Endangered Specious Alaska says it will sue to challenge the listing of polar bears as a threatened species. The designation could block vital oil and gas development. But that was the whole point in the first place. The state's challenge was announced Wednesday by Gov. Sarah Palin. She argues there isn't enough evidence to support such a listing. And there isn't. She also maintains that polar bears are well-managed, noting that their population has increased dramatically in the last 30 years. She's right on that as well. Fact is, the world polar population is at a modern-day high and growing. Mitch Taylor, a polar bear biologist with Canada's Federal Provincial Polar Bear Technical Committee, puts the current population at about 24,000, up 40% since 1974. In winning the listing, environmentalists essentially argued that even if the number of bears isn't declining, their environment is being degraded as global warming melts the Arctic ice they live on. It's the environmentalists, however, who are on thin ice. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne made the ruling last week based on three findings: "First, sea ice is vital to polar bear survival. Second, the polar bear's sea-ice habitat has dramatically melted in recent decades. Third, computer models suggest sea ice is likely to further recede in the future." Fourth, he's wrong. On April 24 the World Wildlife Fund published a study, based on last September's data, showing Arctic ice has shrunk from 13 million square kilometers to just 3 million. What the WWF omitted was that by March the Arctic ice had recovered to 14 million square kilometers and that ice-cover around the Bering Strait and Alaska was at the highest level ever recorded. We dare to ask how the ice-loving polar bear survived much warmer pre-SUV periods than we are now experiencing, the most recent period being about 6,000 years ago, before Al Gore was born. The species has survived warming and cooling for millennia....
Who's afraid of the big, bad wolf? Idaho plan cuts population by half The Idaho wolf population could be cut in half this fall. Thursday, Idaho Fish and Game gave the green light for the state's first wolf hunting season, to begin on September 15. Fish and Game wants to maintain a population of 518 wolves, and they estimate Idaho has about 1,000. Brad Little, a rancher in Emmett, says wolves are bad for business. “Last year they were really working on one of my neighbors and they killed 5 or 6 of his big cattle,” Little said. Little doesn't hate wolves. He seems to hold them in respectful esteem. He just doesn't want them near his cattle. With Fish and Game's plan to cut the state's wolf population, Little may breathe a little easier. But not everyone is in favor of the hunt. Jesse Timberlake, from the Idaho Conservation League, says the state seems to be in a rush to start killing wolves, and going from 1,000 to 518 wolves is a gigantic drop. “Any harvest plan has to be based on science and it's based on having a viable population of animals, of which the surplus of that is then harvested, but this plan seems more like an eradication plan,” Timberlake said....
Bison range to celebrate 100 years of wildlife preservation President Teddy Roosevelt's wrist pushed pen across paper, and on May 23, 1908, the National Bison Range was born. It was a historic moment in the American conservation movement. Although not the first unit in today's National Wildlife Refuge System - that distinction belongs to the Pelican Island National Wildlife Refuge in Florida - it marked the first time in U.S. history Congress appropriated money to buy land expressly to provide shelter and space for wildlife. It came not a moment too soon. It is almost unfathomable what happened to the animal in the century leading up to the creation of the bison range. The largest mammal native to the North American continent, an estimated 40 million of them roamed in massive herds of thousands between Mexico and central Canada when our nation was founded. Yet by 1889, it was possible for one man to count every bison, wild and captive, left in America. William Hornaday did, and put the bison population at 1,091. To put it in perspective, it would be like reducing the human population of the entire state of California to a community about the size of Ennis. By 1900, there were fewer than 100 bison left in the wild. Hunted to near-extinction by the white man settling the plains, bison were both prized by commercial hunters for their hides, and seen as either a threat or a nuisance by others. Cattlemen wanted them gone from the ranges they were taking over. Railroads wanted them gone because when the huge herds congregated on and around tracks they could delay trains for several days, and damage locomotives that couldn't stop in time. And many believe the U.S. government wanted them gone to eliminate the primary food source for American Indians, forcing those people onto reservations....
Eagle deaths bring fine, changes A federal magistrate has fined a Texas-based energy company $10,000 and ordered it to pay another $10,000 in restitution in the deaths of two golden eagles electrocuted in 2006 by power lines leading to energy production sites near Gillette. Dominic Domenici, resident agent in charge of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for Wyoming and Montana, said Wednesday that XTO Energy Inc., based in Fort Worth, pleaded guilty last month to a misdemeanor violation of the federal Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act. Federal Magistrate R. Michael Shickich in Casper sentenced the company last Thursday. Domenici said U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Special Agent Tim Eicher of Cody found the dead eagles during a survey. Domenici said the birds were electrocuted after they touched improperly constructed power lines. In addition to the court fine and restitution, Domenici said, the company spent $988,000 on an avian protection plan that involved retrofitting miles of power line to make it safe for birds....
Feds oppose Wyo request to dismiss water suit A top federal government lawyer recommends that the U.S. Supreme Court deny Wyoming's request to dismiss a lawsuit filed by Montana that claims it's not getting enough water from two rivers that flow north across the state line. U.S. Solicitor General Paul D. Clement filed a "friend of the court" brief with the Supreme Court last week. He recommended the court deny Wyoming's request to dismiss Montana's lawsuit over water flows in the Tongue and Powder rivers. A 1950 compact agreement among Wyoming, Montana and North Dakota spells out how water from the rivers is supposed to be divided. Montana claims that increased use of groundwater and construction of reservoirs in Wyoming since the agreement was signed has prevented Montana from receiving its fair share of water. Wyoming Attorney General Bruce Salzburg last month asked the Supreme Court to dismiss Montana's lawsuit, calling it "fundamentally flawed." Wyoming argues that the compact only applies to surface water, while Montana contends that the compact covers water pumped from underground aquifers for irrigation or during coal-bed methane drilling....
Ninth Circuit Sierra ruling works against saving habitat from catastrophic fire After eight years of a planning exercise called the Sierra Nevada Forest Plan Amendment (SNFPA) - one that involved thousands of people, hundreds of meetings, and tens of thousands of documents, studies, reviews, rehashes, monitoring, and re-monitoring - a Federal judge last week enjoined fire-preventative thinnings created under SNFPA guidance with the judgment that the planning was not "rigorous" enough to satisfy. That suit was brought by the Wilderness Society, and in effect destroyed eight years of effort by USFS employees and an engaged public to comply with the law. The Wilderness Society had every opportunity to participate in the Sierra Nevada Forest Plan planning exercise. There was an open process with public hearings and public involvement every step of the way. Indeed, the Wilderness Society was invited and even begged to participate, to become part of the process, to meet with local residents, and to resolve differences in an amicable and collaborative fashion. Instead the Wilderness Society chose to shun that process and to sue to kill it, in concert with the Sierra Club, the Center For Biological Diversity, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the Sierra Nevada Forest Protection Campaign....
Wilderness road upgrade has to wait Environmentalists have won a round in their seven-year battle to limit reconstruction and traffic on a road into the pristine wilderness area of Jarbidge in Elko County. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the Wilderness Society and the Great Old Broads for Wilderness should have had a say in negotiations between the U.S. Forest Service and Elko County over constructing the old mining road. The court voided an agreement between the federal agency and the county that would have allowed Elko County to proceed with the improvements. The Forest Service initially became concerned in 1999 when a group of citizens called the Shovel Brigade started to repair the old mining road. The federal agency worried the work would affect the bull trout in the river adjacent to the road and the environment. After a suit was filed, the two sides worked out an agreement in 2001 that the county could continue to build the road as long as it adhered to federal environmental regulations. But the environmental groups were not included, despite an order from the Circuit Court of Appeals. So the wilderness organizations filed suit again to overturn the agreement. Because of the environmental groups’ exclusion, the “settlement must be vacated,” the Circuit Court said in sending the case back to the federal District Court in Nevada. The construction, however, has started and cars are traveling into the wilderness area. The environmental groups have filed a third suit to stop the construction and close the area to vehicles.
Oil Industry, Lawmakers Aim To Lift Bans on Drilling Mounting concerns about global energy supply are fueling a drive by the oil industry and some U.S. lawmakers to end longstanding bans on domestic drilling put in place to protect environmentally sensitive areas. Increasing U.S. oil production would require overturning decades-old moratoriums that limit offshore drilling and accelerating leasing of federal lands, moves that would trigger a swift and vigorous political backlash. Still, as gasoline prices continue to climb and squeeze household budgets, the momentum appears to be gaining to open up new areas. Oil prices have soared 36% this year, though the price of a barrel of crude for July delivery settled at $130.81 on the Nymex on Thursday, down 1.8% from its record close Wednesday. "These prices are making voters realize we need to produce [more] energy" domestically, said Rep. John Peterson, a Republican from Pennsylvania who is pushing legislation to open up new offshore areas for energy exploration. The U.S. imports two-thirds of its oil, though less than one-sixth of its natural gas, according to federal data. The rest is produced domestically. A century and a half after oil production began, there is ample evidence that a lot of oil -- and natural gas -- remains to be found in the U.S. and its territorial waters. Those offshore areas are closed to exploration and drilling under congressional moratoriums and presidential executive orders that command broad support among elected officials in the politically powerful states of California and Florida. Opening these areas up could prove nettlesome....
Salazars introduce Dominguez-Escalanate NCA Colorado citizen groups herald introduction of legislation in both the U.S. House and Senate to create Dominguez Canyon Wilderness Area and a surrounding national conservation area. The legislation introduced today in Washington D.C is sponsored by U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar in the Senate and his brother, Rep. John Salazar in the House. The conservation area will preserve the land’s current variety of uses and will include the approximately 75,000-acre Dominguez Canyon Wilderness Area. The wilderness area is formally recommended by the federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) for protection and is part of Colorado’s Canyon Country Wilderness Proposal, a statewide collection of areas endorsed by the Colorado Wilderness Network, local governments, businesses, and civic organizations. The national conservation area – Colorado’s third – will protect the natural features and recreation opportunities in Escalante Canyon, Cactus Park, and nearby mesas, surrounding the new wilderness, protected forever along Big Dominguez and Little Dominguez creeks. Grazing will be permitted throughout the proposed conservation area, while off-road vehicles will be able to use trails open to them outside the wilderness. A new BLM management plan for the conservation area will ultimately determine which trails will remain open to specific uses, under the proposal....
U.S., Canada reach salmon agreement The U.S. and Canada have reached a new 10-year agreement aimed at preventing overfishing of salmon off the western coast of Canada and southeast Alaska. The plan announced Thursday by the Pacific Salmon Commission could most affect chinook salmon, which migrate from Washington to the waters of British Columbia and Alaska, where they are often caught by sport and commercial fisheries. Under the proposed change to the existing Pacific Salmon Treaty, the U.S. would give Canada $30 million for its effort to reduce commercial salmon fishing; Alaska would receive about $7 million. Washington would receive about $7 million to improve chinook habitat. Alaska will reduce its catch of wild salmon 15% over the next 10 years; Canada will make a 30% reduction. In addition to management of chinook, the plan addresses coho, chum, and pink and sockeye salmon. Officials believe it could allow about 1 million more chinook to return to hatcheries or spawning areas in Puget Sound....
Groups fight owl's removal from feds' list Environmental groups say they plan to sue the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service if it does not respond to their petition to return a tiny desert owl to the endangered-species list. The long-running dispute focuses on the cactus ferruginous pygmy owl, which commonly nests in saguaro cactuses. The bird was listed as endangered in 1997 but removed from the list in 2006. The organizations - the Center for Biological Diversity, Defenders of Wildlife and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility - petitioned to have the bird returned to endangered-species status in March 2007. The dispute over whether the bird should be protected goes back to 2001 when the National Association of Home Builders and the Southern Arizona Home Builders Association challenged the listing. Courts then ordered the Fish and Wildlife Service to show that Arizona pygmy owls were of sufficient biological and ecological significance to the entire population to qualify for listing as a distinct-population segment. Service officials said they were unable to do that largely because sufficient numbers of the owls are believed to exist in Mexico. But in the groups' 2007 petition to have the pygmy owl re-listed, conservationists said the Fish and Wildlife Service ignored scientific evidence provided by its own biologists. They added that the agency refused to consider that the quickly disappearing Arizona population constitutes the last U.S. population of the owl's Western subspecies....
Polar bear listing threatens economic development As we feared, the government has decided that polar bears are at risk because of melting arctic ice. Radical environmentalists are elated because they insist ice is melting from global warming. What’s certain to follow is a flurry of lawsuits to stop everything from oil exploration to building projects anywhere in the country because they emit greenhouse gases, which environmental alarmists claim heat the planet. “The industries most likely to be pummeled by the polar bear are energy production, aggregates extraction, transportation and commercial building because each can be shown quite easily to result in increased emissions of greenhouse gases, and each routinely requires federal permits to go about some aspect of their business,” wrote Hugh Hewitt, a California law professor specializing in natural resource law. “The coal industry may be target No. 1, followed by oil drilling in the lower 48” states. Marlo Lewis, senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, paints an equally bleak picture: “CEI can easily imagine a scenario in which environmental litigants sue to enjoin builders, developers, utilities, manufacturers, banks, etc. from going about their otherwise lawful pursuits on the grounds that the associated emissions endanger polar bear habitat.”....
Polar bear decision rife with flaws After months of delay, last week the Bush administration finally acknowledged that melting sea ice is pushing polar bears to the brink of extinction. The listing of polar bears under the Endangered Species Act marks a turning point. We no longer can deny the impact climate change is having on wildlife and our world. But placing the polar bear on the endangered species list is just the tip of the iceberg. Upon close examination, the administration's decision is riddled with loopholes and caveats that leave the polar bear in the same precarious situation as before. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne says that the listing will not be used "to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles, power plants, and other sources" -- despite that fact that those are the very forces that have placed the animal in jeopardy. The Bush administration has dragged its feet at every step in the listing process, conveniently paving the way for destructive oil drilling in key polar bear habitat off the coast of Alaska. Now, Kempthorne is bending over backward to reassure the oil industry that the listing will not prevent drilling in prime polar bear habitat. The administration says it will continue to develop these resources in "an environmentally sound way."....
Bear label increases Inuit mistrust It's easy to romanticize the majestic polar bear when you don't have to worry about the enormous animals marauding down the streets of your community in August and September, as Lootie Toomasie from Qikiqtarjuaq often does. For Toomasie, bears are no symbol of climate change. They're a threat to his family. He and other hunters chase the bears off, using ATVs and boats. Still, "there's too many bears for us," he says. "We're no longer safe." One benefit the bears bring is business, in the form of wealthy U.S. hunters who are willing to pay as much as $30,000 to bag one of the beasts. But that business may now be crippled, many worry, following the U.S. decision May 14 to list polar bears as "threatened" under its Endangered Species Act. Most sport hunters who visit Nunavut hail from the United States. But now U.S. hunters aren't allowed to bring their polar bear trophies home, as one consequence of the "threatened" designation. The polar bear sport hunt draws about $2.9 million into Nunavut each year, the department of the environment estimates....
Eagles delay paving job A pair of bald eagles has thrown a temporary roadblock in front of pavers intent on laying asphalt on Highway 20 south of Oak Harbor. Crews have postponed paving Highway 20 south of Oak Harbor until July 15 due to the presence of a pair of bald eagles nesting nearby, said Dave Chesson, DOT spokesman, on Thursday. "Federal and state laws say the protected bird needs a wide berth when nesting and raising young," Chesson said. For drivers, this means a two-month wait for the final layer of asphalt to go down and for the bumps in the roadway to disappear. Bald eagles are protected by both state and federal law. In July 2007, the bald eagle was removed from protection under the federal Endangered Species Act. However, two other federal laws still provide protection for the bald eagle: the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. These laws primarily address nest tree protection and protection from harassment....
Lawsuit Notice Filed to Protect Fossil Creek The Tucson-based Center for Biological Diversity today filed a notice of intent to sue the U.S. Forest Service for Endangered Species Act violations at Fossil Creek. The notice states that the Forest Service has failed to consult with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service over the repatriation of native fish while management strategies continue to adversely impact the fish and their habitat. The loach minnow and spikedace — two Arizona native fish species that are federally listed as “threatened” — were returned to Fossil Creek last November. “The Forest Service has exhibited an incredible lack of ability or desire to take the management actions necessary to preserve this wonderful place or the spikedace and loach minnow,” said Michelle Harrington, rivers conservation manager for the Center for Biological Diversity. “We have repeatedly asked for an emergency closure to overnight camping to reduce the amount of traffic and waste in and along the stream, but the agency continues to drag its feet and offers no solutions or commitments.” The Endangered Species Act requires federal agencies to ensure their activities do not adversely impact listed species. In this case, the Forest Service has continued its status quo management operations at Fossil Creek in central Arizona despite very changed circumstances. In light of this, and the impending deluge of visitors expected over the holiday weekend and summer camping season, the Center filed notice. The loach minnow and spikedace, along with razorback sucker and Gila topminnow, also federally listed, have been repatriated to Fossil Creek following the decommissioning of Arizona Public Service hydropower plants and the restoration of water to the creek....
State high court rejects environmental challenge to Sierra logging plans The California Supreme Court in San Francisco rejected environmental challenges to a timber company's plans to harvest trees on about 1,400 acres of private land in Tuolumne County. Two conservation groups contended that timber harvest plans developed by Sierra Pacific Industries didn't adequately consider the broad impact on two wildlife species, the California spotted owl and a small mammal called the Pacific fisher. The California spotted owl is not listed as an endangered species, but is a cousin of the northern spotted owl, which is federally listed as a threatened species. The Pacific fisher is classified as a species of concern. Sierra Pacific Industries plans to harvest pine, fir and black oak trees on the land by clear-cutting most of the trees on the land and then replanting the forests. The procedure of logging most trees in an area at the same time is known as "even-aged" management. The high court unanimously ruled that the plans did adequately consider the impact on the Sierra Nevada region before concluding the two species wouldn't be harmed....
Humans to be put on the Endangered Species List The US Department of Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) announced today that People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has petitioned to have Humans put on the endangered Species List (ESL). A PETA spokesman said "people are really animals!" PETA is concerned that the recent spate of hurricanes in the United States, typhoons in Burma and earthquakes in China require that this listing of Humans' time has come. Additionally, wars, famines, disease, automobile accidents and murders are decimating the human population of six billion people, which may only rise by another one Billion people in a few years. (This is the same logic that got the Polar Bear on the ESL.) However, there will be one class of Humans exempted from protection, namely elected politicians. The Sierra Club is expected to sue PETA and FWS, arguing that politicians are already a state and federally protected species. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is expected to sue PETA and FWS for discrimination. The Solicitor General of the United States has indicated the US government will join the lawsuits, but not on whose side. Al Gore cannot be reached for comment. Nine loud groans were heard emanating from the Supreme Court building in Washington DC. The American Bar Association (ABA) asked law schools to graduate more lawyers. Putting Humans on the ESL begs the question; what is the penalty if a Polar Bear eats a Human? (Satire)
Catron Residents Talk About Drilling Proposal An aquifer that is the source of water for parts of Socorro and Catron counties remains a subject of contention between local residents and a New York-based firm owned by an Italian millionaire, Bruno Modena. The firm, San Augustin Ranch LLC, is asking the state engineer to approve its plan to drill 37 wells with 20-inch casings north and south of Highway 60 at the county line. According to its application, the firm’s objective is to pump all the water it can get out of the San Agustin basin to a depth of 2,000 feet and sell it to the state to meet its obligations mandated by the Rio Grande Compact, leaving ranchers, residents and communities with the task of drilling deeper wells. Current wells in the area are between 200 and 300 feet deep on average. About 250 people packed the Datil Elementary gymnasium Saturday night to hear Bruce Frederick of the New Mexico Environmental Law Center explain water laws in New Mexico and the state engineer’s hearing process. Frederick said he will represent a group of local residents who have filed protests. He said the protesters are in a good position. “The sheer numbers of protesters and the diversity of the protesters warrant the position that it’s being detrimental to public welfare,” Frederick said. Among the protesters are state and federal agencies, Indian tribes and private companies, including Phelps Dodge, he said....
Dangers of mainland disease lab debated at hearing One of the nation's oldest farm groups said Thursday a proposed foot-and-mouth disease research laboratory on the U.S. mainland, near livestock, could be an inviting target for terrorists. Commercial livestock representatives and the Bush administration insisted it would be safe to move an island lab to sites near animals. Testimony at a House hearing showed deep divisions between farmers and ranchers over where to conduct research on the most infectious animal-only disease in the world. Such work now is confined to the 840-acre Plum Island, N.Y., off the northeastern tip of Long Island. The administration has spent time and money to announce five finalist sites on the mainland for a new lab. A new facility on Plum Island to replace the current, outmoded lab remains a possibility. All sides agreed that the wrong decision would bring an economic catastrophe if a new lab failed to contain the virus within the facility. An epidemic could ruin farmers and ranchers as well as related industries in feed, transportation, exports and retail....
U.S. farm bill, in part and in full, wins passage In following the legislative trail of the $307 billion farm bill, it is good to remember that the American system of checks and balances is not really designed for speed. With most House Democrats and quite a few Republicans supporting it, the bill was approved on Thursday by 306 to 110. The Senate quickly followed suit, 82 to 13. The votes in both chambers were far more than enough to defeat the veto that President George W. Bush cast on Wednesday. But wait. Hadn't the House already voted, by 316 to 108 later Wednesday, to override the veto? Well, yes. Sort of. Lawmakers discovered on Wednesday evening that a 34-page section of the 673-page bill was missing from the package that was sent last week to President George W. Bush, who executed his veto after calling the measure bloated and wasteful. The version that the House voted for in its override on Wednesday was also missing that section, which pertains to trade programs and foreign food aid. Thursday's vote in the House was on all 673 pages, which also embrace subsidies for farmers, food stamps, land conservation and various other items too attractive for most lawmakers to shun. The glitch "shows that they can even screw up spending the taxpayers' money unwisely," the president's spokeswoman, Dana Perino, said on Thursday....
Fact Sheet: An Opportunity to Reconsider a Wasteful Farm Bill For a year and a half, the Administration has consistently asked that the Congress pass a good farm bill that is fiscally responsible and better targets support programs. The Congress is now preparing to reconsider at least a portion of the farm bill and should take this opportunity to address the objections that have been raised repeatedly and the most recently raised concerns related to the Average Crop Revenue Election (ACRE) program. * The current agreement increases spending by more than $20 billion and fails to include much-needed farm program reforms proposed by President Bush. Congress is now continuing its gimmicks by delaying the budget resolution until after it again passes at least part of the farm bill in order to hide $3 billion in farm bill spending that Congress hasn't counted. This bill also adds a number of unrelated provisions and others never considered by the full Congress, such as numerous trade-related provisions. This bill is inconsistent with our objectives in international trade negotiations, which include increasing market access for American farmers and ranchers. Congress should reconsider this extraneous spending increase. * This legislation is also filled with earmarks and other ill-considered provisions. Most notably, the current agreement includes: $175 million to address water issues for desert lakes; $250 million for a 400,000-acre land purchase from a private owner; funding and authority for the noncompetitive sale of National Forest land to a ski resort; and $382 million earmarked for a specific watershed. Rural and urban Americans alike are frustrated with excessive government spending and the funneling of taxpayer funds for pet projects. Congress should seize the opportunity to eliminate wasteful spending....

Bush's polar bear legal disaster

As expected, the U. S. Department of the Interior added the polar bear to the list of threatened species under the Endangered Species Act last week. Even with the Bush administration's attempt to render the ruling toothless, this action will almost surely go down in history as the turning point in the global-warming debate.

The department concluded that the past and projected melting of sea ice in the Arctic poses an immediate threat to the polar bear's habitat. It pointed to greenhouse-gas-induced climate change as a primary cause for the recession of the sea ice, and emphasized that oil and gas development in the Arctic isn't the reason the polar bear is threatened.

Make no mistake, within a year or two, we can expect the polar bear to begin influencing everyday U. S. economic life.

The polar bear's listing wasn't intended as a back door for environmental groups to bring lawsuits against greenhouse-gas emitters, according to the ruling.

Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne said listing the polar bear as threatened can reduce avoidable losses of the animal. Yet, he said, it doesn't mean the law should be used "to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions from automobiles, power plants and other sources. That would be a wholly inappropriate use of the Endangered Species Act. ESA is not the right tool to set U. S. climate policy."

Georgetown University law professor Lisa Heinzerling summarized the Bush administration's actions aptly: "The Department of the Interior has, in short, worked very hard to make sure that its listing of the polar bear under the Endangered Species Act does not trigger the usual protections that act provides."

Such an action is logically and ethically indefensible. For the administration to determine that the polar bear is threatened, it had to conclude that global warming will melt the ice that polar bears need to survive. Having reached that conclusion, the Endangered Species Act requires them to take action to slow global warming. They can't decide not to do their job and enforce the law.

One can imagine that there is some not-so-clever polar bear skeptic in the White House who thought this was a brilliant manoeuvre. The fact is, if they believed that inaction was the right policy, then they should have refused to list the bear as threatened. It's ludicrous to try to have it both ways. Historians will doubtless use this cynical decision as a canonical example of what was wrong with this administration.

In the near term then, the polar bears aren't going to be saved by this government. But don't fret. If George Bush won't save the polar bear, Perry Mason will.

Environmental groups are already preparing legal challenges. Kassie Siegel of the Center for Biological Diversity told USA Today last week that the Endangered Species Act requires agencies now to address greenhouse gases, and warned that "we can and will go to court to enforce the law."

When Siegel and her colleagues take that action, they will win. The U. S. government has no chance of having a court uphold its twisted logic. That is especially true because environmentalists will be able to bring lawsuits in jurisdictions of judges who are predisposed to interpret the Endangered Species Act sympathetically.

Make no mistake, within a year or two, we can expect the polar bear to begin influencing everyday U. S. economic life. Oil exploration in the Arctic will be affected, though that's not the half of it.

Lawyer and columnist Hugh Hewitt described what that new world will look like: "Environmental activists will argue that all emissions of greenhouse gases that flow as a consequence of the grant of a federal permit of any sort are now subject to review under the ESA and, crucially, that those permits cannot be issued unless and until the United States Fish & Wildlife Service reviews and approves of the requested permit."

The fact is, just about everything requires some kind of permit, so just about anything that emits greenhouse gases could be subject to a challenge. The process will rapidly spread the reach of this ruling throughout the energy industry and U. S. manufacturing.

An activist armed with a lawyer can now halt anything he wants. He might even be able to stop you from driving to work or taking a hot shower.

GAO

Chemical Assessments: EPA's New Assessment Process Will Further Limit the Productivity and Credibility of Its Integrated Risk Information System, by John B. Stephenson, director, natural resources and environment, before the Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight, House Committee on Science and Technology. GAO-08-810T, May 21. http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-08-810T

Highlights - http://www.gao.gov/highlights/d08810thigh.pdf


High-Containment Biosafety Laboratories: DHS Lacks Evidence to Conclude That Foot-and-Mouth Disease Research Can Be Done Safely on the U.S. Mainland, by Nancy R. Kingsbury, managing director, applied research and methods, before the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, House Committee on Energy and Commerce. GAO-08-821T, May 22. http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-08-821T

Highlights - http://www.gao.gov/highlights/d08821thigh.pdf

31,000 scientists reject 'global warming' agenda More than 31,000 scientists across the U.S. – including more than 9,000 Ph.D.s in fields such as atmospheric science, climatology, Earth science, environment and dozens of other specialties – have signed a petition rejecting "global warming," the assumption that the human production of greenhouse gases is damaging Earth's climate. "There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate," the petition states. "Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth." The Petition Project actually was launched nearly 10 years ago, when the first few thousand signatures were assembled. Then, between 1999 and 2007, the list of signatures grew gradually without any special effort or campaign. But now, a new effort has been conducted because of an "escalation of the claims of 'consensus,' release of the movie 'An Inconvenient Truth' by Mr. Al Gore, and related events," according to officials with the project....
The great organic myths: Why organic foods are an indulgence the world can't afford Myth one: Organic farming is good for the environment The study of Life Cycle Assessments (LCAs) for the UK, sponsored by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, should concern anyone who buys organic. It shows that milk and dairy production is a major source of greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs). A litre of organic milk requires 80 per cent more land than conventional milk to produce, has 20 per cent greater global warming potential, releases 60 per cent more nutrients to water sources, and contributes 70 per cent more to acid rain. Also, organically reared cows burp twice as much methane as conventionally reared cattle – and methane is 20 times more powerful a greenhouse gas than CO2. Myth two: Organic farming is more sustainable Organic potatoes use less energy in terms of fertiliser production, but need more fossil fuel for ploughing. A hectare of conventionally farmed land produces 2.5 times more potatoes than an organic one. Heated greenhouse tomatoes in Britain use up to 100 times more energy than those grown in fields in Africa. Organic yield is 75 per cent of conventional tomato crops but takes twice the energy – so the climate consequences of home-grown organic tomatoes exceed those of Kenyan imports. Defra estimates organic tomato production in the UK releases almost three times the nutrient pollution and uses 25 per cent more water per kg of fruit than normal production....
Alaska to challenge polar bear listing The state of Alaska will sue to challenge the recent listing of polar bears as a threatened species, Gov. Sarah Palin announced Wednesday. She and other Alaska elected officials fear a listing will cripple oil and gas development in prime polar bear habitat off the state's northern and northwestern coasts. Palin argued that there is not enough evidence to support a listing. Polar bears are well-managed and their population has dramatically increased over 30 years as a result of conservation, she said. Climate models that predict continued loss of sea ice, the main habitat of polar bears, during summers are unreliable, said Palin, a Republican. The announcement drew a strong response from the primary author of the listing petition. "She's either grossly misinformed or intentionally misleading, and both are unbecoming," said Kassie Siegel of the Center for Biological Diversity. "Alaska deserves better." Siegel said it was unconscionable for Palin to ignore overwhelming evidence of global warming's threat to sea ice, the polar bear's habitat....
Proposed change to water law riles landowners A proposal backed by environmentalists to change one word in the Clean Water Act and subject tens of millions more acres of land to new federal oversight has ranchers and farmers fuming. "It's a huge grab for more federal intervention in our lives, and we don't need that," says Montana cattle rancher Randy Smith says. The Clean Water Act of 1972 makes it illegal to pollute "navigable" waters. Over the decades, disputes arose over the government's expanding definition of "navigable," and some landowners complained that the word was being interpreted too broadly. Two Supreme Court decisions in 2001 and 2006 came down on the side of landowners, ruling that ponds at the bottom of a gravel pit and a marsh miles from any lake or river were not navigable and thus not subject to the act. The rulings removed important waterways from federal protection, say Sen. Russ Feingold of Wisconsin and Rep. Jim Oberstar of Minnesota. The two Democrats have sponsored the Clean Water Restoration Act, which would change the wording of the Clean Water Act from covering "navigable" waters to covering "waters of the United States." The new definition would place under federal oversight all water subject to the ocean tides as well as "lakes, rivers, streams, mudflats, sandflats, wetlands, sloughs, prairie potholes, wet meadows, playa lakes, natural ponds and all impoundments," also known as man-made reservoirs....
President Boxer When Senate Democrats tie one of President Bush's nominees to the whipping post, they usually bother to invent some substantive objection. Apparently the new standard for rejection is merely that a White House nominee dares to support White House policy. In March, the White House nominated David Hill as general counsel for the Environmental Protection Agency. He ought to have zipped through the Senate. Over two decades in Washington, Mr. Hill has accumulated no partisan ballast; when he was nominated as the Energy Department's general counsel three years ago, he was confirmed unanimously. He is roundly liked for his role in developing the Administration's loan programs for clean tech. But yesterday, Mr. Hill was rejected for the EPA post by the Senate Environment Committee during a routine business meeting, a highly unusual maneuver. The 10-9 vote had no relation at all to Mr. Hill's qualifications to serve and everything to do with preventing any policy supervision at the EPA. The committee is chaired by California's Barbara Boxer, who is livid that the EPA has so far declined to rewrite existing environmental laws to regulate greenhouse gasses. At a confirmation hearing, Ms. Boxer told Mr. Hill that he was incapable of "independent thought" because he didn't pay obeisance to her political agenda. Instead, Mr. Hill said he would only sign off on decisions that were "legally defensible."....
State refutes suits’ claims The state of Wyoming has joined up with U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services (FWS) as a defendant in the wolf-delisting lawsuit filed April 28 by conservation groups and on Friday, challenged the groups’ claims gray wolves are still endangered. The dozen groups, represented by Earthjustice, seek the wolves’ immediate relisting under the FWS Endangered Species Act with a hearing for a preliminary injunction set for May 29 before U.S. District Court Judge Donald Molloy in Missoula, Mont. The state argued Friday that Wyoming’s and the Northern Rockies’ wolf population is not at risk from “a moderate amount of human-caused mortality in any given year,” citing FWS lethal control actions in 2007 resulted in 63 wolves killed for livestock depredation but the state population still grew from 311 to 359 wolves that year. The state also argued wolves are not in “peril” because over the last 14 years, the Northern Rockies’ population has grown an average of 24 percent each year even with 23 percent of that total population dying each year. The conservation groups claim FWS needs to resume control of the wolves because Wyoming, Idaho and Montana state plans do not “ensure a sustainable wolf population in the region.”....
Should wolves have a sanctuary? A barely perceptible gasp swept through the crowd of onlookers standing next to state Highway 75 just after sunrise Saturday a few miles downstream of Stanley. Less than an hour after the sun hit the jagged peaks of the nearby Sawtooth Mountains, the attention of the 20 to 25 warmly dressed people was drawn to an open, sun-splashed slope above the Salmon River on the northwest side of the highway. Picking its way through dense stands of chest-high sagebrush, a lone gray wolf gave the crowd the spectacular display they'd come to find. Saturday's sighting of the single wolf—a member of central Idaho's Basin Butte wolf pack—took place in the heart of a large wolf-occupied area that ICL members hope state wildlife managers will designate as a Central Idaho Wolf Viewing Area. The conservationists' aim is to have the Idaho Department of Fish and Game designate lands on both sides of several highways in the region as an area where wild wolves can go about their lives free from the threat of hunting. Portions of the viewing area would fall inside the 756,000-acre Sawtooth National Recreation Area, a popular destination for travelers arriving from around the nation to recreate in its many mountains, rivers and abundant wildlife areas....
Report criticizes Interior over delisting decisions Several top officials may have played politics with Endangered Species Act cases and the Interior Department could have found more such decisions had it better investigated the problem, a new report says. And of the eight species delisted in recent years, including the Yellowstone National Park grizzly bear population, only two had met all their recovery criteria, the report said. The department already revised seven decisions because of political interference by Julie MacDonald, a former Interior deputy assistant secretary. They include those for two species in Montana - the Canada lynx and the Preble's meadow jumping mouse. But that number could have been higher had the department not limited its investigation, a Government Accountability Office report says. Robin Nazzaro of the GAO testified Wednesday to the House Natural Resources Committee that at least four other Bush appointees might have played questionable roles in the ESA decisions approved by MacDonald. They include a former assistant secretary, a deputy assistant secretary and the secretary's chief of staff, she said. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service excluded numerous cases from its investigation of decisions that may have been improperly influenced by simply leaving out all decisions made by Interior officials other than MacDonald. It also excluded policy decisions that limited the application of science and those that were changed but not significantly or to the point of negative effects on the species....
Scenic alpine lake above Tahoe being sold to Forest Service A scenic alpine lake and private enclave overlooking Lake Tahoe that once served as a playground for the rich and famous should be in the public's hands this summer under a compromise announced Wednesday. The Incline Lake Corp. will receive a deposit of at least $46 million for 777 acres, including Incline Lake, atop a forested ridge of the Sierra between Lake Tahoe and Reno, the current landowners said. A trial will be held in federal court to determine whether additional compensation is justified under what was described as a "friendly condemnation" proceeding, the Reno Gazette-Journal first reported on it's Web site Wednesday afternoon. Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., suggested the compromise. It was arranged after the landowners and U.S. Forest Service failed to agree on value of the property. The Incline Lake Corp. originally asked for $75 million but federal appraisals put the value as "tens of millions" less than that, said Glen Williams of Terra Firma Associates, representing the owners. The scenic property should transfer to the U.S. Forest Service sometime in June, although the exact value of the land won't be determined for perhaps a year, Williams said. The lake will remain closed to the public until next year while all improvements, including buildings, foundations, water tanks and utilities, are removed, landowners said....
Groups Blame Forest Service Policy for Mega-Fires Current forest management policies are causing annual catastrophic fire, and resulting in negative economic, environmental and health effects for Montana residents, according to several former government agency employees and two area citizen groups. At a public symposium last Sunday at the Flathead County Fairgrounds, about 60 people gathered to hear five presenters – three of them current or former employees of the U.S. Forest Service – speak on topics ranging from the history and policy decisions of the Forest Service to adverse health effects and increased fire intensities. The Flathead Business and Industry Association and the Big Sky Coalition, a group that bills itself as “Environmentalists with Common Sense” and advocates thinning practices on national forest lands to reduce fuels, hosted the presentation. “Simply continuing to fight these unnatural high intensity fires while ignoring the things that have caused or led up to them is not the way to go,” Sonny LaSalle, executive director of the coalition and a Forest Service retiree, said. “It’s more cost effective to maintain a forest than to continually fight these mega-fires.” Jack Ward Thomas, a retired Forest Service chief, began the symposium with a detailed history of the Forest Service, describing how political and social changes in the country have led to a muddied purpose for the agency and large decreases in logging. Changing climate, drought conditions, a lack of thinning and maintenance in the forests and decreased road access for firefighters have all combined to make it harder to contain wildfires and have led to a fire season that’s 78 days longer on average, two fire management officers said. “It used to be that 10,000 acres was a really, really big fire and you could work your whole career without ever seeing one top 20,000,” Dave Bunnell, a retired Forest Service fire management officer, said. “Now, 10,000 acres is just a spot fire off something like Chippy Creek that nobody even cares about.”....
Politics of energy development changing Nearly two decades ago, Republicans won the West by linking Democrats to environmentalists, who supposedly cared more for the spotted owl and other favored species than they did for the jobs of loggers or miners. But now, as a boom in natural-gas drilling reshapes the region, Western Democrats have found success recasting environmentalism as a defense of threatened water supplies, fishing spots and hunting grounds. As a result, the party may hold the advantage this fall in the region's key congressional races. The simultaneous rise of Western energy production and the Western Democrat is no coincidence. The Rocky Mountain drilling boom has been aided by the 2005 Energy Policy Act, which was once considered a partisan political masterstroke. In providing incentives for energy development, Republicans delivered a profitable gift to an industry that directs most of its campaign contributions to GOP candidates. That gift was sweetened by the Bureau of Land Management, which, under President Bush has expanded the amount of federal land open to energy development and increased the number of drilling permits. But the acceleration of energy exploration has split the national Republican Party from local Republicans upset by the downsides of the energy boom. "Republicans created a monster for themselves," said Rick Ridder, a Colorado-based Democratic consultant. "They put public policy in direct conflict with their base voters." In Wyoming's Upper North Platte Valley, Jeb Steward, a Republican state representative, helped lead the successful 2007 opposition to the BLM's proposed sale of 13 oil and gas parcels. "We have customs and cultures that have developed over a hundred years based on the utilization of multiple renewable resources - agriculture, tourism, wildlife, fisheries," Steward said. "When BLM proposed issuing the leases, residents were asking, 'What does this mean to the lifestyles that we've all grown accustomed to?'"....
Tap federal lands for oil, BLM urges The answer to rising fuel prices may lie under millions of acres of federal land, mostly in the West, that for a variety of reasons are off limits to oil and natural-gas development, according to the Bureau of Land Management. A BLM inventory of public lands released Wednesday shows 279 million acres of untapped resources throughout the United States. Those areas contain an estimated 31 billion barrels of oil and 231 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. "If we want to lower the cost of energy, we must be willing to use our own energy resources as part of a balanced and rational energy policy," Stephen Allred, assistant secretary of the interior, said in a conference call with reporters. The report found 60 percent of federal lands that have potential for oil and natural gas are closed to leasing, mostly as a result of congressional or administrative mandates. The report does not include state or private lands, which generally have had fewer restrictions on drilling. It also does not address the estimated trillion barrels of oil in shale in Utah and throughout the Intermountain West. All federal land believed to have energy potential was included in the study, the third in a series of scientific reports required by the Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 2000. The United States consumed about 7.5 billion barrels of oil in 2006, 60 percent of which was imported, the study says. Federal lands produced about 5 percent of the 2006 consumption. Allred called the report a starting to point for discussion that could lead Congress to loosen drilling restrictions on public lands....
Jurassic track unearthed in Cactus Park The rocky outcrops of Cactus Park were a real Jurassic Park some 140 million years ago, home to a wide variety of dinosaurs. One of them left a footprint that survived the eons to be discovered this spring by Kent Hups, a science teacher at Manual High School in Denver. Hups unveiled the print on Wednesday in Denver, where he’s showing his students how to make casts of prints such as the one he found. His ankylosaur print is the first such print of the species from the Jurassic Period and the largest print of any ankylosaur from the Age of the Dinosaurs. “This is a first in the Jurassic,” said Dr. Martin Lockley, a track expert from the Dinosaur Tracks Museum and the University of Colorado in Denver. “This is not just any old footprint. This is the first and only ankylosaur footprint ever found in the Jurassic — anywhere in the world. It is another tracking first for Colorado.”....
Conservancy district sues NM Game and Fish over rodents The New Mexico Game and Fish Department and the State Game Commission is being sued by the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District over the agency's proposed recovery plan for the New Mexico meadow jumping mouse and the Arizona montane vole. The conservancy district said Wednesday it is seeking a court order to keep the Game Commission from taking action on the plan during its meeting next week so that residents of the Middle Rio Grande Valley can have an opportunity to weigh in on the plan. The district, in a lawsuit filed last week in state district court in Socorro, claims the plan could have a "devastating impact" on agriculture in the valley and that Game and Fish failed to get input from the residents. Chuck DuMars, an attorney for the district, claims the plan would result in the diversion of water from agriculture to help rodents and that beaver dams would be encouraged to restore riparian habitats. However, the district usually removes beaver dams to keep its drainages operating properly. "We're saying that before they adopt such a plan that could include diversions of water from farming and grazing operations, which are directly tied to the MRGCD's function, that we should be given proper notice and be allowed input. That didn't happen," DuMars said....
High gas prices drive farmer to switch to mules High gas prices have driven a Warren County farmer and his sons to hitch a tractor rake to a pair of mules to gather hay from their fields. T.R. Raymond bought Dolly and Molly at the Dixon mule sale last year. Son Danny Raymond trained them and also modified the tractor rake so the mules could pull it. T.R. Raymond says the mules are slower than a petroleum-powered tractor, but there are benefits. "This fuel's so high, you can't afford it," he said. "We can feed these mules cheaper than we can buy fuel. That's the truth." And Danny Raymond says he just likes using the mules around the farm. "We've been using them quite a bit," he said. Brother Robert Raymond added, "It's the way of the future.
House overrides Bush veto on farm bill The House has overridden President Bush's veto of a $290 billion farm bill and senators soon may follow suit. It was only hours before the House's 316-108 vote Wednesday that Bush had vetoed the five-year measure. He said it was too expensive and gave too much money to wealthy farmers when farm incomes are high. The legislation includes election-year subsidies for farmers and food stamps for the poor — spending that lawmakers could promote when they are back in their districts over the Memorial Day weekend. The Senate is expected to begin consideration of the bill Thursday. There are expected to be enough votes to reject the veto. The veto was the 10th of Bush's presidency. Congress has overridden him once, on a water projects bill....
New Mexico lawmakers object to bovine TB testing The New Mexico congressional delegation Wednesday urged U.S. Agriculture Secretary Edward Schafer not to take any action related to bovine tuberculosis testing that would harm the entire state’s livestock industry. In a letter to Schafer, Sens. Jeff Bingaman and Pete Domenici, along with Reps. Heather Wilson, Tom Udall and Steve Pearce, objected to a possible plan by the Department of Agriculture to force all New Mexico ranchers and dairies to test their cattle for bovine TB. In 2003, bovine TB was discovered in cattle in Curry and Roosevelt counties. Since that time a zone within the two counties has been the only place in the state where cattle needed to be tested before being shipped out of state. The discovery of a single new animal with bovine TB from a feedlot in Curry County has prompted USDA to consider amending New Mexico’s bovine TB status to one that requires statewide testing, according to a press release. In the letter, the New Mexico lawmakers said that statewide testing would be a costly and unnecessary step. “As we understand it, USDA is considering amending the bovine TB regulations to add New Mexico to the list of modified accredited advanced states as a result of the discovery of an infected animal earlier this year. This change would have dramatic consequences on the livestock industry in our state. Because we believe this change is not in accord with the USDA’s existing regulations, we are requesting your prompt review of the decision,” the letter states....
Fried: We eat cow balls so you don't have to So when New Times needed someone to file weekly reports on fried food around the Valley, I was an enthusiastic volunteer. Hey, I eat the stuff anyway; I might as well have a good excuse for ordering it. And while I didn't plan to try anything exotic for my first Fried post, somehow I ended up at The Stockyards Restaurant, putting in order for calf fries. For the unitiated, those are cow testicles. Breaded and fried cow testicles, that is, with a side of marinara. Did I also mention I'm an adventurous eater? I was dining with my friend Jim, who initially pretended to be a good sport. (My other companion, Amy, didn't even feign a willingness to play along. "No balls!" she said, in the tone I might use to discipline my 11-week-old puppy.) "Sure, I'll try one," Jim said, after our waitress delivered an appetizer-sized bowl of balls. After all, they look like fried mushrooms -- nothing scary there. But then we sliced one open, and were treated to a view of the pink fleshy innards. (See above.) "They look surprisingly like what you would think they would look like," Jim said, "and that's not good."....Got to laugh at Jim, but someone please tell the New Time's cuisine cuty that cows don't have balls.

GAO

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service: Endangered Species Act Decision Making, by Robin M. Nazzaro, director, natural resources and environment, before the House Committee on Natural Resources. GAO-08-688T, May 21. http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-08-688T

Highlights - http://www.gao.gov/highlights/d08688thigh.pdf

Schwarzenegger blasts White House over environment It was purely coincidence but the release of a report on how businesses are using technology to reduce their carbon footprint came just as the price of a barrel of crude on the NYMEX topped $129 for the first time. California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, flanked by a coterie of CEOs featured in the report, also used the occasion on Tuesday to shine the spotlight on private sector green initiatives. At the same time, he hammered the Bush administration's attentiveness to environmental issues. "Washington is asleep at the wheel," he said in a brief appearance at the San Francisco offices of the Environmental Defense Fund. Schwarzenegger, whose position on environmental questions is far to the left of his colleagues in the Republican Party, also blasted the administration for meddling in a long-running dispute over controlling tailpipe emissions in California....
Google Earth app shows effects of climate change The Met Office Hadely Center, British Antarctic Survey, and the U.K. government on Monday introduced a Google Earth application that visualizes the anticipated temperatures changes from climate change over the next 100 years. The animation uses a color scheme to show the differences in temperatures layed over a Google Earth image. People can also click on icons on the image to get more on how the data was compiled, stories from people affected by climate change, and information on the projected regional impact of climate change. The initiative was launched by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown at the Google Zeitgeist conference on Monday. vnunet quoted British Environment Secretary Hilary Benn saying that the collaboration was done to help people understand climate change better. "This project shows the reality of climate change using estimates of the change in the average temperature where they live, and the impact it will have on people's lives all over the world, including here in Britain," she said, according to the vnunet report....
Cap McCain's hot air John McCain's proposed "cap-and-trade" program is a disease far worse than the alleged global warming his proposal seeks to cure. His proposed program would not reduce carbon emissions; it would increase the price of energy; it would expand the reach, power and cost of government; and it would push the U.S. another step closer to government control of the sources of production. Simply put, his program would empower government to set an arbitrary limit on the amount of energy every industry could use by setting an arbitrary "cap" on the amount of carbon every industry could emit. Emissions beyond this arbitrary limit, or "cap," would be taxed. The subject industry could avoid the tax only by reducing emission – by reducing the input of fossil fuel – or by purchasing so-called "carbon credits" from other industries that have not used their arbitrary limit. Either way, the additional cost to the industry will be passed on to the consumer as a part of the cost of production. In theory, the industry will not reduce its overall energy input, but will replace a portion of the fossil fuel with non-fossil fuel energy sources such as solar, wind, or whatever. These energy sources, if available, are more expensive than fossil fuels, and the additional costs will be passed on to consumers. These costs pale in comparison to the increase in the cost of government required to implement the program. Government will have to establish a carbon limit for every business within every target industry. Government will design and require a method of reporting carbon use. Government will necessarily expand the bureaucracy needed to review and input this data into another government computer. Government will create a new bureaucracy to monitor the industries to insure that they are not cheating on their reports. And, of course, there will need to be a new enforcement agency....
Critics: Polar bear plan must fight global warming Conservation groups returned to court to challenge Bush administration efforts to help save the polar bear, saying federal officials' refusal to include steps against global warming violates the Endangered Species Act. In court documents filed late Friday, the Center for Biological Diversity and other groups asked a federal judge to reject Interior Department actions that were announced last week. Polar bears are threatened with extinction in many areas because of the melting of their sea ice habitat. The groups say greenhouse gas emissions have led to rapid melting in the Arctic. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, facing a court deadline because of the groups' earlier lawsuit, had announced Wednesday that polar bears would be listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. Among the steps he proposed to help them were increasing research and working with Canada to help the bears survive in the wild. But he rejected the addition of broad steps to reduce greenhouse gases, saying he would not allow the Endangered Species Act to be "misused" to regulate global climate change. Kassie Siegel, climate director for the Center for Biological Diversity, said the administration's proposal "violates both logic and the law" because it did not address the primary threat to polar bears. The listing of polar bears under the law is significant, she acknowledged, but the groups want them classified as endangered, a more serious category than threatened....
BLM mulls grazing, drilling limits in northeast Wyoming The U.S. Bureau of Land Management has warned energy companies and ranchers that it's considering restrictions on new grazing and energy development in the Powder River Basin to try to reduce damage to critical sage grouse areas. The BLM's field office in Buffalo sent notice on Monday to the land users warning them that new grazing and energy activities could be halted for a few years while the agency plans how to accommodate sage grouse. Scientific studies have found the grouse population in the Powder River Basin has dropped in recent years. The federal government is studying whether to protect the birds under the Endangered Species Act. Chris Hanson, manager of the BLM's Buffalo Field Office, said the restrictions could affect drilling plans not yet approved as well as grazing lease transfers and renewals. He said coal projects could also be delayed while the agency considers the sage grouse issue. Paul Beels, assistant manager of the BLM's Buffalo Field Office, said the restrictions could limit grazing and drilling on grouse breeding areas, migration corridors and other critical habitat. He said the areas are estimated to cover 19 percent of the BLM lands in the area....
Staffing for fires worries senator Sen. Dianne Feinstein is concerned the U.S. Forest Service has too many firefighter vacancies heading into the fire season. A letter to Feinstein from Mark Rey, the U.S. Department of Agriculture undersecretary who oversees the Forest Service, shows that there are 363 vacancies in Southern California out of 4,432 positions. Feinstein, D-Calif., said she is concerned that many of the vacancies are among midlevel firefighters. "These are key fire leadership positions. Without them, some fire engines might sit idle just when they're needed most. This is unacceptable. We simply cannot afford anything less than a fully staffed firefighting corps in California," she said in a statement. Casey Judd, business manager for the Federal Wildland Fire Service Association, said that Rey, in his letter, backed off from an April 1 commitment to Feinstein that all positions would be staffed in time for the start of the state's fire season. "I want to reiterate that we feel ... we have the resources to meet our firefighting mission this year," said Jason Kirchner, a spokesman for the Forest Service's California region....
Mining law reform stalls The General Mining Act of 1872 turned 136 this month, despite a hard push by environmental groups and congressional Democrats to replace the measure. Reform supporters had high hopes the Old West-era law would be updated and royalties would be placed on mining operations for the first time. One bill passed by the House would generate about $40 million annually to clean up abandoned mines that pose environmental hazards in the West. “We’re in a period now with exceptionally high metal prices; companies are making billionaire dollars,” said Dusty Horwitt, public lands senior analyst for the Environmental Working Group. “Now is the time for change,” he said. A dispute over how much the royalty should be and who should pay, however, continues to bedevil reform efforts in the Senate. Although a number of Senate Democrats back broad reform, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has opposed efforts to impose royalties on existing mine operations, as the House bill would do. Few issues are as personal for Reid: His father was a gold miner and his state’s economy depends heavily on the industry....
NM judge to consider legality of endangered falcon decision A decision by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to designate the northern aplomado falcon as a nonessential, experimental population in two Western states stemmed from "political, top-down pressure," a lawyer for an environmental group argued Tuesday in federal court. WildEarth Guardians, along with a handful of other groups, is suing the Fish and Wildlife Service and The Peregrine Fund, saying the designation violated federal policy and stripped the bird of needed protections under the Endangered Species Act. The environmentalists are asking U.S. District Judge William Johnson to declare the designation illegal and make the agency reconsider the bird's status in New Mexico and Arizona. They also want Johnson to force the agency to respond to a petition seeking critical habitat in New Mexico, Arizona and Texas. The falcon was listed as endangered in 1986. It's range once covered much of the Southwest and northern Mexico but experts have said its numbers dwindled due to pesticides, human activities and habitat change. The Fish and Wildlife Service designated the falcons as an experimental population in New Mexico and Arizona in 2006, clearing the way for The Peregrine Fund to begin eleasing captive-bred falcons in the Chihuahuan grasslands of southern New Mexico as part of a reintroduction effort....
Kane County should remove signs as fed court orders What part of "no" doesn't Kane County understand? Last year, U.S. District Judge Bruce Jenkins told the county: No, you cannot lay claim to any trail or roadway through federal land simply by telling the Bureau of Land Management you have a right of way. Still, Kane County refused to remove its road signs encouraging off-highway vehicle use on trails in the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument and other public land where the BLM had prohibited OHVs in order to protect fragile areas. The county claimed to own the "roads," some of which are little more than cowpaths, but had failed to prove those claims. Last week, U.S. District Judge Tena Campbell said "no" again to Kane County's illegal signs. She ruled that the 39 signs violate the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution which states that federal law supercedes local law. The signs must come down in 20 days. It's time for Kane County Commission Chairman Mark Habbeshaw and his fellow commissioners to comply. After years of quixotic legal challenges, funded by all Utah taxpayers, enough is enough. The county disputed the authority of the BLM and said it owned the roads by virtue of a 2005 federal judge's ruling that made state law the standard for deciding ownership of roads on federal land. But state law dictates that each and every road claim under RS2477, the Civil War-era mining law that gave local governments the right to build roads over federal lands, must be proven in court....
Panic in the Parks: Why the Public Lands Will Change Memorial Weekend is a time for remembrance and a time when American families gather for picnics in many of America’s public parks. But what many Americans do not know is that our public parks and other protected areas are in trouble – and the trouble goes far deeper than the usual business of too many cars and careless campers. It’s a problem compounded by climate change and a curious policy straitjacket that hampers efforts to respond to it. So far the climate-change impacts are fairly modest – the bears haven’t started migrating north in search of cooler neighborhoods and the redwoods haven’t perished from drought – but they are serious enough. One of the most endangered parks is Glacier in northern Montana, where the glaciers have been disappearing at an alarming rate. In 1850 the park contained 150 glaciers; now it has 27, and there is talk about finding another name for it. Glacier and its neighboring Canadian park, Waterton, are also losing trees to a beetle that is rapidly munching its way northward. The mountain pine beetle loves warmer winters and lodgepole pines, and its advance threatens millions of acres; the Canadian Ministry of Forests has projected that if the infestation continues the hungry beetles will have destroyed more than one billion cubic meters of pine by 2015. That’s the equivalent in volume to about 400 Great Pyramids....
Investigators dig for bodies at Manson refuge Investigators delicately dug with shovels in the desert heat Tuesday in a painstaking hunt for possible victims of Charles Manson and his followers at a ranch where they hid after a 1969 killing spree. The scientists and crime scene investigators working at Barker Ranch started by slicing thin layers of dirt off the top of a 3-by-6-foot area — trying not to disturb any evidence of human remains. The spot was chosen for the exploratory excavation after forensic technology and a cadaver-seeking police dog indicated disturbed soil and evidence of decomposition, said Sgt. Jeff Hollowell of the Inyo County Sheriff's Department, which was overseeing the investigation. The nearly 20 scientists, law enforcement officials and National Park rangers are camping in the high desert mountains bordering Death Valley for the duration of the dig. The National Park Service has closed the ranch to the public for the duration of the dig....
COLORADO STATE RESEARCHER STUDIES IMPACTS OF HIKING AND MOUNTAINEERING ON LONGS PEAK The history of hiking, mountaineering and technical climbing on Longs Peak in Rocky Mountain National Park and the impact of these recreational activities on the mountain's natural and cultural resources are part of a new study by a Colorado State University researcher. Beginning this summer, Ruth M. Alexander, a CSU history professor, will work with graduate research assistants and staff at Rocky Mountain National Park to determine how hiking, mountaineering and climbing have changed since 1925 and how they have impacted cultural and natural resources on 14,259-foot Longs Peak. This includes studying the damage caused to geological resources from technical climbing, litter and soil erosion. "We will be looking at how and why people have engaged in recreation on the peak and affected its cultural and natural resources since 1925. Our goal is to offer information that will help park staff develop management plans that protect Longs Peak and simultaneously allow people to enjoy the beauty and recreational challenges it offers," Alexander said. The modern history of recreation and its impact on Longs Peak have never been systematically explored....
The life and death of a wolf A wolf died the other day in Wyoming. Along with three others, it was shot and killed on the first day that wolves in most of the state lost the protection of the Endangered Species Act. These were legal kills made by people simply because they could. Nothing more was required of them but to report the kills to state officials -- no license, no fees, no restrictions. For sportsmen, one of the proudly held rules is: "Know Your Target." What did these hunters know about their targets? One of the four dead wolves was a female that may have been pregnant. Two of the males were unknown and will be remembered simply as body count numbers in the West's war on wolves. But one wolf has a history known to many throughout the region. To some he was "Limpy," to others he was "The Wanderer." Officially, he was 253M, the 253rd wolf to be radio-collared in the Greater Yellowstone area since wolves were reintroduced in the mid-90s. 253M was born in April 2000 into the Druid Peak Pack, whose territory encompasses Yellowstone National Park's Lamar Valley. His father was likely 21M, a leader of renown and a story unto himself. 21M was one of the first generation of wolves born in Yellowstone in more than 60 years....
Congressional Committee to Hear About Mexican Wolf Mismanagement Retired U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Mexican Wolf Recovery Coordinator David Parsons will testify tomorrow in an oversight hearing before the House Natural Resources Committee on the mismanagement of the Mexican wolf recovery program. The hearing will begin Wednesday, May 21, 2008, at 10:00 a.m. Eastern Time, and will take place in Room 1324 of the Longworth House Office Building. It will also be webcast live on the House Natural Resource Committee's Web site at: http://resourcescommittee.house.gov. The hearing, titled The Danger of Deception: Do Endangered Species Have a Chance? will include, in addition to Parsons, other witnesses speaking on the plight of endangered right whales, spotted owls, and imperiled invertebrates. It will also include new findings from an ongoing investigation by the Government Accountability Office into political interference in endangered species recovery programs. According to Michael Robinson of the Center for Biological Diversity, the Mexican gray wolf has been subject to shameless political mismanagement, and that has resulted in the suppression of the sole wild population. “The federal government shoots and traps wolves despite scientists’ urgent recommendations to let the wolves alone,” said Robinson. “The wolves need to be able to raise their pups in peace and contribute to the balance of nature.”....
Recovery plan needed for endangered jaguar In an effort to dampen controversy over construction of a wall along the United States border with Mexico, the Bush administration has officially decided not to develop a recovery plan for an endangered species that crosses the border — the American jaguar. Recovery plans, written by teams of scientists and interested citizens, enumerate how many animals or plants and in what distribution would constitute recovery — the point at which a creature has moved away from the brink of extinction and is secure enough to be taken off the endangered species list. Recovery plans also specify actions to achieve recovery. When jaguars were placed on the endangered species list in the United States in 1997, the Fish and Wildlife Service failed to develop a recovery plan or designate critical habitat for them, both required by the Endangered Species Act. Its rationale for not protecting habitat? "Identification of this species' habitat preferences will be addressed through the recovery process," the service promised. Yet there has been no recovery process. Instead, the interagency Jaguar Conservation Team, which in 1997 pledged to "coordinate protection of jaguar habitat," has not opposed construction of the border wall, much less addressed the accelerating loss of jaguar habitat due to urban sprawl, livestock grazing, strip mining and other developments....
Judge nixes part of water law allowing property taxes As Nebraska tries to avoid paying millions of dollars in damages to Kansas and curbing irrigation along the Republican River, a judge on Tuesday struck down part of a state law designed to help Nebraska comply with a three-state water compact. Lancaster County District Judge Paul Merritt ruled that the Legislature was wrong last year when it gave natural resources districts in the heavily irrigated river basin the authority to set property taxes. The money was to be spent on measures to help the state comply with the water agreement, including buying water from farmers to send to Kansas via the Republican River. Merritt ruled that the property taxes authorized by lawmakers violate a portion of the state constitution that bars the Legislature from passing laws that give certain people or groups special privileges. One of the arguments posed by the property owners was that the law created a "closed class" of natural resources districts in the basin that were the only ones entitled to use the taxing authority granted by the Legislature. Merritt said it's not "reasonably probable" that the state would enter into other, multistate water compacts that would qualify for the type of taxing authority that was granted by the Legislature in 2007. He used remarks by an assistant attorney general and a state senator as evidence, quoting them near the time the law was considered that it was unlikely Nebraska would ever enter into another compact of that nature....
Farm Bill's Subsidy Costs May Rise A major new program in the recently enacted farm bill could increase taxpayer-financed payments to farmers by billions of dollars if high commodity prices decline to more typical levels, administration and congressional budget officials said yesterday. Since the amount of the subsidy for 2009 is tied to recent record prices, farmers could reap a windfall if prices drop suddenly. "I don't think many people on the House side who voted for the farm bill realized there were $16 billion in potential higher costs in there," said Deputy Secretary of Agriculture Charles F. Conner. "The budget exposure is tremendous." A blog item posted Monday by the agricultural magazine Pro Farmer described the new program, known as Average Crop Revenue Election (ACRE), as "lucrative beyond expectations," and said it is a "no brainer" for farmers to sign up for it. The Agriculture Department estimates that subsidy payments to corn farmers alone could reach $10 billion a year if prices -- which have been $5 to $6 a bushel -- were to drop to $3.25 a bushel, a level seen as recently as last year. The $10 billion figure assumes most farmers would participate in the program, a view disputed by key lawmakers....
Flying the coop? From inside the trailer-size office at Sunrise Farms, one can hear the incessant squawking of 160,000 chickens housed nearby. The Petaluma-based egg producer generates the vast majority of eggs sold in the Bay Area with its seven properties and 1 million hens, one of two large egg operations in a region that used to have thousands of smaller chicken farms. On one wall of the office a framed aerial black-and-white photograph shows the same property as it appeared more than 70 years ago. The layout of buildings hasn't changed much over time, still retaining the long, thin structures aligned side-by-side. But in the photograph, little white specks populate the space between buildings — they're chickens, and all 10,000 were free to wander. Today the birds are kept indoors and, to save space and increase production, are typically confined in small cages. These "battery" cages are stacked in rows four cages high, allowing each bird 67 square inches of room — about the size of a large shoebox. Although the egg industry says the cage systems are science-based and humane, animal welfare activists say they are cruel and restrict natural behaviors. In November, voters will decide whether to ban the cages in California, thanks to a six-month signature-gathering effort sponsored by the Humane Society of the United States along with other animal welfare groups. If voters approve the law, California's egg farmers would be required to move the state's 19 million caged birds into cage-free facilities by 2015....
Bingaman sponsors 'Cowboy' bill; passes in Senate A resolution co-sponsored by U.S. Sen. Jeff Bingaman designating July 26 to recognize the "American Cowboy" passed the Senate Tuesday. The Senate resolution acknowledges the role of ranchers in the development of the West, stating that ranchers embody the nation's strong work ethic, are good stewards of the environment and play a major role in the nation's economy. This is the third year the Senate has designated a special day for commemorative purposes. According to Bingaman, approximately 800,000 ranchers are in business across the country, with New Mexico ranchers having generated about $900 million in sales in 2006, the most recent year for which statistics are available. In terms of production, only dairies are a larger industry than ranching. "Ranching plays an important role in New Mexico's economy and is an important part of the state's history," Bingaman said Tuesday. "This resolution pays tribute to the hard working men and women of the American West." The resolution encourages communities across the nation to observe July 26 as the National Day of the American Cowboy....
Cow dogs: Rancher’s best friends Well-trained cow dogs are probably the most valuable “hands” on a ranch. When I was young, our family had a black English Shepherd called Oso (bear in Spanish). If a cantankerous cow decided to quit the herd, my dad would say, “Get her, Oso,” and he’d chase her down. Before long she’d decide the herd looked like a really nice place to be after all. Oso was a wonderful cow dog, but he had one personality quirk we had to admire even though it caused us trouble. Always, it seems, when you get to the gate between pastures with a bunch of cows and calves, after everybody has gone through the gate, at least one calf will manage to crawl through the fence and head back where he came from. The baby can’t figure out how he did it, so he runs up and down the fence bawling. Mama, of course, runs up and down the fence on her side, also bawling. When this happened with Oso along, if Dad told him to get the calf, the dog would run up to the baby, bump him with his nose, then look back at Dad. The message was, “He’s too little. I might hurt him.” A cowboy can’t argue with that logic....

FLE

FAA urged to open domestic skies to unmanned aerial vehicles The U.S. Forest Service's law enforcement branch recently bought two four-foot long unmanned aerial vehicles to patrol federal land in California in search of marijuana growers with links to Mexican drug cartels, agency officials say. The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department wants to use a three-pound aerial drone to watch criminal suspects. Police departments in Florida and North Carolina have similar plans for small drones. Although the term unmanned aerial vehicle often refers to the U.S. military's Predator drone, with its 49-foot wingspan and complement of Hellfire missiles, technological advances have led to small, low-flying UAVs more closely resembling model airplanes. Federal agencies and local police department are increasingly considering such drones as affordable tools for various law enforcement tasks. Even as interest soars, though, Federal Aviation Administration safety concerns and its refusal to rush through new rules for drones in domestic airspace is largely blocking civilian use, frustrating industry groups and some in Congress. The House-passed FAA reauthorization bill mandates that the agency is allowed to skip a long rule-making process and decide within six months if some UAVs can fly safely in U.S. civilian airspace....
Secret Data in FBI Wiretapping Audit Revealed With Ctrl+C Once again, supposedly sensitive information blacked out from a government report turns out to be visible by computer experts armed with the Ctrl+C keys -- and that information turns out to be not very sensitive after all. This time around, University of Pennsylvania professor Matt Blaze discovered that the Justice Department's Inspector General's office had failed to adequately obfuscate data in a March report (.pdf) about FBI payments to telecoms to make their legacy phone switches comply with 1995 wiretapping rules. That report detailed how the FBI had finished spending its allotted $500 million to help telephone companies retrofit their old switches to make them compliant with the Communications Assistance to Law Enforcement Act or Calea-- even as federal wiretaps target cellphones more than 90 percent of the time. This isn't the first time the Justice Department has made such an error. In 2007, a U.S. attorney referred to Threat Level's own David Kravets (then at the AP) as a hacker for discovering similar hidden information in a Balco steriod case filing. As far back as 2003, a report on minorities in the Justice Department was also vulnerable. The gaffes may seem humorous, but tell that to confidential informants, for whom such a slip-up could be fatal. In fact, all one needs to do is open the Calea report with Adobe Reader or Foxit reader, and highlight the tables and cut and paste them into a text editor, something Blaze discovered accidentally when trying to copy a portion of the report into an e-mail to a student. Some of the tidbits considered too sensitive to be aired publicly? The FBI paid Verizon $2500 a piece to upgrade 1,140 old telephone switches. Oddly the report didn't redact the total amount paid to the telecom -- slightly more than $2.9 million dollars -- but somehow the bad guys will win if they knew the number of switches and the cost paid....
Real ID deadline comes and goes with zero states on board The original May 11 deadline for Real ID compliance has come and gone, but not a single state has implemented the program, which calls for uniform standards for state-issued ID cards and a system that would provide the federal government with broad access to state identification records. The Real ID Act, which was squeezed into a 2005 military spending bill and passed with virtually no discussion or debate in Congress, has met with heavy resistance from civil liberties advocates and state governments. The implementation costs have far exceeded the original meager estimates and the federal government is providing virtually no cash to support the initiative. A growing number of states are determined to defy Congress and have passed bills rejecting Real ID implementation. All 50 states have been granted extensions from the Department of Homeland Security, ensuring that their citizens will still be permitted to board planes and enter government buildings. Given the nature of the extended deadlines, some speculate that the Bush administration wants to avoid a direct confrontation with the states and that the next president could pressure Congress to institute some changes to the Real ID program....
Drug Cartels to Mexican Police: 'Join Us or Die' Drug cartels are sending a brutal message to police and soldiers in cities across Mexico: Join us or die. The threat appears in recruiting banners hung across roadsides and in publicly posted death lists. Cops get warnings over their two-way radios. At least four high-ranking police officials were gunned down this month, including Mexico's acting federal police chief. Mexico has battled for years to clean up its security forces and win them the public's respect. But Mexicans generally assume police and even soldiers are corrupt until proven otherwise, and the honest ones lack resources, training and the assurance that their colleagues are watching their backs. Here, the taboo on cop-killing familiar to Americans seems hardly to apply. Police who take on the cartels feel isolated and vulnerable when they become targets, as did 22 commanders in the border city of Ciudad Juarez when drug traffickers named them on a handwritten death list left at a monument to fallen police this year. It was addressed to "those who still don't believe" in the power of the cartels....
City cameras to catch every car Almost every car travelling into Manchester is being snapped by a new network of police surveillance cameras, it has emerged. Each day, 600,000 motorists' journeys are being captured, and police will store the data for five years to help combat terrorism, crime and car theft. But civil rights campaigners said they believed it was another step closer to a "Big Brother" state. Police said the new system would bring "enormous benefits". Manchester is the first city outside London to use Automatic Number Plate Recognition cameras in this way. Police will store details of the licence plate, colour of car and a time stamp on a central computer. The cameras have been installed on the 12 major routes into the city....
Phila. judge likely to grant NRA request A Philadelphia judge appeared poised yesterday to grant the National Rifle Association's request to block enforcement of recently enacted city gun laws, with a final decision almost certainly headed for the state's high court. Previous rulings by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court established "that the state regulates firearms, not the city," Common Pleas Court Judge Jane Cutler Greenspan told city attorneys during a hearing yesterday. Mayor Nutter and City Council staked their positions in April by drafting five new laws that limit handgun purchases to one a month; ban certain assault weapons; require the reporting of lost or stolen firearms; prohibit gun possession for people subject to protection-from-abuse orders; and allow removal of guns from "persons posing a risk of imminent personal injury" to themselves or others. The NRA, two city gun shops, and others obtained a temporary restraining order a week after Nutter signed the laws, and yesterday's hearing was to determine whether Greenspan would grant a permanent injunction....