USDA to distribute more than $5B in farmer funding

U.S. Department of Agriculture Farm Service Agency State Executive Director Paul Hlubik recently announced that during this month, USDA will distribute approximately $1.6 billion in annual Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) rental payments and $3.8 billion in final 2010 direct payments to America's farmers and ranchers. "October is an important production month because CRP rental payments, direct and counter-cyclical payments (DCP), and now Average Crop Revenue Election (ACRE) payments are paid during this first month of the Federal fiscal year," said Hlubik. "These funds support the agricultural economy and responsible stewardship of America's production acreage."...more

October. Let' see, isn't that the month right before the elections?

USDA to open third cattle inspection site

The U.S. Department of Agriculture expects to open a temporary cattle inspection facility in Eagle Pass at the end of the month, the agency announced last week. It will be the third temporary inspection site the USDA has opened on the U.S. border since suspending cattle station operations in Mexico earlier this year. The two other sites inside the U.S. opened in May in South Texas at Pharr-Hidalgo and Laredo. “The cattle trade provides an important source of revenue for American producers and buyers and we are committed to maintaining the important trade relationship between the U.S. and Mexico,” Agriculture Undersecretary Edward Avalos said in a statement. The USDA is charged with ensuring that imported animals are properly inspected to safeguard U.S. agriculture. The new inspection location is part the USDA’s effort to “aggressively pursue opportunities to keep trade lines open despite the recent security challenges,” Avalos said. In March, drug cartel violence prompted the USDA to suspend examining of U.S.-bound cattle at three inspection stations in northern Mexico...more

$8.6 million an hour? How are the benefits?

Anyone who knows a teenager knows that federal minimum wage is $7.25/hour, up to a dollar or so more in a few states. Well, apparently there's a maximum wage, too. $8.6 million. Well, $8.57 million to be exact. Yes, an hour. That's how much one Kody Lostroh earned last year. Now I know what you're thinking -- must be a schoolteacher, right? Firefighter? They're a pretty lavishly equipped bunch. But no, Mr. Lostroh is Professional Bull Rider, and as the leading money winner on the Tour last season, he collected a cool $1.6 million in prize money. That's because riding an aggravated and muscular beast with spears on its head is a little more dangerous than running 500 copies, and this isn't Ancient Rome, so they only make you do it for 8 seconds at a time. With a total on-bull clock-in of 11:24 for the year, Lostroh made a lifetime's salary in the same amount of time it takes most of us to get out of bed in the morning, though this is of course discounting all the other hours that go into being a Professional Bull Rider...more

Single Action Shooting Society Reaches 90,000 Members

The Single Action Shooting Society (www.sassnet.com), which hosts competitions for this popular shooting sport nationwide, has reached 90,000 members. The game requires the use of a pair of six-guns, a lever-action rifle (in pistol caliber), and an old-time shotgun. A competitor’s score is determined by how long it takes to finish the scenario with five seconds added for each missed shot. The targets are typically large and close. “Today there are over 600 clubs across the country and around the world holding annual and monthly shooting competitions,” says Coyote Calhoun, SASS #201, SASS Marketing Director. “Our competitions are meant to be fun … they’re competitions, of course, we keep score, but we want our competitors coming off the shooting line with a smile on their face—we’re actually in the entertainment business!" Started in in Southern California in 1982, this shooting sport debuted at the first END of TRAIL, the World Championship of Cowboy Action Shooting™, and SASS membership has been steadily grown ever since...more

Cowboy hats by the hundreds adorn the walls

It was sometime back in the late 1980s that Stewart Martin, owner of Ben's Western Wear on Front Street, hung the first beat-up old cowboy hat in a place of honor, high up on the wall among the pale trophy buck mounts. No one now recalls which hat was first, but it proved to be a good idea. Customers would remark on the cowboy who had worn that hat, the horses he had ridden and the work he had done. And other hats soon followed. "Stewart was real proud of the hats. His theory was that everyone's hat was important to them. His goal was to write a story every month about a person whose hat was hanging on the wall, but he passed away in November of 2006," said his widow Jill, who runs the store. And now there are more than 400 hats on the walls, mostly battered Stetsons and Resistols, each with a name tag, and another 100 hats are waiting in storage for lack of space. If all their stories were told, it would make a nice history of this part of South Texas. A lengthy poem on that theme, written by Dan Cadden hangs on display. Hats bearing the names of George Strait, Rick Perry and Nolan Ryan are on the wall above the Jockey underwear display. And Dolph Briscoe's cracked old straw lid is right above the Carhartt work jackets. And while a few other names are recognizable to anyone who spent a few years roaming South Texas, most of the hats belonged to ordinary working men known only to their families, friends and fellow cowpokes...more

Trew: Flats make one worn and tired

I can remember the early 1940s pretty well and don't remember many flats. But it was during the war and no one drove unless absolutely necessary. Also, much of the farm equipment back then still had steel wheels. Driving slower with lighter loads might have prevented flat troubles. The 1950s brought on more pickups and tandem wheel horse trailers. This doubled the number of tires on the ground. I've always believed pickups running ahead of trailers, disturbed the nails in the road making them mad, and they retaliate by jumping up into the tires of the trailers as they pass. I also believe the Lord put thorns on Mesquite trees to try the souls of ranchers. Countless years of wagon travel dropped nails, staples and pieces of wire onto dirt roads which now puncture new rubber tires. Most counties purchased huge magnets to pull along the roads to suck up such metal. It was amazing how quickly a barrel of potential flats could be harvested in a single trip down an old country road. I once hired a cowboy to tend my stock here at the ranch while I tended other business. Almost every day brought flat tires on the trailer and pickup causing him a trip to town and wait in the coffee shop while the flats were repaired. When I bought tire tools, patches and glue and provided an air-compressor for him to fix his own flats the problem seemed to evaporate, shall I say into "compressed air."...more

Mexican assassins headed to Arizona

Drug smuggling gangs in Mexico have sent well-armed assassins, or "sicarios," into Arizona to locate and kill bandits who are ambushing and stealing loads of cocaine, marijuana and heroin headed to buyers in the United States, the Department of Homeland Security has warned Arizona law enforcement authorities. In a memo sent in May and widely circulated since, the department said: "We just received information from a proven credible confidential source who reported that a meeting was held in Puerto Penasco in which every smuggling organization who utilizes the Vekol Valley was told to attend. This included rival groups within the Guzman cartel." The Vekol Valley is a widely-traveled drug smuggling corridor running across Interstate 8 between the Arizona towns of Casa Grande and Gila Bend, continuing north towards Phoenix. It gives drug smugglers the option of shipping their goods to California or to major cities both north and east. The Homeland Security memo said a group of "15, very well equipped and armed sicarios complete with bullet proof vests" had been sent into the valley. It said the assassins would be disguised as "groups of 'simulated backpackers' carrying empty boxes covered with burlap into the Vekol Valley to draw out the bandits." Once identified, the memo said, "the sicarios will take out the bandits."...more

DHS Issued Memo Admitting Mexican Narco Assassins Operate in Arizona

On Friday, Pinal County, Arizona, Sheriff Paul Babeu released part of the memo he received from the Department of Homeland Security. The memo warns about assassins crossing the border from the narco state of Mexico and killing anybody in the United States who interferes with the trafficking of drugs by the cartels. “The competing cartels are actually working in concert together to protect drug loads in America,” Babeu told KSAZ Fox 10. The rival drug cartels held a meeting at Rocky Point, also known as Puerto Penasco, in Pinal County earlier this year, according to the Department of Homeland Security memo. Sheriff Babeu said Rocky Point is a dangerous place to visit. Babeu confirmed that the memo came from Janet Napolitano’s office. Babeu said “this information came from Janet Napolitano’s office. She knows exactly what the citizens of Arizona are faced with, yet she continues to publicly state how much safer we all are.”...more

Homeland Security: Turf War Memo was 'False Alarm'

A confidential memo originating from the Department of Homeland Security described a drug cartel meeting in Rocky Point where members discussed a plan to send assassins into Pinal County -- but it turns out that plan was never carried out. The May 2010 confidential memo was supposed to be a warning for law enforcement in the state, alleging that Arizona was being targeted by members of drug cartels. The Homeland of Security memo also mentions the April shooting involving Pinal County Deputy Louie Puroll, and suggests it was drug thieves who opened fire on him. But late Friday, the Department of Homeland Security said their warning turned out to be a "false alarm." They sent out the statement: "DHS regularly shares information with state, local, and tribal law enforcement agencies in an effort to provide situational awareness about intelligence and to keep our partners aware of any and all potential threats. This particular information proved to be inaccurate." But Sheriff Babeu believes there was already a hit carried out by these cartel assassins, when deputies found two men shot to death in the desert earlier this year...more

Gunmen kill local official, son in Ciudad Juarez

Gunmen in the drug violence-ridden border city of Ciudad Juarez have killed a local official and his son, Mexican officials said Sunday. Rito Grado Serrano was regional president of the community of El Porvenir outside Ciudad Juarez but lived with his family in Ciudad Juarez — one of the cities hardest hit by Mexico's drug war. Authorities say Grado and his son Rigoberto were slain by unidentified gunmen Saturday night at their house in the city across the border from El Paso, Texas. The motive was unknown, but drug gangs have increasingly targeted government officials who do not cooperate with them. As regional president, Grado served as go-between for El Porvenir and the municipality of Praxedis G. Guerrero south of Ciudad Juarez. The mayor's office in Praxedis G. Guerrero confirmed the two deaths Sunday...more

Mexico Drug Violence Leaves 16 More Dead

Drug-related violence in Mexico in recent hours has left 16 dead, 12 in the northern state of Chihuahua and four others in the western state of Jalisco, officials said. The prosecutor’s office for the northern zone of Chihuahua said Friday that four people were shot dead and three others wounded in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico’s murder capital. Local police said the victims of the gun violence were having a party in the patio of a home in the city’s downtown when a group of suspected cartel hit men entered and opened fire. Authorities have not yet identified the victims and the motive for the killings remains unclear. A hardscrabble city that lies across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas, Ciudad Juarez is the scene of a war for control of smuggling routes into the United States between the Juarez and Sinaloa drug cartels, a turf battle that has led to some 2,300 drug-related homicides thus far this year. Separately, four people were shot and killed Friday morning on a road linking the towns of Guadalupe and Praxedis, near Ciudad Juarez. According to authorities, the assailants forced the victims to step out of an SUV and then gunned them down on the road...more

Mexico Halts Search for Missing American’s Body

Police in Tamaulipas state have suspended the search for the body of an American missing since late September and presumed killed by drug traffickers in Falcon Lake, which straddles the U.S.-Mexico border, state officials said. The search for David Hartley’s body “was suspended on Thursday (Oct. 14) because new strategies are going to be developed to try to find the body,” Tamaulipas state Attorney General’s Office spokesman Ruben Dario said Saturday. Hartley and his wife, Tiffany, who lived in McAllen, Texas, were riding jet skis on Sept. 30 at the reservoir when they were attacked and chased by men aboard a boat, the victim’s wife told police. Hartley was shot in the head, Tiffany Hartley, who managed to escape to Texas, said. Tamaulipas Gov. Eugenio Hernandez said during a visit to the United States on Friday that the search had been halted because of the lack of results. Searchers have found no traces of Hartley’s body or his jet ski, officials said...more

Human trafficking begins to eclipse drug trade in Mexico

The “War on Drugs” as viewed in Mexico and the U.S. is changing. No longer are President Felipe Calderón, the police, and Mexican military forces fighting just drug trafficking; now they must do battle against the rising trafficking of sex. As Calderón has been distracted with drug control he has inadvertently allowed for the growth of human trafficking, a lucrative business left largely unregulated by Mexican law. Human trafficking accounts for 6.6 billion USD a year in Mexico alone,1 a figure that is growing as human trafficking continues its rise in profitability. The vast expansion of human trafficking from Mexico to the United States is notable in its absence from the media; instead, a wealth of analysis of drug related problems continually takes the spotlight. Conservative estimates conclude that over 100,000 women, a number predicted to increase by the end of 2010, are trafficked out of Latin America annually for the purpose of prostitution. The problem with human and sex trafficking is that it has become a side business for many cartels to supplement their lost income in the “war on drugs.” Kloer again explains it best: “When a drug cartel traffics a pound of cocaine into the U.S., they can only sell it once. When they traffic a young woman into the U.S., they can sell her again and again.”...more

Cowgirl Sass & Savvy

Whispers of the cottonwoods

by Julie Carter

A single cottonwood tree, gone bright yellow in the season, its leaves and branches framing a deep blue sky, looms above gently waving prairie grass wearing muted shades of beige and rust.

The scene is timeless both in reality and symbolically. The cottonwood tree is woven into the fabric of our lives, our history and better yet, our memories.

Whether you played in a schoolyard lined with them like sentries, or as a youth you lay in your bed on a summer night and listened to rustle of the leaves in the breeze through an open window, for most of us the cottonwood trees serve as reminder of the distant past.

And so it is with our country.

In 1718, Franciscan monks and Indian converts built San Antonio de Valero, later to be named the "Alamo," the Spanish word for cottonwood, and referring to the stand of cottonwoods that line the nearby river.

Lewis and Clark stopped along the Yellowstone River on their return trip in the summer of 1806, "to make two canoes" out of cottonwood trees. A reference in their journal to the towering cottonwoods later gave name to the town of Big Timber, Montana.

Historically, travelers making their way across the vast and deserted plains scanned the horizon for the sight of cottonwoods, indicating a water source and possibly civilization.

The virgin forest of cottonwoods that once formed a rounded grove, the Bosque Redondo, was cut in the 1860s to build Fort Sumner, New Mexico. They served as fuel for the fires for hundreds of soldiers and civilians who lived at the fort, as well as the 9,000 nomadic Native Americans who were forced to live on the surrounding reservation.

In three years, the groves were completely harvested causing a fuel shortage and severe soil erosion in the surrounding farm grounds. A year later the fort commander ordered 5,000 trees to be planted on the ditch banks and lining all bordering roadways.

America has a dozen or so towns named after the tree including Cottonwood, Arizona, a town birthed in 1874 and famous for bootlegging, feeding the miners and later, filming movies.

New Mexico had at least 12 towns named Cottonwood, none of which exist today.
Southeast of Abilene is Cottonwood, Texas, founded about 1875 by J.W. Love, who didn't think his name lent itself to town-naming, so the local abundance of cottonwood trees directed a second choice.

A reported rash of shootings with fatal results during the town's embryo period provided for a brief but colorful history. However, Cottonwood, Texas came only close to a real claim to fame in the Wild West. The Newton Brothers, train and bank robbers from Uvalde, Texas, used to live near Cottonwood.

In 1937, Kansas officials adopted the cottonwood at the official state tree, most of which were planted by early pioneers.

My own history with cottonwoods is that of those friendly giants in our yard on the ranch in Colorado as well as the endless number of them lining miles of creek banks and hay meadows.

In the fall, as children we played in the leaves, and in the spring, we endured the beaded strings of "cotton" that brought a season of sneezing. That perhaps was offset by the right-of-passage in learning how to fold a cottonwood leaf and make a whistle.

They provided shade in the summer, wore a tire swing in perpetual motion, endured makeshift ladder rungs nailed to a trunk, and gave way to endless hours for countless years of boys climbing up and down and around.

They canopied a magical playground limited only by our imaginations as we built forts and had secret hideouts in the groves of the living as well as the dead trees.

As a teen, my daydreams were brought to life when I became Velvet Brown, the girl who rode her horse to victory in the Grand National steeplechase.

I would select a path through the fallen trees that allowed my horse to gather enough speed and momentum to jump over the larger deadfall. I soared in my dreams as I soared in the saddle.

I still love to lean against the trunk of a grand old cottonwood, slide my back down the rough bark to sit very still and quiet on the ground. And then listen.

Shhhhh, you can hear the leaves as they whisper secrets from the past.

Julie can be reached for comment at jcarter@tularosa.net.

The Losing Game of Ethanol

By Rich Trzupek

On Wednesday, USEPA approved the use of gasoline containing up to fifteen per cent ethanol in vehicles built in 2007 or later. That’s an increase over the current limit of ten per cent and it is sure to make ethanol producers like agri-giant Archer Daniels Midland very happy indeed. Unfortunately, there’s not much in this decision for the average American consumer to celebrate. The new fuel blend, generically known as E-15, is likely to increase gas prices, increase food prices, and quite possibly to damage vehicles, void warranties, and increase air pollution.

One has to admire the deviousness with which USEPA Administrator Lisa Jackson works the system to further the green agenda. In a press release [1] announcing the E-15 decision, Jackson said: “Thorough testing has now shown that E15 does not harm emissions control equipment in newer cars and light trucks. Wherever sound science and the law support steps to allow more home-grown fuels in America’s vehicles, this administration takes those steps.” Those two seemingly innocuous sentences have deep regulatory meaning. Back in March 2009, Growth Energy [2], a trade organization for the bio-fuels industry, and fifty four ethanol manufacturers, petitioned USEPA to approve the use of E-15. Under the Clean Air Act, USEPA cannot approve the use of a “significantly altered fuel” – which E-15 unquestionably is – unless it can be shown that “the new fuel will not cause or contribute to the failure of the engine parts that ensure compliance with the act’s emissions limits.”

Note the narrowness of the test here: USEPA can use its authority to circumvent otherwise applicable sections of the Clean Air Act and single-handedly approve a new fuel if it believes that “emissions limits” will not be exceeded. Will more ethanol in gasoline affect the performance of the catalytic converter in your car’s exhaust system that destroys air pollutants? It will not. Will more ethanol affect the various sensors that optimize engine performance or the computer that controls it? Not likely. But, might higher ethanol blends prove to be incompatible with a variety of engine parts that in turn will degrade more quickly when exposed to more of this acidic alcohol? That’s absolutely possible and perhaps even likely. As an engine degrades, it runs less efficiently and generates more air pollutants, at some point producing enough that the various control systems that “ensure compliance” with emissions limits simply can’t keep up.

There’s nothing “sound” about this sort of science. Jackson caved into the ethanol industry’s demands by applying the narrowest possible definition to that part of the Clean Air Act that enjoins her agency to ensure that air pollution emissions will not increase as a result of approval of a new fuel. This is rather another example of what has characterized Jackson’s EPA since she took over: selectively using science to further an agenda. Last year, the federal government mandated and provided subsidies for the production of 10.5 billion gallons of ethanol. That requirement will expand to 15 billion gallons by 2015 and 36 billion gallons by 2022. Allowing the use of E15 is an important step toward realizing those goals. By the end of the year, USEPA is expected to decide whether or not to allow the use of E-15 in model years dating back to 2001.

Not that the model-year requirement matters all that much anyway. As E-15 hits the market, the only control that will be put in place to ensure that owners of 2007 and later model vehicles use that particular blend will be an USEPA-designed sticker on the gas pump. Call me a cynic, but are we really expected to believe that motorists driving older cars will avoid filling up on E-15 because a sticker tells them not to? If, thanks to government subsidies and incentives, E-15 is cheaper than “normal” gasoline, few drivers will pay the slightest attention.

From a chemist’s point of view (which I am) any increase in the amount of ethanol in gasoline is cause for concern. In addition to ethanol being weakly acidic on its own, it also attracts water, which is more strongly acidic. By contrast, the hydrocarbons that make up the rest of gasoline tend to repel water. As you introduce more ethanol, you necessarily introduce more water into the fuel system and engine, and water is – as anyone who has owned cast-iron lawn furniture can attest to – quite corrosive. Automobile manufacturers understand this and most have designed, and most importantly warranted, their vehicles on the basis of the owner using fuels that contain no more than ten per cent ethanol. In the face of this recent EPA decision, car makers are faced with a classic Hobson’s Choice: they can pay out on warranty claims that appear to be related to the use of E-15, or they can challenge such claims and incur the considerable, and considerably expensive, wrath of a resurgent federal bureaucracy.

Finally, there is this: the conversion of United States’ cropland from food production (directly, through the production of consumables, or indirectly, through the production of livestock feed) will continue as a result of this decision. Thus, as a direct consequence of Lisa Jackson’s latest edict, food prices in the United States will continue to rise. That particular consequence is not part of the “sound” scientific analysis that she has relied upon, but it is another example of the unintended consequences that Barack Obama’s USEPA doesn’t ever care to consider.

Article printed from FrontPage Magazine: http://frontpagemag.com

URL to article: http://frontpagemag.com/2010/10/15/the-losing-game-of-ethanol/

URLs in this post:

[1] press release: http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/6424ac1caa800aab85257359003f5337/bf822ddbec29c0dc852577bb005bac0f!OpenDocument

[2] Growth Energy: http://www.growthenergy.org/about-growth-energy/structure-members/our-members/

Resigned to Living With Wolves, More Ranchers Are Giving Deterrence Projects a Try

But this is no ordinary fence. All along its length, long slips of magenta plastic flagging wave in the wind, like streamers on a parade float. No one knows exactly why, but wolves typically stay clear of these decorated fences. Dobson put up the "fladry" and electrified the fence about three years ago after losing nine sheep to wolves in one year. So far, the combination of visual repellent and electric shock seems to be working. "From the time we started doing that in 2007 up to now, we've had zero wolf depredations," Dobson said, sitting at the kitchen table of his family's spacious log home on a private inholding surrounded by the Apache National Forest. "I think the fence has a lot to do with it." A few miles away, rancher Sydney Maddock and Eddie Lee, her ranch manager, have hired a range rider -- a cowboy or cowgirl who monitors the herd -- to make sure her cattle stay safe. They have also started allowing calves to grow bigger before turning them out onto their federal grazing allotment so that they are less vulnerable to depredation. Wolves tend to prey on young, old or weak livestock, although they do sometimes kill healthy adults. "I don't know if it's going to work out or not," Lee said, standing around a late afternoon campfire at his camp near a cattle and horse corral. "But it's been two years, and it seems to be working." Meanwhile, on the New Mexico side of the Mexican wolf reintroduction area, about 70 miles to the east, rancher Alan Tackman is putting up a fence to keep his cattle from wandering up the mountain toward a known wolf den. "They're not smart enough to remember, 'A wolf ate my baby here,'" said Pat Morrison, district ranger for the Glenwood District of the Gila National Forest in New Mexico, where Tackman's fence is being erected. An elk calving area lies between the den and the fence line, and the hope is that the wolves will eat the elk calves -- typically their preferred prey -- and leave the cattle alone, Morrison said...more

Ghosts of ‘Black Sunday’ hover over BLM’s cautious oil shale move

Wednesday’s move by the BLM to proceed with more oil shale leases for Exxon Mobil and two other companies conjured up memories for some of the “Black Sunday” bust of May 2, 1982, when Exxon laid off 2,200 oil shale workers on Colorado’s Western Slope. Businesses failed, banks foreclosed, whole towns virtually cleared out, and it reportedly was not uncommon afterward to see a car with an “Exxon Suck Rocks” bumper sticker, referring to the technology that heats shale rock and sand to extract organic kerogen and convert it into synthetic fuel. Never quite perfected, the process that led to Exxon’s Colony boom of the early 1980s was mothballed in a bust of epic proportions. This time will be different, an Exxon spokesman told the Colorado Independent Thursday. Back in the late 1970s and 80s, in the wake of the OPEC embargo that sent shudders through the global energy market, Exxon predicted that by the year 2000 it would be extracting up to 8 million gallons of oil a day from arid landscape of western Colorado. By some estimates, there is more oil trapped in the rocks of the Green River Formation of Colorado, Utah and Wyoming (1.5 trillion barrels) than can be found in all of Saudi Arabia. t getting to it is problematic. Even after nearly 30 years the process is not commercially viable, and conservationists say even the research and development proposed by Exxon and other companies is a waste of time, money, coal-fired electricity, and – most importantly – water...more

One Brother Lies Low as Another Faces Tight Race in Colorado

The Salazar family name has been a leading political brand in Colorado for years. It has also been shorthand for a big-thought Democratic Party strategy of carrying the West that the Salazar brothers, John and Ken, helped invent and articulate as shoulder-to-shoulder voices of deep-country Colorado, where they grew up and where John still runs the family potato farm. The Salazar formula: rural and urban coalitions around centrist, libertarian-tinged politics, mixing support for gun rights with an ability to look natural in a cowboy hat. But this year the chemistry is different. John Salazar, seeking a fourth term in Congress in Colorado’s Third District, is facing a Republican challenger, Scott Tipton, who lost by a large margin to Mr. Salazar in 2006 but is now running neck and neck heading toward November. Ken Salazar, meanwhile, resigned from the Senate last year to become secretary of the interior in the Obama administration, which is not held in high regard with many voters in John’s huge, conservative district. The result: brothers in arms now at arm’s length...more

The Guy Idaho Ranchers Love to Hate

There are two topics you don’t want to bring up with most Idaho ranchers: wolves and Jon Marvel, the white-haired, 63-year-old founder and executive director of the Western Watersheds Project. Exactly what is it about this guy who looks more like a college professor than an environmental activist worthy of nstant, visceral, angry reactions from ranchers, that include “he’s an asshole” to “I hate that bastard” to “he’s an abusive guy” and other not-suitable-for-work quotations? As it turns out, Marvel, a history graduate from the University of Chicago who founded WWP in 1993, is not at all mild-mannered unless it serves his purpose. In reality, he’s is an intense, combative man who does not believe in compromise. “You don’t influence change without directly taking on the people who oppose that change,” he says in a recent interview. “Collaboration simply gets you marginalized.” He’s also a man who harbors a long-standing grudge with roots in an incident many, many years ago at his family cabin in Stanley, Idaho. “One day I found this rancher cutting across my land without permission, taking salt blocks to his stock. I told him to go around, go back the same way he came in and you know what he said? ‘Where did you come from?’ It was like he felt he was somehow entitled to use my private property as he saw fit.” That initial contact led Marvel to take a closer look at what his ranching neighbors thought they were entitled to do on surrounding public land where they grazed their stock in the summer...more

Feds probe wolf killing as ranchers struggle

It's been an eventful several weeks in the continuing story of the resident gray wolf on the northeast Oregon landscape. USDA Wildlife Services is investigating the illegal killing of a male gray wolf discovered Sept. 30 in the Umatilla National Forest east of Troy. The two-year old wolf had been captured and collared by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife in early August. Wildlife Services is offering a reward of $2,500 for information leading to the arrest of those responsible for killing the wolf. Because the gray wolf is a federally protected species, the offense carries a federal penalty of up to a $100,000 fine and a year in jail. Killing a wolf is also a violation of state game law with penalties set by the court. Wildlife Service officials confirmed the eleventh loss of livestock in Wallowa County to wolf attack after rancher Denny Johnson reported the loss of a calf on Oct. 1 in the Divide area about 15 miles east of Enterprise. While events were transpiring in the field, the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission on Oct. 1 authorized revisions to the Oregon Wolf Conservation and Management Plan during the scheduled five-year plan update. The commission declined to add to the plan many of the suggestions made by the Oregon Cattlemen's Association. Cattlemen were turned down on their request for a plan that gives them the tools they feel are necessary to protect themselves including authorization to kill wolves caught attacking, biting, chasing or harassing humans, livestock, pets and sporting and working dogs. The commission also failed to include in the plan the cattlemen's suggestion that rural residents be authorized to use lethal means, without a permit, on wolves that come within 500 feet of houses...more

Feds trampled by costs of caring for wild horses

What has been largely overlooked, however, is that BLM has for years been breaking the very federal act that mandates the roundups in the first place. And that violation—however understandable it may be—has caused the agency’s costs of managing the herds to skyrocket. The Wild Free Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971 requires the BLM to manage the numbers of wild horses on lands where they’ve historically lived. Part of that management is to keep the herds at a population level that doesn’t threaten their habitat. The agency estimates there are currently 38,000 animals running wild in 10 Western states, about 12,000 more than their ecosystems can sustain. Groups such as the ASPCA, Texas’s Hearts and Horses and Colorado’s The Cloud Foundation call the roundups—known as “gathers” by the BLM—cruel and inhumane. That’s because of the agency’s use of low-flying helicopters to exhaust the horses so that they can be easily corralled and captured. The technique is said to stress and panic the animals, which may be injured in the process of capture. Excess animals are captured and offered to the public through adoptions. According to the 1971 law, the agency is required to euthanize or sell without limitation unadoptable animals. But the prospect of killing perfectly healthy horses, or selling them to owners who might resell them to foreign slaughterhouses, is such an unpopular concept that BLM has refused to consider the options; indeed, at various times, Congress has even forbade the agency from using appropriated funds for such measures...more

BLM is violating the law, as they freely admit and as documented in a GAO report:

The requirements to euthanize excess animals or sell them without limitation “still exist in law,” said BLM spokesman Tom Gorey, “but we’ve made it clear that those options are not on the table.” That puts BLM in violation of the law, Gorey said. “Or a more gentle description is ‘noncompliance.’” The GAO report, published in 2008, offers a frank reason for why: “Various BLM officials at different levels of responsibility also told us that the agency has not complied with these provisions because doing so would cause an immediate threat to the careers of any officials involved, due to the anticipated negative reaction of the public and Congress.”...

Another example of the Ruling Class violating the law while holding private citizens accountable for every move they make.

TSCRA: EPA's Ethanol Waiver Harmful To Texas Ranchers

The Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association (TSCRA) expressed strong disappointment today after the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced their intent to grant partial waivers to increase the allowable amount of ethanol in gasoline from 10 percent to 15 percent, also known as E15. This increase represents a 50 percent increase from the current level of 10 percent ethanol, a jump that will have a negative impact on ranchers and would dramatically increase the cost of livestock production. "The high level of corn-based ethanol is one of the key factors driving price increases in corn products, including feed for cattle," said Dave Scott, rancher and TSCRA president. "Over the past few years it has become very clear that putting our food and fuel in competition with one another is bad for cattle producers and consumers." ording to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Economic Research Service (ERS), in 2008, feed costs for livestock, poultry and dairy reached a record high of $45.2 billion-an increase of more than $7 billion over 2007 costs. In 2008, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) released a report that stated that the dramatic increase in livestock production costs were attributed to feed...more

TV crew filming ag show in Portales

A crew from a Louisiana agricultural television show has been filming in Roosevelt County all week. Every year, the Louisiana Farm Bureau-produced “This Week in Louisiana Agriculture” weekly show holds a contest in which viewers write to tell staff why they should come to the viewer’s town, said host Michael Danna. This year, Roosevelt County rancher Matt Rush, who watches the show online, won. “We were impressed with all things he included in his application,” Danna said. “We probably have less than 175 dairies in Louisiana, and the average herd size in those dairies is probably 100 head.” Danna said the local 2,000-cow dairies seem massive by comparison. He was also impressed that New Mexico farmers operate under a lot of regulations, while Louisiana farmers have few. Since Sunday, Danna and his four other crew members have profiled Rush, filmed spur-maker Stewart Williamson, interviewed Pat Boone about his wind farm near Floyd and more...more

What’s Going On With The Death Tax?

I’ve just finished reading a press release from the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association and cosigned by 49 other organizations representing small businesses. This ad hoc group sent a letter to the House and Senate regarding ‘the failure of Congress to take action on the estate tax, commonly known as the death tax, prior to adjourning for the November elections.’ The 50 organizations signing the letter represent the Family Business Estate Tax Coalition. This powerful coalition believes family businesses, including farms and ranches, need immediate resolution because on the first day of the New Year, the estate tax rate will revert back to the pre-2001 level of 55% and the exempted amount will fall to $1 million. Toss in additional inheritance taxes imposed by some states and the word ‘confiscatory’ comes to mind. It doesn’t take much for a farm or ranch to be valued at over a million dollars. A modest house, a barn, a few hundred acres near a city or town of any size and, all of a sudden, you’re a cash-poor millionaire. The death tax, or whatever other euphemism you want to use, is a tax imposed on the transfer of the "taxable estate" of a deceased person. It’s part of the Unified Gift and Estate Tax system in the United States. The other part of the system, the gift tax, imposes a tax on transfers of property during a person's life; the gift tax prevents avoidance of the death tax should a person want to give away his/her estate while he/she is still around to accept the profound thanks of his/her offspring. Standing just behind the IRS with outstretched hands and looking for their pound of flesh are many states that also impose a death tax, with the state version called either an estate tax or an inheritance tax. Forgive me the analogy but a mental image of hyenas picking a carcass clean after the lions have left comes to mind...more

Rattlesnakes changing their tune, strike with no warning

Some snake experts say rattlesnakes are not rattling like they used to, often striking with no warning. The distinctive sound means back away. "You usually hear them rattling before you even see them," said Bob Griffin, a rancher. "That's normal behavior." But, the normal behavior by rattlesnakes is not being heard. Snake experts and ranchers like Bob Griffin say rattlesnakes are not rattling like they used to. "I think it's in their evolution," said Griffin. Mike Clanton is a reptile keeper at Caldwell Zoo. He says it is normal for rattlesnakes to be silent before attacking their prey. "If they are sneaking up on the prey item, they would lose a meal," said Clanton. But, when encountering a human or animal larger than itself, the reptiles normally sound off. "If they don't feel like they will get away from it or stay still, that is when they will rattle," Clanton explained. Why are some ranchers and wildlife experts hearing less of the rattle? Daryl Sprout, a herpetologist and owner of Snake Encounters in Dallas had some answers. "It is very true that in nature that natural selection is already beginning to prefer snakes that do not bring attention to themselves and therefore draw incoming fire from humans," said Sprout...more

The snakes are mimicking the feds.

So why did sex evolve anyway?

Despite the obvious benefits of sex, it's an activity that's biologically disadvantageous under most conditions. Now, a new study published online today (13 October) in Nature helps explain why sex may have evolved, despite its downside. Specifically, the paper tracked a eukaryote for nearly 100 generations and found that the species was more likely to switch from asexual to sexual reproduction if it encountered varying physical settings, suggesting sex may help species adapt to diverse environments. "The paper is an outstanding breakthrough," evolutionary biologist Sally Otto of the University of British Columbia told The Scientist. "It's the first study to track -- in real time -- the evolution of sex in a multicellular eukaryote, finding that higher rates of sex evolve in a spatially complex environment," said Otto, who was not involved in the research. The evolution of sex has long puzzled biologists, as its disadvantages seem to outweigh its benefits in most situations. When an organism reproduces asexually, for example, it passes on 100 percent of its genetic information to the next generation. A sexually reproducing organism, on the other hand, only passes on half its genes -- a huge evolutionary cost...more

37 years ago and to wide acclaim, Rancho DuBois was officially designated a "spatially complex environment."

More than 37 years ago and also to wide acclaim, Rancho DuBois assisted many in adapting to diverse environments as they wandered along the evolutionary path.

I had hoped to share those earlier research findings with you, but Sweet Sharon just advised that should I choose to do so, I might as well revert to being an asexual organism.

After much careful thought I have decided those particular research results will remain unpublished.

Gallup: 59% say feds have too much power, 46% say feds pose "an immediate threat" to rights and freedoms

The percentage of Americans who think the federal government poses “an immediate threat” to the rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens has increased significantly over the last seven years, rising from 30 percent to 46 percent, according to a Gallup poll conducted Sept. 13-16 and and released today. Similarly, the percentage of Americans who think the federal government has too much power has also significantly increased, from 39 percent in 2002 to 59 percent today...more

Final Tally: Obama and the 111th Congress Enacted $352 Billion in Net Tax Hikes

I wasn't surprised to see that most tax hikes were permanent and most tax cuts were temporary, with hikes out numbering cuts 7 to 1.

Figures were compiled by Americans for Tax Reform and you can see their table displaying each tax item by going here.

EPA Funnels Taxpayer Money to Dozens of Environmental Groups

The Environmental Protection Agency recently listed 76 community groups and government agencies that will share almost 2 million taxpayer dollars in the form of "environmental justice grants." But beyond the EPA's mission of protecting human health and the environment, the grant money will boost the coffers, and perhaps the influence, of some far-left groups...more

Some of the projects listed were:

-- The West Harlem Environmental Action group will use its environmental justice grant to "identify and address the problems posed by climate change in Northern Manhattan" and to "develop a community-based climate change readiness plan."
-- The Women’s Health & Environmental Network in Philadelphia plans to educate senior citizens on climate change and how to lessen their carbon footprint. "Many seniors do not understand climate change and how they affect it or how to protect the environment," the project summary says.
-- A Denver group, the Front Range Earth Force, will use its grant to "identify and mitigate air pollution and solid waste disposal issues" at a middle school that has a "disparate economic and racial/ethnic composition." According to the project summary, "Skinner Middle and elementary school students will investigate the environmental impact of practices such as idling automobiles and buses at school entrances and raise awareness about chemical and particulate pollutants and their link to respiratory diseases and eye/nose irritation. They'll also "reach across cultural and economic barriers" to develop and test ways of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
-- A group called DEPAVE in Portland, Oregon, will address the "social and environmental impacts of heavily paved public spaces." It aims to "re-green" two North Portland schools, by replacing paved areas with "playfields and native plantings."

And EPA wasn't done yet:

On Oct. 6, one day after the EPA announced the $1.9 million in environmental justice grants, it announced another $1.5 million in grant money to fund “environmental education efforts. These grants will go to 14 organizations in 11 states and the District of Columbia to “inform the public of environmental issues and help them make educated choices on actions they can take to reduce negative environmental impacts.”...

Los Payasos don't clown around when it comes to spending your money.

Obama administration reverses Bush policy on bull trout habitat

The Obama administration on Tuesday greatly expanded protections for waterways critical to the restoration of threatened bull trout, making it tougher for agencies to approve logging, mining and livestock grazing across a large swath of federal land in the West. The final rule issued by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service represented a major expansion of the streams, lakes and reservoirs protected as critical habitat for the fish, primarily on federal lands in Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Nevada, and a reversal of Bush administration policy on endangered species. The new ruling protects 19,000 miles of streams, which is five times more than the 2005 rule, and 490,000 acres of lakes and reservoirs, which is more than three times greater than previously ordered. But the 754 miles of marine shoreline in Washington state was a reduction to make room for U.S. Navy testing grounds. The bull trout is not a trout, but a char. Its numbers have declined about 60 percent, and it has disappeared from about half its historical range due to logging, mining, dam construction, and livestock grazing that have warmed and muddied the water it lives in and cut off migration routes. Nonnative fish species introduced for anglers compete for scarce habitat. It survives mostly in backcountry areas far from people...more

Wolves: How Many Are There?

At a Kalispell meeting focused on wolves last week, outdoorsmen and ranchers made it clear they want three things: the return of state management, revised wolf population numbers and, in the absence of local control, federal rule changes that better protect livestock in Northwest Montana. For the first, they stated their case to U.S. House Rep. Dennis Rehberg, who hosted the session at Flathead Valley Community College and has drafted one of several bills aimed at delisting gray wolves in Montana and Idaho. For the second, they offered their own statistics, in quantities of lost livestock and diminished game sightings during hunting season. Ranchers argue that many livestock kills aren't confirmed or documented. Hunters say they don’t harvest or see nearly the number of elk and deer as in years past. Larry Campbell told the 12-person panel that he had killed a bull elk for 14 straight years before his streak ended two years ago. “I’ve seen more wolves than I’ve seen elk,” he said. “That’s not a good sign.”...more

Western Watersheds Project v. IBLA

WESTERN WATERSHEDS PROJECT, Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
INTERIOR BOARD OF LAND APPEALS, BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT, AND UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 09-35708.

United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.
Argued and Submitted September 1, 2010—Seattle, Washington.
Filed October 12, 2010.

OPINION

HAWKINS, Senior Circuit Judge.

In this appeal, which involves the interplay between the issuance or renewal of Bureau of Land Management ("BLM") grazing permits and the fee-shifting provisions of the Equal Access to Justice Act ("EAJA"), Western Watersheds Project ("Western Watersheds") appeals the summary judgment determination that EAJA fees were not available to Western Watersheds because its environmental claims were brought in a grazing permit renewal proceeding. We agree with the district court's reasoning and affirm.

Read the entire Opinion here.

Arizona Rethinking Open Range Laws? One Word for the New York Times: Bull

Arizona's not really "Rethinking Open Range Laws," despite a New York Times article published on Monday with that headline. The article by Marc Lacey offers only one source to back up that headline, Democratic State Representative Daniel Patterson of Tucson, who Lacey says has introduced a bill "pushing for an end to Arizona's open range law..." Patterson's proposed change of law died in the last Legislative session without so much as a hearing. In fact, Patterson -- who, like other State Representatives, is fighting to get re-elected in November -- refused to stand by the statements attributed to him in the article when we called him today. We don't think the NY Times writer misquoted Patterson -- rather, it seems Patterson doesn't want to draw any more attention to his statements, even though he proudly posted the article on his own blog site. The catchy headline drew us into the online article today. But we had to chuckle at the Lacey's outsider take, even before we talked to Patterson. Patterson would not agree or admit he's "pushing for an end to Arizona's open range law." When we asked if the quote about "getting rid" of the open range law was correct, we got a 20-second pause. "Hello?" we asked, thinking the call had been dropped. Patterson was still there. But he refused to answer the question. "We want to change the law," he repeated a couple of times, implying that he no longer wanted to "get rid of" the law -- if he ever did...more

The Nature Conservancy Hires Architect to Design Facilities for Canyonlands Research Center

The Nature Conservancy announced the hire of Salt Lake City-based architecture firm CRSA to begin designing facilities for the Canyonlands Research Center in southeast Utah. The facilities will be located at the Conservancy’s Dugout Ranch, south of Moab, and will provide year-round housing and laboratories for visiting scientists. The design and construction of the facilities, as well as ongoing operations, will seek minimal impacts to the environment and feature carbon neutral concepts. Facility design is the most recent step in the launch of the Canyonlands Research Center, a unique collaborative that brings together scientists, public land managers and local land users to protect the natural resources of the Colorado Plateau or “Four Corners” region. Through research on issues such as wildlife and water management, grazing and recreation use issues, the Canyonlands Research Center will develop science-based strategies to help public land managers and private landowners improve protection for natural resources...press release

Texas Department of Agriculture Launches Program to Eradicate Wild Hogs

The Texas Department of Agriculture is launching a new campaign called “Get the Hog Outta Texas” in an effort to remove wild hogs and curb the damage done to private property by them in the state of Texas. The challenge, which runs through the end of October, will reward the county that removes the most hogs with a grant. The challenge has recruited nearly 60 counties so far. A growing number of feral hogs, also called wild hogs, has posed a challenge for the state of Texas for decades; more recently, however, the problem has extended into urban and suburban areas. There are nearly two million wild hogs in Texas, the highest population in the United States. This number continues to grow every year due to high reproduction rates of wild hogs and a lack of natural predators. While these animals may appear harmless, they can cause millions of dollars in damage to urban yards, parks, golf courses, crops and private property. Wild hogs can also carry diseases and contribute to E. coli in Texas water, such as streams, ponds and watersheds...more

Here is the Texas Farm Bureau video:



When they are finished in Texas they should move their program to DC.

EPA Perpetuates Ethanol Scam in New Regulations

Perhaps the ethanol subsidies would constitute wiser policy if the claims of ethanol advocates (including the farmers who benefit from the government payout) were anywhere near the truth. Aside from the dubious benefit of catering domestic policy to a climate panic that more thorough scientific inquiry has discredited, ethanol production itself actually swells carbon emissions. Although it burns cleaner than straight gasoline, ethanol is produced using energy from electric plants that still burn fossil fuels (along with the modes of transportation and harvest), more than offsetting its environmental benefits. Additionally, the whole biofuel project is an expensive experiment that distracts from more viable clean power alternatives: hydro, solar, and that greatly maligned boogeyman, nuclear energy. That the ethanol lobby has succeeded in pushing its agenda at taxpayer cost is shameful. That the EPA is aiding and abetting in this process while ignoring superior solutions is par for the course. Until the appointees who make these decisions are replaced, the American public should put their hope for serious energy and environmental reform in the candidates they elect this November...more

Search for ape man continues against the odds

That ever elusive figure known as Bigfoot, or Yeren (wild man) to the Chinese, is bouncing back to life as a group of Chinese scientists and explorers scout around for international help to mount a new search for it - even though the debate over its existence has lingered for decades. Bigfoot, also known elsewhere as the abominable snowman, in this case refers to a half-man, half-ape creature in the Shennongjia Nature Reserve, in a remote, mountainous part of Hubei province, in Central China. Back in the 1970s and 1980s, authorities organized three high-profile expeditions to search for signs of Bigfoot, but came up empty handed. In view of the large amount of expenditure required for these expeditions, the government decided to put a stop to them. Nonetheless, curiosity about the mysterious man-like creature still lingered among experts and ordinary folk alike. Then, last November, the Wild Man Research Association was founded in Hubei, pulling in more than 100 members interested in the search for Yeren, including a number of scientists and experts. These included the 75-year-old Wang Shancai, of the Hubei Relics and Archaeology Institute, who is vice-president of the association, and happens to be a strong believer in Bigfoot. In spite of the fact that while those expeditions in the 1970s and 1980s yielded little other than some hair, a footprint, and some excrement suspected of belonging to Yeren, there was no conclusive proof, but Wang is undeterred. He said there were more than 400 people who claimed to have seen Bigfoot in the Shennongjia area over the last century. And he's gotten support from a local "witness", Zhang Jiahong, a sheep rancher in the town of Muyu in the nature reserve, who says he saw two wild men as recently as September 2005. What did they look like? Zhang told China Daily on Monday that they had "hairy faces, eyes like black holes, prominent noses, faces that resembled both a man and a monkey, disheveled hair, and stood more than 2 meters tall"...more

Gas drilling has blighted my life

My wife, Donna, and I have lived for 32 years on our ranch in Pavillion, Wyo., a lush agricultural area surrounded by the Wind River and Owl Creek mountains. In this dry region, we’re lucky to have an irrigation district that delivers clean water from the Wind River to the several hundred farmers and ranchers in the area. We’ve worked hard to develop this place, raise our two kids and tend to our cattle and horses. I’m a Vietnam vet and Donna works in our local school district. At this stage in life, I thought I’d have time to enjoy our 4-year-old granddaughter as she learns how to ride a horse like her granddad does. Instead, I’m watching everything we’ve worked for poisoned by the oil and gas industry. I’m even reluctant to have my grandchild visit because of the chemical contamination in our water, soil and air. In 2004, Encana drilled a well about 500 feet from my house and even closer to my drinking water well. In the past, we always had clean, fresh water, but soon our water began to taste and smell like gas and the well began producing less water. Encana agreed to test the water and chlorinate it, and during testing the company hauled water into a cistern for us. About seven months later, I decided to drill a new well since I was pretty sure the old one was contaminated. While drilling the new well, we hit gas, our new water well blew out and we were forced to evacuate our home. We had a hydrogeologist and drilling experts come out. They told us hydraulic fracturing had caused methane to migrate and collect underground. That meant that the fracturing chemicals were also moving around...more

The New Oil

Sitka, Alaska, is home to one of the world’s most spectacular lakes. Nestled into a U-shaped valley of dense forests and majestic peaks, and fed by snowpack and glaciers, the reservoir, named Blue Lake for its deep blue hues, holds trillions of gallons of water so pure it requires no treatment. The city’s tiny population—fewer than 10,000 people spread across 5,000 square miles—makes this an embarrassment of riches. Every year, as countries around the world struggle to meet the water needs of their citizens, 6.2 billion gallons of Sitka’s reserves go unused. That could soon change. In a few months, if all goes according to plan, 80 million gallons of Blue Lake water will be siphoned into the kind of tankers normally reserved for oil—and shipped to a bulk bottling facility near Mumbai. From there it will be dispersed among several drought-plagued cities throughout the Middle East. The project is the brainchild of two American companies. One, True Alaska Bottling, has purchased the rights to transfer 3 billion gallons of water a year from Sitka’s bountiful reserves. The other, S2C Global, is building the water-processing facility in India. If the companies succeed, they will have brought what Sitka hopes will be a $90 million industry to their city, not to mention a solution to one of the world’s most pressing climate conundrums. They will also have turned life’s most essential molecule into a global commodity. The transfer of water is nothing new. New York City is supplied by a web of tunnels and pipes that stretch 125 miles north into the Catskills Mountains; Southern California gets its water from the Sierra Nevada Mountains and the Colorado River Basin, which are hundreds of miles to the north and west, respectively. The distance between Alaska and India is much farther, to be sure. But it’s not the distance that worries critics. It’s the transfer of so much water from public hands to private ones. “Water has been a public resource under public domain for more than 2,000 years,” says James Olson, an attorney who specializes in water rights. “Ceding it to private entities feels both morally wrong and dangerous.” Everyone agrees that we are in the midst of a global freshwater crisis. Around the world, rivers, lakes, and aquifers are dwindling faster than Mother Nature can possibly replenish them; industrial and household chemicals are rapidly polluting what’s left...more

For a different view on water markets, visit the website of the Property and Environment Research Center.

Drilling ban lifted; uncertainties still face Gulf

Deep water oil drills quieted by a six-month moratorium will again hum off the Gulf Coast, helping an industry that, despite its dangers, puts needed money in the pockets of thousands along the Gulf Coast. What's less certain is just how soon the jobs on hold because of the six-month ban will come back to a region trying to recover. Thirty-three deep water operations were halted by the moratorium imposed as the BP oil disaster unfolded. Meeting new federal safety requirements imposed since then will take time for oil companies. "Those big rigs that left the Gulf, it's going to take them a while to come back," said Ronnie Kennier, an Empire, La., fisherman working in BP's vessel of opportunity oil clean-up program. The Obama administration, under heavy pressure from the oil industry and Gulf states and with elections nearing, on Tuesday lifted the moratorium that it imposed in April. The ban had been scheduled to expire Nov. 30, but Interior Secretary Ken Salazar moved up the deadline, saying new rules have strengthened safety and reduced the risk of another catastrophic blowout that caused more than 200 million gallons of crude to spew from BP's well a mile beneath the Gulf. A federal report said the prohibition likely caused a temporary loss of 8,000 to 12,000 jobs in the Gulf region and drilling is unlikely to resume for at least a few weeks. Todd Hornbeck, CEO of Covington, La.-based Hornbeck Offshore Services, said lifting the ban would still leave the industry in a "de facto moratorium stage" until the government fully explains how new drilling permits will be issued. "We're still in the dark," said Hornbeck, who heads one of the companies that sued to block Interior's initial moratorium. His company provides vessels and other services for the offshore industry. ight now, I'm skeptical that it will be anytime soon that permits will be issued even if the moratorium is lifted," he said...more

China stakes claim to S. Texas oil, gas

State-owned Chinese energy giant CNOOC is buying a multibillion-dollar stake in 600,000 acres of South Texas oil and gas fields, potentially testing the political waters for further expansion into U.S. energy reserves. With the announcement Monday that it would pay up to $2.2 billion for a one-third stake in Chesapeake Energy assets, CNOOC lays claim to a share of properties that eventually could produce up to half a million barrels a day of oil equivalent. It also might pick up some American know-how about tapping the hard-to-get deposits trapped in dense shale rock formations, analysts said. As part of the deal, the largest purchase of an interest in U.S. energy assets by a Chinese company, CNOOC has agreed to pay about $1.1 billion for a chunk of Chesapeake’s assets in the Eagle Ford, a broad oil and gas formation that runs largely from southwest of San Antonio to the Mexican border. CNOOC also will provide up to $1.1 billion more to cover drilling costs. The deal represents China’s second try at making a big move into the U.S. oil and gas market, following a failed bid five years ago to buy California-based Unocal Corp...more

Experts tell congressional panel Station Fire could have been contained early on

A wildfire that grew into the biggest blaze in Los Angeles County history could have been contained early on if fire officials had tapped state and local agency resources, experts told a congressional panel Tuesday. Additionally, the panel sought answers about delays in the dispatch of aircraft and other resources to fight the fire at a critical juncture on the blaze's second day. Instead of relaying an order for aircraft to a joint command center of local and state firefighting agencies, a Forest Service dispatcher held it. "Between 7 and 9 a.m. was the window of opportunity to make a difference," said Will Spyrison, the Forest Service incident commander who ordered the aircraft. By the time Forest Service aircraft made runs over the fire nine hours later, it was too late. The sun had risen, heating up brush and fueling the blaze, which exploded. Two firefighters were killed and 89 homes destroyed by the fire, which burned more than 250 square miles. Forest Service officials offered little in the way of an explanation, saying they didn't know who held the aircraft order or why. "All I know is our dispatcher was told to leave the order open," said former Angeles National Forest Supervisor Jody Noiron. A recent federal review of the Station Fire's handling found Forest Service officials were reluctant to request resources from local agencies in favor of their own, Schiff said. The Forest Service pays local agencies for personnel and equipment used in fighting wildfires on federal land. As a cost-cutting measure, forest managers were urged to use their own resources in an internal memo sent out by high-ranking forest officials weeks prior to the Station Fire. Forest Service officials denied Tuesday the memo factored into their decisions. Schiff rebuffed those claims, asserting there was either a "broad policy" that prevented the orders for aircraft from going through or someone believed the fire wasn't as serious as the incident commander observed...more

Cody entrepreneurs await permits

Over the past decade, many Park County entrepreneurs have sought permits from the Shoshone National Forest to help guide residents and tourists with activities like ice climbing, mountain biking and kayaking. But no new permits for such “nontraditional” outdoor recreation activities have been issued. Kenny Gasch, with Jackson Hole Mountain Guides, has applied numerous times without success for a commercial permit to guide ice climbers, a technical and dangerous sport. Enthusiasts spend thousands of dollars each year on gear, lodging and guides in other places around the world, Gasch has said, and the Shoshone Forest southwest of Cody is among the best places in the United States to climb. On Tuesday, Root told Park County commissioners that the Shoshone Forest would be working throughout 2011 to complete a needs assessment, and might issue new permits based on the outcome of that process. Despite the delays, Gasch said Tuesday he was optimistic that commercial permits would eventually be issued for ice climbing and other nontraditional recreation activities...more

First application for a permit was in 2001. Ten years later they decide to do a "needs assessment."

The problem they all face is the word "commercial". Never a high priority for the Forest Service...not even when unemployment is hovering around 10 percent and everyone else is worried about creating jobs.

Community organizers might have some success. Maybe.

California to Sell 24 Government Buildings for $2.3 Billion

The state announced Monday it is selling 24 government office buildings — including the Ronald Reagan State Building in Los Angeles and the San Francisco Civic Center — to a group of private investors for $2.3 billion. Ron Diedrich, acting director of the California Department of General Services, announced it selected the offer from California First LLC, a partnership led by a Texas real estate firm and an Orange County private equity firm. About $1 billion of the sale will be used to pay off bonds on the buildings, leaving more than $1.2 billion to go into the state's general fund. "This sale will allow us to bring in desperately needed revenues and free the state from the ongoing costs and risks of owning real estate." Gov.Arnold Schwarzenegger and lawmakers included the sale as part of the state budget last week...more

Excellent. Land should be next.

More Ethanol to Be Allowed in Cars

The Obama administration plans to allow higher levels of ethanol for gasoline used by newer cars, a step that would benefit corn growers but which has been strongly opposed by auto makers, livestock ranchers, oil refiners and some public-health advocates. As early as Wednesday, the Environmental Protection Agency plans to announce it will allow ethanol levels in gasoline blends to be as high as 15% for vehicles made since 2007, up from 10% currently, according to two people familiar with the matter. For cars made between 2001 and 2006, the agency will say it is awaiting the outcome of additional research and not ready to announce a decision. The agency's move is likely to be strongly challenged by livestock ranchers, auto makers and oil refiners. While the groups have varying motives for opposing greater corn ethanol production, they—along with many environmentalists—generally say the government hasn't conducted sufficient testing to warrant higher concentrations of ethanol in motor fuels...more

Ethanol is just another agricultural subsidy

Since the 1970s, the U.S. Congress has showered the corn ethanol industry with ever-increasing mandates and subsidies. Congress has justified those subsidies by citing the industry's oft-repeated claim that increased domestic production of ethanol will cut U.S. oil imports and therefore increase America's energy security. That claim has no basis in fact. Between 1999 and 2009, while U.S. ethanol production increased seven-fold to more than 700,000 barrels per day, U.S. oil imports actually increased by more than 800,000 barrels per day. Furthermore, and perhaps most surprising, during that same time period, U.S. oil exports - yes, exports - more than doubled to some 2 million barrels per day. Data from the Energy Information Administration show that oil imports closely track U.S oil consumption. Over the last decade, as domestic oil demand grew, imports increased. When consumption fell, imports dropped. Ramped-up ethanol production levels simply had no apparent effect on oil imports or consumption. Thus, despite more than three decades of subsidies that have cost taxpayers tens of billions of dollars, the ethanol industry has not, and cannot, show any decline in oil imports--even during the time period when it experienced its most rapid growth...more

Rising corn prices also affect ethanol, cattle

Corn prices are up 19 percent in just the last four trading days, boosting the crop’s value by billions of dollars. However, what’s good for farmers could disrupt ethanol production and push up meat prices. Corn futures for December delivery closed Tuesday at $5.79 a bushel, up 23.25 cents from Monday and 90.5 cents from last Wednesday. As recently as mid-June, corn traded around $3.60 a bushel. Prices have risen as farmers report decreased yields because of moisture damage to corn plants. The exact gain to farmers is unclear, depending on how much of their crop has been presold for forward or futures contracts and at what prices. But hog and cattle producers now are faced with higher feed costs just as they emerge from a three-year period of losses caused by the first wave of corn price increases that began in 2007...more

Estate tax may become another nail-biter debate when lawmakers return

Interest groups on both sides of the estate tax debate are unsure how the issue will play out when lawmakers return to Washington for the post-election lame-duck session. Lawmakers face a blistering tax agenda in the lame-duck session that, left undone, will cost taxpayers trillions of dollars beginning next year. One issue is how to stop the estate tax from returning to pre-2001 levels, which means estates worth more than $1 million are hit with a tax that could be as high as 55 percent. The levy is currently repealed but, barring congressional action, it will return next year to the aforementioned level. Republicans and more than a few Democrats oppose returning to pre-2001 law, but there doesn’t seem to be a consensus for how the tax should be modified. Sources close to the matter said the fix resuscitated 2009 law, which placed a 45 percent tax on estates exceeding $3.5 million. The levy would be indexed for inflation so fewer people would become ensnared by it. But Democratic leaders opted to delay action on the Bush-era tax cuts until after the election, thereby punting a resolution on the estate tax into the lame-duck session. Several compromises on the estate tax have been floated, which include doing a retroactive fix. Another would exempt farmers from the tax, which Jennings believes could be subjected to abuse. “There’s definitely not universal support for it, because exempting farms in the way [the bill] is written could create some pretty big loopholes,” he said, adding that indecisions surrounding the tax only increase the odds that a fix will not be in place by year's end...more

NM pushes changes to outstanding waters proposal

The New Mexico Environment Department and conservation groups presented a compromise Tuesday to state regulators who are considering a proposal that would protect hundreds of miles of headwater streams, more than two dozen lakes and numerous wetlands in federal wilderness areas around New Mexico. The department first petitioned the Water Quality Control Commission to designate headwaters in a dozen federal wilderness areas around the state as outstanding water sources, which would protect streams, lakes and wetlands by prohibiting any activities that would degrade water quality. Under the compromise, temporary degradation of water quality would be allowed only in limited circumstances, such as during restoration or maintenance projects. Supporters said the compromise better defines protections for outstanding waters and keeps in place the state's strict anti-degradation policy. But it immediately drew criticism from a ranchers' group that has been fighting the department's effort to designate the waterways as "outstanding national resources waters."...more