Literary Marksmanship AMERICAN RIFLE A Biography By Alexander Rose Delacorte. 495 pp. $30 The title of Alexander Rose's marvelous book says it all: Although "American Rifle" is ostensibly about the history of a piece of machinery, a tool, a killing instrument, it is only in America that the rifle has become an ineradicable part of the culture and can be written about as if it were a living person. "My rifle is human, even as I, because it is my life. Thus I will learn it as a brother," runs an old hymn still memorized by both Army and Marine recruits. That hymn was intended to serve as an instructive and inspirational credo for young men joining the armed forces who, increasingly, no longer came from a rural or ranching background in which boys started shooting as small children with a BB rifle, got a .22 for their 10th birthday or sooner, and were taught how to shoot and look after a gun by their father, uncle or grandfather, in a rite of passage as old as the republic. In the Old World, firearms were a class indicator: prerogatives of the military or, when intended for sporting purposes, of the landed aristocracy. In the 17th and 18th centuries, throughout Europe and Great Britain, poaching was a capital offense; the ordinary non-landowning man had no need, and no right, to keep a firearm at home, and hanging judges gleefully sentenced those of the starving rural poor who killed a pheasant or a deer. The biggest difference between America and Great Britain was not just the abundance of wildlife, but the all-important fact that in the Colonies it didn't belong to anybody; a good marksman could put meat on the family table every night without being hanged for the act. The firearm above the fireplace became a symbol of self-sufficiency, of freedom, of a potentially classless society (at any rate, one without a hereditary aristocracy), of sturdy independence and of self-defense....

USDA Panel Approves First Rules For Labeling Farmed Fish 'Organic' For the first time, a federal advisory board has approved criteria that clear the way for farmed fish to be labeled "organic," a move that pleased aquaculture producers even as it angered environmentalists and consumer advocates. The question of whether farmed fish could be labeled organic -- especially carnivorous species such as salmon that live in open-ocean net pens and consume vast amounts of smaller fish -- has vexed scientists and federal regulators for years. The standards approved yesterday by the National Organic Standards Board would allow organic fish farmers to use wild fish as part of their feed mix provided it did not exceed 25 percent of the total and did not come from forage species, such as menhaden, that have declined sharply as the demand for farmed fish has skyrocketed....

Planting a new purpose The Rocky Mountain Seed Co. building on 15th Street between Market and Larimer streets is one of downtown Denver's few remaining reminders of the city's agrarian roots. In October, JohnstonWells Public Relations moved into the Victorian-era building, which had housed The Rocky Mountain Seed Co. for 87 years before it vacated the property in 2007. The seed company is now headquartered near Interstate 25 and Washington Street. The historic building's new inhabitants set out to transform what once was a dusty retail space outfitted with 1,200 drawers, bins and cubbyholes of various shapes and sizes into a colorful modern office punctuated by an extensive folk art collection. The redesign plans also were mindful of the building's egacy. But other historians mourn the loss of a link to Denver's agricultural past. People often think of early Denver as a mining hub, but the city also served as the supply center for farms in eastern Colorado, Wyoming, New Mexico, Kansas and the Dakotas, according to Tom Noel. The University of Colorado history professor known as "Dr. Colorado" is also a LoDo tour guide and author of several local history books. Larimer, Market and 15th streets were home to nearly a dozen wholesale, distribution and packaging companies for produce, seeds and meats. Farmers in trucks used to line up at the Rocky Mountain Seed Co. while walk-in customers chatted with the staff about what crops grew best in this region or how to handle hail and storm damage....

Tel Che'e: Apache warrior turned legend Somewhere along a remote creek bed, somewhere in Central Arizona, sometime in the early 1860s, an unknown prospector lay dead. Over his body stood an exceptionally large, broad-shouldered and slightly stooped, 20-some-year-old Apache. From the dead man's clothing, the Apache plucked a single pearl button. Then, along with his companions, he headed off to one of his remote mountain sanctuaries. The scene was not unusual. There were a lot of bodies littering the landscape at that place and time. But the Apache warrior, who would soon fashion the pearl button into an earring, was. His name was Tel Che'e. The whites who later came to his ancestral land, unaccustomed to his indigenous people's foreign dialect, called him Delshay, Deluche, Delche or Del-che-ae. Other Apache chiefs would achieve greater notoriety, but none would bear the enmity of the U.S. military to the degree eventually reserved for Tel Che'e....

Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens loses re-election bid Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens has lost his bid for a seventh term. The longest-serving Republican in the history of the Senate trailed Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich by 3,724 votes after Tuesday's count. That's an insurmountable lead with only about 2,500 overseas ballots left to be counted. Stevens, who turned 85 Tuesday, also revealed that he will not ask President George W. Bush to give him a pardon for his seven felony convictions.

The Environmental Motor Company When is $25 billion in taxpayer cash insufficient to bail out Detroit's auto makers? Answer: When the money is a tool of Congressional industrial policy to turn GM, Ford and Chrysler into agents of the Sierra Club and other green lobbies. That's the little-understood subplot of the Washington melodrama over a taxpayer rescue for Detroit. In their public statements, proponents describe the bailout as an attempt to save jobs, American manufacturing and the middle-class way of life. But look closely and you can see that what's really going on is an attempt to use taxpayer money to remake Detroit in the image of the modern environmental movement. Given a choice between greens and blue-collar workers, Congress puts the greens first. This political contradiction has come into sharp relief since President Bush offered a significant compromise late last week on the use of taxpayer cash. Earlier this year, Congress had approved $25 billion in loans to the car companies for "green retooling," and the White House said Friday that Detroit could tap that money quickly for more general purposes with a couple of conditions. The companies merely have to present a business plan to the Energy Secretary showing how the cash would keep them "viable," which is to say competitive as profit-making concerns. This could be a proposal to renegotiate labor contracts, or perhaps a merger proposal, or other plan of action. But here's the real catch for Congress: Mr. Bush said Democrats would also have to remove the green strings that they themselves had attached to that $25 billion. Democratic leaders refused....

War on the Range A new range war is spreading across the Rocky Mountain West. And this time, it's pitting ranchers against a modern-day nemesis: the gas industry. At the center of the conflict is an explosion of drilling for coalbed methane gas over the past decade in iconic Western places like sage-covered buttes and mesas -- wide open spaces that, until recently, ranchers pretty much had to themselves. The number of active gas wells in the San Juan Basin of New Mexico and Colorado has shot up more than fivefold to about 18,000 from 2,550 in 2001. In Colorado, the number of permits for primarily new gas wells has jumped sevenfold to 7,000 a year from about 1,000 at the beginning of this decade. And in Wyoming's fabled Powder River Basin -- where Buffalo Bill Cody and other Old West legends once rode -- the number of gas wells has more than tripled to about 30,000 from about 9,000 eight years ago. Coalbed methane as a whole now accounts for nearly 10% of natural-gas production in the U.S. Along the way, many ranchers have complained of their cattle operations being seriously disrupted -- and in some cases ruined -- because of so much development activity. Some have formed groups to study the impact, lobbied for more regulation and filed lawsuits to hold producers more accountable. But most ranchers have had little choice but to let the drilling rigs in; the 1872 Mining Act gives precedence to mineral rights over surface users of the land. "As a rancher, I want my business protected from the impacts of the oil-and-gas industry," Chris Velasquez, a rancher in Blanco, N.M., said last April before the House Committee on Small Business, which was looking into the effects of oil-and-gas development on hunters, ranchers and others in the West. The 56-year-old rancher said he had to give up the last 22,000 acres of a federal grazing lease where his family had ranched for more than a century because the roads, pipelines, well pads and quarries put in there for drilling had made running cattle uneconomical. Among the problems: In 2001, 20 of his pregnant heifers aborted their calves after drinking contaminated water from a well-disposal pit....

Drilling process causes water supply alarm In July, a hydrologist dropped a plastic sampling pipe 300 feet down a water well in rural Sublette County, Wyo., and pulled up a load of brown, oily water with a foul smell. Tests showed it contained benzene, a chemical believed to cause aplastic anemia and leukemia, in a concentration 1,500 times the level safe for people. The results sent shock waves through the energy industry and state and federal regulatory agencies. Sublette County is the home of one of the nation's largest natural-gas fields, and many of its 6,000 wells have undergone a process pioneered by Halliburton called hydraulic fracturing, which shoots vast amounts of water, sand and chemicals several miles underground to break apart rock and release the gas. The process has been considered safe since a 2004 study by the Environmental Protection Agency found that it posed no risk to drinking water. After that study, Congress even exempted hydraulic fracturing from the Safe Drinking Water Act. Today, fracturing is used in nine of every 10 natural-gas wells in the United States. Over the last few years, however, a series of contamination incidents has raised questions about that EPA study and ignited a debate over whether the chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing may threaten the nation's increasingly precious drinking-water supply....

California’s Tougher Renewable-Energy Targets A Mixed Blessing for Greens California now has the nation’s most ambitious renewable-energy targets. Many environmentalists might wish it didn’t. California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger set California’s renewable-energy target at 33% by 2020; right now, the state’s target is to get 20% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2020. Gov. Schwarzenegger’s executive order clears the way for the state legislature to draft new laws making the target binding.Why might that be bad news for environmentalists? Because increasing the use of renewable energy means the state must build new transmission lines to carry the juice, even if those pass through environmentally-sensitive areas that could still be preserved if renewable-energy targets were lower. In announcing the new goal, Gov. Schwarzenegger specifically targeted environmental opposition to new projects: “[W]e won’t meet that goal doing business as usual, where environmental regulations are holding up environmental progress in some cases. This executive order will clear the red tape for renewable projects and streamline the permitting and siting of new plants and transmission lines.”

Ranchers brace for change in Washington The outcome of the Nov. 4 election hung like an ominous storm cloud this week as members of the Idaho Cattle Association gathered in Sun Valley for their annual convention. Convention speakers on Monday afternoon predicted that Democrats' riding to a more powerful majority in Washington, D.C., will mean more regulation, additional listings under the federal Endangered Species Act and expansion of national monuments and wilderness areas. For ranchers in Idaho and elsewhere in the West, the specter of change seems most tied to efforts to protect wildlife that conservationists and some federal biologists consider imperiled, such as gray wolves and greater sage grouse. Andy Groseta, president of the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, predicted that the Bush administration will hand off a court-ordered review of whether to list sage grouse as threatened or endangered under the ESA to the incoming Obama administration. Such a listing, which the federal government earlier rejected, could extend across Idaho and 10 other Western states. Ranchers should also fear an increasingly powerful animal rights lobby, Groseta said. Well-financed, these activists' primary mission is to destroy the country's cattle industry, he claimed....

'Rules of the road' set for oil shale drilling The Bush administration gave energy companies steep discounts in the royalties they will be required to pay as it established the groundwork Monday for commercial oil shale development on federal land. Interior Department officials said the 5 percent royalty rate during the first five years of production was needed to spur drilling while still giving taxpayers a fair return. But that rate is much lower than the 12.5 percent to 18.8 percent the government collects from companies harvesting conventional oil and gas on public lands. Monday's announcement sets parameters such as the royalty rate and lease sizes, but it will be up to the incoming Obama administration to decide whether to proceed with leasing. Officials on Monday said commercial leasing was five to 10 years away. The announcement by the Interior Department comes months after Congress — pressured by the White House and Republicans to increase domestic energy — failed to renew a ban on issuing final oil shale regulations....

Yellowstone drops plan to reduce snowmobiles Yellowstone National Park abruptly dropped plans to sharply reduce the number of snowmobiles allowed this winter, drawing a quick backlash from conservationists who want fewer of the machines. Park officials said Monday that 720 snowmobiles would be allowed into the park daily beginning Dec. 15. That's more than double the 318 proposed just two weeks ago. The move marked the latest turn in a decadeslong struggle between snowmobile advocates, who want more recreational access, and conservation groups that say too many of the machines degrade the park's natural beauty. The 720 figure matches the number of snowmobiles allowed for the past three winters in the park, which straddles the borders of Montana, Idaho and Wyoming. But the new cap appears to defy a September ruling by U.S. District Judge Andrew Sullivan in Washington, D.C....

Canada Confirms 16th BSE Case The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) confirmed its 16th case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE). The latest case was discovered in a 7-year-old dairy cow from British Columbia; no part of the animal’s carcass entered the human food or animal feed systems, the agency said. CFIA is investigating the source of the infection, including the animal's birth farm and herdmates. The age and the location of the infected animal are consistent with previous cases. Canada remains a Controlled Risk country for BSE, as determined by OIE, so this announcement should not affect exports of cattle or beef from the country....

DAN THE TEAM ROPER AND THE WOMEN WHO LOVE HIM Due to an overwhelming flood of followers to the Dan the Team Roper stories, women who want to meet Dan are creating a tidal of wave of queries about him. For the many that wish to be placed on Dan's "sort" list, please send photo and appropriate information to dantheteamroper@gmail.com. Decent photos will be placed on this site for Dan to browse. Comments and votes will be accepted from his many supporting friends....From Julie Carter, the Cowgirl Sass & Savvy columnist. Looks like they're have fun over there

EPA Proposes "Cow Tax"

The Environmental Protection Agency issued an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking seeking public comment on whether it is appropriate to regulate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from automobiles under the Clean Air Act. In order to regulate automobile emissions, the EPA would first have to make a finding that all greenhouse gases endanger public health and safety and should be classified as a "pollutant."

Essentially, the EPA is ruling on whether or not GHG emissions should be classified as endangering public safety. If that finding is made, all GHGs including carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide would have to be regulated under the Clean Air Act.

The problem with this approach is that once an endangerment finding is made, other provisions of the Clean Air Act are automatically triggered, creating much broader, costly regulation of other sectors of the economy, including agriculture.

IMPACT:

Once an endangerment finding is made, Title V of the Clean Air Act requires that any entity with the potential to emit more than 100 tons per year of a regulated pollutant must obtain a permit in order to continue to operate.

For previously regulated pollutants, a threshold of 100 tons meant that only the largest of emitters were required to be permitted. For greenhouse gases, the situation is much different. Not only would power plants and factories, but also many office and apartment buildings, schools, hospitals, large churches and even large homes would be regulated. Literally hundreds of thousands of entities would be required to obtain permits.

The vast majority of livestock operations would easily meet the 100 ton threshold and fall under regulation. In fact, USDA has stated that any operation with more than 25 dairy cows, or 50 beef cattle would have to obtain permits. According to USDA statistics, this would cover about 99 percent of dairy production and over 90 percent of beef production in the United States.

As the proposal stands today, the permit fees would equate to a "tax" of $175 per dairy cow and $87.50 per beef cow.

Greenhouse gas regulation under the Clean Air Act would not only adversely impact livestock producers but all farmers. Crop production emits nitrous oxide from fertilizer and methane from rice production, and fields that emit 100 tons of carbon would also be subject to permitting requirements as well. Any Florida farm with 500 acres of corn, 250 acres of soybeans, 350 acres of potatoes or only 35 acres of rice would be forced to obtain Clean Air Act permits.

Emissions from farm machinery and energy used in production might also be added. Regulation of other economic sectors will result in increased fuel, fertilizer and energy costs for all farmers and ranchers.

ACTION:

CLICK HERE to send a message to EPA letting them know how regulation of greenhouse gasses under the Clean Air Act would adversely affect agriculture.

Source: Florida Farm Bureau

The EPA Fed.Reg. notice is here.

Administration Moves to Protect Key Appointees Just weeks before leaving office, the Interior Department's top lawyer has shifted half a dozen key deputies -- including two former political appointees who have been involved in controversial environmental decisions -- into senior civil service posts. The transfer of political appointees into permanent federal positions, called "burrowing" by career officials, creates security for those employees, and at least initially will deprive the incoming Obama administration of the chance to install its preferred appointees in some key jobs. Similar efforts are taking place at other agencies....

A Dramatic Rescue for Doomed Wild Horses of the West The unwanted horses seemed destined for death. The wheels had been set in motion to put down about 2,000 healthy mustangs, those in a federally maintained herd of wild horses and burros that no one wanted to adopt. The Bureau of Land Management knew that euthanasia was a legal alternative, but officials were proceeding slowly, afraid of an intense public outcry. The wild horses had become too expensive to maintain, and cattlemen argued that turning them loose would be a drain on the already scarce grazing lands of the West. Then yesterday, at a public hearing in Reno, Nev., to discuss the issue, a solution arrived on a white horse, so to speak. Madeleine Pickens, wife of billionaire T. Boone Pickens, made known her intentions to adopt not just the doomed wild horses but most or all of the 30,000 horses and burros kept in federal holding pens. Lifelong animal lovers, the Pickenses just a few years ago led the fight to close the last horse slaughterhouse in the United States. Madeleine Pickens is looking for land in the West that would be an appropriate home for the horses....

High-tech approach to taming New Mexico's wild horses National Forest Service rangers in New Mexico's Jicarilla Wild Horse Territory (part of the Carson National Forest, near the Colorado border) are expecting some high-tech help to aid their efforts to capture and relocate the growing number of wild horses overpopulating the area and threatening to cut off the food supply. Sandia National Laboratories researchers Casey Giron and Josh Jacob are designing a sensor system that can better detect the location of wild horses so they can be more easily trapped and relocated. Although Jicarilla has enough grass and foliage to feed as many as 105 horses, according to a 2004 National Forest Service assessment, more than 425 of the animals are crowded into the territory and have thinned out the food supply. Rustling up that many horses isn't easy. Once the rangers find a group of horses, they have to build a corral and bait it with salt, minerals and hay—and hope the horses come. The horses often shy away from the corrals, because they sense people are nearby (in fact, the trappers watch the corral via surveillance camera from a trailer located 50 to 100 yards (45.7 to 91.4 meters) away and remotely close the gate after horses wander in). The use of heat or air-conditioning in the trailer is even more likely to drive off the animals, which makes for uncomfortable monitoring conditions inside the trailer in extreme weather. Giron and Jacob are building a system that not only allows the trappers to monitor the corral and work the gate from as far away as five miles, but it also alerts the trappers when horses approach the corral, negating the need for them to watch the video screens for hours or even days....I know some old time cowboys who will be guffawin' over this.

The Greenie Wars But in reality, many groups and individuals which fall under this umbrella term have vastly different agendas. Groups commonly termed “greenies” include animal rights supporters, conservation groups and animal welfare advocates, as well as environmentalists. But how exactly do these groups differ in terms of their priorities and goals, and how on earth could they ever come into conflict? For animal rights advocates, the main priority is the rights of individual sentient animals and supporters are essentially in opposition to sacrificing any animal to advance the greater good. All animals, be they endangered or an introduced pest, are given equal rights and consideration. In contrast, the primary aim of conservation groups is to maintain biodiversity, with the focus being on species, populations and ecosystems. Conservationists generally recognize the integral links between wildlife and their habitat and allow that sometimes human intervention may be necessary to prevent loss of biodiversity. Again, this view can result in conflict between conservationists and animal rights groups, and sometimes welfarists too. The most common clashes occur over plans to eradicate non-native species in order to prevent native species declining or becoming extinct. More extreme animal rights supporters consider the killing of any individual animal in order to conserve a native species to be ‘environmental fascism’....

Enviros' Obama To-Do List: Safeguard Climate, Water, Wildlife The end of the Bush administration can't come soon enough for U.S. conservation groups, who believe that the election of Barack Obama has ushered in a "new era of hope" for the environment. "Eight dismal years of environmental abuse and neglect are now coming to an end," said Betsy Loyless, the National Audubon Society's senior vice president for policy. Loyless joined other conservation leaders in a telephone briefing with reporters on Thursday, outlining their commitment to press President-elect Obama to quickly reverse some of the Bush administration's controversial environmental policies. The conservation groups urged Obama to swiftly change current federal drilling policies, tackle climate change and strengthen protections for endangered species and public lands....

National forests see fewer visitors National forests have long been prime recreation spots in the Pacific Northwest and around the nation, but new federal figures show far fewer people are visiting them since 2004 -- especially in this region. Now researchers are trying to determine why people are staying away from the prized public playgrounds, including the nearby Mount Hood, Gifford Pinchot and Deschutes national forests. Their ideas include high gas prices, rising visitor fees, youths glued to television and video games and a busy, urban society with little time for outdoor pursuits. The visitor decline turned up last month when the Forest Service released new figures from visitor monitoring in 2007. The numbers provided the first comparison against figures from 2004. The figures are estimates based on surveys and counts around each national forest. Total forest visits dropped from 204.8 million in 2004 to 178.6million in 2007, a 13 percent decline. Visitors to national forests do not seem unhappy: More than 80 percent said they were satisfied with facilities and services at developed sites. The most common activity for forest visitors was viewing natural features, with 51 percent saying that was one of their pursuits. Only 12 percent said they engaged in more traditional pursuits, such as fishing, and 9 percent hunted. Visits to undeveloped national forest wilderness areas also dropped, from 8.8 million in 2004 to 6.3 million in 2007. Wilderness visits typically involve longer hikes or backpacking. About two-thirds of wilderness visitors were men....The stats show the public is rejecting these wilderness areas, so why are the deep thinkers in Congress creating more?

In Fighting Wildfires, Concerns About Chemicals The red clouds of fire retardant dropped onto the flames near Santa Barbara, Calif., on Friday were a welcome sight for owners of the hillside homes there. “Critical,” Bill Payne, deputy chief of aviation for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, said of the retardant’s role in helping to steer the fire away from populated areas, including the exclusive enclave of Montecito. Retardant, whether released by small planes that sweep low through smoky canyons or by DC-10s in 12,000-gallon bursts, has become an increasingly common tool for fighting wildfires. Yet while many residents praise — and even demand — the use of retardant to protect their homes and neighborhoods, the potent mix of chemicals in the most common type can leave scars of its own, hurting watersheds and the fish and other animals that live in them. The use of the most common type of retardant, a fertilizer-like, phosphate-based compound, can vary by state or by who oversees the land where a fire is spreading. Among federal agencies, the Park Service is relatively cautious with retardant because part of its mission is to protect natural and cultural resources for public use. The State of California, however, has the largest aviation fire operation of any state and uses retardant aggressively not only to contain fires — retardant’s intended purpose — but also to try to extinguish them before they reach populated areas. The Forest Service, which oversees the largest share of the nation’s wildfire-fighting operations, has a laboratory devoted to testing retardant produced by private companies. In a sign of how contentious the issue has become, the agency is being sued in federal court in Montana by a group that says retardant threatens endangered species, including salmon, a claim the agency rejects....

New Poll Finds that Majority of African-Americans Oppose Public Lands Bill Senator Harry Reid's effort to pass the Omnibus Public Lands Management Act this week will be a key test of whether congressional liberals continue to take African-American support for granted, says the Washington, DC-based National Center for Public Policy Research. But according to a new poll just released this morning by The National Center for Public Policy Research's Public Opinion and Policy Center, 52% of African-Americans oppose the legislation while only 37% support it. Minorities are particularly vulnerable to home price increases and prices would likely rise following National Heritage Area designation. The poll surveyed 800 African-American adults and has a margin of error of +-3.46%....

Blackfeet pin hopes on oil Blackfeet Indian Reservation officials are hinging their hopes of shifting the tribe's economic fortunes on a billionaire's oil company and an advanced drilling technique that has been successful in Montana. The Blackfeet Tribe and the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Browning are working with oil giant Anschutz Exploration Corporation of Denver to dig beneath the reservation's lands along the Rocky Mountain Front in search of oil. Oil rig crews on Wednesday finished exploring the first of two areas between the Canadian border and the reservation community of Heart Butte. Crews will next examine samples from both areas to see if a productive oil well can be established at the sites. Officials are optimistic that their five-year journey to drill on the reservation was time well spent. This agreement allows the tribe to tap into the natural resources beneath the reservation, which is something the tribe has been trying to do for years, said tribal Chairman Willie Sharp Jr. "We hope that it's a producing well," Sharp said of the project....Our nation's first environmentalists are saying Drill Baby Drill!

Scientists propose grizzly genetic research Researchers are proposing genetic testing to determine whether grizzly bears in the Yellowstone region interbreed with grizzlies from elsewhere. Scientists with the U.S. Geological Survey proposed the study Wednesday in a meeting of the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee in West Yellowstone, Mont. Federal judges in Montana and Idaho are presiding over three separate lawsuits challenging a decision by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in April to remove grizzlies from the endangered species list. One argument against delisting is the population's lack of genetic diversity. Some say that could threaten the long-term health of bears in the ecosystem. Scientists say grizzlies from Canada or northwest Montana must breed with bears in the Yellowstone ecosystem at least once every generation to maintain the genetic diversity of the Yellowstone population....Our nation's scientists are saying Drill Bear Drill!

Environmentalists' hysteria loses Last Wednesday, the United States Supreme Court overturned a 9th U.S. Circuit injunction prohibiting certain Navy training exercises in the Pacific Ocean. The decision was a big win for the Navy and for America´s national security interests. The court's ruling was an ever bigger victory for the role of common sense in the realm of environmental regulation. After 30 years of the federal courts acting as a rubber stamp for the fear mongering of environmentalist groups, the high court has finally restore a modicum of balance to the law. These exercises were going according to plan until a lawsuit filed by several environmentalist groups sought to stop them, alleging that the sonar might harm whales and dolphins in the Pacific. Amazingly, a federal judge agreed and issued an injunction prohibiting the Navy from continuing to train as it had for some 40 years. This travesty had its roots at the intersection of environmental law and the legal rules governing injunctions. Those rules are old and generally uniform; a party seeking to enjoin some activity must show that the harm from not stopping the activity would be greater than the harm of stopping it. Those asking for injunctions also must show a court that the injunction is in the public's interest. But in 1978, the Supreme Court tilted the playing field in environmental cases. Where certain threatened species were potentially at risk, the court said in the infamous TVA vs. Hill, protection of these species must take precedence "above all else." Thus, federal courts were given license to issue injunctions regardless of the social or economic value of the activity being prohibited. For the next three decades, the Endangered Species Act was a virtual super-statute, lording over all other federal and state laws. Using the language of the TVA case, the federal courts would forgo the traditional balancing and public interest tests in injunction cases, signing off on injunctions at the mere invocation of the words "endangered species."....

Economists to test water rights system Two economists and a hydrologist are exploring a water market model in which farmers could trade water rights in real-time via computer and see the impact of their actions on the waterway. Economists from The University of New Mexico and the University of Chicago and a hydrologist from Sandia National Laboratories are testing whether such a market would work in the lab. Soon, they'll try it out for real in the upper Mimbres River basin. If the model works, a similar water market could be developed for other New Mexico rivers. The water market model has been developed with the input of about 20 upper Mimbres River farmers in southern New Mexico. The market would allow senior water rights holders on the upper Mimbres River to lease water to other farmers in the basin.

OWYHEE INITIATIVE BILL TO BE PRESENTED IN NEW CONGRESS

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From: Fred Kelly Grant, Chairman Owyhee Initiative Work Group
Jerry Hoagland, Chairman Owyhee County, Idaho Commissioners
Sent: Monday, 11/17/08 6:13 pm

It appears clear that the Owyhee Initiative Bill will not be voted on in the lame duck session of Congress, but will be re-introduced by Senator Crapo in January in the new Congress. Since being recommended for passage by a unanimous vote in the Energy-Natural Resources committee, the committee and Senate leadership packaged it into the Omnibus Public Lands Bill with 149 other bills.

Just prior to the pre-election recess of Congress, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) announced that the lands package would be called to the floor for a vote during the lame duck session which began today. Last Friday, a spokesman for Senator Harry Reid (D-Nev.) told the press that the Omnibus Lands Bill will not be voted on during this session.

Today, Owyhee County Commissioners and the Chairman of the Owyhee Initiative Work Group have confirmed with several sources in DC that the bill will not be voted on during the lame duck session. The sources, Eastern, Mid-Western and Western Senators-key staff members-and special interest representatives on the Hill have relayed their belief that the bill will not be brought forward for vote. They also confirm that Senator Reid has assured the sponsors of the 150 bills that the delay does not diminish in any way his commitment to lead the bill to a vote when the new Congress convenes in January, 2009.

Senate sources say that the bill is being delayed because of Senator Coburn’s (R-OK) threatened filibuster of the bill, which could tie the Senate up for a good full three days. With all the funding problems facing the Senate during the economic crisis, leadership does not believe that the three days can be wasted in the short lame duck session. Senate Coburn has opposed the bills in the package because of expenditures of $4 billion over a period of years, and because so many acres of public land will be removed from energy. 60 Senators would be needed to stop the filibuster. Senator Reid said that with the new Democrats coming in for the January session, there will be far less trouble getting the 60 necessary votes for cloture.

So, the Owyhee Initiative Bill will have to wait also until the new Congress convenes. The Owyhee Work Group, a broad base coalition, has worked on the Owyhee Agreement and the implementing bill for nearly 8 years. The sponsor, Senator Mike Crapo, has praised the efforts of ranchers, county officials, conservation groups and recreation groups to put together a local solution to local land use problems....

GAO Reports

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Federal Land Management: Use of Stewardship Contracting Is Increasing, but Agencies Could Benefit from Better Data and Contracting Strategies. GAO-09-23, November 13.
http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-09-23
Highlights - http://www.gao.gov/highlights/d0923high.pdf

Bureau of Land Management: Effective Long-Term Options Needed to Manage Unadoptable Wild Horses. GAO-09-77, October 9.
http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-09-77
Highlights - http://www.gao.gov/highlights/d0977high.pdf

Oil and Gas Leasing: Interior Could Do More to Encourage Diligent Development. GAO-09-74, October 3.
http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-09-74
Highlights - http://www.gao.gov/highlights/d0974high.pdf

Cow farts measured for global warming study

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See the story here. Hat Tip to The Green Line and thanks to Laura at Wolf Crossing for the email.

Let's have a contest.

Who can come up with the best caption for this photo?

The prize will be...well...international recognition for your ingenuity.

Threat of filibuster endangers lands bill A massive lands bill that would have created two new wilderness areas in southwest Oregon appears to be dead for the year, a victim of a filibuster threat and the need to focus on the nation's growing economic woes. A spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said the Nevada Democrat strongly supports the lands package, but his first priorities in a lame-duck session next week are a planned rescue for the auto industry and extension of unemployment insurance benefits. Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., has threatened to filibuster the lands bill over what he calls its excessive spending — nearly $4 billion over five years — and the removal of millions of acres of federal property from oil and gas development. "The outlook for this legislation does not look real good," said Bill Wicker, a spokesman for Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. "The two big problems right now are the clock and the economy." Coburn's threat meant the Senate could have spent up to three days debating the lands package — time that Reid and other Senate leaders say should be devoted to the auto bailout and other legislation responding to the country's economic crisis....Chuck Cushman with the ALRA sent out an email Sunday saying, "You may hear that the Omnibus Federal Lands Bill has as died. Don’t believe it. Until Congress goes home from the Lame Duck Session, you are not safe. You must act, call, fax, and e-mail both your Senators and your Congressman until Congress leaves town." You can read two recent press releases from Senator Coburn here and here and an analysis of the bill by the Congressional Research Service here.

Coal plants jeopardized over climate The fate of scores of new coal-burning power plants is now in limbo over whether to regulate heat-trapping greenhouse gases. The uncertainty resulted when an Environmental Protection Agency appeals panel on Thursday rejected a federal permit for a Utah plant, leaving the issue for the Obama administration to resolve. The panel said the EPA's Denver office failed to adequately support its decision to issue a permit for the Bonanza plant without requiring controls on carbon dioxide, the leading pollutant linked to global warming. The matter was sent back to that office, which must better explain why it failed to order limits on carbon dioxide. This is "an issue of national scope that has implications far beyond this individual permitting process," the panel said. EPA spokesman Jonathan Shrader said the agency was reviewing the ruling by the appeals panel, which traditionally gives great deference to agency decisions. Environmentalists and lawyers representing industry groups said the ruling puts in question permits - some being considered, others approved but under appeal - of perhaps as many as 100 coal plants. "It's going to stop everything while EPA mulls over what to do next" about how the federal Clean Air Act is to be used to control carbon dioxide, said David Bookbinder, a Sierra Club lawyer. "And that will be decided by the next administration."....

Congress has fast-track power to kill Bush rules President-elect Barack Obama will have limited authority to overturn federal regulations approved in the waning months of the Bush administration. But a little-used power offers the new Democratic Congress an early test of how aggressively lawmakers might unravel such rules pushed through by Republicans. Under a special fast-track authority, Congress could repeal current rules from as far back as May. Many are related to the environment and health. Aside from congressional action, such changes involve a laborious rule-making process that can take years. The Congressional Review Act of 1996, used just once in the past 12 years, could become a sweeping tool for Democrats against late regulations from the Bush presidency. Environmental activists are compiling lists of regulations they believe Congress should target, including ones covering water pollution at huge farms, pollution control equipment at older power plants and hazardous waste restrictions. The 1996 law gives Congress expedited authority to shortcut the legislative process. Once a regulation is repealed, Congress would have to approve any substantially similar new rule. The law allows 60 congressional working days to repeal a finalized regulation once it comes to Congress for review. If the House or Senate session ends before a full 60-day review period, a new 60-day clock starts 15 working days after the new Congress begins. The review period is elongated because Congress takes off August and members adjourn for long holidays or other breaks. That means that depending on when the lawmakers wrap up this year, regulations going back to May could be subject to expedited repeal by the new Congress that will convene in January, said Curtis Copeland, an expert at the Congressional Research Service who has studied the issue....The thing to remember from this is that there is not a single regulation on the books that Congress is not responsible for. They delegated this authority to the executive branch and the 1996 law was an attempt to take some of the authority back, but the gutless wonders never use it. The R's could have used this on the Clinton roadless rule, but didn't. They were too busy protecting their power and positions, which they have now deservedly lost.

U.S. military worries about climate change As a new administration committed to addressing climate change takes office, intelligence and defense officials are laying plans to address the national security implications of a warmer planet. In recent months, U.S. military planners have discussed the impact on personnel, equipment and installations of extreme weather events, rising ocean temperatures, shifts in rainfall patterns and stresses on natural resources. Among the concerns: 63 U.S. coastal military facilities and several nuclear reactors are in danger of flooding from storm surges, said Tom Fingar, the deputy director of national intelligence for analysis. President-elect Barack Obama next month will receive a key intelligence report, Global Trends 2025. Sources who reviewed the document for the government but asked not to be named said the report gives top priority to climate change. The Center for Naval Analyses (CNA), a Pentagon-funded think tank, issued a report last year that called climate change a "serious national security threat." The U.S. intelligence apparatus has worked up the first national intelligence assessment to focus on the implications of climate change for U.S. national security by 2030....With their finger to the wind, they want some of the $$$.

The world has never seen such freezing heat A surreal scientific blunder last week raised a huge question mark about the temperature records that underpin the worldwide alarm over global warming. On Monday, Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), which is run by Al Gore's chief scientific ally, Dr James Hansen, and is one of four bodies responsible for monitoring global temperatures, announced that last month was the hottest October on record. This was startling. Across the world there were reports of unseasonal snow and plummeting temperatures last month, from the American Great Plains to China, and from the Alps to New Zealand. So what explained the anomaly? GISS's computerised temperature maps seemed to show readings across a large part of Russia had been up to 10 degrees higher than normal. But when expert readers of the two leading warming-sceptic blogs, Watts Up With That and Climate Audit, began detailed analysis of the GISS data they made an astonishing discovery. The reason for the freak figures was that scores of temperature records from Russia and elsewhere were not based on October readings at all. Figures from the previous month had simply been carried over and repeated two months running. The error was so glaring that when it was reported on the two blogs - run by the US meteorologist Anthony Watts and Steve McIntyre, the Canadian computer analyst who won fame for his expert debunking of the notorious "hockey stick" graph - GISS began hastily revising its figures. This only made the confusion worse because, to compensate for the lowered temperatures in Russia, GISS claimed to have discovered a new "hotspot" in the Arctic - in a month when satellite images were showing Arctic sea-ice recovering so fast from its summer melt that three weeks ago it was 30 per cent more extensive than at the same time last year. A GISS spokesman lamely explained that the reason for the error in the Russian figures was that they were obtained from another body, and that GISS did not have resources to exercise proper quality control over the data it was supplied with. This is an astonishing admission: the figures published by Dr Hansen's institute are not only one of the four data sets that the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) relies on to promote its case for global warming, but they are the most widely quoted, since they consistently show higher temperatures than the others....

Can’t See the Forest for the Trees Many experts believe it’s time to take a closer look, and not just in El Salvador. Despite assumptions that globalization is destroying forests, these researchers argue that in many parts of the world globalization and the policies that go along with it are in fact helping to create them. Migration from rural areas to cities or other countries, new markets for forest commodities, and even war are helping in some places to bring trees back. In other places the demand for diverse and far-flung products like rubber, tea, and açaí fruit, for example, is transforming existing forests and the lives that depend on them, often in unexpected ways. Perhaps most surprisingly, archaeologists and ecologists have discovered growing evidence that many forests once considered pristine, including much of the Amazon, have long been marked by human activity. Resurgent forests, changing forests, forests bearing the marks of ancient inhabitants: findings like these have made researchers reexamine how human activity has shaped forests in the past and is shaping them today. They have also forced researchers to revisit ideas that have long colored Western thinking, casting fresh doubt on what researchers call the “myth of the pristine” and suggesting that untouched forests may be more an invention of the Western mind than something found in the real world. Research also has challenged the assumption that human activity destroys biodiversity; in some circumstances, researchers say, it can increase biodiversity. Thus, rethinking forests carries powerful implications for conservation policy—it may require, for example, a greater appreciation for working forests. And rethinking forests leads to fundamental questions about the vexed relationship between nature and culture....

Alaska holds big natural-gas source Federal scientists have concluded that Alaska's North Slope holds one of the nation's largest deposits of recoverable natural gas in the form of gas hydrates, a finding that could open a major new front in domestic energy exploration. Researchers have speculated for years that gas hydrates - a combination of gas and water locked in an icelike solid that forms under high pressure and low temperatures - could provide an important source of natural gas in the United States and worldwide. Today, the U.S. Geological Survey will release a study estimating that 85.4 trillion cubic feet of natural gas can be extracted from Alaska's gas hydrates, an amount that could heat more than 100 million average homes for more than a decade. Part of the reserve's significance, federal officials said, is that gas companies will be able to tap into it with existing technology. A coalition of American and international experts conducted three tests on gas hydrates over the past five years in the United States and Canada and demonstrated that the gas can be extracted by reducing the pressure that binds them together. Gas hydrates have also been found in the Wyoming basin, Texas's western Gulf basin, and the San Juan basin in New Mexico and Colorado, as well as in several offshore areas....

GOP senators freeze marine sanctuaries plan President Bush's proposal to create a string of marine sanctuaries in the Gulf of Mexico, known as the "Islands in the Stream," has died at least for now after Republican senators opposed it, a sanctuary official said. The sanctuaries would have restricted fishing and oil drilling in nine coral banks and hard-bottom areas in a large loop around the gulf from Texas to Florida. Ecological research shows that the gulf marine ecosystem relies on a ring of deep-water reefs and banks connected by the clockwise motion of ocean currents in a loop from Belize to the Florida Keys. Billy Causey, southeast regional director for the National Marine Sanctuary Program under the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said the proposal has been put on hold. He said this week that opposition from the senators and fishermen was too intense and that he received what he called "pressure from the highest levels of the Department of Interior" to put the proposal on ice. He declined to provide specifics....Hey Billy, was NOAA tring to time this with the World Conference on Marine Biodiversity going on in Valencia, Spain?

Stenholm eyed for D.C. post West Texan Charlie Stenholm may be the next secretary of agriculture in the administration of president-elect Barack Obama. The former San Angelo congressman said it's news to him. Stenholm said no one from Obama's team has contacted him regarding the position. "I'm honored that my name is out there, but what else can I say? There's nothing but what I read in the paper," he said. His name was floated as part of a short list in a recent Associated Press article and popped up on at least two blogs....This would be a pleasant surprise, but I'm still betting on someone from California or the grain belt. Stenholm might be an Under or Assistant Secretary at USDA.

Natural gas rush stirs environmental concerns Advanced drilling techniques that blast millions of gallons of water into 400-million-year-old shale formations a mile underground are opening up "unconventional" gas fields touted as a key to the nation's energy future. These deposits, where natural gas is so tightly locked in deep rocks that it's costly and complicated to extract, include the Barnett shale in Texas, the Fayetteville of Arkansas, and the Haynesville of Louisiana. But the mother lode is the Marcellus shale underlying the Appalachians. Geologists call the Marcellus a "super giant" gas field. Penn State geoscientist Terry Engelder believes it could supply the natural gas needs of the United States for 14 years. But as word spread over the past year that a 54,000-square-mile shale field from southern New York to West Virginia promised to yield a trillion dollars worth of gas, making millionaires of local landowners, environmental alarms were sounded. Would gas wells damage water wells? Would chemicals poison groundwater? Would fabled trout streams be sucked dry? Would the pristine upstate reservoirs that supply drinking water to New York City be befouled?...Dear Mr. & Mrs Easterner: You've been running roughshod over the West for your energy supplies for quite awhile. It's time we returned the favor.

Agreement would let railroad cut through hatchery Montana fisheries officials say they've tentatively agreed to give the proposed Tongue River Railroad a 25 acre-easement through a major fish hatchery near the Yellowstone River. State Hatcheries Bureau Chief Bob Snyder said he'd rather not have the railroad cut through the Miles City Hatchery. But Snyder said the state has little choice because federal law gives railroads broad powers of condemnation. The proposed agreement includes a $25 million insurance policy maintained by the Tongue River Railroad Company to cover any damage to the hatchery. That would be enough money to replace the hatchery. The U.S. Surface Transportation Board approved the final section of the 130-mile railroad on Oct. 9. The $341 million project, proposed in 1983, is designed to tap into the region's vast but largely undeveloped coal reserves. Ranchers, the Northern Cheyenne Tribe and conservation and environmental groups have fought against the rail line for decades. They claim it would cause excessive environmental damage, undermine existing railroad jobs and harm livestock producers....

Horse Advocates Decry Government Euthanasia Option A stampede of opposition is growing over a proposal by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management to kill or allow unrestricted sale of wild horses captured from western public land because of budget constraints. Tens of thousands of horse advocates have voiced outrage at the idea of slaughtering what many revere as romantic symbols of the American West. The BLM's nine-member National Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board is scheduled to consider the proposal at a meeting Monday in Reno. Critics also argue that, when it comes to public land, wild horses get short shrift to the benefit of livestock and wildlife. They claim that since 1971 about 20 million acres originally designated as herd areas have been withdrawn from that use. They say reopening those areas to horses would alleviate the need for boarding....

No ready solutions for unwanted horses What to do with unwanted horses is an increasingly difficult problem and one without easy solutions. The bottom has dropped out of the sale market for horses, something to which Kent Kerchal, manager of the Missoula Livestock Exchange, can attest. Many of the horses sold there, even trained riding horses, end up being sold for meat and shipped to slaughterhouses in Mexico or Canada. Horse slaughter ended in the United States in 2007. But slaughter isn’t the only option, he said. “Call the vet,” he said. “That’s what you do. Have the animal put down.” Easier said than done, especially when money is tight, said Linda Kauffman, a Stevensville veterinarian. t costs about $100 for a vet to euthanize a horse. Then it’s another $100 to rent a bulldozer operator to dig a hole and bury a horse. Owners who don’t have the land for burial can call the knacker, who hauls the body to a rendering plant. That’s another $100. Which brings the situation back around to slaughterhouses, Kauffman said. She said she’s in favor of slaughtering horses in the United States if the business returns with governing boards that ensure ethical slaughter as defined by national veterinary associations....

Horses with no home Young, middle-aged and old, the healthy, the starved and the crippled - all the horses are here for the same reason. “Hay is too expensive,” explains Carl Penner of Hamilton, who has brought a horse to the auction. “It costs a lot to keep them.” And so, people sell them - or try to. Horses are suffering as the economy falters, and not just in Montana. It's a nationwide problem, said Gene Greimann, a longtime Hardin veterinarian. “It's pretty clear we've got a situation,” he said. “And it's pretty critical.” Montana has seen a rash of horse neglect and abuse cases in recent months, most recently in the Bitterroot Valley, where two Georgia outfitters are accused of abandoning their pack horses, one of which nearly starved. In the Billings area, Greimann said, “people are turning horses loose on the Crow Reservation, and we have had several ranchers who have found stray horses starved, laying down and banging their head on the ground in misery.”....Picture that horse layin' on the ground and bangin' it's head in misery, and keep that picture in mind as you thank the "do gooders" in the animal rights industry and the gutless wonders in Congress for creating this situation.

Dam doomed tiny town of Marquette Wyoming has always been unforgiving country, with some early settlements failing to catch on, while others faded away after reversals of work, wealth or weather. The small ranching community of Marquette was settled years before Cody was founded. But it was the decision to build a massive dam between the two spots that meant an end to Marquette, submerging the settlement under what is now the Buffalo Bill Reservoir, about 10 miles west of Cody. At the confluence of the North Fork and South Fork of the Shoshone River, near the site of what was once a large Crow Indian village, rancher George Marquette became one of the first white settlers in the area, said Jeannie Cook, a Cody historian, archivist and author. "He was a fiddler, and he would go around and play for all the parties in the Bighorn Basin. He was also a carpenter and did a lot of work for Otto Franc," a German aristocrat who founded the Pitchfork Ranch in Meeteetse, Cook said. Named after Marquette, the community got a post office in 1891, with Marquette serving as postmaster. Just a few buildings served many purposes, with the post office including a dance hall. Another building had a barbershop and saloon, and the community also had a general store....Those of us in the West who are concerned about the Kelo decision should not forget our own history: farms, ranches and entire communities were condemned for "development."

Just right for the garden: a mini-cow It's the little cow with a big future. Rising supermarket prices are persuading hundreds of families to turn their back gardens into mini-ranches stocked with miniature cattle. Registrations of the most popular breed, the Dexter, have doubled since the millennium and websites are sprouting up offering “the world’s most efficient, cutest and tastiest cows”. For between £200 and £2,000, people can buy a cow that stands no taller than a large German shepherd dog, gives 16 pints of milk a day that can be drunk unpasteurised, keeps the grass “mown” and will be a family pet for years before ending up in the freezer. The Dexter, a mountain breed from Ireland, is perfect for cattle-keeping on a small scale, but other breeds are being artificially created to compete with it, including the Mini-Hereford and the Lowline Angus, which has been developed by the Australian government to stand no more than 39in high but produce 70% of the steak of a cow twice its size....And we'll need some mini-cowboys to do some mini-wrangling.

The Klamath Bucket Brigade

November 14, 2008 - The planned removal of four hydroelectric dams along the Klamath River is a bitter pill to swallow for the basin's agricultural industry. Some farmers regard the plan as an unpleasant but ultimately necessary remedy that will help heal divisions over the competing water needs of farmers and fish. Other growers say dam removal will only enflame the Klamath Basin's ills over the long term. "Common sense says, what are they thinking?" said Tom Mallams, a hay farmer and president of the Klamath Off-Project Water Users, who opposes dam removal. "It's an absolute disaster, the way they're trying to do this." Read more from yesterday's Capital Press article Klamath dam removal plan unpopular with farmers. Oregon Sen. Doug Whitsett, R-Klamath Falls said he had severe reservations about the dam removal agreement in principle signed by state, federal and PacifiCorp officials Thursday. “I think that we really have no empirical science that removal is going to improve anything,” Whitsett said....

Gun Owners Not Welcome on Obama's White House Team?
President-elect Barack Obama’s transition team is showing its hostility toward lawful firearm owners by “weeding out” job applicants who own firearms themselves, a Second Amendment group says. The Illinois State Rifle Association (ISRA) notes that question 59 – part of a 63-item questionnaire given to Obama administration job applicants – asks for information about firearms owned by the applicant and his or her family. Found in the questionnaire’s “Miscellaneous” section, question 59 reads, “Do you or any members of your immediate family own a gun? If so, provide complete ownership and registration information. Has the registration ever lapsed? Please also describe how and by whom it is used and whether it has been the cause of any personal injuries or property damage.” Although it’s not clear that gun ownership would disqualify a job applicant, ISRA says question 59 shows the Obama team’s “distaste” for firearm owners. "Question 59 provides clear insight into how Obama and his people perceive firearm owners," said ISRA Executive Director Richard Pearson. “The questionnaire poses a number of questions asking the applicant to reveal any unethical activities, or embarrassing Internet chats, then wraps up by asking if anyone in the applicant's family owns a firearm. Obviously, Obama feels that owning a firearm is akin to talking dirty in Internet chat rooms.”....

Obama election triggers national gun rush Gun sales have skyrocketed since Barack Obama was elected, and many gun owners say they are concerned the nation's next president and a Democratic-controlled Congress will impose a ban on assault rifles and firearm ownership. From Nov. 3 to Nov. 9, the FBI reported 374,000 background checks on people purchasing guns – a 49 percent jump from last year. Dealers are reporting larger-than-usual sales since Election Day, according to the Chicago Tribune. The rush to buy weapons is more intense than in the days following Y2K and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks....

S.C. plans a tax-free period on guns Some confusion still surrounds state legislation passed earlier this year, waiving the sales tax on handgun, rifles and shotguns during the 48 hours following the Thanksgiving holiday. The bill passed in the General Assembly on June 4, was vetoed by the Governor on June 11 and was then overridden by the legislature later that month. On Thursday, the Department of Revenue issued a press release announcing what they are calling the "Second Amendment" Sales Tax Holiday. A spokesperson for the Department of Revenue who issued the Thursday press release said she was familiar with the legislative quagmire, but was assured the 48-hour tax break on firearm purchases would begin at 12:01 a.m. on Nov. 28 and continue through midnight Nov. 29. The tax exemption also applies to any local sales and use tax....

Two More U.S. Military Units Assigned For Homeland Security Northcom has announced that two more U.S. military units will be assigned for domestic homeland security missions, bringing the total number of combat ready service members operating inside the U.S. to around 4,700, as fears grow about the increasing militarization of law enforcement. The announcement follows the controversy surrounding a September 8 Army Times report (revised on September 30), which revealed that the 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team, fresh from combat duties in Iraq, would be operating inside America for tasks including “civil unrest and crowd control,” a detail that was later denied by Northcom despite the concession that forces would be armed with both non-lethal and lethal weapons as well as having access to tanks. “In the next three years the military plans to activate and train an estimated 4,700 service members for specialized domestic operations, according to Air Force Gen. Gene Renuart, commander of U.S. Northern Command, which was created in 2002 for homeland defense missions,” reports the Colorado Independent. But as Mike German, national security counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union’s legislative office in Washington., D.C., points out, “This isn’t a military police brigade or a civil affairs brigade. This is actually a combat brigade being assigned a domestic mission.”....

No mercy for jailed Border Patrol agent There's no mercy for a former U.S. Border Patrol agent who remains behind bars for shooting a fleeing drug suspect. A federal judge in El Paso, Texas, has upheld Jose Compean's original punishment and resentenced him to 10 years in prison for his conviction on a charge of using a weapon in the commission of a felony and another two years in prison for assault and other charges. Ramos and Compean are serving 11- and 12-year prison sentences, respectively, after a jury convicted them of violating federal gun laws and covering up the shooting of a drug smuggler as he fled back to Mexico after driving across the border with 743 pounds of marijuana in February 2005. U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton's office gave the smuggler, Osbaldo Aldrete-Davila, immunity to serve as the government's star witness and testify against the border agents. The agents were convicted of assault, discharge of a weapon in the commission of a crime of violence, tampering with an official proceeding and deprivation of civil rights. The court affirmed all convictions except for tampering with an official proceeding, which it vacated and remanded for resentencing. The bulk of their sentences, however, stem from a mandatory 10-year minimum sentence imposed by Congress for anyone convicted of discharging a weapon in the commission of a crime. Only a reversal of that count could remove 10 years from their sentences....

Border Agents’ Prosecutor Defends ‘Righteous’ Case as Judge Upholds Lengthy Imprisonment A federal judge left unchanged the decade-plus prison sentences for two Border Patrol agents convicted of shooting a Mexican drug smuggler in early 2005. “It was a very righteous prosecution,” Sutton told CNSNews.com on Thursday. “The court of appeals and anyone who has looked at the facts has agreed with that. The only question, I think a legitimate question, is, ‘is the punishment too harsh?’ I have always said the punishment in this case was harsh, but it was a punishment set in place by Congress.” The last avenue left is an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, while the defense has filed a formal application for commutation, said Tara Setmayer, press secretary for Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.), one of the leading advocates for the agents. “Many patriotic Americans are dismayed by the continued persecution and legal torture of former Border Patrol officers Ramos and Compean,” Rohrabacher said in a statement....

Newspapers seek gov't documents in anthrax inquiry Two newspapers asked a federal judge Wednesday to make public several documents relating to a former Army scientist who was named as a person of interest in the 2001 anthrax attacks and later exonerated. The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times want the government's search warrants and supporting documents involving Stephen Hatfill, who was eventually cleared in the anthrax attacks and was awarded $5.8 million in a lawsuit accusing the Justice Department of violating his privacy. Normally, search warrants would be sealed for a person who has not been charged or indicted, lawyers said. But the public has a right to know why investigators wanted to search Hatfill's home and on what basis the courts agreed to allow those searches, the newspapers argued in U.S. District Court. After the attacks, Attorney General John Ashcroft identified Hatfill as "a person of interest" in the investigation. An FBI search of Hatfill's apartment was televised live....

Prescription Drugs Kill 300 Percent More Americans than Illegal Drugs A report by the Florida Medical Examiners Commission has concluded that prescription drugs have outstripped illegal drugs as a cause of death. An analysis of 168,900 autopsies conducted in Florida in 2007 found that three times as many people were killed by legal drugs as by cocaine, heroin and all methamphetamines put together. According to state law enforcement officials, this is a sign of a burgeoning prescription drug abuse problem. “The abuse has reached epidemic proportions,” said Lisa McElhaney, a sergeant in the pharmaceutical drug diversion unit of the Broward County Sheriff’s Office. “It’s just explosive.” In 2007, cocaine was responsible for 843 deaths, heroin for 121, methamphetamines for 25 and marijuana for zero, for a total of 989 deaths. In contrast, 2,328 people were killed by opioid painkillers, including Vicodin and Oxycontin, and 743 were killed by drugs containing benzodiazepine, including the depressants Valium and Xanax. Alcohol directly caused 466 deaths, but was found in the bodies of 4,179 cadavers in all. While the number of dead bodies containing heroin jumped 14 percent from the prior year, to a total of 110, the number of deaths influenced by the painkiller oxycodone increased by 36 percent, to a total of 1,253. Across the country, prescription drugs have become an increasingly popular alternative to the more difficult to acquire illegal drugs. Even as illegal drug use among teenagers have fallen, prescription drug abuse has increased....