Bush insists on carbon reductions from emerging economies President George W Bush on Wednesday told an international energy conference in Washington that any plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions must include commitments from emerging economies, like China and India. "Should there be an international agreement? Yes, there should be, and we support it," Bush told the Washington International Renewable Energy Conference (WIREC), stressing an agreement to replace the Kyoto Protocol on climate change must be focused on results. "In order for there to be effective international agreements, it must include - these agreements must include commitments, solid commitments, by every major economy, and no country should get a free ride," he said. The issue has been a sticking point in crafting an agreement to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which the US has not ratified. The US insists developing nations be given targets for reducing carbon dioxide emissions alongside developed countries in any new agreement to replace Kyoto, which expires in 2012....
Can states cut carbon? EPA says no The political tussle over whether carbon dioxide is a pollutant subject to government regulation has gone on for years. Early in his first term as vice president, Al Gore pushed a tax on CO2. Democrats and Republicans in Congress were both skeptical. The idea went nowhere. As a presidential candidate, George Bush seemed to think regulating CO2 was a good idea. At least he said so. After his election, then-Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator Christie Whitman marched forth in support of what she thought was White House policy. She quickly got reeled back. Two years later she resigned, complaining that Vice President Dick Cheney kept pushing for weaker air pollution controls. Fast forward to the present, and the fight continues – this time pitting the Bush administration against a group of 19 governors led by Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) of California....
What is Endangered: Climate or Freedom? The final morning of the conference began with a rousing speech by Vaclav Klaus, the president of the Czech Republic. He made it clear that to call him a global warming skeptic would be a bit of an understatement. A point Klaus makes crystal clear in his just published book, Blue Planet in Green Chains - What is Endangered: Climate or Freedom? "My answer is clear and resolute: 'it is our freedom.' I may also add 'and our prosperity,'" declared Klaus. Klaus noted that ideological environmentalism appeals to the same sort of people who have always been attracted to collectivist ideas. He warned that environmentalism at its worst is just the latest dogma to claim that a looming "crisis" requires people to sacrifice their prosperity and their freedoms for the greater good. Let me quote Klaus at length. "Future dangers will not come from the same source. The ideology will be different. Its essence will, nevertheless, be identical—the attractive, pathetic, at first sight noble idea that transcends the individual in the name of the common good, and the enormous self-confidence on the side of its proponents about their right to sacrifice man and his freedom in order to make this idea reality," warned Klaus. "What I have in mind [is], of course, environmentalism and its currently strongest version, climate alarmism." Klaus added, "What I see in Europe (and in the U.S. and other countries as well) is a powerful combination of irresponsibility, of wishful thinking, of implicit believing in some form of Malthusianism, of cynical approach of those who themselves are sufficiently well-off, together with the strong belief in the possibility of changing the economic nature of things through a radical political project."....
Grand Canyon flushed with millions of litres of water More than one million litres per second of water were unleashed on the Grand Canyon Wednesday in a scientific experiment designed to rebuild beaches used by wildlife and visitors alike. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne said the flood of water released into the canyon from the upstream Glen Canyon Dam was an attempt to recreate a natural process that has occurred for millions of years, and the sheer volume of water being released was at a rate more than twice that of similar actions in 1996 and 2004. "The water will be released at a rate that would fill the Empire State Building within 20 minutes," said Kempthorne, who was on hand to open the jet tubes at the Glen Canyon Dam that began the process. The water will flow for 60 hours through the 446-kilometre stretch of the Colorado river that makes up the Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona. Scientists hope the stronger surge will give them an insight into how to rebuild eroded beaches downstream in the canyon by moving sediment that has built up over the years and creating new sandbars and beaches that will benefit endangered species living in the region.
Ranchers Say Grizzly Bill is Not Enough Idaho's ranchers may get some relief from all the grizzlies this year, lawmakers are very close to giving the final approval to legislation that would pay for the livestock they've lost because of grizzly activity. But some are saying that's not going to entirely fix the problem. "They're just expensive. What goes into the feed and the care and the years that it takes is a loss it is," Rancher Deanna Orme said. Deanna and Larry Orme breath a little easier when there's snow on the ground because their cattle are wrapped in the safety of winter, and the grizzlies are still hibernating. "That is situation one grizzly bear habitat and the bear are top priority. You can't harass them. You can't shoot them," Larry Orme said. This summer the Orme's photographed the grizzlies that frequented their grazing land near Ernest Lake, quite often the bears would feed on their skittish cows. Each one a thousand dollar meal. "If I count the calf and the yearlings, probably about five, and we had several that were hit with their claws and got infected and ultimately died," Larry added. "You try to bring them home and doctor them and they're so frightened and so injured and it's a loss they never recover for some reason," Deanna said....
Agency probes wolf-baiting claims Already stained by the blood of dead wolves and suffering from a variety of other setbacks, the program to reintroduce endangered Mexican gray wolves to the Southwest is now at the center of two criminal investigations. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is formally looking into the disappearance of two wolves in New Mexico and a rancher’s claim that he intentionally baited wolves in order to get them killed. “We had requests that we do a criminal investigation, and we are,” says agency spokeswoman Elizabeth Slown. In an interview last year, New Mexico ranch hand Mike Miller told High Country News that he deliberately baited a wolf with cattle in order to trigger the federal “three strikes” rule, which mandates the shooting or capturing of any wolf that kills three cows in one year’s time. Miller works for the 275,000-acre Adobe-Slash Ranch, which is owned by Mexican businessman Eloy Vallina. Miller, who has an unlisted number, could not be reached for comment, and Gene Whetten, his supervisor, declined to answer questions when contacted by HCN on Feb. 26. “Mr. Miller works for me and he’s forbidden to talk to you,” Whetten says. He alleges that the paper “fabricated” most of its story, and that the ranch is considering legal action against HCN. The criminal investigations face significant challenges, according to a Fish and Wildlife source. In interviews with law enforcement officials, Miller reportedly denied making the statements attributed to him by HCN. Furthermore, according to the Interior Department, the fact that Miller branded cattle on private land within half a mile of a known wolf den does not in itself violate federal wolf reintroduction rules, which give ranchers wide leeway in how they operate even when wolves are nearby....
House Dems want firefighting fund The federal government would revamp how it pays for firefighting and take some of the burden off the U.S. Forest Service by creating a permanent fund for devastating blazes, under legislation introduced Thursday by key House Democrats. As wildfire seasons have grown increasingly expensive over the last decade, the cost of fighting fires has eaten an ever larger portion of the Forest Service budget -- now about 48 percent of it. That has left the agency with less money for other programs and priorities. The new fund would be used only for catastrophic, emergency wildland fire suppression. It would be separate from the money budgeted each year by Congress for anticipated and predicted fire suppression activities for the Forest Service and Interior Department; that allocation would continue. The amount of money in the new fund would be appropriated annually and based on the average amounts spent by the Forest Service and Interior to suppress catastrophic fires over the preceding five fiscal years. Last year, the Forest Service spent $741 million more than budgeted and Interior spent $249 million more than budgeted for emergency wildfire suppression, or a total of nearly $1 billion. The secretaries of the departments would be able to declare fires eligible for the fund by issuing a suppression emergency declaration that would evaluate the size, severity and threat of the fire....
Rey: States that back roadless forests should pay for fire costs California and other states that want to ban road-building in large swaths of national forests should have to pay for the resulting increased costs of fighting wildfires on those federal lands, U.S. Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey said Thursday. Rey, the undersecretary for natural resources and the environment in charge of the U.S. Forest Service, said the Bush administration has encouraged states and local governments to offer input in the management of federal lands. But he told a Wildland Urban Interface conference that one of the unintended consequences is that state-imposed moratoriums on development in roadless areas boost the cost of fighting fires because of reduced access to housing subdivisions that sprout up on the edge of those forests. "In a number of cases, most recently in the state of California, the states have weighed in with a profound desire not to see any roadless area incurred as a broad matter of environmental priorities. And I frankly don't have any quarrel with that as a statement of environmental policy," Rey said. "However, if we are going to keep those areas completely undeveloped and not even maintain the option for access for administrative and suppression purposes, we're going to increase the cost and complexity of suppression to protect those new subdivisions. That's a given with which their is almost no dispute," he said in a speech to the conference in Reno sponsored by the International Association of Fire Chiefs....
Over the River creators share dream Finally, a water project that doesn’t use water. Instead, it will employ cables, anchors, panels of fabric and a dash of imagination. Artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude explained their Over the River project to an audience of about 275 Thursday at the Sangre de Cristo Arts and Conference Center. They also talked about their 50-year collaboration that has brought them worldwide fame, and a happy marriage as well. If permitting goes as planned, the project would be open for viewing for about two weeks in the summer of 2012 in the Arkansas River canyon between Canon City and Salida. The project has created both excitement and controversy in the Upper Arkansas Valley. Most of those at Thursday’s presentation fell into the excited camp. The fabric panels that would cover about 6 miles of the 40-mile reach of river would present different views to those who view it from the shore and those who travel underneath. One of the reasons the Arkansas River was chosen for the project was because it is one of the most heavily rafted rivers in the West, Christo explained. “The Gates was a winter project, this will be a summer project,” Christo said, referring to the 2005 project in New York City’s Central Park that featured 16-foot-tall gates with hanging saffron panels....
The wood and the trees The Bureau of Land Management (BLM), which owns 2.6m acres (1m hectares) of Oregon, now proposes to increase the tree harvest to four-and-a-half times last year's level. It wants to clear-cut large swathes of its forests, including some ancient ones. As it admits, this would mean less space for fluffy fauna. A second review concerns the spotted owl, which some claim is threatened less by logging than by a competitor, the barred owl. The prospect of a return to mass logging delights Robbie Robinson of Starfire Lumber. “Here we are in the timber capital of the world, and I have to go to Canada to get enough wood to employ 75 people,” he complains. It also pleases rural counties, which used to derive much of their income from timber sales and now depend on handouts from Washington, DC. These have become unreliable: Oregon's politicians are still fighting to get cash for the coming financial year. Yet even those who long for a return to clear-cutting doubt that it will happen soon. If the past is any guide, environmentalists will tie it up in court. Opinions are hardening against logging: last month Eugene's city council passed a resolution against it. Faye Stewart, a Lane county commissioner who lists “saw-milling” as one of his hobbies, says that the area has filled up with people who do not want their pretty new home denuded of greenery....
Judge rules Ariz. eagles to stay on endangered list A federal court Thursday granted Arizona's bald eagles at least nine more months on the Endangered Species List. Other U.S. bald eagles came off the list in July. In a decision handed down in U.S. District Court in Phoenix, Judge Mary Marguia agreed with Arizona conservation groups that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service violated the Endangered Species Act when it refused to act on the groups' 2004 petition to review the Arizona eagles' endangered status as a distinct population. Fewer than 50 breeding pairs exist in Arizona. "Our desert nesting bald eagle has been taken off death row. It's a great day," said Dr. Robin Silver of the Center for Biological Diversity, which, with Maricopa Audubon, had sued Fish and Wildlife....
Some bald eagles raising fine families in suburbia From a nearby perch, a bald eagle keeps her yellow eyes trained on her nest. Two 5-week-old chicks waddle and stretch their wings on a platform the size of a dinette table. This bald eagle had just fed her two chicks in their nest in a pine tree in the Patriots Plantation neighborhood off Fort Johnson Road. The chicks will grow to about the same size as their parents before taking their first flight About 300 feet away, another mother cares for her young. Amy Dickson looks after her 6-week-old son, Edmund, in her Patriots Plantation home. "We're doing the same thing," Dickson said. The discovery of the James Island eagles' nest came about eight years ago, when construction began on the subdivision on one side of the nest, and a soccer complex on the other. Now, in the northern reaches of West Ashley, another nest is turning suburban. Carolina Bay at Essex, a development off Glenn McConnell Parkway, boasts an eagle nest 660 feet into the thick pine trees surrounding the subdivision. About 20 nests statewide are in the same position, said S.C. Department of Natural Resources biologist Charlotte Hope....
Polar bears and melting ice Aware of the public's affinity toward the polar bear, environmentalist litigators have adopted the bear as their vehicle — their poster species — for achieving drastic regulatory prohibitions of the everyday human activities that, in their view, are causing irreversible environmental degradation. Pursuant to that agenda, in 2005 the Center for Biological Diversity, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and Greenpeace petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) to add the polar bear to the Endangered Species Act list of threatened species. Their petition claims global warming is shrinking the bears' ice floe habitat, and without the ESA's protection, the bear will decline toward extinction within the next 45 years. On this basis, in 2007 FWS proposed listing the polar bear as a threatened species. What makes the polar bear's expected listing exceptionally news worthy is that it would be the first species given ESA protection because of global warming. Although global warming is still debatable as to cause and degree, tying it by regulatory fiat to the ESA creates a new paradigm. With the listing, unprecedented forces will be unleashed that economically could bring the country to its knees. Under the ESA, listing determinations are to be based on "the best scientific" data available." FWS interprets this to mean any data that will support the listing. Under this approach, FWS can disregard the fact that there are now 20,000 to 25,000 polar bears, up from a low of 5,000-10,000 in the 1950s and '60s, and higher than at any time in the 20th century....
Stricter study of Baca refuge drilling urged The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency joined with other state and federal agencies in calling for a tougher environmental review of a plan to drill exploratory oil and gas wells deep into the Baca National Wildlife Refuge. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's environmental analysis of the project didn't "provide sufficient information," wrote Larry Svoboda, director of the EPA's National Environmental Policy Act program in Denver. The agency, the National Park Service, the state Division of Wildlife and Saguache County, as well as thousands of private citizens, are requesting a more thorough study. Canada-based Lexam Exploration acquired the mineral rights to the property in 2000 before the federal government bought the Baca Ranch for $33 million to preserve the region's wide-open landscape and treasured wetlands....
State budgets $2.5 million for wolf management Wyoming will spend nearly $2.5 million on wolf management during the next two years, according to a bill Gov. Dave Freudenthal signed Wednesday. Wyoming is expected to take over management of wolves in the Greater Yellowstone Area in late March following the removal of the northern Rockies gray wolf from the endangered species list. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials announced the delisting Feb. 21. Part of the money will fund salaries for a wolf management coordinator and three biologists who will oversee monitoring, research and control efforts. The bill was part of a budget package that passed both chambers last week. Wyoming Game and Fish director Terry Cleveland said the money will go exclusively for management activities in the northwest corner of the state, where wolves will be considered trophy game and a hunting license will be required to shoot them. Outside northwest Wyoming, wolves will be considered predators and people will be able to kill them any time by any means and without a license....
California Wildlife Agency Ignores Global Warming Threat The California Fish and Game Commission will vote Friday whether to accept a scientific petition filed by the Center for Biological Diversity to protect the American pika under the California Endangered Species Act from the impacts of global warming. The American pika is a small mammal related to the rabbit that lives in high-elevation mountain peaks throughout California and the west and cannot withstand warm temperatures. The petition is the first to seek California Endangered Species Act protection for a species threatened by global warming. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is considering a similar petition to list the American pika under the federal Endangered Species Act, as well as petitions to protect other species, such as the polar bear, from the effects of climate change. “Fish and Game’s attempt to bury its head in the sand is an embarrassment to California’s efforts as a national leader in the fight against climate change,” said Brian Nowicki of the Center for Biological Diversity....The polar bear under federal law, the pika under state law...are you beginning to see a pattern here?
Ex-Ducks Unlimited official cited for shooting swan A former Nevada official of the conservation group Ducks Unlimited was cited Monday for illegally shooting a swan in an Eastern Nevada game refuge, wildlife officials said. Alexander "Shay" Byars, formerly the regional director in Nevada and Arizona for Ducks Unlimited, was cited for four misdemeanor violations in connection with the Nov. 29 incident at Ruby Marsh National Wildlife Refuge, said Rob Buonamici, chief game warden for the Nevada Department of Wildlife. Bail for the violations is $2,552, and Byars also faces a $2,000 civil assessment. "From my perspective, this is a serious violation. It's not to be taken lightly," Buonamici said. Byars, 30, was cited after Nevada wildlife officials traced him to Florida, where he had moved from his former home in the Las Vegas area shortly after the incident, Buonamici said....
Lawmakers demand USDA list beef recall stores Democratic lawmakers on Thursday demanded the U.S. Agriculture Department release by next week a list of stores which received the 143 million lbs of beef recalled by a California company last month, but administration officials said that may not be possible. USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Agency first proposed two years ago that retail establishments which received recalled products be identified publicly, to give consumers important information more quickly. USDA had planned to begin listing retailers later this year, but lawmakers and consumer groups are now pushing the department to do it sooner following the February 17 recall by Hallmark/Westland Meat Packing Co of 143 million lbs of meat, mostly beef. The meat from the recall, the largest in U.S. history, was delivered to just under 10,000 suppliers who later distributed the product to restaurants, retailers and other establishments, according to USDA. Most of the meat probably already has been consumed, and no illnesses have been reported....
Congress expected to subpoena meat company chief after massive beef recall House lawmakers are expected tomorrow to order the head of the company responsible for the largest beef recall in U.S. history to appear before Congress. The subpoena, if approved, comes a little more than week after the Westland/Hallmark Meat Co. chief executive didn’t show up to testify at a congressional hearing on food safety. Several food company executives were invited. The House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight is scheduled to vote at 9:30 a.m. to subpoena Steve Mendell, the co-owner of the plant. Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman John Dingell expects lawmakers to approve the action, which will legally require Mendell to testify March 12, according to a committee spokesman....
Some Canadian cows can't enter Mexico through Texas, ag boss says The Texas agriculture commissioner on Tuesday prohibited certain Canadian cattle from crossing into Mexico through state facilities after learning that the U.S. had not approved allowing trade of some animals. Reports first indicated the U.S. had signed off on an agreement between Canada and Mexico that permitted trading of specific dairy and beef cattle under 30 months old — including breeding stock. But Todd Staples, the state's ag commissioner, learned that U.S. Department of Agriculture officials had not approved the deal. Currently, Mexico only allows U.S. dairy heifers under the age of 24 months to be imported, despite in-depth international negotiations to broaden this to breeding stock. The trading agreement, Staples said in a statement, is not consistent with international standards set by the World Organisation of Animal Health. If the USDA permits the cattle to cross into this country from Mexico, they won't come through any of Texas' livestock export facilities along the border, according to the statement. The export sites are in Brownsville, Del Rio, Eagle Pass, El Paso and Laredo. There are also two privately owned operations in Texas....
Peterson again backs mandatory national animal ID A mandatory national animal identification system is coming, at least if House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson has anything to say about it. In perhaps one of the underreported stories of the National Farmers Union (NFU) convention, House Ag Committee Chairman Collin Peterson, in a phone call to NFU members gathered Sunday night in Las Vegas, that Congress is likely to impose a mandatory animal ID program after this year’s elections. Peterson cited the recent bovine tuberculosis outbreak in Minnesota, and noted a similar recent outbreak in Michigan. Those examples, Peterson said, are why mandatory national animal ID is inevitable. “We are kidding ourselves if we don’t understand that we need to have a mandatory ID system,” declared Peterson. Resistance to national animal ID has been particularly strong in the cattle industry. The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association and R-CALF-USA, groups which disagree on many issues, are unified in their opposition to a mandatory system. But according to Peterson, those that resist implementation of mandatory animal ID will be compelled to participate. “Now, there’s going to have to be some people that are going to have to be forced to come along,” Peterson warned....
Judge Rules Poultry Are Not 'Livestock' A San Francisco judge has ruled that chickens are not "livestock," and, as a result, are not subject to the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act, according to court filings. A lawsuit brought by the Humane Society of the United States against the Agriculture Department argued that USDA had misinterpreted the 50-year-old act. "The court finds the legislative history strongly demonstrates unambiguous congressional intent that livestock, as used in the HMSA, does not include poultry," U.S. District Court Judge Marilyn Hall Patel wrote in her opinion. Judge Patel granted summary judgment in USDA's favor and dismissed the lawsuit. HSUS's argument was based on a 1958 dictionary definition of livestock that said that the word encompassed "useful" animals on a farm, while USDA said that the term livestock has always internally meant to exclude poultry. "The plain language of these bills indicates that Congress intended to exclude poultry from the definition of livestock when it enacted H.R. 8308, the bill that eventually became the HMSA," Patel wrote....