Rey expresses regret: Ag chief says Forest Service ‘dropped ball' on retardan Faced with possible jail time, U.S. Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey apologized Tuesday to a federal judge in Missoula for the Forest Service's delays in evaluating how wildfire retardant affects the environment. But Rey, the Bush administration's top forest official, insisted the agency has complied with the National Environmental Policy Act and the Endangered Species Act. Rey testified before U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy in a watchdog group's lawsuit accusing the Forest Service of violating the nation's top environmental laws through its use of fire retardant. The hearing, which is scheduled to resume Wednesday, could result in Rey being jailed for contempt or placed on electronic monitoring. The Forest Service also could be prohibited from dropping anything but water on wildfires until it complies with the judge's earlier orders....
Agriculture chief not in contempt over fire study A federal judge has decided not to hold Agriculture Secretary Mark Rey in contempt over court orders requiring the U.S. Forest Service to study the environmental effects of a chemical fire retardant. U.S. District Judge Donald W. Molloy had threatened to send Rey to jail for being slow to respond to the court orders, accusing the Forest Service of trying to skirt environmental law. As agriculture secretary, Rey oversees the Forest Service. Although Molloy was critical of the agency for being slow, he said it ultimately filed the necessary documents. He added the threat of contempt helped spur the agency into action. After the hearing, Rey said he believed the agency made every effort to comply with the court orders....
Booming oil patch lights up North Dakota rangeland Landing lights for a long, remote runway. Christmas decorations left on all day, all night, all year. The scattered campfires of a large invading army that shows no sign of withdrawing anytime soon. Pick your metaphor for the landmark flares brightening the winter night over a broad expanse of western North Dakota rangeland. Thanks to record prices for oil and new technology that allows for easier extraction, the state's oil patch is booming again, creating riches for farmers, ranchers, retirees and speculators lucky or smart enough to own mineral rights in the Bakken Formation, a vast oil deposit stretching from the Dakotas into Montana and Canada. Nearly 60 drilling rigs are operating in western North Dakota now, the most since the last oil boom in the early 1980s, leaving the horizon littered in all directions with new wells marked by the bright, noisy flaring of escaping natural gas being burned off....
Instream flow bill good for trout, landowners It has been a long haul, but the Utah Legislature finally signed off on a bill that will allow fishing groups to protect and restore water flows in the name of trout. Various versions of HB117, which now awaits the governor's signature, have been around since 2003. Tim Hawkes, then a staffer for Trout Unlimited's national office based in Utah, picked up the battle for the instream flow bill in 2005. He worked hard with legislators, agricultural groups, state agencies and other water interests on the bill and was on the verge of seeing it passed in 2007 when it hit a snag over endangered species concerns. With those concerns addressed, Hawkes - now working at a law firm in Washington, D.C., but serving as a TU volunteer to get the bill passed - watched as the Instream Flow To Protect Trout Habitat bill sailed through the session this year. Hawkes says the bill does not change the definition or principles of water law, but allows for a 10-year pilot program that makes it possible for farmers or ranchers to lease all or part of a water right on a temporary basis to groups like Trout Unlimited....
Eminent domain change heads to governor The South Dakota House voted 54-16 Tuesday in favor of a bill that will speed the use of eminent domain by railroads to force the sale of rights of way. The Dakota, Minnesota & Eastern Railroad sought the measure, which will require the state Transportation Commission to rule on eminent domain cases within 90 days of applications. "This is a bill that would provide fairness in eminent domain cases and allow an important economic development project to move forward," Rep. Tim Rave, R-Baltic, said. DM&E officials say a few West River landowners who oppose the project have delayed it. The landowners, however, say DM&E itself has caused the delays. They also say the 90-day deadline for decisions cuts the time they have to prepare their case before the Transportation Commission....
Satan's Dog George Brown has managed the Hoodoo ranch, a cow-calf operation near Cody, Wyo., for 40 years. His grandfather arrived in northwestern Wyoming in 1900. By that time, much of the American West’s gray wolf population had been decimated through private and federal bounties. By the mid-20th century the species had been all but wiped out in the lower 48 states. Brown, now 77, has a perspective on wolves that may seem a bit out of touch with a society that has largely celebrated the speedy return of a sizable gray wolf population to the northern ranges of the American Rockies. By Brown’s estimation, the only good wolf is a dead one. “That’s a pretty fair way to describe how I feel,” he said. Brown is a member of an aging ranching population where financial and social influences have taken a heavy toll. The reintroduction of the gray wolf in the mid ’90s was perceived by some as the return of a nearly forgotten threat to the ranching livelihood....
Senators hear Wyo Range support Time is running out on efforts to protect the Wyoming Range from oil and gas leasing, Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal told U.S. senators Wednesday during testimony for the Wyoming Range Legacy Act. Freudenthal was one of five people to testify before the Senate Subcommittee on Public Lands and Forests on Sen. John Barrasso’s bill. The bill would prohibit further leasing on about 1.2 million acres of mountainous land south of Jackson. Freudenthal said the Forest Service is feverishly speeding efforts to finish environmental studies that would finalize 44,000 acres of additional energy leases. Those leases were sold, but the Interior Board of Land Appeals found the environmental studies used to justify the sale were insufficient and ordered a supplemental environmental impact statement before the federal government could complete the sale....
Study: Contaminent levels high in parks Pesticides, heavy metals and other airborne contaminants are raining down on national parks across the West and Alaska, turning up at sometimes dangerously high levels in lakes, plants and fish. A sweeping, six-year federal study released Tuesday found evidence of 70 contaminants in 20 national parks and monuments - from Denali in Alaska and Glacier in Montana, to Big Bend in Texas and Yosemite in California. The findings revealed that some of the Earth's most pristine wilderness is still within reach of the toxic byproducts of the industrial age. "Contaminants are everywhere. You can't get more remote than these northern parts of Alaska and the high Rockies," said Michael Kent, a fish researcher with Oregon State University who co-authored the study. The substances detected ranged from mercury produced by power plants and industrial chemicals such as PCBs to the banned insecticides dieldrin and DDT. Those can cause health problems in humans including nervous system damage, dampened immune system responses and lowered reproductive success....
Bison Advocate Closes Trap; Forcibly Removed & Arrested The man who perched upon a platform suspended from the top of a pair of poles on public land inside the Horse Butte bison trap in protest of bison slaughter, Nathan Drake, 26, was forcibly removed and arrested Monday night by state and federal agents. He was charged with three misdemeanors: obstruction, trespassing, and resisting arrest. He was released on $5,000 bail, reportedly the highest yet for bison-related direct action protest. Montana Department of Livestock agents, Gallatin National Forest law enforcement and a Gallatin County sheriff were present and participated in the removal of the citizen. “The agents who made their way up to my perch with an eighty foot cherry picker were unconcerned with my safety,” said Nathan. “They cut my sleeping bag that was my protection from the Montana winter, took off my boots and threw them to the ground, attempting to freeze me out of my lock box. The sheriff and Forest Service agent cut my safety line, attached me to the cherry-picker bucket and threw me in it.”....
Feds target Crested Butte 'smoke shacks' U.S. Forest Service agents have scoured Crested Butte’s ski area in search of illegal “smoke shacks” after some skiers were busted for smoking pot in one of the shacks on Feb. 17, according to a report in the Crested Butte News. The shacks, from simple lean-tos to fully enclosed treehouses, are illegal structures, built on public land without permission. “I’m sure we’ve got a few… I know they’re probably all over just about every ski area in Colorado,” Crested Butte Mountain Resort Vice President Ken Stone told the town’s newspaper last week. In fact, just last spring, a Forest Service official ordered smoke shacks at Snowmass to be taken down. “It’s becoming an issue all over the place,” Jim Stark, winter sports administrator for the White River National Forest, told The Aspen Times at the time....No fun on federal land. They'll be tearin' down shacks and arresting folks right up 'til the pythons get us.
New Web-based Smoke Management System Being Tested at K-State A new method of smoke modeling is being researched by a Kansas State University team led by Jay Ham, professor of agronomy. This new method could help manage the extent and impact of smoke plumes from the Flint Hills. Ham explained that there are two components to BlueSkyRAINS. "BlueSky" is a computer model developed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Forest Service to predict the impacts of smoke from prescribed, wildland, and agricultural fires. "RAINS" (Rapid Access Information System) is a Geographic Information System product of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The Forest Service merged the two products into BlueSkyRAINS....What a bunch of outhouse soup. They are using this program to track down all them "smoke shacks." NFOFL - No fun on federal land.
Council has a Battle Mountain on its hands Developer Bobby Ginn saw something no one else could see in the mine-polluted hills above this former railroad town. It was so clear to him that, more than three years ago, he plunked down $32.75 million for the 5,300 acres of steep forest and toxic mining claims. Since then, he has done everything he can to persuade the leaders of the small town of Minturn to share his vision for a private ski area, a golf course and 1,700 luxury homes on a mountainous parcel that nearby Vail Resorts once considered more suited to conservation than development. Tonight, the Florida-based chief of a billion-dollar-a-year resort real-estate-development firm will know how well he conveyed his dream when the Minturn Town Council renders a final vote on annexing land for the proposed resort, known as Battle Mountain. With four of seven council seats up for election in April, it happens now or the whole approval process begins anew....
Snowmobile group opposes wilderness expansion The state's largest coalition of snowmobile riders has decided to be a "voice in the wilderness." Colorado Snowmobile Association (CSA) president Janelle Kukuk said Monday that the group is opposed to the proposed 12,840-acre expansion of the Mt. Sneffels Wilderness Area, spearheaded by the Ridgway-Ouray Community Council (ROCC) and endorsed by both Ridgway and Ouray town and city councils, as well as Ouray County's Board of County Commissioners. CSA opposes wilderness designations on several principles, according to Kukuk, including the concept that wilderness effectively shuts out a large proportion of the population from recreating in an area. In a letter responding to ROCC member Al Berni, who invited CSA to comment on the proposal, Kukuk noted that wilderness areas are closed off to "the youngest, oldest and disabled." "Wilderness does not allow for any motorized and mechanized access," wrote Kukuk. "This includes wheelchairs and bicycles, so these methods that make traveling easier for so many are shut out. It makes a very exclusive group that has access to an area, and we feel that this is in direct contradiction to the multi-use mandate given to the federal land managers to uphold."....
Blogger levels heated threat against Sierra Club A string of red-hot wildfire seasons has claimed millions of Western forest acres and not a few homes and lives, and Mike Dubrasich reckons he's figured out at least part of the solution for future summers: “If you know a Sierra Club member, please feel free to set their home on fire.” That's the suggestion - “I'm suggesting it, but I'm not advocating it” - Dubrasich posted on his Web site last week. “Personally,” said Bob Clark, “I thought that was a little over the top.” Clark is a Sierra Club representative based out of Missoula, and he keeps a whole file of death threats in his office. Some have been forwarded to the FBI, some to the state attorney general, some to the Montana Human Rights Network. Dubrasich, of Lebanon, Ore., describes himself as a forester, a consultant and a blogger, among other things. His Web network - the Western Institute for Study of the Environment - includes 11 separate sites. Eight are what he calls “educational colloquia,” all about forests and fires and wildlife and paleobotany and rural culture. The others are a mix of news and commentary, clippings and first-person opinion pieces. It was one of those opinions - posted Feb. 20 on the “SOS Forests” portion of his site - that caught Clark's attention....
Palm Desert 'Cave Man' Arrested A man barricaded himself in a cave near Palm Desert Wednesday before being arrested for trespassing, authorities said. Federal Bureau of Land Management officials contacted Riverside County sheriff's deputies shortly before noon about a suspect who was bivouacked in a cave roughly a mile south of the Palm Desert Visitor Center at Highway 111 and El Paseo Avenue, according to sheriff's spokeswoman Herlinda Valenzuela. She said Kenneth Bunzell, a 59-year-old transient, refused BLM rangers' orders to leave the cave, and sheriff's deputies were called in to assist....This was probably a "smoke cave." NFOFL
Argentina Blocks Beef Exports as Prices Increase, Clarin Says Argentina's government has blocked beef exports in a bid to persuade meatpackers and ranchers to lower domestic prices, Clarin reported. The government shut an export register while Agriculture Secretary Javier de Urquiza and producers negotiate a new price cap for March and April, the newspaper reported, without saying how it got the information. Domestic beef prices have risen 10 percent this year amid shortages to 4 pesos to 4.40 pesos ($1.27 to $1.39) a kilogram, more than the government's indicated price cap of 3.30 to 3.60 pesos, the newspaper said. Some ranchers are selling animals on the black market to avoid price and export limits, Clarin said. Former President Nestor Kirchner first started restrictions on exports in 2005 to stem inflation in the South American country.
R-CALF: Another Livestock Competition Study Will Be Too Little, Too Late In a letter sent this week to the leadership of the Senate Agriculture Committee and the House Agriculture Committee, R-CALF USA urged the chairmen to reject any suggestion that passage of competition reforms in the 2007 Farm Bill should be delayed in order to fund yet another study of the situation live cattle producers find themselves in today. During development of the 2002 Farm Bill, the Senate led a bipartisan effort to include a prohibition on packer ownership of livestock to reduce the erosion of competition occurring within U.S. livestock markets. The measure was passed by Senate conferees but House conferees took no action. Later, during the FY 2003 appropriations process, the prohibition on packer ownership of livestock was relegated to a multi-million dollar study to be managed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Four years later, in January 2007, the study, known as the RTI study, was completed. Though the RTI study erroneously presumed that the prohibition on packer ownership of livestock would prohibit all forms of alternative marketing agreements, it nonetheless found a causal relationship between packer-owned livestock and decreased livestock prices. Specifically, the RTI study found that, “A 1 % increase in packer-owned hogs causes the cash/spot price to decline by 0.24%.” Currently, the Senate version of the Farm Bill once again contains the Prohibition on Packer Ownership of Livestock....
Cattle Brands: First Recorded Brand Richard H. Chisholm owned perhaps the first recorded brand, registered in Gonzales County in 1832. Richard H. Chisholm (1799 - 1855) and Hardina Taylor Chisholm (1812 - unknown) had three children, Mary Ann, Bradford A., and Glenn Thornton Chisholm. Glenn was the retail boss for Crockett Cardwell when he put his first herd of cattle together and drove them from DeWitt County, up the "Chisholm Trail" to St. Joseph, Missouri, in 1866. The Chisholms of DeWitt County claimed that the "Chisholm Trail" was named for Glenn Thornton Chisholm because he set the path on the first trail drive. Glenn Thornton Chisholm was accidentally killed by a freight wagon that rolled over him when a breast chain broke while he was going up a steep hill. He was buried by the wagon trail near Burnet, Texas, in March, 1868. The Chisholm Trail was the major route out of Texas for livestock. Although it was used only from 1867 to 1884, the longhorn cattleqv driven north along it provided a steady source of income that helped the impoverished state recover from the Civil War.qv Youthful trail hands on mustangsqv gave a Texas flavor to the entire range cattle industry of the Great Plains and made the cowboy an enduring folk hero. When the Civil War ended the state's only potential assets were its countless longhorns, for which no market was available—Missouri and Kansas had closed their borders to Texas cattle in the 1850s because of the deadly Texas feverqv they carried. In the East was a growing demand for beef, and many men, among them Joseph G. McCoy of Illinois, sought ways of supplying it with Texas cattle. In the spring of 1867 he persuaded Kansas Pacific officials to lay a siding at the hamlet of Abilene, Kansas, on the edge of the quarantine area. He began building pens and loading facilities and sent word to Texas cowmen that a cattle market was available. That year he shipped 35,000 head; the number doubled each year until 1871, when 600,000 head glutted the market....

Flooded Village Files Suit, Citing Corporate Link to Climate Change Lawyers for the Alaska Native coastal village of Kivalina, which is being forced to relocate because of flooding caused by the changing Arctic climate, filed suit in federal court here Tuesday arguing that 5 oil companies, 14 electric utilities and the country’s largest coal company were responsible for the village’s woes. The suit is the latest effort to hold companies like BP America, Chevron, Peabody Energy, Duke Energy and the Southern Company responsible for the impact of global warming because they emit millions of tons of greenhouse gases, or, in the case of Peabody, mine and market carbon-laden coal that is burned by others. It accused the companies of creating a public nuisance. In an unusual move, those five companies and three other defendants — the Exxon Mobil Corporation, American Electric Power and the Conoco Phillips Company — are also accused of conspiracy. “There has been a long campaign by power, coal and oil companies to mislead the public about the science of global warming,” the suit says. The campaign, it says, contributed “to the public nuisance of global warming by convincing the public at large and the victims of global warming that the process is not man-made when in fact it is.” Kivalina, an Inupiat village of 400 people on a barrier reef between the Chukchi Sea and two rivers, is being buffeted by waves that, in colder times, were blocked by sea ice, the suit says. “The result of the increased storm damage is a massive erosion problem,” it says. “Houses and buildings are in imminent danger of falling into the sea.”The estimated cost of relocating the village is up to $400 million, the suit says....
Temperature Monitors Report Widescale Global Cooling Over the past year, anecdotal evidence for a cooling planet has exploded. China has its coldest winter in 100 years. Baghdad sees its first snow in all recorded history. North America has the most snowcover in 50 years, with places like Wisconsin the highest since record-keeping began. Record levels of Antarctic sea ice, record cold in Minnesota, Texas, Florida, Mexico, Australia, Iran, Greece, South Africa, Greenland, Argentina, Chile -- the list goes on and on. No more than anecdotal evidence, to be sure. But now, that evidence has been supplanted by hard scientific fact. All four major global temperature tracking outlets (Hadley, NASA's GISS, UAH, RSS) have released updated data. All show that over the past year, global temperatures have dropped precipitously. A compiled list of all the sources can be seen here. The total amount of cooling ranges from 0.65C up to 0.75C -- a value large enough to wipe out nearly all the warming recorded over the past 100 years. All in one year's time. For all four sources, it's the single fastest temperature change ever recorded, either up or down. Scientists quoted in a past DailyTech article link the cooling to reduced solar activity which they claim is a much larger driver of climate change than man-made greenhouse gases....
Students on Spring Break to Put Heat on 'King Coal' Instead of partying on the beach this Spring Break, more than 100 college students will spend their vacations in Ohio and Virginia experiencing first-hand "the coal industry's environmental and social degradation," a coalition of energy activists announced on Tuesday. During Mountain Justice Spring Break (MJSB), young adults will spend March 1-9 in southwestern Virginia and March 22-30 in Meigs County, Ohio, locations chosen by the organizers because they are "coal-impacted areas" that are ready for "corporate and political action." While in Virginia, students will "help clean up a river dirtied by King Coal" and travel to Wise County - the epicenter of Virginia's current coal fight - "to oppose mountaintop coal removal and a proposed coal plant in the region," the news release announcing the project stated. Then, in Ohio, the college kids plan to team up with people from the community who are already fighting new proposals for surface mines and coal plants, the statement added....
Ethanol poses challenge to firefighters The nation's drive toward alternative fuels carries a danger many communities have been to slow to recognize: Ethanol fires are harder to put out than gasoline ones and require a special type of firefighting foam. Many fire departments around the country do not have the foam, do not have enough of it, or are not well trained in how to apply it, firefighting specialists say. It is also more expensive than conventional foam. "It is not unusual to find a fire department that is still just prepared to deal with traditional flammable liquids," said Ed Plaugher, director of national programs for the International Association of Fire Chiefs. The problem is that water does not put out ethanol fires, and the foam that has been used since the 1960s to smother ordinary gasoline blazes does not work well against the grain-alcohol fuel. Wrecks involving ordinary cars and trucks are not the major concern. They carry modest amounts of fuel, and it is typically a low-concentration, 10 percent blend of ethanol and gasoline. A large amount of conventional foam can usually extinguish such fires. Instead, the real danger involves the many tanker trucks and railcars that roll out of the Corn Belt with huge quantities of 85 or 95 percent ethanol and carry it to parts of the country unaccustomed to dealing with it....

Back Away From The Bulb

Giant Python Could Be 'Health Hazard for Small People' in USA The giant Burmese python, which can grow to more than 20 feet in length and weigh up to 250 pounds, has established a foothold in southern Florida and could spread to other warm-weather regions of the United States, posing "a health hazard for small people," scientists with the U.S. Geological Survey warned last week....You will recall in my original post on the pythons, I pointed out that toward the end of that article it stated, "The Burmese python is not poisonous and not considered a danger to humans." I guess the USGS hadn't thought about small people at that juncture. Are there still small people in the US? I thought we were all obese.
Mercury leaks found as new bulbs break Compact fluorescent lamps - those spiral, energy-efficient bulbs popular as a device to combat global warming - can pose a small risk of mercury poisoning to infants, young children, and pregnant women if they break, two reports concluded yesterday. But the reports, issued by the state of Maine and the Vermont-based Mercury Policy Project, urged homeowners to keep using compact fluorescents because their energy-saving benefits far outweigh the risk posed by mercury released from a broken lamp. They said most danger could be avoided if people exercised common-sense caution, such as not using compact fluorescents in table lamps that could be knocked over by children or pets and properly cleaning up broken bulbs. The US Environmental Protection Agency and the states of Massachusetts and Vermont said yesterday that, based on the Maine study, they are revising their recommendations for where to use compact fluorescents in a home and how to clean up when one breaks. For the Maine study, researchers shattered 65 compact fluorescents to test air quality and cleanup methods. They found that, in many cases, immediately after the bulb was broken - and sometimes even after a cleanup was attempted - levels of mercury vapor exceeded federal guidelines for chronic exposure by as much as 100 times....It must be nice to have a politically correct product. I mean, can you think of another product that is a possible threat to infants, children and pregnant women with the potential to leak poison at 100 times federal guidelines, and the consumer advocates say "just use common sense"?
Farms May Be Exempted From Emission Rules Under pressure from agriculture industry lobbyists and lawmakers from agricultural states, the Environmental Protection Agency wants to drop requirements that factory farms report their emissions of toxic gases, despite findings by the agency's scientists that the gases pose a health threat. The EPA acknowledges that the emissions can pose a threat to people living and working nearby, but it says local emergency responders don't use the reports, making them unnecessary. But local air-quality agencies, environmental groups and lawmakers who oppose the rule change say the reports are one of the few tools rural communities have for holding large livestock operations accountable for the pollution they produce. Opponents of the rule change say agriculture lobbyists orchestrated a campaign to convince the EPA that the reports are not useful and misrepresented the effort as reflecting the views of local officials. They say the plan to drop the reporting requirement is emblematic of a broader effort by the Bush-era EPA to roll back federal pollution rules....A good example of a not politically correct product.
Norway Opens 'Doomsday' Seed Vault in Arctic Mountain A "doomsday" seed vault built to protect millions of food crops from climate change, wars and natural disasters opened Tuesday deep within an Arctic mountain in the remote Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard. "The Svalbard Global Seed Vault is our insurance policy," Norway's Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg told delegates at the opening ceremony. "It is the Noah's Ark for securing biological diversity for future generations." European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and 2004 Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai of Kenya were among the dozens of guests who had bundled up for the ceremony inside the vault, about 425 feet deep inside a frozen mountain. "This is a frozen Garden of Eden," Barroso said. The vault will serve as a backup for hundreds of other seed banks worldwide. It has the capacity to store 4.5 million seed samples from around the world and shield them from man-made and natural disasters. Dug into the permafrost of the mountain, it has been built to withstand an earthquake or a nuclear strike....
19 years later, Exxon oil spill before high court For many in this coastal town, it is known simply as the Oil Spill, an event so crushing that hard-bitten fishermen still get teary-eyed recalling ruined livelihoods, broken marriages and suicides. But mostly, people in Cordova talk about the numbing wait for legal retribution for the worst oil spill in U.S. history. It’s been almost 19 years since the tanker Exxon Valdez ran aground at Alaska’s Bligh Reef, spurting 11 million gallons of crude into the rich fishing waters of Prince William Sound. In 1994, an Anchorage jury awarded victims $5 billion in punitive damages. That amount has since been cut in half by other courts on appeals by Exxon Mobil Corp. Now the town of 2,200 looks anxiously to the U.S. Supreme Court, which will hear arguments Wednesday from Exxon on why the company should not have to pay punitive damages at all....
Big birding town risks funds over cats Suspected by the feds of a few killings, Cape May's feral felines were all set to start new lives far from where endangered shorebirds nest. Then howls from the cats' backers persuaded the Cape May City Council to back down on the relocation plan and risk losing millions of dollars in federal sand replenishment. In this historic beach community, where both cats and birds are wildly popular, the debate is more than the love of fur vs. feather. Cape May is also one of the prime bird-watching spots in all of North America. The World Series of Birding is held here each year. The cats have become the top suspect in many deaths of the endangered piping plover, a fist-sized, white-and-brown fuzzball of a bird that has closed beaches and stopped development projects in the interest of protecting their habitat. Cat-lovers said people are the real threat to endangered shorebirds....Just wait 'til the pythons get up there.
The big mystery that is McCain's environmental policy Nowadays, any Republican running for president needs one liberal issue he can point to as proof that he is not the scary sort of conservative. In 2000, George Bush had education. For John McCain in the months ahead, that issue may well be the environment. His vow to tackle global warming has already won him acclaim from outlets like The New York Times editorial page. One of his top strategists, Steve Schmidt, was an architect of Arnold Schwarzenegger's green-themed 2006 reelection drive in California, when the governor traversed the state in a pea-colored bus with a Yosemite National Park vista painted on its side, unveiling solar-paneled schools and signing climate legislation. "Schmidt is a closet environmentalist," chuckles one veteran of that campaign. "He doesn't want people to know, because his clients"--including Dick Cheney--"have all been Republicans, but he's shrewd. He gets that this is an issue that ... resonates with the majority of voters." It wouldn't be wholly outlandish for McCain to follow in Schwarzenegger's steps: After all, during the early Bush years, the Arizona senator did more than just about anyone to put climate change on Congress's radar. On the other hand, his lifetime rating from the League of Conservation Voters is a dismal 24 percent, and he's generally more likely to side with miners, developers, and loggers than the EPA. So, while it's possible a McCain presidency could offer a Nixon-to-China moment on global warming, it's also possible McCain could say all the right things on the campaign trail and disappoint environmentalists once in office. How green is John McCain, anyway?....
EPA chief warned not to deny California on emission standard A Environmental Protection Agency official warned her boss, EPA chief Stephen Johnson, that if he denied California's bid to enforce its own tailpipe emissions rules, the agency's credibility "will be irreparably damaged" and Johnson would have to think about resigning. Margot Oge, the head of EPA's office of transportation and air quality, also told Administrator Johnson in an Oct. 17 memo that "there is no legal or technical justification for denying this," despite "alternative interpretations that have been suggested by the automakers." These internal warnings were included in EPA documents released Tuesday by Sen. Barbara Boxer, the California Democrat who chairs the Environment Committee and had requested the records. Johnson turned down California's request for a waiver from the Clean Air Act on Dec. 19, after months of review. He overruled the recommendations of senior staff members, according to several media reports, and the documents released Tuesday provide some examples....
New Case of Mad Cow Reported in Canada Canadian officials confirmed a new case of mad cow disease Tuesday, the second such case in two months and the 12th since the disease was first discovered in Canada in 2003. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency said no part of the carcass entered the human food or animal feed chains. The cow was detected in Alberta under a national monitoring program that targets cattle most at risk for the disease, also known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy. The agency says it expects to detect a small number of cases over the next 10 years as Canada moves toward its goal of eliminating the disease from its herds. U.S. Department of Agriculture Deputy Secretary Chuck Conner said Canada's latest case would not affect trade with the U.S. "This is no cause for concern," Conner said....

Agri-terrorism concerns officials About 30 farmers and ranchers heard Dr. Dave Sparks, veterinarian with Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, urge county commissioners, county law enforcement and county emergency management directors to make plans to prevent agri-terrorism and plans on how to control it if it does occur. Sparks noted that while Homeland Security personnel were searching airplane passengers for guns and weapons, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) arrested one Asian man last year with a bottle of cattle blood contaminated with the hoof-and-mouth disease virus. Sparks cautioned those attending to not confuse hoof-and-mouth disease with a disease called hand-foot-and-mouth disease which infects children. Hoof-and-mouth disease only infects animals with cloven hooves, such as cattle, sheep, goats and hogs. It does not infect humans but can be carried by humans, he said. He noted that the hoof-and-mouth disease virus, if set loose in Oklahoma City, could infect the entire state within four days. The disease is not usually fatal to animals, but leaves them debilitated, and those which survive become carriers, Sparks said. Hoof-and-mouth disease is airborne, and has been shown to spread about 30 miles per day....

Forget global warming: Welcome to the new Ice Age Snow cover over North America and much of Siberia, Mongolia and China is greater than at any time since 1966. The U.S. National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) reported that many American cities and towns suffered record cold temperatures in January and early February. According to the NCDC, the average temperature in January "was -0.3 F cooler than the 1901-2000 (20th century) average." China is surviving its most brutal winter in a century. Temperatures in the normally balmy south were so low for so long that some middle-sized cities went days and even weeks without electricity because once power lines had toppled it was too cold or too icy to repair them. And remember the Arctic Sea ice? The ice we were told so hysterically last fall had melted to its "lowest levels on record? Never mind that those records only date back as far as 1972 and that there is anthropological and geological evidence of much greater melts in the past. The ice is back. Gilles Langis, a senior forecaster with the Canadian Ice Service in Ottawa, says the Arctic winter has been so severe the ice has not only recovered, it is actually 10 to 20 cm thicker in many places than at this time last year....
U.S. Senate Report Debunks Polar Bear Extinction Fears The United States Fish and Wildlife Service is considering listing the polar bear a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. This report details the scientists debunking polar bear endangerment fears and features a sampling of the latest peer-reviewed science detailing the natural causes of recent Arctic ice changes. The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service estimates that the polar bear population is currently at 20,000 to 25,000 bears, up from as low as 5,000-10,000 bears in the 1950s and 1960s. A 2002 U.S. Geological Survey of wildlife in the Arctic Refuge Coastal Plain noted that the polar bear populations “may now be near historic highs.” The alarm about the future of polar bear decline is based on speculative computer model predictions many decades in the future. And the methodology of these computer models is being challenged by many scientists and forecasting experts. Canadian biologist Dr. Mitchell Taylor, the director of wildlife research with the Arctic government of Nunavut: “Of the 13 populations of polar bears in Canada, 11 are stable or increasing in number. They are not going extinct, or even appear to be affected at present,” Taylor said. “It is just silly to predict the demise of polar bears in 25 years based on media-assisted hysteria.”....
Feds may drop park gun ban Park rangers, retirees and conservation groups are protesting a plan by the Interior Department to reconsider regulations restricting loaded guns in national parks. The National Rifle Association and other gun-rights advocates, meanwhile, are hailing the review as the first step to relax a decades-old ban on bringing loaded firearms into national parks. The Interior Department announced Friday that it will review gun laws on lands administered by the National Park Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The department will draw up new rules by April 30 for public comment, Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne said in a letter to 50 senators who requested the review....
Bison slaughter could approach '04-05 figure The bison death toll continues to climb for Yellowstone National Park, as park officials say they plan to slaughter an estimated 180 animals captured Monday to prevent the spread of disease. The bison were captured on the north end of the park near the town of Gardiner -- not far from Yellowstone's famed Roosevelt Arch. More capture operations were planned today near Gardiner and in the West Yellowstone area, where a herd of about 180 bison has lingered outside the park for days, state and federal officials said. A 2000 agreement between Montana and the federal government says the animals must be captured if they leave the park and enter areas where they could encounter cattle. Many bison carry the disease brucellosis. It can cause pregnant livestock to abort their calves and suffer other health problems....
Protest over bison policy shut down Law enforcement officials removed a man Monday from an impromptu perch erected at a bison capture facility near West Yellowstone to protest bison management policies. The bipod, as it was called, was atop two poles and included a blue tarp and a sign that said: "I called, I wrote and no response ... This is my response." "It will be down by the end of the day," Christian Mackay, executive director of the Montana Department of Livestock, said earlier Monday afternoon. "It's nothing we haven't dealt with in the past." A few hours later, the man was removed and officials were preparing to disassemble his structure, said Marna Daley, a spokeswoman for Gallatin National Forest. The protester has not been identified. The incident happened while about 180 bison were captured along Yellowstone National Park's north border Monday and state officials on the western border were preparing to do the same. All of the bison caught are expected to be sent to slaughter....
Officials brush aside worry over wolf kills State wildlife officials dismiss warnings by critics of Wyoming's wolf management plan of the imminent slaughter of up to two-thirds of the state's wolves after the animal loses protection under the federal Endangered Species Act next month. A core part of Wyoming's wolf management plan is dual classification of wolves in Wyoming - as a protected trophy species in the state's northwestern corner and as a predator species in the rest of the state. In the areas where wolves are classified as predators, they can be shot on sight and without limits, provided that kills are reported within 10 days. Critics say that plan will lead to mass wolf killing. But Bill Rudd, Cheyenne assistant division chief of the state Game and Fish Department, doubts that will happen. Rudd said the department will manage the trophy wolf population conservatively at first. He said the goal is to keep wolves from being listed as an endangered species again....
Indian tribes exercising water rights For decades, ranchers and farmers across the West have tapped into rivers and streams on or near Indian reservations. Now, as drought conditions plague big parts of the region, they're concerned their access to those sources could dry up. Although the U.S. Supreme Court gave tribes the primary rights to streams on their reservations in 1908, until recently, 19 tribes in the West had not exercised those rights. This year, tribes in Montana, New Mexico, Idaho, Nevada and California are on the verge of securing their claims. That could result in less water, or higher water prices, for non-Indian agricultural producers and communities downstream, according to Victor Marshall, an attorney who represents irrigators in New Mexico's San Juan Valley. Marshall acknowledges that Indian tribes have more water coming to them. But he argues the amounts they are seeking are more than they can realistically use on the reservation....
Incline Village woman pleads not guilty in felling of 3 trees An Incline Village woman charged with hiring a company to chop down three Ponderosa pines on public land next to her property pleaded not guilty Monday in federal court. Patricia M. Vincent, 58, was indicted on two federal charges in January for allegedly ordering the cutting of the 80- to 100-year-old trees in April 2007 to improve her view of Lake Tahoe. U.S. Magistrate Judge Valerie Cooke accepted Vincent's plea and set her trial for April 29. Vincent will remain out of jail on a personal-recognizance release. Vincent's lawyer, Scott Freeman, said the next step was to find out why Vincent was indicted in the first place. "We're going to be reviewing the charges to determine why this case is a criminal matter," Freeman said after the short hearing in U.S. District Court in Reno. "It's highly unusual for a case like this to be prosecuted." At the time the indictment was released, both the U.S. attorney's office and a spokesman for the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency acknowledged that they had not seen such a case in recent history. Vincent was charged with one count of willingly injuring U.S. property and one count of stealing government property. She faces as many as 20 years in prison and a $500,000 fine if convicted. In 2006, John Fitzhenry was fined $50,000 for poisoning three Jeffrey pines on his Lake Tahoe property....Well, at least she was released. She should be glad David Iglesias wasn't the US Attorney. And let's see, $17,000 a tree for poisoning three trees on your own property...a very reasonable fine by the feds, don'tcha think?
Purchase of vast watershed protects a pristine river The crown jewel of American rivers, the Smith River in Northern California, has been given new luster with the purchase last week of the vast Goose Creek watershed. Goose Creek is one of the Smith's largest tributaries, a vital feeder to the Smith's pristine flows for salmon and steelhead. The Western Rivers Conservancy helped the U.S. Forest Service purchase a 9,483-acre parcel that encompasses the watershed and adds the land to the Smith River National Recreation Area. Goose Creek enters the South Fork Smith River near the bridge for the Gasquet-Orleans Road, right at the line for legal steelhead fishing on the South Fork. Goose Creek is big enough to be called the Goose Fork of the Smith, and while the forest was logged virtually to water's edge in the past, fishery scientists call it "an incredible fish stream" that will now be protected forever. The Conservancy purchased Goose Creek land in several phases in the past six years. U.S. Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer (both California Democrats) and Rep. Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena, helped arrange for $3.1 million from the Federal Land and Water Conservation Fund to allow the Forest Service to close the deal....
San Juan Basin stakeholders group forms With a nudge from a U.S. congressman, a new stakeholders group has been formed to give voice to individuals affected by coal-bed methane drilling in the northern San Juan Basin. The group will hold its first open house early in March. U.S. Rep. John Salazar, D-Manassa, asked U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management officials to create working groups after Salazar toured the HD Mountains east of Bayfield in 2006. Salazar heard concerns from many residents, especially regarding drilling in or near the 1½-mile Fruitland outcrop. The formation of a technical working group was included in the Environmental Impact Statement that was approved in April 2007. However, Matt Janowiak with the San Juan Public Lands Center in Durango said the group created, which was mostly comprised of energy-industry representatives, engineers and geologists, was too technical to represent private landowners and residents. "We identified what we would call core stakeholders last year, but what we're trying to do is see who and what other groups we would consider as part of that core," Janowiak said. "So we're opening it up to everyone to come in and say 'we're stakeholders in the San Juan Basin, too.'" Janowiak said the stakeholders group will include landowner representatives, elected officials and other less technically minded people....
U.S. officials monitoring fire that crossed over from Mexico A day-old forest fire in the San Rafael Valley crossed from Sonora, Mexico, into the United States toward the Huachuca Mountains on Sunday, a U.S. Forest Service official said. Reaching the Coronado National Forest were three fingers of blazing ground comprising 27.5 acres that had branched out from the nearby main body of fire, 350 acres, in Mexico, said Heidi Schewel, a fire information officer with the U.S. Forest Service. The fire crossed the border about seven miles southeast of Parker Canyon Lake on the western side of the Huachuca Mountains. The cause is under investigation. “We sent an engine and a chase truck into Mexico after we got permission, and they assisted in fire suppression,” Schewel said. The fire was burning on Saturday, visible to a number of people in southern Cochise County in the Hereford/Palominas area. The Forest Service has named the blaze the 103 Fire, because it is close to the 103 border marker....
Bush kisses off Forest Service On Valentine's Day, the Bush administration sent the U.S. Forest Service a great big kiss. Or rather a great big kiss-off: The president's 2008 budget slashes the agency's spending by 8 percent, leading to the loss of 2,700 jobs and forcing the agency, which manages more than 3.5 million acres in Southern California, to narrow its focus to firefighting. This bad-news budget should come with a name change: the Forest Service now should be called the U.S. Fire Service. The shift would not be in name only, marking instead a radical break in national-forest history. Founded in 1905 to protect lands critical to the nation's welfare, the Forest Service acted in concert with its Organic Administrative Act (1897): "No national forest shall be established, except ... for the purpose of securing favorable conditions of water flows, and to furnish a continuous supply of timber for the use and necessities of citizens." Over the next half-century, the agency replanted forests, upgraded grasslands, and restored watersheds, contributing to the growth and development of California, the Rocky Mountain region and the Pacific Northwest. These environmental ramifications and economic consequences were of a piece with founding Chief Gifford Pinchot's maxim: "the greatest good for the greatest number in the long run."....
Storms reveal secrets on Oregon's coast The storms that have lashed Oregon's scenic coast this winter have dredged up an unusual array of once-buried secrets: old shipwrecks, historic cannons, ghost forests - even strangely shaped iron deposits. The curiosities began showing up after December when Pacific storms pummeled the state, damaging thousands of homes and causing an estimated $60 million in damage to roads, bridges and public buildings. The storms also brought high seas, which caused beach erosion. Although sands commonly shift in winter, this season appeared especially dramatic. There were reports that up to 17 feet of sand eroded away at Arch Cape. Ghost forests are groves of tree stumps, some an estimated 4,000 years old, that were engulfed by the sea. Because of shifting sands, many have suddenly popped up. The stumps are especially impressive at Arch Cape, where locals say they haven't seen them for some 40 years, according to Tiffany Boothe of the Seaside Aquarium. "The forest floor is actually uncovered too. You can see the floor," she said. "There's like these mud cliffs. As your walking on it, it resembles clay. It's definitely not sand at all." Arch Cape also was where a pair of historic cannons were recently discovered by beachcombers. The origin of the cannons, each weighing between 800 and 1,000 pounds, is not known....
Rancher sees his kind as endangered species Rancher Tim Koopmann stands on a hillside nurtured by heavy winter rains, scanning his expansive property between Pleasanton and Sunol dotted with roaming cattle, majestic oaks and hovering red-tailed hawks. It takes more than a second before he reluctantly turns toward the humming of cars on the adjacent Interstate 680 and scrutinizes the explosion of commercial and residential development that has drastically transformed the serene open space of his childhood into the bustling urban center of the Tri-Valley. "All of this is new in my lifetime," says Koopmann of the growth in Dublin, Pleasanton and Livermore. "It makes me appreciate my property even more, ... all the blood, sweat and tears that have gone into this ranch." Koopmann, 55, is proud and protective of his not-so-little piece of rural heaven that today is penned in by the freeway, mega-mansions and an 18-hole municipal golf course. And, like a death-row inmate who receives the governor's pardon at the eleventh hour, Koopmann's appreciation is tangible when he talks of how he deftly averted a possible forced sale of the ranch in the late 1990s. By working in cooperation with local, state and federal officials, Koopmann has successfully established wildlife habitat easements on his 853-acre ranch, protecting the threatened California tiger salamanders, red-legged frog — and the threatened California rancher....
LMA asks Supreme Court to review horse slaugher ruling An Illinois law that closed a state horse processing plant, and the federal appeals court decision upholding the law, have effectively exempted 40,000 n 60,000 horses from humane slaughter. That is a key reason why the U.S. Supreme Court should hear the appeal of the decision by the plant, Cavel International, Inc., according to an “amicus curiae” (friend of the court) brief filed on Feb. 22 by Livestock Marketing Association. When the Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit upheld the Illinois law that closed the DeKalb, Ill., plant last year, it “failed to address the adverse impact” of the law, LMA’s brief said. As a result, “tens of thousands of horses…will die each year because they are at the end of their useful lives, (and) which will now die of neglect or be killed using procedures which are outside the protection accorded by the Humane Slaughter Act,” the brief said. Cavel slaughtered 40,000-60,000 horses annually, all under provisions of the Humane Slaughter Act, which only applies to U.S. plants. The court rulings “have provided an incentive for the export of horses to foreign slaughterhouses, and are contributing factors in an increase of equine neglect,” the brief said, citing news accounts on this topic. Agreeing to review the case “provides the (Supreme Court’s) last and only opportunity to restore the…Slaughter Act’s coverage in connection with horses.” The Appeals Court also said it upheld the Illinois law because the law was “somewhat tenuously supported by a legitimate state interest.” The amicus brief disagreed, saying “the de facto exemption” of the thousands of horses slaughtered by Cavel from provisions of the Humane Slaughter Act “more than outweighs” that somewhat “tenuous…state interest.”....
Rice and U.S. Beef Lobbyist Offer Reassurance in Seoul The largest food recall in U.S. history is reverberating abroad, and the White House is helping the meat industry counter the fallout in an important Asian market. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice included Andy Groseta, the chief of the nation's biggest beef lobby, in her six-person entourage at yesterday's inauguration of South Korean President Lee Myung-bak in Seoul. Secretary Rice will focus on North Korea's nuclear-weapons program, but the administration wants progress on a free-trade pact that has been slowed by South Korea's 2003 ban of U.S. beef imports. Mr. Groseta, an Arizona rancher who presides over the million-member National Cattlemen's Beef Association, will help Wendy Cutler, assistant U.S. trade representative for Japan, Korea and Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation affairs, answer South Korean officials' questions about U.S. beef processing and its safety. Japan and South Korea were the biggest foreign buyers of U.S. beef in 2003, topping Mexico and Canada. The two Asian nations implemented a ban on U.S. beef imports in late December 2003, when mad-cow disease -- which can cause a rare but fatal brain disease in humans -- was found in the U.S....
Riding Into History On Cracker's Back It's easy to forget, in the ribbons of highway and rows of two-car garage homes, that Florida was built by real horse power. For more than 400 years, a relatively small breed of horse carried people through the pines and palmettos of a wilder landscape, starting with armor-clad Spanish conquistadors and later missionaries, settlers, American Indians and cowboys who drove cattle across an open range. Monday, two little horses had no trouble looking the part of their ancestors as they prepared to carry riders 300 miles from Cockroach Bay Aquatic Preserve to Tallahassee. "These horses have been a major part of all phases of Florida history," James Levy, a state historian dressed in late 1800s garb, told a small crowd that gathered at the preserve to see the riders off. For centuries, descendants of Spanish horses pulled carts and plows and carried men into battle, Levy said. Levy, also executive director of the Florida Cracker Horse Association, said the trek is intended to remind people of the state's equine heritage and build support for a bill that would name the Cracker the official state horse....
Delta folks strap on the bunny ears and hop to a hare-raising record Here's a question: What do you call a line of 3,841 Utahns wearing bunny ears and hopping in unison? A. Crazy B. Saturday night at Donny Osmond's house C. A new world record As the proud folks in Delta will tell you, the correct answer is C. Residents of the west desert town learned this month that they'll be featured in the 2009 edition of the Guinness World Records book, out this fall. The category: "Largest Bunny Hop." Didn't think people keep records on this kind of stuff, did you? It all started early last year when Delta community leaders, looking for a special event to commemorate the city's centennial, decided to take aim at the world bunny hop record, set in 2006 by 1,880 people in Lake Geneva, Wis. Organizers chose the bunny in honor of Delta High School, whose mascot is the rabbit. (Not the most fearsome animal to name your football team after, but hey, the track team must love it.)....

Pythons could squeeze lower third of USA As climate change warms the nation, giant Burmese pythons could colonize one-third of the USA, from San Francisco across the Southwest, Texas and the South and up north along the Virginia coast, according to U.S. Geological Survey maps released Wednesday. The pythons can be 20 feet long and 250 pounds. They are highly adaptable to new environments. Two federal agencies — the USGS and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service — are investigating the range of nine invasive snakes in Florida, concerned about the danger they now pose to endangered species. The agencies are collecting data to aid in the control of these populations. They examined Burmese pythons first and, based on where they live in Asia, estimated where they might live here. One map shows where the pythons could live today, an area that expands when scientists use global warming models for 2100....So there you have it folks. Either fight global warming or be crushed to death by a giant snake. Only at the very end of the article do you find, "The Burmese python is not poisonous and not considered a danger to humans."
GM exec stands by calling global warming a "crock" General Motors Corp Vice Chairman Bob Lutz has defended remarks he made dismissing global warming as a "total crock of s---," saying his views had no bearing on GM's commitment to build environmentally friendly vehicles. Lutz, GM's outspoken product development chief, has been under fire from Internet bloggers since last month when he was quoted as making the remark to reporters in Texas. In a posting on his GM blog on Thursday, Lutz said those "spewing virtual vitriol" at him for minimizing the threat of climate change were "missing the big picture." "What they should be doing in earnest is forming opinions, not about me but about GM and what this company is doing that is ... hugely beneficial to the causes they so enthusiastically claim to support," he said in a posting titled, "Talk About a Crock."....
Move Over, Oil, There’s Money in Texas Wind The wind turbines that recently went up on Louis Brooks’s ranch are twice as high as the Statue of Liberty, with blades that span as wide as the wingspan of a jumbo jet. More important from his point of view, he is paid $500 a month apiece to permit 78 of them on his land, with 76 more on the way. “That’s just money you’re hearing,” he said as they hummed in a brisk breeze recently. Texas, once the oil capital of North America, is rapidly turning into the capital of wind power. After breakneck growth the last three years, Texas has reached the point that more than 3 percent of its electricity, enough to supply power to one million homes, comes from wind turbines. Texans are even turning tapped-out oil fields into wind farms, and no less an oilman than Boone Pickens is getting into alternative energy. “I have the same feelings about wind,” Mr. Pickens said in an interview, “as I had about the best oil field I ever found.” He is planning to build the biggest wind farm in the world, a $10 billion behemoth that could power a small city by itself....
Wolf debate not over yet Gray wolves, whose howls nearly disappeared from the Northern Rockies almost a century ago, have rebounded so strongly they can be removed from the endangered species list, federal officials said Thursday. The decision marks a milestone in the saga of wolves, which were given federal protection in 1973 after hunting, trapping and poisoning nearly exterminated them in the Lower 48 states by the 1930s. Federal and state officials hailed the delisting, calling it an unprecedented success in America's effort to find a place on the modern landscape for its most imperiled species. They said wolves have filled most of the suitable habitat that has plentiful wilderness and prey and limited livestock and humans in the Northern Rockies. "This is a significant day in the history of conservation." said Deputy Secretary of the Interior Lynn Scarlett. But conservation groups vowed to sue the federal government to stop the delisting, which will turn over wolf management to the states of Montana, Idaho and Wyoming. The states' plans include hunting seasons for wolves, which will be regulated like elk, black bears, mountain lions and other game species....
Celebrate Wolf Recovery, Delisting, And Stop Slinging Arrows In 1987, when Yellowstone wolf reintroduction was a hope, not a reality, I was one of a small group of wildlife conservationists seeking to work cooperatively with the federal land managers and the state wildlife agencies to create a popular consensus for wolf reintroduction. At the outset, we recognized that while recovery of an endangered species was both legally required and ecologically desirable, there was an overall need to build a popular support for wolves among the humans who would have to live with them as neighbors. We recognized that it was not sufficient merely to speak of “the national interest” or cite the faceless millions who might gain satisfaction from merely knowing that the wolf exists in someone else’s back yard. Our experience told us that successful wolf recovery required the citizens of Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming to be convinced that sharing the land with wolves worked in their best interest and need not result in socioeconomic loss. Twenty years later, the Yellowstone wolf reintroduction has succeeded beyond anything we could have imaged in 1987. The wolves have proven themselves to be adaptable, resilient and generally good neighbors. Many dedicated people have toiled on their behalf. So with the news that the gray wolf is proposed to be delisted, why aren’t the wolf supporters celebrating? Instead of champagne we have threatened law suits. Instead of “congratulations” and “thanks yous” to ranchers, forest rangers, and environmentalists – all who played a role in the wolf’s success– we get doomsday forecasts and changing agendas....
Canines vs. cattle When wolves moved into the area, rancher Dave Vaughan got out of the cow-calf business, he said. In his barn last week, on a bright and windless winter morning, Vaughan used a tin can to scoop grain for the horses, as he described the events that precipitated his decision to call it quits. "As soon as we lost those calves, I said, 'I'm not going to do this anymore,"' he said. Wolves were confirmed on Vaughan's ranch in January 2003 by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, but he's pretty sure they arrived in 2002. That's when he saw his calf survival rate take a sudden dip, he said. On average, about 96 percent of Vaughan's new calves survived every year, and in recent seasons he'd had two years with 98 percent and two with 100 percent survival. By the start of this decade Vaughan had managed the ranch for almost 20 years, and he'd kept meticulous records and statistics. Suddenly, in 2002, his calf survival rate dipped to 90 percent. And in 2003, after wolves were confirmed in the area, only 85 percent of his new calves lived -- an unprecedented number for his operation, he said. In the winter before the 2003 calving season, gray wolves were running the cows, consistently moving them around and keeping them nervous, Vaughan said. The added stress took a 10 percent bite out of his profits. "We started calving on the 17th of February, and the first calf that was born was dead. Out of my 70 mother cows, I ended up with seven dead calves," he said. "They were stillborn from the stress of the wolves being there." All told, in 2003 Vaughan lost 13 calves, "which is totally unheard of," he said. "The only thing you can get compensated for is confirmed kills. Not stress. But the stress causes them to abort calves. And out on our pasture, which is six miles long and two mile wide, sometimes you don't find any evidence of the ones they do kill; the wolves eat everything sometimes, even the tag."....
Idaho wolf hunters could kill up to 300 Idaho hunters would be allowed to kill somewhere between 100 and 300 gray wolves this fall under a plan proposed by the Idaho Department of Fish and Game after Thursday's federal decision to remove the animals from the endangered species list. The plan next goes to the Idaho Fish and Game Commission for approval. The commission is scheduled to meet March 6 to vote on the Idaho Wolf Population Management Plan 2008-2012. Idaho had an estimated 732 wolves at the end of 2007, said Steve Nadeau, large carnivore coordinator for the department. He predicted the population will increase about 15 percent to 20 percent by this fall. He said the department's goal for the next five years is to keep the Idaho population between the 518 counted in 2005 and 732. "We're going to manage for a viable, healthy population," Nadeau said. "We've managed big game for a long time, and we're good at it." Still, he said the department planned to take a conservative approach the first several years while it learns how to manage wolves....
'It's really been a bad deal' Wolves are starting to ruin what used to be an elk-hunting paradise, according to the president of the Dubois Outfitters Association. Fritz Meyer wishes more people would take note. While many citizens and government officials celebrate the recovery of gray wolves in the Northern Rockies, Meyer said he believes the mid-1990s federal reintroduction of wolves into Yellowstone National Park was a terrible mistake from the start. Not only has it hurt his business, he said, but it has taken a serious toll on elk herds in the Upper Wind River Valley. "The one thing that's really been sad to a lot of us is since the reintroduction of wolves, we've seen a steady decline in our elk and moose numbers," Meyer said. "Today somebody will come up and tell you when they see a moose. In the past we used to see them everywhere." Meyer has owned an outfitting business in Dubois for about 20 years and has been a guide for more than 30, he said. In previous years, a significant part of Meyer's business was guiding elk hunters on "antlerless" hunts. "Now the wolves are thinning the herds, and there are not many left for hunters," he said. "That hurts the whole community here, because the hunters spend money in the motels, gas stations, restaurants. And this is just one small area -- it's hurting the whole state the same way."....
'A real efficient killer' One morning Joe Thomas sat atop a hill with binoculars, scanning his pasture land, when he spotted two wolves coming down from the timberline. They approached his 1,000 head of cows from two different directions, picked out a small group and started herding them around. "The older ones were teaching the younger ones how to hunt," Thomas said. "They were working in a half circle, like a good set of stock dogs would. I got to witness the whole thing." Over the years, wolves have killed about 20 calves on Thomas's ranch near the Greybull River, 20 miles west of Meeteetse. Last year the canines killed six. "They are a really efficient killer," he said. It was a dumb thing to reintroduce wolves into the Northern Rockies, Thomas said, but now that they're here, he's learned to adapt, and he said he's accepted that Wyoming will need to manage them for the long run. Thomas's ranch lies within Wyoming's trophy game management zone, as defined by the state's management plan, which means it will be illegal, in most cases, to kill a wolf there without a permit. But after delisting, a provision in the plan allows stockgrowers to shoot wolves if they are attacking or "harassing" livestock. Thomas, however, isn't overly excited about the prospect of the new provision. "It's not as easy as they make it sound, because it's your word against somebody else's," Thomas said. "Instead, I think it will be better to just take pictures, cover the evidence with a tarp and work with the game warden."....
Embattled ag undersecretary makes no apologies for timber policies He overhauled federal forest policy to cut more trees -- and became a lightning rod for environmentalists who say he is intent on logging every tree in his reach. After nearly seven years in office, Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey still has a long to-do list. Near the top: Persuade a federal judge to keep him out of jail. Rey, a former timber industry lobbyist who has directed U.S. forest policy since 2001, also wants to set up state rules making it easier to build roads in remote national forests and to restore overgrown, unhealthy forests by clearing them of small trees and debris that can stoke wildfires. And he wants to streamline cumbersome regulations that can paralyze actions on public lands. A Montana judge, accusing Rey of deliberately skirting the law so the Forest Service can keep fighting wildfires with a flame retardant that kills fish, has threatened to put him behind bars. For Rey, who faces a court date Tuesday, the prospect of jail time is daunting. But it's just one more obstacle as he attempts to rid federal policies of pesky paperwork and endless litigation that slows forest managers from cutting down trees....And so far as I know, he hasn't changed one single grazing regulation left over from the Clinton Administration. If you know why grazing has been left out of the regulatory changes of the Forest Service, please share it with me. For the last eight years it would be interesting to know: Did the total number of animal units grazed increase or decrease? Did the number of range improvements authorized increase or decrease? Did the number of vacant allotments increase or decrease? What significant changes in Forest Service grazing policy did our national livestock organizations propose and how many were implemented?
Boom a boost - but is it best? This desolate one-time cattle town is poised to become the Western Slope's next oil-and-gas boomtown. With Chevron beefing up operations to the north and EnCana to the east, town officials are bracing for a development rush seen by the likes of Parachute and Battlement Mesa. Prospects for rapid growth are setting up a classic boomtown debate. Some welcome the anticipated economic boost; others fear the town will lose its historic character. Already, the surge in activity has pulverized the bridge over the Colorado River at the town's entrance, forcing Mesa County and the state to spend $1.6 million on an upgrade. A Kum & Go gas station and quick-service restaurant, the town's first commercial chain, is set to break ground in August and open in December at the De Beque exit off Interstate 70, about 30 miles east of Grand Junction. A 100-room motel is being discussed for adjacent land. Schlumberger, the world's largest oil-field- services company, confirmed last week that it is acquiring about 375 acres across the interstate for an operations center. In January, a Montana rancher bought the nearby Nichols Ranch for $2.8 million with plans to turn it into a 526-acre mixed-used development with 1,200 single-family and multi-unit homes. The action is swirling around a dusty town that sits in the heart of oil-and-gas country but tallies a 2006 Census Bureau population of just 481....
Montana FWP ignores ranchers, landowner concerns The Montana Stockgrowers Association (MSGA) is asking Montana’s ranchers, landowners, outfitters, and sportsmen to denounce the Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks (FWP) Commission’s recently adopted archery elk permit proposal. Despite overwhelming comment in opposition and historical amounts of comment from ranchers, landowners, outfitters, local businesses, local governments, and many archery sportsmen, Montana’s FWP Commission voted to severely reduce elk archery permits. What was presumed to be a proposal for just the Missouri River Breaks ended up spanning twenty-three vast Montana hunting districts. The goal of this change is a veiled attempt to eliminate the certainty of outfitter licenses and to eliminate the leasing of private land for hunting. Elk populations in Montana are greater than ever and one of the tools to increase elk harvests has just been arbitrarily discarded by the commission. It appears as though the commission’s intent is to manipulate access to private land, not manage wildlife, said Montana Stockgrowers....
Growth cap under fire in name of land preservation Citing concerns that development could get out of hand, Douglas County's commissioners expressed concerns about a measure that could exempt ranchers from the county's growth cap, provided they cluster their developments. "We provided a density bonus for ranchers. To exempt them from the building permit allocation system skirts the intent of the growth ordinance. I have a problem with that," said Commissioner David Brady. "The unintended consequences have not been thought out fully and could have wide-ranging effects." In an effort to preserve open space and encourage ranching in Carson Valley, commissioners approved a ranch heritage ordinance in January, giving ranchers the right to increase their allotment for clustered development on agricultural parcels, the number of homes they can develop, by 150 percent. In exchange, the balance of the property, or 70 percent, is to be held in a conservation easement and the water rights are tied to the land. The ranch heritage parcel provision was approved in January and in February, a proposal was introduced that would exempt ranchers from Douglas County's building allotment, an additional perk....
Tales of old roads and past settlers in landlocked trial Gates, the owner of Nevada County Free Range Beef, was the latest witness to testify in an ongoing civil case between Garfinkel and defendants Nevada County Land Trust and Bill and Anna Trabucco. Gates leases land from the Trabuccos to run his cattle. Garfinkel is the owner of what he calls a landlocked piece of land that sits adjacent to land owned by the Trabuccos. He wishes to access his property by crossing the Trabuccos' land using roads he said have existed since the Gold Rush. The defendants argue no such roads exist and to allow access would invalidate a conservation easement. Earlier in the week, an historian called on by Garfinkel's lawyer presented old assessor records from the 1800s showing taxed property owned by people who lived in structures around Garfinkel's property, said his wife, Susie Garfinkel. She contends if people lived on the property, they must have had a road to get there. "It's undeniable. There were people here," Susie Garfinkel said. On Wednesday, Ian Garfinkel testified that several years ago Gates pointed to his property and told him an old stage coach road traversed it....
Colorado considers recruiting farm workers from Mexico Each year, when many people are finishing up their Christmas lists, Colorado rancher Angela Ryden starts wading through red tape so she can get two legal guest workers from Mexico to help her during calving season in March. That’s the plan. Last year, even with the help of an employment agency, the two workers from Michoacan arrived a month late because of a paperwork problem. By then, half of Ryden’s calves had been born and three had died at her New Castle ranch on the western slope of the Rocky Mountains. “It’s something every year and it seems like they change the rules all the time,” Ryden said of the federal H2-A visa program for farm workers. Frustrated with the federal bureaucracy and Congress’ failure to pass immigration reform, two Colorado lawmakers have proposed taking over a large part of the application process and opening offices in Mexico to find people who can arrive in time to pick the state’s crops and run cattle. Arizona is considering setting up its own temporary worker program to help all kinds of businesses suffering labor shortages....
Where were the USDA inspectors? The biggest meat recall in the history of the world topped the domestic news last week: 143-million pounds of beef, processed over the last two years, now scattered throughout the nation's schools and fast-food joints - all recalled. The USDA had little choice. An animal rights group released videotape of "downer" cows being pushed around by a fork lift, and being dragged across filthy floors, before joining healthy cows on the hamburger highway. The big question raised by everyone is, where were the USDA inspectors? Food safety is the most important responsibility of the USDA. The problem at the Hallmark/Westland Meat Packing Company in Chino, California, occurred two years ago. Had the secret video never appeared, the meat would have never been recalled. Why can the public not depend upon the USDA to keep the food safe during the processing operation? The USDA has misplaced priorities. For the last several years, the top priority at the USDA has not been food safety, but the creation of a National Animal Identification System (NAIS). Nearly $150-million has been spent on promoting NAIS. This money would have been better spent on more inspectors to oversee the meat processing plants. NAIS money is often spent to bribe non-government organizations into a Public/Private Partnership to promote the NAIS. The Future Farmers of America were paid $633,000 to encourage FFA kids to get their parents to register their property into the program. In fact, if an analysis of the not-for-profit organizations that are promoting NAIS were published, it would be a pretty complete list of where the USDA's $150-million NAIS money went....
Mexico to reopen borders to imports of Canadian calves next month Mexico will reopen its border to imports of Canadian calves, ending a ban imposed after a 2003 outbreak of mad cow disease in Canada, the government said Saturday. Starting in March, Mexican ranchers will be allowed to import female cattle under 2½ years old for beef and dairy breeding, the Agriculture Department said. The animals will have to come from herds with no history of the disease.
'Animal rights activists gone wild' - no laughing matter We live in an era where one day it's perfectly legal and essential to water board a prisoner in order to obtain crucial intelligence information for the war on terror, and the next it's considered torture and illegal. Trying to come to an agreement on what constitutes inhumane treatment can be very difficult not only in regards to people but for animals as well. The recent debate sparked by a proposed county ordinance to ban Mexican-style rodeos, charreadas, further illustrates how we as a society are becoming more and more isolated and detached from our natural environment. The methods a rancher uses to move a 2,000 pound bull might seem cruel to those who have never worked with large livestock. In fact, any attempts by a rancher to justify those methods can be futile and fall on deaf ears of animal rights advocates. That's because for many animal rights advocates, any form of animal use, whether for food, clothing, or entertainment, is considered cruel or inhumane, and in some extreme cases even pet ownership falls into that category. By pushing this agenda - that animals do not exist for human use -- while concealed behind the cloak of animal cruelty, some of these advocate groups play a role in further isolating the interactions between people and animals....
Animal Producers From Mars, Animal Lovers From Venus? A woman from Australia married a dolphin recently. Sound impossible? It is just one of countless stories of the new roles animals play in people’s lives. “Animal welfare has absolutely nothing to do with animals,” says Wes Jamison, a professor of agricultural and natural resource politics. Jamison has been studying the animal rights and welfare movement for nearly two decades. He spoke here at the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) Young Farmer and Rancher Leadership Conference last weekend, proposing the notion that “animal producers are from Mars and animal lovers are from Venus” (a takeoff on the popular book called “Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus”). The challenge lies in that agriculture is a small minority in this country. Only about 3 million out of the country’s 304 million people are in animal agriculture. Problems arise when the world of the consumer and animal agriculture collide. “You have a society and culture that does not understand what you do,” he said....

The roping blame game
Cowgirl Sass & Savvy

By Julie Carter

Clearly, it’s nearly spring. One indicator is the ropers’ magazines and papers are teeming with new events offering incentives prizes of big cash, saddles, trailers and fancy pickups.

It is enough to send a roping addict to a padded room when the weather refuses to cooperate with his itch, and definite need, to practice.

This adds immeasurable value to any warm, clear days that might show up after a long winter of miserable roping weather.

One such long wet, cold spell was just ending and Jesse and Dan were planning on making up for lost roping time.

Dan and his prize roping horse Slats rode into the arena.

“Man, Jesse, the arena looks good.”

Dan had not really looked the arena over, but he knew that Jesse always liked a compliment for the hour or so he’d spent running the harrow over the sand.

Even though that wasn’t the case this day, Jesse took the compliment anyway and they proceeded to warm up their horses.

Because they were turned out to pasture during the cold weather, the steers were spunky and fresh.

Ready for the first run, Jesse backed into the heading box, pulled his hat down tighter even though his ears were already at a 90-degree angle, pushed his shades up, scratched his backside, tucked his rope and nodded for the steer.

Dan, on the heeling side, made similar preparations and, thinking to encourage his horse a little, told him “OK Slats, don’t do nothin’ stupid.”

The first steer broke from the box as if he was on a too-tight bungee cord.

Jesse reached and roped him.

Slats had not calculated the “catastrophe response” necessary for this steer and was just a tick late. No problem, they had him captured anyway, faced and full of themselves with the success.

“Ain’t nothin’ to this roping - we just needed a little rest,” commented one of the loopers.

The chute help, keeping quiet counsel, thought to herself, “Something comes to mind about fools rushing in.”

Imminently, it would be apparent that the steers had all been “reprogrammed” during their weather-induced respite.

The next steer had developed a broken “rudder.” He broke from the chute, took a hard left directly in front of the heading horse and escaped to the corner of the arena.

The one after that decided to come to a complete stop just as the head loop was launched.

The trend continued as a couple more steers showed that they, too, had developed head tricks that made life complicated for the ropers.
Jesse and Dan took a break to plot strategy, knowing their current plan was not working well. Their calculated decision was to let the cattle out of the chute a little further, trick them into thinking nobody was in hot pursuit and then snare them with a big seine-style loop.

With that design in mind, when the next steer was out, Jesse’s head loop settled around the horns as soft as Mexico rain and he pulled the slack perfectly. They went left, made the corner and Dan scooped up the back feet with ease.

Cowboy style and grace will prevail every time. It will, also, exit just as quickly as it arrived.

Likely, bad weather roping days are not yet over, but ropers the world over are counting on spring bringing major-league success to each of them.

Meanwhile back at the roping pens, no doubt about it, the steers are plotting how to foil that grand idea. Ask any roper that had a bad run and, usually, his first blame will fall on the cattle.

“We’d have been a six if that steer wouldn’t have ducked his head!”

Visit Julie’s web site for updated blog or to order her book, Cowgirl Sass & Savvy

FLE

'Any person' has right to gun, state says Montana officials are saying that the United States already has resolved any questions about the 2nd Amendment's application, defining that "any person" has the right to bears arms. That's the issue at hand in a pending U.S. Supreme Court case originating in the District of Columbia, where authorities have banned handguns under the claim that such a limit is "reasonable" and therefore enforceable even given the rights granted by the 2nd Amendment. But officials in Montana, including dozens of state lawmakers as well as Secretary of State Brad Johnson, have joined together in a statement that the U.S. already has determined the application, and 2nd Amendment rights apply to "any person." In a joint resolution from the Montana leaders, including Congressman Denny Rehberg, they caution that should the Supreme Court decide to change the U.S. interpretation of the 2nd Amendment and allow those rights to apply only collectively, it would violate the contract under which Montana entered the union as a state. "The Montana Resolution cautions that a collective rights decision would violate the Montana contract for statehood because when that contract was entered the collective rights interpretation had not yet been invented and the individual rights view was an accepted part of the contract," an announcement from the leaders said. "A collective rights decision in [the pending court case] Heller would not only violate Montana's contract for statehood, but also Montana's customs, culture and heritage. We hope the Supreme Court will recognize and credit the contract argument, an argument unmentioned in any of the briefs submitted in the Heller case," said Gary Marbut, the president of the Montana Shooting Sports Association. The Montana contract is archived as Article I of the Montana Constitution. At the time the then-territory's "Compact with the United States" was agreed to by Congress, the Montana Constitution included the "right of 'any person' to bear arms," the group said....Go here to see the resolution and here to view the supporting argument.
Hearing Is Delayed on Contract for Ashcroft A Congressional hearing into lucrative no-bid contracts awarded by federal prosecutors has been postponed because the Justice Department has not indicated whether a leading witness, the United States attorney for New Jersey, Christopher J. Christie, will testify, Representative Frank Pallone Jr. said on Wednesday. The hearing, which had been scheduled for next Tuesday, was intended to review the process by which United States attorneys have selected law firms to monitor deferred prosecution agreements with corporations. While such arrangements have been used by United States attorneys across the country, Mr. Christie granted such a contract to his former boss, John Ashcroft. Awarding that 18-month contract, worth from $28 million to $52 million, to the former United States attorney general to monitor a medical prosthetics company has elicited criticism from Congressional Democrats, who have asked the Government Accountability Office to investigate....
Ex-border agent will fight fence 'tooth and nail' Charles "Dob" Cunningham patrolled the rugged shoreline of the Rio Grande here for more than 30 years as a U.S. Border Patrol agent. Now retired, he operates an 800-acre cattle ranch along two miles of the river that has been in his family for more than a half century. Illegal aliens and drug smugglers moving across his property have cut down his fences, created well-worn paths over his sprawling pastures, stolen ranch equipment and slaughtered and rustled his cattle. A pile of inner tubes used by those crossing the river sits near the corner of one his storage buildings, each shot "through and though" by the 74-year-old retired agent "so they won't be used again." One might assume that he would embrace a $1.2 billion government plan to build 370 miles of fence on the U.S.-Mexico border, including 65 miles stretching from the neighboring towns of Eagle Pass to the south and Del Rio on the north that would put a 15-foot high metal barrier along the river on his property. One might, but one would be wrong. "We don't need a fence here," Mr. Cunningham said, showing a wide smile under his dusty cowboy hat. "It might make some folks in Washington happy, but it would do little more here than to cut off our access to the river, to water — not just for our cattle but for the abundance of migrating wildlife that can be found all along this river. "I'm against this fence and I will fight it tooth and nail," he said. "And while a country has a right to secure its borders and fences do work in some places where there is nothing but sand and a straight line of sight, they won't work here. The politicians in Washington ought to know that." Instead of building a fence along the river in this remote and rugged area of south Texas, Mr. Cunningham thinks the government ought to be putting more "boots on the ground," demanding aggressive patrols and making better use of technology, including sensors and security cameras....
Arizona 'Virtual Fence' Gets Final OK A 28-mile "virtual fence" that will use radars and surveillance cameras to try to catch people entering the country illegally has gotten final government approval. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff announced approval of the fence on Friday. The fence, built by the Boeing Co., uses technology the government plans to extend to other areas of the Arizona border, as well as to sections of Texas. The projects could get under way as early as this summer, said department spokeswoman Laura Keehner. The virtual fence is part of a national plan to secure the southwest border with physical barriers and high-tech detection capabilities intended to stop illegal immigrants on foot and drug smugglers in vehicles. As of Thursday, 302 miles of fencing had been constructed. Chertoff said the virtual fence already is working. The virtual fence system includes 98-foot unmanned surveillance towers that are equipped with an array of sophisticated technology including radar, sensors and cameras capable of distinguishing people from cattle at a distance of about 10 miles. The cameras are powerful enough to tell group sizes and whether people are carrying backpacks that may contain weapons or drugs....
Higher Civil Fines Against Employers for Immigration Violations Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey today announced higher civil fines against employers who violate federal immigration laws. The announcement was made in a joint briefing today with Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff about newly enacted border security reforms put in place by the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security. Under the new rule, which was approved by Attorney General Mukasey and Secretary Chertoff, civil fines will increase by as much as $5,000. The new rule will take effect on March 27, 2008, and will be published in the Federal Register early next week. Under the Immigration and Nationality Act, employers who violate employment eligibility requirements are subject to civil monetary penalties. Employers may be fined under the Act for knowingly employing unauthorized aliens or for other violations, including failure to comply with the requirements relating to employment eligibility verification forms, wrongful discrimination against job applicants or employees on the basis of nationality or citizenship, and immigration-related document fraud. For each of these violations, the employer has the right to a hearing before an administrative law judge in the Executive Office for Immigration Review. Under the new rule and applicable law, civil penalties for violations of the Immigration and Nationality Act are adjusted for inflation. Because these penalties were last adjusted in 1999, the average adjustment is approximately 25 percent....
More Iraqis with false passports found in Mexico Another two Iraqis with false Bulgarian passports were detected and detained at the airport in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon. Now, Mexican officials are reportedly investigating "a network that could be made up of Mexicans operating in Greece who are selling false Bulgarian passports for ten thousand dollars to European and Middle Eastern citizens." Last year 28 illegals from Iraq were detected at the airport in Monterrey (El Porvenir said there were 23, seventeen of them in a single event) The latest two, "Wisam Gorgies", 34 yr. old male, and "Rana Nazar Peyoz", 26 yr. old female, flew from Madrid and said they obtained the false passports in Greece; their aim was to reach the United States.
The two are to be taken to Saltillo, Coahuila, for further determination of their status.
Courts unable to keep up with border arrests The government has started cracking down on illegal border crossers in the Tucson Sector. But limited resources in Arizona's federal-court system are blocking the goal of prosecuting everyone who enters the country illegally. The Border Patrol has referred 757 cases to authorities since the government began prosecuting illegal crossers in the Tucson area on Jan. 14. Up to 42 are prosecuted daily, and there are plans to prosecute up to 100 cases a day in the busiest human-smuggling area on the border. But federal courts in Tucson can hold only 60 immigration defendants a day, and even if they could handle the 100-a-day workload, that amounts to prosecuting only 10 percent of those arrested by the Border Patrol. Still, officials expect the threat of prosecution and prison time to deter illegal crossers. The Operation Streamline policy, which has proved effective in the Yuma Sector and two parts of Texas, involves filing charges against nearly everyone caught crossing the border illegally....
Eminent Domain? Only If You're Rich There seems to be a few planned holes in Homeland Security's proposed border wall. Not holes for people like Eloisa Tamez, for whom the proposed 18-foot wall would go directly through her backyard and destroy her property. No, those are holes planned in the wall for multi-million dollar resorts and homes: While the border wall will go through her backyard and effectively destroy her home, it will stop at the edge of the River Bend Resort and golf course, a popular Winter Texan retreat two miles down the road. The wall starts up again on the other side of the resort. Just 69 miles north, Daniel Garza, 76, faces a similar situation with a neighbor who has political connections that reach the White House. In the small town of Granjeno, population 313, Garza points to a field across the street where a segment of the proposed 18-foot high border wall would abruptly end after passing through his brick home and a small, yellow house he gave his son. "All that land over there is owned by the Hunts," he says, waving a hand toward the horizon. "The wall doesn't go there." In this area everyone knows the Hunts. Dallas billionaire Ray L. Hunt and his relatives are one of the wealthiest oil and gas dynasties in the world. Hunt, a close friend of President George W. Bush, recently donated $35 million to Southern Methodist University to help build Bush's presidential library....
Chertoff denies border-community snub Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff yesterday rebutted accusations by city and county officials on the Texas-Mexico border that the department had failed to consult with them about the construction of a border fence, but he said he is not willing to debate the issue "endlessly." "Now in building this fence, you know, we seek the cooperation of landowners, state and local leaders and members of the border communities," Mr. Chertoff said. "We do interact. We are willing to listen to concerns. We're willing to have suggestions. "On the other hand, as I've made clear, we're not willing to have endless debate. We're not willing to kick the can down the road indefinitely," he continued. "We have made a commitment to the American people to get the job done, and we are going to live up to that commitment."....
Real ID: Security From What, May I Ask? Another measure being implemented in the name of protection and security is the Read ID Act (RIDA). Last week, former Congressman Bob Barr (R-GA) wrote a piece in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on the threats to our liberty inherent in this act. Let me briefly summarize. * The Tenth Amendment forbids Uncle Sam to regulate state-issued driver's licenses and identification cards. * The RIDA would undermine the First Amendment right to petition for redress of grievances by requiring a RIDA-compliant card to enter any federal building, including the office of your congressman or senator. * The RIDA would undermine the Second Amendment by requiring a RIDA-compliant card in order to purchase a firearm. * The RIDA could undermine the Ninth Amendment by requiring RIDA-compliant card to board an airplane or even to travel between states. (Ze papers, please.)* Citizens could be required to show a RIDA-compliant card in order to vote in federal elections. * A veteran could be denied access to a VA hospital because he or she did not possess the required RIDA-compliant card. * Under RIDA, you would have no recourse to correct erroneous information or fight identity theft....
GOA Blasts Michael Sullivan As "Unfit for Office" Gun Owners of America's Executive Director, Larry Pratt, today blasted BATFE nominee Michael Sullivan as "unfit for office" -- characterizing him as being "as anti-gun as Ted Kennedy." In a series of answers to interrogatories submitted by Louisiana Republican Senator David Vitter, Sullivan revealed that: * He would not rescind BATFE's policy of revoking federal licenses for simple paperwork violations not involving "criminal intent;" * He would not back down on BATFE's illegal and abusive policies of harassing gun show attendees; * He supports anti-gun legislation by New York Democrat Chuck Schumer, but opposes pro-gun legislation dealing with interstate transfers sponsored by conservative Republicans; * He defends revoking a license of a dealer with a 99.96% accuracy rate -- a rate which is far better than BATFE's. In fact, in dozens of responses to questions posed by Vitter, Sullivan refused to even feign a conciliatory tone....
Error let's FBI spy on entire email network The FBI on Friday revealed that human error led to surveillance of an entire email network back in 2006, rather than the single email address approved by the secretive court which approves domestic wiretaps and other forms of e-surveillance. Although the alleged mistake came to light in an Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) Freedom of Information Act (FIA) lawsuit, the internet service provider involved remains unpublished, due to the classified nature of the work involved. Back doors were built into the nation's telecommunications infrastructure back in the mid-nineties which allow for almost immediate real-time surveillance of phone conversations - cellular or otherwise - emails, and other forms of electronic communications that pass through the networks of the telecommunications industry. The ISP involved allegedly misinterpreted a warrant for one email address to be a warrant for - ahem - the entire network. This kind of mass negligence is really only the flip-side of a surveillance system that allows for almost immediate mass surveillance by the government and its cronies in the telecommunications industry. This latest controversy comes as President Bush continues to demand that Congress provide retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies involved with illegal warrantless wiretapping of American citizens, and is sure to fan the flames of that ongoing debate....
The invasion of America When President Nixon was in his pre-Watergate heyday, he ordered the FBI and the CIA to electronically monitor the private behavior of his domestic political adversaries. Shortly after Nixon resigned, investigators discovered hundreds of reports of break-ins and secret electronic surveillance. None of it was authorized by warrants, and thus all of it was illegal. But it had been conducted pursuant to the president's orders. Nixon's defense was, "When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal." He made that infamous statement in a TV interview years after he left office, but the attitude espoused was obviously one he embraced while in the White House. He, like his present-day successor, rejected the truism that the 4th Amendment of the Constitution, which prohibits the government from conducting electronic surveillance of anyone without a search warrant issued by a judge based on probable cause of a crime, restrains the president. In response to the abuses during the Nixon administration, Congress enacted the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, in 1978. The law provides that no electronic surveillance may occur by anyone in the government at any time under any circumstances for any reason other than in accordance with law, and no such surveillance may occur within the U.S. of an American other than in accordance with the 4th Amendment. The 4th Amendment was written in response to the Colonial experience whereby British soldiers wrote their own search warrants, thus literally authorizing themselves to enter the private property of colonists. The amendment has been uniformly interpreted by the courts to require a warrant by a judge; and judges can only issue search warrants after government agents, under oath, have convinced the judges that it is more likely than not that the things to be seized are evidence of crimes. This standard of proof is called probable cause of crime. It is one of only two instances in which the founders wrote a rule of criminal procedure into the Constitution itself, surely so that no Congress, president or court could tamper with it....