Polar Bears: 'Still Alive... Having Fun' The Interior Department ruled Wednesday that the polar bear will be protected as a threatened species. Why special treatment for an animal whose population has more than doubled over the last 50 years? Because it's politically correct. The polar bear has become such a beloved icon that even a pro-development Republican secretary of the Interior can't muster the courage to say no to the forces of environmentalism. The polar bear is more than just a cuddly looking beast that roams the Arctic region. It's a wishbone in the fight between misanthropic activists determined to send the developed world back a few centuries and those who wish to see human development go forward. These beautiful creatures have become pawns in the environmentalists' campaign to block oil and gas exploration and drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and beyond. Though bullied by the court, Kempthorne still had a choice. He just made the wrong — and an unnecessary — one. The polar bear is already under the shield of the federal Marine Mammal Protection Act and its population is at a historic high. Oh, you thought its numbers were shrinking? Forget the maudlin media wailing about global warming leading to the extinction of the polar bear because man-made global warming will melt its habitat. Its numbers are actually growing. There might be as many as 25,000, and probably no fewer than 22,000, today while 50 years ago, there were somewhere between 8,000 and 10,000....
Unbearable Legislation The decision announced yesterday by the Secretary of the Interior, to list the polar bear as "threatened," removes all doubt that the Endangered Species Act is broken and in need of urgent repair. It is the environmental movement that must take responsibility for breaking it. A sensible discussion of the polar bear requires acknowledging a simple fact: that the polar bear is merely a proxy for something else. The environmental pressure groups like the Center for Biological Diversity that have petitioned for the listing acknowledge that their reason for doing so is concern over global warming. The more warming, they argue, the less sea ice; the less sea ice, the fewer polar bears. So their hope was that the Endangered Species Act will give the federal government power to curtail sources of global warming -- such as your car or air conditioning system. Secretary Dirk Kempthorne attempted to frustrate this desire by erecting regulatory barriers, like a statement from the Director of the US Geological Survey that melting ice in specific areas could not be tied to specific sources of carbon emissions. These barriers have all the legislative strength of tissue paper. It will take but a few moments of a new Administration to blow them away. After that, the first effects of the now-sacrosanct listing will probably be felt not in Alaska, where America's polar bears range, but in any state thinking of adding a coal-fired power plant to its energy infrastructure. The Act will be used by the new government to intervene -- and by activists to litigate -- against new construction in any controversial permitting process. Once that precedent is set, the Act would be used to stop uncontroversial, even popular permit applications....
Polar Bear Decision Gives Environmental Trial Lawyers A "New Legal Sledgehammer" The government's decision to list the polar bear as "threatened" under the Endangered Species Act will give environmental trial lawyers "a powerful new legal sledgehammer" against virtually every business and agricultural operation in the Western U.S. and will deliver virtually no benefit to the polar bear species, according to Jim Sims, President and CEO of the Western Business Roundtable. "This decision marks a sad day for the American West and for the polar bear. The only beneficiaries of this decision will be a small handful of environmental trial lawyers who make their living suing those Americans who work the land and keep our nation strong," Sims said. "Those who made this decision did so with the best of intentions and under a highly flawed and failed law," Sims said. "Nonetheless, this will unleash a torrent of lawsuits by a small group of extremists who are opposed to responsible development of any of the America's bountiful resources. Those lawsuits are going to cost Americans jobs, expose millions of farmers and ranchers and small businesses to citizen lawsuits, slow economic growth and force our nation to become even more dependent on foreign sources of energy." "The bulk of the economic damage from this decision will fall upon the American West and on the State of Alaska, which together comprise our nation's energy and natural resource breadbasket," Sims said....
Feds to consider protecting New Mexico's state fish New Mexico's state fish, the Rio Grande cutthroat trout, has been designated as a candidate for possible protection under the federal Endangered Species Act as threats continue to mount against the fish and the cold water streams it calls home. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Tuesday that federal biologists will develop a proposal to list the fish as either threatened or endangered. The process can take up to a year, and the agency is waiting for funding to begin the work. This is not the first time the agency has done such a review for the Rio Grande cutthroat. In 2002, it determined that listing the fish wasn't warranted because the trout was neither endangered nor likely to become endangered throughout all or a significant portion of its range. Since then, the number of secure populations has dropped from 13 to five and many of the other populations are isolated and occur in short stream segments. One concern is that disease, nonnative fish or events such as forest fires, droughts or floods could wipe out those isolated populations. Another concern is how the trout's cold mountain streams will be affected by climate change. Myers pointed to research that shows an increase in the air temperature in the Southwest and increases in the temperature of many streams....
McCain's 'Better Way': 'Eco-Friendly' Campaign Merchandise It’s not quite Birkenstocks and tie-dyed T-shirts, but presumptive Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) has shown he’s willing to go the extra mile to embrace the global warming movement. The latest sign of that is the recently introduced “eco-friendly” campaign merchandise the McCain campaign has showcased on its Web site. Included are his and hers “Go Green” McCain embroidered polo shirts, T-shirts, hats and visors with or without the recycle logo. Organic cotton onesies for the babies. You can also find “Go Green” McCain tote bags, notebooks and travel mugs (with up to 100 percent recycled material and an “enhanced biodegradability additive”). This is the latest move by McCain to show his willingness to include so-called “green” issues as part of his campaign’s platform. This comes on the heels of a May 12 speech in which he addressed global warming. He also used the opportunity to take a swipe at policy under the Bush administration....
Sheep ranchers back non-lethal wolf management Local predator experts claim a federally driven program that aims to separate wolves and sheep on portions of the Sawtooth National Forest northwest of Ketchum could become a model for other wolf-occupied ranching areas throughout the West. The program, proposed by the Idaho branch of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Wildlife Services, anticipates working with three local sheep ranchers who graze bands of sheep on federal grazing allotments in the Smoky and Boulder mountains. The program could begin as early as this summer. Rick Williamson, wolf management specialist for Wildlife Services in Idaho, said details still need to be ironed out with the Idaho Department of Fish and Game. Measures that would be implemented include herding sheep into electrified night pens at dusk, hazing wolves that venture too close to sheep bands and using radio-activated guard boxes, which blare loud sounds to deter wolves from preying on livestock....
Panelists urge residents to stay involved After sitting through environmental meetings held first by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and then the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), Sublette County citizens turned away from government completely on Tuesday night to hold a public information meeting of their own. Their goal? To educate themselves on the county’s delicate environmental health and search for solutions that the state and federal governments haven’t offered so far. As a PBS camera perused the high-profile event, 125 people shuffled into the Pinedale High School auditorium to hear the panel discussion sponsored by Citizens Learning about Ozone’s Unhealthy Destruction (CLOUD). The crowd, which included the general public as well as representatives of the BLM and energy industry, was evidence of locals’ lingering fixation with how to best address air and water quality regulations after recent pollution crises....
Salazar aims to slow oil shale leasing U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar said Tuesday that he will introduce legislation that would require several additional measures before any possible commercial oil shale leasing in the West. The Colorado congressman's proposed bill includes provisions that were in a Senate-passed 2005 energy bill, which Salazar said cleared the chamber on a broad bipartisan vote of 85-12. However, many of the Senate-passed provisions were later stripped, and the final bill had several "unrealistic deadlines," according a statement from Salazar's office. "That language has been interpreted to require final leasing regulations and commencement of commercial oil shale leasing in 2008, before the results of important research and development have been completed and without any results of that research being known," according to the statement. Salazar's new legislation would provide another year to analyze a plan to open nearly 2 million acres of federal land to development in western Colorado, eastern Utah and southwest Wyoming. The bill would also allow a year for development of a commercial leasing program after the analysis is finished....
Questions raised about uranium mining Northeast Wyoming residents are raising questions about plans for in-situ leach mining of uranium in light of violations by the state's only such mine. Their questions concern how the mining process will affect soils and aquifers, how reliable producers are when it comes to self-monitoring, and whether state regulators are prepared to properly oversee the pending rush on in-situ uranium mining in the state. The Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality has fielded numerous questions in recent weeks following a recent report documenting a long history of violations at Cameco Corp.'s Smith Ranch-Highland in-situ uranium mine in Converse County. The in-situ mining process involves a series of closely spaced wells that flush uranium material through water aquifers and then to the surface. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has received six applications for uranium in-situ operations, including four in Wyoming, and has been notified of interest in 24 more in-situ and conventional uranium operations in Wyoming and elsewhere in the West....
Growing focus on fires leaves other Forest Service programs withering The U.S. Forest Service plans to spend $1.9 billion — nearly half of its annual budget — to prevent and fight wildfires this summer. That continues a trend that critics say is turning the agency into primarily a firefighting operation at the expense of other programs. The $1.9 billion represents 45 percent of the agency budget. In 2000, 20 percent of the budget went to fire programs. Between 2000 and 2008, the agency's budget for other programs declined 35 percent. "It makes it pretty darn difficult for them to maintain campgrounds or hire rangers when they're spending almost 50 percent of their budget on fire suppression," said Tom Fry, wildfire program coordinator for The Wilderness Society in Denver. The federal government has pledged $25 million to Colorado to fight fires this year and another $35 million for fuel reduction and other wildfire-prevention efforts, according to regional forester Rick Cables. Agency officials say that general inflation and the rising cost of fuel for everything from air tankers and helicopters to caterers and support crews are driving much of the increase....Federal environmental reg's have prevented the construction of new refineries and federal refusal to drill off our coasts or at ANWR have driven up the cost of fuel, increasing the costs of fighting fire. Federal energy policy has subsidized ethanol and distorted our grain markets, driving up the cost of food, and thus of fighting fires. Are you getting the picture? We will pay more for fuel, we will pay more for food and we will pay more to federal agencies.
Memorial to men of Roosevelt era to open The CCC has something for you to see. The plan for the James R. Wilkins Sr. Civilian Conservation Corps interpretive center will become more than something in talks or on paper Saturday when an outdoor memorial honoring the men in the program is dedicated at the U.S. Forest Service office at 102 Koontz Road. The center is under the same roof as the government office that houses the Lee Ranger District of the George Washington and Jefferson National Forest. The CCC memorial is a statue of a CCC boy and a brick wall with granite pavers containing the names of some members of Camp Roosevelt in Fort Valley. President Franklin D. Roosevelt created the corps during the Great Depression to give boys and men ages 17-25 an opportunity to work and preserve America's natural resources. Stephanie Bushong, who works for the Lee District office, said officials are ready to put contracts out for the design of the center. At that point, a price and timeline for the indoor portion of the facility, which will have displays, a small auditorium and more to serve educational purposes, can be determined, she said. The statue that will be dedicated Saturday is an $18,000 replica of a CCC worker, standing 6 feet and weighing 460 pounds....Interpretive centers and statues. Does this look like an agency who's strapped for money? They will always find the money to construct a monument to large government programs.
Forest Service warehouse holds plenty of questions Mention a mysterious government-owned building in a remote corner of southwest Washington, and conspiracy-minded folks may wonder if Bigfoot or D.B. Cooper could be hidden away inside. The truth doesn't appear to be quite so riveting, but the hazy history of a nondescript Forest Service warehouse still raises plenty of questions. The Forest Service deems the warehouse so important, it chose to locate a new $1.75 million headquarters for the Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument next door. Siting the two buildings close together tightens security in a post-9/11 world, and it's their understanding that the warehouse is a potential federal emergency operations center. "We're under agreement to evacuate within 48 hours if requested by FEMA," said Ron Freeman, public services staff officer for the Gifford Pinchot National Forest. Much of the material is stored on pallets to hasten a quick exit. There's just one problem: the Federal Emergency Management Agency knows nothing about the warehouse. "There's no FEMA facility anywhere near there," said Mike Howard, spokesman for the agency's regional headquarters in Bothell. Tom McDowell, the longtime director of North Country EMS and Volcano Rescue Team in Yacolt, was equally perplexed. "I've never heard any such thing like that in my life," he said. "I've never even heard a rumor of that." Yet the decision to locate the monument headquarters near the warehouse came at a substantial cost. In making that decision, the forest officials killed plans to build on a nearby site where they had already spent $1 million on clearing, grading and paving....Yes sir, we need to get these folks some more money. They are really hurtin'.
Study: Lead bullets taint game meat The meat in your freezer from the deer you shot last fall may be contaminated with lead from tiny bullet fragments. A study released Tuesday by the Peregrine Fund and Washington State University shows that people who consume venison from game animals killed with lead bullets may be ingesting the poisonous metal themselves - and that can cause brain damage in children and increase the risk of heart attack and stroke in adults. The Boise-based Peregrine Fund, which has been reintroducing California condors back into in California and Arizona, discovered most of the birds had elevated levels of lead in their system, which scientists conclude comes from gut piles and dead game animals shot by hunters. Last year, the group's lobbying spurred the California Legislature to ban the use of lead bullets in areas frequented by the California condor, one of the rarest birds in the world. But the latest study, released Tuesday at a Peregrine Fund conference, ups the stakes even more. X-rays showed processed ground venison from 80 percent of deer sampled in Wyoming contained metal fragments, of which 92 percent were lead. Tiny amounts of lead can cause brain development problems in children. Even amounts previously considered safe in adults are now known to increase rates of death from heart attack and stroke....
Court blocks Bush's plan for logging in Sierra A federal appeals court blocked the Bush administration's plans Wednesday for logging three tracts in the northern Sierra and said the government has failed to justify a critical element in its plan for the forests: selling trees to lumber companies to pay for removing brush that increases the threat of fire. Preventing fires is important, "but are there no alternative ways of getting money to do the clearing?" asked the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. The court said the U.S. Forest Service has not explored the obvious alternatives: finding the money elsewhere in its budget or asking Congress for more. The tracts covered in Wednesday's ruling were included in the Forest Service's management plan for 11 million acres of Sierra forests, which the agency announced in 2004. The plan overhauled regulations that the Clinton administration issued in January 2001 but that were never implemented. Environmental groups said the Bush administration's plan allows five times as much logging as the Clinton rules would have permitted and weakened protections for water and wildlife. The Bush administration's Forest Service said one of its highest priorities was reducing the danger of wildfires that have been ravaging Northwest forests. The agency increased the scope of logging and the size of trees to be cut in the forests, up to a diameter of 30 inches, and said it would use proceeds of the timber sales to pay for removal of brush and small trees that fuel fires....
Ruling says property owners, lessees not properly notified The state attorney general’s office issued a ruling last week determining that the Feb. 22 emergency meeting that designated 600 square miles of Mount Taylor as traditional cultural property for one year was held illegally. A May 8 letter from the attorney general’s office to the Historic Division said that notification before the meeting, held in Albuquerque, was inadequate and in violation of the New Mexico 1978 Open Meeting Act. The ruling renders all action taken in the February meeting invalid; Mount Taylor cannot at this time be considered a state traditional cultural property, even on a temporary basis. The Historic Division must call another meeting, with proper notice; produce a summary of comments made at the February meeting and retake the vote if it wants to designate the mountain an emergency TCP status. The attorney general’s office ruled that notice to property owners and lessees in the designated area was inadequate, although it found that notification to the media followed the letter of the OMA guidelines....
How Schwarzenegger Is Trying to Finagle More Big Dam Construction California Governor Schwarzenegger wants to build two new dams -- Sites and Temperance Flat. They are being sold as necessary to cope with the reduction in Sierra Nevada, Cascade and Klamath Mountains snowpack expected as a result of climate change. New and "enhanced" storage are being marketed by Lester Snow, director of California's Department of Water Resources (DWR) as part of a "portfolio approach" which, in addition to "enhanced" storage, calls for urban water conservation, better groundwater facilities, improved wastewater processing and research into lowering the cost of desalination. The dams are to provide increased capacity in order to catch earlier runoff that -- according to climate change data and predictions -- will no longer be held in mountain snowpack. Schwarzenegger and Snow are counting on the climate change predictions to be fairly accurate. If the actual climate does not follow the predictions, the new and "enhanced" reservoirs might never fill....
Byfields fight Trans-Texas Corridor Taylor-area residents Dan and Margaret Byfield hope to become the Trans-Texas Corridor’s worst nightmare. The married couple head up two land rights organizations, the American Land Foundation and Stewards of the Range, that aim to keep rural communities from having land encroached upon by state and federal agencies through eminent domain. Both organizations operate across the U.S., in Wyoming, California, Colorado, South Dakota and Nebraska, but their current main goal is to challenge TxDOT in hopes of completely eliminating proposals for the quarter-mile wide superhighway. Currently they offer advice to residents of small towns and rural communities on how to corral TxDOT into coordinating with them, rather than just listening to and ignoring grievances some cities have with the Trans-Texas Corridor. The Byfields work in Texas is based on a local government code from 2001, which requires state and federal agencies to coordinate “to the greatest extent feasible” with future planning commissions created by two or more governmental entities — usually a city or county. “As individual cities, their opinions aren’t going to be listened to,” Dan Byfield said. They provide extensive literature with step-by-step instruction on how to create planning commissions and how opponents to the Trans-Texas Corridor should approach cities and counties that are sitting on proposed future areas for the highway....
Researchers want to know if lion shot in Chicago is SD animal The mountain lion killed in April on a Chicago street came from somewhere west, scientists say. Soon they hope to know if it came from the Black Hills of South Dakota. The initial study of the lion’s DNA showed a match to the cougar a man encountered in January in Wisconsin. The DNA also matched many characteristics of animals in the Dakotas, Wyoming and Montana. Scientists now are zeroing in on additional genetic traits to see if it specifically matches those in western South Dakota. John Kanta, regional wildlife manager for state Game, Fish and Parks in Rapid City, said 250 mountain lions live in the Black Hills. He said he hopes to learn within a month if the Chicago lion began its journey from the Hills. A U.S. Forest Service lab in Montana is analyzing a specimen from the animal. The Chicago Tribune reported that the team will compare the DNA to 300 cougar samples in a database of animals from the American West.
Wolverines Return to California, Scaring Bears, Mountain Lions It was Moriarty's motion-triggered camera that captured the image of an animal thought to be a wolverine in February, surprising scientists who thought humans had driven the predator and scavenger from the state. Within two weeks, 19 volunteers arrived to scour 150 square miles (400 square kilometers) of Tahoe National Forest, on the Nevada border. The volunteers didn't glimpse the creature, but did find evidence of its presence. Samples of scat and hair they collected, and additional photos, confirmed the animal was a wolverine. That got wolverines added to the target list of a four-month search for rare species in the Sierra Nevada starting in June, said Eric Loft, chief of the California Fish and Game Department's wildlife division. Scientists think the wolverine might have wandered from Idaho's Sawtooth Range, 600 miles (1,000 kilometers) away, and are trying to determine why, said Jeff Copeland, a biologist at the U.S. Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station. That's twice the distance of any known wolverine range, he said. Wolverines, members of the weasel family, are also called ``skunk bears'' for their resemblance to both. They're found in Alaska, Idaho, Washington, Wyoming and Montana, and in western Canada. The animals are known for their ferocity, said Patrick Kobernus, a biologist at Coast Range Ecology in San Francisco. Wolverines top out at about 40 pounds (18 kilograms), but that doesn't stop them from stealing kills from bears, mountain lions and other bigger animals. A wolverine can drag a dead deer as far as 20 miles, he said....
Harvest Of Shame Congress may think it's doing the "people's work," as they like to say, but the pork-laden, market-distorting farm bill is anything but. In fact, it's an obscene waste of money that will leave us all poorer and hungrier for the effort. GOP members are already trying to lay low. Not so the Democrats. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi immediately hailed the bill as a "significant reform" — a statement so wrong it's laughable. The bill hands out a record $300 billion in new spending on agriculture over five years. This might be worth it if all the spending led to lower prices. It won't. As Heritage Foundation economist Brian Riedl has noted, since enactment of the last farm bill in 2002, prices for key crops have surged 281%. And they're still surging. Yet, we continue to support, subsidize and shower this sector with billions in taxpayer dollars. Also Wednesday, the government reported that in contrast with tame inflation overall last month, food prices shot up 5.1% from a year earlier — the largest gain since 1990 (see chart). Reform? In addition to $25 billion a year in subsidies and $5 billion in direct payments to farmers, regardless of crop prices, the bill provides another $1 billion for food stamps, school lunches and other social programs; more protection for sugar growers; tax breaks for thoroughbred race horses; money for fruit and vegetable marketing; more cash support for "organic" foods; and, of course, a billion more for biofuels. But not a shred of "reform."....
Farm bill full of pet causes backed by individual lawmakers A good farm bill wouldn't be complete without a little pork. Individual lawmakers, mostly senators, slipped several dozen "earmarks," or pet causes, into the $290 billion bill that have at best tentative connections to the tilling of the land. There's tax breaks for horse owners, water for Nevada desert lakes, aid for the Pacific Coast salmon fishery industry and a crackdown on puppy trafficking. Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., a leading opponent of earmarks, complained that some had been "airdropped in" at the last minute. "If you dig into them, you might find something untoward. You might not, but the fact is we don't have time to do that." Republicans went after Democratic-backed provisions, such as one backed by Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., that allows the federal government to sell portions of the Green Mountain National Forest to a ski resort in the state. Leahy's office countered that the provision, backed by the state and the Forest Service, would save the Forest Service management costs by selling land that has long been used for skiing. Another controversy was over a provision allowing state and local governments and non-profits to issue $500 million in tax-credit bonds to buy forest land for conservation purposes. The White House, which opposes the bill because of its cost and benefits for wealthy farmers, said that provision would authorize the purchase of 400,000 acres of land in Montana from a single owner, the Plum Creek Timber Co....
What Will Be Required Of Cow Calf Producers Under The COOL Rules This September? The title of this article asks a question that is not yet totally answered. However, the answer is beginning to be clearer and soon may be finalized. As you likely know, in 2002, the US Congress passed a law requiring certain “covered commodities” to be verified and labeled as to their county of origin. The acronym used commonly for this law is COOL, denoting County of Orgin Labeling. Final rules for COOL will be written following final passage of the 2007 Farm Bill which has passed the Senate and House Conference Committee and will likely be sent to the President’s desk soon. If the President signs the Farm Bill, final rules will then be written. As of now, the following definitions and requirements are likely to become rules. Let’s examine some of these as they apply to cow-calf producers in Colorado....
Ants swarm over Houston area, fouling electronics In what sounds like a really low-budget horror film, voracious swarming ants that apparently arrived in Texas aboard a cargo ship are invading homes and yards across the Houston area, shorting out electrical boxes and messing up computers. The hairy, reddish-brown creatures are known as "crazy rasberry ants"—crazy, because they wander erratically instead of marching in regimented lines, and "rasberry" after Tom Rasberry, an exterminator who did battle against them early on. "They're itty-bitty things about the size of fleas, and they're just running everywhere," said Patsy Morphew of Pearland, who is constantly sweeping them off her patio and scooping them out of her pool by the cupful. "There's just thousands and thousands of them. If you've seen a car racing, that's how they are. They're going fast, fast, fast. They're crazy." The ants—formally known as "paratrenicha species near pubens"—have spread to five Houston-area counties since they were first spotted in Texas in 2002....
Raccoon bite causes school to lock down Officials decided to lock down the Clarke School Tuesday after a raccoon bit a school crossing guard minutes before school was released for the day. According to Detective Sgt. Tim Cassidy, Judith Hapgood was stationed at the Clarke School on Norfolk Avenue just after 2 p.m. when she felt something rub against her leg and was then bitten by a raccoon. School Resource Officer Rose Cheever was contacted and she immediately contacted officials at Clarke School and administrative offices. Cassidy said the school was placed in lockdown until the raccoon was disposed of. He said the animal was located behind a house across from the school and Sgt. Richard McCarriston euthanized the raccoon. Calls to Principal Lois Longin were not immediately returned on Tuesday but Superintendent Matthew Malone said students were inside the school when the incident occurred....