NEWS ROUNDUP
It’s wolf-eat-wolf as moose herds dwindle Gnawing leisurely on the remains of a moose carcass, the wolf pack’s alpha male seemed unaware that mortal danger was coming ever closer. Suddenly the eight-member rival pack burst into view. The alpha scrambled to his feet, but too late. Howling and barking, the enemy chased him down and mercilessly attacked, killing the hapless victim within a couple of minutes. It’s not unusual for the gray wolves on Isle Royale National Park to target each other, said John Vucetich, a Michigan Technological University wildlife biologist who witnessed the carnage from an airplane in January. But the rival pack’s brazen invasion of another’s territory was a sign – the wolves are hungry. The reason is a steady decline of moose, now at their lowest ebb in the 48 years that scientists have studied the two species in Isle Royale’s closed environment. “One of the ways the wolves struggle through a food shortage is to try and usurp territory from their neighbors,” Vucetich said. He and fellow researcher Rolf Peterson estimated the moose population at 450 this winter, down from 540 last year. Only four years ago, they totaled an abundant 1,100 in the national park, located in northwestern Lake Superior and accessible only by boat or airplane. Meanwhile, the wolf census held at 30 for the second consecutive year. But their numbers are sure to drop because there won’t be enough moose to feed them all, the scientists said. There are about 15 moose for every wolf. The normal ratio is 40 to 50 moose per wolf....
Study: Park's wolves worth millions People who visit Yellowstone National Park to catch a glimpse of its wolves bring $35 million to Montana, Idaho and Wyoming each year, according to a study led by University of Montana economist John Duffield. Those dollars are "direct impact" money spent on "motels and lemon pies," Duffield said. They turn over in local communities, pushing the regional economic impact to around $70 million a year, he said. Wolves are a "public good" and a national asset, said Duffield, who presented his findings during the 18th annual North American Wolf Conference. The study, which ran from December 2004 to February 2006, analyzed written surveys completed by about 1,900 randomly selected park visitors from places other than the three states surrounding the park.* It found that 3.7 percent of the park's 2.8 million annual visitors said they would not have visited Yellowstone if it didn't have wolves. In terms of costs, the increased tourism revenue vastly outstrips any losses suffered by ranchers and the hunting industry, he said, adding that confirmed livestock depredation in the three states has averaged $27,000 yearly over the past decade....
BLM picks oil-shale development contenders The U.S. Bureau of Land Management narrowed the field of oil companies hoping to exploit vast oil-shale reserves in Utah and Colorado, government officials said Monday. In a second elimination round, Exxon Mobil Corp. and a tiny Utah company, Oil-Tech Inc., were knocked out of the running for research and development leases to work 160-acre parcels of BLM land. That leaves four companies in contention out of 16 that originally submitted applications. In Colorado, the surviving nominees are Shell Frontier Oil & Gas Co.; Chevron Shale Oil Co; and EGL Resources Inc. In Utah, Alabama-based Oil Shale Exploration Co. was picked over Oil-Tech to work an abandoned mine. Both companies applied to work the same mine, ensuring one would be eliminated. The companies provided their best and final proposals, said James Kohler, chief of the solid minerals branch for the BLM in Utah....
Forest Service set for summer of work at High Uintas lakes It's shaping up to be an interesting - and unusual - summer in the High Uintas Wilderness. After years of debate, followed by several more years of planning, the Forest Service in June will begin dismantling a series of backcountry reservoirs that date back to the turn of the last century. The purpose: to stabilize and restore the high mountain lakes, which were enlarged by the construction of earthen dams, to something close to their original state. Three lakes on the south slope - Farmers, White Miller and Water Lily - are scheduled to be restored this summer. Further east, a pair of larger reservoirs - Fox and Crescent - are scheduled for repairs. Altogether, the project calls for 13 lakes to be returned to their natural condition over the next few summers. "These are reservoirs that were basically built by the pioneers 80 years ago with primitive tools to provide irrigation water," said Mike Elson, acting district ranger for Ashley National Forest. "They were amazingly well built, but they don't meet current dam standards and they are difficult to maintain, especially with the wilderness designation limiting motorized use. So we began looking for a way to move this water to facilities that are more accessible and modern." Central Utah Project officials, and environmentalists, have long clamored for the High Uintas project....
Group seeks protection for lizard An environmental group on Monday filed a petition with the federal government seeking endangered or threatened status for a desert-dwelling lizard, saying off-roading in wind-sculpted dunes of remote San Bernardino County is leading to the reptile's demise. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service generally takes 90 days to decide if such petitions warrant further review, said Al Donner, an agency spokesman in Sacramento. If that's the case, Donner said, it could take another few years to determine if the Mojave fringe-toed lizard should be protected under the federal Endangered Species Act. Off-roaders were concerned that another protected species in the desert could lead to riding limits at Dumont Dunes, much like a threatened plant has done at the Imperial Sand Dunes Recreation Area near the Mexican border. "With the amount of closures in the last 10 to 15 years in the desert, we feel strongly that each additional closure needs to be done in a legal and proper way," said Fred Wiley, executive director for the Off-Road Business Association, which has an office in Temecula. Each year, some 140,000 visitors go to the 10,500-acre Dumont Dunes, said Doran Sanchez, a spokesman for the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, which operates the dunes. The petition for the seven-inch, black-flecked lizard is focused on a specific population of the reptile that lives around the Amargosa River, which meanders through Inyo and San Bernardino counties. The lizard also lives in other parts of Southern California and Arizona....
Resort operators outline visions for future of Mount Hood region The operators of resorts at Mount Hood have a vision that includes huge parking lots that connect with shuttle buses or aerial cable cars to three ski areas. Their vision includes a new road through Clackamas County forests so truckers can transport goods from Portland to the east side of the Cascades and avoid skier-caused traffic jams. Their vision includes widening highways, building sewage treatment systems, using stream water for snowmaking, developing land for housing and parking lots, and a collective marketing strategy that includes the U.S. Forest Service. All the ideas are in a March 13 "memorandum of understanding" drafted by the operators of Timberline, Mt. Hood Meadows and Mt. Hood Skibowl. It's, at most, a wish list of projects the resorts see as necessary to accommodate the building boom under way in Government Camp and the projected increases in the number of skiers making day trips from Portland. Most of what's in the document has yet to be formally proposed....
Allard introduces revised plan to allow forest management Sen. Wayne Allard said Monday that legislation pending in the Senate would allow thinning in national forests as part of a long-term solution to a severe bark beetle infestation in the West. Allard, R-Colo., said the bark beetle has chewed through 7.5 million trees in Colorado, killing or weakening drought-stressed forests. He said 6.3 million acres of hazardous fuels have accumulated, creating a fire danger. His plan would provide $225 million over the next five years to hire companies to thin forests, taking out underbrush along with some small and some larger trees to ensure uniform growth. Allard said his plan would protect water supplies by keeping fire debris out of the runoff and would allow federal land managers to work faster. ‘‘This would be achieved through steady, judicious and effective forest management over time. This represents a better, more cost-effective strategy than having to deal with catastrophic events under emergency circumstances,’’ Allard said....
Column: Selling unused federal land a good idea Isn't it great to sell your junk at a yard sale, ridding your home of the stuff that no longer fits your lifestyle but just takes up space? Yard sales illustrate the beauty of markets: Both partners benefit. The buyer gets something new; the original owner takes the proceeds and uses them for personal goals. The government owns assets, too -- a 600 million-acre federal estate. But it's difficult for this government to hold yard sales. Even a whisper about selling publicly owned assets typically sets off a firestorm of criticism. That happened recently when the Forest Service announced plans to sell off some land. Sens. Jeff Bingaman, D-New Mexico, and Larry Craig, R-Idaho, expressed opposition. Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., declared the idea dead in the water. But cooler heads may yet prevail. Why? There may be no alternatives, and it's a good idea. The Forest Service proposes to sell off less than one-tenth of a percent of the federal estate, at most about 300,000 acres out of its 192 million acres. These lands provide little benefit to the average American, who pays for their management with taxes....
Column: Big Greens and Beltway Politics As business and environmental groups attempt to influence government environmental decisions, only one side consistently comes out on top. You don't have to dig too deep into campaign contributions to see who hands over more money to candidates and both major political parties. Oil and gas companies hand over millions more dollars to special interest groups and presidential campaigns than do environmental organizations. And their investments pay off quite well. Rarely is there an environmental victory that comes out of Washington. On contrary, big oil companies win time and again. Certainly there are not many policy wonks that keep an eye on Washington who would deny that campaign contributions influence public policy. This may well be the ill fate of the environmental movement--attempting to play ball with the big boys in Washington. Will they ever be on par with the likes of Enron or others who virtually write our environmental and energy legislation year after year? It has long been my belief that the Sierra Club and rest of the big environmental groups, along with the Democratic Party itself, that do the most harm to environmentalism. It's not the Republicans. If anything, the Republicans have been the best mobilizers of environmentalists by rallying people against their policies, even though many of the same policies were present during Democratic administrations....
Milltown Dam's hydroelectric power generating plant shut down for final time By Bill Scarbrough's count, Milltown Dam was a hydroelectric power generating plant for 98 years, two months and 29 days. That ended on Friday sometime shortly after noon. Over the course of an hour or so, Scarbrough and fellow NorthWestern Energy dam operator Mike Haenke flipped switches, turned dials and tracked meters while forever shutting down the four operating turbines and generators inside the dam's powerhouse. NorthWestern shut down the dam's hydroelectric generation as an important first step toward removal of the dam at the confluence of the Clark Fork and Blackfoot rivers east of Missoula. The shutdown was timed to take place just ahead of the effective date of a consent decree that officially sets the Milltown Dam removal project in motion. On Monday, authority over the dam will shift from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to the Environmental Protection Agency. NorthWestern remains the dam's owner. EPA is the lead agency in a $100 million project to dismantle the dam and remove about one-third of the 6.6 million cubic yards of contaminated mud that filled Milltown Reservoir during a flood the same year the dam began producing electricity. The dam was constructed by William Andrews Clark, one of Butte's Copper Kings. It began producing electricity on Jan. 9, 1908....
Column: There IS a problem with global warming... it stopped in 1998 For many years now, human-caused climate change has been viewed as a large and urgent problem. In truth, however, the biggest part of the problem is neither environmental nor scientific, but a self-created political fiasco. Consider the simple fact, drawn from the official temperature records of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, that for the years 1998-2005 global average temperature did not increase (there was actually a slight decrease, though not at a rate that differs significantly from zero). Yes, you did read that right. And also, yes, this eight-year period of temperature stasis did coincide with society's continued power station and SUV-inspired pumping of yet more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. In response to these facts, a global warming devotee will chuckle and say "how silly to judge climate change over such a short period". Yet in the next breath, the same person will assure you that the 28-year-long period of warming which occurred between 1970 and 1998 constitutes a dangerous (and man-made) warming. Tosh. Our devotee will also pass by the curious additional facts that a period of similar warming occurred between 1918 and 1940, well prior to the greatest phase of world industrialisation, and that cooling occurred between 1940 and 1965, at precisely the time that human emissions were increasing at their greatest rate. Does something not strike you as odd here?....
When Phoenix, Tucson merge Phoenix and Tucson are heading for a collision. Arizona's two largest metropolitan areas are on course to meet and merge within a decade, engulfing several small towns along the way. The downtowns of the two major cities are separated by 120 miles. But their suburbs reach much farther along Interstate 10. Planned developments stretch 60 miles south of metropolitan Phoenix, deep into Pinal County. In Tucson, new projects are heading 40 miles north into Pinal, the only county that separates the two regions. That leaves only a 20-mile gap between the two cities' growth. Urban researchers are calling the corridor a megapolitan, or "super-sized" metropolitan area, and see it spanning from Prescott in the north all the way south to Sierra Vista and the Mexico border. The Phoenix-Tucson stretch is the epicenter. Dubbed the Arizona Sun Corridor by researchers, the megapolitan area is one of 10 expected to be the center of most of the nation's growth during the next 35 years. The combined population of metropolitan Phoenix and Tucson today is about 5 million. Forecasts call for the swath's population to top 10 million by 2040....
You don't know jack In a town that gave birth to the mythical "jackalope," a controversy appears to have sprung. Douglas residents, normally brimming with pride over the half-antelope, half-jackrabbit that has come to symbolize the town and its largest tourist draw, are seemingly torn about putting the jackalope, a statue of which graces downtown, out to pasture. The Douglas Budget reports in its April 5 edition that the town is actually debating whether to keep the old jackalope or replace it with one that could be ridden on. No sooner had that decision been reached when people decided they didn't want to see the old jackalope retired to stud just yet. As to whether the new jackalope will replace his older brother, no decision has been made. "We will not make a move without careful analysis of public opinion," Jackalope Square Advisory Committee Chairwoman Bobbe Fitzhugh told the paper....
Traders once used the Old Spanish Trail to head toward California Before it was the land of oil and apples, traders made their way through San Juan County heading toward California along the Old Spanish Trail with mules and goods for trade. The trail, which is currently being studied for deveopment into a designated national park trail, which will bring both awareness and activity to accessible parts of the 2,700-mile long route, is thought to have wound its way through the canyons and mesas of Blanco and Aztec. "This trail has some of the best outdoor recreation in the country," Sarah Schlanger, Bureau of Land Management archeologist with the New Mexico state office, said. "(We are traveling along the route and speaking with area residents) to find a way to connect people to the trail." The main goal of the trail, when it began, was to find a land route to California for the purpose of trading goods, textiles and livestock without having to use the water routes already in use....
It's All Trew: Crocks: The Tupperware of their day The dictionary says, “ A crock is an earthen jar made of baked clay, with a wide mouth and no handles.” Another statement says, “Clay cooking vessels go back to the beginnings of man, even before the discovery of fire, when humans used clay dishes to cook food out in the hot sun.” Clay food storage containers were so common they could be called the Tupperware of their day. As a little boy I can remember crocks, and crock-type bowls that were in everyday use in the Trew homes. My favorite crock story tells of chuck wagon cooks who kept their sourdough batch growing in a small crock with a lid. The thick walls of the crock kept the temperature more even than other vessels, and the wide mouth allowed the cook to work and pinch off biscuit dough when needed. Each day, the cook fed his dough with flour and other ingredients to keep it growing. The saddest thing that could happen to a wagon crew is when for some reason the sourdough died and a new batch had to be started. There were no biscuits until the new dough began producing. If the weather was hot, the sourdough crock was hidden underneath cowboy bedrolls to keep it cool. In cold weather, the cook slept with the crock to keep the dough from freezing....
Tuesday, April 11, 2006
FLE
Whistle-Blower Outs NSA Spy Room
AT&T provided National Security Agency eavesdroppers with full access to its customers' phone calls, and shunted its customers' internet traffic to data-mining equipment installed in a secret room in its San Francisco switching center, according to a former AT&T worker cooperating in the Electronic Frontier Foundation's lawsuit against the company. Mark Klein, a retired AT&T communications technician, submitted an affidavit in support of the EFF's lawsuit this week. That class action lawsuit, filed in federal court in San Francisco last January, alleges that AT&T violated federal and state laws by surreptitiously allowing the government to monitor phone and internet communications of AT&T customers without warrants. On Wednesday, the EFF asked the court to issue an injunction prohibiting AT&T from continuing the alleged wiretapping, and filed a number of documents under seal, including three AT&T documents that purportedly explain how the wiretapping system works. According to a statement released by Klein's attorney, an NSA agent showed up at the San Francisco switching center in 2002 to interview a management-level technician for a special job. In January 2003, Klein observed a new room being built adjacent to the room housing AT&T's #4ESS switching equipment, which is responsible for routing long distance and international calls. "I learned that the person whom the NSA interviewed for the secret job was the person working to install equipment in this room," Klein wrote. "The regular technician work force was not allowed in the room." Klein's job eventually included connecting internet circuits to a splitting cabinet that led to the secret room. During the course of that work, he learned from a co-worker that similar cabinets were being installed in other cities, including Seattle, San Jose, Los Angeles and San Diego....
How the FBI Let 9/11 Happen
Anyone paying attention to the Zacarias Moussaoui trial gets it now. All the 9/11 blanks are filled in, and the picture is complete. Sorry, conspiracy freaks and blind partisan hacks. Dull, common, gross incompetence is again at the heart of a deadly government cluster-hump. Do not linger on Moussaoui's bizarre suicide-by-testimony or the literal cheerleading for his execution—He knew. He lied. And 2,749 people died. Neither of these is the real story of this case. Rather, the story is the definitive proof Moussaoui's case provides that the U.S. government—pre-PATRIOT Act, pre-NSA wiretaps and all—had and missed clear opportunities to stop 9/11. The FBI uniquely and repeatedly punted carefully gathered evidence of an attack in favor of adherence to bureaucratic hierarchies and power trips. The testimony of FBI agent Harry Samit forever buries the quaint notion that 9/11 was unforeseen and unpreventable. Beginning with Moussaoui's August 16, 2001 arrest Samit mounted a global and indefatigable investigation of the man and concluded that an attack involving hijacked airplanes was imminent....
U.S. Military Secrets for Sale at Afghan Bazaar
No more than 200 yards from the main gate of the sprawling U.S. base here, stolen computer drives containing classified military assessments of enemy targets, names of corrupt Afghan officials and descriptions of American defenses are on sale in the local bazaar. Shop owners at the bazaar say Afghan cleaners, garbage collectors and other workers from the base arrive each day offering purloined goods, including knives, watches, refrigerators, packets of Viagra and flash memory drives taken from military laptops. The drives, smaller than a pack of chewing gum, are sold as used equipment. The thefts of computer drives have the potential to expose military secrets as well as Social Security numbers and other identifying information of military personnel. A reporter recently obtained several drives at the bazaar that contained documents marked "Secret." The contents included documents that were potentially embarrassing to Pakistan, a U.S. ally, presentations that named suspected militants targeted for "kill or capture" and discussions of U.S. efforts to "remove" or "marginalize" Afghan government officials whom the military considered "problem makers." The drives also included deployment rosters and other documents that identified nearly 700 U.S. service members and their Social Security numbers, information that identity thieves could use to open credit card accounts in soldiers' names. After choosing the name of an army captain at random, a reporter using the Internet was able to obtain detailed information on the woman, including her home address in Maryland and the license plate numbers of her 2003 Jeep Liberty sport utility vehicle and 1998 Harley Davidson XL883 Hugger motorcycle....
Bush’s Bogus Theory of Absolute Power
The Bush administration has a theory to explain why the Founding Fathers secretly intended for the president to have boundless power. Even though the new “unitary executive theory” is nowhere in the Constitution, White House officials continually invoke it to justify scorning federal law. The fact that the administration is getting away with this charade symbolizes how docile much of the American media and political opposition have become. Earlier this year, members of Congress anguished publicly over how many of the original USA PATRIOT Act surveillance powers should be renewed. A bipartisan agreement was finally reached, giving the White House almost everything it wanted. As part of the deal to renew the Patriot Act, Bush administration officials agreed to provide Congress more details on how the new powers were being used. However, Bush reneged in a “signing statement” quietly released after a heavily hyped White House signing ceremony on March 9. He decreed that he was entitled to withhold any information that would “impair foreign relations, national security, the deliberative process of the executive, or the performance of the executive’s constitutional duties.” He announced that he would interpret any provision in the law obliging notifying Congress “in a manner consistent with the president’s constitutional authority to supervise the unitary executive branch and to withhold information.” In other words, any provision of the law that requires disclosure is presumptively null and void. The crux of the “unitary executive” is that all power rests in the president, and that “checks and balances” are an archaic relic. This is the same “principle” the Bush administration invoked to deny Congress everything from Iraqi war plans to the records of the Cheney Energy Task Force. Bush has invoked the “unitary executive” doctrine almost a hundred times since taking office, according to a study by Miami University professor Christopher Kelley....
Mayor Nagin Continues to Snub the Second Amendment
Law-abiding citizens of New Orleans who were forced to relinquish their legally owned firearms to the New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) will have to wait, indefinitely, to regain their property. The City of New Orleans revealed they have not returned any firearms, as Mayor Ray Nagin and the city have yet to set up a return process. “Mayor Ray Nagin continues to deny freedom by denying lawful citizens their Second Amendment rights,” stated National Rifle Association (NRA) Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre. “First, he confiscates law-abiding citizens’ firearms and lies about it. Then, he fails to comply with court orders. Now he refuses to return the legally owned firearms to their rightful owners by dragging his feet. It’s a disgrace.” After denying the illegal confiscation for months, on March 15, 2006, Mayor Nagin and the NOPD conceded in federal court that they do have seized guns stored in locked steel containers. The city then agreed in court to a process by which law-abiding citizens may file a claim to receive their confiscated firearms. However, a New Orleans official handling the gun confiscations stated that no guns have been returned because the NOPD requires background checks, and the city has not set up a process....
Two in Homeland Security now charged with child sex crimes
It's called "Operation Predator," a high-priority Department of Homeland Security program that does battle against those who prey sexually on children. Now, with the arrest Tuesday night of a department deputy secretary, at least two of the agency's own top personnel stand charged with just such offenses. "It hammers home the fact that these individuals can be anywhere," said John Shehan, of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which works closely with Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement bureau. Brian Doyle, deputy press secretary to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, faces 23 counts of using a computer to seduce a child and transmitting harmful materials to a minor. He was caught in a police Internet sting in which a detective pretended to be a 14-year-old girl. The other Homeland Security official charged with a sexual offense involving a girl is veteran administrator Frank Figueroa, 49, the ICE special agent in charge of the agency's operations in central and northern Florida. Figueroa, who also ran the agency's El Paso, Texas, office, has pleaded not guilty to charges he exposed and fondled himself to a teenage girl last year at a mall in Tampa....
NYPD detectives convicted of mob murders
Two highly decorated former detectives were convicted Thursday of moonlighting as hitmen for the mob in one of the most sensational cases of police corruption in New York history. Louis Eppolito, 57, and Steven Caracappa, 64, could get life in prison for their roles in eight murders committed between 1986 and 1990 while they were simultaneously on the payroll of both the NYPD and Luchese crime family underboss Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso. Federal prosecutor Daniel Wenner described the case as "the bloodiest, most violent betrayal of the badge this city has ever seen." Prosecutors said the two men carried out two hits themselves — in one case after pulling a mobster over in a phony traffic stop — and delivered up some of the other victims to the Mafia to be killed....
Prosecutors Want Dental Jewelry, but Defendants Are Spared
Federal prosecutors in Washington State tried to remove elaborate customized dental jewelry bonded to the teeth of two accused drug dealers, saying the jewelry was bought with drug money and should be forfeited to the government. The men were on their way to a dental clinic Tuesday morning when their lawyers learned of the effort, rushed to court and persuaded a judge to halt it. The prosecutors had been granted permission to remove the jewelry in a secret proceeding in the federal court in Tacoma. In a sworn statement dated March 29 and unsealed this week, a federal agent, Brice P. McCracken, told a judge that the two men, Donald L. Lewis and Flenard T. Neal Jr., had used money from selling marijuana and cocaine to buy dental "status symbols which drug traffickers purchase to portray their status in the criminal community." Mr. Lewis and Mr. Neal are awaiting trial in Tacoma on drug and gun charges. They have pleaded not guilty. The dental jewelry, known as grills, cost "from $1,000 to anywhere in excess of $25,000," Special Agent McCracken wrote, saying he based his assessment in part on research he had conducted on a Web site called gangstagold.com. Zenon P. Olbertz, a lawyer for Mr. Lewis, said he was troubled by both the prosecutors' secrecy and their zeal. "The government has a legal right to take property, in general, that was obtained though illegal acts," Mr. Olbertz said. "But the process of covertly maneuvering to go essentially into someone's body to remove things that have been attached is frightening."....
Whistle-Blower Outs NSA Spy Room
AT&T provided National Security Agency eavesdroppers with full access to its customers' phone calls, and shunted its customers' internet traffic to data-mining equipment installed in a secret room in its San Francisco switching center, according to a former AT&T worker cooperating in the Electronic Frontier Foundation's lawsuit against the company. Mark Klein, a retired AT&T communications technician, submitted an affidavit in support of the EFF's lawsuit this week. That class action lawsuit, filed in federal court in San Francisco last January, alleges that AT&T violated federal and state laws by surreptitiously allowing the government to monitor phone and internet communications of AT&T customers without warrants. On Wednesday, the EFF asked the court to issue an injunction prohibiting AT&T from continuing the alleged wiretapping, and filed a number of documents under seal, including three AT&T documents that purportedly explain how the wiretapping system works. According to a statement released by Klein's attorney, an NSA agent showed up at the San Francisco switching center in 2002 to interview a management-level technician for a special job. In January 2003, Klein observed a new room being built adjacent to the room housing AT&T's #4ESS switching equipment, which is responsible for routing long distance and international calls. "I learned that the person whom the NSA interviewed for the secret job was the person working to install equipment in this room," Klein wrote. "The regular technician work force was not allowed in the room." Klein's job eventually included connecting internet circuits to a splitting cabinet that led to the secret room. During the course of that work, he learned from a co-worker that similar cabinets were being installed in other cities, including Seattle, San Jose, Los Angeles and San Diego....
How the FBI Let 9/11 Happen
Anyone paying attention to the Zacarias Moussaoui trial gets it now. All the 9/11 blanks are filled in, and the picture is complete. Sorry, conspiracy freaks and blind partisan hacks. Dull, common, gross incompetence is again at the heart of a deadly government cluster-hump. Do not linger on Moussaoui's bizarre suicide-by-testimony or the literal cheerleading for his execution—He knew. He lied. And 2,749 people died. Neither of these is the real story of this case. Rather, the story is the definitive proof Moussaoui's case provides that the U.S. government—pre-PATRIOT Act, pre-NSA wiretaps and all—had and missed clear opportunities to stop 9/11. The FBI uniquely and repeatedly punted carefully gathered evidence of an attack in favor of adherence to bureaucratic hierarchies and power trips. The testimony of FBI agent Harry Samit forever buries the quaint notion that 9/11 was unforeseen and unpreventable. Beginning with Moussaoui's August 16, 2001 arrest Samit mounted a global and indefatigable investigation of the man and concluded that an attack involving hijacked airplanes was imminent....
U.S. Military Secrets for Sale at Afghan Bazaar
No more than 200 yards from the main gate of the sprawling U.S. base here, stolen computer drives containing classified military assessments of enemy targets, names of corrupt Afghan officials and descriptions of American defenses are on sale in the local bazaar. Shop owners at the bazaar say Afghan cleaners, garbage collectors and other workers from the base arrive each day offering purloined goods, including knives, watches, refrigerators, packets of Viagra and flash memory drives taken from military laptops. The drives, smaller than a pack of chewing gum, are sold as used equipment. The thefts of computer drives have the potential to expose military secrets as well as Social Security numbers and other identifying information of military personnel. A reporter recently obtained several drives at the bazaar that contained documents marked "Secret." The contents included documents that were potentially embarrassing to Pakistan, a U.S. ally, presentations that named suspected militants targeted for "kill or capture" and discussions of U.S. efforts to "remove" or "marginalize" Afghan government officials whom the military considered "problem makers." The drives also included deployment rosters and other documents that identified nearly 700 U.S. service members and their Social Security numbers, information that identity thieves could use to open credit card accounts in soldiers' names. After choosing the name of an army captain at random, a reporter using the Internet was able to obtain detailed information on the woman, including her home address in Maryland and the license plate numbers of her 2003 Jeep Liberty sport utility vehicle and 1998 Harley Davidson XL883 Hugger motorcycle....
Bush’s Bogus Theory of Absolute Power
The Bush administration has a theory to explain why the Founding Fathers secretly intended for the president to have boundless power. Even though the new “unitary executive theory” is nowhere in the Constitution, White House officials continually invoke it to justify scorning federal law. The fact that the administration is getting away with this charade symbolizes how docile much of the American media and political opposition have become. Earlier this year, members of Congress anguished publicly over how many of the original USA PATRIOT Act surveillance powers should be renewed. A bipartisan agreement was finally reached, giving the White House almost everything it wanted. As part of the deal to renew the Patriot Act, Bush administration officials agreed to provide Congress more details on how the new powers were being used. However, Bush reneged in a “signing statement” quietly released after a heavily hyped White House signing ceremony on March 9. He decreed that he was entitled to withhold any information that would “impair foreign relations, national security, the deliberative process of the executive, or the performance of the executive’s constitutional duties.” He announced that he would interpret any provision in the law obliging notifying Congress “in a manner consistent with the president’s constitutional authority to supervise the unitary executive branch and to withhold information.” In other words, any provision of the law that requires disclosure is presumptively null and void. The crux of the “unitary executive” is that all power rests in the president, and that “checks and balances” are an archaic relic. This is the same “principle” the Bush administration invoked to deny Congress everything from Iraqi war plans to the records of the Cheney Energy Task Force. Bush has invoked the “unitary executive” doctrine almost a hundred times since taking office, according to a study by Miami University professor Christopher Kelley....
Mayor Nagin Continues to Snub the Second Amendment
Law-abiding citizens of New Orleans who were forced to relinquish their legally owned firearms to the New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) will have to wait, indefinitely, to regain their property. The City of New Orleans revealed they have not returned any firearms, as Mayor Ray Nagin and the city have yet to set up a return process. “Mayor Ray Nagin continues to deny freedom by denying lawful citizens their Second Amendment rights,” stated National Rifle Association (NRA) Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre. “First, he confiscates law-abiding citizens’ firearms and lies about it. Then, he fails to comply with court orders. Now he refuses to return the legally owned firearms to their rightful owners by dragging his feet. It’s a disgrace.” After denying the illegal confiscation for months, on March 15, 2006, Mayor Nagin and the NOPD conceded in federal court that they do have seized guns stored in locked steel containers. The city then agreed in court to a process by which law-abiding citizens may file a claim to receive their confiscated firearms. However, a New Orleans official handling the gun confiscations stated that no guns have been returned because the NOPD requires background checks, and the city has not set up a process....
Two in Homeland Security now charged with child sex crimes
It's called "Operation Predator," a high-priority Department of Homeland Security program that does battle against those who prey sexually on children. Now, with the arrest Tuesday night of a department deputy secretary, at least two of the agency's own top personnel stand charged with just such offenses. "It hammers home the fact that these individuals can be anywhere," said John Shehan, of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which works closely with Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement bureau. Brian Doyle, deputy press secretary to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, faces 23 counts of using a computer to seduce a child and transmitting harmful materials to a minor. He was caught in a police Internet sting in which a detective pretended to be a 14-year-old girl. The other Homeland Security official charged with a sexual offense involving a girl is veteran administrator Frank Figueroa, 49, the ICE special agent in charge of the agency's operations in central and northern Florida. Figueroa, who also ran the agency's El Paso, Texas, office, has pleaded not guilty to charges he exposed and fondled himself to a teenage girl last year at a mall in Tampa....
NYPD detectives convicted of mob murders
Two highly decorated former detectives were convicted Thursday of moonlighting as hitmen for the mob in one of the most sensational cases of police corruption in New York history. Louis Eppolito, 57, and Steven Caracappa, 64, could get life in prison for their roles in eight murders committed between 1986 and 1990 while they were simultaneously on the payroll of both the NYPD and Luchese crime family underboss Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso. Federal prosecutor Daniel Wenner described the case as "the bloodiest, most violent betrayal of the badge this city has ever seen." Prosecutors said the two men carried out two hits themselves — in one case after pulling a mobster over in a phony traffic stop — and delivered up some of the other victims to the Mafia to be killed....
Prosecutors Want Dental Jewelry, but Defendants Are Spared
Federal prosecutors in Washington State tried to remove elaborate customized dental jewelry bonded to the teeth of two accused drug dealers, saying the jewelry was bought with drug money and should be forfeited to the government. The men were on their way to a dental clinic Tuesday morning when their lawyers learned of the effort, rushed to court and persuaded a judge to halt it. The prosecutors had been granted permission to remove the jewelry in a secret proceeding in the federal court in Tacoma. In a sworn statement dated March 29 and unsealed this week, a federal agent, Brice P. McCracken, told a judge that the two men, Donald L. Lewis and Flenard T. Neal Jr., had used money from selling marijuana and cocaine to buy dental "status symbols which drug traffickers purchase to portray their status in the criminal community." Mr. Lewis and Mr. Neal are awaiting trial in Tacoma on drug and gun charges. They have pleaded not guilty. The dental jewelry, known as grills, cost "from $1,000 to anywhere in excess of $25,000," Special Agent McCracken wrote, saying he based his assessment in part on research he had conducted on a Web site called gangstagold.com. Zenon P. Olbertz, a lawyer for Mr. Lewis, said he was troubled by both the prosecutors' secrecy and their zeal. "The government has a legal right to take property, in general, that was obtained though illegal acts," Mr. Olbertz said. "But the process of covertly maneuvering to go essentially into someone's body to remove things that have been attached is frightening."....
Monday, April 10, 2006
NEWS ROUNDUP
Montana Pollution Rules Draw Federal Objections Federal energy officials are opposing new rules by Montana to force companies that extract methane gas from underground coal beds to clean up the water pollution caused by drilling operations, even as state officials cite an unreleased 2003 federal report that says cleanup costs are relatively inexpensive. The Denver office of the Environmental Protection Agency produced the report but never published it, saying it related to a proposed drilling application that was dropped. A Montana consulting firm obtained a copy of the EPA report, however, and handed it over to Gov. Brian Schweitzer (D). Last month, Montana's Board of Environmental Review, citing the EPA paper and other economic studies, voted to force coalbed methane companies to leave the state's streams as clean as they were before drilling started, although the companies do not have to clean up existing pollution. "We want to develop energy in Montana, but we want to do it right," Schweitzer said in an interview. "Here's the bottom line with the federal government: They're usually not helpful, and they weren't this time, either." The Energy Department and the Wyoming congressional delegation are backing companies that are trying to block Montana's new rules, on the grounds that they could hamper energy development. The department submitted analyses by two of its national laboratories concluding that the state's regulations were "unnecessarily stringent" and "inconsistent."....
Cities move to defend against railroad attacks Boston officials envision keeping rail cars carrying hazardous chemicals at least 10 miles away unless the city is their destination. A plan in Chicago would prohibit such tanker cars in its downtown Loop. In Cleveland, city officials are considering banning them near Lake Erie, water treatment plants, and crowded neighborhoods. Transport of these chemicals presents one of the knottiest public policy problems in the effort to protect the nation's cities from terrorist attack. Federal law requires railroads to carry such chemicals, which are used in manufacturing, water-purification systems, and wastewater-treatment plants. But with no federal regulations for securing the transport of these chemicals, The District of Columbia has enacted rules of its own and at least five other cities are considering them. These moves have drawn a sharp rebuke from industry and federal officials, who say such piecemeal efforts are misguided. Since 9/11, they point out, railroads have fortified rail yards and worked with the chemical industry to conceal where and when these tanker cars pass near or through cities. The threat looms large. Government studies suggest that the explosion of one tanker car carrying, say, chlorine would cause up to 100,000 deaths in a densely populated area. So Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Cleveland, and Chicago have proposed ordinances requiring that such deadly chemicals be rerouted around them unless they're destined for the cities themselves. The fact that the rail industry, with federal support, has sued the District of Columbia over its law has not deterred them....
Bush's Interior Nominee: Comfort in Consensus Eagle Island State Park here has horse-riding trails, picnic tables and a water slide. Under a recent compromise between the Idaho Legislature and Gov. Dirk Kempthorne, President Bush's nominee to oversee the nation's public lands as secretary of the interior, the park may one day get its own gravel mine, too. Aides to Mr. Kempthorne defend gravel mining at Eagle Island, outside Boise, as a way to raise money for park improvements without causing undue environmental harm. But others see it as a lobbed softball that his critics in the United States Senate will smack toward the fences at his confirmation hearing, raising questions about his judgment and environmental priorities. The hearing may begin as early as next month. Is it your position, Governor — pause, clear throat, sip from water glass — that mining inside America's parks is good public policy? "It's going to be like stepping on a rake," said Justin Hayes, program director for the Idaho Conservation League, an environmental advocacy group concerned about the mining plan. Governor Kempthorne, a second-term Republican, declined to be interviewed. But an analysis of his positions and votes over a 20-year public career in Idaho, and interviews with people who have worked with him, suggest that the plan, which he accepted as a provision of a parks improvement bill approved this week by the overwhelmingly Republican Legislature, reveals much about him....
Buried treasure in Texas From atop a 40-foot-high walkway on a towering natural gas rig, Doug Hampton scans the grassy scrubland that has served ranchers since the 19th century. He doesn't see much evidence of that history now -- no cattle, horses or cowboys. Instead, out on the horizon, he sees the future of this vast expanse north of Fort Worth. "Just look out there. See?" he said, pointing to another solitary steel structure. "There's a rig over there, another out there and another way out there." Mr. Hampton is a project manager for Oklahoma City-based Devon Energy Corp., one of several companies tapping into the nation's fastest-growing natural gas field -- the Barnett Shale. The reservoir is vital to a tight U.S. supply market, has become a template for other fields nationwide, and is turning oil and gas into this region's most important industry. The changing landscape is making wells on high schools and private property a familiar sight. Even Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport is reviewing its options with 12 companies to lease land for drilling....
Couple still waiting for government's promised Clark Fork River cleanup work some 20 years later Some 20 years ago, Kathy Hadley was fuming. She and her husband Wayne had already spent years writing letters, going to meetings, doing whatever they could to try and convince government officials they'd forgotten an important piece of the puzzle when they designated areas around Butte and the Milltown Reservoir as U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Superfund cleanup sites. “I'd show them the map and point to that thin little blue line that connected Butte with Milltown,” Hadley said. “I told them they'd forgotten the Clark Fork River.” So finally, she called her sister and lined up a trip to Washington, D.C. Before they boarded the homeward-bound airplane, the upper Clark Fork had become part of the largest Superfund site in the country. Two decades later and the Hadleys are still waiting for the promised cleanup of the upper 120 river miles of the Clark Fork River. The Environmental Protection Agency signed a Record of Decision outlining the cleanup 2 1/2 years ago. But work won't start until a consent decree is also signed, outlining who will pay for what. No one knows for sure when that will be completed, although there are rumblings that it's getting close. The Hadleys aren't going to hold their breath....
Park's wolf idea causes worries With an elk population nearly double what biologists say it should be, Rocky Mountain National Park officials are looking for ways to manage the overgrown population. Officials at the park, which straddles the Continental Divide in Larimer and Grand counties, are considering a variety of options to cut back on elk. Re-introducing gray wolves is one of the options being considered. But the prospect of re-introducing the carnivores, which were eradicated from Colorado more than 60 years ago, has raised concerns from Colorado ranchers, including those in Moffat County. Les Hampton, a former Moffat County commissioner working with the Colorado Division of Wildlife on wolf issues, said this week that he is worried about the U.S. Park Service's plans. Hampton told the Moffat County commissioners Tuesday that re-introducing wolves in Rocky Mountain National Park could lead to wolves being re-introduced at other national parks, including Dinosaur National Monument. "I don't like what's going on," Hampton said....
Environmentalists appeal forest grazing ruling An environmental group continues to seek an end to grazing in Medicine Bow National Forest between Cheyenne and Laramie, appealing its federal court case. The Laramie-based Biodiversity Conservation Alliance claims that cattle have been causing unacceptably high levels of fecal coliform bacteria in creeks in the forest's Pole Mountain section. The group says that violates the Clean Water Act. In January, the U.S. District Court in Denver ruled against the alliance and another plaintiff, the Center for Native Ecosystems, saying they needed to show not only a Clean Water Act violation, but lack of good faith in implementing best management practices. "We feel the district court was wrong," alliance spokesman Jeremy Nichols said. Ranchers who graze cattle and sheep in the forest, represented by Mark Eisele, president of the Pole Mountain Cattlemen's Association, have said they operate legally and have taken many measures to reduce the effect cattle have on streams. Such measures include pumping water out of streams and wetlands to water tanks to help keep cattle and their droppings away from those streams and wetlands....
Utah lawmakers revive lands-for-schools issue A recent finding by the U.S. Census Bureau that Utah remains last in the nation in the amount of money it spends per school child is reviving interest in a plan to make the federal government turn over some of the vast public lands it holds to pay for schools. Versions of the idea have been around for years, and they mostly have gone nowhere. But in an election year in which school funding remains a big issue, lawmakers' interest is picking up again. This past week, Sen. Orrin Hatch introduced legislation first championed by fellow Utah Republican Rep. Rob Bishop. And Bishop recently plugged it before what he said was a receptive audience at the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank. "I'm encouraged," Bishop said in an interview with The Associated Press. "I think there is some traction with the idea." The bill would require the Interior Department and Forest Service to give 5 percent of public land to Western states. States would hold the land in trust to be sold or leased with the proceeds going to public schools. The idea is based on the argument that Utah and 12 other Western states lose out on sales tax because of their vast acres of public land. The federal government owns on average just over half the land in those states, compared to about 4 percent in the rest of the country. Western lawmakers argue that Westerners put a larger share of their personal incomes toward state and local taxes as a result....
Suit over motorized closures is settled Four environmental and recreation groups have reached a settlement with the U.S. Forest Service over a lawsuit that was filed last December. The settlement restores the motorized closures made in the March 2003 Revised Forest Plan for the Wasatch-Cache National Forest. The suit - filed by Nordic United, Bridgerland Audubon Society, Winter Wildlands and the Bear River Watershed Council - was sparked by a Forest Service decision made last July that cut in half a 9,000-acre area set aside for nonmotorized recreation in the Franklin Basin area of Logan Canyon. Under the terms of the settlement, the area will be restored to the acreage established in the 2003 Forest Plan. "This settlement agreement illustrates the willingness of skiers and conservation organizations to work with the Forest Service to resolve winter recreation conflicts in the Bear River Range," Wally MacFarlane, president of Nordic United, said in a statement....
Trail Controversy: Shawnee plan leaves many equestrian spots open It's the start of tourism season in Southern Illinois, and campground owner Tom Luchies has plenty of empty sites. In fact, all of the campsites at 34 Ranch, an equestrian campground in Herod, were open at the beginning of April, one month after the forest administration for the Shawnee National Forest announced its adoption of a trail designation plan. Luchies said campers riding their horses out of his campground into the Shawnee National Forest last year faced too many hassles from hikers and Forest Service personnel for them to feel welcome in the forest. Luchies watched one of his last permanent campers pulling out of his campground one pleasant Wednesday in early April. He said those campers had reserved a site for the full year last year. This year, he said they told him they feel there are less stressful recreational opportunities elsewhere....
Prospects dimming for Senate passage of endangered species bill A bipartisan group of senators trying to craft an Endangered Species Act rewrite has failed to reach consensus, signaling dwindling prospects of Senate action in the wake of House passage of an endangered species bill last year. Although talks continue, the stalemate is welcome news for environmentalists. They viewed the House-passed bill as dangerously extreme and feared that no matter what the Senate produced, the final product could be unacceptable because of the need to combine the two efforts. "If I cried, it's probably crocodile tears," said Rodger Schlickeisen, president of Defenders of Wildlife. "It's hard to see, with an extremist piece of legislation like that, how anything acceptable could result." For property rights advocates, though, Senate inaction would be a missed opportunity. The House bill by Resources Committee Chairman Richard Pombo, R-Calif., would require the government to compensate property owners if steps needed to protect species thwart development plans. It also would stop the government from designating "critical habitat" where development is limited....
Corral your inner cowboy Weathered cowboys on horseback swing lassoes skyward roping the first of 400 calves to be branded in traditional ranch fashion. Men and women in dusty Stetsons and worn chaps swoop in, each with a job in the branding process. Short and sassy Nancy Wilson, the 56-year-old matriarch of Wilson Ranches, burns the identifying LE on the bawling calf's side. It's a sight to see for a city dweller, which is just the point at Wilson Ranches Retreat Bed and Breakfast. Phil and Nancy Wilson, owners of the 9,000-acre spread near Fossil in Central Oregon, opened the B&B six years ago, wanting to share their Western life. Granted, it's not a vacation for everyone, particularly those who like the pampered grandeur of swank hotels. The ranch resides a good three hours east of Portland, on sprawling acreage dotted with cows and horses and the occasional coyote. The bunkhouse -- a renovated 1910 Sears Roebuck catalog home -- offers seven comfortable rooms, two with private baths. One of those has a clawfoot tub and lots of Epsom salts for post-riding soaks....
Cattle jam on Daly City street in run-up to rodeo It's something you might see in a dream: 21 adult Texas longhorns weighing up to a ton each, and 85 young steers at 600 pounds each, trotting up Geneva Avenue. That was a real-life responsibility for the chaps-wearin', gun-totin', lasso-throwin' cowhands who guided the herd Thursday morning from the Baylands' former railway yard to the Cow Palace for the 61st Grand National Rodeo. The Daly City institution began Friday and runs through April 15, and plenty of livestock will be on hand for urban cowboys and girls to take a gander at, among other draws. About 17 riders kept tabs on the Thursday procession, which recreated the kind of cattle drive that funneled steers from trains to the rodeo grounds until truck shipping became the norm. "We herd the cars, they herd the cows," said Daly City Police Sgt. Lou Pezzola, 43, who has done traffic control for the cattle drive for the past four years. "The cattle pretty much know the routine better than us."....
Boys with true grit Frederick is a small, bucolic community. The traffic is sparse and the signal lights are treated as more of a suggestion than the rule of law. This is where President Theodore Roosevelt came to hunt in the summer of 1905. It is where Comanche Chief Quanah Parker leased his tribe's pastures to Texas ranchers W.T. Waggoner and Burk Burnett. It is where Jack "Catch 'Em Alive" Abernathy built his reputation for catching wolves live, by driving his fist down their throats. It was a feat that both bewildered and thrilled Roosevelt....
On the Edge of Common Sense: Be careful with that big mustache With the advent of cowboy poetry has come a leap in the wearing of large mustaches not seen since the administration of Chester A. Arthur. And along with its popularity, it has stirred an increased scrutiny in the realm of fashion vs. sanitation that last appeared during the Afro-wearing years. As any Afro-wearer can tell you, if you wanted a job in the college cafeteria, you were required to wear a net. To date I have not seen any cowboy waiters at Dairy Queen wearing a net on their 'stache, but it can't be too far off. To comply with the International Bureau of Grooming and Fastidiousness, Reg. 002, on this date of the Hirsute Moon in regards to public display of facial hair defined as, though not limited to: mustache, cookie duster, pencil thin, handle bar, caterpillar, cow catcher, lip brush, broom, nose tickler, flavor enhancer, Copenhagen reservoir, soup strainer, ant trail, moth attracter, louse nest and bird house for the migrating house fly, a copy of this regulation should be prominently displayed over the sink in Spanish and English, in establishments where food is being served, animals are allowed to run free or surgery is being performed....
Montana Pollution Rules Draw Federal Objections Federal energy officials are opposing new rules by Montana to force companies that extract methane gas from underground coal beds to clean up the water pollution caused by drilling operations, even as state officials cite an unreleased 2003 federal report that says cleanup costs are relatively inexpensive. The Denver office of the Environmental Protection Agency produced the report but never published it, saying it related to a proposed drilling application that was dropped. A Montana consulting firm obtained a copy of the EPA report, however, and handed it over to Gov. Brian Schweitzer (D). Last month, Montana's Board of Environmental Review, citing the EPA paper and other economic studies, voted to force coalbed methane companies to leave the state's streams as clean as they were before drilling started, although the companies do not have to clean up existing pollution. "We want to develop energy in Montana, but we want to do it right," Schweitzer said in an interview. "Here's the bottom line with the federal government: They're usually not helpful, and they weren't this time, either." The Energy Department and the Wyoming congressional delegation are backing companies that are trying to block Montana's new rules, on the grounds that they could hamper energy development. The department submitted analyses by two of its national laboratories concluding that the state's regulations were "unnecessarily stringent" and "inconsistent."....
Cities move to defend against railroad attacks Boston officials envision keeping rail cars carrying hazardous chemicals at least 10 miles away unless the city is their destination. A plan in Chicago would prohibit such tanker cars in its downtown Loop. In Cleveland, city officials are considering banning them near Lake Erie, water treatment plants, and crowded neighborhoods. Transport of these chemicals presents one of the knottiest public policy problems in the effort to protect the nation's cities from terrorist attack. Federal law requires railroads to carry such chemicals, which are used in manufacturing, water-purification systems, and wastewater-treatment plants. But with no federal regulations for securing the transport of these chemicals, The District of Columbia has enacted rules of its own and at least five other cities are considering them. These moves have drawn a sharp rebuke from industry and federal officials, who say such piecemeal efforts are misguided. Since 9/11, they point out, railroads have fortified rail yards and worked with the chemical industry to conceal where and when these tanker cars pass near or through cities. The threat looms large. Government studies suggest that the explosion of one tanker car carrying, say, chlorine would cause up to 100,000 deaths in a densely populated area. So Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Cleveland, and Chicago have proposed ordinances requiring that such deadly chemicals be rerouted around them unless they're destined for the cities themselves. The fact that the rail industry, with federal support, has sued the District of Columbia over its law has not deterred them....
Bush's Interior Nominee: Comfort in Consensus Eagle Island State Park here has horse-riding trails, picnic tables and a water slide. Under a recent compromise between the Idaho Legislature and Gov. Dirk Kempthorne, President Bush's nominee to oversee the nation's public lands as secretary of the interior, the park may one day get its own gravel mine, too. Aides to Mr. Kempthorne defend gravel mining at Eagle Island, outside Boise, as a way to raise money for park improvements without causing undue environmental harm. But others see it as a lobbed softball that his critics in the United States Senate will smack toward the fences at his confirmation hearing, raising questions about his judgment and environmental priorities. The hearing may begin as early as next month. Is it your position, Governor — pause, clear throat, sip from water glass — that mining inside America's parks is good public policy? "It's going to be like stepping on a rake," said Justin Hayes, program director for the Idaho Conservation League, an environmental advocacy group concerned about the mining plan. Governor Kempthorne, a second-term Republican, declined to be interviewed. But an analysis of his positions and votes over a 20-year public career in Idaho, and interviews with people who have worked with him, suggest that the plan, which he accepted as a provision of a parks improvement bill approved this week by the overwhelmingly Republican Legislature, reveals much about him....
Buried treasure in Texas From atop a 40-foot-high walkway on a towering natural gas rig, Doug Hampton scans the grassy scrubland that has served ranchers since the 19th century. He doesn't see much evidence of that history now -- no cattle, horses or cowboys. Instead, out on the horizon, he sees the future of this vast expanse north of Fort Worth. "Just look out there. See?" he said, pointing to another solitary steel structure. "There's a rig over there, another out there and another way out there." Mr. Hampton is a project manager for Oklahoma City-based Devon Energy Corp., one of several companies tapping into the nation's fastest-growing natural gas field -- the Barnett Shale. The reservoir is vital to a tight U.S. supply market, has become a template for other fields nationwide, and is turning oil and gas into this region's most important industry. The changing landscape is making wells on high schools and private property a familiar sight. Even Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport is reviewing its options with 12 companies to lease land for drilling....
Couple still waiting for government's promised Clark Fork River cleanup work some 20 years later Some 20 years ago, Kathy Hadley was fuming. She and her husband Wayne had already spent years writing letters, going to meetings, doing whatever they could to try and convince government officials they'd forgotten an important piece of the puzzle when they designated areas around Butte and the Milltown Reservoir as U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Superfund cleanup sites. “I'd show them the map and point to that thin little blue line that connected Butte with Milltown,” Hadley said. “I told them they'd forgotten the Clark Fork River.” So finally, she called her sister and lined up a trip to Washington, D.C. Before they boarded the homeward-bound airplane, the upper Clark Fork had become part of the largest Superfund site in the country. Two decades later and the Hadleys are still waiting for the promised cleanup of the upper 120 river miles of the Clark Fork River. The Environmental Protection Agency signed a Record of Decision outlining the cleanup 2 1/2 years ago. But work won't start until a consent decree is also signed, outlining who will pay for what. No one knows for sure when that will be completed, although there are rumblings that it's getting close. The Hadleys aren't going to hold their breath....
Park's wolf idea causes worries With an elk population nearly double what biologists say it should be, Rocky Mountain National Park officials are looking for ways to manage the overgrown population. Officials at the park, which straddles the Continental Divide in Larimer and Grand counties, are considering a variety of options to cut back on elk. Re-introducing gray wolves is one of the options being considered. But the prospect of re-introducing the carnivores, which were eradicated from Colorado more than 60 years ago, has raised concerns from Colorado ranchers, including those in Moffat County. Les Hampton, a former Moffat County commissioner working with the Colorado Division of Wildlife on wolf issues, said this week that he is worried about the U.S. Park Service's plans. Hampton told the Moffat County commissioners Tuesday that re-introducing wolves in Rocky Mountain National Park could lead to wolves being re-introduced at other national parks, including Dinosaur National Monument. "I don't like what's going on," Hampton said....
Environmentalists appeal forest grazing ruling An environmental group continues to seek an end to grazing in Medicine Bow National Forest between Cheyenne and Laramie, appealing its federal court case. The Laramie-based Biodiversity Conservation Alliance claims that cattle have been causing unacceptably high levels of fecal coliform bacteria in creeks in the forest's Pole Mountain section. The group says that violates the Clean Water Act. In January, the U.S. District Court in Denver ruled against the alliance and another plaintiff, the Center for Native Ecosystems, saying they needed to show not only a Clean Water Act violation, but lack of good faith in implementing best management practices. "We feel the district court was wrong," alliance spokesman Jeremy Nichols said. Ranchers who graze cattle and sheep in the forest, represented by Mark Eisele, president of the Pole Mountain Cattlemen's Association, have said they operate legally and have taken many measures to reduce the effect cattle have on streams. Such measures include pumping water out of streams and wetlands to water tanks to help keep cattle and their droppings away from those streams and wetlands....
Utah lawmakers revive lands-for-schools issue A recent finding by the U.S. Census Bureau that Utah remains last in the nation in the amount of money it spends per school child is reviving interest in a plan to make the federal government turn over some of the vast public lands it holds to pay for schools. Versions of the idea have been around for years, and they mostly have gone nowhere. But in an election year in which school funding remains a big issue, lawmakers' interest is picking up again. This past week, Sen. Orrin Hatch introduced legislation first championed by fellow Utah Republican Rep. Rob Bishop. And Bishop recently plugged it before what he said was a receptive audience at the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank. "I'm encouraged," Bishop said in an interview with The Associated Press. "I think there is some traction with the idea." The bill would require the Interior Department and Forest Service to give 5 percent of public land to Western states. States would hold the land in trust to be sold or leased with the proceeds going to public schools. The idea is based on the argument that Utah and 12 other Western states lose out on sales tax because of their vast acres of public land. The federal government owns on average just over half the land in those states, compared to about 4 percent in the rest of the country. Western lawmakers argue that Westerners put a larger share of their personal incomes toward state and local taxes as a result....
Suit over motorized closures is settled Four environmental and recreation groups have reached a settlement with the U.S. Forest Service over a lawsuit that was filed last December. The settlement restores the motorized closures made in the March 2003 Revised Forest Plan for the Wasatch-Cache National Forest. The suit - filed by Nordic United, Bridgerland Audubon Society, Winter Wildlands and the Bear River Watershed Council - was sparked by a Forest Service decision made last July that cut in half a 9,000-acre area set aside for nonmotorized recreation in the Franklin Basin area of Logan Canyon. Under the terms of the settlement, the area will be restored to the acreage established in the 2003 Forest Plan. "This settlement agreement illustrates the willingness of skiers and conservation organizations to work with the Forest Service to resolve winter recreation conflicts in the Bear River Range," Wally MacFarlane, president of Nordic United, said in a statement....
Trail Controversy: Shawnee plan leaves many equestrian spots open It's the start of tourism season in Southern Illinois, and campground owner Tom Luchies has plenty of empty sites. In fact, all of the campsites at 34 Ranch, an equestrian campground in Herod, were open at the beginning of April, one month after the forest administration for the Shawnee National Forest announced its adoption of a trail designation plan. Luchies said campers riding their horses out of his campground into the Shawnee National Forest last year faced too many hassles from hikers and Forest Service personnel for them to feel welcome in the forest. Luchies watched one of his last permanent campers pulling out of his campground one pleasant Wednesday in early April. He said those campers had reserved a site for the full year last year. This year, he said they told him they feel there are less stressful recreational opportunities elsewhere....
Prospects dimming for Senate passage of endangered species bill A bipartisan group of senators trying to craft an Endangered Species Act rewrite has failed to reach consensus, signaling dwindling prospects of Senate action in the wake of House passage of an endangered species bill last year. Although talks continue, the stalemate is welcome news for environmentalists. They viewed the House-passed bill as dangerously extreme and feared that no matter what the Senate produced, the final product could be unacceptable because of the need to combine the two efforts. "If I cried, it's probably crocodile tears," said Rodger Schlickeisen, president of Defenders of Wildlife. "It's hard to see, with an extremist piece of legislation like that, how anything acceptable could result." For property rights advocates, though, Senate inaction would be a missed opportunity. The House bill by Resources Committee Chairman Richard Pombo, R-Calif., would require the government to compensate property owners if steps needed to protect species thwart development plans. It also would stop the government from designating "critical habitat" where development is limited....
Corral your inner cowboy Weathered cowboys on horseback swing lassoes skyward roping the first of 400 calves to be branded in traditional ranch fashion. Men and women in dusty Stetsons and worn chaps swoop in, each with a job in the branding process. Short and sassy Nancy Wilson, the 56-year-old matriarch of Wilson Ranches, burns the identifying LE on the bawling calf's side. It's a sight to see for a city dweller, which is just the point at Wilson Ranches Retreat Bed and Breakfast. Phil and Nancy Wilson, owners of the 9,000-acre spread near Fossil in Central Oregon, opened the B&B six years ago, wanting to share their Western life. Granted, it's not a vacation for everyone, particularly those who like the pampered grandeur of swank hotels. The ranch resides a good three hours east of Portland, on sprawling acreage dotted with cows and horses and the occasional coyote. The bunkhouse -- a renovated 1910 Sears Roebuck catalog home -- offers seven comfortable rooms, two with private baths. One of those has a clawfoot tub and lots of Epsom salts for post-riding soaks....
Cattle jam on Daly City street in run-up to rodeo It's something you might see in a dream: 21 adult Texas longhorns weighing up to a ton each, and 85 young steers at 600 pounds each, trotting up Geneva Avenue. That was a real-life responsibility for the chaps-wearin', gun-totin', lasso-throwin' cowhands who guided the herd Thursday morning from the Baylands' former railway yard to the Cow Palace for the 61st Grand National Rodeo. The Daly City institution began Friday and runs through April 15, and plenty of livestock will be on hand for urban cowboys and girls to take a gander at, among other draws. About 17 riders kept tabs on the Thursday procession, which recreated the kind of cattle drive that funneled steers from trains to the rodeo grounds until truck shipping became the norm. "We herd the cars, they herd the cows," said Daly City Police Sgt. Lou Pezzola, 43, who has done traffic control for the cattle drive for the past four years. "The cattle pretty much know the routine better than us."....
Boys with true grit Frederick is a small, bucolic community. The traffic is sparse and the signal lights are treated as more of a suggestion than the rule of law. This is where President Theodore Roosevelt came to hunt in the summer of 1905. It is where Comanche Chief Quanah Parker leased his tribe's pastures to Texas ranchers W.T. Waggoner and Burk Burnett. It is where Jack "Catch 'Em Alive" Abernathy built his reputation for catching wolves live, by driving his fist down their throats. It was a feat that both bewildered and thrilled Roosevelt....
On the Edge of Common Sense: Be careful with that big mustache With the advent of cowboy poetry has come a leap in the wearing of large mustaches not seen since the administration of Chester A. Arthur. And along with its popularity, it has stirred an increased scrutiny in the realm of fashion vs. sanitation that last appeared during the Afro-wearing years. As any Afro-wearer can tell you, if you wanted a job in the college cafeteria, you were required to wear a net. To date I have not seen any cowboy waiters at Dairy Queen wearing a net on their 'stache, but it can't be too far off. To comply with the International Bureau of Grooming and Fastidiousness, Reg. 002, on this date of the Hirsute Moon in regards to public display of facial hair defined as, though not limited to: mustache, cookie duster, pencil thin, handle bar, caterpillar, cow catcher, lip brush, broom, nose tickler, flavor enhancer, Copenhagen reservoir, soup strainer, ant trail, moth attracter, louse nest and bird house for the migrating house fly, a copy of this regulation should be prominently displayed over the sink in Spanish and English, in establishments where food is being served, animals are allowed to run free or surgery is being performed....
Sunday, April 09, 2006
SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE WESTERNER
Spring
by Larry Gabriel
On the ranch, it is calving time. The early morning ride to check the cattle is the best part of each day, best because all the world is soaked in peace and life.
As my horse (Blackberry) and I leave the yard, I can hear the Canada geese calling to each other. They are offspring of geese planted years before. They have many places to nest undisturbed on the prairie where no one expects to find them.
The wild turkeys seem to be jabbering at each other about what they will do today. I hear them too above the constant chatter of smaller birds and the songs of robins and meadowlarks.
During that first hour of light, the wind is calm and the first warmth of sun mellows the morning crispness of the air. Later the wind will come up. By afternoon it may be howling, but for now even the wind is at peace with the earth.
Blackberry notices the cottontail rabbits darting around at the sound of her hooves. She pays them no mind, unless they take her by surprise.
My mind just sits there drinking from the fountain of early morning. Thoughts of office, and phones and politics and problems are not to be found. They are not even distant. They don't exist.
An Indian man once told me that his father believed that God is closer to the earth in the early morning. When he lay dying, his only request was to die in the early morning for that closeness. The now famous "star" on star quilts is said to be the morning star. Maybe that has something to do with the idea.
I am no expert on Indian beliefs. I don't know if that was unique to his tribe or is a general belief shared by all Native Americans, but I suspect it is common to all people of the land.
On that early morning ride, I too am one of the people of the land. If not religious, it is certainly a spiritual bond between the people and the land.
It is not nature worship, as some city folks believe. It is just being part of the land, by remaining quiet and in awe of creation. There is nothing else like it. I hold onto it.
When I return to my office job (as I occasionally must do), I take it with me. I recall those moments and take them out and look at them, like little nuggets of gold found without effort.
I suspect every farmer and rancher experiences a similar thing. They may not think about it, but it is there. If they too were tied to a desk and phone for a while, they would do more thinking about it.
It is not January 1st on the wall calendar, but it is the beginning of my year. It always is a time of great hope and excitement about good things to be accomplished.
Spring is to my year what early morning is to my day, my favorite part.
Mr. Gabriel is the South Dakota Secretary of Agriculture
Martha, Maxine and Me
By Julie Carter
I’ve picked on Martha Stewart before and she is probably used it to by now. Besides, right now she is busy with Donald Trump and a poison pen trade of words and name calling.
I’m pretty sure I’ll stay under the radar if I again mention a few things Martha never had to deal with like baby calf afterbirth under her nails and broken stock tank floats. I doubt she ever found herself having to wait on the hens to lay an egg so she could finish baking a batch of cookies.
So I think that qualifies me to speak from a position of authority from my side of the cattle guard.
There is Martha’s way and then there is my way, which to save a plagiarizing charge, also happens to be Maxine’s way. You all know Maxine, that crabby character from Hallmark that is so very witty, flippant, and the irreverent lady of one-liners. She’s my hero. I like the way she thinks.
Maxine has a way of cutting to the bottom line. A real shoot-from-the-hip kinda gal.
A few kitchen hints from Martha invoked Maxine’s brazen honesty.
· When a cake recipe calls for flouring a baking pan, use a bit of dry cake mix instead and there won’t be any white residue on the outside of the cake. To which Maxine replies: “Go to the bakery! They’ll even decorate it for you.”
. To keep potatoes from budding, place an apple in the back with them. Maxine’s hint is: Buy Hungry Jack mashed potato mix and keep it in the pantry for up to a year.
Maxine’s sound logic is painfully honest and laughably correct:
--The trouble with bucket seats is not everybody has the same size bucket.
--Drinking makes some husbands see double and feel single.
--Living in a nudist colony takes all the fun out of Halloween.
--After a certain age, if you don’t wake up aching in every joint, you are probably dead.
Every now and then we rural women get an urge to be more like Martha and less like Maxine. Fortunately we recover from that lapse in judgment fairly quickly.
A ranch wife friend said she changed hair stylists which meant she went from a beautician to a stylist. She had been told a stylist was a much higher class person and while she is still not so sure the class was higher, the price certainly was.
Since no one seemed to be appreciating her “inner beauty” she was making an attempt to improve the outer version. After getting styled, she said the grocery stop at Wal-Mart was pretty basic in an attempt to put some balance back into her household budget.
When I grow up I want to be just like Maxine. Some will tell you I’m already dangerously close. I’ve NEVER been accused of being like Martha. Although, when Martha got out of jail last year it was reported she went to “her large ranch 40 minutes from New York.” And here I thought the closest thing to “ranch” Martha ever came was her homemade ranch dressing.
It could happen-- perhaps we, Martha and I, could go out in the garden and see if those bulbs I didn’t plant didn’t come up.
Or better yet, Martha and I would go riding off into the sunset with Maxine snidely commenting about the size of our “buckets” in the saddles.
© Julie Carter 2006
Received via email:
11 PEOPLE ON A ROPE
Eleven people were hanging on a rope under a helicopter, ten men and one woman.
The rope was not strong enough to carry them all, so they decided that one had to leave, because otherwise they were all going to fall.
They were unable to decide who would let go, until the woman gave a very touching speech. She said that she would voluntarily let go of the rope, because, as a woman, she was used to giving up everything for her husband and kids and for men in general, and was used to always making sacrifices with little in return.
As soon as she finished her speech, all the men started clapping.
Spring
by Larry Gabriel
On the ranch, it is calving time. The early morning ride to check the cattle is the best part of each day, best because all the world is soaked in peace and life.
As my horse (Blackberry) and I leave the yard, I can hear the Canada geese calling to each other. They are offspring of geese planted years before. They have many places to nest undisturbed on the prairie where no one expects to find them.
The wild turkeys seem to be jabbering at each other about what they will do today. I hear them too above the constant chatter of smaller birds and the songs of robins and meadowlarks.
During that first hour of light, the wind is calm and the first warmth of sun mellows the morning crispness of the air. Later the wind will come up. By afternoon it may be howling, but for now even the wind is at peace with the earth.
Blackberry notices the cottontail rabbits darting around at the sound of her hooves. She pays them no mind, unless they take her by surprise.
My mind just sits there drinking from the fountain of early morning. Thoughts of office, and phones and politics and problems are not to be found. They are not even distant. They don't exist.
An Indian man once told me that his father believed that God is closer to the earth in the early morning. When he lay dying, his only request was to die in the early morning for that closeness. The now famous "star" on star quilts is said to be the morning star. Maybe that has something to do with the idea.
I am no expert on Indian beliefs. I don't know if that was unique to his tribe or is a general belief shared by all Native Americans, but I suspect it is common to all people of the land.
On that early morning ride, I too am one of the people of the land. If not religious, it is certainly a spiritual bond between the people and the land.
It is not nature worship, as some city folks believe. It is just being part of the land, by remaining quiet and in awe of creation. There is nothing else like it. I hold onto it.
When I return to my office job (as I occasionally must do), I take it with me. I recall those moments and take them out and look at them, like little nuggets of gold found without effort.
I suspect every farmer and rancher experiences a similar thing. They may not think about it, but it is there. If they too were tied to a desk and phone for a while, they would do more thinking about it.
It is not January 1st on the wall calendar, but it is the beginning of my year. It always is a time of great hope and excitement about good things to be accomplished.
Spring is to my year what early morning is to my day, my favorite part.
Mr. Gabriel is the South Dakota Secretary of Agriculture
Martha, Maxine and Me
By Julie Carter
I’ve picked on Martha Stewart before and she is probably used it to by now. Besides, right now she is busy with Donald Trump and a poison pen trade of words and name calling.
I’m pretty sure I’ll stay under the radar if I again mention a few things Martha never had to deal with like baby calf afterbirth under her nails and broken stock tank floats. I doubt she ever found herself having to wait on the hens to lay an egg so she could finish baking a batch of cookies.
So I think that qualifies me to speak from a position of authority from my side of the cattle guard.
There is Martha’s way and then there is my way, which to save a plagiarizing charge, also happens to be Maxine’s way. You all know Maxine, that crabby character from Hallmark that is so very witty, flippant, and the irreverent lady of one-liners. She’s my hero. I like the way she thinks.
Maxine has a way of cutting to the bottom line. A real shoot-from-the-hip kinda gal.
A few kitchen hints from Martha invoked Maxine’s brazen honesty.
· When a cake recipe calls for flouring a baking pan, use a bit of dry cake mix instead and there won’t be any white residue on the outside of the cake. To which Maxine replies: “Go to the bakery! They’ll even decorate it for you.”
. To keep potatoes from budding, place an apple in the back with them. Maxine’s hint is: Buy Hungry Jack mashed potato mix and keep it in the pantry for up to a year.
Maxine’s sound logic is painfully honest and laughably correct:
--The trouble with bucket seats is not everybody has the same size bucket.
--Drinking makes some husbands see double and feel single.
--Living in a nudist colony takes all the fun out of Halloween.
--After a certain age, if you don’t wake up aching in every joint, you are probably dead.
Every now and then we rural women get an urge to be more like Martha and less like Maxine. Fortunately we recover from that lapse in judgment fairly quickly.
A ranch wife friend said she changed hair stylists which meant she went from a beautician to a stylist. She had been told a stylist was a much higher class person and while she is still not so sure the class was higher, the price certainly was.
Since no one seemed to be appreciating her “inner beauty” she was making an attempt to improve the outer version. After getting styled, she said the grocery stop at Wal-Mart was pretty basic in an attempt to put some balance back into her household budget.
When I grow up I want to be just like Maxine. Some will tell you I’m already dangerously close. I’ve NEVER been accused of being like Martha. Although, when Martha got out of jail last year it was reported she went to “her large ranch 40 minutes from New York.” And here I thought the closest thing to “ranch” Martha ever came was her homemade ranch dressing.
It could happen-- perhaps we, Martha and I, could go out in the garden and see if those bulbs I didn’t plant didn’t come up.
Or better yet, Martha and I would go riding off into the sunset with Maxine snidely commenting about the size of our “buckets” in the saddles.
© Julie Carter 2006
Received via email:
11 PEOPLE ON A ROPE
Eleven people were hanging on a rope under a helicopter, ten men and one woman.
The rope was not strong enough to carry them all, so they decided that one had to leave, because otherwise they were all going to fall.
They were unable to decide who would let go, until the woman gave a very touching speech. She said that she would voluntarily let go of the rope, because, as a woman, she was used to giving up everything for her husband and kids and for men in general, and was used to always making sacrifices with little in return.
As soon as she finished her speech, all the men started clapping.
OPINION/COMMENTARY
Goldman Sachs Called on to Correct Statement Made at Annual Meeting
Action Fund Management LLC (AFM), investment adviser to the Free Enterprise Action Fund (http://www.FreeEnterpriseActionFund.com), called on Goldman Sachs today to correct a statement made at its annual meeting and requested that CEO Henry M. Paulson, Jr. reimburse the company for any shareholder assets spent to advance his personal interests. In response to a shareholder resolution presented at the meeting by Peter Flaherty of the National Legal and Policy Center (http://www.nlpc.org), Goldman Sachs' board member John Bryant responded, in part, by denying that the Nature Conservancy -- whose chairman is Goldman CEO Paulson -- was involved in the Goldman Sachs donation of 680,000 acres in Chile to the Wildlife Conservation Society. "The Nature Conservancy's tax return for 2004 states that Goldman Sachs paid the environmental group $144,895 between August 2003 and June 2004 for consulting services related to the Chilean land deal," said Steve Milloy of AFM. "When I pointed that fact at the Goldman Sachs shareholder meeting last week, my comment was met with silence by Mr. Bryan and the rest of Goldman Sachs' board." "The board's denial of facts that are contained in federal records underscores the need for a thorough and independent review of the land deal -- the sort of review already requested in a letter from us to Goldman's board in January and the shareholder resolution presented at the meeting," said AFM's Tom Borelli. "Another aspect of the Chilean land deal that we're interested in is why the donation was made, as evidenced by the group's tax return, from a Goldman Sachs partnership through the Goldman Sachs Charitable Fund -- a non-profit charity previously focused on providing scholarships, according to its tax returns -- rather than directly to the donee, the Wildlife Conservation Society," stated Milloy. CEO Paulson announced on April 3 -- the next business day after the March 31 shareholder meeting -- that he was transferring 637,000 shares of his own Goldman Sachs stock to a charitable foundation he established to donate to environmental causes....
Global Warming Hysteria Has Arrived
On April 4, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee will hold a hearing to discuss a white paper that Senators Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) and Pete Domenici (R-NM) released on a mandatory cap and trade program for carbon dioxide emissions. The majority of panelists that will provide testimony in the hearing are for a cap-and-trade program, suggesting the Committee views global warming to be a serious problem and that a cap-and-trade approach is the preferred mechanism for fighting it. The hearing's timing couldn't be better, as it coincides with an intense global warming propaganda campaign by the media that is currently underway. The latest issue of Time magazine has a cover story on global warming entitled "Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid". (I wonder if this is meant to provide some balance for stories about the coming ice age that Time published as recently as 1994?) One of the new Public Service Commission's TV ads uses a freight train about to hit a little girl as a metaphor for the horrible impact of global warming on our children's future in just thirty years. (Even if the recent warming trend, since the 1970's, continues for another thirty years, global temperatures will only rise another 1 degree F.) For those of us who are visual learners, Al Gore has a new global warming movie coming out in May entitled "An Inconvenient Truth" which no doubt will be met by critical acclaim, Oscar nominations (probably not for best actor, though), and a possible Nobel Prize. Science magazine recently stuffed as many articles as it could find on the world's melting ice sheets, even though the bulk of the published temperature evidence shows no warming over Greenland or most of Antarctica in recent decades. One wonders, what in the world is going on here? It seems an undercurrent of anti-technology, anti-progress, anti-humanity sentiment is beginning to grip our culture....
Senators Domenici and Bingaman Work Together for Higher Energy Prices
Today’s Senate conference on mandatory greenhouse gas emissions limits is the latest attempt by Senators Pete Domenici (R-NM) and Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) to force the United States into a future of fewer choices and higher energy prices. The witness list, stacked with alarmist environmental activist groups and opportunistic corporations, demonstrates that Domenici and Bingaman have decided to shut out critical voices and proceed with an expensive energy rationing scheme regardless of its damaging effects on the economy. “Senators Domenici and Bingaman should be issuing white papers and convening experts to identify political barriers to the development of affordable energy for all Americans,” said Competitive Enterprise Institute Senior Fellow Marlo Lewis, Jr. “Instead, they are pushing a Kyoto-lite agenda that would force consumers to pay more for gasoline, home heating oil, electricity, and natural gas. For shame!” An emissions trading program of the kind envisioned by Domenici and Bingaman would attempt to enact incrementally the restrictions of the Kyoto Protocol global warming treaty, which was previously rejected in the Senate by a vote of 95-0. This “Kyoto-by-Inches” strategy would amount to an undeclared tax on energy, raising the costs of energy and energy-intensive products for consumers in order to secure profits for a handful of well-positioned corporations. “Chairman Domenici and Senator Bingaman have decided to ask special interests what would be best for those special interests. It looks a lot like a gang of pirates gathering ’round to divvy up the booty....
America's Oil Weapon
President Bush has bemoaned what he calls the United States' addiction to oil. He has demonized America's oil use in speeches, and talked about the need to move beyond the petroleum-based economy. The president is certainly correct to point out harmful side effects to our use of oil and the need for us to address them. But in using the expressly negative language of addiction, the President not only cast a dark cloud over the fuel that presently underpins a huge portion of our economy, he badly confused a set of issues that demand clear thinking and fair analysis. It would be useful, then, to keep in mind the positive benefits our petroleum use has afforded. To start, oil was largely responsible for the right side winning the three epic wars of the 20th century. Call it the Oil Weapon, wielded by the United States and its allies with an expertise that should make OPEC blush. In the run-up to the First World War, Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill made the daring decision to switch the British navy's ships from coal to oil, the better to outrun German predators. When fighting broke out, the major oil powers like Standard Oil and Royal Dutch Shell saw to it that the Allied powers' military forces were always supplied. Meanwhile the Allies were able to deny the Kaiser's forces access to the oilfields in Romania and Baku at critical junctures in the war, ensuring victory. As the British statesman Lord Curzon noted, "The Allied cause had floated to victory upon a wave of oil." The story was similar in World War II....
Native Stewardship?
Lacking farms to grow food, California’s native Indians hunted its wild bird species nearly to extinction. When the first white pioneers settled California in the early 1800s, they found the San Francisco Bay area teeming with geese, ducks, shore birds, deer and elk. One early settler said “The wild geese and every species of water fowl darkened the surface of every bay…in flocks of millions.” This wildlife abundance seemed to endorse the legend that native Indians lived in supportive harmony with the wild birds and animals, harvesting only what their small communities needed to subsist. That legend has spread guilt among modern Americans whose food comes from crop fields that were once wildlife habitat. A painstaking California archeologist has now blown the Indian conservation legend into tiny fragments. Over seven years, he analyzed 5,700 bird bones from a huge Indian shell/waste mound on the shores of San Francisco Bay. The bones laid out a 1900-year history of the Indians’ bird hunting. They’d hunted dozens of wild bird species to local extinction, starting with the biggest geese and working their way clear down to tiny sandpipers. Archeologist Jack Broughton, a native Californian, says he found the bones of 64 different bird species, mostly waterbirds, but also quail and even eagles. The Bay Indians raided the island breeding colonies of cormorants, and caught the sea ducks floating far from shore. The early European settlers found birds in abundance, says Broughton, only because Spanish explorers had inadvertently brought such epidemic diseases as smallpox and measles, starting about 1500 AD. The shell mound shows that the Indian population crashed by 90 percent, and the Bay area bird populations then recovered....
Hybrids Consume More Energy in Lifetime Than Chevrolet's Tahoe SUV
As Americans become increasingly interested in fuel economy and global warming, they are beginning to make choices about the vehicles they drive based on fuel economy and to a lesser degree emissions. But many of those choices aren't actually the best in terms of vehicle lifetime energy usage and the cost to society over the full lifetime of a car or truck. CNW Marketing Research Inc. spent two years collecting data on the energy necessary to plan, build, sell, drive and dispose of a vehicle from initial concept to scrappage. This includes such minutia as plant to dealer fuel costs, employee driving distances, electricity usage per pound of material used in each vehicle and literally hundreds of other variables. To put the data into understandable terms for consumers, it was translated into a "dollars per lifetime mile" figure. That is, the Energy Cost per mile driven. The most Energy Expensive vehicle sold in the U.S. in calendar year 2005: Maybach at $11.58 per mile. The least expensive: Scion xB at $0.48 cents. While neither of those figures is surprising, it is interesting that driving a hybrid vehicle costs more in terms of overall energy consumed than comparable non-hybrid vehicles. For example, the Honda Accord Hybrid has an Energy Cost per Mile of $3.29 while the conventional Honda Accord is $2.18. Put simply, over the "Dust to Dust" lifetime of the Accord Hybrid, it will require about 50 percent more energy than the non-hybrid version. One of the reasons hybrids cost more than non-hybrids is the manufacture, replacement and disposal of such items as batteries, electric motors (in addition to the conventional engine), lighter weight materials and complexity of the power package. And while many consumers and environmentalists have targeted sport utility vehicles because of their lower fuel economy and/or perceived inefficiency as a means of transportation, the energy cost per mile shows at least some of that disdain is misplaced....
PETA 'Vegetarian' Celebrity Update
Singer P!nk (yes, that's an exclamation point -- she's just that hip) recently signed her name to a People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) campaign condemning KFC for not conforming to standards invented by PETA. Her petition comes hot on the heels of lengthy profiles of the singer published recently in two UK newspapers. Displaying just how deep the singer's animal-rights philosophy goes, one article mentions the PETA spokes-rocker's leather boots, and the other her taste for fish. Speaking of the difference between PETA's official rhetoric and what people actually do: Shortly after we reported on Thursday that the rappers known as Little Brother are not actually vegetarians (as PETA has claimed), PETA removed its hip-hop hijacking of their image from the "PETA World" animal-rights website. PETA has given no reason for the quick turnaround, but it's only a partial return to reality: The group is still distributing anti-meat leaflets featuring a photo of Big Brother MC "Phonte." We note also that PETA's online list of "Sexiest Vegetarian 2005" finalists still includes Reese "Everything's Better With Bacon" Witherspoon. And PETA has yet to stop (ab)using the names of other famous figures in its materials....
Goldman Sachs Called on to Correct Statement Made at Annual Meeting
Action Fund Management LLC (AFM), investment adviser to the Free Enterprise Action Fund (http://www.FreeEnterpriseActionFund.com), called on Goldman Sachs today to correct a statement made at its annual meeting and requested that CEO Henry M. Paulson, Jr. reimburse the company for any shareholder assets spent to advance his personal interests. In response to a shareholder resolution presented at the meeting by Peter Flaherty of the National Legal and Policy Center (http://www.nlpc.org), Goldman Sachs' board member John Bryant responded, in part, by denying that the Nature Conservancy -- whose chairman is Goldman CEO Paulson -- was involved in the Goldman Sachs donation of 680,000 acres in Chile to the Wildlife Conservation Society. "The Nature Conservancy's tax return for 2004 states that Goldman Sachs paid the environmental group $144,895 between August 2003 and June 2004 for consulting services related to the Chilean land deal," said Steve Milloy of AFM. "When I pointed that fact at the Goldman Sachs shareholder meeting last week, my comment was met with silence by Mr. Bryan and the rest of Goldman Sachs' board." "The board's denial of facts that are contained in federal records underscores the need for a thorough and independent review of the land deal -- the sort of review already requested in a letter from us to Goldman's board in January and the shareholder resolution presented at the meeting," said AFM's Tom Borelli. "Another aspect of the Chilean land deal that we're interested in is why the donation was made, as evidenced by the group's tax return, from a Goldman Sachs partnership through the Goldman Sachs Charitable Fund -- a non-profit charity previously focused on providing scholarships, according to its tax returns -- rather than directly to the donee, the Wildlife Conservation Society," stated Milloy. CEO Paulson announced on April 3 -- the next business day after the March 31 shareholder meeting -- that he was transferring 637,000 shares of his own Goldman Sachs stock to a charitable foundation he established to donate to environmental causes....
Global Warming Hysteria Has Arrived
On April 4, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee will hold a hearing to discuss a white paper that Senators Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) and Pete Domenici (R-NM) released on a mandatory cap and trade program for carbon dioxide emissions. The majority of panelists that will provide testimony in the hearing are for a cap-and-trade program, suggesting the Committee views global warming to be a serious problem and that a cap-and-trade approach is the preferred mechanism for fighting it. The hearing's timing couldn't be better, as it coincides with an intense global warming propaganda campaign by the media that is currently underway. The latest issue of Time magazine has a cover story on global warming entitled "Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid". (I wonder if this is meant to provide some balance for stories about the coming ice age that Time published as recently as 1994?) One of the new Public Service Commission's TV ads uses a freight train about to hit a little girl as a metaphor for the horrible impact of global warming on our children's future in just thirty years. (Even if the recent warming trend, since the 1970's, continues for another thirty years, global temperatures will only rise another 1 degree F.) For those of us who are visual learners, Al Gore has a new global warming movie coming out in May entitled "An Inconvenient Truth" which no doubt will be met by critical acclaim, Oscar nominations (probably not for best actor, though), and a possible Nobel Prize. Science magazine recently stuffed as many articles as it could find on the world's melting ice sheets, even though the bulk of the published temperature evidence shows no warming over Greenland or most of Antarctica in recent decades. One wonders, what in the world is going on here? It seems an undercurrent of anti-technology, anti-progress, anti-humanity sentiment is beginning to grip our culture....
Senators Domenici and Bingaman Work Together for Higher Energy Prices
Today’s Senate conference on mandatory greenhouse gas emissions limits is the latest attempt by Senators Pete Domenici (R-NM) and Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) to force the United States into a future of fewer choices and higher energy prices. The witness list, stacked with alarmist environmental activist groups and opportunistic corporations, demonstrates that Domenici and Bingaman have decided to shut out critical voices and proceed with an expensive energy rationing scheme regardless of its damaging effects on the economy. “Senators Domenici and Bingaman should be issuing white papers and convening experts to identify political barriers to the development of affordable energy for all Americans,” said Competitive Enterprise Institute Senior Fellow Marlo Lewis, Jr. “Instead, they are pushing a Kyoto-lite agenda that would force consumers to pay more for gasoline, home heating oil, electricity, and natural gas. For shame!” An emissions trading program of the kind envisioned by Domenici and Bingaman would attempt to enact incrementally the restrictions of the Kyoto Protocol global warming treaty, which was previously rejected in the Senate by a vote of 95-0. This “Kyoto-by-Inches” strategy would amount to an undeclared tax on energy, raising the costs of energy and energy-intensive products for consumers in order to secure profits for a handful of well-positioned corporations. “Chairman Domenici and Senator Bingaman have decided to ask special interests what would be best for those special interests. It looks a lot like a gang of pirates gathering ’round to divvy up the booty....
America's Oil Weapon
President Bush has bemoaned what he calls the United States' addiction to oil. He has demonized America's oil use in speeches, and talked about the need to move beyond the petroleum-based economy. The president is certainly correct to point out harmful side effects to our use of oil and the need for us to address them. But in using the expressly negative language of addiction, the President not only cast a dark cloud over the fuel that presently underpins a huge portion of our economy, he badly confused a set of issues that demand clear thinking and fair analysis. It would be useful, then, to keep in mind the positive benefits our petroleum use has afforded. To start, oil was largely responsible for the right side winning the three epic wars of the 20th century. Call it the Oil Weapon, wielded by the United States and its allies with an expertise that should make OPEC blush. In the run-up to the First World War, Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill made the daring decision to switch the British navy's ships from coal to oil, the better to outrun German predators. When fighting broke out, the major oil powers like Standard Oil and Royal Dutch Shell saw to it that the Allied powers' military forces were always supplied. Meanwhile the Allies were able to deny the Kaiser's forces access to the oilfields in Romania and Baku at critical junctures in the war, ensuring victory. As the British statesman Lord Curzon noted, "The Allied cause had floated to victory upon a wave of oil." The story was similar in World War II....
Native Stewardship?
Lacking farms to grow food, California’s native Indians hunted its wild bird species nearly to extinction. When the first white pioneers settled California in the early 1800s, they found the San Francisco Bay area teeming with geese, ducks, shore birds, deer and elk. One early settler said “The wild geese and every species of water fowl darkened the surface of every bay…in flocks of millions.” This wildlife abundance seemed to endorse the legend that native Indians lived in supportive harmony with the wild birds and animals, harvesting only what their small communities needed to subsist. That legend has spread guilt among modern Americans whose food comes from crop fields that were once wildlife habitat. A painstaking California archeologist has now blown the Indian conservation legend into tiny fragments. Over seven years, he analyzed 5,700 bird bones from a huge Indian shell/waste mound on the shores of San Francisco Bay. The bones laid out a 1900-year history of the Indians’ bird hunting. They’d hunted dozens of wild bird species to local extinction, starting with the biggest geese and working their way clear down to tiny sandpipers. Archeologist Jack Broughton, a native Californian, says he found the bones of 64 different bird species, mostly waterbirds, but also quail and even eagles. The Bay Indians raided the island breeding colonies of cormorants, and caught the sea ducks floating far from shore. The early European settlers found birds in abundance, says Broughton, only because Spanish explorers had inadvertently brought such epidemic diseases as smallpox and measles, starting about 1500 AD. The shell mound shows that the Indian population crashed by 90 percent, and the Bay area bird populations then recovered....
Hybrids Consume More Energy in Lifetime Than Chevrolet's Tahoe SUV
As Americans become increasingly interested in fuel economy and global warming, they are beginning to make choices about the vehicles they drive based on fuel economy and to a lesser degree emissions. But many of those choices aren't actually the best in terms of vehicle lifetime energy usage and the cost to society over the full lifetime of a car or truck. CNW Marketing Research Inc. spent two years collecting data on the energy necessary to plan, build, sell, drive and dispose of a vehicle from initial concept to scrappage. This includes such minutia as plant to dealer fuel costs, employee driving distances, electricity usage per pound of material used in each vehicle and literally hundreds of other variables. To put the data into understandable terms for consumers, it was translated into a "dollars per lifetime mile" figure. That is, the Energy Cost per mile driven. The most Energy Expensive vehicle sold in the U.S. in calendar year 2005: Maybach at $11.58 per mile. The least expensive: Scion xB at $0.48 cents. While neither of those figures is surprising, it is interesting that driving a hybrid vehicle costs more in terms of overall energy consumed than comparable non-hybrid vehicles. For example, the Honda Accord Hybrid has an Energy Cost per Mile of $3.29 while the conventional Honda Accord is $2.18. Put simply, over the "Dust to Dust" lifetime of the Accord Hybrid, it will require about 50 percent more energy than the non-hybrid version. One of the reasons hybrids cost more than non-hybrids is the manufacture, replacement and disposal of such items as batteries, electric motors (in addition to the conventional engine), lighter weight materials and complexity of the power package. And while many consumers and environmentalists have targeted sport utility vehicles because of their lower fuel economy and/or perceived inefficiency as a means of transportation, the energy cost per mile shows at least some of that disdain is misplaced....
PETA 'Vegetarian' Celebrity Update
Singer P!nk (yes, that's an exclamation point -- she's just that hip) recently signed her name to a People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) campaign condemning KFC for not conforming to standards invented by PETA. Her petition comes hot on the heels of lengthy profiles of the singer published recently in two UK newspapers. Displaying just how deep the singer's animal-rights philosophy goes, one article mentions the PETA spokes-rocker's leather boots, and the other her taste for fish. Speaking of the difference between PETA's official rhetoric and what people actually do: Shortly after we reported on Thursday that the rappers known as Little Brother are not actually vegetarians (as PETA has claimed), PETA removed its hip-hop hijacking of their image from the "PETA World" animal-rights website. PETA has given no reason for the quick turnaround, but it's only a partial return to reality: The group is still distributing anti-meat leaflets featuring a photo of Big Brother MC "Phonte." We note also that PETA's online list of "Sexiest Vegetarian 2005" finalists still includes Reese "Everything's Better With Bacon" Witherspoon. And PETA has yet to stop (ab)using the names of other famous figures in its materials....
Friday, April 07, 2006
For Immediate Release
April 7, 2006
Contact: Brian Kennedy (202) 226-9019
GAO Report Shows Agencies Fail to Plan Adequately for Species Recovery
Lack of planning has led to the ESA’s failure to recover species
WASHINGTON – Summarized as "recovery time and costs largely unknown,” a new U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report released yesterday confirms that the Endangered Species Act (ESA) is not working effectively and is in need of reform after more than three decades of implementation without improvements.
The report echoes the U.S. Office of Management and Budget’s Not Performing assessment of the ESA.
Following a bipartisan request from several members of the United States House of Representatives and United States Senate, the GAO conducted a review of endangered species recovery plans to determine if they contained several key elements, including the amount of time and money it would take to recover species addressed in each plan. The GAO also reviewed the plans to see if they contained criteria which, when met, would indicate the species status had improved enough that the species no longer needed to be listed as endangered or threatened.
From a statistically significant sample of 107 recovery plans, the GAO found that only 34 plans included an estimated date by which the species would be recovered. GAO found that even fewer plans, 20, included an estimated cost for recovery. Worse yet, the GAO found that 102 of the 107 plans reviewed failed to address all of the factors that are considered when the agencies determine whether or not a species is endangered.”
"In more than three decades, the ESA has recovered less than one percent of the thirteen-hundred species on its list,” House Resources Committee Chairman Richard W. Pombo (R-Calif.) said. “And the prospects for improving this statistic under current law are just as low. GAO's results reveal one of the reasons for this – when you fail to plan appropriately, you plan to fail. This is precisely what has happened under the ESA, and it is tantamount to doing a jig-saw puzzle in the dark or trying to treat a patient without making a thorough diagnosis first.”
"If what GAO found was bad, what GAO missed was even worse," Pombo continued. “Although the GAO recommended the obvious - that actions be taken to address the failure of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service to include this critical information in recovery plans - it did not analyze the few plans in its sample that did provide such critical information for their accuracy. My committee did, and they are not.”
To test accuracy (or lack thereof), the Oversight and Investigations staff of the Resources Committee reviewed those few plans that did have estimated costs and recovery projections and compared them with expenditure and recovery program reports the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) is required to provide Congress.
Among the Committee's findings:
* The plan for the decurrent false aster, a plant, anticipated that the species could be recovered by 1997 for a budget of $58,000. Since the plan was written Federal and state agencies have spent more than $600,000 dollars on the species - more than 10 times the estimated cost in the plan. Well after the GAO study was initiated, the USFWS announced it will finally review the plant's status.
* 13 plans included estimated recovery dates that have already passed, but (with one exception) none of the species had been removed from the list or even reduced in status from endangered to threatened. The Maguire daisy was changed from endangered to the lesser threatened status after it was discovered to be more abundant. In some of these cases the expenditures on the species have been significantly below the plan's estimated cost but in others well over. As in the case of the decurrent false aster, the plan for the least tern anticipated recovery costs of $2,000,000 and that the bird could be delisted 2005. Federal and State agencies have spent over $23,000,000 million on the bird and in its most recent Congressional report the USFWS estimated that the species' status is "unknown" and that it has only achieved somewhere between 0 and 25 percent of its recovery objectives.
To view all Committee findings, click here.
The bipartisan Threatened and Endangered Species Recovery Act (TESRA), passed by the House this fall, includes several provisions that would remedy the shortcoming revealed by the GAO's analysis. One such provision establishes official Recovery Teams and requires recovery plans to be produced by a certain deadline, with specific criteria. Yet another strengthens the reporting requirements and public accessibility to the information about the endangered species program.
"Bringing the mechanics, incentives and scientific standards of the ESA into the 21st century will give it a chance to work effectively,” Pombo said. “If the U.S. Senate had any doubts about the need to do this, the GAO’s findings should clear them up. Accepting or defending the status-quo for this Act may be politically expedient for some and financially-beneficial to others, but it is unquestionably wrong for endangered species."
###
April 7, 2006
Contact: Brian Kennedy (202) 226-9019
GAO Report Shows Agencies Fail to Plan Adequately for Species Recovery
Lack of planning has led to the ESA’s failure to recover species
WASHINGTON – Summarized as "recovery time and costs largely unknown,” a new U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report released yesterday confirms that the Endangered Species Act (ESA) is not working effectively and is in need of reform after more than three decades of implementation without improvements.
The report echoes the U.S. Office of Management and Budget’s Not Performing assessment of the ESA.
Following a bipartisan request from several members of the United States House of Representatives and United States Senate, the GAO conducted a review of endangered species recovery plans to determine if they contained several key elements, including the amount of time and money it would take to recover species addressed in each plan. The GAO also reviewed the plans to see if they contained criteria which, when met, would indicate the species status had improved enough that the species no longer needed to be listed as endangered or threatened.
From a statistically significant sample of 107 recovery plans, the GAO found that only 34 plans included an estimated date by which the species would be recovered. GAO found that even fewer plans, 20, included an estimated cost for recovery. Worse yet, the GAO found that 102 of the 107 plans reviewed failed to address all of the factors that are considered when the agencies determine whether or not a species is endangered.”
"In more than three decades, the ESA has recovered less than one percent of the thirteen-hundred species on its list,” House Resources Committee Chairman Richard W. Pombo (R-Calif.) said. “And the prospects for improving this statistic under current law are just as low. GAO's results reveal one of the reasons for this – when you fail to plan appropriately, you plan to fail. This is precisely what has happened under the ESA, and it is tantamount to doing a jig-saw puzzle in the dark or trying to treat a patient without making a thorough diagnosis first.”
"If what GAO found was bad, what GAO missed was even worse," Pombo continued. “Although the GAO recommended the obvious - that actions be taken to address the failure of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service to include this critical information in recovery plans - it did not analyze the few plans in its sample that did provide such critical information for their accuracy. My committee did, and they are not.”
To test accuracy (or lack thereof), the Oversight and Investigations staff of the Resources Committee reviewed those few plans that did have estimated costs and recovery projections and compared them with expenditure and recovery program reports the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) is required to provide Congress.
Among the Committee's findings:
* The plan for the decurrent false aster, a plant, anticipated that the species could be recovered by 1997 for a budget of $58,000. Since the plan was written Federal and state agencies have spent more than $600,000 dollars on the species - more than 10 times the estimated cost in the plan. Well after the GAO study was initiated, the USFWS announced it will finally review the plant's status.
* 13 plans included estimated recovery dates that have already passed, but (with one exception) none of the species had been removed from the list or even reduced in status from endangered to threatened. The Maguire daisy was changed from endangered to the lesser threatened status after it was discovered to be more abundant. In some of these cases the expenditures on the species have been significantly below the plan's estimated cost but in others well over. As in the case of the decurrent false aster, the plan for the least tern anticipated recovery costs of $2,000,000 and that the bird could be delisted 2005. Federal and State agencies have spent over $23,000,000 million on the bird and in its most recent Congressional report the USFWS estimated that the species' status is "unknown" and that it has only achieved somewhere between 0 and 25 percent of its recovery objectives.
To view all Committee findings, click here.
The bipartisan Threatened and Endangered Species Recovery Act (TESRA), passed by the House this fall, includes several provisions that would remedy the shortcoming revealed by the GAO's analysis. One such provision establishes official Recovery Teams and requires recovery plans to be produced by a certain deadline, with specific criteria. Yet another strengthens the reporting requirements and public accessibility to the information about the endangered species program.
"Bringing the mechanics, incentives and scientific standards of the ESA into the 21st century will give it a chance to work effectively,” Pombo said. “If the U.S. Senate had any doubts about the need to do this, the GAO’s findings should clear them up. Accepting or defending the status-quo for this Act may be politically expedient for some and financially-beneficial to others, but it is unquestionably wrong for endangered species."
###
NEWS ROUNDUP
Court upholds dismissal of charges against wolf biologist A federal appeals court has upheld the dismissal of trespassing and littering charges against a federal wolf biologist and a private contractor who were found with tranquilized wolves on private property near Cody. The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals concluded in a ruling released Thursday that the prosecution of Mike Jimenez, Wyoming's wolf recovery coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and Wes Livingston, a private contractor from Cody, was more an "attempt to hinder a locally unpopular federal program," than a "bona fide effort to punish a violation of Wyoming trespass law." Rancher Randy Kruger pursued the charges after he found Jimenez and Livingston on his private land near Meeteetse Feb. 14, 2004. The men had four tranquilized wolves they were collaring because of depredation problems in the area. The incident raised speculation by some that they were trying to secretly transplant wolves into the area. The FWS said Jimenez and Livingston inadvertently wound up on the private land while working to place radio tracking collars on the wolves. FWS regional director Ralph Morganweck apologized for the incident....
Wyoming asks EPA to discard Montana rules Gov. Dave Freudenthal has asked the Environmental Protection Agency to reject Montana water quality rules that he says would severely limit natural gas production in Wyoming. However, Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer said his state intends to stick by its rules and said he's not pleased Wyoming took the dispute to federal regulators. Freudenthal announced Wednesday that his letter to Stephen L. Johnson, EPA administrator in Washington, D.C., asks the agency to appoint a mediator to resolve the dispute between the states. He wants discussion about the Montana rules and recognition that they "have serious impacts in Wyoming." But Schweitzer maintains that Wyoming's booming coalbed methane development is already having serious impacts in Montana....
Wildlife Officers “Seize” Elk From Local Ranch Wildlife enforcement officers served a search warrant March 28 on Joey Perdue, owner of Beaverhorn Elk Ranch in the Bethel community. The search warrant, signed by Superior Court judge James Baker, allowed wildlife management officials to “seize” five elk, the last remnants of Perdue’s herd, after a citation accused her of failing to comply with state regulations. By “seize,” though, the warrant was really empowering officials to kill the elk and dispose of their carcasses in a pit at the Wilkes Wildlife Depot. Perdue says wildlife officials never told her the violations would end in the death of her elk, which included a 23-year-old bull and three pregnant cows. What’s worse, she said, is the animals, which officials say were killed as part of the state’s effort to keep a mysterious brain ailment known as Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) from infecting wild herds, were rendered inedible when two veterinarians tranquilized them before euthanizing them with a bolt gun shot to the brain. “This waste amounted to approximately 5,000 pounds of the most healthy meat in the world,” an infuriated Perdue wrote in a March 31 letter to the Democrat. Perdue had been involved in a running dispute with state Wildlife Management officials who say they’d been after the 71-year-old rancher since 2004 to bring her operation into compliance with state law....
Calaveras rancher jumps to support Endangered Species Act It took a frog to make Calaveras County rancher Danny Pearson hop on an airplane. Pearson runs cattle on his family's ranch near Burson, off a dirt road east of San Andreas. In his 42 years, he has never found occasion to fly. He's never registered with any political party, and he's certainly never lobbied Congress. Until now. This week, incited by his regard for the California red-legged frog and his concern over the future of the Endangered Species Act, Pearson has become the quintessential citizen lobbyist. He's learning legislative mechanics, navigating Capitol Hill and beginning to appreciate the art of the sound bite. "I've got to get the message out there," Pearson said Monday. "Not all ranchers can be bought." Pearson's is one sun-beaten face of the Endangered Species Act debate, which has stymied Congress for years. His opposite number, a man he has never met, is also a one-time rancher. As chairman of the House Resources Committee, Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Tracy, is pushing a dramatic rewrite of the 33-year-old environmental law....
County says bill would hurt landowners Local opposition is gaining steam against a bill in the Colorado Senate that critics say would fail to protect the rights of surface landowners involved in disputes with gas drillers. The La Plata County commissioners wrote in a letter on Monday to the bill's Senate sponsor, Jim Isgar, D-Hesperus, that it was a "serious step backward" that "undermines local government authority in a wholly unacceptable way." Commissioners had earlier supported the bill, but they said it underwent "serious and deleterious changes." The bill requires gas companies to try to get a surface-use agreement with the landowner. However, if the landowner won't sign, the company could still drill by making an offer to reimburse the landowner and by posting a $15,000 bond with the state. Much of the current language was written by BP Amoco, the major driller in Southwest Colorado. The bill limits payment for damages to land that is disturbed by wells or pipelines, not the lost value of the entire parcel of land. The bill, HB 1185, passed by an overwhelming 60-3 vote in the House. It could receive a vote in the full Senate as early as today. Isgar has signed on as Senate sponsor. A Bayfield ranching family said Tuesday that the bill was a step backward and must be defeated. "This is just a bad bill," said Jim Fitzgerald, who owns 400 acres southeast of Bayfield. "It's unfair, and it takes rights away from landowners." Fitzgerald said he has one gas well on his land, two on adjacent land and "more coming," courtesy of BP Amoco. Gwen Lachelt, executive director of the Oil & Gas Accountability Project in Durango, said the bill was hijacked by the oil and gas industry....
Court asked to review mileage rules An environmental group on Thursday asked for a court review of tighter gas mileage rules for pickups and sport utility vehicles that many conservationists said do not go far enough in limiting greenhouse gas emissions. The federal government set the new standards last week in response to rising concern about the supply and cost of energy from abroad. The rules, covering 2008 through 2011, would save 10.7 billion gallons of fuel over the lifetime of the vehicles sold during that period, officials said. The Tucson, Ariz.-based Center for Biological Diversity filed a one-page petition Thursday asking the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to review the decision. Deborah Sivas, director of Stanford University's Environmental Law Clinic, which is representing the center, said the government did not adequately consider whether tighter standards would have been a greater boon for the environment. She also said the new rules would not adequately protect endangered species....
"Laurel and Hardy effect” spells good news for captive breeding Animals bred in captivity for reintroduction to the wild are able to retain their defences against predators for several generations, ecologists have found. According to new research published in the British Ecological Society’s Journal of Applied Ecology, tadpoles of the Mallorcan midwife toad (Alytes muletensis) retain their ability to change their body shape – a defence they have evolved in the face of predators – even after being bred in captivity for three to eight generations. The results have important implications for conserving endangered species through captive breeding programmes. Tadpoles of many amphibians have developed ways of defending themselves against predators. Mallorcan midwife toad tadpoles grow longer tails and shallower fins to help them escape from danger when predators are present. These defences have evolved in response to two predators that were introduced to Mallorca about 2,000 years ago: the viperine snake (Natrix maura) and the green frog (Rana perezi). The authors of the paper, Dr Richard Griffiths and colleagues from the University of Kent and the University of Sussex, have dubbed this change in shape the “Laurel and Hardy effect”. The researchers compared the responses of tadpoles in a predator-free, reintroduced population with those in the population from which their ancestors were collected several years earlier. When the tadpoles were exposed to chemical cues from predators, the researchers found that the reintroduced population retained their anti-predator responses, even though they had been bred in captivity for three to eight generations in the absence of predator selection pressures....
Lawsuit challenges use of hatchery fish in counts Conservation groups Thursday challenged a new government policy that includes hatchery fish in counts used to determine the status of dwindling salmon and steelhead runs. In a federal court lawsuit the plaintiffs also challenged the downlisting of upper Columbia steelhead -- from endangered to threatened -- that has resulted from that policy. "The purpose of the Endangered Species Act is to protect wildlife's ability to sustain itself in the wild. And that means the focus is on wild steelhead in rivers, not steelhead that are produced in hatcheries," said Patti Goldman of Earthjustice. Earthjustice filed the lawsuit on behalf of six plaintiff groups against the National Marine Fisheries Service and its regional director, Bob Lohn....
Conservation Celebrities Recognized as Disney Fund Reaches Milestone $10 Million Investment in Wildlife Five renowned conservation celebrities joined with Disney Thursday night to celebrate a $10 million milestone for the Disney Wildlife Conservation Fund (DWCF) -- a program that has benefited nearly 500 wildlife projects around the world. Actor/comedian John Cleese; elephant expert Iain Douglas-Hamilton; primatologist Jane Goodall; actress Isabella Rossellini; and Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai accepted awards of $100,000 each for their conservation causes in a ceremony at Disney's Animal Kingdom at Walt Disney World Resort. "These very special people, who have devoted their lives and lent their voices to conservation, are the key to engaging the public in caring for animals," said Jerry Montgomery, senior vice president of Walt Disney World Public Affairs. "The adventures and excitement at Disney's Animal Kingdom help us share conservation stories with our guests, and we are thrilled that many of them join our global conservation efforts through the Disney Wildlife Conservation Fund. Together, we are making a difference for wildlife and wild places -- we are helping to create the next generation of Disney's conservation legacy." The conservation focus is a large part of the park's mission as a facility accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA). Since 1998, the DWCF has been supported by donations from guests visiting Walt Disney World Resort and enhanced by company contributions. The $500,000 awarded at the celebration will be divided among several charitable organizations working in the U.S. and abroad....
Mountain lion bill introduced A bill making it a crime for a mountain lion to attack a human has been introduced into the state Legislature. Assembly Bill 2273, introduced by Assemblyman Bill Maze, R-Visalia, is intended to make victims of mountain lion attacks eligible for compensation for their injuries through the state crime victims' fund, according to Somke Mastrup, deputy director of the state Department of Fish and Game. For them to be eligible, they must be crime victims. Mastrup reported on a number of bills pending in Sacramento at Thursday's meeting of the state Department of Fish and Game in Monterey, legislation that the commission should keep an eye on, he said....
Wildfires Scorch 27,000 Acres in Texas The parched Texas Panhandle apparently survived another wildfire scare, but forecasters predicted dangerous conditions in other parts of the state Friday. Wildfires fueled by steady 40 mph winds scorched 27,000 acres Thursday and destroyed at least nine homes while forcing the evacuation of two small towns about 65 miles east of Amarillo. The roughly 600 residents of Lefors and Bowers City were allowed to return home in the evening and lighter winds helped firefighters contain most of the more than two dozen blazes, officials said. No injuries were reported....
Last frontier From 1987 to 2002, Colorado lost an average of 460 acres per day of agricultural land, according to a report released this week by Environment Colorado. The report, titled "Losing Ground: Colorado's Vanishing Agricultural Landscape," predicts 3.1 million more acres will be lost to development by 2022. "Colorado is losing the equivalent of five family farms every week," said Pam Kiely, the report's author. "Loss of farmlands impacts the environment, the economy and the very landscapes that define us as a state." The report, which is based on statistics from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, predicts Moffat County will lose more than 100,000 acres of agricultural land to development by 2022. Struggling rural economies and increased development of large-lot residential property is largely to blame for the decline in agricultural lands, according to the report....
A little lambsie jivey: fraud at the stock show The two top winners of the National Western Stock Show's junior market lamb show and 16 other lambs were illegally injected with an unknown substance, stock show President Pat Grant said Wednesday. Grant said officials were alerted to the tampering Jan. 19, the night of the contest. The lambs were recovered at the packing plant, and the Denver district attorney was notified. The injections caused swelling and inflammation, which made the lambs appear more muscular, he said. None of the altered animals was consumed, he said. "It could be something criminal," said Lynn Kimbrough, of the Denver district attorney's office. "We're in the middle of the investigation."....
Court upholds dismissal of charges against wolf biologist A federal appeals court has upheld the dismissal of trespassing and littering charges against a federal wolf biologist and a private contractor who were found with tranquilized wolves on private property near Cody. The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals concluded in a ruling released Thursday that the prosecution of Mike Jimenez, Wyoming's wolf recovery coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and Wes Livingston, a private contractor from Cody, was more an "attempt to hinder a locally unpopular federal program," than a "bona fide effort to punish a violation of Wyoming trespass law." Rancher Randy Kruger pursued the charges after he found Jimenez and Livingston on his private land near Meeteetse Feb. 14, 2004. The men had four tranquilized wolves they were collaring because of depredation problems in the area. The incident raised speculation by some that they were trying to secretly transplant wolves into the area. The FWS said Jimenez and Livingston inadvertently wound up on the private land while working to place radio tracking collars on the wolves. FWS regional director Ralph Morganweck apologized for the incident....
Wyoming asks EPA to discard Montana rules Gov. Dave Freudenthal has asked the Environmental Protection Agency to reject Montana water quality rules that he says would severely limit natural gas production in Wyoming. However, Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer said his state intends to stick by its rules and said he's not pleased Wyoming took the dispute to federal regulators. Freudenthal announced Wednesday that his letter to Stephen L. Johnson, EPA administrator in Washington, D.C., asks the agency to appoint a mediator to resolve the dispute between the states. He wants discussion about the Montana rules and recognition that they "have serious impacts in Wyoming." But Schweitzer maintains that Wyoming's booming coalbed methane development is already having serious impacts in Montana....
Wildlife Officers “Seize” Elk From Local Ranch Wildlife enforcement officers served a search warrant March 28 on Joey Perdue, owner of Beaverhorn Elk Ranch in the Bethel community. The search warrant, signed by Superior Court judge James Baker, allowed wildlife management officials to “seize” five elk, the last remnants of Perdue’s herd, after a citation accused her of failing to comply with state regulations. By “seize,” though, the warrant was really empowering officials to kill the elk and dispose of their carcasses in a pit at the Wilkes Wildlife Depot. Perdue says wildlife officials never told her the violations would end in the death of her elk, which included a 23-year-old bull and three pregnant cows. What’s worse, she said, is the animals, which officials say were killed as part of the state’s effort to keep a mysterious brain ailment known as Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) from infecting wild herds, were rendered inedible when two veterinarians tranquilized them before euthanizing them with a bolt gun shot to the brain. “This waste amounted to approximately 5,000 pounds of the most healthy meat in the world,” an infuriated Perdue wrote in a March 31 letter to the Democrat. Perdue had been involved in a running dispute with state Wildlife Management officials who say they’d been after the 71-year-old rancher since 2004 to bring her operation into compliance with state law....
Calaveras rancher jumps to support Endangered Species Act It took a frog to make Calaveras County rancher Danny Pearson hop on an airplane. Pearson runs cattle on his family's ranch near Burson, off a dirt road east of San Andreas. In his 42 years, he has never found occasion to fly. He's never registered with any political party, and he's certainly never lobbied Congress. Until now. This week, incited by his regard for the California red-legged frog and his concern over the future of the Endangered Species Act, Pearson has become the quintessential citizen lobbyist. He's learning legislative mechanics, navigating Capitol Hill and beginning to appreciate the art of the sound bite. "I've got to get the message out there," Pearson said Monday. "Not all ranchers can be bought." Pearson's is one sun-beaten face of the Endangered Species Act debate, which has stymied Congress for years. His opposite number, a man he has never met, is also a one-time rancher. As chairman of the House Resources Committee, Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Tracy, is pushing a dramatic rewrite of the 33-year-old environmental law....
County says bill would hurt landowners Local opposition is gaining steam against a bill in the Colorado Senate that critics say would fail to protect the rights of surface landowners involved in disputes with gas drillers. The La Plata County commissioners wrote in a letter on Monday to the bill's Senate sponsor, Jim Isgar, D-Hesperus, that it was a "serious step backward" that "undermines local government authority in a wholly unacceptable way." Commissioners had earlier supported the bill, but they said it underwent "serious and deleterious changes." The bill requires gas companies to try to get a surface-use agreement with the landowner. However, if the landowner won't sign, the company could still drill by making an offer to reimburse the landowner and by posting a $15,000 bond with the state. Much of the current language was written by BP Amoco, the major driller in Southwest Colorado. The bill limits payment for damages to land that is disturbed by wells or pipelines, not the lost value of the entire parcel of land. The bill, HB 1185, passed by an overwhelming 60-3 vote in the House. It could receive a vote in the full Senate as early as today. Isgar has signed on as Senate sponsor. A Bayfield ranching family said Tuesday that the bill was a step backward and must be defeated. "This is just a bad bill," said Jim Fitzgerald, who owns 400 acres southeast of Bayfield. "It's unfair, and it takes rights away from landowners." Fitzgerald said he has one gas well on his land, two on adjacent land and "more coming," courtesy of BP Amoco. Gwen Lachelt, executive director of the Oil & Gas Accountability Project in Durango, said the bill was hijacked by the oil and gas industry....
Court asked to review mileage rules An environmental group on Thursday asked for a court review of tighter gas mileage rules for pickups and sport utility vehicles that many conservationists said do not go far enough in limiting greenhouse gas emissions. The federal government set the new standards last week in response to rising concern about the supply and cost of energy from abroad. The rules, covering 2008 through 2011, would save 10.7 billion gallons of fuel over the lifetime of the vehicles sold during that period, officials said. The Tucson, Ariz.-based Center for Biological Diversity filed a one-page petition Thursday asking the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to review the decision. Deborah Sivas, director of Stanford University's Environmental Law Clinic, which is representing the center, said the government did not adequately consider whether tighter standards would have been a greater boon for the environment. She also said the new rules would not adequately protect endangered species....
"Laurel and Hardy effect” spells good news for captive breeding Animals bred in captivity for reintroduction to the wild are able to retain their defences against predators for several generations, ecologists have found. According to new research published in the British Ecological Society’s Journal of Applied Ecology, tadpoles of the Mallorcan midwife toad (Alytes muletensis) retain their ability to change their body shape – a defence they have evolved in the face of predators – even after being bred in captivity for three to eight generations. The results have important implications for conserving endangered species through captive breeding programmes. Tadpoles of many amphibians have developed ways of defending themselves against predators. Mallorcan midwife toad tadpoles grow longer tails and shallower fins to help them escape from danger when predators are present. These defences have evolved in response to two predators that were introduced to Mallorca about 2,000 years ago: the viperine snake (Natrix maura) and the green frog (Rana perezi). The authors of the paper, Dr Richard Griffiths and colleagues from the University of Kent and the University of Sussex, have dubbed this change in shape the “Laurel and Hardy effect”. The researchers compared the responses of tadpoles in a predator-free, reintroduced population with those in the population from which their ancestors were collected several years earlier. When the tadpoles were exposed to chemical cues from predators, the researchers found that the reintroduced population retained their anti-predator responses, even though they had been bred in captivity for three to eight generations in the absence of predator selection pressures....
Lawsuit challenges use of hatchery fish in counts Conservation groups Thursday challenged a new government policy that includes hatchery fish in counts used to determine the status of dwindling salmon and steelhead runs. In a federal court lawsuit the plaintiffs also challenged the downlisting of upper Columbia steelhead -- from endangered to threatened -- that has resulted from that policy. "The purpose of the Endangered Species Act is to protect wildlife's ability to sustain itself in the wild. And that means the focus is on wild steelhead in rivers, not steelhead that are produced in hatcheries," said Patti Goldman of Earthjustice. Earthjustice filed the lawsuit on behalf of six plaintiff groups against the National Marine Fisheries Service and its regional director, Bob Lohn....
Conservation Celebrities Recognized as Disney Fund Reaches Milestone $10 Million Investment in Wildlife Five renowned conservation celebrities joined with Disney Thursday night to celebrate a $10 million milestone for the Disney Wildlife Conservation Fund (DWCF) -- a program that has benefited nearly 500 wildlife projects around the world. Actor/comedian John Cleese; elephant expert Iain Douglas-Hamilton; primatologist Jane Goodall; actress Isabella Rossellini; and Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai accepted awards of $100,000 each for their conservation causes in a ceremony at Disney's Animal Kingdom at Walt Disney World Resort. "These very special people, who have devoted their lives and lent their voices to conservation, are the key to engaging the public in caring for animals," said Jerry Montgomery, senior vice president of Walt Disney World Public Affairs. "The adventures and excitement at Disney's Animal Kingdom help us share conservation stories with our guests, and we are thrilled that many of them join our global conservation efforts through the Disney Wildlife Conservation Fund. Together, we are making a difference for wildlife and wild places -- we are helping to create the next generation of Disney's conservation legacy." The conservation focus is a large part of the park's mission as a facility accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA). Since 1998, the DWCF has been supported by donations from guests visiting Walt Disney World Resort and enhanced by company contributions. The $500,000 awarded at the celebration will be divided among several charitable organizations working in the U.S. and abroad....
Mountain lion bill introduced A bill making it a crime for a mountain lion to attack a human has been introduced into the state Legislature. Assembly Bill 2273, introduced by Assemblyman Bill Maze, R-Visalia, is intended to make victims of mountain lion attacks eligible for compensation for their injuries through the state crime victims' fund, according to Somke Mastrup, deputy director of the state Department of Fish and Game. For them to be eligible, they must be crime victims. Mastrup reported on a number of bills pending in Sacramento at Thursday's meeting of the state Department of Fish and Game in Monterey, legislation that the commission should keep an eye on, he said....
Wildfires Scorch 27,000 Acres in Texas The parched Texas Panhandle apparently survived another wildfire scare, but forecasters predicted dangerous conditions in other parts of the state Friday. Wildfires fueled by steady 40 mph winds scorched 27,000 acres Thursday and destroyed at least nine homes while forcing the evacuation of two small towns about 65 miles east of Amarillo. The roughly 600 residents of Lefors and Bowers City were allowed to return home in the evening and lighter winds helped firefighters contain most of the more than two dozen blazes, officials said. No injuries were reported....
Last frontier From 1987 to 2002, Colorado lost an average of 460 acres per day of agricultural land, according to a report released this week by Environment Colorado. The report, titled "Losing Ground: Colorado's Vanishing Agricultural Landscape," predicts 3.1 million more acres will be lost to development by 2022. "Colorado is losing the equivalent of five family farms every week," said Pam Kiely, the report's author. "Loss of farmlands impacts the environment, the economy and the very landscapes that define us as a state." The report, which is based on statistics from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, predicts Moffat County will lose more than 100,000 acres of agricultural land to development by 2022. Struggling rural economies and increased development of large-lot residential property is largely to blame for the decline in agricultural lands, according to the report....
A little lambsie jivey: fraud at the stock show The two top winners of the National Western Stock Show's junior market lamb show and 16 other lambs were illegally injected with an unknown substance, stock show President Pat Grant said Wednesday. Grant said officials were alerted to the tampering Jan. 19, the night of the contest. The lambs were recovered at the packing plant, and the Denver district attorney was notified. The injections caused swelling and inflammation, which made the lambs appear more muscular, he said. None of the altered animals was consumed, he said. "It could be something criminal," said Lynn Kimbrough, of the Denver district attorney's office. "We're in the middle of the investigation."....
NAIS
Transcript of Tele-News Conference with Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns And Dr. John Clifford, USDA's Chief Veterinarian Regarding the National Animal Identification System Washington, D.C. - April 6, 2006
MODERATOR: Good afternoon from Washington. I'm Larry Quinn speaking to you from the Broadcast Center at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Welcome to today's news conference with Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns to discuss the National Animal Identification System plan. With the Secretary today is Dr. John Clifford, USDA's chief veterinarian with the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. During our question period if you'd like to ask a question, please press *1 on your telephone touchpad. Now it's my pleasure to introduce to you Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns. SEC. JOHANNS: Well, thank you very much. And good afternoon everyone, and thank you for joining me today. We are going to do an update on the development of the National Animal Identification System. I am very pleased to make public today what we would refer to as our implementation plan and several other documents that will take us into the next phase of development. A National Animal ID system will dramatically improve our ability to respond to animal disease outbreaks. During the contagious disease outbreak, time is actually the enemy. The more time it takes to track an animal, the more animals are exposed, the more premises become involved, and the more money it costs to contain the disease. An animal ID system will help animal health officials identify the birthplace of a diseased animal and shorten the time required to trace the animal's history to identify other potentially exposed animals. A long-term goal is to be able to identify all animals and premises that have had direct contact with the disease of concern within 48 hours of discovery. As many are aware, this system will also help the U.S. livestock industry to remain competitive. Traceability is being used as a marketing tool by several countries. For example, Australia is aggressively marketing animal traceability to gain a competitive advantage over us. We know how important the export market is to livestock producers, and we want to retain our competitiveness in the international arena....
NAIS Implementation Plan
Integration Plan for Private and State Databases
Implementation of the Animal Identification Number (AIN)
USDA Outlines Plan, Benchmarks for National Animal ID Implementation
A new proposal from USDA outlines timelines and benchmarks for the establishment of the National Animal Identification System, along with a plan for the initial integration of private and state animal tracking databases with NAIS. Over the next two and a half years USDA wants 100% of premises registered and new animals identified and 60% of animals less than a year old to have complete movement data. The full plan, available at the NAIS Web site, gives an overview of what is currently in place and final components of the program expected to be operational in early 2007. By early 2007, USDA expects to have the technology in place, called the Animal Trace Processing System or commonly known as the metadata system, that will allow state and federal animal health officials to query the NAIS and private databases during a disease investigation. The animal tracking databases will record and store animal movement tracking information for livestock that state and federal animal health officials will query for animals of interest in a disease investigation. Currently only 235,000 premises are registered, or about 10% of the estimated national total. Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns says some may question that the system isn't working with 90% not participating. However, he explains that 10% are on-board with what essentially was a "national animal ID thinking paper." The plan outlines the following benchmarks for progress:
* January 2007: 25% of premises registered
* January 2008: 70% of premises registered; 40% of animals identified
* January 2009: 100% of premises registered; 100% of "new" animals identified;60% of animal <1 year of age have complete movement data...
Animal ID System to Be in Place by 2009
Authorities trying to limit disease outbreaks will be able to trace livestock movements from birth to slaughter by 2009, Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns said Thursday. The goal is to pinpoint a single animal's movements among the nation's 9 billion cows, pigs and chickens within 48 hours after a disease is discovered. Many livestock producers have been wary of a tracking system, which the government promised to create after the nation's first case of mad cow disease two years ago in Washington state. The department has shifted gears on other parts of the animal identification system. Johanns said last May it would be government-run. Now, Johanns is letting industry groups create their own tracking systems, so long as state and federal authorities are able to tap into the systems when needed. The goal is for all ranches, feed lots, sale barns, packing plants and other facilities to be registered, and all recently born animals assigned numbers by 2009, said the department's chief veterinarian, John Clifford. Clifford said about 10 percent of the nation's 2 million premises have registered so far. Still in question is whether or when it will become mandatory for U.S. producers to register and report the movements of cattle, hogs and poultry. Johanns has said the system probably will have to be mandatory....
Animal ID System, Cattle Feed Rules Long Overdue, but Stalled by Industry Influence, Says CSPI
Despite the discovery of three cows infected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad cow disease, long overdue measures to ensure the safety of the food supply and to keep foreign markets open to American beef have been stalled, according to the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI). In a report coauthored with OMB Watch and Consumer Federation of America, CSPI says special-interest lobbying at federal agencies and at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) helped keep reforms, such as a nationwide animal identification system and a strong regulation governing cattle feed, from being finalized. The report identifies 10 closed-door meetings that staff at OMB, which is part of the Executive Office of the President, have held with the meat and feed industry, and points out that the senior levels of the Bush Administration’s Department of Agriculture are filled with former industry insiders. The groups are calling on Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns to jump start the stalled animal identification system and the Food and Drug Administration to finalize a rule preventing animal feed from being contaminated with mammalian blood, so-called “chicken litter,” and other animal-containing products that could pass on the prions that cause BSE. “We don’t need another mad cow to tell us how weak the United States’ cattle tracking system is,” said CSPI food safety director Caroline Smith DeWaal. “While Canada can quickly track all cattle that may have eaten infected feed, USDA has refused to mandate a similar system in the U.S.”....
Wyoming: Age and Source Verification Program Kicks Off
With markets for American beef proving restless in the Pacific Rim and around the world, the Wyoming Business Council is rolling out a voluntary program designed to help producers satisfy export requirements for Wyoming meat. John Henn of the Wyoming Business Council begins his Wyoming Verified Program for source and age verification of Wyoming livestock this month. As an approved partner in AgInfoLink's USDA PVP program, Henn will audit ranch records to verify age of animals and their place of birth. The program is in place due to restrictions placed on American beef after Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) was found in a Canadian animal on a Washington State ranch in 2003. Even though U.S. food safety measures ensure any material that could potentially carry the BSE agent does not enter the food chain, Japan closed its borders to American beef, depriving producers in the states a market that had brought $1.4 billion annually to the U.S. beef industry. The impact of this program will benefit the producer financially, Henn said. The loss of the Japan market meant a loss that equated to about $150 a head on the finished animal. "We hope we can get that back over a period of time when that market re-opens," Henn added. Animals that are source and age verified have been getting a premium from buyers and packers here at home. Since BSE has not been found in any animals under the age of 30 months, several countries around the world are not accepting beef unless its age is certified by a third party and proves to be less than 21 months of age for Japan and 30 months for other countries....
Transcript of Tele-News Conference with Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns And Dr. John Clifford, USDA's Chief Veterinarian Regarding the National Animal Identification System Washington, D.C. - April 6, 2006
MODERATOR: Good afternoon from Washington. I'm Larry Quinn speaking to you from the Broadcast Center at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Welcome to today's news conference with Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns to discuss the National Animal Identification System plan. With the Secretary today is Dr. John Clifford, USDA's chief veterinarian with the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. During our question period if you'd like to ask a question, please press *1 on your telephone touchpad. Now it's my pleasure to introduce to you Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns. SEC. JOHANNS: Well, thank you very much. And good afternoon everyone, and thank you for joining me today. We are going to do an update on the development of the National Animal Identification System. I am very pleased to make public today what we would refer to as our implementation plan and several other documents that will take us into the next phase of development. A National Animal ID system will dramatically improve our ability to respond to animal disease outbreaks. During the contagious disease outbreak, time is actually the enemy. The more time it takes to track an animal, the more animals are exposed, the more premises become involved, and the more money it costs to contain the disease. An animal ID system will help animal health officials identify the birthplace of a diseased animal and shorten the time required to trace the animal's history to identify other potentially exposed animals. A long-term goal is to be able to identify all animals and premises that have had direct contact with the disease of concern within 48 hours of discovery. As many are aware, this system will also help the U.S. livestock industry to remain competitive. Traceability is being used as a marketing tool by several countries. For example, Australia is aggressively marketing animal traceability to gain a competitive advantage over us. We know how important the export market is to livestock producers, and we want to retain our competitiveness in the international arena....
NAIS Implementation Plan
Integration Plan for Private and State Databases
Implementation of the Animal Identification Number (AIN)
USDA Outlines Plan, Benchmarks for National Animal ID Implementation
A new proposal from USDA outlines timelines and benchmarks for the establishment of the National Animal Identification System, along with a plan for the initial integration of private and state animal tracking databases with NAIS. Over the next two and a half years USDA wants 100% of premises registered and new animals identified and 60% of animals less than a year old to have complete movement data. The full plan, available at the NAIS Web site, gives an overview of what is currently in place and final components of the program expected to be operational in early 2007. By early 2007, USDA expects to have the technology in place, called the Animal Trace Processing System or commonly known as the metadata system, that will allow state and federal animal health officials to query the NAIS and private databases during a disease investigation. The animal tracking databases will record and store animal movement tracking information for livestock that state and federal animal health officials will query for animals of interest in a disease investigation. Currently only 235,000 premises are registered, or about 10% of the estimated national total. Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns says some may question that the system isn't working with 90% not participating. However, he explains that 10% are on-board with what essentially was a "national animal ID thinking paper." The plan outlines the following benchmarks for progress:
* January 2007: 25% of premises registered
* January 2008: 70% of premises registered; 40% of animals identified
* January 2009: 100% of premises registered; 100% of "new" animals identified;60% of animal <1 year of age have complete movement data...
Animal ID System to Be in Place by 2009
Authorities trying to limit disease outbreaks will be able to trace livestock movements from birth to slaughter by 2009, Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns said Thursday. The goal is to pinpoint a single animal's movements among the nation's 9 billion cows, pigs and chickens within 48 hours after a disease is discovered. Many livestock producers have been wary of a tracking system, which the government promised to create after the nation's first case of mad cow disease two years ago in Washington state. The department has shifted gears on other parts of the animal identification system. Johanns said last May it would be government-run. Now, Johanns is letting industry groups create their own tracking systems, so long as state and federal authorities are able to tap into the systems when needed. The goal is for all ranches, feed lots, sale barns, packing plants and other facilities to be registered, and all recently born animals assigned numbers by 2009, said the department's chief veterinarian, John Clifford. Clifford said about 10 percent of the nation's 2 million premises have registered so far. Still in question is whether or when it will become mandatory for U.S. producers to register and report the movements of cattle, hogs and poultry. Johanns has said the system probably will have to be mandatory....
Animal ID System, Cattle Feed Rules Long Overdue, but Stalled by Industry Influence, Says CSPI
Despite the discovery of three cows infected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad cow disease, long overdue measures to ensure the safety of the food supply and to keep foreign markets open to American beef have been stalled, according to the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI). In a report coauthored with OMB Watch and Consumer Federation of America, CSPI says special-interest lobbying at federal agencies and at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) helped keep reforms, such as a nationwide animal identification system and a strong regulation governing cattle feed, from being finalized. The report identifies 10 closed-door meetings that staff at OMB, which is part of the Executive Office of the President, have held with the meat and feed industry, and points out that the senior levels of the Bush Administration’s Department of Agriculture are filled with former industry insiders. The groups are calling on Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns to jump start the stalled animal identification system and the Food and Drug Administration to finalize a rule preventing animal feed from being contaminated with mammalian blood, so-called “chicken litter,” and other animal-containing products that could pass on the prions that cause BSE. “We don’t need another mad cow to tell us how weak the United States’ cattle tracking system is,” said CSPI food safety director Caroline Smith DeWaal. “While Canada can quickly track all cattle that may have eaten infected feed, USDA has refused to mandate a similar system in the U.S.”....
Wyoming: Age and Source Verification Program Kicks Off
With markets for American beef proving restless in the Pacific Rim and around the world, the Wyoming Business Council is rolling out a voluntary program designed to help producers satisfy export requirements for Wyoming meat. John Henn of the Wyoming Business Council begins his Wyoming Verified Program for source and age verification of Wyoming livestock this month. As an approved partner in AgInfoLink's USDA PVP program, Henn will audit ranch records to verify age of animals and their place of birth. The program is in place due to restrictions placed on American beef after Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) was found in a Canadian animal on a Washington State ranch in 2003. Even though U.S. food safety measures ensure any material that could potentially carry the BSE agent does not enter the food chain, Japan closed its borders to American beef, depriving producers in the states a market that had brought $1.4 billion annually to the U.S. beef industry. The impact of this program will benefit the producer financially, Henn said. The loss of the Japan market meant a loss that equated to about $150 a head on the finished animal. "We hope we can get that back over a period of time when that market re-opens," Henn added. Animals that are source and age verified have been getting a premium from buyers and packers here at home. Since BSE has not been found in any animals under the age of 30 months, several countries around the world are not accepting beef unless its age is certified by a third party and proves to be less than 21 months of age for Japan and 30 months for other countries....
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