Issues of concern to people who live in the west: property rights, water rights, endangered species, livestock grazing, energy production, wilderness and western agriculture. Plus a few items on western history, western literature and the sport of rodeo... Frank DuBois served as the NM Secretary of Agriculture from 1988 to 2003. DuBois is a former legislative assistant to a U.S. Senator, a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Interior, and is the founder of the DuBois Rodeo Scholarship.
Saturday, January 23, 2016
NM rancher renounces federal grazing contract at Bundy event
A rancher from New Mexico renounced his U.S. Forest Service grazing contract at an event held by an armed group occupying a national wildlife refuge in Oregon to protest federal land use policies.Adrian Sewell of Grant County, New Mexico, took the action at the event attended by about 120 people at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. A group led by Ammon Bundy began occupying the area in eastern Oregon’s high desert on Jan. 2.Bundy has said the federal government has no authority to enforce federal grazing contracts with ranchers.Sewell said he didn’t mind being the only rancher to renounce his federal contract at Saturday’s gathering.“I don’t mind standing out and standing alone,” he said.Bundy, who had previously met with local ranchers urging them to tear up their federal contracts, also said he wasn’t disappointed that Sewell was the only one to take him up on his idea.“I’m very happy he came all the way from New Mexico,” Bundy said...more
CBD reacts - New Mexico Rancher to Bring Bundy Militia Terror Home
The Center for Biological Diversity issued the following statement:
New Mexico Rancher to Bring Bundy Militia Terror Home
SILVER CITY, N.M.— In the wake of failed attempts to spark revolution against the federal government with its occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon, the Bundy-led militia in a signing ceremony today recruited another rancher, Adrian Sewell, from Silver City, N.M.
Today’s agreement formalizes a plot in which another rancher agrees to illegally stop paying federal grazing fees and armed militia commit to meet resulting federal law enforcement with the threat of violence. Recruiting this New Mexico rancher threatens to up-end civil society and frighten and enrage people in Silver City, just as has occurred in Burns, Ore.
“Southern New Mexico rejects coercion of forest rangers and privatization of public lands,” said Michael Robinson of the Center for Biological Diversity. “Silver City welcomes visitors who want to share the wonderful Gila National Forest, but we don’t need armed bigots brutalizing our community.”
While their failure to recruit more than a single new rancher into its scheme is notable, the specter of more armed Bundy-militia standoffs in the West — complete with closed schools, shuttered government services and terrorized civilians — is nonetheless troubling.
Today's agreement moves signers and the Bundy militia members from an illegal seizure of federal property to establishing and coordinating an active terrorist network whose aim is to overthrow the federal government.
KierĂ¡n Suckling, the executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity, is at the Malheur refuge and photographed today’s signing ceremony.
“New Mexico rancher Adrian Sewell will not be thanked for bringing to New Mexico communities the same emotional, physical, economic, cultural and environmental terror that Harney County, Oregon residents continue to suffer during the Malheur refuge occupation,” Robinson said.
New Mexico Rancher to Bring Bundy Militia Terror Home
SILVER CITY, N.M.— In the wake of failed attempts to spark revolution against the federal government with its occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon, the Bundy-led militia in a signing ceremony today recruited another rancher, Adrian Sewell, from Silver City, N.M.
Today’s agreement formalizes a plot in which another rancher agrees to illegally stop paying federal grazing fees and armed militia commit to meet resulting federal law enforcement with the threat of violence. Recruiting this New Mexico rancher threatens to up-end civil society and frighten and enrage people in Silver City, just as has occurred in Burns, Ore.
“Southern New Mexico rejects coercion of forest rangers and privatization of public lands,” said Michael Robinson of the Center for Biological Diversity. “Silver City welcomes visitors who want to share the wonderful Gila National Forest, but we don’t need armed bigots brutalizing our community.”
While their failure to recruit more than a single new rancher into its scheme is notable, the specter of more armed Bundy-militia standoffs in the West — complete with closed schools, shuttered government services and terrorized civilians — is nonetheless troubling.
Today's agreement moves signers and the Bundy militia members from an illegal seizure of federal property to establishing and coordinating an active terrorist network whose aim is to overthrow the federal government.
KierĂ¡n Suckling, the executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity, is at the Malheur refuge and photographed today’s signing ceremony.
“New Mexico rancher Adrian Sewell will not be thanked for bringing to New Mexico communities the same emotional, physical, economic, cultural and environmental terror that Harney County, Oregon residents continue to suffer during the Malheur refuge occupation,” Robinson said.
Bundys to host ceremonial grazing lease tear-up at Oregon refuge Saturday
Two brothers leading an armed group that has taken up residence for nearly three weeks at a the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Eastern Oregon plan to hold a ceremony Saturday for ranchers to renounce federal control of public land and tear up their grazing contracts.
Ammon Bundy and his older brother, Ryan Bundy, say the declaration will reject what they consider the unconstitutional ownership of land by the federal government and put an end to public land restrictions and grazing fees.
The Bundys plan to open up the 300-square-mile Malheur National Wildlife Refuge for cattle this spring.
“There’s no use to letting this place sit in dormancy any longer,” Ryan Bundy told The Associated Press while sitting inside one of the heated wildlife refuge buildings last week, adding that cattle would benefit migrating birds.
He declined to go into detail about whose cattle and how many would be allowed to graze. But those are the questions that for more than a century have shaped federal grazing policy in the West. In recent decades, that policy has altered in a way that many ranchers fear is leaving them behind and eliminating a way of life that has sustained generations...more
Counter-protest near Oregon wildlife refuge
BURNS, Ore. (AP) -- The latest on an armed group that took over buildings at a federal wildlife refuge in Oregon.
At 2:15 p.m. local time, about 40 people gathered Saturday near a national wildlife refuge in Oregon to protest against a group occupying the land.
The counter-protest began at about 1 p.m. at an overlook about five miles from the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.
The crowd chanted, "Go home, Bundys," naming the leaders of the occupation.
The group has occupied the national wildlife refuge since Jan. 2 to oppose federal land use policies.
Katie Fite from Boise, Idaho, called the occupiers bullies and said their action could give rise to other hate-filled efforts to take over public lands.
Kieran Seckling with the Center for Biological Diversity said the Bundys want to stage other occupancies like the one in Oregon, but he says there's no town in the West that wants to be the next Burns, Oregon.
The counter-protest was punctuated by bitter wind and sleet.
Bundy leaves meeting with FBI because media not allowed
The leader of the armed group occupying the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge met briefly with a federal agent this morning but left because the agent wouldn’t talk with him in front of the media.
The short meeting occurred as the standoff over federal land use policies stretches to the three-week mark and as Oregon officials are putting increased pressure on federal authorities to take action against Ammon Bundy’s group.
Bundy arrived at the airport in Burns late Friday morning, where the FBI has set up a staging area. On Thursday, Bundy went to the airport and spoke to an FBI negotiator over the phone.
They agreed to speak again Friday, but Bundy left shortly after he arrived because the FBI agent he spoke with said federal authorities wanted any conversation to be private.
Bundy wants face-to-face conversations in front of reporters.
“I really don’t think, at this point, even having another phone conversation here without him would be beneficial,” Bundy said before leaving.
He also questioned the FBI’s authority.
“If you haven’t got sanction from the sheriff, there’s no reason to be talking to you,” Bundy said.
A crowd of reporters watched the brief exchange, while state troopers and armed federal agents looked on...more
The Seattle Times reports the event this way:
...Bundy, a leader in the occupation that began Jan. 2, wants to hold public negotiations with the FBI, and said he was disappointed that the agency’s designated negotiator — based 130 miles away in Bend — did not show up to talk with him Friday at a site next to the Burns Municipal Airport.
“I kind of feel that if he doesn’t have the authority to come here without a bunch of permissions … he’s probably not the one we need to talk to,” Bundy told other FBI agents. Though FBI negotiations are typically held out of public view, Bundy on Thursday went to the FBI command post at the Burns airport. There, flanked by reporters, he met with agents and talked via cellphone with the Bend-based negotiator. On Friday, before going back to the airport, Bundy talked privately with the negotiator by phone and later said he asked the FBI official to meet face-to-face. Once Bundy reached the airport, he quickly ended the meeting when the FBI negotiator was not there. “I really don’t think at this point having a phone conversation here … would be beneficial,” Bundy said. “He of course wanted to do it in private, and I think the people have a right to hear that.”
All other issues aside, the above is rather telling. Bundy wants face-to-face negotiations, open to the public, while the feds want phone negotiations done in total secrecy. Bundy wants each of us to see and hear what transpires, while the feds want us in the dark.
Bundy also tried to visit with Sheriff Ward:
On his Friday visit to the Burns airport, he also drove downtown to try and meet with Harney County Sheriff David Ward. He was met at the county courthouse by armed law enforcement officers wearing bullet proof vests. Ward was not available, so Bundy spoke with Lt. Deputy Sheriff Brian Needham. Once again, Bundy did most of the talking, asking again and again if the sheriff had given the FBI permission to be in the county. “The FBI is here working in conjunction with the sheriff’s office,” Needham said. Once that meeting ended, Bundy returned to the refuge.
The Seattle Times reports the event this way:
...Bundy, a leader in the occupation that began Jan. 2, wants to hold public negotiations with the FBI, and said he was disappointed that the agency’s designated negotiator — based 130 miles away in Bend — did not show up to talk with him Friday at a site next to the Burns Municipal Airport.
“I kind of feel that if he doesn’t have the authority to come here without a bunch of permissions … he’s probably not the one we need to talk to,” Bundy told other FBI agents. Though FBI negotiations are typically held out of public view, Bundy on Thursday went to the FBI command post at the Burns airport. There, flanked by reporters, he met with agents and talked via cellphone with the Bend-based negotiator. On Friday, before going back to the airport, Bundy talked privately with the negotiator by phone and later said he asked the FBI official to meet face-to-face. Once Bundy reached the airport, he quickly ended the meeting when the FBI negotiator was not there. “I really don’t think at this point having a phone conversation here … would be beneficial,” Bundy said. “He of course wanted to do it in private, and I think the people have a right to hear that.”
All other issues aside, the above is rather telling. Bundy wants face-to-face negotiations, open to the public, while the feds want phone negotiations done in total secrecy. Bundy wants each of us to see and hear what transpires, while the feds want us in the dark.
Bundy also tried to visit with Sheriff Ward:
On his Friday visit to the Burns airport, he also drove downtown to try and meet with Harney County Sheriff David Ward. He was met at the county courthouse by armed law enforcement officers wearing bullet proof vests. Ward was not available, so Bundy spoke with Lt. Deputy Sheriff Brian Needham. Once again, Bundy did most of the talking, asking again and again if the sheriff had given the FBI permission to be in the county. “The FBI is here working in conjunction with the sheriff’s office,” Needham said. Once that meeting ended, Bundy returned to the refuge.
Friday, January 22, 2016
Editorial - The Craft Beer Cops
You might think of a microbrewery as a home for free spirits who grow
long beards, take their dogs to work, and make their own rules. But
Washington won’t let them. On a visit to the Journal this week, former
Florida Gov. Jeb Bush explained to us the burden of federal regulation on the good folk who want to create tasty beverages.
Mr. Bush had recently bumped into Erik Olsen of New Hampshire’s Kelsen Brewing Company, who told him that competing in this industry requires a license from the U.S. Treasury that Mr. Bush says goes back to Prohibition days. This is for any brewer who hopes to sell across state lines, or who has the misfortune of living in a place where the state liquor commission demands a federal seal of approval.
The Treasury’s Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) says its application process is to ensure that those it regulates “are duly qualified to do so and will conduct their operations fairly and legally.” You know, in case they might be Al Capone.
Brewers have to go back to the feds to get approval for each new label. And Mr. Olsen tells us that companies like his must also “file any expansion plans with the TTB, just like a new brewery that is opening its doors.” He adds that the agency “has to approve our plans before we can start using the new expansion space for brewing.” This can take six months or more.
Ohio Gov. John Kasich got an earful on the same subject when he recently visited New Hampshire’s Henniker Brewing. The company’s “managing member” Dave Currier tells us that the litany of labelling rules for beer bottles and cans even covers font sizes. He says that his brewery was forced to stop calling its old-fashioned porter “soothing” because regulators claimed it suggested a medical benefit. The government has graciously allowed Henniker to continue calling it “robust” and “hearty.”
Mr. Bush had recently bumped into Erik Olsen of New Hampshire’s Kelsen Brewing Company, who told him that competing in this industry requires a license from the U.S. Treasury that Mr. Bush says goes back to Prohibition days. This is for any brewer who hopes to sell across state lines, or who has the misfortune of living in a place where the state liquor commission demands a federal seal of approval.
The Treasury’s Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) says its application process is to ensure that those it regulates “are duly qualified to do so and will conduct their operations fairly and legally.” You know, in case they might be Al Capone.
Brewers have to go back to the feds to get approval for each new label. And Mr. Olsen tells us that companies like his must also “file any expansion plans with the TTB, just like a new brewery that is opening its doors.” He adds that the agency “has to approve our plans before we can start using the new expansion space for brewing.” This can take six months or more.
Ohio Gov. John Kasich got an earful on the same subject when he recently visited New Hampshire’s Henniker Brewing. The company’s “managing member” Dave Currier tells us that the litany of labelling rules for beer bottles and cans even covers font sizes. He says that his brewery was forced to stop calling its old-fashioned porter “soothing” because regulators claimed it suggested a medical benefit. The government has graciously allowed Henniker to continue calling it “robust” and “hearty.”
(subscription)
Possible fatal virus found in horses at Sunland Racetrack
The New Mexico Livestock Board and the New Mexico Racing Commission are working with officials at Sunland Park Racetrack to ensure that a horse-specific virus is limited to just the few racehorses confirmed positive this week.
Several barns at Sunland Park Racetrack are under quarantine following confirmation of Equine Herpes Virus (EHV), specifically EHV-1.
The Livestock Board is taking extra precautions by restricting horse movement to and from the area that includes Sunland Park Racetrack, as well as local horse-training centers Frontera, Jovi, and Lazy S.
There are several strains of EHV; none of them are transmissible to humans. Early reports suggesting the strain was EHV-4 - which produces mainly respiratory problems - were erroneous.
The strain confirmed in the five horses at Sunland Park was the neurotropic form of EHV-1, which can cause severe neurological problems in horses. The first confirmation was made Thursday.
According to the American Association of Equine Practitioners, EHV-1 is contagious and spread through contact: either directly from horse to horse, or indirectly via human handlers, feed and water buckets, grooming gear, riding tack, and trailers.
Biosecurity measures being taken include isolating horses confirmed to have EHV-1; cleaning and disinfecting any surfaces or items horses may come into contact with; controlling foot traffic within the racetrack; providing plastic boot covers for personnel whose movement around the premises is essential; and sanitizing footwear and clothing...more
Obama Unveils Major Global Warming Reg On The Eve Of A Massive Blizzard
by Michael Bastasch
...Just a week after releasing a ban on new coal mining leases, Sec. Sally Jewell is pushing new regulations to cut the amount of methane that’s flared or vented into the atmosphere from drillers on federal lands. Jewell says the rules would “modernize decades-old standards to reflect existing technologies” to fight global warming and provide more revenues for states and tribes.
Interior is also requiring “operators to periodically inspect their operations for leaks, and to replace outdated equipment that vents large quantities of gas into the air,” according to an agency release. The government is also going to make companies pay royalties for the gas they flare, and give federal agents more flexibility to raise royalty rates above what Congress established.
“I think most people would agree that we should be using our nation’s natural gas to power our economy – not wasting it by venting and flaring it into the atmosphere,” Jewell said in a statement.
Jewell’s announcement has been widely criticized by Republicans and pro-energy groups who argue more federal regulations will simply hamper already faltering energy production on federally controlled land.
...Just a week after releasing a ban on new coal mining leases, Sec. Sally Jewell is pushing new regulations to cut the amount of methane that’s flared or vented into the atmosphere from drillers on federal lands. Jewell says the rules would “modernize decades-old standards to reflect existing technologies” to fight global warming and provide more revenues for states and tribes.
Interior is also requiring “operators to periodically inspect their operations for leaks, and to replace outdated equipment that vents large quantities of gas into the air,” according to an agency release. The government is also going to make companies pay royalties for the gas they flare, and give federal agents more flexibility to raise royalty rates above what Congress established.
“I think most people would agree that we should be using our nation’s natural gas to power our economy – not wasting it by venting and flaring it into the atmosphere,” Jewell said in a statement.
Jewell’s announcement has been widely criticized by Republicans and pro-energy groups who argue more federal regulations will simply hamper already faltering energy production on federally controlled land.
Thousands of birds found dead along Alaskan shoreline
(CNN)As he walked on a beach in the western Prince William Sound town of Whittier, seabird biologist David Irons was startled when he saw hundreds of white lumps on the black rock beach.
They were dead seabirds, in what he would discover were likely record numbers, a sign the ecosystem was being troubled by abnormally warm ocean water.
The dead birds, common murres that had starved, were lined up and left where the tide had dropped them on the shore. "We have never found close to 8,000 birds on a 1-mile long beach before," Irons said of his early January discovery. "It is an order of magnitude larger than any records that I am aware of."
Biologists like Tamara Zeller have been boating around Prince William Sound scanning the beaches for dead and sickly murres. They also count the birds floating in the water, she told CNN affiliate KTVA. The birds, all of a species known as the common murre, appear to have starved to death, federal wildlife officials say.
Heather Renner, a supervisory biologist at the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge, said the Whittier die-off is part of a much larger event that started in August.
Renner estimates that 100,000 common murres have died.
"It's hard to know how many birds have died because Alaska is so big, and there are so many remote areas," Renner said.
The vast majority of the bird deaths are due to starvation. Tests on 100 carcasses revealed almost all the murres were emaciated, and the culprit is likely their lack of a good food supply.
"The fish that they eat tend to have a narrow band of water temperatures they can live in," Irons said. "If the temperature gets too warm or too cold the fish disappear."...more
Standoff exposes urban, rural divide
by Eric Mortenson
...Not to put too fine a point on it, but that illustrates the casual disconnect between urban and rural. It’s a division on display as armed men occupy the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge headquarters in Harney County and demand the federal government release area ranchers Dwight and Steven Hammond and turn over all federally managed land to the states, counties or private ranchers.
Many people living in Portland and other urban centers mock the occupiers as “Y’all Qaeda” and ridicule their beliefs. They rail about “welfare cowboys” receiving “subsidized” grazing fees on federal land.
Meanwhile, rural residents, farming and ranching groups and elected officials have criticized the occupiers’ actions. But they say the underlying anger about lost economic opportunity in the rural West is very real.
U.S. Rep. Greg Walden, who represents Eastern Oregon in Congress, said the thread tying the Hammond family’s case with the occupiers’ demands is “decades of frustration, arrogance and betrayal that has contributed to the mistrust of the federal government.”
In Portland and other urban centers, that connection isn’t so clear.
“Because it’s not on their radar,” said John Morgan, an economic development, civic and leadership planner and consultant who works with rural communities.
Harney County, where federal and state agencies manage about 75 percent of the land, has 1,200 fewer people and 10 percent fewer jobs than it did in the late 1970s. The number of logging and mill jobs in the county went from 768 in 1978 to just 6 in 2014, according to state figures.
Meanwhile, the state’s urban areas, especially Portland and surrounding Multnomah County, have grown dramatically. With its 14,000 employees, OHSU alone has nearly twice as many people as Harney County. Intel, the computer chip manufacturing company based in Hillsboro, employs about 18,000 people.
Yet the wheat, timber, wine, livestock and other agricultural products pouring out of rural Oregon are crucial to cities, Morgan said. City shipping, trucking, processing, professional service and retail jobs depend on them.
Forest Service hid records, opponents of Village at Wolf Creek say
A team of environmental groups opposing a nearly 30-year-old plan to develop a village on Wolf Creek Pass says it has evidence that U.S. Forest Service officials tried to conceal documents related to the agency's review of the controversial project.
Among nearly 60,000 pages of correspondence that a U.S. District Court judge in Denver ordered released, opponents of The Village at Wolf Creek found a note from a Forest Service district ranger urging staff to delete e-mails. Another e-mail told staff to correspond via the agency lawyer so transmissions could be excluded from public access through attorney-client privilege. A note from a Forest Service regional boss warned local staff that Texas billionaire Red McCombs could start calling in favors in Washington if the environmental review of the 1,700-home village proposed in 1986 continued at a slow pace. Forest Service
spokesman Lawrence Lujan declined to discuss the documents, citing
agency policy prohibiting comment on pending litigation. The Forest Service in May approved a controversial land swap that
gave McCombs a key link from his land to U.S. 160 over Wolf Creek Pass,
and delivered 177 acres of important wetlands on the pass to the
agency.
The
swap marked the closest McCombs has ever gotten to his goal to build an
8,000 person village. The Forest Service rejected the plan in the late
1980s, but the village was inexplicably resurrected by officials in
Washington...more
Senate fails to override Obama water veto
Senate Republicans fell short Thursday in their attempt to override a
veto from President Obama and repeal a contentious water regulation
from the Environmental Protection Agency. Fifty-two senators voted to move forward with an attempt to override Obama’s veto of the resolution, short of the 60 votes needed. Democratic
Sens. Heidi Heitkamp (N.D.), Joe Donnelly (Ind.) and Joe Manchin
(W.Va.) joined Senate Republicans in voting to proceed with the veto
override. Sen. Susan Collins (Maine) was the only Republican to vote
against. Even if the Senate had achieved cloture on the resolution,
final passage would have required a two-thirds majority in both chambers
of Congress — a steep climb. The 52-40 Thursday vote closes the
latest chapter in the GOP’s push to stop the Environmental Protection
Agency’s (EPA) attempt to assert power over small waterways like streams
and wetlands. The Clean Water Rule or “waters of the United States” was
made final last year. The legislation at issue was written under
the Congressional Review Act, which gives lawmakers the power to
overturn regulations. But resolutions blocking federal rules are subject
to a presidential veto and require a two-thirds majority for to be
overridden...more
It would have just taken a simple majority if they had done this in the omnibus appropriations bill. But no, they chose this "symbolic" way to show their opposition, knowing it never had a chance.
It would have just taken a simple majority if they had done this in the omnibus appropriations bill. But no, they chose this "symbolic" way to show their opposition, knowing it never had a chance.
Arizona Proposal to Protect Salt River Wild Horses Sparks Controversy
The U.S. Forest Service recently backed off plans to round up and auction off a popular herd of horses that runs free along the Salt River following months of fervent public protest. But the horses' future remains uncertain because the issue that prompted the removal order remains: The herd doesn't qualify for protection from the federal government.
Hoping to remedy the problem, state Representative Kelly Townsend has proposed a bill that would transfer ownership of the herd to the state.
If approved, House Bill 2340 would make it a class 1 misdemeanor to “actively manage, take, slaughter, or euthanize” any of the Salt River horses.
“These horses are beloved by so many folks,” said Townsend, chair of the Federalism and States' Rights Committee. “This is the best we can do as a state to try to protect them.”
Townsend's bill gives responsibility for managing the herd, which could include birth control and euthanization, to the Arizona Department of Agriculture, but it stipulates that the agency may collaborate with the Forest Service or delegate the work to a private contractor...more
It’s Official: 2015 Was Hottest Year on Record
Global temperatures in 2015 were the warmest since record-keeping began—and it wasn’t even close.
According to new data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA, average temperatures over land and ocean were 1.62 degrees Fahrenheit (or 0.9 degrees Celsius) above the 20th-century average, clearing the previous record by 0.29 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s the largest margin by which any annual temperature record has been broken.
In 2015, 10 months set record high temperatures, including December, and the five highest margins of heat for any month all occurred in 2015, according to NOAA’s data.
It follows an alarming trend. Scientists said last year that 2014 was the hottest year on record, and now nine of the 10 hottest years on record have occurred since 2000 (1998 is the sole exception). Sixteen of the last 18 years have been warmer than 1997, which at the time was the hottest on record, and the Earth has set four annual heat records in the last 11 years...more
Court won’t block Obama’s climate rule
President Obama’s landmark climate change rule for power plants can move forward while its opponents challenge it, a federal court ruled Thursday.
The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia denied a request by West Virginia, dozens of other states and various energy interest groups to put a judicial stay on the regulation, saying the challengers didn’t show that the stay is needed.
“Petitioners have not satisfied the stringent requirements for a stay pending court review,” the court’s three-judge panel wrote in the brief order.
It’s a major early win for the Environmental Protection Agency, which immediately faced a barrage of congressional and legal challenges from the moment in August when it made the regulation final.
The White House is “pleased” with the decision, press secretary Josh Earnest said in a statement...more
Ranch Radio Song Of The Day #1547
Recorded in NY City on August 16, 1935 here the Prairie Ramblers with Swingin' Down The Old Orchard Lane. That's Shelby "Tex" Atchison taking the fiddle break at 2:00 minutes.
https://youtu.be/DPPt71-79IQ
https://youtu.be/DPPt71-79IQ
Thursday, January 21, 2016
EPA official resigns over Flint water crisis
The head of the Midwest region of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency offered her resignation over the water contamination crisis in Flint, Michigan, the agency said on Thursday, as it issued an emergency order to resolve the growing problem.
Susan Hedman, the second official to resign since the crisis unfolded, had played down a memo by an EPA employee that said tests had shown high levels of lead in the city's water, telling Flint and Michigan administrators it was only a draft report.
Hedman's resignation will take effect Feb. 1, the EPA said. Before the agency's announcement on Hedman, the White House said President Barack Obama will ensure officials will be held accountable if any wrongdoing is found...more
Quick action for the Midwest, but for the West?? So far, nada.
Quick action for the Midwest, but for the West?? So far, nada.
Senate Committee Approves Amendment on Bill to Delist Wolves in 4 States
On Wednesday the US Senate Environment and Public Works Committee
approved an amendment on the Bipartisan Sportsmen’s Act of 2016 that
would remove federal protections from gray wolves in Wyoming, Wisconsin,
Michigan, and Minnesota. Wolves in these states were only recently
returned to the Endangered Species List—and the protections afforded
within—after a decision by a federal court in late 2014. Since then, the
protected status of the species has been a controversial issue in the
four states. The amendment to the bill came from Senator John Barrasso (R-Wyoming)
and Senator Ron Johnson (R-Wisconsin), who pointed out that both state
and federal agencies, including the US Fish and Wildlife Service, agreed
that wolves should be returned to state control. However, in 2014 US
District Judge Beryl Howell ruled in favor of animal rights groups, who
filed a lawsuit arguing that the four states had inadequate management
practices to prevent wolves from slipping back into endangered status.
State wildlife experts said this was not the case. “Wolves in Michigan and the other western Great Lakes states are
fully recovered from endangered species status, which is a great success
story,” said Russ Mason, Wildlife Division Chief for the Michigan
Department of Natural Resources, in a previous press release.
“Continuing to use the Endangered Species Act to protect a recovered
species not only undermines the integrity of the Act, it leaves farmers
and others with no immediate recourse when their animals are being
attacked and killed by wolves.”...more
EPA Targets Farmer for Plowing His Own Land
We’ve known for a while that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is really the conduit for a radical environmentalist agenda.
The EPA’s Clean Water Act is one example, whereby the federal government has staked its claim to hundreds of waterways around the country in the name of “clean water,” from public lakes to ponds on private property. By expanding the definition of “waters of the United States” (WOTUS), the EPA has seized the power to slam private landowners with more permits and higher compliance costs—including major fines.
One family in Wyoming was hit with a $75,000-per-day fine for building a pond on their own property.
As if that wasn’t enough, the EPA is now going after farmers for tending their land—not public property, but their own farmland. The federal agency sent John Duarte, a vine and wheat grower in California, a cease and desist letter ordering suspension of farming operations on a small parcel of land in rural Tehama County. The EPA claimed that he had broken the law under the new WOTUS rule, putting “clean water” in jeopardy.
Duarte’s offense? Plowing his own land. And he wasn’t even given the chance to contest the EPA’s allegations—Duarte’s now facing a lengthy legal battle to reclaim the right to work the land in peace.
It’s a sad reminder: Radical environmentalists will stop at nothing to impose their agenda on others—even law-abiding farmers who just want to be left alone.
Posted by the Environmental Policy Alliance
Wolf attacks are an act of terror on cattle herds
by Harry L. Smith
...Following are a couple of examples of a cow herd’s reaction to wolves and the panic that ensues.
...Following are a couple of examples of a cow herd’s reaction to wolves and the panic that ensues.
The
Squaw Butte Experiment Station in Harney County operated by the U.S.
Department of Agriculture and Oregon State University conducted a
demonstration to show the difference in behavior between cattle from
wolf areas versus those unfamiliar with wolves.
About
a dozen cows from each background were put in identical wooden feedlot
type pens side by side. These pens had feed bunks along one end that was
accessed by an alleyway for feed delivery. A
sound system was set up in the area and nonaggressive German Shepherds
were put in the alleyway. After the cows were fed, the sound system
began playing recorded wolf howls. After a period of time, a picture was
taken from above to show the different reactions.
The cows unfamiliar with wolves had eaten all their hay and were resting back in the pen chewing their cud.
The
cows experienced with wolves had left their feed uneaten and were in a
tight group in the middle of the pen in a very defensive mode.
A
letter written by Mack Birkmaier and published on March 18, 2015, in
the Wallowa County Chieftain aptly illustrates the act of terror that
occurred when wolves attacked and stampeded 250 head of very pregnant
cows.
The
herd split into three groups during the attack. About 70 cows went
east, running in total panic and obliterated several barb wire fences.
After a 13-mile run on various county roads, these cows were found wet
from the condensation of cold air on their overheated bodies and their
tongues out, gasping for air.
Another
bunch went north through several fences — about four miles and then
back — and were still running in a large circle when they were stopped.
The cattle could not be fed for two days. The
cows were so traumatized that they ran away from hay and the pickup
trying to feed them. Some ended up with barbed wire cuts but,
fortunately, there were not more serious injuries at the time.
As
the rancher feared, calves were aborted by stressed-out mothers and
there were numerous complications with birth that threatened the lives
of both cow and calf and sometimes required costly assistance from a
veterinarian. Out of the first 50 to calve, 20 percent needed
assistance.
It
undoubtedly took a long time for this herd to recover and many of the
cows probably did not rebreed last summer. It is certain that the damage
from this terrorist attack on the herd was long-term. It is unlikely
that any compensation was received as a result of this incident.
GOP senators want Justice to investigate EPA
Two Republican senators are asking the Department of Justice to investigate if the Environmental Protection Agency knowingly broke federal propaganda law with its social media campaign for a clean water rule.
Sens. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., and Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., sent a letter to Attorney General Loretta Lynch Thursday asking for a formal investigation into reports that the EPA broke federal law while promoting the Waters of the United States, or WOTUS, rule.
In December, the Government Accountability Office ruled the EPA violated the law and its campaign was akin to "covert propaganda" because a message posted on nearly 1,000 social media accounts did not identify itself as being generated by the EPA. "Something is tremendously wrong when a federal agency thinks it can break the law and illegally spend taxpayer dollars," said Inhofe, chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. "But that is the situation we have right now with EPA and their efforts to fool hardworking Americans about their Waters of the United States rule. EPA must be held accountable, and I look forward to hearing what the Department of Justice finds in their investigation."...more
Leader of armed group at wildlife refuge is speaking to FBI
The leader of an armed group that for nearly three weeks has occupied a wildlife refuge in eastern Oregon has begun speaking with the FBI.
Standing outside the municipal airport in Burns, Oregon, Ammon Bundy spoke by phone Thursday to an unnamed FBI negotiator. The federal agency has used the airport, about 30 miles from the refuge, as a staging ground during the occupation.
The FBI did not comment on the conversation, though it was streamed live online by someone from his group.
Bundy said he went to the airport to meet with FBI officials face to face, but they declined to meet him. Bundy said the FBI had called him 14 times in a row earlier this week, but he couldn't pick up the phone because he was in a meeting.
"We're not going to escalate nothing, we're there to work," Bundy told the FBI official, with reporters and supporters watching. "You guys as the FBI... you would be the ones to escalate. I'm here to shake your hands... myself and those with me are not a threat."
He also told the FBI the agency doesn't have "the people's authority" to station at the airport. Earlier this month, officials said the FBI has jurisdiction over the armed takeover of the federal buildings in the refuge, as well as any crimes committed there. "This occupation has caused tremendous disruption and hardship for the
people of Harney County, and our response has been deliberate and
measured as we seek a peaceful resolution," the FBI said Thursday in a
statement...more
BLM Considers Reinstating Hammond Grazing Leases
The Bureau of Land Management is in discussions with the family of
Dwight and Steven Hammond to restore the family’s grazing access to
federal lands. It’s unclear how far along those talks are in
producing an agreement, but Bureau of Land Management spokeswoman Jody
Weil said the talks have been underway since May 2015. “Before the Hammonds were resentenced (for arson in October 2015), we started having conversations with the Hammonds,” said Weil. “We’re certainly talking to the Hammonds’ attorney still.” Weil declined to comment on whether the negotiations have been impacted by the occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.
“It’s a legal process,” Weil said. “I can’t comment on that.”
Calls to the Hammond family were not returned, but Oregon Cattlemen’s Association President John O’Keeffe confirmed his organization is also part of the negotiations.
“It’s an ongoing effort and discussion with the BLM,” said O’Keeffe. “When it’s all over with, I can talk about it.”
O’Keeffe said the Cattlemen’s Association is “hopeful” the Hammonds’ grazing rights will be restored...more
So, if a Forest Service officer doesn't like your window decal...
We feel we should share a notice given to one of our members on Jan. 10th.
Our
member was given notice by a US Forest Service Employee from the
Umatilla National Forest, she took the time to introduce herself as a
USFS employee and give her professional title, that anyone found with
one of these decals in their window would be stopped by Law Enforcement
and cited for displaying the decal and that the USFS was also looking
for the company that printed the decals to prosecute them.
Also,
ya there's an also. That the USFS was preparing to prosecute FAFA for
lying and misrepresenting fact on our facebook page on the matters
regarding the US Forest Service's plan to restrict motorized access in
Eastern Oregon.
We
are confused by the USFS using a single employee to give legal notice
to our organization thru a random member during a training exercise
outside normal work hours for a USFS employee.
We
would ask that anyone approached with similar concerns by USFS Staff
please contact FAFA at keepitopen@forestaccessforall.com or write us
here so that we can make sure we account for these notifications of
intent to prosecute and address the issue properly instead of individual
notifications to our members.
We
have submitted a letter to Washington DC today asking the Department
& Agency to address the issue and the staff member that gave notice,
as we are concerned this is another issue of Region 6 staff harassing
and intimating members, instead of an officially sanctioned USFS
notification.
Please share so all members are given notice.
Bundy: We're not breaking the law
Ammon Bundy gave a simple explanation Wednesday afternoon as to why he, his brother and their followers were not arrested Tuesday when they traveled 60 miles round-trip into Burns to attend a public meeting.
“Because we are not breaking the law,” he said. LaVoy Finicum, an Arizona man who is a friend of the Bundy family and has served as spokesman for the occupiers, said federal officials are the ones who will be held accountable. He said they have broken rules laid out in the Constitution and that the buildings in the headquarters will never again be federal.
“The Bundys are not the lawbreakers,” he said. “They are the law abiders.”
Ammon Bundy said he and others involved in the occupation, including his brother, Ryan, attended the Tuesday meeting at Burns High School so people could see they have no reason to be afraid. And he wanted to hear what people in Harney County had to say. Harney County Sheriff David Ward and County Judge Steve Grasty, the highest ranking official in the county, have asked the Bundys to leave while thanking them for bringing public land use issues to light.
A spokesman for the Harney County joint information center, which represents law enforcement, said Wednesday afternoon that the FBI is heading up the investigation of the refuge occupation. He said he could not give details as to why the Bundys were not arrested during their trip into Burns and back to the refuge, but he said the FBI is working toward a peaceful resolution. He declined to provide his name...more
And what does this remind you of?
And what does this remind you of?
Its time to dismantle the BLM, a criminal enterprise
by Jack Ferm
It’s time to dismantle the BLM, an agency that follows no barrier of law.
This agency has been one of the more corrupt Federal agencies ever since it’s founding by President Harry Truman in 1946. In their tenure over public lands, they have done more to destroy watershed than protect it, their incompetence as an agency of government has been unprecedented, and they have allowed cattle and sheep to overgraze the land to the extent that much of our range lands are today closer to wastelands. They have pitted cattle and sheep ranchers against the American wild horses and burros for grazing rights while making secret deals to sell wild horses and burros to slaughterhouses in the U.S. (before they were shut down) and later to slaughterhouses in both Canada and Mexico or illegal slaughterhouses that still are operating in the U.S. This agency has been involved in knowingly fraudulent adoption schemes and fictitious “sanctuary” herds to facilitate the needless removal of horses off the range.
This has left us, we the people, no option but to dismantle the BLM. It’s time to shut down this criminal enterprise and perhaps transfer these lands to the states with agreements that the wild horses and burros are to remain free protected and unmolested.
BLM employees and contractors have been the driving force behind the horse-to-slaughter program, which has been ongoing since the 1980s and possibly even prior. This has been demonstrated by the criminal prosecutions of horse theft and sales to slaughterhouses by such cases as have been filed in Texas, Wyoming, Oregan, and Utah. But none have been filed in Colorado, which has been the hotbed of agency corruption. See U.S. v. Hughes and U.S. v. TOMLINSON.
BLM director Jim Baca, had a short-lived tenure of only nine months as head of the agency. Baca’s concern for the wild horses and their plight under the corrupt BLM led to his being fired by Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt in 1994. His termination was cheered by the Cattle Association and in particular by Mike Fusco, field coordinator of the New Mexico Cattle Growers Association. Fusco said, “One down and 99 to go,” as Babbitt, whose family was in cattle ranching and tied to slaughterhouses, would request and accept Jim Baca’s resignation and put to rest the investigations into BLM degradation of the American wild horse.
Jim Baca was intent to clean up the BLM, but the cattle barons would have none of it. They have always been in control of this agency. They have since the beginning wanted all wild horses sent to slaughter. That war continues today between the horse and the cattle interests.
Baca found evidence of a number of dubious activities that warrant the call to dismantle the BLM:
—Wild horse theft during roundups.
—“Black Booking,” or phony double-branding in order that horses rounded up could vanish from all paper trails and end up at the slaughterhouses.
—Manipulation of wild horse adoptions where one holds proxies for a group of kill buyers and the horses all end up at slaughter.
—Use of satellite ranches where horses are held for days or weeks as stopping points on the way to slaughter.
—Fraudulent horse sanctuaries subsidized by the government to care for unadoptable wild horses deemed excess and removed from the range as fronts for commercial sales to slaughter while ripping the government off at a price of $1.10 a day for phantom horses that have already been sold and slaughtered.
One of Jim Baca’s investigations accepted for prosecution centered on BLM employees’ direct participation, with the approval of BLM managers, to sell wild horses to slaughterhouses by using the satellite ranches as holding facilities.
BLM drivers would deliver the horses to kill buyers or these satellite ranches and share in the money the horses brought in from the slaughter facilities. The money was then divided among the BLM employees who were participants in the horse-for-slaughter scheme.
It’s time to dismantle the BLM, an agency that follows no barrier of law.
This agency has been one of the more corrupt Federal agencies ever since it’s founding by President Harry Truman in 1946. In their tenure over public lands, they have done more to destroy watershed than protect it, their incompetence as an agency of government has been unprecedented, and they have allowed cattle and sheep to overgraze the land to the extent that much of our range lands are today closer to wastelands. They have pitted cattle and sheep ranchers against the American wild horses and burros for grazing rights while making secret deals to sell wild horses and burros to slaughterhouses in the U.S. (before they were shut down) and later to slaughterhouses in both Canada and Mexico or illegal slaughterhouses that still are operating in the U.S. This agency has been involved in knowingly fraudulent adoption schemes and fictitious “sanctuary” herds to facilitate the needless removal of horses off the range.
This has left us, we the people, no option but to dismantle the BLM. It’s time to shut down this criminal enterprise and perhaps transfer these lands to the states with agreements that the wild horses and burros are to remain free protected and unmolested.
BLM employees and contractors have been the driving force behind the horse-to-slaughter program, which has been ongoing since the 1980s and possibly even prior. This has been demonstrated by the criminal prosecutions of horse theft and sales to slaughterhouses by such cases as have been filed in Texas, Wyoming, Oregan, and Utah. But none have been filed in Colorado, which has been the hotbed of agency corruption. See U.S. v. Hughes and U.S. v. TOMLINSON.
BLM director Jim Baca, had a short-lived tenure of only nine months as head of the agency. Baca’s concern for the wild horses and their plight under the corrupt BLM led to his being fired by Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt in 1994. His termination was cheered by the Cattle Association and in particular by Mike Fusco, field coordinator of the New Mexico Cattle Growers Association. Fusco said, “One down and 99 to go,” as Babbitt, whose family was in cattle ranching and tied to slaughterhouses, would request and accept Jim Baca’s resignation and put to rest the investigations into BLM degradation of the American wild horse.
Jim Baca was intent to clean up the BLM, but the cattle barons would have none of it. They have always been in control of this agency. They have since the beginning wanted all wild horses sent to slaughter. That war continues today between the horse and the cattle interests.
Baca found evidence of a number of dubious activities that warrant the call to dismantle the BLM:
—Wild horse theft during roundups.
—“Black Booking,” or phony double-branding in order that horses rounded up could vanish from all paper trails and end up at the slaughterhouses.
—Manipulation of wild horse adoptions where one holds proxies for a group of kill buyers and the horses all end up at slaughter.
—Use of satellite ranches where horses are held for days or weeks as stopping points on the way to slaughter.
—Fraudulent horse sanctuaries subsidized by the government to care for unadoptable wild horses deemed excess and removed from the range as fronts for commercial sales to slaughter while ripping the government off at a price of $1.10 a day for phantom horses that have already been sold and slaughtered.
One of Jim Baca’s investigations accepted for prosecution centered on BLM employees’ direct participation, with the approval of BLM managers, to sell wild horses to slaughterhouses by using the satellite ranches as holding facilities.
BLM drivers would deliver the horses to kill buyers or these satellite ranches and share in the money the horses brought in from the slaughter facilities. The money was then divided among the BLM employees who were participants in the horse-for-slaughter scheme.
Why we're seeing the beginning of a multi-billion dollar ecosystem marketplace
A little-noticed announcement by the U.S. Department of Interior in late 2015 reflects an emerging paradigm shift in natural resource conservation – and the role market-based solutions will play as the nation ramps up efforts to save America’s imperiled species and landscapes.
The new initiative to launch a Natural Resource Investment Center comes as the federal government seeks to develop creative private-sector financing opportunities for environmental protection that will, in turn, spur economic development.
The center will tap markets to boost landscape-wide conservation efforts. It will primarily focus on water resources, but also seek private-sector investments to protect habitats on public and private land...more
Editorial - War On Fossil Fuel: One Coal-ossal Mistake
President Obama's war on coal took its biggest leap yet last week
when the Department of the Interior announced that it will suspend all
new leases for coal production on federal lands.
Along with Obama's multiple EPA regulations, including his Clean Power Plant executive action, this could cripple future coal mining in America, from West Virginia to Montana.
That isn't collateral damage. It's the specific intent of a president who, step by relentless step, is trying to shut down America's fossil fuel industry. And it is further indication, as if we needed one, that our president is a global-warming zealot who puts his environmental ideology ahead of the interests of American workers and American industry.
So much for the liberal pretense of supporting an "all of the above energy strategy." As we have noted many times, even if Obama succeeds in shutting down every last coal plant in America, the impact on global carbon emissions will be minuscule. China and India alone are building 500 to 1,000 new coal plants over the next several years.
The Obama strategy is to make American coal so expensive that the industry can't survive in global markets.
...Radical environmentalists are ecstatic. They also don't disguise their end goal.
"From our point of view, the only way that you can manage the coal and combat climate change is by keeping it in the ground," said Jeremy Nichols of WildEarth Guardians.
In other words: death to the coal industry.
Along with Obama's multiple EPA regulations, including his Clean Power Plant executive action, this could cripple future coal mining in America, from West Virginia to Montana.
That isn't collateral damage. It's the specific intent of a president who, step by relentless step, is trying to shut down America's fossil fuel industry. And it is further indication, as if we needed one, that our president is a global-warming zealot who puts his environmental ideology ahead of the interests of American workers and American industry.
So much for the liberal pretense of supporting an "all of the above energy strategy." As we have noted many times, even if Obama succeeds in shutting down every last coal plant in America, the impact on global carbon emissions will be minuscule. China and India alone are building 500 to 1,000 new coal plants over the next several years.
The Obama strategy is to make American coal so expensive that the industry can't survive in global markets.
...Radical environmentalists are ecstatic. They also don't disguise their end goal.
"From our point of view, the only way that you can manage the coal and combat climate change is by keeping it in the ground," said Jeremy Nichols of WildEarth Guardians.
In other words: death to the coal industry.
Montana objects to mineral withdrawal on BLM lands
Montana Gov. Steve Bullock, a Democrat, and Republican Attorney General Tim Fox object to a proposal by the federal government to withdraw 983,000 acres of federal lands from new hard rock mining claims to protect sage grouse, a prairie bird that was a candidate for the list of threatened and endangered species last year.
In separate letters to Neil Kornze, director of the Bureau of Land Management, Bullock and Fox called the agency’s minerals withdrawal plan perplexing given the low potential for hard rock development in sage grouse habitat in northeastern Montana.
Across the West, 10 million acres are proposed to be withdrawn, including the 983,000 acres in northeastern Montana.
“There is no valid reason to withdraw almost a million acres of federal land,” Bullock said in a news release. “Montana’s recent success to ensure the future conservation of sage grouse provides the groundwork so that the impacts to sage grouse from mineral exploration and mining can be addressed.”...more
Oregon governor to feds: End occupation at wildlife refuge
Oregon Gov. Kate Brown has had enough.
Brown publicly vented her frustration Wednesday with the armed group of protesters who've taken over a federal wildlife refuge in Harney County, in the southeastern corner of her state. But she's also fed up with federal officials' response to the occupation and urged them to put an end to it.
"The residents of Harney County have been overlooked and underserved by federal officials' response thus far," Brown said during a news conference. "This spectacle of lawlessness must end. And until Harney County is free of it I will not stop insisting that federal officials enforce the law." And keeping an eye on the occupiers apparently isn't cheap. The price tag on the nearly three-week-old occupation is costing Oregon about $100,000 a week, Brown said. She wants reimbursement from the federal government for those mounting costs.
Kristen Grainger, Brown's director of communications, said costs related to the occupation included everything from bringing in extra law enforcement to food. "In order to maintain public safety ... multiple local law enforcement
entities from around the state, as well as Oregon State Police Troopers,
are coordinating with the Harney County sheriff to provide additional
officers," Grainger said in the statement. "The estimate of $100,000 a
week represents the costs of labor, including overtime, travel
reimbursement, lodging and meals for the officers."...more
Who has jurisdiction here? For things like theft and trespass I'll bet the state does. If Gov. Brown is really upset, why doesn't she take action? Like in so many things, it appears she has ceded authority to the feds.
Who has jurisdiction here? For things like theft and trespass I'll bet the state does. If Gov. Brown is really upset, why doesn't she take action? Like in so many things, it appears she has ceded authority to the feds.
Conservation groups demand end to refuge occupation; plus complete Bundy press conference - video
With the armed takeover of a national wildlife refuge in southeastern Oregon in its third week, Ammon Bundy and his group are still trying to muster up broad community support — so far without much luck.
Bundy has drawn a lot of attention to the dissatisfaction of ranchers and local townsfolk with federal land-use policies in the West. But the occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge has also begun to result in pushback from others who use public lands — birders, hunters and hikers, among others. On Tuesday, several hundred people rallied in Portland — about 300 miles north of the remote refuge in southeastern Oregon — to demand Bundy end the occupation and to point out that federal management makes it possible for all kinds of people to enjoy public lands. "This occupation represents a threat to public lands," said Bob Sallinger with the Audubon Society. "These are not political statements. These are crimes."
In Boise, more than 100 people attended a similar protest Tuesday in front of the Idaho Capitol. Ann Finley, a member of the Great Old Broads for Wilderness, said that the refuge is a special place.
"I love our free lands, and we're out here today stepping out and saying those lands should remain public," Finley said. While many local residents want Bundy and his group to leave, they also back his views on federal land policies. Bundy's game plan may be to continue to try to win local support and to draw as much attention as possible to his complaints against the federal government.
The small, armed group Bundy leads has said repeatedly that local people should control federal lands. Bundy has repeatedly told reporters the group would leave when there was a plan in place to turn over federal lands to locals — a common refrain in a decades-long fight over public lands in the West. At a Tuesday news conference, Bundy said "we're not going anywhere" until his group gets its goals accomplished...more
The aforementioned Tuesday press conference can be viewed on the Bundy Ranch Facebook page here.
The aforementioned Tuesday press conference can be viewed on the Bundy Ranch Facebook page here.
Oregon standoff - One of protesters has murder conviction
One of the protesters taking part in the armed occupation at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge is a 68-year-old former woodworker and, according to court records and authorities, a convicted killer.
Neil Sigurd Wampler drove to Oregon from his home on the California coast earlier this month to join those protesting the arson convictions of father and son ranchers outside Burns.
In August 1977, Wampler, who was 29, was convicted of second-degree murder in the killing of his father, Forey Edward Wampler, in Lake County, California, according to the district attorney's office there and police reports...more
Ranch Radio Song Of The Day #1546
Our selection today is the 1954 recording of Jealous Loving Heart by Ernest Tubb and The Texas Troubadours.
https://youtu.be/dhg0CHa7e60
https://youtu.be/dhg0CHa7e60
Wednesday, January 20, 2016
‘Fast & Furious’ rifle capable of taking down helicopter found in 'El Chapo' cache
A .50-caliber rifle found at Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman’s hideout in Mexico was funneled through the gun-smuggling investigation known as Fast and Furious, sources confirmed Tuesday to Fox News.
A .50-caliber is a massive rifle that can stop a car or, as it was intended, take down a helicopter.
After the raid on Jan. 8 in the city of Los Mochis that killed five of his men and wounded one Mexican marine, officials found a number of weapons inside the house where Guzman was staying, including the rifle, officials said.
When agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives checked serial numbers of the eight weapons found in his possession, they found one of the two .50-caliber weapons traced back to the ATF program, sources said...more
Heinrich Still Doesn’t Get It
by Dowd Muska
“We have, over time, lost access to a lot of public lands.”
That’s Martin Heinrich, in an address to “conservationists” in Las Cruces on Saturday. (Look — he wore a camouflage vest!)
It was another admission of reality from a politician who stands firmly opposed to a solid solution to access squabbles: Transferring “federal” lands to state governments. In 2014, Heinrich penned a hysterical op-ed for The New York Times in which he claimed that doing so “would raise the possibility that some of the lands would be turned over to the highest bidder and that Western taxpayers would be saddled with the costs of overseeing the rest.”
Contrary to the claims of Heinrich and his deep-pocketed allies in the “green” lobby, the campaign against Washington’s distant, and agenda-driven, management of so much of the West isn’t an attempt to reward energy companies and despoil some of the nation’s most scenic terrain. It’s a logical reform of a system that isn’t working — a shift that promises better control of wildfires and more economic development (and tax revenue) for rural communities. And it’s been done before. As the American Land Council explains, in the 19th century, Congress relinquished its holdings in “western” states such as Michigan, Illinois, Alabama, and Florida.
Heinrich continues to peddle his “HUNT Act” as a tool to grant hunters and anglers better access to federal land. But the legislation is just more of the same. The answer is to get Washington out of the land business (excepting existing National Parks) altogether.
From Errors of Enchantment, the blog of the Rio Grande Foundation.
Anger, frustration boil over at community meeting
The divide among friends and neighbors over the refuge occupation boiled into the open here Tuesday night in a community meeting that crackled with emotion.
What residents have feared and only whispered about in recent days took center court at the Burns High School gymnasium.
In sometimes highly personal remarks, speaker after speaker vented anger – at public officials, at the federal government and at the man in the brown cowboy hat sitting high in the bleachers to take it all in – Ammon Bundy. One woman said she appreciated the attention Bundy has brought to rural issues but told him, "Get the hell out of my county."
Another man gestured at Bundy and gave him the same message.
"Are you happy you did this to our community?" he said.
Another woman, shaking in anger, called out Bundy for the fear he's caused in local schools, which closed for a week after the occupation began. She yelled across the gym at him, telling him to leave and "go to jail where you deserve to be!" Ammon Bundy wasn't the only one catching brickbats. Public officials, particularly Grasty and Harney County Sheriff Dave Ward, took a verbal pummeling.
One man, who said he was from Eugene, pressed Ward about what he was doing to end the occupation and what was the role of the FBI.
"Just tell the truth," he barked. When it ended, the Bundy brothers left as quietly as they had entered, striding silently to an SUV with Nevada plates, and driving off without a word to the throngs of reporters and onlookers who trailed behind...more
Colo. wants exemption to roadless rule to help North Fork coal mines
The administration of Gov. John Hickenlooper is reiterating its support for a North Fork Valley coal exemption to the Colorado roadless rule as conservation groups say its costs would undo the greenhouse gas-reduction benefits of the state’s oil and gas methane regulations.
Mike King, who is finishing up his tenure as executive director of the state Department of Natural Resources before he begins working for Denver Water, said Monday the administration has submitted a letter in support of the exemption, which likewise has been backed by two prior governors.
“We remain steadfast in our support that the roadless areas not preclude the development” of coal in the North Fork Valley, King said in a telephone interview.
The U.S. Forest Service has proposed reinstating the nearly 20,000-acre exemption to Colorado roadless-area protections after a federal judge vacated it because of the government’s failure to consider climate-change impacts...more
Bundynomics - The New Yorker
By James Surowiecki
Ammon Bundy, the leader of the armed militia that stormed the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, in Oregon, has a simple solution for fixing the economy of the West: get the federal government out of the way. His group’s chief demand is that the federal government hand over all of Malheur to local control. The ultimate goal, he says, is “to get the logger back to logging, to get the rancher back to ranching, to get the miner back to mining.” Bundy’s tactics make him easy to dismiss as a kook, but his ideology is squarely in the mainstream of Western conservatism, with its hostility to government ownership, skepticism about environmental rules, and conviction that individual enterprise is being strangled by government regulations.
Such thinking has a long history in the region. At the turn of the last century, there was vehement opposition to the creation of national parks, which were seen as a waste of land that could be used for logging, mining, and ranching. Malheur itself, founded in 1908, was the site of serious political conflict in the nineteen-twenties: Oregonians wanted it closed down, so that Lake Malheur could be drained and the land sold off to farmers. In the seventies, during the so-called Sagebrush Rebellion, states across the region attempted to seize control of land from the federal government, which owns close to half of all land in the West. The Sagebrush Rebellion ultimately fizzled, but it helped instill the idea that federal land ownership is an economic blight, an idea that’s become more and more popular with Republicans as environmental regulations and restrictions on land use have proliferated. Organizations like the Koch-funded American Lands Council are working to help local governments reclaim some control of public land. Senator Lisa Murkowski, of Alaska, sponsored an amendment last March supporting the selling, trading, and transfer of federal land to the states. Ted Cruz has said that the U.S. should be prohibited from owning more than fifty per cent of the land in any state.
The libertarian appeal of the “take back the land” rhetoric masks a fundamental contradiction: the West has flourished because of the federal government’s help, not in spite of it. No region’s economy has depended more on subsidies and taxpayer-funded investment. In the nineteenth century, the Homestead Act handed out free land to settlers, and the transcontinental railroad was built thanks to cheap land grants and huge government outlays. The federal government has played a vital role in managing the Western watershed, while investing billions of dollars in dams and other public infrastructure. As the historian Gerald Nash has shown, the West’s postwar boom was jump-started by money the government poured into the region during the Second World War.
Furthermore, Bundy’s beloved ranching, mining, and logging industries have been some of the biggest beneficiaries of government largesse...
Ammon Bundy, the leader of the armed militia that stormed the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, in Oregon, has a simple solution for fixing the economy of the West: get the federal government out of the way. His group’s chief demand is that the federal government hand over all of Malheur to local control. The ultimate goal, he says, is “to get the logger back to logging, to get the rancher back to ranching, to get the miner back to mining.” Bundy’s tactics make him easy to dismiss as a kook, but his ideology is squarely in the mainstream of Western conservatism, with its hostility to government ownership, skepticism about environmental rules, and conviction that individual enterprise is being strangled by government regulations.
Such thinking has a long history in the region. At the turn of the last century, there was vehement opposition to the creation of national parks, which were seen as a waste of land that could be used for logging, mining, and ranching. Malheur itself, founded in 1908, was the site of serious political conflict in the nineteen-twenties: Oregonians wanted it closed down, so that Lake Malheur could be drained and the land sold off to farmers. In the seventies, during the so-called Sagebrush Rebellion, states across the region attempted to seize control of land from the federal government, which owns close to half of all land in the West. The Sagebrush Rebellion ultimately fizzled, but it helped instill the idea that federal land ownership is an economic blight, an idea that’s become more and more popular with Republicans as environmental regulations and restrictions on land use have proliferated. Organizations like the Koch-funded American Lands Council are working to help local governments reclaim some control of public land. Senator Lisa Murkowski, of Alaska, sponsored an amendment last March supporting the selling, trading, and transfer of federal land to the states. Ted Cruz has said that the U.S. should be prohibited from owning more than fifty per cent of the land in any state.
The libertarian appeal of the “take back the land” rhetoric masks a fundamental contradiction: the West has flourished because of the federal government’s help, not in spite of it. No region’s economy has depended more on subsidies and taxpayer-funded investment. In the nineteenth century, the Homestead Act handed out free land to settlers, and the transcontinental railroad was built thanks to cheap land grants and huge government outlays. The federal government has played a vital role in managing the Western watershed, while investing billions of dollars in dams and other public infrastructure. As the historian Gerald Nash has shown, the West’s postwar boom was jump-started by money the government poured into the region during the Second World War.
Furthermore, Bundy’s beloved ranching, mining, and logging industries have been some of the biggest beneficiaries of government largesse...
Obama’s Global Warming Czar Hacked After Giving Away Email Password
The hacker group Crackas With Attitude (CWA) hacked into the White
House global warming czar’s phone and email account by asking his wife
for the password. Hackers informed the tech-website Motherboard
about their attack on John Holdren’s email account. The group accessed
his account by impersonating the global warming czar and asking his wife
for the password over online chat. This isn’t the first time CWA hackers got a top government official’s personal information. CWA accessed accounts belong to Director of National Intelligence James Clapper earlier in January by employing a similar method. CWA comprised the accounts by using “social engineering.” This technique includes doing simple research, sending fake emails, or just asking for the personal information which secures many accounts. One CWA hacker previously posed as a Verizon technician to acquire enough personal information to access an account belonging to CIA director John Brennan...more
My hasn't our language advanced. Combining "czar" and "hacked" in the same sentence sounds more like something out of the 16th century than modern day civilization.
My hasn't our language advanced. Combining "czar" and "hacked" in the same sentence sounds more like something out of the 16th century than modern day civilization.
Editorial: Land transactions good deals for pueblos, children
Two New Mexico pueblos got bigger last week in transactions that will benefit many New Mexicans.
On Friday, Isleta Gov. E. Paul Torres and U.S. Secretary of
the Interior Sally Jewell signed papers transferring nearly 90,000
acres, known as the Comanche Ranch, into trust for the pueblo.
The pueblo had purchased the property west of Belen in 1997
for $7.3 million and began the process of applying to make it an
official, permanent part of the pueblo.
...Meanwhile in Santa Fe on Wednesday, state Land Commissioner
Aubrey Dunn announced that the old Dixon Apple Orchard and 8,800 acres
of adjacent state trust land in northern New Mexico will be traded to
Cochiti Pueblo. The pueblo has been seeking to regain the properties for
decades because they contain ancestral village sites and hunting areas.
In exchange, the Land Office will get the two-acre Garrett’s
Desert Inn site in downtown Santa Fe, near Land Office headquarters on
Old Santa Fe Trail.
Here’s how this deal works: The Catron family of Santa Fe is
selling the Garrett’s site to Cochiti, which will trade it to the
state.
Dunn said the state will make eight times more income from
the downtown Santa Fe site than it has been getting from the orchard and
the trust land, which were spoiled by devastating fires and flooding in
2011.
Tuesday, January 19, 2016
Judge rejects Obama's executive privilege claim over Fast and Furious records
A federal judge has rejected President Barack Obama's assertion of executive privilege to deny Congress access to records pertaining to Operation Fast and Furious, a gunrunning probe that allegedly allowed thousands of weapons to flow across the border into Mexico.
U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson ruled Tuesday that the Justice Department's public disclosures about its response to the so-called "gun walking" controversy undercut Obama's executive privilege claim. "There is no need to balance the need against the impact that the revelation of any record could have on candor in future executive decision making, since any harm that might flow from the public revelation of the deliberations at issue here has already been self-inflicted," Jackson wrote. "The Department itself has already publicly revealed the sum and substance of the very material it is now seeking to withhold. Since any harm that would flow from the disclosures sought here would be merely incremental, the records must be produced."
Jackson said she wasn't questioning the propriety of Obama's claim of
privilege, but ruling that the claim could not be sustained in view of
other information the Justice Department had released on the topic,
chiefly an Office of Inspector General report released in September 2012...more
Capitol protesters: 'Give Bundy the boot! Free Malheur!'
A group of 40 people showed up at the Capitol Tuesday to urge officials to kick out Ammon Bundy and the other militants who have been occupying the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge since Jan. 2. "Everybody is just so passionate about getting Bundy and his ilk out of there," said Birko, a Dallas resident. "We knew we just had to do something."
About 40 people stood out in the rain to show their support for public lands. Some carried signs that read things like, "Free Malheur! It is time for the squatters to leave!" and "We support Malheur NWR. Remove the illegal occupiers!" Others carried binoculars or other birding gear. The group sang the chorus to "This Land is Your Land" twice before chanting "Give Bundy the boot" and "Save our refuge."...more
Occupiers want U.S. to surrender all federal lands
Protesters holding the bird sanctuary southeast of here want every county in the U.S. to start a process giving back federal land to the previous owners.
They expect that process to start in Harney County with a citizens group processing deeds, according to Ryan Payne, a self-styled militiaman and a key leader of the refuge occupation that started two weeks ago.
In an interview, Payne provided the most clear statement yet about what the occupiers want to achieve. They now call themselves Citizens for Constitutional Freedom.
Besides stripping land from federal control, Ryan said the group wants ranchers Dwight Hammond Jr. and his son, Steven, released from federal prison immediately. He said the group wants to see a citizen inquest investigate the Hammonds' prosecution and report to the public on allegations of abuses by the government. The Hammond case is what drew Payne and his fellow protesters to the high desert of southeast Oregon. The Hammonds, longtime Harney County ranchers, were convicted in 2012 on federal arson charges for burning public land. They served prison terms after their trial, but had to return to prison Jan. 4 to serve their full five-year sentences when an appellate court declared the original shorter sentences illegal.
The protesters hoped to spare the Hammonds prison by arranging sanctuary in Harney County. The Hammonds rejected that idea, voluntarily surrendering to a federal prison in California. The protesters haven't let up on their support of the Hammonds and subsequently expanded their objectives to a much larger ambition to change public land ownership...more
Nevada ranching family loses federal lands court case
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled in favor of the federal government in a long-running dispute with the late Nevada rancher Wayne Hage, remanding the case to a new federal judge because of apparent bias on the part of U.S. District Judge Robert Clive Jones.
In a separate unpublished memorandum also filed Friday, the panel of the appeals court reversed a finding of contempt against BLM employee Thomas Seley and U.S. Forest Service employee Steven Williams, finding that Jones "grossly abused the power of contempt."
In the main opinion, the 9th Circuit, in a ruling written by Judge Susan Graber, granted the request by the U.S. government to reassign the case.
"Defendants openly trespassed on federal lands," she said. "Rather than simply resolving the fact-specific inquiries as to when and where the cattle grazed illegally, the district court applied an 'easement by necessity' theory that plainly contravenes the law."
"A dispassionate observer would conclude that the district judge harbored animus toward the federal agencies," Graber wrote. "Unfortunately, the judge's bias and prejudgment are a matter of public record. The decades-long dispute centers on the Hage family's Pine Creek Ranch near Tonopah, and is well known in the West and among property rights advocates who charge the government exercises a heavy hand in relations with those who make their livelihood off the land.
The ruling is the latest chapter in a feud that dates to the days of the Sagebrush Rebellion. The government charged the Hage family, along with rancher Benjamin Colvin, with trespassing by grazing cattle without a permit on Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service land.
Hage died in 2006 and the fight has been carried on by his family and son Wayne N. Hage Jr.
The younger Hage said in a telephone interview Monday that an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court would be difficult.
"I don't know what the future has in store for us," he said. "We have been dealt a lot of ugly over the years. I''m not sure where it's going to go.
"It is a big disappointment, not just for my family but for the entire industry," Hage said. "They felt relief at the Jones decision. Ranchers' rights had been upheld but now it has all been overturned. It looks to me like the 9th Circuit just swelled the ranks of the militias."
Hage said he is not involved with the militias but that he understands their frustrations with the federal government...more
Oregon standoff leaders urge local ranchers to defy feds on grazing fees
By
Kelly House
The occupiers of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge took their crusade to end federal land ownership to a new level Monday, imploring local ranchers to tear up their government grazing contracts.
Standing before a crowd of about 30 in the dining room of a high desert hot springs resort, the leaders of the armed standoff urged those gathered to "lay claim" to the area's federal lands.
The federal government owns about three-quarters of Harney County, renting much of it out to ranchers who pay a fee to run cattle there.
"If you want to clear yourself from this unconstitutional mess and claim the rights that you already own and use them the way you should, then you need to take that contract and you need to tear it up and you need to tell them that you're never signing another one again," said Ryan Bundy, one of the leaders of the takeover with his younger brother, Ammon Bundy.
...Now, the protesters are going a step further, asking local ranchers to sign their names to documents rejecting the U.S. Bureau of Land Management's authority.
"When you commit to stand, I promise you the angel of heaven will stand with you," occupation spokesman Robert "LaVoy" Finicum told the crowd.
Finicum announced earlier in the day that the protesters had recruited two ranchers – one from Oregon and one from New Mexico -- to stop paying grazing fees, but he and the other occupation leaders spent more than three hours in Crane trying to convince more people to join the cause.
The signing ceremony – now set for Saturday -- is "a once in a lifetime opportunity," Ammon Bundy said. The next time such an opportunity arises, he said: "It'll be war."
"The opportunity is now. The place is Harney County. And you are the people," he said.
The occupiers of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge took their crusade to end federal land ownership to a new level Monday, imploring local ranchers to tear up their government grazing contracts.
Standing before a crowd of about 30 in the dining room of a high desert hot springs resort, the leaders of the armed standoff urged those gathered to "lay claim" to the area's federal lands.
The federal government owns about three-quarters of Harney County, renting much of it out to ranchers who pay a fee to run cattle there.
"If you want to clear yourself from this unconstitutional mess and claim the rights that you already own and use them the way you should, then you need to take that contract and you need to tear it up and you need to tell them that you're never signing another one again," said Ryan Bundy, one of the leaders of the takeover with his younger brother, Ammon Bundy.
...Now, the protesters are going a step further, asking local ranchers to sign their names to documents rejecting the U.S. Bureau of Land Management's authority.
"When you commit to stand, I promise you the angel of heaven will stand with you," occupation spokesman Robert "LaVoy" Finicum told the crowd.
Finicum announced earlier in the day that the protesters had recruited two ranchers – one from Oregon and one from New Mexico -- to stop paying grazing fees, but he and the other occupation leaders spent more than three hours in Crane trying to convince more people to join the cause.
The signing ceremony – now set for Saturday -- is "a once in a lifetime opportunity," Ammon Bundy said. The next time such an opportunity arises, he said: "It'll be war."
"The opportunity is now. The place is Harney County. And you are the people," he said.
Suspicion over federal wolf plan spreads to Colorado, Utah
Suspicion over federal plans to restore endangered Mexican gray wolves in the Southwest has spread to Colorado and Utah, where ranchers and officials are fiercely resisting any attempt to import the predators.
About 110 Mexican gray wolves — a smaller subspecies of the gray wolf — now roam a portion of Arizona and New Mexico, nearly two decades after the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service released 11 wolves there to restart a population that had nearly vanished.
The agency hopes to complete a comprehensive recovery plan for the Mexican wolf in 2017, and officials say they’ve made no decision about releasing them in Colorado or Utah.
But neither state is waiting. Their governors joined Arizona and New Mexico’s executives in November to accuse the Fish and Wildlife Service of using flawed science and biased experts. They demanded that no Mexican wolves be released outside the southern parts of Arizona and New Mexico.
Wildlife commissioners in Utah and Colorado also spoke out against releasing Mexican wolves in their states — the Utah Wildlife Board in December and the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission last Wednesday...more
Militia member loses foster kids, blames ‘pressure from the feds’
One of the most visible members of the armed militia that took over a wildlife refuge in Oregon says his four foster sons were taken away due to his involvement in the standoff, and he blames the federal government who “must have gotten to the governor.”
Robert “LaVoy” Finicum and his wife Jeanette have fostered more than 50 boys over the last decade at their ranch near Chino Valley, Arizona. The couple is licensed and has a care contract with the Catholic Charities Community Services. Many of the children came from mental hospitals, drug rehabs and group homes for emotionally distressed youth, he told Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB).
“My ranch has been a great tool for these boys,” Finicum said. “It has done a lot of good.”
He traveled to Oregon to take part in the takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge at the beginning of January, leaving Jeanette to care for the four boys. But now the Finicums have no more fosters to care for. A social worker began removing the last four of the family’s foster kids on January 4, the fourth day of the Oregon standoff. The last left five days later, he said.
“They didn’t go out at the same time,” Finicum said. “One was there for a year, one of the boys was there six months, another eight months, and a month. I don’t know where they ended up.”
He blamed the kids’ removals on “pressure from the feds.”
“They were ripped from my wife,” Finicum said. “We are very successful [foster parents]. Our track records are good, it’s been a good relationship. [Federal authorities] must have gotten to the governor, who told the state to get them out of there.”
A 2010 tax filing showed that Catholic Charities paid the Finicums $115,343 to foster children in 2009, OPB reported. That year, foster parents in Arizona were compensated between $22.31 and $37.49 per child, per day. If the couple was paid the maximum rate, they would have cared for an average of eight children a day in 2009...more
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