The Sun Also Sets Back in 1991, before Al Gore first shouted that the Earth was in the balance, the Danish Meteorological Institute released a study using data that went back centuries that showed that global temperatures closely tracked solar cycles. To many, those data were convincing. Now, Canadian scientists are seeking additional funding for more and better "eyes" with which to observe our sun, which has a bigger impact on Earth's climate than all the tailpipes and smokestacks on our planet combined. And they're worried about global cooling, not warming. Kenneth Tapping, a solar researcher and project director for Canada's National Research Council, is among those looking at the sun for evidence of an increase in sunspot activity. Solar activity fluctuates in an 11-year cycle. But so far in this cycle, the sun has been disturbingly quiet. The lack of increased activity could signal the beginning of what is known as a Maunder Minimum, an event which occurs every couple of centuries and can last as long as a century. Such an event occurred in the 17th century. The observation of sunspots showed extraordinarily low levels of magnetism on the sun, with little or no 11-year cycle. This solar hibernation corresponded with a period of bitter cold that began around 1650 and lasted, with intermittent spikes of warming, until 1715. Frigid winters and cold summers during that period led to massive crop failures, famine and death in Northern Europe. Tapping reports no change in the sun's magnetic field so far this cycle and warns that if the sun remains quiet for another year or two, it may indicate a repeat of that period of drastic cooling of the Earth, bringing massive snowfall and severe weather to the Northern Hemisphere....
EPA’s Relaxed Emissions Rule Struck Down A federal appeals court struck down Bush administration policy allowing some power plants to exceed mercury emission levels, ruling Friday that the government failed to consider the effect on public health and the environment. More than a dozen states sued to block the regulation, saying it would allow dangerous levels of mercury into the environment. The toxic metal is known to contaminate seafood that can damage the developing brains of fetuses and young children. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit negated a rule known as cap-and-trade. That policy allows power plants that fail to meet emission targets to buy credits from plants that did, rather than having to install their own mercury emissions controls. The rule was to go into effect in 2010. The three-judge court unanimously struck down the cap-and-trade policy and the Environmental Protection Agency's plan to exempt coal- and oil-fired power plants from regulations requiring strict emissions control technology to block emissions. Before instituting the new regulation, the court held, the government was required to show that emissions from any power plant would not harm the environment or "exceed a level which is adequate to protect public health with an ample margin of safety."...
Drought-stricken Georgia eyes Tennessee's border -- and river water C. Barton Crattie, a Georgia land surveyor, did not expect to start a border war when he penned a newspaper article about a flawed 1818 survey that placed his state a mile below the Tennessee River. The mistake in calculating Georgia's northern corner, he figured, was just an odd historical footnote, an interesting digression for those who fret that the drought-stricken state will soon run out of water. "Unfortunately for . . . Georgia," he wrote in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, "the corner is where the corner is." The corner, however, is now the subject of Georgia state legislation: Sen. David Shafer and Rep. Harry Geisinger introduced bills to set up a commission to proclaim the states' "definite and true boundary lines." With an extreme water shortage in the north, legislators believe Georgians should no longer forfeit their right to the Tennessee River. The resolution has provoked ridicule and scorn on the other side of the border. Tennessee state senators have proposed settling the matter with a game of football -- a dig at Georgia's recent scores. Others have threatened to fire rifles from Lookout Mountain. The bill, supported by almost all of Georgia's legislators, would commission legislators from Georgia, Tennessee and North Carolina to investigate claims that the border is actually 5,600 feet north -- meaning the Tennessee River cuts into a corner of Georgia....
Rivals argue over railroad measure A bill to speed up state hearings on a railroad's attempt to use condemnation for its proposed coal-train project brought two old rivals to the state Capitol on Thursday. Former Gov. Bill Janklow and Dakota, Minnesota & Eastern executive Kevin Schieffer squared off in the same fourth-floor committee room where they clashed nine years ago over a bill that became the law that brought them back to town. The measure proposes that a hearing examiner in railroad eminent domain cases may only be excused with a showing of personal bias or prejudice and that a hearing must be held within 60 days of receiving an application for use of eminent domain. Any pending application, such as DM&E's current one, must be decided within 30 days of the effective date of the proposed bill. Several landowners testified, asking the committee to help protect their rights. Keith Anderson, a Fall River County rancher, said the coal line would split his ranch in two, would "tear the guts out of our place. I hope that doesn't happen. I realize that it might. If, after a fair hearing on the coal project, the state decides it should be built, I will live with that decision. ... What I can't live with is having my right to a fair hearing taken away from me by this bill."....
Habitat for Mexican spotted owl to stand A U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service decision to designate 8.6 million acres in four western states as critical habitat for an endangered owl will stand, a federal judge has ruled. U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton in Phoenix upheld the designation of critical habitat in Arizona, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico for the Mexican spotted owl despite an effort by the Arizona Cattle Growers' Association to overturn it. Just under 4 million acres of habitat affected by the ruling is situated in Arizona, mostly in the northern part of the state. Also included is 2.2 million acres in Utah, 2.1 million acres in New Mexico and more than 322,000 acres in Colorado. The designation is aimed at protecting the habitat from activities that remove forest cover, including logging, cattle grazing, urban sprawl or power lines, said Noah Greenwald, a conservation biologist for the Center for Biological Diversity, which intervened on behalf of Fish and Wildlife. "We were disappointed, obviously," said association spokesman C.B. "Doc" Lane. "It's pretty bad, actually, that all of the endangered species stuff is done by litigation now. It isn't done rationally. But I suppose that's the way it has to be....
Abuses taint land deals An innovative state law designed to preserve Colorado's scenic open spaces and working ranches has, in dozens of cases, been used to protect everything from multimillion- dollar home sites in gated communities to tiny pieces of land slated for oil and gas development. The law allots generous state income tax credits to property owners who agree to protect their lands from development. But in some cases, a Rocky Mountain News investigation has found, the law has been used to generate tax credits on lands with questionable public value. In addition, the investigation found, appraisals on some properties granted protection have been grossly inflated. The higher the appraisal, the greater the tax credit. The tax credits, which have cost the state at least $274 million since the program's inception, are potentially lucrative, because they can be sold by the property owner for cash. The Rocky's review of transactions found conservation easement deals all over the state map, and far beyond the law's intentions, according to its authors....
New owner to preserve Maclay Ranch The Minnesotan who bought the D.J. and Frances Maclay Ranch has officially taken ownership of the historic Bitterroot Valley spread. The Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation acquired the ranch last April to help the Maclay family find a conservation-minded buyer. The foundation transferred the deed in December to the new owner, Mark Reiling, a Minneapolis businessman. The purchase price was not disclosed by buyer or seller. Reiling renamed the 3,082-acre property the Sapphire Ranch and put it under a conservation easement to preserve its wildlife habitat and open spaces. “Most of the time, ranchers and farmers and other traditional landowners don't know what's going to happen once they put their property up for sale,” said Mike Mueller, the Elk Foundation's lands program manager. “But this is a case of how land conservation is supposed to work in elk country.” The D.J. Maclay family, which had been seeking a buyer since 1999, turned down offers from developers who wanted to divide the cattle and sheep operation into residential ranchettes....
BLM and Forest Service Announce 2008 Grazing Fee The Federal grazing fee for Western public lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management and the Forest Service will be $1.35 per animal unit month (AUM) in 2008, the same level as it was in 2007. The fee, determined by a congressional formula and effective on March 1, applies to nearly 18,000 grazing permits and leases administered by the BLM and more than 8,000 permits administered by the Forest Service. The formula used for calculating the grazing fee, established by Congress in the 1978 Public Rangelands Improvement Act, has continued under a presidential Executive Order issued in 1986. Under that order, the grazing fee cannot fall below $1.35 per AUM, and any increase or decrease cannot exceed 25 percent of the previous year’s level. An AUM is the amount of forage needed to sustain one cow and her calf, one horse, or five sheep or goats for a month. The annually adjusted grazing fee is computed by using a 1966 base value of $1.23 per AUM for livestock grazing on public lands in Western states. The figure is then adjusted according to three factors – current private grazing land lease rates, beef cattle prices, and the cost of livestock production. In effect, the fee rises, falls, or stays the same based on market conditions, with livestock operators paying more when conditions are better and less when conditions have declined. Without the requirement that the grazing fee cannot fall below $1.35 per AUM, this year’s fee would have dropped below one dollar per AUM because of declining beef cattle prices and increased production costs from the previous year....
State can pay to keep forests undeveloped It was Ohio's largest privately owned forest, and its price was more than the state could afford. So instead of buying 12,650 acres for $12.6 million, the Ohio Department of Natural Resources bought a promise. It spent $6.3 million on an agreement with the owner, the Forestland Group, that the Vinton County land will never be developed. Such agreements are called easements, and with the help of a recently expanded federal program, they might become the tool of choice for state officials eager to preserve more forestland. The state uses appraisals that look at the value of land if it could be developed and not developed. The state pays the difference. But a U.S. Forest Service program offers states an easier path to easements. Its Forest Legacy program has provided more than $487 million in grants since 2001 to create 1.4 million easement acres in 47 states. The program dates from 1993, but its popularity grew after 2001, when Congress boosted annual funding from $7 million to about $60 million....
SeaLife was good deal for ex-aide to Stevens New documents have emerged in Seward showing that a $1.6 million earmark in 2005 by Sen. Ted Stevens was engineered so it would lead to the purchase of property owned by his former aide, Trevor McCabe, an Anchorage fisheries lobbyist. The public records show that another Washington lobbyist who once worked for Stevens, Brad Gilman, acted as the go-between in the deal, connecting an unnamed "Senate aide" with Gilman's two clients in Seward: the city and the Alaska SeaLife Center, a federally supported marine research center and tourist attraction. Gilman reported that the Senate aide was shopping for an entity that would guarantee the purchase of McCabe's property if it got the earmark, the documents said. Federal agencies had rejected previous attempts by McCabe and two partners to develop or sell the property, site of a derelict building, for a government visitor center and office complex. The result was the sudden shift of the earmark by Stevens' office from the City of Seward, which wouldn't promise to buy the property, to the Alaska SeaLife Center, which had more discretion, according to a phone log written by a Seward official and minutes of the SeaLife Center board....
U.S. Proposes Removing Brown Pelican From Endangered List U.S. Department of the Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne has proposed completely removing the brown pelican from the endangered species list, after almost 40 years. Kempthorne attributed the brown pelican's rebound in part to the U.S. ban on the use of the pesticide DDT in 1972, according to a department statement on Feb. 8. The proposal will be published in the Federal Register and a 60-day comment period will follow, the statement said. Some groups of brown pelicans, for example in Alabama, Florida and Georgia, had already been removed from the list. More than 620,000 brown pelicans are now found in Florida, the Gulf and Pacific coasts as well as in Latin America and the Caribbean, the statement said....
Feds reconsider endangered status for Bonneville cutthroat trout U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials will reconsider whether Bonneville cutthroat trout should be protected under the federal Endangered Species Act. The decision follows a 2007 settlement agreement with the Center for Biological Diversity. The environmental group sued after the Fish and Wildlife Service decided, in 2001, not to list the trout for protection. After the settlement, the service developed a policy that allows fish and wildlife officials to consider listings based on whether a species is threatened in a "significant portion" of its range. Bonneville cutthroat trout are found mainly in Utah. They also are in parts of Idaho, Nevada and Wyoming.
Ariz. seeks to reshape immigrant farm labor Arizona's governor wants to play a leading role in expanding and reshaping a little-used federal program that allows farmers to hire temporary foreign agricultural workers. U.S. Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao on Wednesday proposed sweeping reforms, the first major overhaul of the H-2A program in two decades. The changes would make it easier for growers to participate in the H-2A visa program, which is intended to grant work permits to foreign workers for jobs Americans don't want. Gov. Janet Napolitano has called for many of the program changes outlined by Chao, although she would like more state control than Washington has offered. Expanding the program is seen as another way to blunt illegal immigration. In a letter dated Monday, Napolitano suggested Arizona take the lead in future program changes to address the specific needs of border states. If adopted, the rules could streamline a process that now involves at least four federal and state agencies and could loosen housing requirements that growers near the border say make the program more trouble than it is worth....
NYC schools go burger-free after cruelty charges New York City school cafeterias were hamburger-free this week after an undercover investigation revealed cruelty against sick cows at the second-largest supplier of ground beef to school lunch programs nationwide. Schools were told to halt serving beef from Hallmark Meat Packing and Westland Meat Co., based in Chino, Calif., USDA officials said Friday. The suspension will last until Feb. 19, said Eric Steiner of the USDA Food and Nutrition Service. State officials said Friday that no products from the slaughter plant were delivered to the USDA distribution centers that service Long Island and New York City schools. New York City schools spokeswoman Margie Feinberg said city schools will resume serving hamburgers next week. City schools serve about 300,000 hamburger patties a week, part of about 800,000 meals served daily, she said....
Loss of schoolhouse felt by mountain residents After years of surviving snowstorms, wildfires and the ebb and flow of mountain residents, the county's only remaining one-room schoolhouse is closing in June because the numbers just don't add up. Valley Center-Pauma Unified School District board members said last week that a $100,000-plus annual budget to run the Palomar Mountain School for seven students this year and as few as three next year was just too much money for too few students. The school, which serves students in kindergarten through eighth grade, has been operating in the Valley Center-Pauma district since 1950. In that time, residents said last week, the school has helped keep mountain residents connected through everything from annual pie auction fundraisers and sporting events to annual Christmas plays. "The school is one of the last things that links the community together," said Dutch Bergman, a rancher whose children attended the school in the 1980s and 1990s. "It's a sad thing to see it go."....