NEWS ROUNDUP

Wildest Bill on the Hill Coming Soon Informally, the founders call it “the wildest bill on the hill,” but officially, it’s called the Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act of 2007, and in the next few weeks, Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) will, with the support of 187 co-sponsors (and counting), introduce the bill into the 110th Congress. It would designate many millions of acres of Wilderness, two new national park units, hundreds of miles of wild and scenic rivers, and establish linkage corridors between many of these areas. It covers all of Idaho, Montana and Wyoming, and dips slightly into far eastern Oregon and Washington. And with the new political landscape created by the last election, backers are confident of their chances for success. Mike Garrity, executive director of the Alliance for the Wild Rockies (AWR), the main ball carrier of this legislation, says NREPA will be among the highest priority wilderness bills in Congress. For a more detailed explanation, go here, but in summary, here is what NREPA does....
Column - Ending the War Over Wilderness In the old days, before wolf reintroduction, Wilderness used to be the “W” word, so let’s leave Brother Wolf behind and go back to our roots, the fifty-year old controversy coming out of attempts to preserve the last blank spots on the map in the New West. All the howling over wolves of late has drowned out the debate over Wilderness, but that will change soon. With the new BlueGreen Congress at work, Wilderness advocates will be dusting off proposed legislation shelved for years and introducing it. The resulting debate might challenge the decimal level we’ve heard lately from the fight over how many wolves we should allow in the New West. Also, I fear, we’ll bloody ourselves in these fights and once again end up with nothing but bruises. Sadly, this has been the norm, ending up with no solution and making the controversy over the use of our last roadless lands seem endless. But now, we have a way to quickly end the war for Wilderness and move on. Can we do it?....
Tumacacori wilderness plan gets boost by Dems Now that his party controls Congress, Rep. Raúl Grijalva says he finally may succeed in protecting the Tumacacori Highlands near Nogales. "It does make its chances of passage much better," the Tucson Democrat said last week of legislation he'll introduce in the next 30 days to designate as wilderness about 84,000 rugged, scenic acres 40 miles south of Sahuarita. That's good news to people who support the legislation, like Mike Quigley, wilderness campaign coordinator for the Sky Island Alliance. "We were optimistic before, and given the amount of support for the idea and quality of the land we're talking about, we're more optimistic than ever," he said. The rugged mountainous area surrounded by rolling grasslands is home to a wide diversity of plants and animals, including more than 70 species of rare animals and plants such as the jaguar, elegant trogon and Chiricahua leopard frog. The area also has numerous cultural and historic sites....
Global Warming Skeptics Shunned The political climate isn't good for scientists with dissenting views on global warming, leaving some researchers to fear that honest research could be blackballed in favor of promoting a "consensus" view. A dispute erupted this week in Oregon, where Gov. Ted Kulongoski is considering firing the state's climatologist George Taylor, who has said human activity isn't the chief cause of global climate change. That view is not in line with the state policy of Oregon to reduce "greenhouse gases," which are considered by many researchers to be the chief cause of global warming. And Taylor is not alone. Although a recent United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report summary said there is 90 percent confidence that human activity is the main cause of global warming, climatologist are far from unanimous in that view. "It seems if scientists don't express the views of the political establishment, they will be threatened and that is a discomforting thought," said Alabama state climatologist John Christie, a professor of atmospheric science at the University of Alabama in Huntsville....
Editorial - Global Warming Smear(subscription required) Here are the facts as we've been able to collect them. AEI doesn't lobby, didn't offer money to scientists to question global warming, and the money it did pay for climate research didn't come from Exxon. What AEI did was send a letter to several leading climate scientists asking them to participate in a symposium that would present a "range of policy prescriptions that should be considered for climate change of uncertain dimension." Some of the scholars asked to participate, including Steve Schroeder of Texas A& M, are climatologists who believe that global warming is a major problem. AEI President Chris DeMuth says, "What the Guardian essentially characterizes as a bribe is the conventional practice of AEI -- and Brookings, Harvard and the University of Manchester -- to pay individuals" for commissioned work. He says that Exxon has contributed less than 1% of AEI's budget over the last decade. As for Exxon, Lauren Kerr, director of its Washington office, says that "none of us here had ever heard of this AEI climate change project until we read about it in the London newspapers." By the way, commissioning such research is also standard practice at NASA and other government agencies and at liberal groups such as the Pew Charitable Trusts, which have among them spent billions of dollars attempting to link fossil fuels to global warming. We don't know where the Brits first got this "news," but the leading suspects are the reliable sources at Greenpeace. They have been peddling these allegations for months, and the London newspaper sleuths seem to have swallowed them like pints on a Fleet Street lunch hour....
Green Group Distances Itself From 'Coal is Dirty' Claim Amid a renewed focus on global warming, an environmental group was alarmed this week to see its name attached to an advertising campaign asserting that "coal is filthy" when the group does not hold such a clear-cut position on the issue. The ads by the newly formed Clean Skies Coalition (CSC) used statistics and analyses from the national non-profit group Environmental Defense (ED) along with images of soot-covered faces to oppose a proposal by TXU, Texas' largest retail electricity provider, to build 11 new coal-driven energy plants. But ED representative Jim Marston said he did not want the public to think that his organization had funded or helped release the ads. Although ED opposes the TXU plan, Marston said in a statement the ad campaign "could be interpreted as a complete rejection of any coal technology." That does not reflect the views of ED, which supports the use of "clean coal" technology that minimizes "greenhouse gas" emissions from coal plants. Marston said ED was not informed that its research would be used in the advertisements....
Biologists, Nature Enthusiasts Urge Action on Global Warming Changes in the global climate that some attribute to human activity are expected to have a big impact on animals and ecosystems, according to a panel of scientists and nature enthusiasts who testified before a congressional subcommittee Wednesday. "Ecological communities will disassemble," said Dr. Thomas Lovejoy, director of the H. John Heinz III Center for Science, Economics and the Environment. "It's going to be a messy picture watching that happen." In testimony before the Senate Environment and Public Works' subcommittee on global warming and wildlife, Lovejoy said increasing average temperatures have already led to changes in the timing of plant flowering, bird migrations and animal reproduction. Lovejoy said it is "hard to make the detailed projections" on how global warming will actually affect ecosystems, but nature "is indeed highly sensitive to climate change."....
Global warming tussles boil at White House, Capitol Global warming tussles erupted on Thursday on Capitol Hill and at the White House, where the top spokesman was grilled about U.S. President George W. Bush's early stance on the causes of climate change. Spokesman Tony Snow fielded questions about an "open letter" released on Wednesday by two White House officials complaining that some media stories inaccurately described Bush as coming late to the idea that human activities spur global warming. The letter included a quote from a Bush speech in 2001, in which he cited a National Academy of Sciences report that said climate change was "due in large part to human activity." The U.S. government has refused to sign the Kyoto Protocol, which sets ambitious targets to reduce greenhouse gases that are believed to contribute to rising global temperatures and changing weather patterns. Snow gave a fuller excerpt from Bush's 2001 speech, which dwelled on the uncertainties of the science on climate change, natural fluctuations in climate and the open question on the possible impact that various human actions have on it....
Climate change concerts 'to dwarf Live Aid' A series of concerts "bigger than Live Aid" is being planned for July, in a bid to put the subject of climate change before an audience of a global audience of 2bn. The event, scheduled for July 7, will feature co-ordinated film, music and television events in seven cities including London, Washington DC, Shanghai, Rio de Janeiro, Cape Town and Kyoto, with major broadcasters and media owners aiming to extend the reach of public awareness of global warming. It is understood that former US vice-president Al Gore, whose movie An Inconvenient Truth brought climate change to cinema audiences last year, will announce the event tomorrow in London. The organisers hope to involve up to 2.5m people in events and link-ups at the cities involved, as well as other locations. They are promising a line-up of artists to "dwarf" that of the Live8 and Live Aid concerts, thought to be branded under the name "SOS"....
'Doomsday vault' to resist global warming effects An Arctic "doomsday vault" aimed at providing mankind with food in case of a global catastrophe will be designed to sustain the effects of climate change, the project's builders said as they unveiled the architectural plans. The top-security repository, carved into the permafrost of a mountain in the remote Svalbard archipelago near the North Pole, will preserve some three million batches of seeds from all known varieties of the planet's crops. The hope is that the vault will make it possible to re-establish crops obliterated by major disasters. "We have taken into consideration the (outside) temperature rising and have located the facility so far inside the rock that it will be in permafrost and won't be affected" by the outside temperature, Magnus Bredeli Tveiten, project manager at Norway's Directorate of Public Construction and Property, told AFP. Construction on the seed bank, also dubbed the "Noah's Ark of food", will begin in March....
Bush Seeks Public-Private Funding Boost for Parks President Bush traveled to Shenandoah National Park yesterday to tout his proposal to increase funding for national parks by $258 million next year, the first step in a plan to spend as much as $3 billion in public and private money on the popular attractions over the coming decade. Bush's proposal, which critics called a sharp turn for a president whose previous budgets did not address maintenance and staffing problems at parks across the country, targets one of the few domestic areas where he has called for funding significant new initiatives in his fiscal 2008 spending plan. The plan would pump $1 billion into the nation's 390 national parks and monuments by 2016, the park system's centennial. The proposal, which must be approved by Congress, would also call on private donors and philanthropies to donate as much as an additional $1 billion. The donated funds would be matched by the federal government....
Appeals court affirms rancher's royalties The Colorado Court of Appeals today upheld a $4 million jury award to a western Colorado sheep rancher who argued a natural-gas drilling company had not paid him all the royalties he was due over several years. Tulsa, Okla.-based Williams Production Co. had appealed the August 2004 verdict, arguing that evidence was improperly excluded and that the jury instructions and damage calculations were flawed. A three-judge panel of the appeals court rejected each argument. The suit was filed by Garfield County rancher William Clough, who has since died. Clough, who owned 12,000 acres near Rifle and Parachute, was earning about $3 million a year in royalties from natural gas drilling on his land. He argued that Williams and Barrett Resources, which merged with Williams in 2001, had not paid him agreed-upon royalties from February 1996 to February 2004....
Roadless rule reinforced A federal judge in Northern California issued a final injunction Tuesday that protects 52 million acres nationwide from a repeal of the 2001 Clinton roadless rule. U.S. District Judge Elizabeth D. Laporte included language in her decision preventing roads and surface disturbance related to energy development, though oil and gas deposits would still be available through directional drilling. Though the issue is bound to face more legal challenges, Laporte’s order strikes down the Bush administration’s repeal of the roadless rule and requirement that governors petition the federal government to protect roadless areas in their states. The matter came before Laporte after conservation groups, including the Wilderness Society, took the repeal to court. Laporte in September said the administration’s action violated federal law because it did not undergo the necessary environmental studies....
Interior Dept. Gets Reprieve on Its Decision on Bald Eagle With a court-ordered deadline looming for removal of the bald eagle from the endangered species list, the Interior Department, rejecting the advice of its staff wildlife biologists, tried to limit a separate set of protections for the majestic bird that has served as a national symbol for centuries. Public reaction, however, to its December proposal was so sharp that the department had sought a reprieve from the deadline, which it received Wednesday. It now has until June 29 to make its final decision on the eagle’s status and the extent of its continuing protections. But even before the widespread use of pesticides in the 1940s and 1950s caused the drop in the population, the eagle had been a target for people coveting its feathers, so Congress passed a law preventing the “taking” of any eagle. This word was broadly defined to include everything from hunting the bird to simply disturbing it. Now, the department has proposed regulatory language narrowing that definition and making it harder to prove that human actions disturbed the bird. Under the new language, landowners and developers could cut down trees, build and engage in other activities in the vicinity of the bird and its nest as long as eagles were not killed or injured and did not abandon their nests. But two months before the department adopted that language, H. Dale Hall, director of the Fish and Wildlife Service, sent his superiors a memorandum arguing for a more protective approach....
Roberts revamps surface rights The natural-gas industry is cooperating, for now, on a bill that would change the law that gives the industry power over landowners. Rep. Ellen Roberts, R-Durango, introduced the bill Wednesday. "My approach to this has been to be as open as possible from the very start, because the bill's approach is very different than in the past," Roberts said. Controversies arise when different people own the surface land and the underlying minerals. Previous bills tried to spell out what steps drillers must take when they want a new well on private land. Roberts, instead, wants to declare that the surface and mineral owners are on equal footing under the law. Current law gives preference to the mineral owner. The Colorado Oil and Gas Association likes it that way. "At the end of the day, you have got to have the ability to access the minerals," said Greg Schnacke, COGA's executive vice president. "Society made the mineral estate dominant for a reason, dating back centuries, so the minerals could be brought to the surface." Roberts based her bill on a 1997 state Supreme Court decision called Gerrity v. Magness, where the judges ruled in favor of the surface owner. The judges said surface and mineral owners must accommodate each other's interests, putting the burden of proof on the energy company to show it was acting reasonably. The Legislature has never directed the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission to enforce the Gerrity decision. Roberts would require the industry to minimize its impacts to the extent that it is technologically and economically possible. She believes the courts might have to get involved to decide what's possible. COGA is not opposing the bill so far and continues to work with Roberts....
Agreement reached in Wyoming on heli-skiing in roadless area Heli-skiing in a wilderness study area in western Wyoming would be drastically reduced over the next four years under an agreement among conservation groups, the U.S. Forest Service and a helicopter skiing company. The agreement stems from a court dispute over how much heli-skiing should be allowed in the Palisades Wilderness Study Area, a 136,000-acre roadless area located in the Bridger-Teton and Caribou-Targhee national forests. Heli-skiing involves using a helicopter to transport skiers into remote, backcountry areas and dropping them off at the top of a mountain to ski down. Under the proposal, High Mountains Helicopter Skiing Inc. of Teton Village, which charges a fee to fly backcountry skiers, would be allowed 854 skier days this winter season. A skier day is one person's ski trip. The permitted skier days would be reduced in subsequent winter seasons to 598 in 2007-2008, 512 in 2008-2009, 342 in 2009-2010 and 65 in 2010-2011....
Rural schools brace for losses in forest fight California rural school officials, facing a dramatic drop in funding, predict layoffs and shuttered classrooms as Western lawmakers and the Bush administration fight over a plan to sell federal timberland to prop up education in small communities. As it did last year, the White House has proposed compensating rural communities dominated by U.S. Forest Service ownership with revenue from the sale of 300,000 acres of national forest. Debate last year over the president's plan engulfed the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act, which from 2000 to 2006 had enjoyed bipartisan support. That funding was headed for reauthorization when the White House announced its plan to raise $800 million by selling national forests. Since 2000, 780 counties and 4,400 school districts nationwide have received $440 million annually under legislation designed to allow counties and school districts to maintain programs despite reduced logging revenues. If Congress does not authorize funding before April, up to 16,000 county and school employees nationwide will lose their jobs -- around 1,700 of them in California -- said Bob Douglas, Tehama County superintendent of schools and president of the national coalition....
Forest Service Agrees to Consider Harm to Sensitive Species From Cattle Grazing Conservation groups today applauded a decision by the Gila National Forest to withdraw a controversial plan that would have re-opened an area that had been recovering for more than a decade from previous cattle grazing. The plan to graze the Hermosa Allotment could have harmed more than 100 miles of streams, jeopardized the integrity of native vegetation, and further impaired habitat for the critically endangered Mexican gray wolf and other rare species. "We're delighted that the Forest Service acknowledged the shortcomings of this plan by withdrawing the decision," said Melissa Hailey, attorney with Forest Guardians. "We challenged the plan because it didn't adequately assess the risks to wildlife, watersheds, and the Mexican wolf recovery effort." The Hermosa Allotment is part of the Blue Range Wolf Recovery Area and provides habitat for numerous other federally listed wildlife species, including the bald eagle, Mexican spotted owl, and Chiricahua leopard frog. It also provides habitat for at least four rare and sensitive plants that are known to be harmed by livestock grazing operations. Though the allotment has been in non-use for the last 13 years, conditions there are poor to fair, and experiencing a downward trend. The proposed decision would have opened the allotment as a grass bank, for use when other allotments were subjected to prescribed and naturally ignited fires....
Energy solution or curse on land? Utah Mining Association President David Litvin looked at displays for a proposed surface coal mine southwest of Bryce Canyon National Park and saw a solution to the country's increasing demand for electricity. Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance staff attorney Stephen Bloch viewed the same displays with disdain, maintaining "some bad ideas don't go away. This was a bad idea 30 years ago and it's a bad idea now." These polar positions were expressed Wednesday night at Salt Lake City's Main Library during the fifth and final meeting in which the U.S. Bureau of Land Management was soliciting public input on issues that should be addressed in an environmental impact statement (EIS) being prepared on the coal mine proposal, known as the Coal Hollow Project. The EIS will address Alton Coal Development LLC's application to lease 3,600 acres of BLM land about three miles south of the Kane County town of Alton. The company also is seeking a state permit to mine another 440 acres of private land within the federal acreage. The Utah Division of Oil, Gas and Mining began that permit process last June. If both permits are approved, Alton Coal Development projects its strip mine could remove 2 million tons of coal annually. It would create 50 jobs in Alton, a ranching and livestock community of 134 residents, nearly a quarter of whom live below the poverty level. About 190 truck trips each weekday would carry the coal north through Panguitch, then west to Interstate 15 and south to a railroad line near Cedar City.....
Impact Of Oil Drilling On Wildlife Questioned A coalition of 60 groups is pushing state and federal lawmakers to better regulate oil and gas companies and a bill calling for new guidelines will be introduced at any time with the goal of protecting state's wildlife. The guidelines are designed to keep oil and gas' environmental footprint to a minimum. There are more than 30,000 wells in Colorado right now, with 30,000 more expected in the next ten years. That's where the guidelines come in. They're designed to minimize the disturbances on wildlife before it's too late. Bob Elderkin helped create them and knows better than most about oil and gas development in Colorado. Before he retired, he regulated it for the BLM, a state agency which leases land for drilling. "These guidelines are not intended to stop oil and gas in any way, shape or form, they're just intended to get surface managing agencies to start monitoring the impacts and minimizing the impacts," Elderkin said. He thinks the guidelines will help. They include pushing for fewer pipelines and roads and suggest drilling as many wells as possible on a single pad or designated area and spacing out those pads. They ask that abandoned wells be returned to a natural state. He thinks this will really help wildlife....
"EQUESTRIAN NATION" A New TV SHow for Horse Lovers Beginning this spring, horse lovers of all types will be tuning into a new magazine-style television show called Equestrian Nation, hosted by legendary Cowboy Larry Mahan. Equestrian Nation features stories about the many different equine breeds and disciplines from around the world. The show will premiere on March 2nd on the RFD-TV Network. RFD-TV is distributed on DIRECTV (Channel 379), DISH Network (Channel 9409), Mediacom and NCTC cable systems in all 50 states, serving over 28 million U.S. homes. RFD-TV has dedicated blocks of time specifically for equine programming, and Equestrian Nation will air multiple times per week. Program schedules are available at www.rfdtv.com or at www.equestriannation.tv Stories coming up include: trick roping with Montie Montana; rare footage of legendary horseman Tom Dorrance sharing some of his training techniques; a trip to Scotland to see the home of the Clydesdales and the fields they have plowed for centuries; a visit with Sons of the Pioneers, Rusty Richards; barrel racing with Charmayne James; reining with Dell Hendricks; scenic riding in Ireland; and cowboy cooking with Billy Ruiz. Agricultural stories are included, like holistic grazing of cattle and how this method can keep your pastures healthy. The show features vet tips from Dr. Doug Herthel and hoof care information with farrier John Raede....
Rancher beats giant snake to death to save grandson A 66-year-old Brazilian saved his grandson from the coils of a 16-foot anaconda by beating the snake with rocks and a knife for half an hour, police said Thursday. "When I saw the snake wrapped around my grandson's neck I thought it was going to kill him," Pereira told the Agencia Estado news service. Pereira's 8-year-old grandson, Mateus, was attacked by the anaconda Wednesday near a creek on his grandfather's ranch in the city of Cosmorama, about 250 miles northwest of Sao Paulo....
It’s The Pitts: The Weighting Game Scales have been known to lie. Back in the old days, before ranchers could send their cattle to an auction market with certified and sealed scales, all sorts of games were played with the weighing devices that determine how much cattlemen are paid for the product of their toil. In Fort Worth many years ago a crook hid himself under the pit scales and communicated with dealers using a two-way radio. When the dealers bought cattle they’d communicate their intentions to the scoundrel under the scale and he would push up on the beam of the scale so that the cattle would weigh light. Then when those same dealers sold cattle the outlaw in the pit would push down on the beam to give the cattle a heavier selling weight. You have to admit, they were creative crooks! Their profitable enterprise came to a screeching halt one day when a ringside observer noticed cigarette smoke wafting up through the boards of the scale. Now days you don’t have to worry about being short-weighed for your cattle at the auction but that doesn’t mean all shenanigans have stopped out in the country....