FLE
Slaying Lyons
That devilish dilemma confronted Christopher Lyons of Oxford, Connecticut, when he, his wife, Karen, and their two-year-old boy, Spencer, fell into the clutches of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) last February. Screeners who unearthed a penknife in the Lyons' carry-on bag decided it was "artfully concealed" and called the cops. The stunned and shaken couple agreed that she would take the rap lest his job as a corporate pilot be threatened. While her son sobbed and her husband watched helplessly, this 34-year-old mother was marched away in handcuffs to be fingerprinted, photographed, and interrogated. Presumably, arresting Mrs. Lyons struck some sort of blow against terrorism, but I'm a bit fuzzy on exactly how. The Lyons' saga began when they set off on what was supposed to be a vacation to sunny Disney World in the pre-dawn blackness of a winter's day. Federalized airport security does its best to turn travel into torment, and the Lyons' attempt to board their 7 AM flight on Southwest Airlines was no exception. Screeners rifling their belongings found a Swiss Army knife with – horrors! – a 2-inch blade nestled midway through a container of "Huggies" diaper wipes. The TSA wants us to believe the couple deliberately concealed the $15 penknife so it can fine them up to $10,000 each. That Mrs. Lyons used to work as a flight attendant while Mr. Lyons is a pilot and former Marine and that both of them are, therefore, familiar with airports and security and much cleverer ways to hide "weapons" – yes, the TSA persists in calling a 2-inch blade a "weapon" – doesn't faze Our Rulers. Nor does the glaring absence of any motive or criminal record. A hearing on this criminally absurd case was scheduled for this week. "Any and all attempts to purposefully conceal a prohibited item at a passenger security checkpoint will result in the issuance of a civil penalty," sniffed TSA spokes-stooge Ann Davis. Apparently, neither she nor the other bullies at the TSA lose sleep over destroying their fellow-citizens' lives, impoverishing them, or persecuting sincere, hard-working parents trapped in a silly web of events. But never let it be said the TSA has no heart: it has magnanimously recommended the Lyons be fined only $6000 apiece, rather than the full $10,000 allowed by its regulations. I suppose the hearing will feature endless testimony about dim hotel rooms, penknives – excuse me, "weapons" – and Huggies. Let's hope the diaper in question is submitted for evidence so the court stinks as badly as the rest of this tyrannical charade....
Why the Military Shouldn't Take Charge in Emergencies
A majority of Americans in a recent poll expressed support for the use of our military as part of law enforcement during domestic emergencies. President Bush evidently shares this view, for he proposed using the military to enforce the law in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. He suggested as well that the military might be best qualified to quarantine sections of the United States in the event of a bird flu epidemic. He has proposed that the Department of Defense, not a civilian agency, receive $5 billion to stockpile flu vaccines. It's hard to think of a stance more antithetical to the political convictions of our founders. "No standing armies" was one of the rallying cries of the American Revolution. This strong historical distrust of the military later found expression in the Posse Comitatus law of 1878, still in force. Archaic as the title of that law sounds, the principle is as relevant today as it was more than a hundred years ago. Martial law is not to be imposed lightly. Recovering an understanding of why the Founders feared the domestic use of the military will be essential if we are to block this new threat to our republic....
FBI Papers Indicate Intelligence Violations
The FBI has conducted clandestine surveillance on some U.S. residents for as long as 18 months at a time without proper paperwork or oversight, according to previously classified documents to be released today. Records turned over as part of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit also indicate that the FBI has investigated hundreds of potential violations related to its use of secret surveillance operations, which have been stepped up dramatically since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks but are largely hidden from public view. In one case, FBI agents kept an unidentified target under surveillance for at least five years -- including more than 15 months without notifying Justice Department lawyers after the subject had moved from New York to Detroit. An FBI investigation concluded that the delay was a violation of Justice guidelines and prevented the department "from exercising its responsibility for oversight and approval of an ongoing foreign counterintelligence investigation of a U.S. person." In other cases, agents obtained e-mails after a warrant expired, seized bank records without proper authority and conducted an improper "unconsented physical search," according to the documents. Although heavily censored, the documents provide a rare glimpse into the world of domestic spying, which is governed by a secret court and overseen by a presidential board that does not publicize its deliberations. The records are also emerging as the House and Senate battle over whether to put new restrictions on the controversial USA Patriot Act, which made it easier for the government to conduct secret searches and surveillance but has come under attack from civil liberties groups....
FBI Net-wiretapping rules face challenges
New federal wiretapping rules forcing Internet service providers and universities to rewire their networks for FBI surveillance of e-mail and Web browsing are being challenged in court. Telecommunications firms, nonprofit organizations and educators are asking the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., to overturn the controversial rules, which dramatically extend the sweep of an 11-year-old surveillance law designed to guarantee police the ability to eavesdrop on telephone calls. The regulations represent the culmination of years of lobbying by the FBI, the Justice Department and the Drug Enforcement Administration, which have argued that "criminals, terrorists and spies" could cloak their Internet communications with impunity unless police received broad new surveillance powers. The final rules, published this month by the Federal Communications Commission, apply to "any type of broadband Internet access service" and many Internet phone services. "The concern is that what is being proposed is inordinately expensive to achieve the results that the FCC and the Department of Justice would like to secure," said Sheldon Steinbach, general counsel to the American Council on Education, which filed its legal challenge late Monday. The rules are set to take effect in April 2007. Another legal challenge from businesses and nonprofit groups is set for Tuesday. "The FCC simply does not have the statutory authority to extend the 1994 law for the telephone system to the 21st century Internet," said Marc Rotenberg, director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, which is joining the second challenge. Also participating are the Center for Democracy and Technology, Pulver.com, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and the telecommunications trade group CompTel. The 1994 law, called the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act or CALEA, required telephone companies to rewire their networks and switches to guarantee ready eavesdropping access to police. That prospect dismays privacy advocates and telecommunications providers who worry about the expense and argue that Congress never intended the law to apply to broadband links. A House of Representatives committee report prepared in October 1994 says CALEA's requirements "do not apply to information services such as electronic-mail services; or online services such as CompuServe, Prodigy, America Online or Mead Data; or to Internet service providers."....
Florida Becomes First State to File Legislation to Preserve Citizens’ Rights During Emergencies
This week, legislation to prohibit firearm confiscation (HB 285) was filed in Florida to help preserve the right of citizens to lawfully possess firearms during an officially declared state of emergency. The bill was filed by Florida Representative Mitch Needelman (R - Melbourne) and has the full support of the National Rifle Association (NRA). “The breakdown of civil order in New Orleans during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina demonstrates that Americans’ right to keep and bear arms are especially important during a state of emergency,” declared Chris W. Cox, NRA’s chief lobbyist. “As promised, the NRA is taking measures to ensure that the Second Amendment is not another casualty during a declared emergency in every state across the country. This week, Florida becomes the first state to take that important step.” HB 285 clarifies the authority of the governor during a declared emergency by asserting that “nothing contained in this chapter shall be construed to authorize the seizure, taking, or confiscation of firearms that are lawfully possessed.” The New York Times reported in early September that legally possessed firearms were being confiscated from law abiding citizens, quoting the superintendent of police that "only law enforcement are allowed to have weapons." A Louisiana state statute allows the chief law enforcement officer to "regulate possession" of firearms during declared emergencies....
Hype and reality
Gun-control advocates seemed so certain. When the federal assault-weapons ban expired on Sept. 13, 2004, gun crimes would surge dramatically. Sarah Brady, a leading gun-control advocate, warned it would "arm our kids with Uzis and AK-47s" and "fill" our streets with the weapons. Sen. Charles Schumer ratcheted up the rhetoric, labeling the banned guns "the weapons of choice for terrorists." Not only would murder rise, but especially firearm murders. Murder and robbery rates should have gone up faster than other violent-crime rates since they are the crimes in which guns are most frequently used. Only states with their own assault-weapon bans would escape some of the coming bloodshed. Well, what happened? On Oct. 18, the FBI released the final data for 2004. It shows clearly that in the months after the law sunset, crime went down. During 2004 the murder rate nationwide fell by 3 percent, the first drop since 2000, with firearm deaths dropping by 4.4 percent. The new data show the monthly crime rate for the United States as a whole during 2004, and the monthly murder rate plummeted 14 percent from August through December. By contrast, during the same months in 2003 the murder rate fell only 1 percent. Curiously, the seven states that have their own assault-weapons bans saw a smaller drop in murders last year than the 43 states without such laws. States with bans averaged a 2 percent decline in murders. States without bans saw murder rates fall by more than 3.4 percent. Indeed, that, too, suggests that doing away with the ban actually reduced crime....
Whistleblower Has Elite Interests Running Scared
If people know of Sibel Edmonds at all, they know her as an FBI whistleblower. Since mid-2002, her face has graced newspapers across America; she's testified before numerous senators and had her deposition subpoenaed by family members of 9/11 victims; as late as September 2005, Vanity Fair devoted 11 pages to her. Yet almost no one can tell you what she has to say. Like a star in a silent movie, Edmonds has been cast as the heroine in a legal drama whose details are obscure. That's because Sibel Edmonds is the most gagged person in the history of the United States, at least according to her ACLU lawyers. If gag orders were nickels, she'd be rich. Since her dismissal from the FBI in March 2002, Edmonds has borne the burden of state censorship with relative aplomb, working constantly within the law to make her story heard. After she gave a brief spate of interviews, John Ashcroft invoked the "state secrets" privilege, silencing her before the press and denying Edmonds her day in court. Apparently, her lawsuit involves secrets so secret that not even Edmonds' lawyers are allowed to know the reasons why her case cannot be tried. Aside from an independent investigator, the Supreme Court is her only remaining option, and the Court will decide whether or not to hear her case in mid-October. After the FBI fired her, Sibel Edmonds sued the bureau for negligent endangerment, negligent investigation, conversion of property, and infliction of emotional distress, among other things. During her six-month stint as a translator in the FBI's Washington, D.C., unit, she had stumbled upon what she alleges were serial acts of espionage on the part of one of her colleagues, Melek Can Dickerson, who worked with Edmonds evaluating all sorts of missives and communications, and translating into English those communications pertinent to ongoing FBI investigations. Dickerson, it turns out, was a former employee of the American-Turkish Council, a Turkish organization under investigation for espionage and bribing public officials, and she considered most of her former colleagues' communications to have no pertinence whatsoever. Edmonds thought otherwise and reported her colleague. Getting no response, Edmonds reported her again and again, moving up the chain of command until Edmonds herself was finally fired. Shortly thereafter, Dickerson and her husband fled the country....
Oklahoma City FBI surrenders documents to court
Under pressure from a federal judge to produce at least 87 pages of "un-redacted" internal FBI documents related to the 1995 bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building, the Oklahoma City FBI office has filed under seal documents with a Salt Lake City federal court that could unlock some of the mysteries surrounding the terrorist attack that left 168 dead. Along with the documents under seal the agency cited a number of reasons the court should continue to protect persons whose names were originally blacked out of some of the crucial documents and certain facts the FBI alone possesses about activities at a paramilitary terrorist training camp called Elohim City. Filed in federal court in Salt Lake City, Utah, attorneys for the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) argued that the FBI Oklahoma City office should not have to make public details that some believe could prove the FBI had prior knowledge of the plot to bomb the Oklahoma City federal building, but somehow failed to stop it. This litigation is part of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by Salt Lake City attorney Jesse Trentadue. At the center of the controversy is an unclassified copy of a memorandum marked "From the Director of the FBI" that contains several references to an FBI undercover operation at Elohim City before the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building....
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Sunday, October 30, 2005
SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE WESTERNER
The cowboy new year
By Julie Carter
No, the calendar hasn’t flipped over to the actual New Year as in “next year.” For most people it just the fall season. But for the cowboy, fall is the beginning of a new year just like Monday is the beginning of a new week.
By the time November rolls around, most ranches in this part of the country have weaned their calves and/or shipped them off. They have had their one time pay day for a year’s hard work. One more year they have watched a cow buyer drive off down the dusty road in his big fancy car with his diamond pinky ring flashing in the sunlight. One more time they have let go a sigh of relief as the last cattle truck rolled over the cattle guard headed for feedlots and wheat pastures.
Yearling cattle operators have shipped the summer cattle and are looking to get the fall stockers received and tucked away in winter pastures.
Fall is when you get out all the jackets, down vests, wild rags and leggings. You make every effort to find the winter gloves, all of them, including the right and left one of each pair. It has been proven that while empty cardboard boxes multiply in captivity, winter gloves in matching pairs are an endangered species.
My first concession to the season is giving up my sandals for full-cover footwear. It usually doesn’t happen before I’ve been seen in public several times wearing a turtleneck sweater and the aforementioned sandals.
The horses start getting long hair and spend more time at the feed bunk. They have little interest in working, socializing or doing anything but soaking up the afternoon sun.
Fall is when you start breaking the two year old colts and hope they turn out gentle enough no one gets hurt. It is hard to maintain any cowboy athletic prowess with a bucking colt when you are dressed with enough layers to resemble the Michelin man.
Food changes from sandwiches and salads to pots of chili and a complete assortment of crock pot ready-to-eat cuisine options. Pumpkins are everywhere. Pumpkin cake and pumpkin bread are a favorite whether it is for the taste of cinnamon and clove or simply a good reason for the cream cheese frosting. While I happen to think pumpkin comes in a can, the real thing does look pretty sitting around next to Indian corn or bundled corn stocks.
It is not yet calving season and there is not yet any ice to break on the water tanks. The feed pickups stand by ready for work. But the season is too short to start any major fencing, pipelining or corral building. It is not that winter will be idle but winter has a specific set of jobs which mostly leave no time for special projects.
Fall is the time to review what has been accomplished during the year—you can’t get it back but you can always hope to improve on it. Ranching is like that. You always look forward to getting this year over with so you can start on the next one. Ranchers just get to start a little earlier with their New Year resolutions.
Happy New Year
© Julie Carter 2005
Season of change
by Larry Gabriel
A heavy frost on the windshield in the morning is one of the many signs that a season is about to end and another is about to begin.
South Dakota is known as the "land of infinite variety" at least in part because of our variety in weather. We get about as hot as Arizona and about as cold as Alaska.
It is said of our weather, "If you don't like the weather, just wait a day (some say an hour), and it will change."
I heard a speaker describe change in an insightful way. Change is inevitable, he explained. We really only have two choices. We can resist it and probably be consumed by it. Or, we can embrace it and try to mold it to our benefit. His message stuck with me.
My father gave similar advice when I became a rancher. "You must learn to work with nature and not against nature, if you want a successful ranch," he explained.
Droughts will come. Blizzards will come. Floods will come. A wide variety of changes will come. We must learn to live with them to be sustainable.
Adapting to change is not easy for everyone. Some seem to be natural born "agin'ers". They have no plan to solve the problem. They present no alternatives. They just don't like change and loudly protest it at every opportunity.
It makes no difference what the change is. Such people are in for a difficult life of lost struggles. Eventually they lose because change can't be stopped, whether it is natural or social.
As sure as fall is here, winter will follow. Some will hate it and suffer. Others will sell snowmobiles and smile.
As sure as new technology is here, farmers and ranchers will either adapt or be consumed by it.
As sure as the world market is here, we will adapt to it or be consumed by it.
There is no stopping change by ranting and railing. One might as well argue with the wind. A change must run its course. In due time it will be replaced by the next one.
There are valuable lessons in nature. If we learn anything at all from the world around us, it should be this: the flexible survive; the rigid do not. A tree that does not bend will break in the next big wind.
The season of change is here. We have a choice. We can resist and complain, or we can embrace it, adapt, and make it work to our benefit.
As many times as I have seen it, I still love the season of change.
It is a new adventure each time it arrives.
Larry Gabriel is the South Dakota Secretary of Agriculture
I welcome submissions for this feature of The Westerner.
===
The cowboy new year
By Julie Carter
No, the calendar hasn’t flipped over to the actual New Year as in “next year.” For most people it just the fall season. But for the cowboy, fall is the beginning of a new year just like Monday is the beginning of a new week.
By the time November rolls around, most ranches in this part of the country have weaned their calves and/or shipped them off. They have had their one time pay day for a year’s hard work. One more year they have watched a cow buyer drive off down the dusty road in his big fancy car with his diamond pinky ring flashing in the sunlight. One more time they have let go a sigh of relief as the last cattle truck rolled over the cattle guard headed for feedlots and wheat pastures.
Yearling cattle operators have shipped the summer cattle and are looking to get the fall stockers received and tucked away in winter pastures.
Fall is when you get out all the jackets, down vests, wild rags and leggings. You make every effort to find the winter gloves, all of them, including the right and left one of each pair. It has been proven that while empty cardboard boxes multiply in captivity, winter gloves in matching pairs are an endangered species.
My first concession to the season is giving up my sandals for full-cover footwear. It usually doesn’t happen before I’ve been seen in public several times wearing a turtleneck sweater and the aforementioned sandals.
The horses start getting long hair and spend more time at the feed bunk. They have little interest in working, socializing or doing anything but soaking up the afternoon sun.
Fall is when you start breaking the two year old colts and hope they turn out gentle enough no one gets hurt. It is hard to maintain any cowboy athletic prowess with a bucking colt when you are dressed with enough layers to resemble the Michelin man.
Food changes from sandwiches and salads to pots of chili and a complete assortment of crock pot ready-to-eat cuisine options. Pumpkins are everywhere. Pumpkin cake and pumpkin bread are a favorite whether it is for the taste of cinnamon and clove or simply a good reason for the cream cheese frosting. While I happen to think pumpkin comes in a can, the real thing does look pretty sitting around next to Indian corn or bundled corn stocks.
It is not yet calving season and there is not yet any ice to break on the water tanks. The feed pickups stand by ready for work. But the season is too short to start any major fencing, pipelining or corral building. It is not that winter will be idle but winter has a specific set of jobs which mostly leave no time for special projects.
Fall is the time to review what has been accomplished during the year—you can’t get it back but you can always hope to improve on it. Ranching is like that. You always look forward to getting this year over with so you can start on the next one. Ranchers just get to start a little earlier with their New Year resolutions.
Happy New Year
© Julie Carter 2005
Season of change
by Larry Gabriel
A heavy frost on the windshield in the morning is one of the many signs that a season is about to end and another is about to begin.
South Dakota is known as the "land of infinite variety" at least in part because of our variety in weather. We get about as hot as Arizona and about as cold as Alaska.
It is said of our weather, "If you don't like the weather, just wait a day (some say an hour), and it will change."
I heard a speaker describe change in an insightful way. Change is inevitable, he explained. We really only have two choices. We can resist it and probably be consumed by it. Or, we can embrace it and try to mold it to our benefit. His message stuck with me.
My father gave similar advice when I became a rancher. "You must learn to work with nature and not against nature, if you want a successful ranch," he explained.
Droughts will come. Blizzards will come. Floods will come. A wide variety of changes will come. We must learn to live with them to be sustainable.
Adapting to change is not easy for everyone. Some seem to be natural born "agin'ers". They have no plan to solve the problem. They present no alternatives. They just don't like change and loudly protest it at every opportunity.
It makes no difference what the change is. Such people are in for a difficult life of lost struggles. Eventually they lose because change can't be stopped, whether it is natural or social.
As sure as fall is here, winter will follow. Some will hate it and suffer. Others will sell snowmobiles and smile.
As sure as new technology is here, farmers and ranchers will either adapt or be consumed by it.
As sure as the world market is here, we will adapt to it or be consumed by it.
There is no stopping change by ranting and railing. One might as well argue with the wind. A change must run its course. In due time it will be replaced by the next one.
There are valuable lessons in nature. If we learn anything at all from the world around us, it should be this: the flexible survive; the rigid do not. A tree that does not bend will break in the next big wind.
The season of change is here. We have a choice. We can resist and complain, or we can embrace it, adapt, and make it work to our benefit.
As many times as I have seen it, I still love the season of change.
It is a new adventure each time it arrives.
Larry Gabriel is the South Dakota Secretary of Agriculture
I welcome submissions for this feature of The Westerner.
===
OPINION/COMMENTARY
State and Federal Treasuries "Profit" More from Gasoline Sales than U.S. Oil Industry
High gas prices and strong oil company earnings have generated a rash of new tax proposals in recent months. Some lawmakers have called for new “windfall profits” taxes—similar to the one signed into federal law in 1980 by President Jimmy Carter—that would tax the profits of major oil companies at a rate of 50 percent. Meanwhile, many commentators have voiced support for the idea of increasing gas taxes to keep the price of gasoline at post-Katrina highs, thereby reducing gas consumption. However, often ignored in this debate is the fact that oil industry profits are highly cyclical, making them just as prone to “busts” as to “booms.” Additionally, tax collections on the production and import of gasoline by state and federal governments are already near historic highs. In fact, in recent decades governments have collected far more revenue from gasoline taxes than the largest U.S. oil companies have collectively earned in domestic profits. According to data compiled by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration, the domestic profits of the 25 largest oil companies in the U.S. have been highly volatile since the late 1970s. In contrast, federal and state taxes on gasoline production and imports have been climbing steadily since the late 1970s and now total roughly $58.4 billion. Due in part to substantial hikes in the federal gasoline excise tax in 1983, 1990, and 1993, annual tax revenues have continued to grow. Since 1977, governments collected more than $1.34 trillion, after adjusting for inflation, in gasoline tax revenues—more than twice the amount of domestic profits earned by major U.S. oil companies during the same period. As illustrated in Table 1, since 1977, there have been only three years (1980, 1981, and 1982) in which domestic oil industry profits exceeded government gas tax collections. In the remaining years, gasoline tax collections consistently exceeded oil industry profits, reaching a peak in 1995 when gas tax collections outpaced industry profits by a factor of 7.3....
When government's rights eclipse property rights
"Sustainable development" is a term used to justify new policies that, inevitably, erode private property rights. Proponents of sustainable development are convinced that the collective benefits of these policies far outweigh the value of any individual's private property rights that may be lost. Apparently, most Americans are willing to accept this reasoning. The people of New London, Conn., through their elected officials, are taking the private property of several of its citizens to give to other private citizens who promise to pay more taxes. The people of Riviera Beach, Fla., are planning to take the private property of nearly 6,000 citizens to give to other private citizens who promise to pay more taxes. This practice has become quite acceptable over the last quarter-century. The clear language of the constitutional requirement that land taken by government be for "public use" has been changed by practice to allow government to take land for "public benefit." Having secured this new authority, which the Supreme Court validated in the recent Kelo decision, government has expanded its authority to restrict use of private property in a variety of ways that are said to provide a collective public benefit. The King County ordinance, for example, which prohibits private land owners from using 65 percent of their land – without compensation – turns the U.S. Constitution on its head. The policy is justified and acceptable because it is said to provide a collective public benefit of greater value than the loss suffered by the individual private property owners. These are only a few examples of how sustainable development is eroding the principle of private property rights. These are big, gaudy examples. Sustainable development is permeating public policy through ordinances, rules and regulations that are rapidly sucking all the oxygen from the very idea that individuals have an inalienable right to own and use private property....
Tim Russert's Conflict of Interest
During the September 18 edition of NBC's Meet the Press, host Tim Russert conducted a softball interview with disgraced former President Bill Clinton about his "global initiative" meeting being held in New York. During the conversation Clinton hinted at why Russert had invited him to do the show. "I'm not pandering here to NBC," Clinton said, but he sang the praises of Jeffrey Immelt, the head of General Electric, the parent company of NBC. Clinton said Immelt was one of those business leaders who had accepted the man-made global warming theory and was pursuing a "clean energy future" for his company. It wasn't mentioned that Immelt was a participant in the Clinton conference. Now why didn't Russert tell us that? On the surface, it seems that Immelt has made common cause with the radical environmentalists. As National Public Radio has put it, Immelt has announced major investments in so-called "green technologies" to "limit the levels of carbon dioxide and other environmentally harmful agents" produced by his businesses. Action Fund Management LLC (AFM), investment adviser to the Free Enterprise Action Fund, has sent a letter to Immelt asking:....
Increasing the Global Transportation Fuel Supply
Despite soaring oil prices, oil and gas producers worldwide have failed to expand either supply or investment levels, falling short of meeting the rapidly growing global demand. The key challenge is ensuring an adequate supply of transportation fuel for cars and airplanes--not electricity, which can be generated from coal and nuclear reactors. The war on terrorism and operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as high rates of economic growth in China and the United States have caused additional gasoline and jet fuel shortages that have led to higher prices. Fuel costs represent an indirect tax that may seriously affect the economy, possibly even causing a global recession. Furthermore, leading industry experts believe that the global oil well is running dry. Even if this is not the case, developing the remaining supply poses problems that continue to confound the industry. Insufficient Infrastructure. Currently, supply is limited by insufficient transportation and refining capacity. No new refineries have been built in the U.S. in the past three decades. In addition, world spare tanker capacity, which is essential to transport oil from overseas, no longer exists, and excess refinery capacity is at an all-time low. Overregulation. While many oil fields are headed for depletion, national oil companies control 58 percent of oil and natural gas reserves. Laws requiring the government to own and/or control significant shares in oil ventures are common in many oil-producing countries. Overregulation prevents oil companies from owning mineral rights, while weak rule of law and insufficient protection of property rights in many oil-rich regions makes multibillion-dollar investments too risky....
ECO-IMPERIALISM AND THE DRIVE TO DESTROY THE FREE MARKET
Max Keiser is a new kind of terrorist. He uses the Internet and boycotts to manipulate stock prices. In that way he forces corporations to comply with his brand of radical environmentalism and Sustainable Development. He puts his hands around corporate throats and squeezes until they comply with his demands. Max Keiser and his ilk hate business and they hate free enterprise and are using these tactics to redistribute wealth and cause chaos in the market place. Keiser’s operation is called “KarmaBanque.” That new age-focused name alone should give readers an idea of the wacky worldview that spews from Keiser’s brain. But his brand of activism is much more sinister. He calls himself a financial anarchist and he and his partner, Stacy Herbert, consider themselves the “Bonnie and Clyde of the Internet.” In their own words, “KarmaBanque is at the center of a new activist movement which combines the civil disobedience of Gandhi with the financial savvy of George Soros to help change the economic and political landscape of the world!” Says Keiser’s web page, “Karmabanque describes its audience as ‘Activists, Anarchists, and Hedge Funds.’ It’s a stock exchange of sorts, but with a brilliant and maniacal twist: it trades on the strength of boycotts.” To put it in the simplest possible terms, Keiser targets companies that are vulnerable to boycotts, such as Coca Cola, which relies heavily on daily consumer buying. Once the boycott has begun, Keiser tells his minions to buy options on the targeted company’s stock -- options betting that the stock price will go down. As the boycott drags down the company’s stock, Keiser and his followers make a quick buck on the options. Meanwhile, the company, aware of what has happened to it, tries to strike a deal with Keiser to get the boycott stopped. The deal? Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). That is a euphemism for Sustainable Development. In other words, corporations are blackmailed into using its profits to promote the Kyoto Global Warming Treaty, for example. Such tactics have been used to stop banks from financing development in Third World countries, because for these poor people to acquire luxuries such as electricity and clean water is, in the minds of Max Keiser and his gang, “unsustainable” and must be stopped....
PETA Rent-A-Protester
Finding zany news about People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is often like shooting fish in a barrel. "Feeling a little low on cash?" wrote PETA in a recent email recruiting activists to protest Ringling Bros. Circus in Chicago, "PETA's here to help." According to the Chicago Sun-Times, PETA is so hard up for true believers that it is now paying people -- to the tune of ten dollars a pop -- to protest for the self-appointed "complete press sluts." And yesterday Rome's city council gutted common sense when it caved to pressure from PETA and banned goldfish bowls. The council swallowed the PETA piranhas' propaganda hook, line, and sinker -- citing trauma to animals about as smart as ... goldfish. To paraphrase feminist pioneer Gloria Steinem (who was, herself, paraphrasing someone else): Rome's animal lovers need this ban like a fish needs a bicycle. And we're left asking, doesn't Rome have bigger fish to fry?
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State and Federal Treasuries "Profit" More from Gasoline Sales than U.S. Oil Industry
High gas prices and strong oil company earnings have generated a rash of new tax proposals in recent months. Some lawmakers have called for new “windfall profits” taxes—similar to the one signed into federal law in 1980 by President Jimmy Carter—that would tax the profits of major oil companies at a rate of 50 percent. Meanwhile, many commentators have voiced support for the idea of increasing gas taxes to keep the price of gasoline at post-Katrina highs, thereby reducing gas consumption. However, often ignored in this debate is the fact that oil industry profits are highly cyclical, making them just as prone to “busts” as to “booms.” Additionally, tax collections on the production and import of gasoline by state and federal governments are already near historic highs. In fact, in recent decades governments have collected far more revenue from gasoline taxes than the largest U.S. oil companies have collectively earned in domestic profits. According to data compiled by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration, the domestic profits of the 25 largest oil companies in the U.S. have been highly volatile since the late 1970s. In contrast, federal and state taxes on gasoline production and imports have been climbing steadily since the late 1970s and now total roughly $58.4 billion. Due in part to substantial hikes in the federal gasoline excise tax in 1983, 1990, and 1993, annual tax revenues have continued to grow. Since 1977, governments collected more than $1.34 trillion, after adjusting for inflation, in gasoline tax revenues—more than twice the amount of domestic profits earned by major U.S. oil companies during the same period. As illustrated in Table 1, since 1977, there have been only three years (1980, 1981, and 1982) in which domestic oil industry profits exceeded government gas tax collections. In the remaining years, gasoline tax collections consistently exceeded oil industry profits, reaching a peak in 1995 when gas tax collections outpaced industry profits by a factor of 7.3....
When government's rights eclipse property rights
"Sustainable development" is a term used to justify new policies that, inevitably, erode private property rights. Proponents of sustainable development are convinced that the collective benefits of these policies far outweigh the value of any individual's private property rights that may be lost. Apparently, most Americans are willing to accept this reasoning. The people of New London, Conn., through their elected officials, are taking the private property of several of its citizens to give to other private citizens who promise to pay more taxes. The people of Riviera Beach, Fla., are planning to take the private property of nearly 6,000 citizens to give to other private citizens who promise to pay more taxes. This practice has become quite acceptable over the last quarter-century. The clear language of the constitutional requirement that land taken by government be for "public use" has been changed by practice to allow government to take land for "public benefit." Having secured this new authority, which the Supreme Court validated in the recent Kelo decision, government has expanded its authority to restrict use of private property in a variety of ways that are said to provide a collective public benefit. The King County ordinance, for example, which prohibits private land owners from using 65 percent of their land – without compensation – turns the U.S. Constitution on its head. The policy is justified and acceptable because it is said to provide a collective public benefit of greater value than the loss suffered by the individual private property owners. These are only a few examples of how sustainable development is eroding the principle of private property rights. These are big, gaudy examples. Sustainable development is permeating public policy through ordinances, rules and regulations that are rapidly sucking all the oxygen from the very idea that individuals have an inalienable right to own and use private property....
Tim Russert's Conflict of Interest
During the September 18 edition of NBC's Meet the Press, host Tim Russert conducted a softball interview with disgraced former President Bill Clinton about his "global initiative" meeting being held in New York. During the conversation Clinton hinted at why Russert had invited him to do the show. "I'm not pandering here to NBC," Clinton said, but he sang the praises of Jeffrey Immelt, the head of General Electric, the parent company of NBC. Clinton said Immelt was one of those business leaders who had accepted the man-made global warming theory and was pursuing a "clean energy future" for his company. It wasn't mentioned that Immelt was a participant in the Clinton conference. Now why didn't Russert tell us that? On the surface, it seems that Immelt has made common cause with the radical environmentalists. As National Public Radio has put it, Immelt has announced major investments in so-called "green technologies" to "limit the levels of carbon dioxide and other environmentally harmful agents" produced by his businesses. Action Fund Management LLC (AFM), investment adviser to the Free Enterprise Action Fund, has sent a letter to Immelt asking:....
Increasing the Global Transportation Fuel Supply
Despite soaring oil prices, oil and gas producers worldwide have failed to expand either supply or investment levels, falling short of meeting the rapidly growing global demand. The key challenge is ensuring an adequate supply of transportation fuel for cars and airplanes--not electricity, which can be generated from coal and nuclear reactors. The war on terrorism and operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as high rates of economic growth in China and the United States have caused additional gasoline and jet fuel shortages that have led to higher prices. Fuel costs represent an indirect tax that may seriously affect the economy, possibly even causing a global recession. Furthermore, leading industry experts believe that the global oil well is running dry. Even if this is not the case, developing the remaining supply poses problems that continue to confound the industry. Insufficient Infrastructure. Currently, supply is limited by insufficient transportation and refining capacity. No new refineries have been built in the U.S. in the past three decades. In addition, world spare tanker capacity, which is essential to transport oil from overseas, no longer exists, and excess refinery capacity is at an all-time low. Overregulation. While many oil fields are headed for depletion, national oil companies control 58 percent of oil and natural gas reserves. Laws requiring the government to own and/or control significant shares in oil ventures are common in many oil-producing countries. Overregulation prevents oil companies from owning mineral rights, while weak rule of law and insufficient protection of property rights in many oil-rich regions makes multibillion-dollar investments too risky....
ECO-IMPERIALISM AND THE DRIVE TO DESTROY THE FREE MARKET
Max Keiser is a new kind of terrorist. He uses the Internet and boycotts to manipulate stock prices. In that way he forces corporations to comply with his brand of radical environmentalism and Sustainable Development. He puts his hands around corporate throats and squeezes until they comply with his demands. Max Keiser and his ilk hate business and they hate free enterprise and are using these tactics to redistribute wealth and cause chaos in the market place. Keiser’s operation is called “KarmaBanque.” That new age-focused name alone should give readers an idea of the wacky worldview that spews from Keiser’s brain. But his brand of activism is much more sinister. He calls himself a financial anarchist and he and his partner, Stacy Herbert, consider themselves the “Bonnie and Clyde of the Internet.” In their own words, “KarmaBanque is at the center of a new activist movement which combines the civil disobedience of Gandhi with the financial savvy of George Soros to help change the economic and political landscape of the world!” Says Keiser’s web page, “Karmabanque describes its audience as ‘Activists, Anarchists, and Hedge Funds.’ It’s a stock exchange of sorts, but with a brilliant and maniacal twist: it trades on the strength of boycotts.” To put it in the simplest possible terms, Keiser targets companies that are vulnerable to boycotts, such as Coca Cola, which relies heavily on daily consumer buying. Once the boycott has begun, Keiser tells his minions to buy options on the targeted company’s stock -- options betting that the stock price will go down. As the boycott drags down the company’s stock, Keiser and his followers make a quick buck on the options. Meanwhile, the company, aware of what has happened to it, tries to strike a deal with Keiser to get the boycott stopped. The deal? Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). That is a euphemism for Sustainable Development. In other words, corporations are blackmailed into using its profits to promote the Kyoto Global Warming Treaty, for example. Such tactics have been used to stop banks from financing development in Third World countries, because for these poor people to acquire luxuries such as electricity and clean water is, in the minds of Max Keiser and his gang, “unsustainable” and must be stopped....
PETA Rent-A-Protester
Finding zany news about People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is often like shooting fish in a barrel. "Feeling a little low on cash?" wrote PETA in a recent email recruiting activists to protest Ringling Bros. Circus in Chicago, "PETA's here to help." According to the Chicago Sun-Times, PETA is so hard up for true believers that it is now paying people -- to the tune of ten dollars a pop -- to protest for the self-appointed "complete press sluts." And yesterday Rome's city council gutted common sense when it caved to pressure from PETA and banned goldfish bowls. The council swallowed the PETA piranhas' propaganda hook, line, and sinker -- citing trauma to animals about as smart as ... goldfish. To paraphrase feminist pioneer Gloria Steinem (who was, herself, paraphrasing someone else): Rome's animal lovers need this ban like a fish needs a bicycle. And we're left asking, doesn't Rome have bigger fish to fry?
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Friday, October 28, 2005
NEWS ROUNDUP
CBM opinions vary at panel hearing A Montana legislative panel studying oil and gas issues heard mixed views Thursday from Wyoming and Montana residents on whether the state needs better laws to protect surface landowners facing mineral development. Some ranchers said their experience with developers has been good and that Montana doesn't need more regulations. Others said they've lost wells and worry about drained aquifers and long-term damage. Members of the Montana Environmental Quality Council subcommittee met at Sheridan College to hear about Wyoming's split-estate law, which went into effect in July, and to gather comments from the public. More than 50 people attended the session, which lasted all afternoon. The panel will tour coalbed methane sites in both states today. The subcommittee was formed by the passage of House Bill 790 in the 2005 Legislature and is charged with studying surface-use agreements for all mineral development as well as reclamation and bonding for coalbed methane operations. Study results and possible recommendations will be presented to the 2007 Legislature....
Montana panel hears about BLM-Wyoming feud Western states need to band together and oppose a federal move to disregard state laws protecting the rights of landowners affected by mineral development, an advocate for landowners in Wyoming said. Laurie Goodman of the Landowners Association of Wyoming told a Montana panel Thursday that the Bureau of Land Management was attempting to avoid applying a new Wyoming law to lands where it owns the mineral rights. The Wyoming law gives surface owners more bargaining power and rights when dealing with oil and gas producers seeking to extract the minerals owned by someone else under their land. When the land surface and minerals underneath are owned by two different parties, it is known as a split estate....
Departing Interior official says demand drives drilling As long as natural gas prices remain high, the push to drill in the Rocky Mountains will continue, said a former Montana lawyer who is stepping down today as a high-level Bush administration appointee in the Interior Department. Rebecca Watson, assistant secretary for land and minerals since January 2002, leaves her office to take a position with a Denver law firm. "This job is a very high-pressure, demanding job," Watson, a former Helena attorney, said Thursday. "It's time for me to let someone else bring their perspective." She said she and her husband are looking forward to returning to the West. Watson was put in the spotlight regularly while at the Interior Department, especially in connection with the Bush administration's drive to accelerate oil and gas development....
The Elk Problem Meanwhile, thousands of elk freely move around the Greater Yellowstone area, and some of them carry brucellosis, the same dreaded livestock disease that has caused decades of political gridlock over bison management. We have been brought to our knees trying to keep bison away from cattle in two relatively small areas on the boundary of Yellowstone Park. Imagine the controversy trying to keep elk away from cattle throughout the Greater Yellowstone area! So why isn’t everybody suffering from high blood pressure over our “little” elk problem? Why aren’t agencies worried about elk transferring brucellosis to cattle? Or Montana losing its coveted brucellosis-free status? Or what we’d have to do to fix the elk problem? To get these answers, I had a long chat with Keith Aune, chief of wildlife research for the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks. Aune has studied the brucellosis situation for years and is now deeply immersed in the bison controversy....
Ski resort planner at odds with conservationists For now, the ski trails on the Maclay Ranch are just freshly turned bands of brown earth. But they are the beginnings of what Tom Maclay hopes will someday be a world-class resort rivaling Vail, Sun Valley or Lake Tahoe. In Maclay's vision for the mountains south of Missoula, skiing would extend beyond the 2,960-acre ranch where his great-grandfather settled in 1883. Maclay wants to put skiers on Lolo Peak in a national forest near the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness, and market an extraordinary vertical drop of 5,342 feet. Skiers - possibly as many as 7,500 a day - would descend north- facing slopes to the ranch and its alpine and Nordic skiing, 2,200 houses and condominiums, and a resort village. Golf, a hotel, conference and sports centers and access to excellent fly fishing are part of the four- season Bitterroot Resort plan....
Burton accepts temporary Interior post One of Wyoming's own has accepted a temporary appointment to a key energy post at the U.S. Department of Interior. Johnnie Burton will be acting assistant secretary of Interior for land and minerals management while the White House searches for a permanent replacement for Rebecca Watson, whose resignation is effective today. The appointment means Burton will serve double-duty, because she will maintain her current position as director of the Minerals Management Service....
NPS looks to add genetically pure trout to Yellowstone Park The National Park Service is proposing to poison all the fish in a high mountain lake and about 17 miles of connected streams in the northwest corner of Yellowstone National Park and replace them with genetically pure westslope cutthroat trout. Some of the fish to be poisoned in the Specimen Creek drainage are Yellowstone cutthroat. Others are hybrids or rainbow trout. Both westslope and Yellowstone cutthroat are dwindling native species in and around the park and environmental groups have pushed to have them listed under the Endangered Species Act. However, while the health of a fish population is important, its location is also important to fishery managers....
Delta smelt in deep decline, survey says New data indicate that a tiny fish used to gauge the health of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta may be on the brink of extinction, portending a grim future for the vast, brackish waterway contiguous to the San Francisco Bay. The delta smelt, an aquatic canary-in-the-coal-mine for the bay-delta system, may be suffering from multiple factors, including fresh water diversions, toxic chemicals and invasive species, scientists say. Early results from a California Fish and Game trawl survey show that the smelt -- listed as threatened under the U.S. and state endangered species acts -- is at its lowest level since the surveys began in 1967....
Pre-hearing set on rural Nevada water The state Division of Water Resources plans a Jan. 5 conference to work out details for a hearing that could decide the fate of a $2 billion plan to slake the Las Vegas Valley's growing thirst with groundwater from rural Nevada. "We're going to figure out our game plan - when are we going to hearing, who is going to participate," said Susan Joseph-Taylor, chief of the division's hearings section. At issue are 33 Las Vegas Valley Water District applications for groundwater rights in Lincoln and White Pine Counties. The applications were filed in 1989 and later transferred to the Southern Nevada Water Authority, of which the water district is a member. Water authority officials expect the applications to produce up to 180,000 acre-feet of water a year, a total they hope to expand through reuse or other means to about 300,000 acre-feet a year. That's enough water to supply almost 600,000 households....
Idaho Power aims to relicense dams after settlement talks fail Idaho Power Co. is asking federal regulators to resume a review of a new license for its Hells Canyon dam complex, after yearlong negotiations with state and federal agencies, Indian tribes and environmental groups failed to result in a settlement over issues including whether the company should erect fish ladders for migrating salmon. The three 50-year-old dams, located along a 25-mile stretch of the rugged Snake River canyon dividing Idaho from Oregon, are Idaho Power's largest, with a combined output of 1,167 megawatts, capable of lighting nearly 900,000 homes. The last license expired in July 2005, and a temporary license is now in place as the utility asks the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for permission to operate them for another 30 years. In an Oct. 20 letter, Idaho Power told the commission its talks with more than a dozen government agencies, including the National Marine Fisheries Services, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Forest Service, Idaho and Oregon state environmental quality offices, and the Nez Perce and Shoshone-Bannock tribes, had ended without a pact....
E.P.A. Backs Bush Plan to Cut Air Pollution by Power Plants After its apparent demise in Congress six months ago, the Bush administration's plan to reduce air pollution from power plants returned to life on Thursday as the Environmental Protection Agency said the plan would cost less than competing proposals. The assessment came after Stephen L. Johnson, the agency administrator, presented members of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee with a detailed comparison of the administration plan, known as Clear Skies, and several others. All of the bills that were analyzed by the E.P.A. staff are intended to curb emissions of nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide and mercury. Mr. Johnson concluded that any legislation was preferable to the current regulations, which apply only to the eastern half of the country and have come under a barrage of legal challenges. But in defending legislation as a preferred alternative to regulations because statute is less vulnerable to litigation, he argued only for the administration approach although he hinted that he would be open to compromise....
Louisiana horseman wins RTCA White Horse Award Louis Pomes, who lost 26 of his own horses in the flooding caused by Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana then worked to rescue an estimated 100 other horses following the storm, received the Race Track Chaplaincy of America’s third White Horse Award at an awards luncheon on Thursday at Belmont Park. The award is annually presented to recognize a member of the horse industry for an act of bravery. Pomes, a rancher and government worker in rural St. Bernard Parish near New Orleans, lost mostly Paint horses, whom he had bred for years for ranch work and sold for showing. He helped rescue abandoned horses, many of whom had become dehydrated after drinking contaminated water....
Column: Windmill man preserves country icon Most folks call him the windmill man. For years he was a common sight around town, and along miles of country roads, in his rusty pickup with its bed piled high with pump jacks, wheels and windmill heads. That was before the county commissioner ran a stop sign and slammed a front-end loader into the driver’s side of his pickup while he was wheeling home from repairing a windmill. The old truck rolled, tools scattered and when the dust settled he pulled his crumpled 88-year-old body out of the mangled cab. A Mediflight ride and a battery of x-rays would later determine he had a slew of snapped ribs and a broken neck....
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CBM opinions vary at panel hearing A Montana legislative panel studying oil and gas issues heard mixed views Thursday from Wyoming and Montana residents on whether the state needs better laws to protect surface landowners facing mineral development. Some ranchers said their experience with developers has been good and that Montana doesn't need more regulations. Others said they've lost wells and worry about drained aquifers and long-term damage. Members of the Montana Environmental Quality Council subcommittee met at Sheridan College to hear about Wyoming's split-estate law, which went into effect in July, and to gather comments from the public. More than 50 people attended the session, which lasted all afternoon. The panel will tour coalbed methane sites in both states today. The subcommittee was formed by the passage of House Bill 790 in the 2005 Legislature and is charged with studying surface-use agreements for all mineral development as well as reclamation and bonding for coalbed methane operations. Study results and possible recommendations will be presented to the 2007 Legislature....
Montana panel hears about BLM-Wyoming feud Western states need to band together and oppose a federal move to disregard state laws protecting the rights of landowners affected by mineral development, an advocate for landowners in Wyoming said. Laurie Goodman of the Landowners Association of Wyoming told a Montana panel Thursday that the Bureau of Land Management was attempting to avoid applying a new Wyoming law to lands where it owns the mineral rights. The Wyoming law gives surface owners more bargaining power and rights when dealing with oil and gas producers seeking to extract the minerals owned by someone else under their land. When the land surface and minerals underneath are owned by two different parties, it is known as a split estate....
Departing Interior official says demand drives drilling As long as natural gas prices remain high, the push to drill in the Rocky Mountains will continue, said a former Montana lawyer who is stepping down today as a high-level Bush administration appointee in the Interior Department. Rebecca Watson, assistant secretary for land and minerals since January 2002, leaves her office to take a position with a Denver law firm. "This job is a very high-pressure, demanding job," Watson, a former Helena attorney, said Thursday. "It's time for me to let someone else bring their perspective." She said she and her husband are looking forward to returning to the West. Watson was put in the spotlight regularly while at the Interior Department, especially in connection with the Bush administration's drive to accelerate oil and gas development....
The Elk Problem Meanwhile, thousands of elk freely move around the Greater Yellowstone area, and some of them carry brucellosis, the same dreaded livestock disease that has caused decades of political gridlock over bison management. We have been brought to our knees trying to keep bison away from cattle in two relatively small areas on the boundary of Yellowstone Park. Imagine the controversy trying to keep elk away from cattle throughout the Greater Yellowstone area! So why isn’t everybody suffering from high blood pressure over our “little” elk problem? Why aren’t agencies worried about elk transferring brucellosis to cattle? Or Montana losing its coveted brucellosis-free status? Or what we’d have to do to fix the elk problem? To get these answers, I had a long chat with Keith Aune, chief of wildlife research for the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks. Aune has studied the brucellosis situation for years and is now deeply immersed in the bison controversy....
Ski resort planner at odds with conservationists For now, the ski trails on the Maclay Ranch are just freshly turned bands of brown earth. But they are the beginnings of what Tom Maclay hopes will someday be a world-class resort rivaling Vail, Sun Valley or Lake Tahoe. In Maclay's vision for the mountains south of Missoula, skiing would extend beyond the 2,960-acre ranch where his great-grandfather settled in 1883. Maclay wants to put skiers on Lolo Peak in a national forest near the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness, and market an extraordinary vertical drop of 5,342 feet. Skiers - possibly as many as 7,500 a day - would descend north- facing slopes to the ranch and its alpine and Nordic skiing, 2,200 houses and condominiums, and a resort village. Golf, a hotel, conference and sports centers and access to excellent fly fishing are part of the four- season Bitterroot Resort plan....
Burton accepts temporary Interior post One of Wyoming's own has accepted a temporary appointment to a key energy post at the U.S. Department of Interior. Johnnie Burton will be acting assistant secretary of Interior for land and minerals management while the White House searches for a permanent replacement for Rebecca Watson, whose resignation is effective today. The appointment means Burton will serve double-duty, because she will maintain her current position as director of the Minerals Management Service....
NPS looks to add genetically pure trout to Yellowstone Park The National Park Service is proposing to poison all the fish in a high mountain lake and about 17 miles of connected streams in the northwest corner of Yellowstone National Park and replace them with genetically pure westslope cutthroat trout. Some of the fish to be poisoned in the Specimen Creek drainage are Yellowstone cutthroat. Others are hybrids or rainbow trout. Both westslope and Yellowstone cutthroat are dwindling native species in and around the park and environmental groups have pushed to have them listed under the Endangered Species Act. However, while the health of a fish population is important, its location is also important to fishery managers....
Delta smelt in deep decline, survey says New data indicate that a tiny fish used to gauge the health of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta may be on the brink of extinction, portending a grim future for the vast, brackish waterway contiguous to the San Francisco Bay. The delta smelt, an aquatic canary-in-the-coal-mine for the bay-delta system, may be suffering from multiple factors, including fresh water diversions, toxic chemicals and invasive species, scientists say. Early results from a California Fish and Game trawl survey show that the smelt -- listed as threatened under the U.S. and state endangered species acts -- is at its lowest level since the surveys began in 1967....
Pre-hearing set on rural Nevada water The state Division of Water Resources plans a Jan. 5 conference to work out details for a hearing that could decide the fate of a $2 billion plan to slake the Las Vegas Valley's growing thirst with groundwater from rural Nevada. "We're going to figure out our game plan - when are we going to hearing, who is going to participate," said Susan Joseph-Taylor, chief of the division's hearings section. At issue are 33 Las Vegas Valley Water District applications for groundwater rights in Lincoln and White Pine Counties. The applications were filed in 1989 and later transferred to the Southern Nevada Water Authority, of which the water district is a member. Water authority officials expect the applications to produce up to 180,000 acre-feet of water a year, a total they hope to expand through reuse or other means to about 300,000 acre-feet a year. That's enough water to supply almost 600,000 households....
Idaho Power aims to relicense dams after settlement talks fail Idaho Power Co. is asking federal regulators to resume a review of a new license for its Hells Canyon dam complex, after yearlong negotiations with state and federal agencies, Indian tribes and environmental groups failed to result in a settlement over issues including whether the company should erect fish ladders for migrating salmon. The three 50-year-old dams, located along a 25-mile stretch of the rugged Snake River canyon dividing Idaho from Oregon, are Idaho Power's largest, with a combined output of 1,167 megawatts, capable of lighting nearly 900,000 homes. The last license expired in July 2005, and a temporary license is now in place as the utility asks the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for permission to operate them for another 30 years. In an Oct. 20 letter, Idaho Power told the commission its talks with more than a dozen government agencies, including the National Marine Fisheries Services, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Forest Service, Idaho and Oregon state environmental quality offices, and the Nez Perce and Shoshone-Bannock tribes, had ended without a pact....
E.P.A. Backs Bush Plan to Cut Air Pollution by Power Plants After its apparent demise in Congress six months ago, the Bush administration's plan to reduce air pollution from power plants returned to life on Thursday as the Environmental Protection Agency said the plan would cost less than competing proposals. The assessment came after Stephen L. Johnson, the agency administrator, presented members of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee with a detailed comparison of the administration plan, known as Clear Skies, and several others. All of the bills that were analyzed by the E.P.A. staff are intended to curb emissions of nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide and mercury. Mr. Johnson concluded that any legislation was preferable to the current regulations, which apply only to the eastern half of the country and have come under a barrage of legal challenges. But in defending legislation as a preferred alternative to regulations because statute is less vulnerable to litigation, he argued only for the administration approach although he hinted that he would be open to compromise....
Louisiana horseman wins RTCA White Horse Award Louis Pomes, who lost 26 of his own horses in the flooding caused by Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana then worked to rescue an estimated 100 other horses following the storm, received the Race Track Chaplaincy of America’s third White Horse Award at an awards luncheon on Thursday at Belmont Park. The award is annually presented to recognize a member of the horse industry for an act of bravery. Pomes, a rancher and government worker in rural St. Bernard Parish near New Orleans, lost mostly Paint horses, whom he had bred for years for ranch work and sold for showing. He helped rescue abandoned horses, many of whom had become dehydrated after drinking contaminated water....
Column: Windmill man preserves country icon Most folks call him the windmill man. For years he was a common sight around town, and along miles of country roads, in his rusty pickup with its bed piled high with pump jacks, wheels and windmill heads. That was before the county commissioner ran a stop sign and slammed a front-end loader into the driver’s side of his pickup while he was wheeling home from repairing a windmill. The old truck rolled, tools scattered and when the dust settled he pulled his crumpled 88-year-old body out of the mangled cab. A Mediflight ride and a battery of x-rays would later determine he had a slew of snapped ribs and a broken neck....
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Thursday, October 27, 2005
NEWS ROUNDUP
Gabriel says state will go ahead with prairie dog poisoning Despite court appeals over a U.S. Forest Service plan to manage prairie dogs, the state intends to move ahead with its own plan to poison the animals on private property, South Dakota Agriculture Secretary Larry Gabriel said. Six counties in South Dakota and Nebraska and several grazing groups are appealing a U.S. Forest Service proposal to manage prairie dogs. They claim the proposal would not kill enough prairie dogs on federal land. Another appeal filed by seven wildlife conservation group claims the Forest Service plan would kill too many prairie dogs and could threaten endangered black-footed ferrets in Conata Basin. Prairie dogs are a main food source for the ferrets....
Feds, state spar over elk refuge management The manager of the National Elk Refuge has invited members of the Wyoming Game and Fish Commission to tour the refuge to clear up what he sees as a misunderstanding about refuge operations. Refuge Manager Barry Reiswig has invited the commissioners to take a tour a get "the straight story" after participating in an Oct. 10 teleconference with them. In the teleconference, the commissioners expressed concern about a proposed management plan for elk on the refuge. The commissioners' comments came after John Emmerich of the Wyoming Game and Fish Department's Wildlife Division presented staff objections to what he described as a mortality trigger for the refuge's supplemental elk feeding program. The commission voted unanimously to send written comments to the refuge. The commission commented that, "Delaying feeding until elk mortality rates are detectable at the 5 percent level is highly questionable and unacceptable."....
Bill targets lands for mining sales Mining companies would be able to buy public lands without proving there's anything worth mining under a bill approved by the U.S. House Committee on Resources Wednesday. The vote was 24-16 in favor of passage, with U.S. Rep. Barbara Cubin, R-Wyo., voting for the measure. The bill, sponsored by Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Calif., also includes opening the northern coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to energy production, granting more control of off-shore energy production to coastal states including California and Florida, and massive leases for oil shale development in Wyoming, Colorado and Utah. While the bill no longer includes language that would allow sale of national parks for mining -- as an earlier version had proposed -- conservationists decried the measure as "a gift to Western developers."....
Column: Lecture Highlights Divided Passions Flushed faces and white knuckles abound, it’s safe to say that the 60 or so attendees at last night’s Northern Rockies Nature Forum “Healthy Forests: An On the Ground Look” lecture care about Montana’s forests, logging, and the political processes synchronizing the two. Unsynchronized, however, and despite equally excited concern, was the four-person panel in the front of the room. Two environmentalists, one logger and one Forest Service employee talked apples and oranges to an audience with little patience for fruit salad. Maggie Pittman, Missoula district Ranger on the Lolo National Forest, spoke briefly of the differences between the Healthy Forest Initiative—federal guidelines, not policy, for administrative action to reduce catastrophic wildfires—and the Healthy Forest Restoration Act, which became law in 2003 to streamline lawsuits and environmental review in the name of forest restoration. Her tone and talk was general—generally optimistic and generally characteristic of an agency employee striving for bipartisanship. Jeff Juel, director of the Ecology Center—a local nonprofit seeking to safeguard Northern Rockies ecosystems—similarly played the generalist, albeit permeated with such liberal-ese statements as “we need to throw the bums out in power that make their wealth off of fossil fuel as fast as possible.”....
Freak out friends with the Pombo mask Just in time for tricks and treats, the Sierra Club gives you an idea for the scariest costume of all...the Pombo mask! What's so scary about Richard Pombo? Plenty. For starters, the California Congressman wants to rewrite the 30-year-old Endangered Species Act to eliminate critical habitat designations. He wants to end a 25 year-old moratorium on oil and gas drilling off our coasts, he's working hard to overturn a ban on ozone-destroying pesticides, and he recently proposed selling 15 national parks to generate revenue. No kidding. Grab some scissors and go to town with the Pombo Halloween Mask. Freak out friends by sending them the Pombo Mask....
Groups sue to block canned hunts of endangered antelope The Humane Society of the United States and other groups asked a federal judge here Wednesday to block a Bush administration rule permitting the so-called "canned" hunting of three antelope species that were listed last month as endangered. Canned hunting usually occurs in large fenced areas where the animals cannot escape, and the Humane Society estimates as many as 1,000 such locations are in the United States. The groups, in a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, say it's illegal and unprecedented to allow the killing of endangered species, in this case three antelope varieties native to northern Africa....
Handling grizzlies: How much is enough? Grizzly bear researchers begin with a ripe deer or elk carcass, a lure that's hard for any bear to resist. Once the animal takes the bait, it's snared by a front paw or caught in a culvert trap, and then tranquilized. Sometimes it's shot with a tranquilizer dart from a tree stand. Once the bear is unconscious, researchers may slip an oxygen tube up its nose to help it breathe, and dab salve in its eyes to keep them moist. Then they take the bear's temperature, clamp a microchip on its ear, and fasten a radio collar around its neck. They clip a swatch of hair, and measure body weight, total length, paw dimensions and fat level. Sometimes they pull a tooth to determine the animal's age. Then they back off, while the bear wakes up, shakes off its hangover and ambles away. A typical capture and collaring takes less than an hour. But it's a difficult experience, and an increasing number of grizzlies have to endure it. Federal and state scientists have ramped up their efforts to monitor the animals, trying to determine whether the West's two biggest grizzly populations deserve continued protection under the Endangered Species Act....
Suit could follow any delisting of marbled murrelet Environmental groups have vowed to stop a plan by the Bush administration that would eliminate federal Endangered Species Act protections for a secretive seabird that nests in California redwoods. Environmentalists in San Francisco, Garberville, Portland and Tucson said Tuesday that they will sue if the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service delists the marbled murrelet, a rare dove-size bird living in forests and oceans along the Pacific Coast. Last week, the agency confirmed that by the end of the year, it will propose removing the threatened species status for the marbled murrelets living in California, Oregon and Washington....
White House in final push on ANWR The US administration has launched a final drive to win approval for oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, hoping to end a decades-long debate that has pitted the benefits of increased domestic oil production against potential environmental damage to the pristine Arctic plains. In an interview with the Financial Times on Wednesday, Gale Norton, interior secretary, said drilling in ANWR would have a minimal environmental impact but would provide a huge boost to domestic oil supplies. "To hear some people discuss it, they make it sound like not there's really not very much there at all," she said. "In a very small area, we have the largest untapped oil resource in the country."....
Pig Eradication To Benefit Island Fox Santa Cruz Islands will be off-limits to the public after this week, to ensure that no visitors are harmed while the National Park Service exterminates roughly 2,500 unwanted swine from the land. NPS restrictions on the island will begin on Nov. 1 and will close off all areas of the island except Scorpion Valley and Prisoner’s Harbor, said Channel Islands National Park Superintendents Russell Galipeau. He said the pigs, which were first introduced to the island by farmers in the 1850s, have since damaged the island’s ecosystem and threatened its endangered fox population, making it necessary to exterminate the pigs. The island should reopen by March 2006, he said. Prohunt Inc. - a New Zealand-based professional hunting firm specializing in the removal of non-native island species - is managing the $5 million pig removal project....
New fees to pay for protected habitats Anyone whos developing property — builders or home owners — soon will be paying higher fees to acquire property for threatened or endangered species. City Council approved the fee increase last week as part of the San Joaquin County Multi-Species Habitat Conservation Open Space Plan. The plan is an agreement between the county, the seven cities in the county and various agencies, including the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the San Joaquin Council of Governments. In 2001, when the plan was originally adopted, the fee was set at $1,500 an acre for the development of natural habitats — those not being used for any purpose — and agricultural habitats, the two most common habitats developed in Lathrop. The current fee for agricultural and natural habitats is $1,819 per acre. As of Dec. 19, that will increase to $3,145 per acre....
Wild horses displaced by Idaho rangeland fire Wild horses won't return to the nearly 300 square miles burned by this summer's Clover Fire until the spring of 2006, a Bureau of Land Management spokeswoman said, and it will cost nearly $8 million to repair the scorched southern Idaho rangeland. About 350 wild horses were displaced by the July fire. Though the animals escaped the flames — which at one point ripped across the range at 500 acres an hour — they were in danger of starving because all but a few small islands of forage were burned, BLM spokeswoman Sky Buffat said Wednesday. BLM officials rounded up the animals, culling 87 from the herd for adoption and sending the rest to holding facilities in Utah. The older animals will remain in the facilities, Buffat said, while 100 of the wild horses will be returned to the rangeland next spring, once enough forage is restored to support them....
Editorial: EPA steps up to protect air quality Energy development is occurring at such a frenzied pace across the West that projects should be more carefully scrutinized than ever. The Bush administration often puts up roadblocks to such reviews, so it was encouraging to see the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency insist that a big natural gas project in southwestern Wyoming must avoid polluting the air. The pristine skies above the Upper Green River Basin offer stunning vistas in the nearby Bridger, Fitzpatrick and Popo Agie Wilderness Areas. That rare purity is at risk. The basin already has about 3,000 natural gas wells, but the U.S. Bureau of Land Management may OK another 10,000. The EPA focused on the Jonah Field, where producers want to add 3,100 wells to the 170 now there and the 497 that have been approved. The expansion could dirty the air because of diesel engines that power drill rigs and other equipment....
Lack of funds hurting BLM best-lands effort The National Landscape Conservation System was established to protect and restore the very best of the nation's public lands administered by the Bureau of Land Management. But five years after its establishment by then-Secretary of Interior Bruce Babbitt, management of these premier lands — including the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in southern Utah — suffers from inadequate funding and insufficient staff, according to a new study released Wednesday by the Wilderness Society and World Resources Institute. "Conversation is supposed to be the priority for these places, but despite the presence of talented and committed staff, the report is dominated nationally by grades of C and D," said the Wilderness Society's Wendy VanAsselt, one of the authors of the report....
Appeals court reverses Park snowmobile ruling A federal judge has reversed a lower court ruling in a case where an inholder in Glacier National Park wants to use his snowmobile to access a remote family cabin in the winter. John McFarland filed suit against the park in February 2000 claiming the park's policy of closing the Inside North Fork Road to snowmobiling violated his right to an easement to his property. McFarland was seeking a special use permit to access a family cabin located in Big Prairie about three miles up the North Fork via snowmobile. That permit was denied by the Park Service, which resulted in the suit. The case weaved its way through U.S. District Court in Missoula and in July, 2003, District Court Judge Donald Molloy ruled that McFarland filed his suit beyond the 12-year statute of limitations and dismissed the suit. McFarland then appealed that ruling to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which reversed Molloy's ruling on Oct. 11....
Dam still injuring Grand Canyon Thirteen years of effort and millions of federal dollars have not been enough to stave off the deterioration of the Colorado River's ecosystem below Glen Canyon Dam, according to a new report released Wednesday. In the most extensive assessment of river conditions in the Grand Canyon since the creation of the Grand Canyon Protection Act in 1992, the U.S. Geological Survey study says endangered native fish species are still struggling, while sandbars and backwaters that serve as habitat for the fish as well as anchors for vegetation, havens for cultural resources and campsites for human visitors continue to decrease. The report, produced by the agency's Grand Canyon Monitoring and Research Center, stopped short of calling federal attempts to restore the river and its shorelines a failure....
Senators unhappy with beef ban threaten trade war with Japan Farm-state senators frustrated with Japan over its ban on U.S. beef exports threatened a trade war Wednesday. Along with leveling a barrage of rhetoric, the senators introduced a bill that would impose tariffs on Japanese imports unless the Asian nation lifts its nearly two-year-old ban on U.S. beef by the end of the year. Japan had slapped the ban on after a mad cow scare in 2003. "I think we're being played for a bunch of suckers," said Sen. Jim Talent, a Missouri Republican. Sen. Max Baucus, a Montana Democrat, chose the word "chumps." Most of the senators supporting the bill are committed to free trade and said they hoped that the threat of sanctions would give U.S. trade negotiators leverage to force the Japanese government's hand....
Lawmakers Postpone Meat Origin Labels Grocery shoppers will have to wait two more years for labels telling where their meat comes from, under a bill moving toward approval in Congress. Originally proposed for 2004, mandatory meat labeling is opposed by meatpackers and supermarkets who say it's a record-keeping nightmare. House-Senate negotiators agreed late Wednesday to postpone it until 2008. Western ranchers have been counting on the labels to help sell their beef. Labeling went into effect last April for fish and shellfish. The delay is part of a $100 billion spending bill for food and farm programs for the budget year that began Oct. 1. The House and Senate passed different versions of the bill, and a conference committee signed off Wednesday on a final version....
===
Gabriel says state will go ahead with prairie dog poisoning Despite court appeals over a U.S. Forest Service plan to manage prairie dogs, the state intends to move ahead with its own plan to poison the animals on private property, South Dakota Agriculture Secretary Larry Gabriel said. Six counties in South Dakota and Nebraska and several grazing groups are appealing a U.S. Forest Service proposal to manage prairie dogs. They claim the proposal would not kill enough prairie dogs on federal land. Another appeal filed by seven wildlife conservation group claims the Forest Service plan would kill too many prairie dogs and could threaten endangered black-footed ferrets in Conata Basin. Prairie dogs are a main food source for the ferrets....
Feds, state spar over elk refuge management The manager of the National Elk Refuge has invited members of the Wyoming Game and Fish Commission to tour the refuge to clear up what he sees as a misunderstanding about refuge operations. Refuge Manager Barry Reiswig has invited the commissioners to take a tour a get "the straight story" after participating in an Oct. 10 teleconference with them. In the teleconference, the commissioners expressed concern about a proposed management plan for elk on the refuge. The commissioners' comments came after John Emmerich of the Wyoming Game and Fish Department's Wildlife Division presented staff objections to what he described as a mortality trigger for the refuge's supplemental elk feeding program. The commission voted unanimously to send written comments to the refuge. The commission commented that, "Delaying feeding until elk mortality rates are detectable at the 5 percent level is highly questionable and unacceptable."....
Bill targets lands for mining sales Mining companies would be able to buy public lands without proving there's anything worth mining under a bill approved by the U.S. House Committee on Resources Wednesday. The vote was 24-16 in favor of passage, with U.S. Rep. Barbara Cubin, R-Wyo., voting for the measure. The bill, sponsored by Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Calif., also includes opening the northern coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to energy production, granting more control of off-shore energy production to coastal states including California and Florida, and massive leases for oil shale development in Wyoming, Colorado and Utah. While the bill no longer includes language that would allow sale of national parks for mining -- as an earlier version had proposed -- conservationists decried the measure as "a gift to Western developers."....
Column: Lecture Highlights Divided Passions Flushed faces and white knuckles abound, it’s safe to say that the 60 or so attendees at last night’s Northern Rockies Nature Forum “Healthy Forests: An On the Ground Look” lecture care about Montana’s forests, logging, and the political processes synchronizing the two. Unsynchronized, however, and despite equally excited concern, was the four-person panel in the front of the room. Two environmentalists, one logger and one Forest Service employee talked apples and oranges to an audience with little patience for fruit salad. Maggie Pittman, Missoula district Ranger on the Lolo National Forest, spoke briefly of the differences between the Healthy Forest Initiative—federal guidelines, not policy, for administrative action to reduce catastrophic wildfires—and the Healthy Forest Restoration Act, which became law in 2003 to streamline lawsuits and environmental review in the name of forest restoration. Her tone and talk was general—generally optimistic and generally characteristic of an agency employee striving for bipartisanship. Jeff Juel, director of the Ecology Center—a local nonprofit seeking to safeguard Northern Rockies ecosystems—similarly played the generalist, albeit permeated with such liberal-ese statements as “we need to throw the bums out in power that make their wealth off of fossil fuel as fast as possible.”....
Freak out friends with the Pombo mask Just in time for tricks and treats, the Sierra Club gives you an idea for the scariest costume of all...the Pombo mask! What's so scary about Richard Pombo? Plenty. For starters, the California Congressman wants to rewrite the 30-year-old Endangered Species Act to eliminate critical habitat designations. He wants to end a 25 year-old moratorium on oil and gas drilling off our coasts, he's working hard to overturn a ban on ozone-destroying pesticides, and he recently proposed selling 15 national parks to generate revenue. No kidding. Grab some scissors and go to town with the Pombo Halloween Mask. Freak out friends by sending them the Pombo Mask....
Groups sue to block canned hunts of endangered antelope The Humane Society of the United States and other groups asked a federal judge here Wednesday to block a Bush administration rule permitting the so-called "canned" hunting of three antelope species that were listed last month as endangered. Canned hunting usually occurs in large fenced areas where the animals cannot escape, and the Humane Society estimates as many as 1,000 such locations are in the United States. The groups, in a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, say it's illegal and unprecedented to allow the killing of endangered species, in this case three antelope varieties native to northern Africa....
Handling grizzlies: How much is enough? Grizzly bear researchers begin with a ripe deer or elk carcass, a lure that's hard for any bear to resist. Once the animal takes the bait, it's snared by a front paw or caught in a culvert trap, and then tranquilized. Sometimes it's shot with a tranquilizer dart from a tree stand. Once the bear is unconscious, researchers may slip an oxygen tube up its nose to help it breathe, and dab salve in its eyes to keep them moist. Then they take the bear's temperature, clamp a microchip on its ear, and fasten a radio collar around its neck. They clip a swatch of hair, and measure body weight, total length, paw dimensions and fat level. Sometimes they pull a tooth to determine the animal's age. Then they back off, while the bear wakes up, shakes off its hangover and ambles away. A typical capture and collaring takes less than an hour. But it's a difficult experience, and an increasing number of grizzlies have to endure it. Federal and state scientists have ramped up their efforts to monitor the animals, trying to determine whether the West's two biggest grizzly populations deserve continued protection under the Endangered Species Act....
Suit could follow any delisting of marbled murrelet Environmental groups have vowed to stop a plan by the Bush administration that would eliminate federal Endangered Species Act protections for a secretive seabird that nests in California redwoods. Environmentalists in San Francisco, Garberville, Portland and Tucson said Tuesday that they will sue if the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service delists the marbled murrelet, a rare dove-size bird living in forests and oceans along the Pacific Coast. Last week, the agency confirmed that by the end of the year, it will propose removing the threatened species status for the marbled murrelets living in California, Oregon and Washington....
White House in final push on ANWR The US administration has launched a final drive to win approval for oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, hoping to end a decades-long debate that has pitted the benefits of increased domestic oil production against potential environmental damage to the pristine Arctic plains. In an interview with the Financial Times on Wednesday, Gale Norton, interior secretary, said drilling in ANWR would have a minimal environmental impact but would provide a huge boost to domestic oil supplies. "To hear some people discuss it, they make it sound like not there's really not very much there at all," she said. "In a very small area, we have the largest untapped oil resource in the country."....
Pig Eradication To Benefit Island Fox Santa Cruz Islands will be off-limits to the public after this week, to ensure that no visitors are harmed while the National Park Service exterminates roughly 2,500 unwanted swine from the land. NPS restrictions on the island will begin on Nov. 1 and will close off all areas of the island except Scorpion Valley and Prisoner’s Harbor, said Channel Islands National Park Superintendents Russell Galipeau. He said the pigs, which were first introduced to the island by farmers in the 1850s, have since damaged the island’s ecosystem and threatened its endangered fox population, making it necessary to exterminate the pigs. The island should reopen by March 2006, he said. Prohunt Inc. - a New Zealand-based professional hunting firm specializing in the removal of non-native island species - is managing the $5 million pig removal project....
New fees to pay for protected habitats Anyone whos developing property — builders or home owners — soon will be paying higher fees to acquire property for threatened or endangered species. City Council approved the fee increase last week as part of the San Joaquin County Multi-Species Habitat Conservation Open Space Plan. The plan is an agreement between the county, the seven cities in the county and various agencies, including the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the San Joaquin Council of Governments. In 2001, when the plan was originally adopted, the fee was set at $1,500 an acre for the development of natural habitats — those not being used for any purpose — and agricultural habitats, the two most common habitats developed in Lathrop. The current fee for agricultural and natural habitats is $1,819 per acre. As of Dec. 19, that will increase to $3,145 per acre....
Wild horses displaced by Idaho rangeland fire Wild horses won't return to the nearly 300 square miles burned by this summer's Clover Fire until the spring of 2006, a Bureau of Land Management spokeswoman said, and it will cost nearly $8 million to repair the scorched southern Idaho rangeland. About 350 wild horses were displaced by the July fire. Though the animals escaped the flames — which at one point ripped across the range at 500 acres an hour — they were in danger of starving because all but a few small islands of forage were burned, BLM spokeswoman Sky Buffat said Wednesday. BLM officials rounded up the animals, culling 87 from the herd for adoption and sending the rest to holding facilities in Utah. The older animals will remain in the facilities, Buffat said, while 100 of the wild horses will be returned to the rangeland next spring, once enough forage is restored to support them....
Editorial: EPA steps up to protect air quality Energy development is occurring at such a frenzied pace across the West that projects should be more carefully scrutinized than ever. The Bush administration often puts up roadblocks to such reviews, so it was encouraging to see the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency insist that a big natural gas project in southwestern Wyoming must avoid polluting the air. The pristine skies above the Upper Green River Basin offer stunning vistas in the nearby Bridger, Fitzpatrick and Popo Agie Wilderness Areas. That rare purity is at risk. The basin already has about 3,000 natural gas wells, but the U.S. Bureau of Land Management may OK another 10,000. The EPA focused on the Jonah Field, where producers want to add 3,100 wells to the 170 now there and the 497 that have been approved. The expansion could dirty the air because of diesel engines that power drill rigs and other equipment....
Lack of funds hurting BLM best-lands effort The National Landscape Conservation System was established to protect and restore the very best of the nation's public lands administered by the Bureau of Land Management. But five years after its establishment by then-Secretary of Interior Bruce Babbitt, management of these premier lands — including the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in southern Utah — suffers from inadequate funding and insufficient staff, according to a new study released Wednesday by the Wilderness Society and World Resources Institute. "Conversation is supposed to be the priority for these places, but despite the presence of talented and committed staff, the report is dominated nationally by grades of C and D," said the Wilderness Society's Wendy VanAsselt, one of the authors of the report....
Appeals court reverses Park snowmobile ruling A federal judge has reversed a lower court ruling in a case where an inholder in Glacier National Park wants to use his snowmobile to access a remote family cabin in the winter. John McFarland filed suit against the park in February 2000 claiming the park's policy of closing the Inside North Fork Road to snowmobiling violated his right to an easement to his property. McFarland was seeking a special use permit to access a family cabin located in Big Prairie about three miles up the North Fork via snowmobile. That permit was denied by the Park Service, which resulted in the suit. The case weaved its way through U.S. District Court in Missoula and in July, 2003, District Court Judge Donald Molloy ruled that McFarland filed his suit beyond the 12-year statute of limitations and dismissed the suit. McFarland then appealed that ruling to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which reversed Molloy's ruling on Oct. 11....
Dam still injuring Grand Canyon Thirteen years of effort and millions of federal dollars have not been enough to stave off the deterioration of the Colorado River's ecosystem below Glen Canyon Dam, according to a new report released Wednesday. In the most extensive assessment of river conditions in the Grand Canyon since the creation of the Grand Canyon Protection Act in 1992, the U.S. Geological Survey study says endangered native fish species are still struggling, while sandbars and backwaters that serve as habitat for the fish as well as anchors for vegetation, havens for cultural resources and campsites for human visitors continue to decrease. The report, produced by the agency's Grand Canyon Monitoring and Research Center, stopped short of calling federal attempts to restore the river and its shorelines a failure....
Senators unhappy with beef ban threaten trade war with Japan Farm-state senators frustrated with Japan over its ban on U.S. beef exports threatened a trade war Wednesday. Along with leveling a barrage of rhetoric, the senators introduced a bill that would impose tariffs on Japanese imports unless the Asian nation lifts its nearly two-year-old ban on U.S. beef by the end of the year. Japan had slapped the ban on after a mad cow scare in 2003. "I think we're being played for a bunch of suckers," said Sen. Jim Talent, a Missouri Republican. Sen. Max Baucus, a Montana Democrat, chose the word "chumps." Most of the senators supporting the bill are committed to free trade and said they hoped that the threat of sanctions would give U.S. trade negotiators leverage to force the Japanese government's hand....
Lawmakers Postpone Meat Origin Labels Grocery shoppers will have to wait two more years for labels telling where their meat comes from, under a bill moving toward approval in Congress. Originally proposed for 2004, mandatory meat labeling is opposed by meatpackers and supermarkets who say it's a record-keeping nightmare. House-Senate negotiators agreed late Wednesday to postpone it until 2008. Western ranchers have been counting on the labels to help sell their beef. Labeling went into effect last April for fish and shellfish. The delay is part of a $100 billion spending bill for food and farm programs for the budget year that began Oct. 1. The House and Senate passed different versions of the bill, and a conference committee signed off Wednesday on a final version....
===
Wednesday, October 26, 2005
Paragon Foundation Inc.
1200 N. White Sands Boulevard · Suite 110
Alamogordo, NM 88310
Office (505) 434-8998
Fax (505) 434-8992
Toll Free 877-847-3443
PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 25, 2005
Bush Administration Forest Service Raids Ranch Confiscating 300 Cattle
Sheriff Denies Rancher Due Process of Law Protections
GREENLEE CO. AZ-Since Saturday, twenty armed Forest Service employees and rented cowboys including neighboring rancher, Daryl Bingham and sons, have been gathering 300 head of cattle, valued at approximately $250,000, in a para-military raid on the Dan Martinez Ranch in Greenlee County, Arizona.
Greenlee County Sheriff, Steven Tucker, refused to uphold the law by allowing the federal government to seize the cattle without the necessary court order, denying Mr. Martinez his Constitutional procedural due process of law protections.
On October 3, 2005, in an apparent direct violation of both state and federal laws, the State of Arizona Department of Agriculture entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Forest Service, which by edict removed the Constitutional obstacle requiring the Forest Service to first obtain a court order prior to the seizure of property, in this instance, cattle. The State previously required a court order to impound livestock and this about-face in policy came on direct orders from Governor Napolitano. In addition, contrary to the terms of the MOU, the Forest Service blocked Mr. Martinez from removing his cattle from the grazing allotments last week.
"The Forest Service, apparently disturbed that Mr. Martinez did not renew his voluntary grazing permit with the federal government, has been attempting for the last three years to run him out of business, even going so far as to trump up criminal charges for maintaining his road as an 1866 Mining Law right-of-way. Now, with the State's help, they may succeed in breaking him," commented G.B. Oliver, Executive Director, Paragon Foundation. "If the State isn't careful, some rancher may end up owning a court house before this is over," he added.
Martinez, a second generation owner of the 160-year old Martinez ranch, which includes the Hickey and Pleasant Valley grazing allotments, commented from his home in Santa Fe, NM, "I'm not in dispute with the Forest Service. I have always agreed to do anything they ask of me as long as they could show me where they had the authority and jurisdiction to manage my private property such as my vested water rights, forage, improvements and rights-of-ways on my grazing allotments. They have never come forth with any such evidence. As it was, I could not afford to run cattle under the punitive terms and conditions of their voluntary grazing permit program."
Under the MOU, which has no force of law, the Martinez cattle may now be seized as "stray" livestock. The branded cattle clearly do not fall within the lawful definition of "strays", meaning unbranded and unclaimed livestock.
Retired Congressman, Helen Chenoweth-Hage (R-ID) and Chairman of the Nevada Livestock Association, which battled and stopped similar cattle seizures in Nevada, pointed out that, "The State of Arizona, under this MOU, is depriving Mr. Martinez of his Constitutionally guaranteed procedural due process of law protections. The State is allowing the federal government to drive away, sell and slaughter his cattle, depriving Mr. Martinez of his livelihood without ever having a day in court. The State is clearly exposing itself to liability for civil rights and Constitutional Fifth Amendment "takings" of property violations."
The grazing permit has become a contentious issue in the West where the Forest Service has often used the terms and conditions of the permit to harass, intimidate and bankrupt family ranchers. Traditionally, ranchers voluntarily signed grazing permits in order to participate in the cooperative range improvement fund, financed by their grazing fees. As the requirements of these permits become increasingly punitive and onerous, some ranchers have opted out of the range improvement fund.
"The land management agencies, fearful of a mass exodus from the grazing permit program, have turned to mafia-style fear and intimidation tactics to ensure ranchers renew their permits," commented Chenoweth-Hage. "Most ranchers don't want to risk loosing their livestock and livelihood at gun point. It's a very effective tool of intimidation. Three years ago I publicly issued a $1,000 challenge to anybody who could produce the law requiring ranchers to sign grazing permits. I still have my $1,000."
# # # # #
Contacts:
Dan Martinez, (505) 984-8386
G.B. Oliver, Executive Director, Paragon Foundation (505) 434-8998
Helen Chenoweth, Member of Congress (Ret.) (775) 482-4187
===
1200 N. White Sands Boulevard · Suite 110
Alamogordo, NM 88310
Office (505) 434-8998
Fax (505) 434-8992
Toll Free 877-847-3443
PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 25, 2005
Bush Administration Forest Service Raids Ranch Confiscating 300 Cattle
Sheriff Denies Rancher Due Process of Law Protections
GREENLEE CO. AZ-Since Saturday, twenty armed Forest Service employees and rented cowboys including neighboring rancher, Daryl Bingham and sons, have been gathering 300 head of cattle, valued at approximately $250,000, in a para-military raid on the Dan Martinez Ranch in Greenlee County, Arizona.
Greenlee County Sheriff, Steven Tucker, refused to uphold the law by allowing the federal government to seize the cattle without the necessary court order, denying Mr. Martinez his Constitutional procedural due process of law protections.
On October 3, 2005, in an apparent direct violation of both state and federal laws, the State of Arizona Department of Agriculture entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Forest Service, which by edict removed the Constitutional obstacle requiring the Forest Service to first obtain a court order prior to the seizure of property, in this instance, cattle. The State previously required a court order to impound livestock and this about-face in policy came on direct orders from Governor Napolitano. In addition, contrary to the terms of the MOU, the Forest Service blocked Mr. Martinez from removing his cattle from the grazing allotments last week.
"The Forest Service, apparently disturbed that Mr. Martinez did not renew his voluntary grazing permit with the federal government, has been attempting for the last three years to run him out of business, even going so far as to trump up criminal charges for maintaining his road as an 1866 Mining Law right-of-way. Now, with the State's help, they may succeed in breaking him," commented G.B. Oliver, Executive Director, Paragon Foundation. "If the State isn't careful, some rancher may end up owning a court house before this is over," he added.
Martinez, a second generation owner of the 160-year old Martinez ranch, which includes the Hickey and Pleasant Valley grazing allotments, commented from his home in Santa Fe, NM, "I'm not in dispute with the Forest Service. I have always agreed to do anything they ask of me as long as they could show me where they had the authority and jurisdiction to manage my private property such as my vested water rights, forage, improvements and rights-of-ways on my grazing allotments. They have never come forth with any such evidence. As it was, I could not afford to run cattle under the punitive terms and conditions of their voluntary grazing permit program."
Under the MOU, which has no force of law, the Martinez cattle may now be seized as "stray" livestock. The branded cattle clearly do not fall within the lawful definition of "strays", meaning unbranded and unclaimed livestock.
Retired Congressman, Helen Chenoweth-Hage (R-ID) and Chairman of the Nevada Livestock Association, which battled and stopped similar cattle seizures in Nevada, pointed out that, "The State of Arizona, under this MOU, is depriving Mr. Martinez of his Constitutionally guaranteed procedural due process of law protections. The State is allowing the federal government to drive away, sell and slaughter his cattle, depriving Mr. Martinez of his livelihood without ever having a day in court. The State is clearly exposing itself to liability for civil rights and Constitutional Fifth Amendment "takings" of property violations."
The grazing permit has become a contentious issue in the West where the Forest Service has often used the terms and conditions of the permit to harass, intimidate and bankrupt family ranchers. Traditionally, ranchers voluntarily signed grazing permits in order to participate in the cooperative range improvement fund, financed by their grazing fees. As the requirements of these permits become increasingly punitive and onerous, some ranchers have opted out of the range improvement fund.
"The land management agencies, fearful of a mass exodus from the grazing permit program, have turned to mafia-style fear and intimidation tactics to ensure ranchers renew their permits," commented Chenoweth-Hage. "Most ranchers don't want to risk loosing their livestock and livelihood at gun point. It's a very effective tool of intimidation. Three years ago I publicly issued a $1,000 challenge to anybody who could produce the law requiring ranchers to sign grazing permits. I still have my $1,000."
# # # # #
Contacts:
Dan Martinez, (505) 984-8386
G.B. Oliver, Executive Director, Paragon Foundation (505) 434-8998
Helen Chenoweth, Member of Congress (Ret.) (775) 482-4187
===
NEWS ROUNDUP
Border rancher's state lease renewed despite protests Arizona State Land Department officials have renewed a grazing lease for a rancher who has become known for detaining illegal immigrants but warned that any violation would terminate it. The department acted despite requests from the Border Action Network and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund not to renew Roger Barnett's lease for 10 more years because of allegations that he's engaged in vigilante actions on land east of Douglas near the Mexican border. "Our staff and range manager went down and met with Mr. Barnett and his lawyer and advised that the commissioner is very concerned, and that if there was any violation of his lease that it would be terminated," Deputy Commissioner Richard Hubbard said....
Land trust helps forge deal to preserve organic farm For the past two decades, the Shoshone-area farm has been a living and working laboratory for farm managers Fred and Judy Brossy. Well-known nationwide among practitioners of low-impact, organic farming practices, the Brossys have made a living out of working the Barbara Farm in a sustainable manner. Earlier this month, the Brossy's sustainable efforts took a giant leap forward when they put pen to paper to finalize a deal long in the making to permanently preserve through a conservation easement the most productive and ecologically sensitive 396 acres of the Barbara Farm's roughly 1,800 total acres. The four-way deal—forged between the Brossys, Barbara Farm owner Ernest Bryant, the Hailey-based Wood River Land Trust and the U.S. Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservation Service's Farm and Ranchlands Protection Program—was finalized several weeks ago....
Judge: 2003 Fire Retardant Use Broke Law The U.S. Forest Service violated federal environmental laws when it used a toxic fire retardant that killed thousands of fish in streams, a judge ruled. In a decision released Tuesday, District Judge Donald W. Molloy said the agency did not comply with the National Environmental Policy Act when it skipped an open public process to examine the fire retardant's effects on the environment. Molloy also said the agency's actions appeared to be politically motivated, though he did not elaborate. Environmentalists and Democrats have complained the Bush administration goals of repealing environmental laws affect Forest Service decisions. The Forest Service had argued that the use of fire retardant was not a major federal action, but a series of smaller actions by fire commanders with no time to do a full environmental analysis....
GAO again rules in favor of reservation contract protester The Government Accounting Office for the second time has ruled in favor of Spherix Inc. of Beltsville, Md., in the vendor’s protest of the Agriculture Department’s award of its $97 million recreation information and reservation service contract to ReserveAmerica of Ballston Spa, N.Y. Agriculture’s Forest Service re-awarded the 10-year National Recreation Reservation System contract in June to ReserveAmerica, a subsidiary of Ticketmaster. GAO, in a decision last week, again found the Forest Service’s award of the recreation services contract to ReserveAmerica to be flawed. In December 2004, GAO sustained Spherix’s protest of the first award of the contract to ReserveAmerica. In its second protest to GAO, Spherix cited Agriculture’s failure to conduct adequate discussions, improper evaluations of its offers and failure to justify its choice of the substantially higher cost of ReserveAmerica's proposal, said Spherix spokeswoman Kathy Brailer....
Lawsuit could set precedent for mines A lawsuit challenging permits for the Kensington gold project north of Juneau could affect future mine development in Alaska and nationwide, parties on both sides of the litigation say. Depending on how a federal judge rules, the government's ability to authorize discharge of mine waste into lakes, streams, wetlands and other water bodies could be upheld or restricted. Several large mine prospects in Alaska, such as Pebble and Donlin Creek, could be affected, officials and lawyers for both sides agree. With so much riding on the outcome, the state attorney general's office this month sought court permission to join the case. Assistant attorney general Cam Leonard said in court papers that the lawsuit may set precedent and could cost the state millions of dollars in taxes and other revenue....
Rep. Pombo Seeks to Open National Parks to Mining Despite assurances that the House Resources Committee reconciliation package proposed by Chairman Richard Pombo (R-11-CA) would not make any national park lands available for sale, a new draft would do just that. Section 6204 (b) of the legislation now under consideration by the committee states, “notwithstanding any provision in law the Secretary of the Interior shall make mineral deposits and lands that contain them, including lands in which the valuable mineral deposit has been depleted, available for purchase to facilitate sustainable economic development.” By including this alarming provision in his new proposed reconciliation legislation, Chairman Pombo has shifted his focus from selling off 15 national park sites to offering the mining industry access to national parklands in approximately 12 states that have mineral deposits. The bill would also offer for sale several parcels of parkland in Washington, D.C....
BLM expects rise in drilling permit applications The Bureau of Land Management expects the number of applications for oil and gas drilling on federal land to jump 32 percent from 2004 to 2006, the agency's director said Tuesday. The agency expects to receive about 9,200 new applications in 2006, Director Kathleen Clarke said at a hearing before a Senate Appropriations subcommittee. She said the agency estimates another 10,000 applications in 2007. To handle the increase, the agency is drawing staff from other agencies and putting them in seven offices in five states. As directed in an energy bill pilot program, BLM will provide work space for experts from the Department of Agriculture, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers to help process the permits. The BLM offices receiving additional workers are in Rawlins and Buffalo, Wyo.; Miles City, Mont.; Farmington and Carlsbad, N.M.; Grand Junction and Glenwood Springs, Colo.; and Vernal, Utah. These offices process 70 percent of all permit applications submitted to the BLM, the agency said....
Clashing wishes surface when talk is energy wells Land managers approved a record 7,018 oil and gas wells on Western federal lands last year, and when the Bush administration announced the figure Tuesday, Western Republican senators scolded them for not allowing more. The number of permitted wells for the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30 was an 8.8 percent increase from the previous year, when 6,452 were approved in the West, and double the number approved in 2002. And the number of permits stayed well ahead of drilling by the oil and gas industry, which sank 4,682 wells. Bureau of Land Management Director Kathleen Clarke said she expects demand to keep increasing because of high natural-gas prices. She predicted 9,200 requests for permits this year, which would be an increase of nearly one-third over last fiscal year....
BLM studies year-round drilling proposal The public has until Nov. 19 to comment on a proposal to allow year-round drilling for natural gas on the Pinedale Anticline. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management currently bars winter drilling in the area to avoid disturbing big game. But the agency is preparing a new environmental study of the effects of year-round drilling at the request of three energy companies: Anschutz Pinedale Corp., Shell Exploration & Production Co., and Ultra Resources. Matt Anderson, project manager for the BLM in Pinedale, said preparing the study on the effects of year-round drilling would probably take a year. If year-round drilling is authorized, Anderson said companies could consolidate drilling pads in a way that reduces habitat fragmentation and protects more land in winter ranges....
Amazon parrot serenades Pa. senators A yellow-naped Amazon parrot sang "How much is that doggie in the window?" and "Alouette" to surprised senators. The parrot, named Groucho, sat on a perch in a Senate visitors' balcony and sang in a warbling, croaking voice for several minutes after Lt. Gov. Catherine Baker Knoll formally recognized the bird from the National Aviary in Pittsburgh and an aviary staff member with it. Immediately afterward, Sen. Robert C. Jubelirer, the chamber's president pro tempore, was seen scolding Knoll on the Senate floor. Knoll's spokeswoman Johnna A. Pro said Knoll was simply recognizing the bird after Jubelirer approved the gesture. The parrot's visit to Harrisburg with aviary staff was intended to raise awareness for World Rainforest Week, and how destruction of the rainforest affects endangered species, according to a letter from Sen. Wayne Fontana to Knoll....
Habitat to protect endangered salamanders pegged at $336 million Setting aside habitat in Sonoma County for the endangered California tiger salamander would cost $336 million in lost development opportunities over the next 20 years, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Tuesday. The agency released the estimate as part of a draft economic analysis of a proposal to protect 74,000 acres on the Santa Rosa Plain as the stocky amphibian's "critical habitat" - a designation that would restrict development on the land. The study, conducted by a private consulting firm, found that setting aside the land would cost $210 million in mitigation costs and $114 million in delays in processing development proposals. But the analysis concluded the designation would have only a modest impact on the region's $28 billion in economic output....
Two plead not guilty to killing grizzly cub Two men accused of killing a grizzly bear cub near Island Park three years ago pleaded not guilty on Tuesday, the U.S. Department of Justice said. Tim L. Brown of Island Park and Brad Hoopes of St. Anthony are scheduled to stand trial on the misdemeanor charge in U.S. District Court in Pocatello on Dec. 5, said Jean McNeil, a spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney’s office. In a separate case, Dan Walters, a bow hunter from Kentucky, has been ordered to pay $15,000 in restitution for killing the grizzly cub’s mother. Walters, who pleaded guilty to the misdemeanor in January, also had his hunting privileges revoked for two years. Grizzly bears are threatened species under the Endangered Species Act, making it illegal to kill the animals. Scott Bragonier, a special agent with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said Walters told investigators that he was hunting alone when he spotted the adult female grizzly and the yearling cub and mistook them for black bears. Walters shot the adult animal with his bow and arrow, and then tracked it until evening....
Texas game wardens’ authority spelled out With fall firearms white-tail deer season fast approaching, landowners may begin seeing unfamiliar faces in the area, among those will be the Texas game wardens. Texas game wardens work for the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD throughout the year, but attempt to become more visible during major hunting seasons in order to curb violations in the state. TPWD employs more than 500 law enforcement specialists throughout the state. These figures carry a great deal of authority and responsibility. They enforce all areas of the TPWD code, regulations, Texas Penal Code and several specific regulations that relate to the environment. In 2004, Texas game wardens became federally commissioned. According to TPWD, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agreed to provide training to TPWD game wardens about federal laws and their enforcement. Texas game wardens then had the authority to make arrests and seizures in federal wildlife violations. In return, TPWD offered training to federal agents and provided them with jurisdiction within the state of Texas....
Former federal employee sentenced on child porn charge A former U-S Fish and Wildlife Service employee has been sentenced to 21 months in prison on a federal charge of possessing child pornography. Federal prosecutors say 59-nine-year-old Gary Heet of Gulliver also has been sentenced to two years of supervised release and fined five-thousand dollars. Heet pleaded guilty to the charge in April and was sentenced Thursday in Marquette. Prosecutors say more than two-thousand explicit images were found on the hard drive of his work computer at the Seney National Wildlife Refuge in the Upper Peninsula's Schoolcraft County....
Wild Birds Probed as Possible Agent of Flu to U.S. U.S. officials are considering new measures to monitor whether migratory birds arriving next spring will be the first to carry the avian influenza to the nation. The influenza working group of the U.S. Agriculture and Interior Departments has urged the expansion of bird testing beyond Alaska to other U.S. states and territories, said Christopher Brand, a wildlife biologist at the U.S. Geological Survey's National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wisconsin, in a telephone interview Oct. 20. The recommendations weren't formally announced, Brand said. Brand, who is a member of the group, said it also called for studies of bird-disease outbreaks for signs of the virus, called H5N1, programs to sample ducks and geese caught by hunters for the virus, inspections of backyard ponds for pet ducks and testing of wetlands for signs of the virus in water....
White House accused of politicizing Park Service workforce The Bush administration is enforcing hiring practices on National Park Service bosses that one national environmental group is calling an "unprecedented political intrusion." Everybody applying for a top job in any park must show "ability to lead employees" in achieving President Bush's "Management Agenda," according to an Oct. 11 memo from NPS director Fran Mainella. The management agenda is a 65-page document that calls for increased faith-based incentives, more outsourcing of government work and other controversial steps. "We view it as politicizing the civil service," said Jeff Ruch, executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. That's a misunderstanding, according to Al Nash, NPS spokesman in Washington, D.C....
Wind farm may yield windfall for Texans Paving the way for Texas to be home to the first wind farm along the U.S. coast, the state has leased an 11,000-acre swath of the Gulf of Mexico, seven miles off Galveston Island, for gigantic wind turbines that could eventually power 40,000 homes and generate millions of dollars for state schools. The lease, the first granted by any government agency in the nation for an offshore wind project, marks a new era of pollution-free energy production for the Gulf, which for decades has been the site of thousands of wells and platforms tapping the Earth's depths for air-polluting natural gas and oil. It also signals the migration of Texas' wind industry — which ranks second in the nation behind California in kilowatt hours produced by breezes and gusts — from the Panhandle and western parts of the state to the coast, where winds are more consistent during peak daylight hours and large population centers such as Houston aren't as far away....
Officials consider importing water to Reno-Sparks Aqua Trac is the latest water-importation project that could ease demand from the Truckee River and chill the feverish market for water rights. Proposed by Summit Engineering president Tom Gallagher, the $250 million project would involve exporting 100,000 acre-feet of water a year from the valleys east of Pyramid Lake, including the Winnemucca Lake Valley, Kumiva Valley and Granite Springs Valley. Gallagher said the water could be delivered to Fernley, Wadsworth, Sutcliffe and Nixon and on to Spanish Springs Valley north of Sparks. Permits are pending with the Nevada state engineer's office and a major environmental study would be required for the wells and the pipeline system on U.S. Bureau of Land Management property. As the cost for water rights continue to climb in Northern Nevada, more developers are seeking other water-importation projects to provide water to areas that need it and to slow the spike in prices. A run-up in Truckee River water rights to $50,000 an acre-foot was set off in March when Washoe County auctioned 174 acre-feet of water in Lemmon Valley....
THE CALIFORNIA WATER WARS: WATER FLOWING TO FARMS, NOT FISH After 50 years of legal infighting, a victor has emerged in California's water wars -- agriculture. A decade after environmentalists prevailed in getting more fresh water down the north state's rivers and estuaries to improve fisheries and wildlife habitat, farmers are again triumphant. Central Valley irrigation districts are signing federal contracts that assure their farms ample water for the next 25 to 50 years. The Bush administration is driving the trend, reversing Clinton-era policies that eased agriculture's grip on the state's reservoirs and aqueducts....
Lightning eyed as cause of horses' deaths Lightning appears to be the cause in the deaths of 16 horses found in a pasture east of Colorado Springs over the weekend, El Paso County sheriff's investigators said Tuesday. Veterinarian John Heikkila "is fairly confident" the animals were killed by lightning, investigators said. The horses were found Saturday. Six other horses and a burro were found dead in a pasture in the same area on Oct. 11. The cause of death in that incident has not been determined....
A Horse for Rumsfeld, but, Whoa, There's a Snag Mongolia has 131 soldiers in Iraq, and on Saturday it received an official American statement of gratitude from Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. Mr. Rumsfeld came to Ulan Bator to deliver that message personally, and he was given a horse. In dazzling sunlight on the grounds of the Mongolian Defense Ministry, Mr. Rumsfeld took the reins of the calm gelding and said, "I am proud to be the owner of that proud animal." He immediately announced that he would name the horse Montana, because the dusty plains and mountains that ring the Mongolian capital reminded him of that Rocky Mountain state. The entire exchange recalled an ancient era of alliance and conquest, when a warrior's word was law and the long knives were carried in the open. The horse, a rich latte hue with a mane and tail the color of dark-roast coffee, was described by local officials as a traditional domesticated Mongolian breed. Mr. Rumsfeld owns a ranch in New Mexico, where the high plains and sharp peaks would offer pleasant life to an expatriate horse, even one descended from the sturdy steeds that carried Genghis Khan and his successors across the steppes and the Gobi Desert to conquer most of Asia in the 13th century.
But transport for Mr. Rumsfeld's gift posed a problem....
"It's Shippin' Time" It’s shippin’ time out west. There’s a fine poem by Bruce Kiskaddon called, “When They’ve Finished Shippin’ Cattle in the Fall.” It’s recited by lots of cowboy poets. It goes on about rounding up the cattle, herding them to the home ranch, memories of friends, cookie’s offerings, dances till dawn — a wonderful rhyming piece of nostalgia about how things used to be at shippin’ time. These days, shippin’ time is much the same but with variations. Drive past the stockyards and you’ll see huge semi trucks, the kind with the metal slatted sides, grouped like a bunch of grazing mammoths. In the yard pens, cattle mill around, bawling their confusion. Ranch trucks and trailers, loaded with calves and cull cows, pull up to chutes and funnel the critters into pens where they’ll be sorted and grouped and funneled back up another chute and into the waiting maw of one of the behemoth trucks. Or perhaps the rancher hauls a trailer load of his cattle to the auction yards in the city to be sold in one of the regular livestock auctions. Either way, selling the calves is the annual windup ritual in the beef-growing business; it’s the final step in a year of tending cattle; it’s when the check comes in and ranchers pay their bills at the feedstore, make machinery payments; pay up on leases of pastures....
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Border rancher's state lease renewed despite protests Arizona State Land Department officials have renewed a grazing lease for a rancher who has become known for detaining illegal immigrants but warned that any violation would terminate it. The department acted despite requests from the Border Action Network and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund not to renew Roger Barnett's lease for 10 more years because of allegations that he's engaged in vigilante actions on land east of Douglas near the Mexican border. "Our staff and range manager went down and met with Mr. Barnett and his lawyer and advised that the commissioner is very concerned, and that if there was any violation of his lease that it would be terminated," Deputy Commissioner Richard Hubbard said....
Land trust helps forge deal to preserve organic farm For the past two decades, the Shoshone-area farm has been a living and working laboratory for farm managers Fred and Judy Brossy. Well-known nationwide among practitioners of low-impact, organic farming practices, the Brossys have made a living out of working the Barbara Farm in a sustainable manner. Earlier this month, the Brossy's sustainable efforts took a giant leap forward when they put pen to paper to finalize a deal long in the making to permanently preserve through a conservation easement the most productive and ecologically sensitive 396 acres of the Barbara Farm's roughly 1,800 total acres. The four-way deal—forged between the Brossys, Barbara Farm owner Ernest Bryant, the Hailey-based Wood River Land Trust and the U.S. Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservation Service's Farm and Ranchlands Protection Program—was finalized several weeks ago....
Judge: 2003 Fire Retardant Use Broke Law The U.S. Forest Service violated federal environmental laws when it used a toxic fire retardant that killed thousands of fish in streams, a judge ruled. In a decision released Tuesday, District Judge Donald W. Molloy said the agency did not comply with the National Environmental Policy Act when it skipped an open public process to examine the fire retardant's effects on the environment. Molloy also said the agency's actions appeared to be politically motivated, though he did not elaborate. Environmentalists and Democrats have complained the Bush administration goals of repealing environmental laws affect Forest Service decisions. The Forest Service had argued that the use of fire retardant was not a major federal action, but a series of smaller actions by fire commanders with no time to do a full environmental analysis....
GAO again rules in favor of reservation contract protester The Government Accounting Office for the second time has ruled in favor of Spherix Inc. of Beltsville, Md., in the vendor’s protest of the Agriculture Department’s award of its $97 million recreation information and reservation service contract to ReserveAmerica of Ballston Spa, N.Y. Agriculture’s Forest Service re-awarded the 10-year National Recreation Reservation System contract in June to ReserveAmerica, a subsidiary of Ticketmaster. GAO, in a decision last week, again found the Forest Service’s award of the recreation services contract to ReserveAmerica to be flawed. In December 2004, GAO sustained Spherix’s protest of the first award of the contract to ReserveAmerica. In its second protest to GAO, Spherix cited Agriculture’s failure to conduct adequate discussions, improper evaluations of its offers and failure to justify its choice of the substantially higher cost of ReserveAmerica's proposal, said Spherix spokeswoman Kathy Brailer....
Lawsuit could set precedent for mines A lawsuit challenging permits for the Kensington gold project north of Juneau could affect future mine development in Alaska and nationwide, parties on both sides of the litigation say. Depending on how a federal judge rules, the government's ability to authorize discharge of mine waste into lakes, streams, wetlands and other water bodies could be upheld or restricted. Several large mine prospects in Alaska, such as Pebble and Donlin Creek, could be affected, officials and lawyers for both sides agree. With so much riding on the outcome, the state attorney general's office this month sought court permission to join the case. Assistant attorney general Cam Leonard said in court papers that the lawsuit may set precedent and could cost the state millions of dollars in taxes and other revenue....
Rep. Pombo Seeks to Open National Parks to Mining Despite assurances that the House Resources Committee reconciliation package proposed by Chairman Richard Pombo (R-11-CA) would not make any national park lands available for sale, a new draft would do just that. Section 6204 (b) of the legislation now under consideration by the committee states, “notwithstanding any provision in law the Secretary of the Interior shall make mineral deposits and lands that contain them, including lands in which the valuable mineral deposit has been depleted, available for purchase to facilitate sustainable economic development.” By including this alarming provision in his new proposed reconciliation legislation, Chairman Pombo has shifted his focus from selling off 15 national park sites to offering the mining industry access to national parklands in approximately 12 states that have mineral deposits. The bill would also offer for sale several parcels of parkland in Washington, D.C....
BLM expects rise in drilling permit applications The Bureau of Land Management expects the number of applications for oil and gas drilling on federal land to jump 32 percent from 2004 to 2006, the agency's director said Tuesday. The agency expects to receive about 9,200 new applications in 2006, Director Kathleen Clarke said at a hearing before a Senate Appropriations subcommittee. She said the agency estimates another 10,000 applications in 2007. To handle the increase, the agency is drawing staff from other agencies and putting them in seven offices in five states. As directed in an energy bill pilot program, BLM will provide work space for experts from the Department of Agriculture, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers to help process the permits. The BLM offices receiving additional workers are in Rawlins and Buffalo, Wyo.; Miles City, Mont.; Farmington and Carlsbad, N.M.; Grand Junction and Glenwood Springs, Colo.; and Vernal, Utah. These offices process 70 percent of all permit applications submitted to the BLM, the agency said....
Clashing wishes surface when talk is energy wells Land managers approved a record 7,018 oil and gas wells on Western federal lands last year, and when the Bush administration announced the figure Tuesday, Western Republican senators scolded them for not allowing more. The number of permitted wells for the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30 was an 8.8 percent increase from the previous year, when 6,452 were approved in the West, and double the number approved in 2002. And the number of permits stayed well ahead of drilling by the oil and gas industry, which sank 4,682 wells. Bureau of Land Management Director Kathleen Clarke said she expects demand to keep increasing because of high natural-gas prices. She predicted 9,200 requests for permits this year, which would be an increase of nearly one-third over last fiscal year....
BLM studies year-round drilling proposal The public has until Nov. 19 to comment on a proposal to allow year-round drilling for natural gas on the Pinedale Anticline. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management currently bars winter drilling in the area to avoid disturbing big game. But the agency is preparing a new environmental study of the effects of year-round drilling at the request of three energy companies: Anschutz Pinedale Corp., Shell Exploration & Production Co., and Ultra Resources. Matt Anderson, project manager for the BLM in Pinedale, said preparing the study on the effects of year-round drilling would probably take a year. If year-round drilling is authorized, Anderson said companies could consolidate drilling pads in a way that reduces habitat fragmentation and protects more land in winter ranges....
Amazon parrot serenades Pa. senators A yellow-naped Amazon parrot sang "How much is that doggie in the window?" and "Alouette" to surprised senators. The parrot, named Groucho, sat on a perch in a Senate visitors' balcony and sang in a warbling, croaking voice for several minutes after Lt. Gov. Catherine Baker Knoll formally recognized the bird from the National Aviary in Pittsburgh and an aviary staff member with it. Immediately afterward, Sen. Robert C. Jubelirer, the chamber's president pro tempore, was seen scolding Knoll on the Senate floor. Knoll's spokeswoman Johnna A. Pro said Knoll was simply recognizing the bird after Jubelirer approved the gesture. The parrot's visit to Harrisburg with aviary staff was intended to raise awareness for World Rainforest Week, and how destruction of the rainforest affects endangered species, according to a letter from Sen. Wayne Fontana to Knoll....
Habitat to protect endangered salamanders pegged at $336 million Setting aside habitat in Sonoma County for the endangered California tiger salamander would cost $336 million in lost development opportunities over the next 20 years, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Tuesday. The agency released the estimate as part of a draft economic analysis of a proposal to protect 74,000 acres on the Santa Rosa Plain as the stocky amphibian's "critical habitat" - a designation that would restrict development on the land. The study, conducted by a private consulting firm, found that setting aside the land would cost $210 million in mitigation costs and $114 million in delays in processing development proposals. But the analysis concluded the designation would have only a modest impact on the region's $28 billion in economic output....
Two plead not guilty to killing grizzly cub Two men accused of killing a grizzly bear cub near Island Park three years ago pleaded not guilty on Tuesday, the U.S. Department of Justice said. Tim L. Brown of Island Park and Brad Hoopes of St. Anthony are scheduled to stand trial on the misdemeanor charge in U.S. District Court in Pocatello on Dec. 5, said Jean McNeil, a spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney’s office. In a separate case, Dan Walters, a bow hunter from Kentucky, has been ordered to pay $15,000 in restitution for killing the grizzly cub’s mother. Walters, who pleaded guilty to the misdemeanor in January, also had his hunting privileges revoked for two years. Grizzly bears are threatened species under the Endangered Species Act, making it illegal to kill the animals. Scott Bragonier, a special agent with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said Walters told investigators that he was hunting alone when he spotted the adult female grizzly and the yearling cub and mistook them for black bears. Walters shot the adult animal with his bow and arrow, and then tracked it until evening....
Texas game wardens’ authority spelled out With fall firearms white-tail deer season fast approaching, landowners may begin seeing unfamiliar faces in the area, among those will be the Texas game wardens. Texas game wardens work for the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD throughout the year, but attempt to become more visible during major hunting seasons in order to curb violations in the state. TPWD employs more than 500 law enforcement specialists throughout the state. These figures carry a great deal of authority and responsibility. They enforce all areas of the TPWD code, regulations, Texas Penal Code and several specific regulations that relate to the environment. In 2004, Texas game wardens became federally commissioned. According to TPWD, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agreed to provide training to TPWD game wardens about federal laws and their enforcement. Texas game wardens then had the authority to make arrests and seizures in federal wildlife violations. In return, TPWD offered training to federal agents and provided them with jurisdiction within the state of Texas....
Former federal employee sentenced on child porn charge A former U-S Fish and Wildlife Service employee has been sentenced to 21 months in prison on a federal charge of possessing child pornography. Federal prosecutors say 59-nine-year-old Gary Heet of Gulliver also has been sentenced to two years of supervised release and fined five-thousand dollars. Heet pleaded guilty to the charge in April and was sentenced Thursday in Marquette. Prosecutors say more than two-thousand explicit images were found on the hard drive of his work computer at the Seney National Wildlife Refuge in the Upper Peninsula's Schoolcraft County....
Wild Birds Probed as Possible Agent of Flu to U.S. U.S. officials are considering new measures to monitor whether migratory birds arriving next spring will be the first to carry the avian influenza to the nation. The influenza working group of the U.S. Agriculture and Interior Departments has urged the expansion of bird testing beyond Alaska to other U.S. states and territories, said Christopher Brand, a wildlife biologist at the U.S. Geological Survey's National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wisconsin, in a telephone interview Oct. 20. The recommendations weren't formally announced, Brand said. Brand, who is a member of the group, said it also called for studies of bird-disease outbreaks for signs of the virus, called H5N1, programs to sample ducks and geese caught by hunters for the virus, inspections of backyard ponds for pet ducks and testing of wetlands for signs of the virus in water....
White House accused of politicizing Park Service workforce The Bush administration is enforcing hiring practices on National Park Service bosses that one national environmental group is calling an "unprecedented political intrusion." Everybody applying for a top job in any park must show "ability to lead employees" in achieving President Bush's "Management Agenda," according to an Oct. 11 memo from NPS director Fran Mainella. The management agenda is a 65-page document that calls for increased faith-based incentives, more outsourcing of government work and other controversial steps. "We view it as politicizing the civil service," said Jeff Ruch, executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. That's a misunderstanding, according to Al Nash, NPS spokesman in Washington, D.C....
Wind farm may yield windfall for Texans Paving the way for Texas to be home to the first wind farm along the U.S. coast, the state has leased an 11,000-acre swath of the Gulf of Mexico, seven miles off Galveston Island, for gigantic wind turbines that could eventually power 40,000 homes and generate millions of dollars for state schools. The lease, the first granted by any government agency in the nation for an offshore wind project, marks a new era of pollution-free energy production for the Gulf, which for decades has been the site of thousands of wells and platforms tapping the Earth's depths for air-polluting natural gas and oil. It also signals the migration of Texas' wind industry — which ranks second in the nation behind California in kilowatt hours produced by breezes and gusts — from the Panhandle and western parts of the state to the coast, where winds are more consistent during peak daylight hours and large population centers such as Houston aren't as far away....
Officials consider importing water to Reno-Sparks Aqua Trac is the latest water-importation project that could ease demand from the Truckee River and chill the feverish market for water rights. Proposed by Summit Engineering president Tom Gallagher, the $250 million project would involve exporting 100,000 acre-feet of water a year from the valleys east of Pyramid Lake, including the Winnemucca Lake Valley, Kumiva Valley and Granite Springs Valley. Gallagher said the water could be delivered to Fernley, Wadsworth, Sutcliffe and Nixon and on to Spanish Springs Valley north of Sparks. Permits are pending with the Nevada state engineer's office and a major environmental study would be required for the wells and the pipeline system on U.S. Bureau of Land Management property. As the cost for water rights continue to climb in Northern Nevada, more developers are seeking other water-importation projects to provide water to areas that need it and to slow the spike in prices. A run-up in Truckee River water rights to $50,000 an acre-foot was set off in March when Washoe County auctioned 174 acre-feet of water in Lemmon Valley....
THE CALIFORNIA WATER WARS: WATER FLOWING TO FARMS, NOT FISH After 50 years of legal infighting, a victor has emerged in California's water wars -- agriculture. A decade after environmentalists prevailed in getting more fresh water down the north state's rivers and estuaries to improve fisheries and wildlife habitat, farmers are again triumphant. Central Valley irrigation districts are signing federal contracts that assure their farms ample water for the next 25 to 50 years. The Bush administration is driving the trend, reversing Clinton-era policies that eased agriculture's grip on the state's reservoirs and aqueducts....
Lightning eyed as cause of horses' deaths Lightning appears to be the cause in the deaths of 16 horses found in a pasture east of Colorado Springs over the weekend, El Paso County sheriff's investigators said Tuesday. Veterinarian John Heikkila "is fairly confident" the animals were killed by lightning, investigators said. The horses were found Saturday. Six other horses and a burro were found dead in a pasture in the same area on Oct. 11. The cause of death in that incident has not been determined....
A Horse for Rumsfeld, but, Whoa, There's a Snag Mongolia has 131 soldiers in Iraq, and on Saturday it received an official American statement of gratitude from Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. Mr. Rumsfeld came to Ulan Bator to deliver that message personally, and he was given a horse. In dazzling sunlight on the grounds of the Mongolian Defense Ministry, Mr. Rumsfeld took the reins of the calm gelding and said, "I am proud to be the owner of that proud animal." He immediately announced that he would name the horse Montana, because the dusty plains and mountains that ring the Mongolian capital reminded him of that Rocky Mountain state. The entire exchange recalled an ancient era of alliance and conquest, when a warrior's word was law and the long knives were carried in the open. The horse, a rich latte hue with a mane and tail the color of dark-roast coffee, was described by local officials as a traditional domesticated Mongolian breed. Mr. Rumsfeld owns a ranch in New Mexico, where the high plains and sharp peaks would offer pleasant life to an expatriate horse, even one descended from the sturdy steeds that carried Genghis Khan and his successors across the steppes and the Gobi Desert to conquer most of Asia in the 13th century.
But transport for Mr. Rumsfeld's gift posed a problem....
"It's Shippin' Time" It’s shippin’ time out west. There’s a fine poem by Bruce Kiskaddon called, “When They’ve Finished Shippin’ Cattle in the Fall.” It’s recited by lots of cowboy poets. It goes on about rounding up the cattle, herding them to the home ranch, memories of friends, cookie’s offerings, dances till dawn — a wonderful rhyming piece of nostalgia about how things used to be at shippin’ time. These days, shippin’ time is much the same but with variations. Drive past the stockyards and you’ll see huge semi trucks, the kind with the metal slatted sides, grouped like a bunch of grazing mammoths. In the yard pens, cattle mill around, bawling their confusion. Ranch trucks and trailers, loaded with calves and cull cows, pull up to chutes and funnel the critters into pens where they’ll be sorted and grouped and funneled back up another chute and into the waiting maw of one of the behemoth trucks. Or perhaps the rancher hauls a trailer load of his cattle to the auction yards in the city to be sold in one of the regular livestock auctions. Either way, selling the calves is the annual windup ritual in the beef-growing business; it’s the final step in a year of tending cattle; it’s when the check comes in and ranchers pay their bills at the feedstore, make machinery payments; pay up on leases of pastures....
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Tuesday, October 25, 2005
No Longer Safe for Work: Blogs
Robert Mason (not his real name) would love to spend a few minutes during lunch catching up on blog posts from around the web, but his company doesn't allow it. The financial institution where Mason works as a vice president has security filters set up to block access to -- among other things -- any website that contains the phrase "blog" in the URL. What's more, says Mason, such practices are becoming prevalent in corporate America, particularly in financial services. Mason sits on a roundtable privacy group of 20 of the country's largest banks. "My best understanding is that my company's anti-blog stance is the industry norm," he says. Filtering out every blog isn't a completely feasible project (and, in fact, Mason says his company's filter doesn't catch everything), but the technology to censor the lion's share of blogs is fairly commonplace. From installing simple URL filters and content scanners to blacklisting ranges of IP addresses, myriad methods for shutting out blog content are available. If nothing else, the corporate firewall can simply add the word "blog" to the company's list of verboten phrases that trigger blocking, alongside "games," "warez" and "britney spears sex tape." Keith Crosley, director of corporate communications at censorware company Proofpoint, says there's no anti-blog conspiracy at work, but that some companies have higher security, privacy and regulatory needs that require greater diligence over what companies can and cannot do. In particular, companies worry that employees might leak sensitive material -- perhaps inadvertently -- while posting comments to blog message boards. In a survey of over 300 large businesses conducted in conjunction with Forrester, Proofpoint found 57.2 percent of respondents were concerned with employees exposing sensitive material in blogs. That's higher than the portion concerned with the risks of P2P networks....
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Robert Mason (not his real name) would love to spend a few minutes during lunch catching up on blog posts from around the web, but his company doesn't allow it. The financial institution where Mason works as a vice president has security filters set up to block access to -- among other things -- any website that contains the phrase "blog" in the URL. What's more, says Mason, such practices are becoming prevalent in corporate America, particularly in financial services. Mason sits on a roundtable privacy group of 20 of the country's largest banks. "My best understanding is that my company's anti-blog stance is the industry norm," he says. Filtering out every blog isn't a completely feasible project (and, in fact, Mason says his company's filter doesn't catch everything), but the technology to censor the lion's share of blogs is fairly commonplace. From installing simple URL filters and content scanners to blacklisting ranges of IP addresses, myriad methods for shutting out blog content are available. If nothing else, the corporate firewall can simply add the word "blog" to the company's list of verboten phrases that trigger blocking, alongside "games," "warez" and "britney spears sex tape." Keith Crosley, director of corporate communications at censorware company Proofpoint, says there's no anti-blog conspiracy at work, but that some companies have higher security, privacy and regulatory needs that require greater diligence over what companies can and cannot do. In particular, companies worry that employees might leak sensitive material -- perhaps inadvertently -- while posting comments to blog message boards. In a survey of over 300 large businesses conducted in conjunction with Forrester, Proofpoint found 57.2 percent of respondents were concerned with employees exposing sensitive material in blogs. That's higher than the portion concerned with the risks of P2P networks....
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NEWS ROUNDUP
Green Acres America's billion acres of agricultural land are an often overlooked but immensely important piece of the country's conservation puzzle—a sort of middle ground between the larger (public lands) and the smaller (backyards). These croplands, pasturelands, and rangelands—what we call “working lands”—which make up nearly half of the country's landmass, are home to a high number of endangered species, including many birds. “In recent years there have been dramatic declines in many grassland species, even those we think of as common, such as bobolinks and both eastern and western meadowlarks,” says Tess Present, Audubon's acting director of science. “Good land-management practices on working lands are critical to restoring populations of these species. Many farmers and ranchers are already taking action to help them, but much more must be done. This is the great promise of the conservation programs offered through the farm bill and other private-land conservation initiatives.”....
Condit Dam removal could hurt fish downstream, state says Fish advocates see the plan to demolish Condit Dam on the White Salmon River as good news for salmon everywhere, but the state Ecology Department says the project could hurt fish downstream and might violate the federal Endangered Species Act. Demolition of the 125-foot-high hydroelectric dam, owned by Portland-based PacifiCorp, is proposed for October 2008. The project would open 33 miles of steelhead habitat and 14 miles of salmon habitat in the area of the river blocked by the dam since 1913. PacifiCorp proposes to tunnel and blast a 12- by 18-foot hole near the dam's base, drain Northwestern Lake and release more than 2 million yards of sediment that has built up behind the dam. The sediment plume could kill fish and other aquatic species below Condit Dam and displace fish in the Columbia River downstream to Bonneville Dam, according to Ecology's draft environmental-impact statement. Officials also fear the sediment could wipe out a population of endangered chum salmon for as long as four or five generations....
Corps plans spring rises for Missouri River to aid pallid sturgeon After a decade of squabbles in the courts and Congress, the Army Corps of Engineers agreed Monday to a spring-rise plan for the Missouri River to help restore the ailing pallid sturgeon. The corps' plan, staunchly opposed by Missouri farmers and barge operators, calls for releases of two pulses of water into the lower Missouri next year - one in March and another in May. But the corps said it won't release the water unless snow and rain this winter relieve drought in the basin. The hope is that recreating periods of high water similar to those that existed before the river was dammed and re-engineered will induce spawning by the sturgeon, which was placed on the government's endangered species list in 1990....
Poachers Looting National Parks of Treasures While the National Park Service does not keep comprehensive statistics on how much poaching occurs in its nearly 400 parks, its 2006 budget request reported that thefts have helped spur the decline of at least 29 wildlife species. "The poaching of wildlife from national parks has been steadily increasing each year for the past several years," the document said. Some of these resources are scarce to begin with, and the toll that poaching takes on the national parks is rising. "If there's something with a dollar amount attached to it in a park, somebody is trying to make a profit off it," said Dennis Barnett, law enforcement administrator for the Park Service....
Group criticizes park donation plan The National Park Service is considering a policy change that would allow top agency officials to solicit donations to parks from concessionaires and other permit holders. The group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility said the policy would inevitably lead to both perceived and actual conflicts of interests, since Park Service officials might end up soliciting contributions from the very people and businesses they regulate and issue permits to. "Removing the bright-line prohibitions and replacing them with slippery, 'don't get caught' kind of standards forces park managers to wade into ethical swamps with no flashlight," said PEER director Jeff Ruch. "It is inherently troublesome for any federal agency to seek funds from businesses seeking concessions from it."....
Column: Lost in the Woods AS Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice continues her talks in Ottawa today, she may find that the most acrimonious disagreement between Canada and the United States is not a question of hard power - issues like Afghanistan, Iraq and nuclear nonproliferation - but of softwood. A quarter-century-old dispute over Canadian lumber exports, which Washington claims are unfairly subsidized, has escalated to the point where it now threatens broader relations between the two countries. If it remains unresolved, the softwood war might also spill over into the December ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organization, where Washington and Ottawa have long worked together to expand free trade. What kind of example does it set for the rest of the world if the United States and Canada - close neighbors, each other's largest trading partner and crucial allies - cannot resolve their own trade disputes? American and Canadian lawyers, lobbyists and negotiators have been fighting on and off over Canadian lumber exports to the United States since the 1980's....
Weyerhaeuser to Shut Two Mills in Wash. Calvin O'Brien followed in the footsteps of his father and grandfather when he took a job at the sawmill here, earning wages few other jobs could provide in this blue-collar town. The tradition ended Friday when O'Brien, 28, learned that Weyerhaeuser Co. planned to close the mill by year's end. The news came hard in an area that has survived difficult years of decline in the timber industry. "We lived a good life," O'Brien said. "I was hoping to make a good life for my family, but there it is." Weyerhaeuser announced that it will close the 81-year-old sawmill and a 50-year-old pulp mill in neighboring Cosmopolis, eliminating 342 hourly and salaried positions. The company, based in Federal Way, Wash., cited high operating costs and aging machinery among other problems as reasons for the closings and said they were part of broader plans to fine-tune its operations....
Behind Gold's Glitter: Torn Lands and Pointed Questions The price of gold is higher than it has been in 17 years - pushing $500 an ounce. But much of the gold left to be mined is microscopic and is being wrung from the earth at enormous environmental cost, often in some of the poorest corners of the world. And unlike past gold manias, from the time of the pharoahs to the forty-niners, this one has little to do with girding empires, economies or currencies. It is almost all about the soaring demand for jewelry, which consumes 80 percent or more of the gold mined today. The extravagance of the moment is provoking a storm among environmental groups and communities near the mines, and forcing even some at Tiffany & Company and the world's largest mining companies to confront uncomfortable questions about the real costs of mining gold....
Real-estate values hit by well drilling When Becky Mangnall tried to sell her home in the heart of one of the Piceance Basin's most productive natural-gas fields two years ago, she discovered a problem. Despite her rural location and panoramic views of aspen-draped slopes, Mangnall was forced to drop her asking price by $100,000 to $400,000 because of an EnCana Corp. gas well on her property. Even then, banks wouldn't give the buyers a mortgage, she said, because of two tanks collecting the well's toxic petroleum condensates. "None of them wanted to lend because in the appraisal it mentioned the hazardous materials," she said. So Mangnall was forced to carry the mortgage herself....
Appeals court shelves shutdown of Interior computers An appellate court postponed a federal judge’s order Oct. 21 to disconnect all Interior Department information technology systems that access Indian trust fund data. U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth said he ordered the shutdown because the systems are vulnerable to hacker attacks. Interior officials then requested an administrative stay to temporarily suspend the shutdown, pending appeal. Lamberth originally granted American Indian plaintiffs a motion for a preliminary injunction to shut down any computers, networks, handheld computers and voice-over-IP equipment that access trust fund data. The injunction, which he issued Oct. 20, prohibits Interior employees, contractors, tribes and other third parties from using those systems....
Potty peeper escapes jail sentence in New Hampshire A Maine man arrested after he was found peering at a teenage girl at a rest-stop outhouse pleaded no contest to criminal trespass, and a judge urged him to seek help for whatever drove him to climb into the waste-filled toilet. Gary J. Moody was given a 30-day sentence that will be suspended if he maintains good behavior for two years. In exchange for his plea, disorderly conduct charges against Moody will be dropped, as well, if he stays out of trouble. Moody, 45, of Pittston, Maine, was arrested on June 26 after a 14-year-old girl reported hearing a noise and then seeing a face looking up at her from the pit toilet on U.S. Forest Service property in Albany....
Soaring prices of water rights push up development costs The escalating cost of water rights in the Truckee Meadows is not unlike a modern-day gold rush, creating instant fortunes for sellers and a buy-at-any price-frenzy among home builders. But the skyrocketing prices are being passed on to home buyers, raising the cost of every other type of development, including businesses, schools and churches. Water rights purchased by the Truckee Meadows Water Authority now average $24,000 an acre-foot, up from $4,000 a year ago. TMWA, the region's largest water purveyor, is routinely outbid by national home builders for water rights....
Pollution makes for more girls Toxic fumes favour the fairer sex, a group of researchers in Brazil has found. Jorge Hallak and his team at the University of Sao Paulo turned up the surprising result by studying babies born in their city. They divided the metropolis of 17 million people into areas of low, medium and high air pollution, using test results from air-quality monitoring stations. They then studied birth registries of children born from 2001 to 2003. The team found that 48.3% of babies were female in the least polluted areas, but 49.3% were female in the dirtiest parts of town. After measuring the ratio of boys to girls born in all the areas, they calculated that 1,180 more babies would have been boys in the polluted areas if they had the same sex ratios as the cleaner areas....
Old-fashioned grain trucks could be history Old-fashion grain trucks that are a fixture on Iowa's fall landscape could become an endangered species because of changing economics of crop production and tougher government regulations. The trucks are increasingly being replaced by semitrailers that hold more grain and can haul crops to more distance markets. "The majority of the grain that comes to us is in semis or in tractors with big wagons," said Jim Magnuson, general manager of Sully Cooperative Exchange in the central Iowa town of Sully. "We've got more and more semis in our area all the time," he said. Another factor is a new state law requiring annual inspections for the traditional farm trucks, which could render some of the old trucks unusable....
It's All Trew: Book about old-time expressions evokes story Some of you might not know that lines of flying geese are called "skeins." Those same geese walking on the ground are called "gaggles." This information comes from the book "The Cracker Barrel" by Eric Sloane a well-known author/expert on old-time expressions. This brings to mind an Old West classic story with this disclaimer. The following story might be more "Trew" than "true." An early settler couple raised two sons to maturity who along with their father worked as cowboys on neighboring ranches. The mother passed away, and sometime later the father married a nearby widow with six children. Along with his new family, the father acquired a large menagerie of poultry including a gaggle of geese. Geese were an important part of frontier life because their down and feathers provided feather mattresses and pillows for more comfortable sleeping....
===
Green Acres America's billion acres of agricultural land are an often overlooked but immensely important piece of the country's conservation puzzle—a sort of middle ground between the larger (public lands) and the smaller (backyards). These croplands, pasturelands, and rangelands—what we call “working lands”—which make up nearly half of the country's landmass, are home to a high number of endangered species, including many birds. “In recent years there have been dramatic declines in many grassland species, even those we think of as common, such as bobolinks and both eastern and western meadowlarks,” says Tess Present, Audubon's acting director of science. “Good land-management practices on working lands are critical to restoring populations of these species. Many farmers and ranchers are already taking action to help them, but much more must be done. This is the great promise of the conservation programs offered through the farm bill and other private-land conservation initiatives.”....
Condit Dam removal could hurt fish downstream, state says Fish advocates see the plan to demolish Condit Dam on the White Salmon River as good news for salmon everywhere, but the state Ecology Department says the project could hurt fish downstream and might violate the federal Endangered Species Act. Demolition of the 125-foot-high hydroelectric dam, owned by Portland-based PacifiCorp, is proposed for October 2008. The project would open 33 miles of steelhead habitat and 14 miles of salmon habitat in the area of the river blocked by the dam since 1913. PacifiCorp proposes to tunnel and blast a 12- by 18-foot hole near the dam's base, drain Northwestern Lake and release more than 2 million yards of sediment that has built up behind the dam. The sediment plume could kill fish and other aquatic species below Condit Dam and displace fish in the Columbia River downstream to Bonneville Dam, according to Ecology's draft environmental-impact statement. Officials also fear the sediment could wipe out a population of endangered chum salmon for as long as four or five generations....
Corps plans spring rises for Missouri River to aid pallid sturgeon After a decade of squabbles in the courts and Congress, the Army Corps of Engineers agreed Monday to a spring-rise plan for the Missouri River to help restore the ailing pallid sturgeon. The corps' plan, staunchly opposed by Missouri farmers and barge operators, calls for releases of two pulses of water into the lower Missouri next year - one in March and another in May. But the corps said it won't release the water unless snow and rain this winter relieve drought in the basin. The hope is that recreating periods of high water similar to those that existed before the river was dammed and re-engineered will induce spawning by the sturgeon, which was placed on the government's endangered species list in 1990....
Poachers Looting National Parks of Treasures While the National Park Service does not keep comprehensive statistics on how much poaching occurs in its nearly 400 parks, its 2006 budget request reported that thefts have helped spur the decline of at least 29 wildlife species. "The poaching of wildlife from national parks has been steadily increasing each year for the past several years," the document said. Some of these resources are scarce to begin with, and the toll that poaching takes on the national parks is rising. "If there's something with a dollar amount attached to it in a park, somebody is trying to make a profit off it," said Dennis Barnett, law enforcement administrator for the Park Service....
Group criticizes park donation plan The National Park Service is considering a policy change that would allow top agency officials to solicit donations to parks from concessionaires and other permit holders. The group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility said the policy would inevitably lead to both perceived and actual conflicts of interests, since Park Service officials might end up soliciting contributions from the very people and businesses they regulate and issue permits to. "Removing the bright-line prohibitions and replacing them with slippery, 'don't get caught' kind of standards forces park managers to wade into ethical swamps with no flashlight," said PEER director Jeff Ruch. "It is inherently troublesome for any federal agency to seek funds from businesses seeking concessions from it."....
Column: Lost in the Woods AS Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice continues her talks in Ottawa today, she may find that the most acrimonious disagreement between Canada and the United States is not a question of hard power - issues like Afghanistan, Iraq and nuclear nonproliferation - but of softwood. A quarter-century-old dispute over Canadian lumber exports, which Washington claims are unfairly subsidized, has escalated to the point where it now threatens broader relations between the two countries. If it remains unresolved, the softwood war might also spill over into the December ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organization, where Washington and Ottawa have long worked together to expand free trade. What kind of example does it set for the rest of the world if the United States and Canada - close neighbors, each other's largest trading partner and crucial allies - cannot resolve their own trade disputes? American and Canadian lawyers, lobbyists and negotiators have been fighting on and off over Canadian lumber exports to the United States since the 1980's....
Weyerhaeuser to Shut Two Mills in Wash. Calvin O'Brien followed in the footsteps of his father and grandfather when he took a job at the sawmill here, earning wages few other jobs could provide in this blue-collar town. The tradition ended Friday when O'Brien, 28, learned that Weyerhaeuser Co. planned to close the mill by year's end. The news came hard in an area that has survived difficult years of decline in the timber industry. "We lived a good life," O'Brien said. "I was hoping to make a good life for my family, but there it is." Weyerhaeuser announced that it will close the 81-year-old sawmill and a 50-year-old pulp mill in neighboring Cosmopolis, eliminating 342 hourly and salaried positions. The company, based in Federal Way, Wash., cited high operating costs and aging machinery among other problems as reasons for the closings and said they were part of broader plans to fine-tune its operations....
Behind Gold's Glitter: Torn Lands and Pointed Questions The price of gold is higher than it has been in 17 years - pushing $500 an ounce. But much of the gold left to be mined is microscopic and is being wrung from the earth at enormous environmental cost, often in some of the poorest corners of the world. And unlike past gold manias, from the time of the pharoahs to the forty-niners, this one has little to do with girding empires, economies or currencies. It is almost all about the soaring demand for jewelry, which consumes 80 percent or more of the gold mined today. The extravagance of the moment is provoking a storm among environmental groups and communities near the mines, and forcing even some at Tiffany & Company and the world's largest mining companies to confront uncomfortable questions about the real costs of mining gold....
Real-estate values hit by well drilling When Becky Mangnall tried to sell her home in the heart of one of the Piceance Basin's most productive natural-gas fields two years ago, she discovered a problem. Despite her rural location and panoramic views of aspen-draped slopes, Mangnall was forced to drop her asking price by $100,000 to $400,000 because of an EnCana Corp. gas well on her property. Even then, banks wouldn't give the buyers a mortgage, she said, because of two tanks collecting the well's toxic petroleum condensates. "None of them wanted to lend because in the appraisal it mentioned the hazardous materials," she said. So Mangnall was forced to carry the mortgage herself....
Appeals court shelves shutdown of Interior computers An appellate court postponed a federal judge’s order Oct. 21 to disconnect all Interior Department information technology systems that access Indian trust fund data. U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth said he ordered the shutdown because the systems are vulnerable to hacker attacks. Interior officials then requested an administrative stay to temporarily suspend the shutdown, pending appeal. Lamberth originally granted American Indian plaintiffs a motion for a preliminary injunction to shut down any computers, networks, handheld computers and voice-over-IP equipment that access trust fund data. The injunction, which he issued Oct. 20, prohibits Interior employees, contractors, tribes and other third parties from using those systems....
Potty peeper escapes jail sentence in New Hampshire A Maine man arrested after he was found peering at a teenage girl at a rest-stop outhouse pleaded no contest to criminal trespass, and a judge urged him to seek help for whatever drove him to climb into the waste-filled toilet. Gary J. Moody was given a 30-day sentence that will be suspended if he maintains good behavior for two years. In exchange for his plea, disorderly conduct charges against Moody will be dropped, as well, if he stays out of trouble. Moody, 45, of Pittston, Maine, was arrested on June 26 after a 14-year-old girl reported hearing a noise and then seeing a face looking up at her from the pit toilet on U.S. Forest Service property in Albany....
Soaring prices of water rights push up development costs The escalating cost of water rights in the Truckee Meadows is not unlike a modern-day gold rush, creating instant fortunes for sellers and a buy-at-any price-frenzy among home builders. But the skyrocketing prices are being passed on to home buyers, raising the cost of every other type of development, including businesses, schools and churches. Water rights purchased by the Truckee Meadows Water Authority now average $24,000 an acre-foot, up from $4,000 a year ago. TMWA, the region's largest water purveyor, is routinely outbid by national home builders for water rights....
Pollution makes for more girls Toxic fumes favour the fairer sex, a group of researchers in Brazil has found. Jorge Hallak and his team at the University of Sao Paulo turned up the surprising result by studying babies born in their city. They divided the metropolis of 17 million people into areas of low, medium and high air pollution, using test results from air-quality monitoring stations. They then studied birth registries of children born from 2001 to 2003. The team found that 48.3% of babies were female in the least polluted areas, but 49.3% were female in the dirtiest parts of town. After measuring the ratio of boys to girls born in all the areas, they calculated that 1,180 more babies would have been boys in the polluted areas if they had the same sex ratios as the cleaner areas....
Old-fashioned grain trucks could be history Old-fashion grain trucks that are a fixture on Iowa's fall landscape could become an endangered species because of changing economics of crop production and tougher government regulations. The trucks are increasingly being replaced by semitrailers that hold more grain and can haul crops to more distance markets. "The majority of the grain that comes to us is in semis or in tractors with big wagons," said Jim Magnuson, general manager of Sully Cooperative Exchange in the central Iowa town of Sully. "We've got more and more semis in our area all the time," he said. Another factor is a new state law requiring annual inspections for the traditional farm trucks, which could render some of the old trucks unusable....
It's All Trew: Book about old-time expressions evokes story Some of you might not know that lines of flying geese are called "skeins." Those same geese walking on the ground are called "gaggles." This information comes from the book "The Cracker Barrel" by Eric Sloane a well-known author/expert on old-time expressions. This brings to mind an Old West classic story with this disclaimer. The following story might be more "Trew" than "true." An early settler couple raised two sons to maturity who along with their father worked as cowboys on neighboring ranches. The mother passed away, and sometime later the father married a nearby widow with six children. Along with his new family, the father acquired a large menagerie of poultry including a gaggle of geese. Geese were an important part of frontier life because their down and feathers provided feather mattresses and pillows for more comfortable sleeping....
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