Congress' ethanol affair is cooling Members of Congress say they overreached by pushing ethanol on consumers and will move to roll back federal supports for it — the latest sure signal that Congress' appetite for corn-based ethanol has collapsed as food and gas prices have shot up. House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer said Democrats will use the pending farm bill to reduce the subsidy, while Republicans are looking to go further, rolling back government rules passed just four months ago that require blending ethanol into gasoline. "The view was to look to alternatives and try to become more dependent on the Midwest than the Middle East. I mean, that was the theory. Obviously, sometimes there are unforeseen or unintended consequences of actions," Mr. Hoyer, Maryland Democrat, told reporters yesterday....
Doubts grow over ethanol Sharply rising food prices may force Congress to reconsider the fivefold increase in ethanol production it mandated just four months ago, some lawmakers say. Few members appear willing to call for the outright repeal of the Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS), which requires that 36 billion gallons of ethanol be produced by 2022. Of that, 15 billon gallons would come from corn. But the new concerns represent a significant turn for a policy issue that was embraced by both congressional Democrats and President Bush as a way to boost rural economies and domestic energy security. “We certainly did not anticipate what’s happened, if that was the cause,” said Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.), ranking member of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. “We don’t know how much of the food crisis was caused by it, but nobody expected it to cause much.” Committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) added: “I think it’s something we need to look at.”....
Don't rush to blame ethanol, WH says The White House this morning cautioned against rushing to judge ethanol as a root cause of escalating global food prices. "There's been a lot reported, maybe too much attention, to biofuels and maybe not enough to all of the other factors that affect food prices, especially in this country, where it is a tiny slice of increased food prices," said White House spokesman Tony Fratto. On Tuesday, President Bush said that "85 percent of the world's food prices are caused by weather, increased demand and energy prices — just the cost of growing product — and that 15 percent has been caused by ethanol, the arrival of ethanol."....
Texas Gov Mulls Seeking Waiver From US Renewable Fuel Rule The Texas governor's office is considering seeking an exemption to a national standard that requires renewable fuels use. Because corn-based ethanol is the most widely available renewable fuel, Texas Gov. Rick Perry's office says it fears that use of the fuel is driving up food prices. The Renewable Fuels Standard requires companies that blend ethanol and other additives into gasoline to sell a certain volume of renewable fuels each year until 2022. "Ultimately, food prices are reaching high levels, so we're looking at this as an option for reducing that burden," said Allison Castle, a spokeswoman for Gov. Perry. Texas is the leading producer of beef, she said, so elevated prices of corn for cattle feed place a burden on the state's economy. Ethanol producers have countered that their fuel doesn't drive up beef prices because byproducts of ethanol distillation can be used as cattle feed. But simply exempting Texas from the mandate may not be an easy move. The legal grounds upon which such an appeal would be made are unclear. The mandate is a federal obligation without specific benchmarks for each state, so if Texas seceded from the mandate, the overall quantity of ethanol required might remain unchanged....
Saving 'God's creation' unites scientist, evangelical leader A Nobel laureate scientist and a leader of the evangelical Christian movement walk into a restaurant. It sounds like the setup for a joke, a scenario that is screaming for a punch line that plays off the seemingly endless disagreements between faith and science. But this is a true story, and Dr. Eric Chivian and the Rev. Richard Cizik have come up with a zinger no one could expect. They went to lunch together to agree on something - the need to curb negative human impact on the Earth. And the partnership they formed that afternoon in 2005 has led this odd couple of the environmental movement to be named, today, to Time Magazine's list of the 100 most influential people in the world. "I must admit I approached that meeting with some anxiety," said Chivian (pronounced chih-vee-an), director of the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School, "I'm involved in evolutionary biology. I support stem cell research. I have gay friends who are married. I felt I had positions that would be at odds with his." Cizik (pronounced sigh-zik), vice president for governmental affairs for the 45,000-church National Association of Evangelicals in Washington, D.C,, had similar reservations. But, as they point out, they were not there to discuss their differences. What brought them together is what Chivian calls "a deep, fundamental commitment to life on earth."....
EPA official ousted while fighting Dow The battle over dioxin contamination in this economically stressed region had been raging for years when a top Bush administration official turned up the pressure on Dow Chemical to clean it up. On Thursday, following months of internal bickering over Mary Gade's interactions with Dow, the administration forced her to quit as head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Midwest office, based in Chicago. Gade told the Tribune she resigned after two aides to national EPA administrator Stephen Johnson took away her powers as regional administrator and told her to quit or be fired by June 1. The call came as the Tribune was preparing to publish a story about the dioxin issue and Gade's crusade....
Study: Warmer ocean water means less oxygen Low-oxygen zones where sea life is threatened or cannot survive are growing as the oceans are heated by global warming, researchers warn. Oxygen-depleted zones in the central and eastern equatorial Atlantic and equatorial Pacific oceans appear to have expanded over the last 50 years, researchers report in Friday's edition of the journal Science. Low-oxygen zones in the Gulf of Mexico and other areas also have been studied in recent years, raising concerns about the threat to sea life. Continued expansion of these zones could have dramatic consequences for both sea life and coastal economies, said the team led by Lothar Stramma of the University of Kiel in Germany. The finding was not surprising, Stramma said, because computer climate models had predicted a decline in dissolved oxygen in the oceans under warmer conditions. Warmer water simply cannot absorb as much oxygen as colder water, explained co-author Gregory C. Johnson of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Seattle....
Wildlife commission votes 9-0 to allow continued shooting of animals A citizen’s petition to ban the recreational shooting of prairie dogs came to a quick death Thursday at the hands of the Colorado Wildlife Commission. Testimony on the controversial issue raised concerns on one side about cruelty to animals and hunting ethics and equally fervent concerns on the other side about protecting private property rights, game-damage control and introducing youths to hunting. It took more than an hour and was dominated by opponents to the petition. “Shooting is the only way to control” prairie dogs, said Hotchkiss farmer Dave Whittlesey, who said he shoots “20 to 30 a day” on his property with little apparent effect on the prairie dog population. His argument was repeated several times, with some farmers saying they shoot thousands of prairie dogs each year in attempts to alleviate damage to hay fields and other crops. “Shooting is the only species-specific control,” said David Koontz of Hotchkiss. “We kill several thousand a year, and if I had to stop, I’d be out of business in five years.” Veterinarian Dick Steele of Delta said he has euthanized “crippled horses after (they stumbled) into prairie dog holes.” He called prairie dog control a useful, entry-level activity for young hunters....
Court says feds don't have to reveal names The federal government doesn't have to reveal the names of employees involved in a bungled operation to a private watchdog group that doesn't trust official investigations of the incident, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday. The employees' right to be free of harassment from the news media and the public outweighs any benefit in re-examining an incident that officials have already gone over, said the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. The head of a news media organization criticized the ruling, saying the court took too narrow a view of the government's disclosure obligations under the Freedom of Information Act. "The court assumes the government can do no wrong and paternalistically assumes the government would know how to fix whatever went wrong," said Peter Scheer, executive director of the California First Amendment Coalition, which was not involved in the case. "The public is entitled to information from records to hold the government accountable, particularly in its role as an employer." The case involved a fire in the Salmon-Challis National Forest in Idaho that killed two U.S. Forest Service firefighters, Shane Heath and Jeff Allen, in July 2003....
Bush Administration Takes Aim at National Parks Gun Ban The Bush administration on Wednesday announced its intent to shoot down federal rules that prohibit individuals from carrying loaded firearms in U.S. national parks and wildlife refuges. The proposal would permit individuals to carry loaded and concealed weapons if permitted by state laws in the state where the park or refuge is located, a change many current and retired park rangers contend is unnecessary and potentially dangerous. U.S. Interior Department officials said the proposed change would clarify conflicting state and federal restrictions. The 61 units of the National Park Service where hunting is permitted, as well as the public lands managed by the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management, follow state laws on firearms. Firearms were first banned in national parks in the 1930s in a bid to curb poaching. "Much has changed in how states administer their firearm laws in that time," U.S. Interior Department Assistant Secretary Lyle Laverty. Forty-eight U.S. states now have laws allowing for legal possession of concealed weapons. The administration believes that management of national parks and wildlife refuges "should defer to those state laws," Laverty said. ....The Bushies are just like the Dems, they pick and choose when to defer to state law. Why don't they defer to state law when they are confiscating livestock?
Tahoe woman to pay $100,000 for felling tree An Incline Village woman who hired a company to chop down trees on national forest land to enhance her view of Lake Tahoe agreed Thursday to pay $100,000 restitution and do 80 hours of community service in a plea deal with federal prosecutors that likely will keep her out of prison. Patricia Marie Vincent, 57, was indicted in January by a federal grand jury in Reno on felony charges of theft of government property and willingly damaging government property. She faced up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine for each of those original counts if convicted. But in exchange for her guilty plea on Thursday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Ron Rachow agreed to drop the felony charges and charge her with one misdemeanor count of unlawfully cutting trees on U.S. land. That crime carries a maximum sentence of one year in prison, a $100,00 fine and possible restitution. But Rachow said under the plea agreement, she would face a year of probation, 80 hours of community service and pay $100,000 in restitution -- with $35,000 going to the U.S. Forest Service and $65,000 going to the National Forest Foundation....There they go again, diverting money to a private nonprofit. What is with these US Attorneys? They are clearly operating to bypass the Congressional appropriation process. Congress should deduct a like amount from this US Attorney's budget.
Treehuggers Against Trees With wildfires burning, it is useful to turn to the wisdom of the ancients. When the pioneers first entered the great forests of America, they found that the Native Americans had managed the forests for centuries. Their woodlands contained very few big trees—maybe fifty such trees per acre. Apparently the Indians had set regular, low intensity fires which burned away accumulations of undergrowth, deadwood, dying trees and particularly small trees growing between the big trees. The larger trees were unharmed, because of their thick fire-resistant bark. These fires kept the forest healthy by providing a barrier to disease. The pioneers, however, used much more wood in their civilization than the Native Americans. They needed it for housing, for boats and river ships, for railroad sleepers, for carriages, and for town infrastructure. To them, fire was an enemy. Quick growth of new trees was important. Policies were put in place that suppressed all fire. This culminated in the creation of Smokey Bear in 1945. Three years later, his catchphrase was born: "Remember — only you can prevent forest fires." The price was a degradation of the health of American forests. Private logging firms continued to keep forests healthy where they operated, by clearing out the underbrush and deadwood and harvesting trees to clear spaces between other trees. Where loggers did not operate, undergrowth and deadwood began to accumulate. These are dangerous, because small trees, for example, provide ladders for the fire to climb to reach the crown of mature trees, where the fires can take hold instead of being shrugged off by the thick bark below. Meanwhile, more and more land came to be controlled by the federal government....
People abandoning domestic horses in wild herd, BLM says Horse lover Marty Felix can’t imagine anyone delivering a death sentence to a domestic horse by abandoning it in the wild. But that’s what she witnessed recently in the Little Book Cliffs area, northeast of Grand Junction. Felix, a volunteer with the Bureau of Land Management who helps care for the local wild horse herd, said she identified a brown Appaloosa gelding April 11 that didn’t belong to the wild herd. She and other volunteers working in the Main Canyon of Little Book Cliffs caught a glimpse of the man who set the horse free, but the man wasn’t caught. She said while some people may have romantic notions of letting a horse free in the wild to live out the end of its life, it is inhumane and against the law. According to BLM spokeswoman Mel Lloyd, the mid-April incident was not the first time officials were apprised of domestic horses being set free in the Little Book Cliffs area. Last year a domestic horse and a mule were found. Felix said a similar incident occurred in 2003. Lloyd said people caught abandoning horses are subject to state and federal penalties. Domestic horses can be shunned or injured by wild horse herds, resulting in a slow and painful death. Domestic horses cannot adapt to the high-desert climate and can spread disease to wild herds, potentially inducing a catastrophic die-off of wild herds, Lloyd said....
Rare giant worm may wriggle far from home on Palouse The giant Palouse earthworm is still among the Northwest's rarest inhabitants, but two new discoveries suggest the native wigglers might be a bit more abundant than previously thought. A pair of pinkish-white worms from opposite margins of the Columbia River basin appear to be members of the species, reputed to grow up to 3 feet long. In March, researchers digging in a remnant of native prairie near Moscow, Idaho, accidentally minced one of the creatures and collected the bits. The rolling grasslands of the region, called the Palouse, are believed to be the species' historic habitat. But the second worm came from a more surprising location: a forested slope above the Chelan County town of Leavenworth. "If it is the correct species, it's pretty exciting to find it in an area where it hasn't been described before," said University of Idaho soil scientist Jodi Johnson-Maynard, who has been stalking the giant earthworm for years. "Maybe it's not just tied to the prairie."....
New EPA Standards Would Cut Amount Of Lead in the Air The Environmental Protection Agency yesterday proposed tightening the federal limits for lead in the air, but the proposal fell short of what its own scientists said is required to protect public health. Lead, which is emitted by smelters, mining, aviation fuel and waste incinerators, can enter the bloodstream and affect young children's development and IQ, as well as cause cardiovascular, blood pressure and kidney problems in adults. The United States has not changed its atmospheric lead standards in 30 years, but the Bush administration is under a court order to issue new rules by September. U.S. emissions of lead have dropped from 74,000 tons a year three decades ago to 1,300 tons a year now, largely because leaded gasoline was taken off the market. Since 1990, however, more than 6,000 studies have examined the impact of lead on public health and the environment and have revealed that it has harmful effects at lower concentrations than previously thought. In a conference call with reporters yesterday, EPA Deputy Administrator Marcus C. Peacock announced that the agency is proposing to cut the current standard of 1.5 micrograms of lead per cubic meter of air to a range of between 0.10 and 0.30 micrograms per cubic meter....
Wolf advocates barrage gov's office Wyoming is receiving a great deal of scorn from wolf advocates throughout the United States, and even overseas, but state officials said Wednesday that most of the non-local critics don't have their facts straight about the state's wolf management plan. And even though some people in places as far afield as California and Vermont are encouraging travelers and consumers to boycott the Cowboy State -- because they disagree with its "shoot-on-sight" zone for wolves -- it appears that interest in traveling to Wyoming is actually on the rise, one official with the Wyoming tourism office said Wednesday. Gov. Dave Freudenthal's office received more than 800 phone calls Tuesday and Wednesday from members and supporters of Defenders of Wildlife, a Washington, D.C.-based conservation organization. The group urged people via mailings and through its Web site to call and ask the governor to get rid of "the shoot-on-sight policy that is now in effect for nearly 90 percent of the state." What Defenders of Wildlife calls "talking points," the governor's office calls a "script." And those answering the phones in the State Capitol heard the wording repeated about 85 times an hour Tuesday, and 25 times an hour Wednesday, according to Cara Eastwood, the governor's press secretary....
Bear Spray, Your Best Defense - Alaska Sportsman The angry bellowing of several coastal brown bears erupted behind a patch of ryegrass that separated me from the salmon stream. Bears gathered there were undoubtedly disputing fishing rights. As I angled across a mudflat to avoid the scuffle, a medium-sized bear emerged from the grass. His whimpering and bawling indicated he’d been a loser in the standoff, his head low as he ambled along. Catching sight of me, he launched into a gallop, growling as the 100 yards separating us rapidly dwindled. I had to restrain myself from running: There was nowhere to go and the bear easily could have run me down. So I squared off with his hurtling hulk, planted my feet and frantically groped for my can of bear spray. To my utter shock, the can was not on my hip. In a split second I realized I’d foolishly put it in my pack to get it out of the way as I hiked through dense brush. The thought had no sooner cleared my mind when a spray of sand shot up. The bear halted, mere feet away, staring at me, head down and growling. This was not going well. Intense bear encounters like this happen many times a year in Alaska: person meets bear, person has no deterrent, bear makes choices for both of them. Fortunately, bears often choose to walk away from such encounters—as did the bear in this case—but not always. Alaska has averaged 4.5 bear attacks a year since 1985, including 24 fatalities and 45 serious injuries. Few of the people involved in these horrific incidents probably imagined they were going to run into a bear, much less be mauled by one. But each did, and in each case things went bad, fast. With two colleagues, Stephen Herrero and Terry DeBruyn, I have been researching bears for most of my career....
Farm Bill Follies First, what do the farmers get? Answer: A lot. Last year, net farm income reached a record level of nearly $89 billion due to high crop prices. Farm household income averaged $84,000 in 2007, according to the Environmental Working Group (the 2006 average for all U.S. households was $66,000). Despite such good times, the federal government showered $5 billion in direct payments on 1.4 million farmers. These direct payments have nothing to do with crop productivity or a safety net in case of low prices—they are basically gifts to farmers just because they are farmers. In fact, farmers with gross incomes up to $2.5 million have been eligible for these payments. President Bush wants to cap that at $200,000 in income, but the House is considering a cap of $500,000, and the Senate voted to cap the payments at $750,000 per year in income. Overall, Congress shaved just 2 percent off of the direct payments of $5 billion per year over the next four years. While this is a barely discernible improvement, one would think record high farm incomes combined with a world food crisis would make this a good time for Congress to scrap farming subsidies altogether. It is true that about two-thirds of farm-bill spending funds nutrition programs such as school lunches and food stamps. Lawmakers added $10 billion to the food stamp program to help lower-income Americans address higher food prices. But why are food prices higher in the first place? Part of the reason is the federal government's subsidies and its mandate to turn food into fuel—which brings us to the legislation's energy policy madness. The new farm bill contains a small gesture in the direction of sanity by reducing bioethanol subsidies from 51 cents per gallon to 45 cents per gallon. This should reduce the price of a bushel of corn by about 3 cents, according to the Des Moines Register. On the other hand, Congress is trying get around the unintended consequences of its biofuels policy by offering $1.01 per gallon subsidy for so-called cellulosic ethanol. Large-scale production of cellulosic ethanol has yet to take off, so the farm bill also disperses $400 million in tax credits in the hope of jumpstarting such production. In addition, the bill extends the tariff on imported ethanol until 2012....
California's farm belt adopts measures to cut air pollution Environmentalists say a new plan to clean up the soot-laden air in California's farm belt would fail to adequately regulate agricultural sources of pollution. Critics of the plan unfurled white prayer flags Wednesday outside the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District's meeting in Fresno to illustrate the premature deaths they say are associated with the valley's polluted air. California's farm belt has some of the highest levels of airborne dust, smoke and soot in the country. The district's governing board voted 8-3 in favor of a plan that could keep families from using their fireplaces for up to 35 days each winter and require local employers to make a portion of their workers car pool. The plan is meant to comply with standards set in 1997 under the federal Clean Air Act. More rigorous standards were adopted in 2006. Air quality advocates said the plan should have done more to regulate dairies, wineries and diesel pumps on farms, which are among the many sources of air pollution....
$10,000 bounty put out on cattle killer’s head A reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of those involved in the shooting of nine cows and a week-old calf last week in Skull Valley near Lone Rock was upped to $10,000 Thursday — a sum pledged by the Humane Society of Utah, state and local farm bureaus, the Utah Cattlemen’s Association, and the Tooele County Commission. “The county is serious about finding the shooters,” Tooele County Commissioner Jerry Hurst said. “We are very upset and want to do what we can to bring them to justice. When ranchers lose one cow it’s devastating, but when you lose 10 it’s unthinkable. Those people who are doing this obviously have no regard for animals.” The cows were grazing on Bureau of Land Management property leased by cattle owner Martin Anderson, who said six cows and a calf were found dead at the site. Anderson had to put down the other three cows because they were severely wounded. The animals had bullet wounds in their heads, torsos, shoulders and hips, and many were shot multiple times. Of the nine adult cows that were killed, seven had new calves, which now require bottle feeding....
School Lunch Suppliers Complying After Humane Handling Audit U.S. beef processors implicated in a USDA audit of slaughterhouses in the wake of the Hallmark/Westland recall have remedied the problems that prompted the agency's Food Safety and Inspection Service to issue reprimands, an agency spokeswoman told Meatingplace.com. FSIS spokeswoman Amanda Eamich emphasized this point following an Associated Press article published Wednesday citing information obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request for details of a humane-handling audit of 18 processors that supply beef to the National School Lunch Program. Sen. Herbert Kohl (D-Wis.) had requested the special audit after abuses at Chino, Calif.-based Hallmark/Westland made national headlines. Hallmark/Westland was a school lunch program supplier. "We reported back to [Kohl] more than three weeks ago," Eamich said. "Really, this isn't any new development."....
Trent Loos, Rancher-Activist-Advocate For Farmers & Producers If you want to get Trent Loos to sit still for an interview, you’d better be prepared to work around his schedule, which includes hosting radio shows, launching promotional campaigns, creating a regular e-newsletter and speaking at dozens of agricultural meetings and conferences every year. And try not to schedule a conversation during a raging blizzard sweeping over the Loup, Nebraska, area where he farms and ranches – especially not when his goats are delivering kids and a mountain lion roaming the area has already picked off two of his herd. But when he’s not tracking cougars or caring for livestock, Loos puts his passion into a cause that ought to be a priority with all farmers and ranchers, no matter what they’re raising: Communicating to consumers the benefits of our food production system and the safe, abundant, affordable sustenance we all too often take for granted. His radio programming, which encompasses an audience of more than four million on 100-plus stations across the country, includes daily Loos Tales and Rural Route programming, various “Trails & Tales” and a Truth Be Told show. His Loos Tales TV programming, which examines the people, places and policies affecting rural America, airs weeknights at 7:30 and 10:30 p.m. Central on Dish Network 9411....