NEWS ROUNDUP

Senate okays big hike in fuel rule In a bitter defeat for Michigan automakers and lawmakers, the U.S. Senate on Thursday voted to hike fuel economy requirements by 40 percent by 2020. The fuel economy measure, which requires automakers to increase combined fuel economy for passenger cars and light trucks to 35 miles per gallon, was added to a broad energy bill the Senate could approve today despite weeks of heavy lobbying from automakers. Automakers said if the new rules become law it would cost them billions of dollars and force them to dramatically alter their vehicle lineups. The Chrysler Group said the bill could bankrupt the company. Environmentalists say better gas mileage is necessary to reduce U.S. consumption of foreign oil and mitigate global warming....
Groups want tiny fish to be protected Environmental and tribal groups have filed a petition to list the minnow-like least chub as an endangered or threatened species, adding more pressure to the already intense Utah-Nevada fight over the effects of groundwater pumping in the Snake Valley. In the petition filed Tuesday, the Center for Biological Diversity, Confederated Tribes of the Goshute Reservation, the Great Basin chapter of Trout Unlimited and the Utah chapter of the Sierra Club said the species' survival is threatened by the Southern Nevada Water Authority's plan to pump up to 200,000 acre feet of water each year from the arid valleys of eastern Nevada and western Utah to feed population growth in Las Vegas. Snake Valley is northeast of Great Basin National Park on the Utah-Nevada line. The three least chub populations in the valley - half the populations remaining statewide - are doing fine now, Center for Biological Diversity biologist Allison Jones said Thursday. "But if we lose Snake Valley, the fish is in big trouble," she said....
Piñon Canyon expansion call: "Our land is our life" The U.S. Army's proposal to expand Fort Carson's Piñon Canyon training site in southeast Colorado by more than 400,000 acres - taking over dozens of farms and ranches - has been greeted like a foreign occupation. That's understandable, if you are faced with losing your home and livelihood with no opportunity for appeal. The proposal, which would affect as many as 5,000 people in six counties, has set off shock waves of fear, anger and frustration. Some 500 ranchers and farmers have banded in opposition. "Our land is our life," they say. We're a nation of people on the move, and may not understand the emotion that "our land" can evoke. We move from job to job, to new or different housing, to another town, across the country, drifting like fall leaves. The Army moves its people, too. Farmers and ranchers live and work on their land. They know how crops or pasture should look every day of the year, how the sheep, cattle, horses should be in every season. Kids work alongside their parents, often living in houses that once sheltered their ancestors. The tie to the land is far beyond economic value. Many remember that the 1983 Environmental Impact Statement issued when Piñon Canyon was acquired (by eminent domain) said the Army would never increase the size of the training facility, and that no live ammunition rounds would be used. Neither has been honored....
Allard wants Army's planning to go forward on Pinon Canyon Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., stopped short Thursday of saying he would protect the Army's ability to start work on expanding Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site, but said the environmental and economic studies that would be part of that process "need to go forward." Allard, a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, stepped around the question of whether he would remove the amendment blocking the Pinon Canyon expansion that Reps. Marilyn Musgrave, R-Colo., and John Salazar, D-Colo., added to the House version of the 2008 military construction appropriations bill last week. The Senate is scheduled to take up its version of the bill early in July and Allard is likely to be named to the conference committee that hammers out a compromise version of the bill. Allard met with Acting Army Secretary Pete Geren early Thursday. He gave Geren a list of questions to answer by early July, including what alternatives the Army has studied for training Fort Carson soldiers elsewhere. He also requested an assessment of the economic impact on the Mountain Post if the Army is not allowed to expand the 238,000-acre Pinon Canyon training area. Asked if he would remove the Musgrave-Salazar amendment if the Army answers his questions on time, Allard deflected the question, saying he hadn't taken a position yet....
Military Land Grab President Dwight Eisenhower's farewell speech gets quoted a lot these days. In it he prophetically warned us that, "we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes." How can we know when the military has "acquired unwarranted influence?" How will we recognize a "disaster rise of misplaced power" by the military-industrial complex? At what point has it endangered our liberties and democratic processes? Perhaps it's when American citizens have to defend their homes and their lands against an invasion by their own military. That's what is happening in Southeastern Colorado where the Department of Defense is threatening to use eminent domain to force the removal of ranchers from land that four and five generations of their ancestors were born on, married on and buried on. It's part of a proposal to triple the size of Fort Carson's Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site, currently the Army's second largest training range. ...
Bone-Crushing Wolves Roamed Alaska During Ice Age Gray wolves that roamed Alaska during the last ice age were built to tackle prey much larger than themselves and devour them completely—bones and all—a new study says. The ancient wolves had short snouts, strong jaws, and massive canine teeth unlike those on any wolves today. But these Alaskan wolves died out along with mastodons, saber-toothed cats, and other big animals at the end of the Pleistocene epoch, about 10,000 years ago. The finding is based on an analysis of skull and tooth bones collected decades ago from the permafrost and stored today at museums in the U.S. and Canada. The wolves were specially adapted to a highly competitive life on the vast, icy Alaskan expanses, according to the study, which examined bone shape and DNA and chemical signatures in the bones. "Certainly, competition would favor those adaptations," said study co-author Blaire Van Valkenburgh, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of California, Los Angeles. She noted that the ancient wolves in Alaska didn't have to compete with larger relatives called dire wolves. This allowed the Alaskan gray wolves to fill a niche unavailable to gray wolf populations farther south....
Climate of the future? Jeff Dukes wants to know what New England will look like in a warmer, wetter world. So, the biology professor at the University of Massachusetts at Boston will spend five years simulating future climatic conditions on an old farm in Waltham. During the $1 million Boston-Area Climate Experiment at the university's agricultural facility on Beaver Street, ceramic heaters will warm 2-square-meter plots of earth to simulate the effects of global warming. Corrugated polycarbonate roofing panels and sprinklers overhead will control the amount of rain that reaches the ground over specific plots. The overall temperature in the Northeast in the next century may increase 4, 7, or 12 degrees, according to some scientists. But no one knows for sure. The climate experiment will vary the temperature and rainfall amounts within 36 individual plots. In other words, Dukes is shaping three dozen microclimates -- some wetter, some drier, some cooler, some hotter -- that do not yet exist in New England. Dukes will study how the climate changes affect the growth of grasses and wildflowers, as well as microbes in the soil....
Ex-Marine kills bear with log A camping trip to Low Gap Camp Grounds turned into a harrowing experience for Chris Everhart and his three sons when they tangled with a 300-pound black bear. But the encounter last weekend proved fatal for the bear. The bear had taken the Everharts' cooler and was heading back to the woods when 6-year-old Logan hurled a shovel at it. Fearing what might happen next, the Norcross father and ex-Marine grabbed the closest thing he could find - a log. "(I) threw it at it and it happened to hit the bear in the head," Chris Everhart said. "I thought it just knocked it out but it actually ended up killing the bear." The man was given a ticket for failing to secure his camp site, said Ken Riddleberger, a region supervisor for game management with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources. Riddleberger said some U.S. Forest Service agents were at the camp issuing a citation in an unrelated case. They got to the scene in a few minutes and verified what happened, he said. Riddleberger said fines are usually set by counties, but Everhart's will be set by the federal government since the incident happened on federal property....
Microsoft to Fund Humane Society of the United States According to the Animal Agriculture Alliance, Microsoft will be making donations to the Humane Society of the United States. It involves a pilot program called the ''i’m Initiative.'' Whenever a Windows Live Messenger user has a conversation using i’m, Microsoft will give a portion of the program’s advertising revenue to one of 10 organizations that the user selects. HSUS is among the choices, and there is no limit to the amount of money that can be received. Groups such as the U.S. Sportsmen’s Alliance, have urged Microsoft to end its support of HSUS, but the company has passed on the idea. Tara Kriese, a Microsoft representative, says the program is “a great way to enable people to help causes that are important to them.” "Apparently she missed the October 2006 statement from Miyun Park, HSUS’ vice president of farm animal welfare, who said the organization’s long-term goal for the egg laying and broiler chicken industry is, ''to get rid of the industry','' notes an Alliance spokesperson. The agriculture industry's concern, of course, is that such a dynamo as Microsoft is teaming up with such a radical organization as HSUS. ''Clearly someone at Microsoft has not done their homework. Otherwise they would know that HSUS is just like PETA, but in a nice suit,'' says Kay Johnson, executive vice president of Animal Agriculture Alliance....
Roughstock legend Shouders dies in Oklahoma Rodeo legend Jim Shoulders died in his sleep early Wednesday in his Henryetta, Okla., home from complications related to heart disease. He was 79, and his death notice was sent through a press release from the ProRodeo Cowboys Association. Congestive heart failure had taken a toll on Shoulders’ health in recent years and he was receiving hospice care until his death from kidney failure at 3:30 a.m. His wife, Sharon, was with him at the time of his death. Shoulders won an astonishing PRCA-record 16 world championships during his ProRodeo Hall of Fame career five all-around, seven bull riding and four bareback riding standing as nearly unbeatable during the 1950s. "Even in coming generations, I don’t think there will be a hero as strong as Jim Shoulders," said rodeo announcer and long-time friend Clem McSpadden, of Chelsea, Okla. "The biggest tree in the rodeo forest has fallen." Shoulders was the only man to win the Cheyenne (Wyo.) Frontier Days Rodeo all-around title four times and was a seven-time winner of the Calgary Stampede. In addition to his 16 world championships, he was reserve champion another 10 times, including four second-place finishes in the all around....