NEWS ROUNDUP

White House Delays Whale Protection Rule The White House is currently delaying the completion of a final rule intended to protect a critically endangered whale species. Critics are concerned the Bush administration is giving special access to business interests and overemphasizing economic considerations in its review of the rule. The delay of the whale protection rule is indicative of a larger problem in the White House regulatory review process. The North Atlantic right whale is a large species native to the waters off the coast of America's eastern seaboard. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), "The population is believed to be at or less than 300 individuals, making it one of the most critically endangered large whale species in the world." The species is protected under both the Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act. Although the species has benefited from federal protections for years, it is still having difficulty recovering. Human activity is the primary impediment to species recovery. Collisions between whales and shipping vessels are a particularly serious problem. According to NOAA, "One of the greatest known causes of deaths of North Atlantic right whales from human activities is ship strikes." In response, NOAA began working in 1999 on a federal rule to limit the speed of large shipping vessels traveling along the eastern seaboard. The speed limits would vary based on geographic location and season....
Humans clearly linked to rising rainfall, study says A landmark Canadian-led study has drawn a clear link between human activity since the early 20th century and increased rainfall across much of the Northern Hemisphere -- a finding that comes in the midst of flooding crises in Britain and China, and which appears to confirm a key argument about human-induced global climate change. "For the first time, climate scientists have clearly detected the human fingerprint on changing global precipitation patterns over the past century," the researchers said Monday in a statement, adding that their team has "determined that human-induced climate change has caused most of the observed increase in precipitation north of 50 degrees latitude, a region that includes Canada, Russia and Europe." In an article to be published later this week in the journal Nature, the four-nation team headed by two Toronto-based climate scientists with Environment Canada compared 75 years of rainfall records from around the world with the precipitation predictions in nearly 100 computer simulations based on 14 separate global climate models. The researchers concluded that at least 50 per cent, and as much as 85 per cent, of average rainfall increases at northern latitudes between 1925 and 1999 could be attributed to human activity....
U.S., Canada, Mexico vow energy tech co-operation Canada, the United States and Mexico pledged to co-operate on developing energy technology on Monday in an agreement that could reduce trade barriers to alternative energy development. The countries' top energy officials, who signed the five-year deal following a meeting on Canada's Pacific Coast, said it should also promote joint research in areas such as nuclear energy and renewable fuels. Promoting renewable and more energy-efficient technology will increase North America's energy security and help the environment, the officials said. The countries agreed in 2001 to promote energy security in the region, but a new pact was needed to provide a "formal framework" to resolving issues such as ownership of intellectual property rights, the officials said....
Crazy For Yellowcake In Paradox Valley, Colorado After a hiatus of more than 20 years, nuclear energy is resurgent. Worldwide, more than 130 new nuclear plants are under construction, and momentum is building toward new plants in the United States, where no reactors have come online since 1996. The result is a uranium boom in the Southwest: Since 2000, 175 U.S. firms have jumped into the market, and exploration expenditures have more than tripled to $185 million a year. In Colorado's San Miguel County, south of Nucla, some 1,731 new claims were staked last year; in all of 2002, there were 3. At the vanguard of the rush are the dilapidated towns whose residents reaped the rewards—and paid the price—of the last boom.....
Al Gore's Whine: What Really Happened on the Mall Now it's official. Global warming alarmism has indeed "jumped the shark", as revealed by the dismal failure of the Live Earth concerts to galvanize the general public. In particular, the puny turnout in Washington, DC, where Gore himself personally showed up, has proved an acute embarrassment. But although Al Gore's Live Earth concerts have failed in the ratings, he appears to have partially succeeded at doing what does best: shifting blame for his woes to his political opponents and getting the media to go along. Since last weekend, the Net has been abuzz with stories of how Gore overcame Republicans who allegedly did everything they could to stop the concert from being performed on Washington's National Mall. The next day, Gore again took a shot at the opponents who he said denied him the use of Washington's famous Mall - the area surrounding the Smithsonian Institution museums between the Capitol and the Washington Monument - and the press again largely parroted his claim. In his speech at National Museum of the American Indian last Saturday, which the Paris-based wire service AFP called "a thinly veiled hit on members of President George W. Bush's Republican party," Gore declared, "Some who don't understand what is now at stake tried to stop this event on the Mall." To start with, the Washington "show" consisted of country stars Garth Brooks and Tricia Yearwood added to preexisting events with Indian artists. As Carter Wood observed at the National Association of Manufacturers' blog ShopFloor.org: "The Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian had already scheduled a day of events -- including the Indian Summer Showcase 2007, which appeared to be absorbed into ‘Mother Earth - In the Spirit of the Live Earth Concerts.' There were already going to be performances, drum circles and spiritual/environmental speeches by tribal leaders. Al Gore and the Smithsonian's organizers just figured a way to add Gore's overtly political address and the Garth Brooks/Trisha Yearwood performance to an existing event." But Gore's most blatant falsehood - as phony as a three-dollar carbon credit - is his claim that Republican lawmakers or global warming "deniers" prevented him from holding the concert on the Mall. This spread through the left-wing blogosphere like the proverbial wild fire, with entries on ThinkProgress claiming that Republicans "had tried to block the event from happening in DC" and on Daily Kos declaring that "[d]espite Republican efforts ...to deny this, Friday Al Gore announced LiveEarthDC." In truth, the only thing some GOP lawmakers objected to was an unusual last-minute effort to hold the concert on the grounds of the U.S. Capitol, after its organizers discovered that Mall had already been booked for other events. Use of the Mall had been denied to Gore and his colleagues for one reason: they failed to apply for the proper permits before other parties had. And one of the groups "blocking" Live Earth's use of the Mall happened to be the Smithsonian Institution itself....
Controversy erupts over Endangered Species Act From the day it became law 34 years ago, the federal Endangered Species Act has been politically hot – a flash point of contention between defenders of nature and advocates of economic progress. Now, the ESA is embroiled in new controversy. Two different government entities are investigating decisions by Bush administration officials related to species recovery. In one, the US Interior Department is reviewing the scientific integrity of decisions under the law made by a political appointee, who recently resigned under fire. At the same time, Congress is investigating evidence that Vice President Dick Cheney interfered with decisions involving water in California and Oregon that resulted in the killing of tens of thousands of Klamath River salmon, some of which were listed as "threatened" species. Both episodes illustrate what critics say is the Bush administration's resistance to the law. During President Bush's time in the White House, the listing of endangered and threatened species has slowed down considerably. It's a fraction of the number his father made in four years (58 new listings compared with 231 by the senior Bush), and most of those were court-ordered. New funding for protection of such species has been cut as well. As a result, 278 "candidate species" are waiting to join the list of 1,352 plant and animal species now listed as "endangered" or "threatened."....
Farm Bureau sets up carbon-trading unit Iowa Farm Bureau Federation hopes to expand the market for carbon credits, saying it will help reduce greenhouse gases and boost farmers' bottom lines. The Farm Bureau announced Tuesday that it has launched a wholly owned subsidiary called AgraGate Climate Credits Corp. The company will buy credits from farmers in Iowa and other states who use no-till practices or other methods that absorb carbon dioxide from the air. AgraGate will sell the credits at the Chicago Climate Exchange to companies that emit the gases believed to cause climate change. Interest in trading carbon credits has gained popularity, especially as Congress considers limiting greenhouse gas emissions. Factories and power plants could buy carbon credits more cheaply than investing in cleaner facilities. The Farm Bureau has had a carbon offset aggregation program since 2003 and now has about 1 million acres enrolled in a carbon credits program with farmers and others in 16 states....
River act heading to murky waters Some of Utah's most beautiful rivers and tributaries have a chance to earn the federal Wild and Scenic Rivers designation, which could protect them from dams and impacts from oil and gas drilling while preserving the scenery and outdoor recreation. Whether they will, though, is another question entirely. It has taken many years for the U.S. Forest Service and U.S. Bureau of Land Management to take the steps mandated by the 1968 Wild and Scenic Rivers Act. The Forest Service has completed a statewide assessment of more than 85 rivers and the BLM is working to finish a district-by-district evaluation of its waterways. Both agencies hope to finish their work within the next year and a half. At the same time those efforts are moving forward, however, the state's rural counties are fighting hard to avoid the federal protections they say are unnecessary and would only interfere with grazing, livestock operations, water rights and energy development. The resistance could scuttle the entire effort, because county support is considered critical to necessary congressional approval. In fact, one county's objections, voiced by a powerful anti-wilderness official, have been so strenuous that they prompted the feds to add significant limitations to the 40-year-old law that will affect any state's future attempts to name more wild and scenic rivers....
Water Authority Plays Hardball With Rural Nevadans The Southern Nevada Water Authority is playing hardball with rural Nevadans who are opposed to a multi-billion dollar pipeline project. Residents in White Pine County and elsewhere remain opposed to any plan that would take groundwater from under their feet and send it to Las Vegas. One way SNWA is eliminating the opposition is by buying them out, and for huge sums. Three years ago this week, Rancher Brandon Humphries told the I-Team he vigorously opposed any plan that would siphon groundwater from White Pine County and pipe it hundreds of miles to Las Vegas. Humphries said, "I don't like the idea of my place drying up for another condo or casino in Las Vegas." He urged his neighbors to fight to the end against SNWA. That was then. Today, Rancher Humprhies is an employee of the SNWA. He sold his 880-acre spread for more than $6 million and stayed on as manager....
Forest Service says dam must be removed An unstable dam and its contaminated mine waste near the Blackfoot River headwaters must be removed and corporate money should pay the bill, the U.S. Forest Service said Tuesday in a victory for environmental groups. The Mike Horse Dam built in 1941 at the headwaters of the Blackfoot, the river celebrated in the Norman MacLean novel "A River Runs Through It," failed during a 1975 flood that washed the waste downstream, killing fish and other aquatic life in the upper 10 miles of the river. The dam is "a ticking time bomb," Bruce Farling of the conservation group Trout Unlimited said Tuesday. The group began pressing for dam removal in 1987, Farling said. Last year, the Forest Service released six Mike Horse options, ranging from no action to full removal. This week, the agency opted for full removal....
Disease threatens bighorn sheep Bighorn sheep in the Hells Canyon area of northeast Oregon are undergoing a die-off that researchers believe could be a result of bacterial pneumonia passed from domestic sheep. "I don't have a figure on how many sheep have died at the present time, but I know that the lamb survival is just terrible," said Ron Anglin, the chief of the Wildlife Division at the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. "And some of the lambs that we've collected as part of this study are showing positive for the Pasteurella complex. And if they've got it, they won't make it." The Hells Canyon sheep are part of an introduction effort that has been ongoing for more than a decade, said Craig Ely, the department's Northwest Region manager. Because of the domestic-bighorn disease transmission possibility, Fish and Wildlife officials along with those from the national and Oregon chapter of the Foundation for North American Wild Sheep are arguing against sheep grazing agreements on federal lands where the two would intersect....
Court upholds salvage logging ruling The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld a lower court ruling halting salvage logging on about 960 acres burned by the 2002 Timbered Rock fire in the Elk Creek drainage near Trail. In a 2-1 ruling released Tuesday, the judges in San Francisco agreed with U.S. District Court Judge Ann Aiken that the Medford District of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management violated its own rules and federal law when it decided to cut some 23.4 million board feet of timber in the burned area. "This is a pretty resounding rebuke for the BLM and the Bush administration," said George Sexton, conservation director for the Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center, one of five environmental groups that sued the federal government to halt the logging. Aiken issued a permanent injunction late in 2004 to halt the salvage logging on BLM land from the nearly 27,000-acre lightning-caused fire. She agreed with environmental groups that had asserted the 1994 Northwest Forest Plan requires late-successional reserves be set aside to preserve habitat for old-growth species, such as salmon and spotted owls. She also concluded the agency did not factor into its plan the impact of new roads and salvage logging on adjacent 6,000 acres of private land....
Continental Divide trail plan troubles users A U.S. Forest Service move to amend the 1985 Continental Divide National Scenic Trail (CDNST) plan has sent waves of concern rippling through some user groups. Under the proposed directive, the Forest Service could bar mountain bikes on sections of the 3,100-mile trail where they are currently allowed in nonwilderness areas, according to an action alert sent out by the International Mountain Bicycling Association. According to the association's website — www.imba.com — the Forest Service directive should not discriminate against bicycling on the Continental Divide Trail. The mountain bike group sees the comment period as a chance to ask the Forest Service to include bicycling as a central focus and purpose for the trail. “It is unfair to discriminate against bicycling when scientific research has shown its impacts to be similar to hiking and less than equestrian use,” the IMBA website states....
U.S. Senators back mining project through bill U.S. Sens. Jon Kyl and John McCain reintroduced legislation Tuesday to allow Resolution Copper Co. to develop an underground mine near Superior that could tap one of the largest deposits of copper ore ever discovered in North America. However, some residents of Superior and the San Carlos Apache Tribe object to the land exchange, believing the project in Pinal County would damage a scenic area that has strong connections with Apache history. Similar bills were introduced in each of the past two years but failed. Officials of Resolution Copper, a unit of London-based Rio Tinto Group, have said that the land deal must be approved this year or the project cannot proceed. The bill introduced Tuesday by the two Arizona Republicans would give Resolution Copper about 3,025 federally-owned acres in the “Oak Flat” area three miles east of Superior. In return, the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management would get from Resolution seven parcels totaling 4,583 acres of environmentally-sensitive land throughout Arizona....
Spotted fever cases increase in Campbell County Five cases of Rocky Mountain spotted fever have been documented in Campbell County since April, more than half the statewide total. State Public Health Veterinarian Karl Musgrave said most of the Campbell County cases are people who work in Wyoming's oil and gas fields. "We'd seen a few cases every once in a while, but nothing like what has been seen more recently," Musgrave said. Tick season usually begins in April and peaks in May when there's still sufficient moisture for the common species out West, the Rocky Mountain wood tick. But University of Wyoming entomologist Jack Lloyd suspects that an eastern species - the American dog tick - might be to be blame for the midsummer spotted fever cases. "We have collected both species in Wyoming, and with the American dog tick you might have Rocky Mountain spotted fever a little longer into the summer than with the Rocky Mountain wood tick," he said....
Voracious Jumbo Squid Invade California Jumbo squid that can grow up to 7 feet long and weigh more than 110 pounds is invading central California waters and preying on local anchovy, hake and other commercial fish populations, according to a study published Tuesday. An aggressive predator, the Humboldt squid—or Dosidicus gigas—can change its eating habits to consume the food supply favored by tuna and sharks, its closest competitors, according to an article published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal. "Having a new, voracious predator set up shop here in California may be yet another thing for fishermen to compete with," said the study's co-author, Stanford University researcher Louis Zeidberg. "That said, if a squid saw a human they would jet the other way." The jumbo squid used to be found only in the Pacific Ocean's warmest stretches near the equator. In the last 16 years, it has expanded its territory throughout California waters, and squid have even been found in the icy waters off Alaska, Zeidberg said....
Ted Turner at home where the buffalo roam Ted Turner commiserated with his fellow bison ranchers over the tough times they've endured, explained how his restaurant chain is helping to build demand for buffalo meat and then led his audience at Mount Rushmore National Memorial in singing "Home on the Range." About 20 minutes later, Turner, wearing a western shirt, blue jeans, boots and a bolo tie, was inducted into the National Buffalo Foundation Hall of Fame. Turner spoke at the opening event of the third International Bison Conference, which runs through Saturday, July 28. Turner owns 42,000 head of buffalo on 13 ranches in Colorado, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma and South Dakota. His South Dakota ranch lies west of Fort Pierre. Easily the largest buffalo rancher in the world, Turner admitted that he didn't eat buffalo meat for the first 15 years he owned buffalo as he built a fledgling herd in South Carolina....
Report: USDA sent $1.1B to dead farmers The Agriculture Department sent $1.1 billion in farm payments to more than 170,000 dead people over seven years, congressional investigators said in a report released Monday by the Government Accountability Office. The findings come as the House of Representatives prepares to debate and pass farm legislation this week that would govern subsidies and the department's programs for the next five years. GAO auditors reviewed payments from 1999 through 2005 in the report, which was requested by Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa. "It's unconscionable that the Department of Agriculture would think that a dead person was actively engaged in the business of farming," Grassley said. "(The) USDA has made farm payments to estates more than two years after recipients died, without determining, as its regulations require, whether the estates were kept open to receive these payments," the report said. John Johnson, a deputy administrator for the Farm Service Agency, said there is no indication that the payments were improper, since some rules allow estates to continue receiving money after a two-year grace period. The department is working with the Social Security Administration to improve its record-keeping, he said.
Bringing Moos and Oinks Into the Food Debate THE first farm animal Gene Baur ever snatched from a stockyard was a lamb he named Hilda. That was 1986. She’s now buried under a little tombstone near the center of Farm Sanctuary, 180 acres of vegan nirvana here in the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York. Back then, Mr. Baur was living in a school bus near a tofu factory in Pennsylvania and selling vegetarian hot dogs at Grateful Dead concerts to support his animal rescue operation. Now, more than a thousand animals once destined for the slaughterhouse live here and on another Farm Sanctuary property in California. Farm Sanctuary has a $5.7 million budget, fed in part by a donor club named after his beloved Hilda. Supporters can sign up for a Farm Sanctuary MasterCard. A $200-a-seat gala dinner in Los Angeles this fall will feature seitan Wellington and stars like Emily Deschanel and Forest Whitaker. As Farm Sanctuary has grown, so too has its influence....
All-digital hospital for horses opens A new state-of-the-art medical and surgical center for horses in the Rocky Mountains has opened at a prominent equine training and breeding center west of here. CSR Equine specializes in lameness and reproductive care but also provides emergency and general health services for horses, as well as alternative medicine like acupuncture, said veterinarian John Smart, who leads the center. "We're building a world-class team with advanced capabilities to serve the greater Rocky Mountain West," he said. Area ranchers, breeders and horse owners would normally haul their animals to Denver or Washington state for similar care, spokeswoman Bridget Cavanaugh said. The 10,000-square-foot hospital is an affiliate of Copper Spring Ranch, a leading producer of rodeo and performance horses near Four Corners. It opened last week, with veterinarians performing the first surgery - an ovariectomy - on a mare July 18 using high-definition laparoscopy equipment normally reserved for human medicine, Cavanaugh said....