Inaction on Polar Bear Criticized Senate Democrats yesterday deplored the Bush administration's failure to meet a legal deadline for determining whether global warming is pushing polar bears toward extinction and lashed their scheduled star witness -- Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne -- for declining to appear in his own defense. Kempthorne announced 15 months ago that his department would determine within a year whether the bear should be added to the endangered species list because rapidly disappearing sea ice threatens its ability to hunt and survive, but he has yet to issue a decision. A coalition of environmental groups has sued the Interior Department for missing the one-year deadline to act. "The Bush administration is violating the law, and that is why we're here today," said Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), chairwoman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, opening the hearing. "These species do not have an indefinite time to be saved. . . . Time is running out for the polar bear, and time has run out for this decision."...
EPA Is Sued for Answers on Emissions Officials from 18 states and several environmental groups sued the Environmental Protection Agency yesterday in an effort to force the administration to determine whether greenhouse-gas emissions are endangering public health. The plaintiffs said the agency is ignoring a year-old Supreme Court ruling that the federal government has legal authority under the Clean Air Act to control carbon dioxide emissions from vehicles. They asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to compel the EPA to act within 60 days. "What we have is an environmental agency acting completely contrary to its essential mission and duty," said California Attorney General Edmund G. "Jerry" Brown Jr. (D) in a telephone news conference. The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee recently reported that EPA staff members had determined in December that the emissions endanger public health, but the process stalled after the EPA forwarded the findings to the White House. The House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming yesterday voted 12 to 0 to subpoena all EPA documents related to the staff action, along with records of the agency's decision to block California from regulating tailpipe greenhouse-gas emissions on its own....
Green lobbyists seek grass-roots love With the Senate set to tackle two complicated pieces of global warming legislation after its spring break, green-energy lobbyists used the recess to ramp up grass-roots support in key congressional districts. Interest groups aiming to weigh in on the cap-and-trade bill and the renewable energy tax credits filled congressional district offices with volunteers and flooded local airwaves with commercials. Both bills would provide tremendous growth opportunities for solar and wind power, make carbon emissions more expensive for polluters and increase the country’s energy independence. And both bills would rely keenly on Republican swing votes to get the job done. The House recently sent the Senate a bill that would reroute $18 billion in oil industry tax credits to develop wind and solar power, a move decried by much of business and industry. The Senate is also considering a global climate bill sponsored by Sens. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) and John Warner (R-Va.) that could slash carbon emissions by 70 percent by 2050 through a cap-and-trade program. Lobbyists hope a solid grass-roots movement will be instrumental in capturing the support of Sen. John Sununu of New Hampshire and other Republicans who have been unpredictable in their climate-change votes. While both bills have received a healthy dose of Republican support, lobbyists are still trying to corral the 60 votes needed to stave off a filibuster....
Group offers rancher compensation in Wyoming A conservation group is hoping to entice more Wyoming stockgrowers to participate in its compensation program for livestock killed by wolves if stockgrowers undertake measures to help prevent conflicts between the two animals. "Not all ranchers just want to kill a bunch of wolves," Suzanne Stone, regional representative of Defenders of Wildlife, said. "A lot of ranchers are working hard to make sure they can coexist with wolves. We want to help support those ranchers." The compensation program will be similar to the one the Defenders of Wildlife administered before wolves in the Northern Rockies were removed from the federal endangered species list. To be eligible for compensation under the post-delisting Defenders program, stockgrowers must try to employ nonlethal methods of avoiding conflicts with the canines, Stone said. Those include removing dead or dying animals from grazing areas in a timely manner, doing more range riding when possible and corralling the livestock at night when practical. Jim Magagna, rancher and executive vice president of the Wyoming Stock Growers Association, said even with the compensation program, many ranchers will still have more incentive to remove wolves that are attacking their livestock than to try to coexist with them. But Truman Julian, a Kemmerer-area rancher and chairman of the Lincoln County predator management board, said he believes most ranchers outside the wolf trophy game zone will be interested in trying to work with compensation program....
Cody rancher receives first ‘kill' permit The Game and Fish Department has issued a wolf kill permit to a landowner near Cody inside the new wolf trophy game zone. The agency will issue a similar permit to a rancher near Dubois. “We have issued a lethal take permit to a landowner to take four wolves on the South Fork of the Shoshone River,” spokesman Eric Keszler said. “He's having trouble with wolves harassing his cattle.” The second permit will be issued to a rancher near Dubois for two wolves in response to cattle depredation, Keszler said. The state took control of management of the wolves on March 28 when the animal was removed from protection under the Endangered Species Act. Inside the trophy game zone - with its borders running through Cody and Meeteetse and outside Dubois, Jackson and Pinedale - ranchers aren't allowed to kill a wolf on sight, but instead must enlist G&F's help or obtain take permits. Outside that zone, wolves may be shot on sight by anyone with no limits....
Delisting sets new hurdles for initiative calling for removal of wolves in Idaho Supporters of an initiative demanding wolves be removed from Idaho say they are within an achievable 10,000 signatures of their goal with less than a month before the May 1 deadline for filing. But organizers aren't sure how many of the people who have signed are registered voters in Idaho - a requirement for each of the 45,893 signatures needed to get the issue on the Nov. 4 ballot. And now they've got another problem - the federal government has gotten out of the wolf business, removing Rocky Mountain wolves from Endangered Species Act protection. The state is now in charge of wolves and plans to make it easier for ranchers and hunters to kill the animals. The initiative would end that and return control to the feds - and likely return the endangered species protections many Idahoans are glad to leave behind. "We wouldn't be able to hunt wolves this fall," said Steve Nadeau, Fish and Game large carnivore manager and the state's point man on wolf management....
Uranium mining worries ranchers Belle Fourche rancher Tom Davis said Wednesday afternoon that he was better educated but still worried about his water supplies following a state Water Management Board meeting about in situ uranium mining. Davis said his ranch, parts of which have been in his family for 107 years, is far from the uranium exploration near Edgemont but close to similar work near Aladdin across the border in Wyoming. That makes Davis worry about the three wells he counts on for drinking and livestock water. "We're down in the Lakota aquifer, and what happens if that stuff gets into the Lakota?" he said after a day-long meeting of the South Dakota Water Management Board. "Is it going to end up in our outfit?" That's unlikely to occur, according to the state Department of Environment and Natural Resources resource specialists who spent most of Wednesday explaining Black Hills hydrology and planned uranium mining to the water board and citizens. The board is working on amendments to existing rules that uranium companies would need in South Dakota to extract the valuable mineral through injection-and-recovery well systems....
Ranchers face charges after 34 elk shot dead Two Northwest Colorado ranchers, apparently frustrated by foraging elk eating hay intended for livestock, now face thousands of dollars in fines and multiple felony charges for allegedly killing 34 elk. Rodney Heath Culverwell, 41, and Kenneth Wolgram, 43, have been charged with 18 and 16 felony counts, respectively, of willful destruction of wildlife. Each was charged additionally in Moffat County District Court on Tuesday with 18 and 16 respective misdemeanor counts of illegal possession of wildlife. If convicted, each felony count carries a sentence up to two years in prison and $100,000 fine. Officers of the Colorado Division of Wildlife said they found the dead elk on property owned by Culverwell, listed as Rio Ro Mo Land Company, and at Wolgram’s property. Both are about 15 miles west of Craig. DOW spokesman Randy Hampton said officers completed a six-week investigation into the shootings and made the charges. “We don’t typically see that level of charges,” Hampton said. “This is a significant case.” According to a search warrant affidavit, officers began investigating Culverwell’s property Jan. 28 after two passersby notified the DOW they saw three dead elk — a bull, a cow and a calf — in the pasture. Months earlier, on June 12, 2007, Culverwell had e-mailed a DOW officer about concerns of elk eating cattle feed and asking permission to kill the wildlife. “If I have not heard from you within 2 weeks I will assume that you do not care and these matters must be taken care of by other means,” Culverwell wrote, according to the affidavit....
Senators rap Forest Service cuts Senators on the powerful Appropriations Committee vowed Tuesday to reverse proposed budget cuts to the U.S. Forest Service and toyed with the idea of moving the agency from the Department of Agriculture to the Department of Interior. President Bush's proposed 2009 budget would reduce funding for firefighter readiness, hazardous fuels reduction work, law enforcement, construction and maintenance, recreation and research, said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who chairs the Interior subcommittee. "I don't know how anyone could really consider this a serious budget proposal," she said. The administration requested $4.1 billion for the Forest Service, a full 8 percent below 2008 levels, Feinstein said. But she added that the cuts are actually much deeper because the budget did not fully account for increases in fixed costs including salaries and higher firefighting expenses. "The way we look at it, the Forest Service is being cut nearly 15 percent," she said. Feinstein pledged to work with the top Republican on the subpanel, Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., to undo the cuts. Allard said the Forest Service was targeted more than other agencies, which was "not justified." He said escalating firefighting costs shouldn't come at the expense of the agency's other programs....
Scientists: Tahoe Wolverine not from state The mysterious wolverine captured in photographs from a remote camera in the Tahoe National Forest is not a native of California or Washington, U.S. Forest Service scientists revealed Wednesday. A DNA analysis of scat collected near where the feisty predator was photographed last month revealed that the animal is a male that shares genetic traits with wolverines in the Rocky Mountains, but it was not clear exactly where it came from or how it got to California. "This is just one gene we've looked at and this one is most prevalent in the Rocky Mountains of Idaho, Montana and Wyoming, but it can also be found in lower portions of Canada and Alaska," said Michael Schwartz, a research ecologist and the genetics team leader for the Forest Service's Rocky Mountain Research Station in Missoula, Mont. "While we can't rule everything out, we know that this type never occurred in the historical California population and it does not occur in the contemporary Washington cascade population," he said....
Group files second suit against USFS An environmental watchdog group on Wednesday sued the U.S. Forest Service for a second time over the agency's use of aerial fire retardants. The Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics, an Oregon-based nonprofit group, filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Missoula. The lawsuit is part of the group's campaign to reform the Forest Service's wildland firefighting mission. The campaign includes banning retardant airdrops nationwide unless people or homes are threatened, focusing on fire prevention around communities, and allowing more remote wildfires to burn as a natural part of the ecosystem. The lawsuit accuses the Forest Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service of failing to fully evaluate the environmental impact of the aerial retardants. Studies show the ammonium-based retardants are toxic to fish and other aquatic organisms, and promote the spread of flammable invasive weeds. FSEEE won an earlier retardant-related lawsuit against the Forest Service when U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy ruled that the agency had violated federal law by failing to properly review the environmental impact of retardants on national forests. That lawsuit - which was filed in 2003, a year after a retardant airdrop killed 20,000 fish in an Oregon stream - was dismissed in February when the Forest Service complied with Molloy's order to complete an environmental assessment of aerial retardants....
Forest Service proposing revision of mining regs The Forest Service is proposing to revise the 36 CFR 228 Subpart A regulations governing locatable mineral activities on the National Forests. The proposed rule would revise the regulations for locatable minerals operations conducted on National Forest System lands. The revised rule would apply to prospecting, exploration, development, mining and processing operations, and reclamation under the mining Law of May 10, 1872, as amended. The original regulations were promulgated in 1974 and were based on the Forest Service authority in the 1897 Organic Act. Since 1974 several inefficiencies and problems in these regulations have become apparent and field managers have asked that the regulations be revised and updated. The revisions will follow recommendations and suggestions made by field personnel, the National Academy of Science, the mining industry, conservation groups, interested individuals and the current administration....
Judge tosses case over forest road issue A federal judge has shot down a lawsuit challenging road management actions associated with timber salvage projects on the Flathead National Forest. U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy issued a ruling Monday, striking down all claims made in the lawsuit filed by the Swan View Coalition and Friends of the Wild Swan. Prevailing were the Flathead National Forest, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and a series of Western Montana loggers and lumber mills that intervened in the case. "It's a big decision,' said Joe Krueger, the Flathead Forest's environmental litigation coordinator. °°It proves that what the forest has been doing is lawful, it validates that we have followed all the laws and regulations." The two environmental groups did not challenge timber harvesting involved with the West Side Reservoir and Robert-Wedge post-fire projects; they did, however, contend the projects violated road density standards for grizzly bear habitat security and the Endangered Species Act....
Crackdown on processing 'downer' cattle advances California lawmakers on Tuesday advanced legislation that would slap slaughterhouses with criminal penalties if they process meat from cattle and other livestock that are too sick to stand. The 6-1 vote by the Assembly Public Safety Committee was in response to the illegal processing of sick cattle at a Southern California slaughterhouse, which last month resulted in the country's largest beef recall. Although the federal government oversees slaughterhouse operations, the legislation by Assemblyman Paul Krekorian, D-Burbank, would levy fines on packaging plants that sell meat in California from so-called "non-ambulatory" cattle, swine, sheep or goats. "This is an issue that every one of us, every person who eats meat, has a stake in," Wayne Pacelle, president of Humane Society of the United States, told the committee. Michael A. Ramos, San Bernardino County District Attorney, urged lawmakers to create the new criminal penalties in California law. "At minimum, we need to hold these people responsible," he said....
Confined animal bill corralled in committee Under threat of a petition drive for a ballot question, Colorado lawmakers and state Agriculture Commissioner John Stulp are moving forward with a bill to increase regulations on confined animals that are raised for pork and veal. Senate Bill 201, sponsored by Dist. 6 Sen. Jim Isgar, D-Hesperus, would prohibit the confinement of gestating sows or calves raised for veal in a way that does not allow the animal to stand up, lie down, and turn around without touching the enclosure’s sides. “My concern is to avert a ballot initiative, which I feel this does,” Stulp said during testimony last week before the Senate Agriculture Committee. “This recognizes the need … to address future husbandry issues and hopefully get out ahead of the curve.” Unlike the potential ballot measure, the bill does not include regulation of caged egg-laying hens. Stulp said the bill also deals with confinement of milk calves even though Colorado as yet has no veal production facilities. He said veal producers have expressed interest in moving to the state at the invitation of dairy farmers....
Terreton Sheep Ranchers Cling to History, Battle Declining Industry As economic pains seep into agriculture, sheep ranchers are finding it difficult to survive in a dying business. Many will tell you Idaho was founded on sheep. In 1918, there were more than 2.5 million head. That's six times the human population, according to the Department of Agriculture. It wasn't until the 1970s that the number of people in Idaho outnumbered the sheep. A local ranching family is clinging to their history and their way of life while battling a declining trade. "We've been here since about, oh, 1885, so my husband and I are fourth generation. My son J.C. is fifth," Cindy Siddoway said. "Things are changing a lot. In the 120 years, it's not near as easy to run these sheep now as it used to be. The areas are changing," J.C. Siddoway explained. The sheep trade is adjusting. With lambing season in full swing on the ranch, J.C. Siddoway checks in on all the ewes finding the best breeders mixed through the maze of pens....