center of the debate are oil and gas lease sales held each quarter by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. The agency offered about 100 parcels covering some 112,000 acres in New Mexico, Texas and Oklahoma two weeks ago and has more than 175,000 acres up for lease in Colorado next week. "The Rocky Mountain region is experiencing an unprecedented oil and gas boom right now so it's crucial that we get ahead of the curve here and not let this get away from us before it's too late to do anything," Jeremy Nichols, director of Denver-based Rocky Mountain Clean Air Action, said Thursday. Nichols' group is just one of several organizations that have protested recent oil and gas lease sales across the region due to climate change concerns _ rather than the usual arguments of how oil and gas might affect a particular endangered species or a pristine plot of land. The group targeted all of the parcels, saying they should not have been offered since the agency's management plans don't address climate change as a potential result of greenhouse gas emissions from more oil and gas development. The protest also claims the agency skirted federal environmental laws by not considering new information about climate change from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the New Mexico Climate Change Advisory Group or other federal scientists....Grazing permits will be next.
Protected sea lions found shot dead on Columbia River The deaths of six sea lions are under investigation after the bodies of the federally protected animals were found in open traps on the Columbia River and appeared to have been shot. The carcasses of four California sea lions and two Steller sea lions were found Sunday about noon. The discovery came one day after three elephant seals were found shot to death at a breeding ground in central California. All three species are federally protected by the Marine Mammal Protection Act. But Steller sea lions are also protected under the Endangered Species Act, authorities said....
FWP to intervene in wolf lawsuit Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks announced Thursday that it will intervene in a lawsuit filed this week challenging the federal government's delisting of gray wolves in the Northern Rocky Mountains. The agency also plans to oppose a request from 12 conservation groups seeking a preliminary injunction from the federal District Court in Missoula. The injunction, if approved, would reinstate federal Endangered Species Act protection for gray wolves while the court considers the lawsuit. "FWP supports wolf delisting and we'll join the legal proceedings to help ensure that wolves in Montana remain under state jurisdiction and continue to be managed under a plan that has won nationwide praise and support," said Jeff Hagener, director of FWP in Helena....
Turner 'almost done' buying up ranchland The "Mouth of the South" might be mellowing, at least in terms of his appetite for ranchland in Nebraska. CNN founder Ted Turner, the largest private landowner in Nebraska and the United States and the nation's largest bison rancher, said Wednesday that he is about done buying new ranches. He said he would like to reach 2 million acres nationwide before he dies — about 40,000 acres more than he currently owns. "I'm almost done. I've got enough," said Turner, who was visiting Omaha for the reopening and renaming of one of his 54 bison restaurants, now called Ted's Nebraska Grill. The 69-year-old billionaire, philanthropist and conservationist said he isn't interested in free-standing ranches anymore, only "reasonably priced" parcels adjacent to his current operations, which include five ranches in Nebraska near Gordon, Oshkosh and Mullen. The ranches cover 425,221 acres, an area larger than Douglas and Sarpy Counties combined. "You know what 2 million acres is?" Turner asked over a plate of bison miniburgers and transfat-free onion rings. "If my land was all connected, in one long straight line, a mile deep, it would stretch from New York to San Francisco." Then he joked: "I've been thinking about doing some swaps. I'd be able to cut the United States in half and charge people from going from the north to the south."....
Senators kill packer ban Senate and House farm bill conferees killed a final attempt to include a ban on packer ownership of livestock during a late night conference session last night. An amendment by Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa was defeated by Senate Ag committee conferees on a voice vote. The Senators then quickly adopted language from the House version of the farm bill, which did not include a packer ban. A statement from Grassley said recent plans by JBS to purchase National Beef Packing Co., Smithfield Beef Group and Five Rivers Ranch show why the packer ban is "needed more than ever" to ensure farmers can get a fair market price for cattle and hogs. "We might not have won tonight, but we'll keep fighting. I just hope it's not too late for the family farmer when people finally realize that we have serious problems with competition in agriculture."
Loss Of Packer Ban Won’t Slow Efforts Western ranchers plan to keep pushing for livestock market reforms despite the failure of the Farm Bill Conference Committee to ban meatpacker ownership of live cattle prior to slaughter. Late last night Senate conferees killed the ban on a voice vote. "The packer ban would have helped return competition to the livestock markets and fairness to livestock contracts by stopping the biggest packers from controlling market access and lowering market prices," said Mabel Dobbs, a rancher from Weiser, Idaho, representing the Western Organization of Resource Councils. "Congress has left us to the wolves." Dobbs said concern about consolidating markets is high because of JBS Swift’s plan to buy two of the country’s largest meatpackers, Smithfield Beef and National Beef. The acquisition would make JBS Swift the largest packer in the world. If the merger succeeds, the three largest meatpacking companies in the U.S. would process nearly 9 out of 10 of the livestock slaughtered....
Ky. Derby Horse Owners Must Love The Farm Bill McConnell, along with a handful of other senators, has successfully spared a measure that would allow accelerated depreciation for race horses. The measure would essentially allow race horse owners _ who pay millions for Triple Crown contenders, write down their investment over three years. The provision appears to have survived the conference committee negotiations on the $300 billion farm bill. The Joint Committee on Taxation has yet to release an official estimate for the horse race provision, which is part of a larger $1.4 billion tax package. Defenders of the measure say the tax break simply allows race horse owners to depreciate their thoroughbred assets on the same schedule that farmers depreciate other equipment on their tax returns. Under current law, race horses are depreciated over seven years; the new provision would allow full depreciation over three years. Critics, like House Agriculture Chairman Colin Peterson (D-Minn.), have said they're worried about the provision helping wealthy Saudi princes who buy Triple Crown horses. McConnell spokesman Don Stewart defended the provision, saying "horses and cows are the only capital not depreciated over three years."...
McCain tells Iowans he would veto farm bill over subsidies Some things never change: Republican John McCain dislikes farm subsidies. "I have to give you a little straight talk about the farm bill that is wending its way through Congress," McCain said Thursday at the Polk County Convention Center. "I do not support it. I would veto it," he said. "I would do that because I believe that the subsidies are unnecessary." McCain was in the heart of farm country, a place where subsidies for corn and ethanol fuel are wildly popular. His long-held position against subsidies has cost him in Iowa, the state that traditionally begins the presidential nominating process and is a potential swing state in the fall. Yet the Arizona senator didn't hesitate to bring up the issue....
Farm bill upends normal political order It is the rarest of moments: President Bush and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi are on a collision course over a giant farm bill, but it is Bush who is broadly aligned with liberal Bay Area activists pushing for reform, while the San Francisco Democrat is protecting billions of dollars in subsidies to the richest farmers. A conference committee approved on Thursday most of a nearly $300 billion farm bill that will lock in the nation's food policy and environmental stewardship on millions of acres of private land for the next five years. Hoping to survive a veto, lawmakers doled out money to everyone from thoroughbred racehorse owners to food-stamp recipients. The package melds last year's House and Senate farm bills for votes in both chambers before going to the White House. Several controversies remain to be worked out this week. The administration threatened a veto, with Bush deriding a "massive, bloated" effort. Lawmakers are betting that Bush will not dare kill a $10.3 billion increase in nutrition spending such as food stamps, which make up the bulk of the bill, or anger farm-state Republicans in an election year. If he does, they plan to override him....
PETA wants Eight Belles jockey suspended after filly's death People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is seeking the suspension of Eight Belles' jockey after the filly had to be euthanized following her second-place finish in the Kentucky Derby on Saturday. Gabriel Saez was riding Eight Belles when she broke both front ankles while galloping out a quarter of a mile past the wire. She was euthanized on the track. PETA faxed a letter Sunday to Kentucky's racing authority claiming the filly was "doubtlessly injured before the finish" and asked that Saez be suspended while Eight Belles' death is investigated. "What we really want to know, did he feel anything along the way?" PETA spokeswoman Kathy Guillermo said. "If he didn't then we can probably blame the fact that they're allowed to whip the horses mercilessly." Eight Belles trainer Larry Jones said the filly was clearly happy when she crossed the finish line. "I don't know how in the heck they can even come close to saying that," Jones told The Associated Press on Sunday. "She has her ears up, clearly galloping out."....
‘Sea Monster’ discovery on Glacier Island the buzz of old Cordova One of the strangest chapters in Cordova’s history began on Nov. 10, 1930, when Jerry O’Leary and Charles Gibson discovered the carcass of sea creature floating in Eagle Bay on Glacier Island. O’Leary, a fox farmer, and Gibson, his employee, were making their rounds to feed their foxes and spotted the carcass floating on its back amid the icebergs from Columbia Glacier, six miles to the north. The head and tail sections were devoid of flesh. However, the midsection was mostly intact. O’Leary and Gibson towed the carcass to shore and chopped off the meat and hung it in the smoke house, intending to use it as feed for the foxes. Gibson described the meat as "looking and smelling like horse meat." They saved the skeleton, which was described to be anywhere from 27 to 42 feet long, with a long tail and peculiarly shaped flat triangular-shaped head. They ventured to guess that it had been entombed in the Columbia Glacier before breaking off and floating in the sea ice. Word of its existence reached Valdez and Cordova and sparked the interest of Charles Flory of the U.S. Forest Service and W.J. McDonald, the district forest supervisor of the Chugach National Forest. McDonald, Lee C. Pratt, Captain E.N. Jacobson, John V. Lydick, Howard W. Stewart and A.C. Faith launched an expedition to document the creatures’ remains....