Tougher Pollution Rules Issued for Ships, Locomotives Diesel-powered locomotives, ships, ferries and tugboats will have to eliminate 90 percent of the soot and 80 percent of the nitrogen oxides in their exhaust by 2030 under tougher air-pollution standards issued by the Environmental Protection Agency yesterday. "Today EPA is fitting another important piece into the clean diesel puzzle by cleaning emissions from our trains and boats," EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson said, adding that the nation's "diesel rule has reached its final stop on its journey to deliver cleaner air to all Americans." Over the past decade, pollution from diesel-powered cars, SUVs, trucks and off-road vehicles has been cut by a series of rules that curb emissions of fine particles and smog-causing chemicals. Environmental groups, which had criticized the EPA this week for setting new limits on smog-causing ozone at a level higher than recommended by the agency's independent scientific advisers, applauded yesterday's action....
Future Cars May Save Gas But Waste Water Efforts to wean America's automobiles off gasoline are running into the law of unintended consequences. Methanol wears out engine components, and corn-based ethanol has squeezed corn supplies. Even bypassing liquid fuel altogether may be problematic: New research suggests that flooding the roads with plug-in vehicles could cause a significant, though potentially manageable, drain on regional water sources. Present-day hybrid vehicles employ a small electric motor--in addition to an internal-combustion engine--to improve fuel efficiency. Plug-ins represent the next step in green car evolution. Still in development, they will use advances in battery technology to allow car owners literally to plug into the electric power grid and recharge overnight. A hypothetical plug-in vehicle would require up to 30 kilowatt/hours of electricity to recharge for a typical day's driving. It may not sound like much, but multiplied by millions of plug-in cars on the road within the next decade, the drain on water resources would add up. That's because electricity comes from very large--steam--turbine generators and nuclear reactors, which must be cooled with water pumped in from streams and rivers....
Getting right with law, getting to work on air It turns out that it could have been worse, or might have been better, depending on one's point of view about the breathability of Hoosier air. When the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued new ozone standards Wednesday, bumping the Indianapolis area and much of the rest of the state onto the dirty list at the stroke of a pen, Gov. Mitch Daniels cried foul. Several counties, including nine in Central Indiana, had reached compliance only last year after being in violation since 2004, he noted. Now, they were back to square one, or at least back a few squares, in their struggle to attract and expand business. A different reaction came from environmentalists and public health advocates, who said the new, tougher standards were most welcome from both a medical and an economic standpoint, and too bad they were not stricter yet. Well, it seems they might have been. Press reports soon after release of the regulations indicate that an 11th-hour intervention by President Bush resulted in a higher threshold for ozone than that which the EPA's experts -- who normally are deferred to in these decisions -- sought....
Grouse threatens West The most fearsome creature in the Rocky Mountain West these days isn't the grizzly bear, mountain lion or even the gray wolf. It's a plump, ground-dwelling bird with a homely name — sage grouse — that has the potential to bring the mineral and agriculture industries of the rural West to their knees. The Fish and Wildlife Service began on Feb. 26 a status review on whether to list the sage grouse under the Endangered Species Act. The agency had little choice: In December, a federal judge in Idaho ordered the review after finding problems with a 2005 decision against listing the bird as endangered or threatened under the act. Now many Westerners are genuinely concerned that the sage grouse could bring down their economies as much as the listing of the Northern spotted owl crippled the Pacific Northwest timber industry in the early 1990s. How bad would it be? "To be short and sweet, it would be devastating," said Josh Tewalt, a sheep rancher who serves as executive vice president of the Idaho Cattleman's Association. A decision to list the bird as threatened or endangered would put restrictions, possibly severe ones, on human activities, potentially including oil and gas drilling, ranching and any other development that could disturb or fragment the bird's habitat. A decision on whether to list the bird is due no later than May 2009, but Western state officials don't plan on twiddling their thumbs until then. They're aggressively pursuing strategies to boost the sage grouse's numbers, a proactive approach that began years before the December court ruling. Rarely does a week go by without sage-grouse activity, and this one is no exception: In Wyoming, the state agriculture department convenes its two-day Sage Grouse Conference tomorrow. In Colorado, Democratic Gov. Bill Ritter is slated to sign today the state's Greater Sage Grouse Conservation Plan, a state and federal conservation partnership....
Not seen for century, wolf kills sheep Her voice tinged with emotion and the video camera jiggling in her shaking hand, Tonya Martin filmed and narrated the scene she found behind her ranch home March 5 - five sheep had been killed by a wolf and another five were wounded, three of them, as it turned out, fatally. "In the end, it's hard to watch what your animals go through," said Martin, 36, while showing the location of the slaughter on Thursday. "It makes me question what the future will be with them." Martin was driving a tractor out to feed her cow-calf pairs around 8:30 a.m. on March 5 when her mother-in-law, Katherine Martin, spotted the big black wolf. The wolf trotted out of the brush, crossed the county road, went under a barbed-wire fence and paused to look back. "We knew what it was right away," she said. "Our first instinct was to go after it." At the time, Martin didn't know the wolf had killed five of her sheep. Had she known, the .222 rifle that always rides in the tractor could have been used to legally kill the wolf. It wasn't until the Martins investigated that they found the sheep flighty and hiding in the barren cottonwood trees along Big Elk Creek. Scattered around the drainage were five dead sheep and five others that were injured. A veterinarian was called to patch up the five injured sheep, most of them with torn throats, but only two of those survived. "I've never seen anything like it," Martin said. "Some were hamstrung, their legs were broken and twisted. I'd never seen kills like it before. The sheep were scared to death." "It was a sad day, because I know he'll be back, and he'll be back with friends."....
Guarding Galisteo As oil and gas companies sink more drills into Western soil, landowners often find themselves at the mercy of corporations and industry-friendly federal law. Citizens of Santa Fe County, N.M., however, are pushing the limits of local control and demanding a seat at the table. In Galisteo Basin, south of tony Santa Fe, ranchers and blue-collar laborers share fences with second-home owners and transplanted professionals. But when it comes to energy development, these New West neighbors have found a common voice. To what local reports call “thunderous applause,” Santa Fe County commissioners enacted a one-year drilling moratorium in February. The ban will keep drills out of the basin while the county researches the impacts of energy extraction. The county lacks oil and gas policies, says county spokesman Stephen Ulibarri, so it will use this research to draft rules for environmental and archaeological protection. The basin, which is rich in the remains of the Tano Puebloan culture, is one of the largest archaeological sites in the American Southwest, according to local researcher James Snead. The moratorium raises the question: In a decades-old clash that has historically favored mineral owners over landowners, does Santa Fe County have any weight to throw around? “Companies need a permit from the county to make sure they comply with county land-use regulations,” says Gwen Lachelt, director of the Oil and Gas Accountability Project. “That way the county can say, ‘What’s your plan, Tecton, for protecting water resources?’ ” And if the county’s regulations — on air and water protection, for example — are more stringent than state and federal rules, industry would have to respect that, she says....
Judge say aerial wolf control invalid in several areas A judge today (Friday) invalidated the aerial killing of wolves in several small areas of Alaska while issuing a ruling upholding the state predator control program. Superior Court Judge William F. Morse issued a lengthy ruling that took a look at the state's wolf control program, now operating in five areas of Alaska. The program is being challenged by Friends of Animals, Defenders of Wildlife and the Alaska Wildlife Alliance. The groups filed the lawsuit against the Alaska Department of Fish and Game and the Board of Game in 2006 in hopes of ending the aerial wolf control program. Alaska is divided up into 26 game management units. The lawsuit challenged the program in areas where it is authorized. Friends of Animals lawyer Michael Grisham says the judge found the program was valid in five areas, but failed to meet requirements in three others. Those areas are game units across Cook Inlet from Anchorage and two near Fairbanks. The areas where the judge found it wanting were where the game board decided to extend it last year. Grisham said the board lumped together several new areas for predator control without making any new findings on the wolves, caribou and bears in those areas. Board Game Chairman Cliff Judkins said the problems can be corrected through emergency regulation, something that will probably occur next week.
School aims to recruit sheep shearers During the winter months, Mike Schuldt is in such a high demand to shear sheep that he even spends his vacation harvesting wool. “With the lack of shearers out there, people are calling me,” said Schuldt, Blaine County’s agricultural extension agent. “I could shear full time.” Across Montana, 280,000 sheep need to be sheared between January and May. Desperate for people who know how to use the clippers, ranchers have hired traveling shearers from New Zealand and Australia to meet the demand, but they, too, have become scarce because of the weak American dollar. To combat the problem, Montana State University is hosting The Montana Wool Harvest and Sheep Shearing School through Thursday at its Red Bluff Research Ranch. The goal is to train and recruit people to shear sheep. At sheep-sheering school Friday, 15 students, and dozens of sheep, gathered in the green barn at MSU’s Research Ranch on state Highway 84....
Cattle business leader, 64, dies Paul Hitch, 64, and President and CEO of Hitch Enterprises and Hitch AgriBusiness, Inc., died Friday at Baptist St. Anthony Health System, after a yearlong battle with cancer. The Guymon, Okla., native was a fourth- generation Hitch, said Hitch Enterprises Executive Vice President Randy Hinds. "Paul was a strong family man, a Christian," Hinds said. "It's hard to say anything bad about Paul Hitch. He was a great community leader and great industry leader." His sons Jason and Chris will step up and take over the management of the company, Hinds said. Paul had been fighting cancer for a year....

All it takes is a good ropin' rock
Cowgirl Sass & Savvy

By Julie Carter

Dan comes from a long line of rodeo ropers and he loves and trusts every one of them to tell him like it is.

Periodically, like every roper, he will get in a slump. The roping cattle take on a more relaxed appearance. They know they are in no danger.

When this happens, Dan heads to visit Uncle Tex for a quick fix to his problems.

Dan is on the close side of 40, and every time he talks to Tex, he wonders why exactly Tex didn't tell him this particular magic tidbit when he was just a button. It's like his lips were sewed shut and Dan has to pry it out of him.

This educational meeting was set to take place at the local greasy spoon for breakfast. Tex showed up, listened attentively to the problem, and said, "Hmmmmm." That was all Dan got.

After they ate and got as many refills on the coffee as the café allowed, they wandered next door to the local cowboy "toy" store. They were still visiting and inspecting all the newest inventions like the Heel-O-Matic, Robosteer, Hot Heels, all the brightly colored ropes, new bits, new saddles and other essentials for the modern, techno-smart roper.

Dan was drooling, trying to figure which gadget would cure his current problem. Tex, of the old school, just looked.

They went on out to the ranch, still visiting and just fooling around. Like all cowboys, if they don't already have a fork in their hand, they pick up ropes and start throwing a few practice loops.

Not having gotten the fix to his roping problem, Dan decided to try again.

"You know, Tex, I'm kind of looking for a new horse."

Tex: "How come? Can't the one you got get to the other end of the arena?"

Dan: "Yeah, but I'm not roping too good on him."

Tex: "You ain't ropin' too good right now and there ain't a horse in sight. What's he do?"

Dan: "Well, he pretty regular bucks with me while I'm trying to rope."

Tex: "So ride him."

Dan: 'He ain't terrible fast either."

Tex: "Lose your spurs, boy?"

Dan: "You think one of those new pink ropes would help?"

Here's where the well rope story came in. You all know that one where if you are any count as a roper you can rope with a well rope.

Dan was about to think Tex wouldn't be able to cure his current difficulty, when Tex unzipped his lip.

He set the low-tech sawhorse they were roping at an angle where there was only about an inch clearance to the ground. He put a rock just to the right of the heels and told Dan to get his elbow up, tip down, feel his rope with his little finger, knock the rock through and catch the heels.

Seemed simple enough. Dan has been home a week and hasn't missed a set of doubles yet.

Probably if old Walt would have had a real good rock like that, it wouldn't have taken him that extra year to win his eighth Heeling World Championship.

I'm headed out to find me a good roping rock.

The Other Prostitution Scandal Politicians take people's money with a promise to fulfill desires that supposedly can't be attained any other way. Prostitutes do the same, though by reputation, they are more reliable in delivering. It's not surprising for people in the same line of work to gravitate toward one another, as Eliot Spitzer and a woman named Kristen reportedly did in a Washington hotel room....

Alaska's Real Bridge With oil now $111 a barrel, Alaska's senators are trying again to persuade Congress to let their state's massive untapped resources help bring prices down. How high do these prices have to go? It'll be a long, hot summer across America with pump prices expected to hit $4 a gallon. It's no longer doom talk; it's real. "Americans are getting fed up with astronomical oil prices being imposed by unstable foreign governments," said Sen. Ted Stevens, "and the problem is getting worse every day." He and fellow Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski are sponsoring a bill to drill for new oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Within just an 8% sliver of ANWR, some 10.4 billion barrels of oil may be recoverable, enough to beef up supply and cut prices. Stevens says he's been trying for 25 years to get such a bill passed, as 75% of Alaskans want. But he's always been thwarted by environmental lobbyists and errant fellow senators — including even John McCain — who busybody Alaskan affairs to everyone's detriment. This time Alaska's two senators are trying to sweeten the deal by setting the trigger point for ANWR drilling at $125 a barrel over five days and dedicating royalties to aid alternative energy. But the straightforward story right now is that our economy needs oil. Recession looms in part because businesses are being squeezed by high energy prices. Consumer spending is falling. OPEC isn't budging on production. And prices are going through the roof....

Our Thorny Oil Patch Valero will probably sell three of its 17 refineries this year and maybe two more later to focus on its core operations amid what CEO Bill Klesse acknowledged on Tuesday is a weak economy. But maybe that's because the environment for the energy business in the U.S. has turned downright hostile. Upstream, oil drilling is off-limits, crimping supply and driving prices ever higher. Downstream, refiners are hit by not only high energy prices, but also bureaucratic regulations, environmental lobbies and special interests that make moving to Asia, where economic growth is still valued, more attractive. The sorry fact that no new refinery has been built in America since 1983 has been cited so many times that we would have thought someone in Washington would have done something about it by now. But no — it just keeps getting worse. In 1982, the U.S. economy was served by 301 refineries. By 2007, the number had dwindled to 149. Productivity has kept output steady over the years at 17 million barrels a day. But the U.S. economy has grown by 125%....
Commission hears novel conservation idea Gallatin County Commissioners heard a presentation at their regular meeting Wednesday on how ranchers and farmers can create small homesteads incorporating conservation easements as a way of maximizing the value of their properties. Lane Coulston, owner of Missoula-based American Conservation Real Estate, told commissioners that ranchers with large parcels can use the homestead idea to plan for their futures while preserving their land and avoiding selling it to developers by following four simple steps, he said. First, a conservation easement is placed on the property, which limits development to one or more reserved parcels of land that can be used for secluded home sites, Coulston said. Then a buyer or buyers purchase the reserved home sites, along with a parcel of deeded land and recreation rights to the entire property, he said. The rancher retains the right to farm or ranch most of the buyer’s parcels, maintaining the land in agricultural use. Plus, the rancher can use the money earned from the transactions to plan for the future, pay bills or whatever else they wish, Coulston said. Coulston said the idea can help struggling ranchers make ends meet and help them get even more value out of their land, while preserving valuable agricultural land in perpetuity....
Wolf population grows by a third Montana’s wolf population increased 34 percent over the past year, to an estimated 422 wolves in 73 packs, the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks reported Thursday. The wolves are nearly equally distributed between northern and southern Montana, according to the agency’s annual wolf report, although the bulk of the population growth was in northwestern and far western Montana, where it increased by about 92 wolves, to 213. In the Greater Yellowstone area, the population increased by 14 wolves, to 209. Some of the growth can be chalked up to the birth of at least 163 wolf pups last year, the FWP report noted. But there were other reasons, too. “Our monitoring is getting better and we have hunters, landowners and many others taking the time to tell us where and when they see wolves or wolf sign,” Carolyn Sime, the FWP’s wolf management coordinator in Helena, said in a written statement....
Mineral County residents reject wilderness, Commissioners adopt resolution saying so In a 2 ½-hour meeting similar to the one in Smith Valley last week, nearly 200 Mineral County residents told three representatives to Nevada's congressional delegation to "Leave us alone!" when it comes to any wilderness designations in a Lyon-Mineral Lands Bill. Many of those residents meeting in the convention center in Hawthorne also heard for the first time a resolution adopted the previous day unanimously by the Mineral County Commissioners rejecting wilderness; and an appeal from that same commission to have Lyon and Esmeralda counties join them in such action. In response to requests from representatives Matt Tuma of Senator Reid's office, Kevin Kirkeby from Senator Ensign's office and Verita Prothro from Congressman Heller's office for public input, MC commissioner and liason to the delegation Jerrie Tipton introduced and read the county's resolution which drew a round of applause from the audience. The general session was then opened to comments and questions with a lengthy list of Mineral County residents -- and six from Lyon County -- voicing concerns and opposition to the Nevada Wilderness Project's proposals....
Expanded wilderness proposal could be hurting local effort The expanded version by the Nevada Wilderness Project isn't necessarily supported by local wilderness proponents and may actually be hurting chances that the original Wovoka Wilderness proposal will ever come to be. Mason Valley residents Steve Pellegrini and Art Shipley previewed (written by others) the original and much smaller wilderness proposal seeking 87,240 acres in the Wovoka Wilderness and about 10,715 in East Sister. That proposal came before the Lyon County Commissioners in September, 2005, and was rejected on a 5-0 vote. Pellegrini said he learned of the latest, expanded wilderness proposal from a wilderness group several days before it came out. "After that original proposal was turned down by the commissioners, it didn't really die, at least in our minds," said Pellegrini Monday. "We always thought maybe we could come back and talk reason and see if we could get it." Since that time the Nevada Wilderness Project looked at other areas and examined them for their wilderness potential, creating the latest proposal. "Right now, the expanded version is hurting our effort....
Packed house unanimous in opposition to wilderness proposal But the source of the sizeable crowd gathered at the school that night was a planned presentation, held as part of the Smith Valley Advisory Council meeting, on the proposed wilderness area designation for southern Lyon County and parts of Mineral and Esmeralda counties. And the comments expressed during the more than two-hour session attended by an estimated 500 people, were unanimously opposed to that wilderness designation, including several elected officials who attended the meeting as well. The presentation was organized by the newly-formed 'Coalition for Public Access' and drew a packed house to the SVHS gym. And those attending were not limited to Smith Valley residents, as the crowd drew folks from Mason Valley, Mineral and Douglas Counties, and other areas and organizations beyond. Representatives of Senators Harry Reid and John Ensign were in attendance, as was another representing Congressman Dean Heller, and each said the wilderness designation was not proposed by the Congressmen, but by the wilderness groups advocating the inclusion of land in the Lyon County/Mineral County lands bill....
Federal panel told off-highway riders taxing BLM A four-fold increase in off-highway vehicle use in the past decade has stressed federal land-management agencies' ability to respond, a congressional committee was told Thursday. Explosive growth in the West and aggressive marketing of off-highway vehicles (OHVs) "have generated increased social conflicts and resource impacts on the public lands," said Henri Bisson, deputy director of the Bureau of Land Management, which manages 258 million acres of federal land nationwide. Bisson said that as the BLM weighs the appropriate use of public lands, it is taking a careful look at off-highway vehicle access. The issue has been of particular interest in Utah, where the booming popularity of the recreation vehicles has increased traffic and tension in scenic areas of the state. Bisson said travel restrictions the BLM imposed on Utah's Factory Butte were a step toward protecting resources. An agency order in September 2006 limited motorized travel to designated trails over about 142,000 acres in order to protect threatened and endangered species, he added. Those restrictions will be in effect until the broader management plan for the Richfield area is released later this year....
Experts: Off-road vehicles threat to public lands The conflict and landscape damage caused by skyrocketing off-road vehicle use in national forests and public lands in recent years require new regulations and increased federal law enforcement efforts, officials said Thursday. “Unmanaged use of off-road vehicles is a crisis that federal land management agencies are failing to address,” said Chairman Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., at a hearing of the House Natural Resources subcommittee on parks, forests and public lands. Riders who ride off trails damage cultural sites, create safety risks and disturb wildlife habitat, Grijalva said. A recent poll of federal land enforcement agents reveals they see off-road vehicles as one of the biggest threats facing public lands, he added. Henri Bisson, deputy director of the BLM, cited a conservative estimate by the Motorcycle Industry Council that there are four times more off-highway vehicles in the West now than a decade ago. Management of off-road vehicles and balancing all public uses is a growing challenge, Bisson said. “The combined effect of population increase in the West, unauthorized user-created roads, explosive growth in the use of OHVs, advances in motorized technology, and intense industry marketing have generated increased social conflicts and resource impacts on the public land,” he said....
Off-Highway Vehicle Exec Tells Congress Active Trail Management is Working The top executive at one of the nation's leading off-highway vehicle recreation organizations told a Congressional panel today that active management of OHV use on federal lands is working and that the closure of public lands to the millions of Americans who enjoy motorized recreation would be "a step backward." Russ Ehnes, Executive Director of the National Off-Highway Vehicle Conservation Council (NOHVCC), made his remarks during a hearing on the impact of off-road vehicles on federal lands. The hearing was called by the Natural Resources Committee, Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands in the U.S. House of Representatives. Mr. Ehnes cited numerous examples where OHV management has been successful, including the Hatfield-McCoy Trail System in West Virginia, the Paiute ATV Trail in Utah and the San Bernardino National Forest in California. "Simply stated, trail systems can be successful by applying education, engineering, enforcement and evaluation," Mr. Ehnes said. "The results are high quality, environmentally sustainable trail systems that meet the needs and desires of the public."....
New Report Details Rollbacks for Idaho Backcountry The Center for Biological Diversity, WildWest Institute and more than 50 other local and national conservation organizations released a report today detailing the Bush administration's plan to open the door to development in Idaho's roadless backcountry forests - wildlands currently protected under the Roadless Area Conservation Rule. Idaho's 9.3 million acres of roadless backcountry make up the core of the last intact forest ecosystem in the lower 48 states - the last place where all of the native plants, fish and wildlife - from the smallest plant to the largest predator - can still be found. "Some of the largest and most spectacular roadless areas in Idaho are right over the border. Many western Montanans visit these spectacular areas to hike, camp, backpack, fish, hunt, ski and spend quality, quiet time with family and friends," explained Shannon Kindle with the WildWest Institute. "It's unfortunate that the Bush Administration, Forest Service and state of Idaho are considering significantly weakening protections for nearly 6 million acres of these backcountry, roadless forests." "We can either leave our last pristine forests as they are, or open the door to mining, logging and other corporate special interests," said Paul Spitler of the Center for Biological Diversity. "The Bush administration has chosen the latter." The report, titled "Wild At Heart: Saving the Last of America’s Roadless Backcountry," highlights key differences between the two plans: current management under the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule (RACR), and the Bush administration's proposed Idaho rule-part of the administrations new plan to undo roadless area protections on a state-by-state basis....
Protection sought for snails, slugs in Northwest forests Conservation groups want the federal government to protect 32 species of snails and slugs under the Endangered Species Act. Tierra Curry, a biologist for the Center for Biological Diversity, says that since the Bush administration took steps to allow more logging in old-growth Pacific Northwest forests, the snails and slugs are in danger of going extinct. The petition says they perform a critical role in the food web, consuming forest litter and in turn being eaten by wildlife. While all 32 species are rare, seven are known to inhabit only one or two locations, making them particularly susceptible to extinction.
State takes over wolf management in two weeks The state of Wyoming took another step Thursday in preparation for managing gray wolves, once their removal from federal endangered species protection goes into effect. Wolves will officially lose protection under the federal Endangered Species Act March 28, and Wyoming will take over management of the canine that day, barring a legal injunction against the decision. The Wyoming Game and Fish Commission adopted the Game and Fish Department’s proposed wolf management regulations at a meeting here Thursday, with one minor alteration. The commission cleaned up language in the rule to make it explicit that people in the designated trophy game area can use lethal force to protect their pet dogs from wolves, in the same way they can protect livestock and other domesticated animals. In order to fulfill statutes established in House Bill 213, in the 2007 state legislative session, the rule designates gray wolves in the northwest part of the state as trophy game animals, where the department will use "aggressive" methods for managing the population. As of March 28, wolves living outside of the designated northwest region will be considered predators, and managed similarly to the way coyotes and mountain lions are. The new rules also establish a program for compensating landowners and livestock owners for damage caused by wolves, including predation....
Slowing with the flow He stops and studies the water level in his canal. It's rising but still below a stain on the canal's concrete wall, a measuring point that Romo trusts implicitly through experience. In a few minutes, the water reaches the stain, meaning there is sufficient pressure for Romo to crank a rusty metal jack that opens a wooden gate. "Can lose a finger if you're not careful," he said. With a loud swooosh, a wall of water moves down his canal. For the next several hours, Romo will repeat this ritual again and again, harnessing gravity to shepherd the day's water through his corner of the valley. Romo is a zanjero -- pronounced sahn-her-o -- Spanish for overseer of the mother ditch. His job is to deliver prescribed amounts of Colorado River water to farmers served by the Imperial Irrigation District in southeastern California. It's a job rich in tradition, one that mirrors the settlement of the West and its complicated relationship with water. The zanjero was once the most powerful man in any community, entrusted with overseeing its most valuable resource. In early Los Angeles, he was paid more than the mayor. Long before he engineered the city's future, William Mulholland learned the nuances of water working as a zanjero. "He is the yea and nay of the arid land, the arbiter of fate, the dispenser of good and evil, to be blessed by turns and cursed by turns, and to receive both with the utter unconcern of a small god," said the Century Magazine in New York, describing the job in 1902. Today, the zanjero is an endangered species, his craft too imprecise, his tools too crude to look after water in a region ravaged by drought....
US west coast braced for ban on salmon fishing as stocks collapse America's west coast looks set to lose almost all of its wild salmon harvest this year, depriving fish retailers and restaurants around the world of one of their key sources of high-quality fish, and raising troubling questions about the viability of commercial fishing in an age of climate change and increased competition over water use. United States government regulators have already closed down the early fishing season along swathes of the west coast and are expected to issue a season-long ban in California and Oregon, in response to an unprecedented collapse in the region's salmon population. The unexpected shutdown will have a devastating effect on the 1,000 or so commercial salmon fishermen who ply their trade between California's Central Coast and the Oregon-Washington state line. It will kill the recreational salmon fishing industry, which attracts millions of anglers each year and generates about $4bn (£2bn) in benefits to the coastal economy. And it will drastically change the menu at restaurants and private houses on the west coast and far beyond....
The Controversy Behind NAIS Our lack of trust is warranted based on the USDA’s current tactics. While describing NAIS as voluntary at the federal level, the USDA has shifted its efforts to promoting implementation at the state level. This allows the USDA to proclaim its innocence without altering its original intent of forcing everyone who owns even one livestock animal into NAIS. Let me describe what is happening: USDA is funding states that have implemented mandatory portions of NAIS, such as Wisconsin, Indiana, and Michigan. USDA is also offering funding to other states provided they show progress in premises registration, which is the first prong of NAIS. The annual Cooperative Agreements between the states and the federal government define the number of farms that must be registered in the premises registration database by each state in order to receive the federal funding. In 2008, the USDA intensified their requirements and, for the first time, will require states to achieve mid-year performance targets to receive continued funding even for that year. Many states’ programs have budget constraints, so access to federal funding is important to them. What’s disturbing is how states are meeting these performance targets. A number of states involuntarily enrolled farmers who participate in other animal health programs, such as scrapie or Coggins testing, by taking the data they provided for the health program and placing it into the NAIS database without the farmers’ permission. These states then reported these “registrations” as “voluntary.” The USDA specifically stated that it would fund these kinds of data mined registrations. Other tactics have been directed at our children. Examples include offering to pay $10 to each 4-Her who gets his or her parents to register their farm, or making premises registration a requirement to participate in 4-H programs or in livestock shows at the County or State Fair. Some states have required registration for critical agricultural assistance. When hay became scarce during the recent severe drought in North Carolina, the state purchased and trucked in hay to be sold at cost to farmers. But to take advantage of this hay, farmers first had to register their farms in the NAIS database. Although described as “voluntary,” in truth these underhanded tactics coerce desperate people to go along with something in order to save their animals....
Super sheep outran police German police are trying to trace the owner of a sheep which outran police patrol cars and beat up a police dog. Police in the northern German village of Guester say the sheep ran through the streets of the town at more than 30mph. It reportedly leapt over the bonnets of police cars used as a road block to cut off its escape and even chased off pursuing police dogs with a few well aimed head butts. Officers eventually caught up with it after it jumped into a field and started tucking into the grass. A police spokesman said: "It was not an easy pursuit. The animal had quite a turn of speed on it. We have appealed for its owner to come forward."

FLE

The People vs. Michael Chertoff The government defended the wall as a necessary bulwark against the twin threats of illegal immigration and terrorism, and Chertoff employed the Declaration of Taking Act, an unusual and expedited condemnation process that denies citizens access to a full trial. Compounded by intimidation tactics that include repeated visits by uniformed Border Patrol agents and US army personnel, landowners have found themselves, until now, relatively powerless. Although eminent domain grants the government wide latitude and is notoriously difficult to contest, Tamez and seven other Cameron County landowners charged Chertoff and DHS with misuse of power. Represented by Peter Schey of the Los Angeles-based Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law, they argued that Chertoff had failed to follow requisite due process and violated federal law that prohibits the expedited condemnation process. "The law specifically provides that the secretary should explain to property owners what interest he seeks in their property and attempt to arrive at a 'fixed price' for that interest," explains Schey. "And then he may only proceed with normal condemnation proceedings in which a person is entitled to a full due-process trial." In a thirty-two-page ruling, federal judge Andrew Hanen agreed--partially. While affirming the right of landowners to negotiate over terms and compensation in land seizures, the court also ruled that DHS can move to condemn the land if the parties are unable to negotiate a fixed price....
Arizona city seeks moat to secure Mexico border Most plans to gain control of the porous U.S.-Mexico border focus on some combination of fence. But this city in far west Arizona is looking to build a moat. Faced with high-levels of crime and illegal immigration, authorities in Yuma are reaching back to a technique as old as a medieval castle to dig out a "security channel" on a crime-ridden stretch of the border and fill it with water. "The moats that I've seen circled the castle and allowed you to protect yourself, and that's kind of what we're looking at here," said Yuma County Sheriff Ralph Ogden, who is backing the project. The proposal seeks to restore a stretch of the West's greatest waterway, the Colorado River, which has been largely sucked dry by demand from farms and sprawling subdivisions springing up across the parched southwest and in neighboring California. The plan to revive the river, which drains from the Rocky Mountains through the Grand Canyon and runs for 23 miles (37 kilometres) along the border near Yuma, seeks to create a broad water barrier while also restoring a fragile wetland environment that once thrived in the area....
Border Measures Pushing Migrants to Sea The migrants board rickety boats in the dark, taking orders from inexperienced seamen. From sandy Mexican shores popular with weekend tourists, they can see downtown San Diego's lights when the sky is clear. Smugglers who charge them about $4,000 each for the illegal crossing often use two boats with different crews for the short trip, forcing them to change at sea, authorities say. That way, the hired hands will have less to tell if they are captured. U.S. officials and academics suspect heightened enforcement on land is pushing migrants to gamble their lives on the kind of dangerous voyages — on flimsy watercraft and with little regard for winter — more commonly associated with Cubans and Haitians braving the Florida Straits. "Anytime you put pressure on a point along the border, the traffic moves somewhere else," said Juan Munoz Torres, a spokesman for Customs and Border Protection. "The only thing left is the ocean." A spate of recent captures and discoveries of abandoned boats off California's coast climaxed shortly after sunrise Wednesday with a dramatic example of the increased risks that migrants are taking....
Audit: FBI privacy abuses rose in 2006 Top-level FBI counterterrorism executives issued improper blanket demands in 2006 for records of 3,860 telephone lines to justify the fact that agents already had obtained the data using an illegal procedure that is now prohibited, the Justice Department inspector general reported Thursday. Glenn A. Fine also reported that in one case FBI anti-terrorism agents circumvented a federal court which twice had refused a warrant for personal records because the judges believed the agents were investigating conduct protected by the First Amendment. Fine said the agents got the records using national security letters, which do not require a judge's approval, without altering or re-examining the basis of their suspicions — the target's association with others under investigation. These findings were highlighted in Fine's second report in two years on how the FBI has used broad authority to gather personal information about Americans granted by the USA Patriot Act and other statutes since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Fine reported last year that from 2003 through 2005 FBI agents sent more than 700 of these exigent, or emergency, letters to telecommunication companies to obtain telephone records quickly. Fine said the letters violated requirements of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act and Justice and FBI guidelines by falsely stating they were needed for specific national security investigations under grand jury investigation and that national security letters were being drafted to cover the requests. In fact, there were no specific grand jury investigations behind the requests and no NSLs were being prepared....
Right now, feds might be looking into your finances Each year, federal agents peek at the financial transactions of millions of Americans — without their knowledge. The same type of information that raised suspicions about New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer is reviewed every day by authorities to find traces of money laundering, check fraud, identity theft or any crime that may involve a financial institution. As concerns about fraud and terrorist financing grow, an increasing number of suspicious deposits, withdrawals and money transfers are being reported by banks and others to the federal government. Banks and credit unions as well as currency dealers and stores that cash checks reported a record 17.6 million transactions to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network in 2006, according to a report from the network, a bureau of the U.S. Treasury Department. The Treasury Department's database now contains records of more than 100 million financial transactions going back to at least 1996, said network spokesman Steve Hudak. Teams of agents from the FBI, IRS, Drug Enforcement Administration and other agencies regularly review newly filed financial reports and launch investigations. Federal and local authorities search the database to find information about people that can help ongoing probes. Treasury Department analysts study the reports to detect trends in fraud and issue reports alerting financial institutions....
Happy Birthday, DHS! The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) just turned five years old. It seems like it was born just yesterday. The department’s growing pains have made it a slow learner and a downright ugly child. Born in an atmosphere of tension and fear, and cobbled together from pieces of other government departments and agencies, the prospects for this Frankenstein offspring were always dim. Yet, as Congress frequently does in times of crisis, the legislative body, in the wake of 9/11, had to be seen as doing something—anything—to respond to the crisis, even if its actions were ineffective and even counterproductive. And predictably, the Department of Homeland Security has been a disaster. In the wake of the federal government’s failure to prevent or stop 9/11—when the principal problem was the failure of large, slothful security agencies to coordinate against a small, agile terrorist group—the last thing the country needed was another ponderous department. Yet Congress glued together 22 disparate agencies, superimposed another layer of bureaucracy on top of them to manage the new department, astronomically increased the department’s budget to $38 billion per year and its personnel from 170,000 to 208,000 employees, and oversaw the department’s activities with 86 congressional committees and subcommittees. In creating more bureaucracy to coordinate, Congress never told the American people exactly how security against nimble, non-bureaucratic terrorist groups would be enhanced. In fact, over its five years, the department has become the butt of jokes for its color-coded terror warning system, grossly incompetent response to Hurricane Katrina, pork-barrel spending, intrusive and largely ineffectual airline security, and expensive security projects gone awry....
W.'s Gun Battle Preparing to hear oral arguments Tuesday on the extent of gun rights guaranteed by the Constitution's Second Amendment, the U.S. Supreme Court has before it a brief signed by Vice President Cheney opposing the Bush administration's stance. Even more remarkably, Cheney is faithfully reflecting the views of President George W. Bush. The government position filed with the Supreme Court by U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement stunned gun advocates by opposing the breadth of an appellate court affirmation of individual ownership rights. The Justice Department, not the vice president, is out of order. But if Bush agrees with Cheney, why did the president not simply order Clement to revise his brief? The answers: disorganization and weakness in the eighth year of his presidency. Consequently, a Republican administration finds itself aligned against the most popular tenet of social conservatism: gun rights that enjoy much wider support than opposition to abortion or gay marriage. Promises in two presidential elections are abandoned, and Bush finds himself left of Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama....
D.C. Seeks Consent To Search for Guns D.C. police are so eager to get guns out of the city that they're offering amnesty to people who allow officers to come into their homes and get the weapons. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty and Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier announced yesterday the Safe Homes Initiative, aimed at parents and guardians who know or suspect that their children or other relatives have guns. Under the deal, police target areas hit by violence and seek adults who let them search their homes for guns, with no risk of arrest. The offer also applies to drugs that turn up during the searches, police said. The program is scheduled to start March 24 in the Washington Highlands area of Southeast Washington. Officers will go door-to-door seeking permission to search homes for weapons. Police later plan to visit other areas, including sections of Columbia Heights in Northwest and Eckington in Northeast. Fenty (D) and Lanier announced the plan as part of a new strategy to deal with the prevalence of firearms in a city that has one of the strictest gun control laws in the nation. Residents who agree to the searches will be asked to sign consent forms. If guns are found, they will be tested to determine whether they were used in crimes. If the results are positive, police will launch investigations, which could lead to charges. Boston police are embarking on a similar program this month....
D.C. Gun Ban Proponents Ignore the Facts Thus far the District of Columbia has spent a lot of time making a public policy case. Their argument in their brief to the court is pretty simple : "banning handguns saves lives." Yet, while it may seem obvious to many people that banning guns will save lives, that has not been D.C.'s experience. The ban went into effect in early 1977, but since it started there is only one year (1985) when D.C.'s murder rate fell below what it was in 1976. But the murder rate also rose dramatically relative to other cities. In the 29 years we have data after the ban, D.C.'s murder rate ranked first or second among the largest 50 cities for 15 years. In another four years, it ranked fourth. For Instance, D.C.'s murder rate fell from 3.5 to 3 times more than Maryland and Virginia's during the five years before the handgun ban went into effect in 1977, but rose to 3.8 times more in the five years after it. Was there something special about D.C. that kept the ban from working? Probably not, since bans have been causing crime to increase in other cities as well. D.C. cites the Chicago ban to support its own. Yet, before Chicago's ban in 1982, its murder rate, which was falling from 27 to 22 per 100,000 in the five years, suddenly stopped falling and rose slightly to 23 per 100,000 in the five years afterwards. Neither have bans worked in other countries. Gun crime in England and Wales increased 340 percent in the seven years since their 1998 ban. Ireland banned handguns and center fire rifles in 1972 and murder rates soared — the post-ban murder rate average has been 144 percent higher than pre-ban....

New Ads Hit Gore's Energy 'Hypocrisy,' Critic Says A national advertising campaign contrasting Al Gore's "energy-consuming lifestyle" with the need for energy in developing countries was launched by a conservative think tank Tuesday despite charges from global warming activists that the new effort merely recycles old attacks on the former vice president. "Activists are always warning us about the alleged threats from global warming, but they are usually silent about the much more immediate dangers from global warming policies," Sam Kazman, general counsel of the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), said after the new ad was unveiled at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. "Restricting access to affordable energy is a sure recipe for increasing poverty, disease and human misery around the world," said Kazman, who helped create the 60-second spotto run over the next two weeks in markets across the country, including Boston, Phoenix, Orlando, Pittsburgh and the nation's capital. The advertisement begins with the sound of a chain being pulled and video of a light bulb coming on. "Here's the electricity we use at home," a male narrator says. The bulb then goes dark as four rows of five bulbs come on behind it. "Al Gore uses 20 times as much," the narrator continues, referring to a report released last year on the former vice president's Nashville mansion by the Tennessee Center for Policy Research....

Clothesline rule creates flap They say they only want to protect their "right to dry." And in three New England states, advocates for clotheslines - yes, clotheslines, strung across the yard, draped with socks and sheets - are pushing for new laws to liberate residents whose neighbors won't let them hang laundry outside. Homeowners' associations, which enforce bans on clotheslines at thousands of residential developments across the country, say the rules are needed to prevent flapping laundry from dragging down property values. But in an age of paper over plastic, as people try to take small steps to protect the environment, more residents are chafing at the restrictions. And some lawmakers in Vermont, New Hampshire, and Connecticut are taking it a step further, seeking legislation that would guarantee the freedom to let one's garments flutter in the breeze. "People think it's silly, but what's silly is to worry so much about having to look at your neighbors' undies that you would prevent them from conserving energy," said Vermont state Senator Dick McCormack, a sponsor of "right to dry" legislation. "We're not making a big deal over clotheslines; we're making a big deal over global warming." If successful, the measures in Vermont and Connecticut would be the first in New England, and among the first in the country, to protect the age-old custom of air-drying laundry....Finally, someone is defending property rights, even if they are calling it a "right to dry"! Are there any other property rights we could tie to global warming?

GAO

Natural Resource Management: Opportunities Exist to Enhance Federal Participation in Collaborative Efforts to Reduce Conflicts and Improve Natural Resource Conditions. GAO-08-262, February 12.
http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-08-262

Highlights - http://www.gao.gov/highlights/d08262high.pdf

Environmental Agency Tightens Smog Standards The Environmental Protection Agency announced a modest tightening of the smog standard on Wednesday evening, overruling the unanimous advice of its scientific advisory council for a more protective standard. The administrator, Stephen L. Johnson, said that by law he was forbidden to consider costs in setting the standard, but urged Congress to change the law so future administrators could do just that. The standard, stated in terms of average concentrations of ozone at ground level over an eight-hour period, is now 84 parts per billion. Mr. Johnson’s decision, if it survives court review, would lower that to 75, although implementation could be decades away. Late last year a scientific advisory panel recommended 60 to 70 parts per billion. “I’ve made the most health-protective eight-hour ozone decision in the nation’s history,” said Mr. Johnson. The Clean Air Act requires periodic review, and the announcement Wednesday updates a standard from 1997.....
Group petitions state to ban prairie dog shootings A petition to ban the shooting of live animals as targets, specifically prairie dogs, goes beyond its intent, Moffat County Commissioner Tom Gray said. The 19-page petition — which is a legal argument, not a list of signatures — holds that common practices of killing prairie dogs does not meet the legal or moral definition of hunting. It was con­­tracted by Wild Earth Guardians, a national conservation group, and submitted to the Colorado Wildlife Commission, which oversees the Division of Wildlife. The Wildlife Commission will hear public testimony on the issue at its meeting at 10 a.m. today, at its Denver offices at 6060 Broadway. “To define prairie dog shooting as hunting degrades all other types of hunting and hunters,” the petition reads....
Fees to benefit easement regulation Fees proposed under a bill targeting Colorado's conservation-easement program would generate nearly $500,000 to support state regulation of appraisers and easement holders. House Bill 1353 would create additional oversight of the program. The House finance committee heard testimony about the bill Tuesday. The bill is expected to be amended and reheard next week. Under the current plan, qualified easement holders would be required to pay a $5,810 fee to become certified with the Colorado Division of Real Estate. If the 39 members of the Colorado Coalition of Land Trusts are certified, that would generate $226,590 for the first three years of the program. Appraisers would be required to pay a $600 filing fee for each conservation-easement appraisal filed with the Division of Real Estate. About 400 conservation easements are completed each year....
Technicality may cut California desert areas from federally protected status Congress is considering permanent protection for 26 million acres of beautiful and historic landscapes in the American West, but has quietly excluded millions of acres of California desert. In a system that would rival the national parks and forests, the National Landscape Conservation Act would unify the management and funding for areas such as the original Pony Express National Historic Trail, Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail, a million acres of Alaskan caribou calving grounds, 38 wild rivers, Utah's Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, and a tiny ghost town near the Mexican border. But more than half of the 10.6 million-acre California Desert Conservation Area, which stretches from the Mexican border to Mono Lake, has been dropped on technical grounds. Because the word "national" isn't in its title, the conservation area doesn't qualify, according to U.S. Bureau of Land Management attorneys. Environmental watchdogs and some land bureau employees say the California area, created by Congress in 1976, is the cornerstone of the fledgling national system. They say the semantics hide political motives: Utility companies have proposed hundreds of miles of electrical transmission corridors through California's deserts, and off-road vehicle enthusiasts oppose further regulation of the area....
Baptists: No change on climate change The Southern Baptist Convention wants you to know there has been no policy change on the issue of global warming. That official statement from the denomination is meant to clarify confusion generated about the efforts of Jonathan Merritt, a 25-year-old Southern Baptist Theological Seminary student who launched a campaign from within Baptist ranks for stronger action against climate change, which he believes poses an imminent threat to mankind. The statement titled "A Southern Baptist Declaration on the Environment and Climate Change," written by Merritt received massive media coverage – from the New York Times to the Associated Press to Reuters. It was widely portrayed as a major deviation from a more cautious stance on the controversies surrounding the seriousness of man-made catastrophic global warming. "For the record, there has been no change in convention policy and despite the media blitz that suggests otherwise, there does not appear to be a groundswell of support for change," explained Will Hall, vice president for news services for the SBC, a member of the executive committee and executive editor of the Baptist Press. "Jonathan Merritt does not speak for the Southern Baptist Convention. Unfortunately, his use of 'Southern Baptist' in the title of his declaration misinforms the public and misrepresents the Southern Baptist Convention."....
Federal agency not fighting Nevada developer's water plan The federal government has dropped its opposition to a bid by wealthy Reno businessman and powerbroker Harvey Whittemore to get rural Nevada water for a huge development he's building about 50 miles north of Las Vegas. The Bureau of Land Management dropped its challenge after working out a detailed agreement with Whittemore's Tuffy Ranch Properties LLC to ensure that BLM resources won't be harmed by piping Lake Valley water more than 100 miles south to Whittemore's Coyote Springs project. The agreement filed this week with the state water engineer's office, which scheduled a 2-day hearing on the plan starting March 31, calls for elaborate monitoring to detect any declines in groundwater levels in Lake Valley as a result of the water transfers to Coyote Springs. Whittemore's company would cover costs of improving a BLM well in Lake Valley if it dries up due to the water transfers. Also, the company agreed to "environmentally sound" pumping that won't be excessive or "unduly limit growth and development" in the Lake Valley area....
Senate closer to program for old mines Senators moved a step closer to creating a cleanup program for abandoned hard-rock mines on Wednesday as part of a major rewriting of mining law that has not been updated since 1872. Fees charged to coal companies have long been used for a program to clean up old coal mines, and Congress may move this year to establish a similar program for hard-rock mines. It would be paid for by charging royalties for the first time on minerals such as gold, silver, copper and uranium mined on federal lands. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chairman Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., said such a program is overdue and that there appears to be a broad consensus to get one going. Abandoned hard-rock mines around the country pose public health safety risks, degrade the environment and contaminate water, he said. About $300 million a year is dedicated to the coal program, Bingaman said, and a hard-rock program should be similar in scope....
Lawsuit Filed to Protect Oregon Spotted Frog From Livestock Grazing The Center for Biological Diversity, Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics, and Klamath Siskiyou Wildlands Center filed suit Tuesday against the Fremont-Winema National Forest for driving a rare population of the Oregon spotted frog to the brink of extinction, failing to conduct proper environmental analyses, and violating its own Forest Plan and the Clean Water Act. The suit challenges the Forest Service’s decision to allow continued grazing on the federal “Antelope’” grazing allotment, where a population of the spotted frog, which is a candidate for protection under the federal Endangered Species Act, lives in Jack Creek and has declined precipitously in recent years. “Continued livestock grazing on the Antelope Allotment is damaging water quality and stream banks and in the process decimating a population of the highly endangered Oregon spotted frog,” said Noah Greenwald, science director at the Center. In 2005, the Forest Service sent letters to the public and the allotment permittees stating it was considering fencing Jack Creek to protect Oregon spotted frogs, but has never constructed the fence. The agency subsequently issued a new permit in 2006 that increased grazing from 345 to 945 animal-unit-months, or AUMs, without any environmental analyses or action to ensure spotted frog habitat was not further degraded....
'Green' storage in forests may be going up in smoke A new study has found that California wildfires emit more greenhouse gases than previously believed largely through the post-fire decay of dead wood, a finding that is raising questions about how effective the state's forests are at storing carbon and slowing global warming. The study by Thomas Bonnicksen, a retired forestry professor at Texas A&M University, found that four major wildfires – from the Fountain fire near Redding in 1992 to the Angora blaze at Lake Tahoe last year – are responsible for the release of 38 million tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, far more than the 2 million tons the state estimates that fires produce on average each year. "Up until now, we have not fully appreciated the magnitude of the impact of wildfires on climate change," Bonnicksen said. "This is a very important part of the problem." His study, which is not peer-reviewed and has been found lacking by some, is one of a flurry of reports that have begun to explore the critical role that forests play in regulating carbon dioxide, the principal atmospheric gas responsible for global warming. Traditionally, forests have been viewed as green reservoirs of landlocked carbon, soaking up and storing CO 2 from the atmosphere in their leaves, needles, roots and soil. Bonnicksen's study casts that view into question. Forests today are so overcrowded with spindly, unhealthy trees – partly the result of decades of fire suppression – that as they burn and decay they are turning into an actual source of greenhouse gas pollution....
Greens: Mine claims crowd towns Mining activity is encroaching on cities and towns in Utah because of an outdated 19th-century law, potentially posing serious problems for residential areas, an environmental group said Tuesday. The number of mining claims within five miles of cities and towns in the state shot up almost 150 percent in the last five years, the Environmental Working Group says, from 2,786 to 6,793. Overall, there are now 34,516 mining claims in the state as of January 2008 compared with just 8,723 in 2003, the group says in a new study conducted in part with the Pew Campaign for Responsible Mining. That's a dramatic increase likely pushed by a boost in prices for gold, silver, copper, uranium and other metals, the group says....
Logging dispute: When is a tree dead? When is a green tree dead? That's essentially the question a federal appeals court is deciding in a lawsuit pitting conservationists against the U.S. Forest Service. A 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel heard arguments Tuesday in Portland in a case that could decide how the government is allowed to log old-growth conifers burned by fire on the eastern slopes of the Cascades. The three-judge panel took the case under advisement after a brief hearing. The dispute began in 2004, when environmental groups accused the Forest Service of violating its own rules prohibiting the harvest of large, living trees in a burnt area of Oregon's Malheur National Forest. The latest case is over a similar logging plan in Umatilla National Forest in Washington. The practice is known as salvage logging. After years of often severe wildfires across the West, the Bush administration has aggressively sought to harvest scorched timber before insects or disease make the lumber worthless. To do that, federal foresters have been using a set of mortality guidelines to determine whether a partially burned tree would die, either immediately or by succumbing to insects or disease. Critics of the practice say that the agency often tagged healthy trees for harvest and that trees marked for cutting continued to thrive years after a fire....
Seasonal slowdown hits coal-bed methane rigs again Coal-bed methane gas drillers in the Powder River Basin were down to 11 rigs last week compared to 28 rigs the week before. The industry averaged 43 active rigs during the month of January, according to the Wyoming Oil and Gas Conservation Commission. Rig numbers typically dwindle this time of the year as raptor and grouse stipulations, or "stips," come into play. The stips blot the map with large orange and purple circles representing surface occupancy restrictions around nests and strutting grounds where drilling and other activities are temporarily restricted. More than 100 workers protested at the BLM Buffalo field office a year ago when the stipulations went in effect. Later, operators admitted they'd erred on the side of caution and sent more crews home, temporarily idling about 1,000 workers. This year, BLM officials held meetings with operators to make clear what activities were still allowable during the seasonal restrictions. All of the concern centered on surface occupancy restrictions to protect raptors and sage grouse that re-activated in February and March....
Judge says UW arsonist will stay in jail Convicted arsonist Briana Waters will remain behind bars pending her formal sentencing for the 2001 firebombing at the University of Washington despite her defense attorney's allegations of government vindictiveness and prosecutor misconduct. Defense attorney Robert Bloom on Wednesday attacked the U.S. attorney's pursuit of the 32-year-old California woman as personal and unprofessional, an outburst that even Magistrate Judge Kelley Arnold said was unprecedented in his long tenure on the Tacoma bench. "These accusations are legion and very serious and there is ... absolutely no reason for the court to believe them," Arnold said during a detention hearing for Waters in U.S. District Court in Tacoma. "Never once in my 14 years on the bench have I heard such allegations," which included evidence-tampering and suborning perjury from government witnesses. "It is not in the culture of this district," Arnold said. Meantime, federal prosecutors said for the first time they can link Waters to another Earth Liberation Front-related arson, this one in October 2001 at a horse ranch in Northern California....
Report Criticizes FDA Over Spinach Packers Since 2001, nearly half of all federal inspections of facilities that package fresh spinach revealed serious sanitary problems, but the Food and Drug Administration did not take "meaningful" enforcement action, a House committee report released yesterday found. The most common problems uncovered by FDA inspections of 67 facilities included inadequate restroom sanitation, litter piles and indoor condensation posing a risk of food contamination by microorganisms. Inspectors also found buildings vulnerable to rodent infestation and workers with uncovered hair and poor hygiene. Twenty serious outbreaks of E. coli have been traced to fresh lettuce or spinach since 1995. One of the most troublesome was a 2006 outbreak in bagged spinach processed by California-based Natural Selection Foods that sickened more than 200 people and was linked to three deaths. The FDA acknowledged gaps in its food safety efforts after that episode. But the report by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee says the problems were worse: It showed that spinach facilities were inspected about once every 2.4 years despite federal guidelines that say most should have been visited at least annually....
Western senators object to increased imports from Argentina Senators from Western ranching states are objecting to a Department of Agriculture plan they say would loosen restrictions on beef and lamb imports from Argentina. Argentina has seen outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease, a highly contagious viral disease that affects cloven-hoofed animals like cattle and pigs. The senators asked the department to analyze the cost of the proposal -- including the cost of a foot-and-mouth disease outbreak -- before implementing the policy. Questions remain about the effectiveness of animal disease controls and tracking in Argentina, the senators said. A bipartisan group of senators from Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, New Mexico and Missouri signed the letter.
European Union to Require Microchipping of Foals Member states of the European Union have reached an agreement on a new regulation that will revise existing equine identification legislation. The main new requirement is the compulsory microchipping of foals born after July 1, 2009. The requirement will not be retroactive for older horses and the regulation does allow for member states to approve alternative methods to the microchip. Microchips provide a link between a horse and its passport and strengthen existing horse identification requirements. Such unique identification of equidae could also prove useful for disease control and surveillance purposes and for the recovery of lost or stolen horses. In the U.K., the Department of Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs will be consulting with the horse industry over the implementation of the new requirements.
Worker at third pork plant has mystery illness Only three U.S. packinghouses have used compressed air to extract brains from pig heads — and now all three have workers who have suffered the same mysterious neurological illness. Plants in Austin, Minn., and in Indiana had already reported cases, and now a Hormel pork plant in Fremont, Neb., has found a worker with telltale symptoms of this disease. All of the sickened people worked in or around the unique compressed-air process and suffered a variety of disabling symptoms including fatigue and numbness and tingling in their arms. A nationwide investigation started last fall when the Minnesota Department of Health learned of 11 sickened employees at Quality Pork Processers who all worked near the "head table" where the compressed-air process took place. Experts speculated that the workers inhaled pig brain particles that were blown into the air. The three plants no longer use this process for extracting pig brains, which are ordered periodically for sale in Asian markets as food. The state later confirmed illnesses to a 12th Quality Pork worker and to a Hormel employee who worked in a rendering plant immediately below the head table....
Rancher Toilet Trains Pet Bobcat Tiger Mountain Ranch is perched in the hills south of Henryetta, Okalahoma. The place offers a lake, lodge, lots of animals like horses, longhorn cattle, dogs and even a bobcat named Ginger. Sharon Glidden moved here a few years ago from Florida with her husband. She's had Ginger since the cat was three weeks old, training her as lovingly and carefully as she could considering her wild nature. Glidden said "Bobcats are not possessions. They are their own. We're really hers. She's not ours." Tiger Mountain's guests have seen Ginger lots of times from a respectful distance under supervision of course. But Sharon happened to be alone one day when this bobcat did something surprising. Ginger the bobcat started using the toilet. "Well when she was 6 or 7 months old, she saw me go and I got up to brush my teeth and she decided she needed to go," said Glidden. It was a little indelicate, but Sharon had to prove to her husband and prove she wasn't crazy, so she grabbed her video camera. A couple of weeks later Ginger was using her bathroom three times a day and it wasn't a big deal anymore. But she posted the video on her MySpace account and YouTube and forgot all about it....

H.R. 2016 - NATIONAL LANDSCAPE CONSERVATION SYSTEM ACT

The Natural Resources Committee held a markup session on this bill today.

Congressman Steve Pearce, R-NM, offered three amendments during the session.

The grazing amendment was as follows:

At the end of section 4, add the following new sentence: “Specifically, inclusion in the National Landscape Conservation System shall not affect current grazing rights or operations.”

The PILT amendment was as follows

At the end of section 4, add the following new sentence:

“No funds may be expended in any fiscal year for the National Landscape Conservation System until the Bureau of Land Management Payment in Lieu of Taxes program is fully funded at authorized levels for that fiscal year.”


The Wind and Solar Amendment was as follows:

At the end of section 4, add the following new sentence:

“Specifically, inclusion in the National Landscape Conservation System shall not affect eligibility for wind and solar energy development.”

All three amendments failed and the bill was favorably reported out of committee by a roll call vote of 23 yeas and 13 nays.

This legislation was proposed and supported by the Bush Administration. For years the BLM has been jealous of the Forest Service and other land management agencies. This is BLM's attempt to dump the "Bureau of Livestock and Mining" nickname and get on an equal footing with the other land management agencies when it comes to appropriations. This is about BLM's ego and spending more tax dollars. One has to wonder why the Bush Administration would take something that was done administratively under President Clinton and ask Congress to make it permanent by legislative designation. The environmental community endorsed this legislation and you don't have to wonder why.

Below is the press statement released by Congressman Pearce's campaign.

Pearce Fights Against Law Threatening Private Property Rights

MARCH 12, 2008
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: BRIAN PHILLIPS
202.577.1303
brian@peopleforpearce.com

WASHINGTON, D.C - Today, Congressman Steve Pearce fought to protect New Mexico's private property rights by attempting to amend the National Landscape Conservation System Act - a poor piece of legislation that significanly damages the New Mexico economy. The Pearce amendments would protect traditional uses of federal land managed by the Bureau of Land Management, such as grazing. Ranching, an important part of the New mexico economy, is put at great risk under this bill. Two additional amendments sponsored by Pearce would protect the ability to develop renewable sources of energy and ensure that local governments received proper PILT payments.

Earlier this week, Pearce called on his New Mexico House colleagues to explain why they support the National Landscape Conservation System Act which will punish New mexico's economy. Both Rep. Tom Udall and Rep. Heather Wilson are cosponsors of the bill.

After the hearings, Pearce released the following comments:

"This bill causes significant damage to the economies of western states. It threatens private property rights and puts at risk the ranching community in New Mexico. In addition, it threatens traditional uses of public lands such as camping, hunting and fishing.

"Rep. Udall and Rep. Wilson have cosponsored this harmful legislation and they should explain that decision to the people of New Mexico. My amendments sought to head off the damage it will ultimately do to our state. Though we were unsuccessful today, I will continue to press for the interests of New Mexico even if I am the only one willing to stand up for them."

Ethanol Lobby Is Perpetrating A Cruel Hoax Ethanol contains water that distillation cannot remove. As such, it can cause major damage to automobile engines not specifically designed to burn ethanol. The water content of ethanol also risks pipeline corrosion and thus must be shipped by truck, rail car or barge. These shipping methods are far more expensive than pipelines. Ethanol is 20% to 30% less efficient than gasoline, making it more expensive per highway mile. It takes 450 pounds of corn to produce the ethanol to fill one SUV tank. That's enough corn to feed one person for a year. Plus, it takes more than one gallon of fossil fuel — oil and natural gas — to produce one gallon of ethanol. After all, corn must be grown, fertilized, harvested and trucked to ethanol producers — all of which are fuel-using activities. And, it takes 1,700 gallons of water to produce one gallon of ethanol. On top of all this, if our total annual corn output were put to ethanol production, it would reduce gasoline consumption by 10% or 12%. Ethanol is so costly that it wouldn't make it in a free market. That's why Congress has enacted major ethanol subsidies, about $1.05 to $1.38 a gallon, which is no less than a tax on consumers. There's something else wrong with this picture. If Congress and President Bush say we need less reliance on oil and greater use of renewable fuels, then why would Congress impose a stiff tariff, 54 cents a gallon, on ethanol from Brazil? Brazilian ethanol, by the way, is produced from sugar beet and is far more energy-efficient, cleaner and cheaper to produce....
One Cooler Head When new facts emerge, the open-minded tend to alter their views. This is what has happened to a Hungarian environmental scholar whose position on global warming has been transformed. Until his Damascus moment, Miklos Zagoni, a physicist and environmental researcher, had been touted as his nation's "most outspoken supporter of the Kyoto Protocol." But then this activist saw the work of a fellow Hungarian scientist. His world was rocked. "I fell in love" with the theory, he told DailyTech.com. Ferenc Miskolczi, an atmospheric physicist at NASA's Langley Research Center with three decades of experience, had found that researchers have been repeating a mistake when calculating the impact of greenhouse gas emissions on temperatures. We're not scientists, but it looks to us like Miskolczi found that the Earth does a good job of adapting and self-regulating. As has been noted elsewhere, Miskolczi's theory could explain why the warming that models have been predicting for decades has never materialized. NASA's response to the new results? It refused to publish them, reports DailyTech.com. Miskolczi quit, citing in his resignation letter a clash between his "idea of the freedom of science" and NASA's "practice of handling new climate change related scientific results." The space agency isn't inclined to fund research that refutes the Al Gore view that has eaten away reasoned thinking and been adopted uncritically by much of the public....
Verbatim: Vaclav Klaus On Climate Alarmism Following is the speech delivered by the president of the Czech Republic at the Heartland Institute's International Conference on Climate Change in New York, March 4, 2008. ...A week ago, I gave a speech at an official gathering at the Prague Castle commemorating the 60th anniversary of the 1948 communist putsch in the former Czechoslovakia. One of the arguments of my speech there, quoted in all the leading newspapers in the country the next morning, went as follows: "Future dangers will not come from the same source. The ideology will be different. Its essence will, nevertheless, be identical — the attractive, pathetic, at first sight noble idea that transcends the individual in the name of the common good, and the enormous self-confidence on the side of its proponents about their right to sacrifice the man and his freedom in order to make this idea reality." What I had in mind was, of course, environmentalism and its currently strongest version, climate alarmism. This fear of mine is the driving force behind my active involvement in the Climate Change Debate and behind my being the only head of state who in September 2007 at the U.N. Climate Change Conference, only a few blocks away from here, openly and explicitly challenged the current global warming hysteria. My central argument was — in a condensed form — formulated in the subtitle of my recently published book devoted to this topic which asks: "What is Endangered: Climate or Freedom?" My answer is clear and resolute: "It is our freedom." I may also add: "and our prosperity."....

WALL STREET JOURNAL - THE EVENING WRAP

Prodding

By ROBIN MORONEY

The age of YouTube had another defining moment when an amateur video was enough to dramatically reverse the congressional testimony of Westland/Hallmark Meat President Steve Mendell.

In remarks submitted to lawmakers, Mr. Mendell had denied that beef from a Southern California slaughterhouse, the source of the largest beef recall in U.S. history, was unsafe. The written testimony followed the usual public-relations script of emphasizing the good news about a company and providing alternative explanations for the bad news. He declared that a video -- shot by Humane Society members working undercover at the plant -- showed ill cows that were headed for euthanasia, not eventual human consumption, albeit with the prodding of a forklift. He was then shown the video and its images of cows being shocked and dragged by chains to a slaughter site. Mr. Mendell had his head in his hands with his written testimony apparently in ruins. Prompted by the panel's chairman, Rep. Bart Stupak (D., Mich.), Mr. Mendell acknowledged that the video did indeed show so-called downer cows entering the U.S. food suppply. "Has your company ever illegally slaughtered, processed, or sold a downer cow?" Mr. Stupak asked. "I didn't think we had sir," Mr. Mendell said.

When asked why he hadn't, Mr. Mendell showed on what side of the generation gap he stood. He blamed the Agriculture Department for not allowing him to see some of the footage. That might have been a valid excuse only a few years ago. Demands from wounded parties that the full video be released have been mainstays of similar controversies. In the 1990s, supermarket Food Lion and ABC fought for a long time over showing what footage ABC had cut out of a report that accused Food Lion of serving unfresh meat. But times have changed. Had Mr. Mendell the Web savvy of a 10-year-old, he would have known that the entire video was available on the Humane Society's Web site a long time ago and widely viewed via YouTube. The latest tools of the digital age haven't just given corporations interesting opportunities to spread marketing messages. It has also given the general public the surveillance tools that used to be the sole property of the government and television journalists, along with the ability to broadcast the results. Food safety is one issue facing the meat industry, as evidenced by Mr. Mendell's excruciating time on Capitol Hill today and other meat recalls. But the cost of food is certainly another. Reflecting industrywide problems, Pilgrim's Pride, the world's largest chicken processor, today said it will cut 1,100 jobs, blaming corn-based ethanol production for an intolerable leap in the price of feed.

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Brother, Can You Spare 18 Cents? Imagine this scene: The U.S. Congress is about to pass a bill that will offer cheap loans to American oil companies. The government will loan them $150 for every barrel of oil they produce, with the oil itself serving as collateral. This guarantees that oil will always sell for at least $150 per barrel, because the companies can surrender their oil to Uncle Sam at that price instead of selling it for less. Meanwhile, a system of tariffs will prevent foreign companies from selling oil at prices that can compete with $150 per barrel. Sounds like a bad idea, doesn’t it? This would force taxpayers to put billions at risk for a program that makes their gasoline more expensive. It would also drive up prices for other goods and services that contain or require the use of oil or gasoline. Oil companies would be the only beneficiaries — at our expense, they would be rolling in dough. So if this is a bad idea for oil, why is it a good idea for sugar? This is precisely the program currently in place, and Congress is poised to reauthorize it before it expires March 15. Why? A November report in the Washington Post gives a clue: In less than a year, “nine sugar farm or refinery groups have made more than 900 separate contributions totaling nearly $1.5 million to candidates, parties and political funds.” Under the rival House and Senate versions of the farm bill, the sugar loans will either remain the same or increase by half a penny per pound. (Current loans: 18 cents per pound for processed sugar cane and 23 cents for sugar beets, double the average world-market price over the last seven years.)....

FLE

NSA's Domestic Spying Grows As Agency Sweeps Up Data Five years ago, Congress killed an experimental Pentagon antiterrorism program meant to vacuum up electronic data about people in the U.S. to search for suspicious patterns. Opponents called it too broad an intrusion on Americans' privacy, even after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. But the data-sifting effort didn't disappear. The National Security Agency, once confined to foreign surveillance, has been building essentially the same system. The central role the NSA has come to occupy in domestic intelligence gathering has never been publicly disclosed. But an inquiry reveals that its efforts have evolved to reach more broadly into data about people's communications, travel and finances in the U.S. than the domestic surveillance programs brought to light since the 2001 terrorist attacks. According to current and former intelligence officials, the spy agency now monitors huge volumes of records of domestic emails and Internet searches as well as bank transfers, credit-card transactions, travel and telephone records. The NSA receives this so-called "transactional" data from other agencies or private companies, and its sophisticated software programs analyze the various transactions for suspicious patterns. Then they spit out leads to be explored by counterterrorism programs across the U.S. government, such as the NSA's own Terrorist Surveillance Program, formed to intercept phone calls and emails between the U.S. and overseas without a judge's approval when a link to al Qaeda is suspected. The NSA's enterprise involves a cluster of powerful intelligence-gathering programs, all of which sparked civil-liberties complaints when they came to light. They include a Federal Bureau of Investigation program to track telecommunications data once known as Carnivore, now called the Digital Collection System, and a U.S. arrangement with the world's main international banking clearinghouse to track money movements. The effort also ties into data from an ad-hoc collection of so-called "black programs" whose existence is undisclosed, the current and former officials say. Many of the programs in various agencies began years before the 9/11 attacks but have since been given greater reach. Among them, current and former intelligence officials say, is a longstanding Treasury Department program to collect individual financial data including wire transfers and credit-card transactions....
Relief for Phone Firms Proposed House Democratic leaders announced yesterday their support for providing some relief to phone companies that have been sued for assisting the Bush administration's warrantless surveillance program but reaffirmed their opposition to the legal immunity sought by the administration. The proposal would allow the companies, which face nearly 40 civil lawsuits in a federal court in San Francisco, to defend themselves in secret, in front of a judge but without the plaintiffs. Leaders intend to organize a floor vote on it tomorrow. Allowing such "ex parte" review of classified evidence is meant to defuse the administration's argument that the companies cannot respond to the lawsuits now without disclosing classified information that would harm national security, and that the companies should, therefore, be immunized. The measure is part of a revised House bill that would update the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The administration contends that the act has been overtaken by technological advances and, especially in the case of e-mails, requires new provisions to allow intelligence agents to eavesdrop on communications involving foreign targets. White House press secretary Dana Perino said the House Democrats' bill is "dead on arrival" for several reasons, including its failure to provide the liability protection that is in the Senate bill....
Girls, guys and Glocks? On Valentine's Day a man walked into a Northern Illinois University lecture hall and began shooting students, one at a time, while some ran and others cowered under seats. By the time he was done, he'd killed five people and wounded 18 more. Last April, a man went from classroom to classroom at Virginia Tech, shooting people as they barricaded doors, hid under desks and ran toward open windows. In the nearly 10-minute stretch before police reached him, the shooter had fired over 174 rounds, killed 32 people and injured 17 more. Those horrifying and graphic details - not just the death but the utter helplessness of those who were killed - have galvanized more than 19,000 students and professors across the nation to fight for the right to carry concealed weapons on campus. They say the victims in nearly every school shooting in the past decade have been unarmed and completely helpless in the 2 to 10 minutes before armed police or security guards arrived...Utah is the only major exception, at the moment. Its state legislature passed a law in 2004 that prevents public universities from banning weapons on campus, which, in a roundabout way, makes it legal for students with concealed weapons permits to bring guns to class. Another 12 states are considering similar legislation, according to Bryce Eastlick, director of business operations for the group Students for Concealed Carry on Campus. Six more states are writing up bills this spring. Among the 12, said Eastlick, are Virginia, Washington and Arizona, which have all seen massacre-style school shootings in the past decade....
Pandemic flu plan would put Chicago on lockdown Containing an influenza pandemic in a large U.S. city like Chicago would require widespread school closings, quarantines of infected households and bans on public gatherings, U.S. researchers said on Monday. But, if done quickly and well, such steps could reduce infections by as much as 80 percent, said researcher Stephen Eubank of Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia, based on a computer simulation of just such an event. Health experts almost universally agree that a global epidemic -- a pandemic -- of influenza is inevitable. Flu is always circulating but, every few decades, a completely new strain emerges and makes millions sicker than usual. Government estimates suggest vaccines and drugs will not be enough to slow or prevent a flu pandemic, and the U.S. pandemic plan includes ways to limit the spread by closing schools and implementing strategies to reduce contact with infected people. Schools and day-care centers would close. Theaters, bars, restaurants and ball parks would be shuttered. Offices and factories would be open but hobbled as workers stay home to care for children. Infected people and their friends and families would be confined to their homes. "We are not talking about simply shutting things down for a day or two like a snow day. It's a sustained period for weeks or months," he said....

Eminent domain measures on ballot On June 3, California voters will decide two ballot measures that would restrict government's use of eminent domain for private purposes - and one of them goes much further, eliminating rent controls in cities including San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley and San Jose. Prop. 98 would not only prohibit state and local governments from taking private land and transferring it to another private party - but it would also phase out rent control ordinances and, some critics said, would undermine general land-use zoning and environmental protections. Saying the Jarvis measure had a hidden agenda, a coalition led by the California League of Cities has qualified Proposition 99 for the June election. The competing measure would simply prohibit government from using eminent domain to take a single-family home to help a private landowner. Prop. 99 is written so that if it receives more votes than its rival, it would become law - even if a majority of voters also supports Prop. 98. Supporters of Prop. 99 said the 2005 U.S. Supreme Court decision raised an issue that needs to be addressed - but not the way Prop. 98 would solve the problem....

Food crisis will take hold before climate change, warns chief scientist Food security and the rapid rise in food prices make up the "elephant in the room" that politicians must face up to quickly, according to the government's new chief scientific adviser. In his first major speech since taking over, Professor John Beddington said the global rush to grow biofuels was compounding the problem, and cutting down rainforest to produce biofuel crops was "profoundly stupid". He told the Govnet Sustainable Development UK Conference in Westminster: "There is progress on climate change. But out there is another major problem. It is very hard to imagine how we can see a world growing enough crops to produce renewable energy and at the same time meet the enormous increase in the demand for food which is quite properly going to happen as we alleviate poverty." He predicted that price rises in staples such as rice, maize and wheat would continue because of increased demand caused by population growth and increasing wealth in developing nations. But he reserved some of his most scathing comments for the biofuel industry, which he said had delivered a "major shock" to world food prices. "In terms of biofuels there has been, quite properly, a reaction against it," he said. "There are real problems with unsustainability."....