McCain calls for end to offshore drilling ban Republican presidential candidate John McCain, seeking to make amends with Texas energy producers who did not support him during the 2008 GOP primary season, said Monday that he wants to end a federal moratorium on offshore drilling and create "additional incentives" for states to approve new exploration ventures. "We must embark on a national mission to end our dependence on foreign oil and reduce greenhouse gases through the development of alternate energy sources," the Arizona senator said in Arlington, Va., before departing for Texas. McCain will provide details of his proposal in a major energy-policy address today at the Hilton Americas Hotel in downtown Houston. The Houston Chronicle has learned that his speech will describe a goal of energy self-sufficiency through a combination of aggressive domestic production and increased use of alternative energy sources. The presumed GOP presidential nominee will try to appeal to oil-state interests by pushing for more offshore drilling in states that approve such production. But he also will portray himself as an environmentally friendly Republican favoring significant increases in the development of such alternative energy sources as wind and nuclear power....
Federal officials prep for Rainbow Family gathering Federal officials are gearing up for this year's Rainbow Family gathering in Wyoming. U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management personnel began arriving in Riverton on Monday to prepare for this year's event, which takes place the first week of July. A Forest Service spokeswoman says the national incident management team includes officials who will work with Rainbow participants on logistical issues, as well as law enforcement officers. The team also includes resource officers who will work with festival-goers to ensure public lands aren't damaged. The spokeswoman says 300 to 500 participants have already set up camp in the Bridger-Teton National Forest near Pinedale. The "Rainbow Gathering of Living Light" is a weeklong camp-out that's been held on federal lands around the country each year since the early 1970s....
Forest Service plays with fire Wildfire season has begun in California, but Forest Service firefighters appear to be leaving for greener pastures. The attrition rate among the agency’s firefighters in Southern California is nearly 47 percent (compared to about 24 percent nationwide), according to a report presented by the agency to the Senate Appropriations Committee’s Agriculture Subcommittee in April. As of late May, there were 380 firefighter vacancies statewide. The Forest Service maintains that recent attrition rates are no great departure from previous years and have no effect on the agency’s ability to fight fires, but not everyone is convinced. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) has written several incendiary letters to the USDA and the Forest Service on the matter. Her most recent missive came the same week California was hit by 13 wildfires in a 72-hour period. Many of the firefighters are leaving for better paying jobs at the state and local level, according to firefighter advocates and the Forest Service itself. While the hourly rate is greater at the Forest Service than some state and local departments, at issue is so-called “portal to portal pay.” Firefighters for CAL Fire, California’s state fire department, are paid for the entire time they are out on a fire. Forest Service firefighters are taken off the clock even if they are still out in the field. As a result of these extra hours, a rank-and-file firefighter at the state agency earns $64,760 annually while the same employee in the Forest Service earns only $56,096....
Leasing atop Roan facing court battle Environmentalists said Monday they plan to sue the federal government to halt leasing of public land on the Roan Plateau for natural gas drilling. The move could upend plans by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management to hold a lease sale of 55,186 acres of public land atop the Roan on Aug. 14, an auction expected to draw significant interest from energy companies. The action is the latest in a long series of moves and countermoves by those anxious to open up the towering landscape near Rifle for its enormous energy stores and those who want to preserve most of the plateau for its scenic grandeur and rich wildlife. Should environmentalists succeed in persuading a judge to put off any leasing, the lawsuit could push the debate into a new presidential administration, throwing fresh doubt on the Roan's future....
Utah announces 'major' dinosaur find by Illinois scientists A newly discovered batch of well-preserved dinosaur bones, petrified trees and even freshwater clams in southeastern Utah may provide fresh clues about life in the region some 150 million years ago. The Bureau of Land Management announced the find Monday, calling the quarry near Hanksville "a major dinosaur fossil discovery." Several weeks of excavation by a team from the Burpee Museum of Natural History in Rockford, Ill., have revealed at least four long-necked sauropods, two carnivorous dinosaurs and possibly a stegosaurus, according to the BLM. Nearby, there are also animal burrows and petrified tree trunks six feet in diameter. It doesn't contain any new species -- at least not yet -- but offers the chance to learn more about the ecology of that time, said Scott Foss, a BLM paleontologist. The fossilized dinosaurs are from the same late Jurassic period of those at Dinosaur National Monument and the Cleveland-Lloyd quarry near Price....
Bush prepares parting shots The Bush administration is pressing in its waning months in office to implement a spate of rule and policy changes that could reshape the face of the West. The changes at the federal Bureau of Land Management, the U.S. Forest Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service would open tracts to development while removing protections for land and species. "The Bush administration is trying to set the rules of the game in stone," said Sharon Bucci, public-lands director for the Washington, D.C.-based Natural Resources Defense Council. "They are trying to put their stamp and their management on public lands," Bucci said. Bush administration officials say that many of the initiatives have taken years to develop and have been scrutinized by the public. "The only thing the BLM is guilty of here is being late," said Celia Boddington, an agency spokeswoman. "Many of these changes were updates that are long overdue." Among other actions are: • The issuance of a new BLM handbook on implementing the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA, which exempts some drilling, logging and mining activities from environmental review. • Revisions of the BLM's manual on threatened and endangered species that would remove state-designated species from protection on BLM land. Among the species losing protection in Colorado would be the kit fox and boreal toad. • An effort by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to issue by December its final rule on whether to protect the greater sage grouse — even though in a court settlement the agency had agreed to issue it in 2009. • The granting by the BLM of "categorical exemptions" created under the 2005 Energy Policy Act to spare drilling operations from environmental reviews in areas where drilling has already taken place....

Congress Pushes to Keep Land Untamed With little fanfare, Congress has embarked on a push to protect as many as a dozen pristine areas this year in places ranging from the glacier-fed streams of the Wild Sky Wilderness here to West Virginia's Monongahela National Forest. By the end of the year, conservation experts predict, this drive could place as much as 2 million acres of unspoiled land under federal control, a total that rivals the wilderness acreage set aside by Congress over the previous five years. A confluence of factors is driving this wilderness renaissance: the shift in Congress from Republican to Democratic control; environmentalists' decision to take a more pragmatic approach in which they enlist local support for their proposals by making concessions to opposing interests; and some communities' recognition that intact ecosystems can often offer a greater economic payoff than extractive industries. "It may not seem like it on most issues, but in this one arena Congress is getting things across the goal line," said Mike Matz, executive director of the advocacy group Campaign for America's Wilderness. "Nobody gets everything they want, but by coming together, talking with age-old adversaries and seeking common ground, wilderness protection is finding Main Street support and becoming motherhood-and-apple-pie."...The administration has generally favored expanding wilderness acreage, letting Congress determine which areas should be protected and how. Part of this stems from the fact that nearly all of these bills have broad constituencies, which include local faith, business and hunting groups as well as GOP officeholders. And as Bush approaches the end of his second term, he is eyeing opportunities to leave his mark on the nation's landscape. In the first wilderness designation this year, the Wild Sky Wilderness became law in May. It set aside more than 106,000 acres of low-elevation, old-growth forest and jagged mountain peaks crisscrossed by streams that feature wild salmon and steelhead runs...Wilderness areas, which have the strictest level of federal protection, account for just over 107 million acres nationwide -- 4.8 percent of the nation's land mass, roughly half of it in Alaska. Federal law prohibits mechanized transport in wilderness areas, but they are open to such activities as hiking and fishing. In recent weeks the House has passed six wilderness bills, including Wild Sky, that would protect more than 500,000 acres. The Senate Energy and Resources Committee has approved another four wilderness bills and the panel could pass more, an effort that Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) said was aimed at addressing "some pent-up demand for bills that had been in the works for most of the last decade."....

Estate owners sue Greenpeace for prediction A group of real estate developers and property owners in La Manga del Mar Menor - a spit of sandy, low-lying coastal land and Murcia's premier beach resort - are threatening to take Greenpeace to court over its graphic predictions of what global warming may do to the area, which they say have caused house prices to plummet. The lawsuit, which the plaintiffs plan to present unless Greenpeace agrees to an out of court settlement of almost EUR 30 million in damages, comes more than six months after La Manga featured prominently in a photo book published by the environmental organisation that was intended to shock Spain into action on climate change. Along with photos of a dried up Ebro River in Zaragoza and a desert in an area of Valencia now filled with lemon and orange groves, the book, Photoclima, shows digitally modified photos of La Manga submerged in water with only the tops of hotels, apartment blocks and palm trees emerging from the blue Mediterranean. Greenpeace says the book is a graphic portrayal of the conclusions of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which has predicted that global warming will cause sea levels to rise around the world over the coming decades....
Global Warming Policies' Economic Chill Many Americans think that switching to energy-efficient light bulbs, buying environmentally friendly appliances and obeying a (100% recycled) bag of green living tips will be the extent of their contribution to curbing greenhouse gases. But the price tag to consumers could be a lot higher if some politicians have their way. In fact, U.S. households could expect a $2,900 annual hit to their family budget sooner than they think. That's just one figure causing concern as politicians race to address global warming. Therefore, it's worth noting that at the same time Americans are concerned about climate change, they are also very concerned about the sluggish economy and the impact it is having on the pocketbook. It is only fair, then, to view the two issues side by side. When cooler heads prevail, the reality is clear: There is weak public support for global-warming policies, which would end up costing the average family thousands of dollars. First, it's worth noting where Americans currently stand on global warming. According to Gallup, as much as 70% of the public during the late 1990s through 2000 said the environment should take priority over the economy. That number has dropped to just 49% this year....
Alaska Spending Millions to Relocate Villages Affected by Climate Change One of Alaska's most eroded villages is getting more than $3 million in state aid to help it relocate to higher ground as Alaska tries to cope with the effects of global warming. Tribal leaders in the tiny coastal community of Newtok will now be able to begin building a barge landing at their new site to bring in building materials and, wherever possible, existing structures from their storm-battered village nine miles to the north. The bulk of the $3.3 million, however, will go toward the design and possible partial construction of a road from the barge landing to a planned evacuation center. "It will boost the village site and speed up the relocation process," said tribal administrator Stanley Tom. The Yupik Eskimo community of 400 is among six remote villages tapped by the state for immediate attention because they are highly vulnerable to escalating erosion, storms and flooding linked to global warming. The state is investing nearly $13 million to protect the villages in the coming year....
Voters Waiting For Candidate Who Will Drill The recent spike in oil prices and unemployment is dramatically changing this presidential campaign — virtually overnight. The near $20 jump in oil to $140 a barrel, the unexpected half-point increase in the jobless rate to 5.5% (the biggest monthly increase in 20 years) and the resulting 400-point plunge in stocks has created a new campaign issue right before our eyes. Public worry No. 1 is now oil, jobs and the economy, with the inflationary woes of the U.S. dollar right underneath. The candidate who can connect with these issues will win in November. But so far neither Barack Obama nor John McCain is dealing with the new political reality. In fact, it's all about oil right now. The price has doubled over the past year, while the economy has slumped. But here's an eye-opener. Recent polling data from Gallup show that the percentage of voters blaming oil companies for skyrocketing gasoline prices has dropped from 34% to 20% over the past year. At the same time, support for more drilling in U.S. coastal and wilderness areas has increased to 57% from 41%. And the candidates remain blind to these shifts....
Ranchers: Fire proves canyon no place for Army Ranchers opposed to the Army's planned expansion of the Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site say the wildfire that has blackened 42,000 acres of the training ground, plus private and state lands, is just a preview of the fire danger that would come from giving the Army more land and heavier weapons to use in the area northeast of Trinidad. "If this fire had broken out on private land, we'd have gotten on it sooner and knocked it down," said Lon Robertson, a Kim-area rancher and president of the Pinon Canyon Expansion Opposition Coalition. "Landowners down here know they have to work together to fight fire and they keep a closer eye on their land than the Army does." Robertson said the Army's plan to add another 414,000 acres to the training ground - plus have live artillery fire and other heavy weapons - will only increase the fire danger to surrounding landowners. "They use heavier weapons in training up at Fort Carson and look how often they have to suppress wildfires up there," he said. "We don't need that added danger down here."....
Putting Up The 'For Shale' Sign Exxon Mobil is selling its gas stations because there's no money in it. Meanwhile, two GOP congressmen do what John McCain should do — change their position on drilling in ANWR. Despite the pain at the pump for consumers, the retail side of the gasoline business isn't that profitable, if at all. Gas station owners have known this all along. Most now hope they get enough traffic at their stations to make money on auto repairs or food and drink sales. Exxon Mobil, proclaimed by the no-drill demagogues to be the poster child for gas gouging, recognizes this as well, deciding to unload its 800 company-owned stations and an additional 1,400 dealer-operated locations to distributors. Still, Democrats will say Exxon and its unindicted co-conspirators still make obscene profits. The fact is that American oil companies in 2007 had an 8.3% profit margin, compared with 8.9% for all U.S. manufacturing. The cigarette and beverage companies' profit margin was 19.1%. Drug companies made 18.4%. Nobody complains about profits made by politically connected ethanol producers such as Archer Daniels Midland. Since February 2006, the congressionally mandated use of heavily subsidized and energy-inefficient ethanol has caused the price of corn, wheat and soybeans to increase more than 200%. Isn't this price-gouging?....
Tribes get New Mexico mountain summit listed as protected A state committee has approved a proposal from five American Indian tribes to give central New Mexico's Mount Taylor temporary protection as a cultural property at a contentious meeting. The state Cultural Properties Review Committee voted 4-2 Saturday in Grants for an emergency listing of more than 422,000 acres surrounding the mountain's summit on the state Register of Cultural Properties. The Navajo Nation, the Acoma, Laguna and Zuni pueblos, and the Hopi tribe of Arizona asked the state to approve the listing for a mountain they consider sacred to protect it from an anticipated uranium mining boom, according to the nomination report. The listing lasts for a year, after which the committee is to determine if it should be listed permanently....
Good Fences Make Good Neighbors, Especially When Your Neighbor is an Endangered Frog A Forest Service proposal to fence cattle out of a sensitive stretch of creek in the Klamath Basin to protect the Oregon spotted frog seems to have tentative support from both ranchers and environmentalists. Last month, conservation groups including the Center for Biological Diversity, Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics, and the Klamath Siskiyou Wildlands Center sued, arguing that federal environmental laws require the Forest Service to halt grazing when it “results in loss of species viability or creates a significant trend toward federal listing.” The decision to build the fence responds to this suit. “This is welcome news for the Oregon spotted frog,” said Noah Greenwald, science director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Once an abundant species throughout the Northwest, the frog now has so few remaining populations that every one counts.” On Wednesday, representatives of the Center for Biological Diversity and Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics toured Jack Creek along with the Forest Service and the local rancher who runs cows on the allotment. They were there to look over the Forest Service’s solution to the problem: A three-and-a-half-mile-long fence that will exclude cattle from the frog’s breeding grounds in Jack Creek, while allowing the rancher to continue to utilize 90 percent of the allotment for cattle grazing. The Forest Service is also planning additional steps to restore frog habitat, including reintroduction of beaver, which build dams and create pools necessary for the frogs to thrive, clearing encroaching saplings from meadows, and repairing damaged stream banks. In response to the fence proposal, the conservation groups have temporarily set aside their motion for a preliminary injunction against grazing. “I believe this is the first frog fence in the United States,” said James Johnston of Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics....
At the Time, They Said He Was Crazy Back in the 1980s, it became an article of faith among well- meaning "environmentalists" that grazing cattle on arid Western lands serves to "destroy fragile ecosystems." Western ranchers presented evidence that desert plants developed in an ecosystem that needs large ungulate grazers to churn their seeds into the soil, to fertilize wetlands, to carry moisture into arid valleys and thus benefit tortoise populations - which is why more tortoises are found on grazed land than ungrazed. The ranchers argued that grazing prevents the buildup of excess tinder that can make range fires more frequent and severe, that game species profit from the ranchers' water improvements and efforts at predator control. The forces seeking to remove mankind from the land scoffed at such arguments. They canceled grazing "permits" left and right. The U.S. Forest Service ordered that Nevada rancher and private property rights advocate Wayne Hage, in one example, could use "only hand tools" to trim back trees clogging the canals that had brought water to his 125-year-old, 700,000-acre Pine Creek Ranch in central Nevada. In 1991, Wayne Hage sued. On Friday, U.S. Court of Federal Claims Judge Loren A. Smith ruled Mr. Hage was right, and the Forest Service was wrong. The judge awarded more than $4.2 million to the plaintiffs, ruling the U.S. Forest Service committed an unconstitutional "taking" of his water rights during their decades-long dispute over livestock grazing. Judge Smith also ordered the government to pay back interest to the family of a man considered one of the leaders of the 1980s "Sagebrush Rebellion" - an additional $4.4 million. And the government is also ordered to pay the Hage family's legal costs - another $4 million....
Nevada rancher wins property rights award A federal judge has awarded more than $4.2 million to the estate of late Nevada rancher and private property rights advocate Wayne Hage, ruling that the U.S. Forest Service committed a constitutional "taking" of his water rights during a decades-long dispute over livestock grazing on federal land. Calling the conflict a "drama worthy of a tragic opera and heroic characters," U.S. Court of Federal Claims Judge Loren A. Smith also ordered the government to pay back interest to the family of one of the leaders of the so-called "Sagebrush Rebellion" during the 1980s. Hage's lawyer estimates the interest dating to 1991 to be an additional $4.4 million, which he said would make it the largest award ever in such a case. "It sends a pretty important message to the government that if you screw with a small ranching family and put them out of business, you have to pay big bucks," said Lyman "Ladd" Bedford, a San Francisco-based lawyer who has argued the case since Hage first filed a lawsuit against the Forest Service in 1991. Smith, based in Washington D.C., ruled that government restrictions severely reducing water flows to Hage's land "deprived them of the water they needed for irrigation, making the ranch unviable." However, Smith said the taking occurred when the Forest Service -- apparently motivated by "hostility" toward Hage -- made it impossible for him to maintain the irrigation ditches. Like in similar cases in the past, the judge said the cancellation of Hage's federal grazing permit as a result of overgrazing and trespassing did not in itself amount to a "taking" prohibited under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. That's because a grazing permit is "a license, not a contract or property interest," he said....
American Ranching Family Wins 17-Year Battle with the Federal Government An epic 17-year battle between an American ranching family and the federal government has ended in favor of the family. The estates of Wayne and Jean Hage can finally claim a Fifth Amendment precedent-setting property rights victory. Loren A. Smith, Senior Judge for the United States Court of Federal Claims issued his final opinion in Hage v. United States (Case No. 91-1470L), ending the decades-long battle by deciding that the federal government indeed took the private property rights of E. Wayne and Jean Hage and awarding them deserved compensation. The court ruled that the Hages owned the water rights, ditch rights of ways, and range improvements on the federal grazing allotments. The court made clear that the government has the right to authorize grazing, but does not have the right to prevent the plaintiff from accessing their water rights on federal lands. (Case #91-1470L, The Estate of E. Wayne Hage and the Estate of Jean N. Hage v. The United States, June 6, 2008.) "This decision is important to every American because it reaffirms our basic right to own property, whether you live in a major US city or rural America," commented Margaret Byfield, the Hage's third daughter and executive director of the Stewards of the Range organization which has supported the case since the beginning. Wayne and Jean Hage filed their takings case in 1991, claiming the U.S. Forest Service had denied their rights to graze their livestock on federal land and actively prevented them from accessing and maintaining their water rights. The family has endured 17 years of court hearings and trials, and has won at every level, including the final round. "This is clearly a victory for my parents, who never gave up," commented Ruth Agee, the second of the five Hage children. Wayne and Jean are both buried on the private meadows at Pine Creek Ranch, which will remain with the family. Pine Creek Ranch was established in 1865, and purchased by the Hage family in 1978. The private fee lands encompass 7,000 acres, but as the court points out, "To raise cattle economically in such an arid region, Plaintiffs depend upon access to large quantities of land, including federal land, and to the limited water supply." In 1979, one year after the family purchased the ranch trouble began with the Forest Service when the USFS allowed the release of non-indigenous elk on the Hage's Table Mountain allotment. The elk began competing with their cattle for forage and water. However, instead of controlling the elk, the Forest Service reduced and ultimately canceled the Hage's grazing permits. Years of harassment by the federal government followed, including over 70 "visits" from the Forest Service and 40 letters charging them with various violations, which many, the court noted, were "extremely minor infractions." The court further pointed out that the Forest Service made many unreasonable requirements. "In addition, the Forest Service insisted that Plaintiffs maintain their 1866 Act ditches with nothing other than hand tools." After the Forest Service canceled the remaining grazing permits in 1990, the family was forced to file their takings case known as Hage v. United States....
Court stops privacy for livestock database The Agriculture Department has suspended indefinitely the time until a database for its National Animal Identification System (NAIS) would become subject to Privacy Act safeguards. USDA had planned to make the records confidential effective June 9 but announced the postponement in the Federal Register June 10. The change was the result of a restraining order sought by freelance journalist Mary-Louise Zanoni against USDA in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. On June 4, the court ordered the department to suspend its effective date for applying Privacy Act safeguards to the records system, Agriculture Secretary Edward Schafer said in a notice dated June 6. The dispute concerns access to files containing the names of farmers, ranchers and livestock companies. Data about their premises, locations and livestock movements are stored in the National Premises Information Repository, which is the initial step toward NAIS....
Disease resurfaces in Wyo cattle Two cows in Sublette County likely have been infected with brucellosis, state officials said Thursday. The discovery, which comes less than two years since Wyoming's cattle industry was declared "brucellosis-free," raises the possibility that it could lose that status again -- if the disease is found in another cattle herd within two years. The positive blood tests have so far been isolated to two black Angus cows from the same herd near Daniel, officials said. Blood tests are not a fool-proof method for determining whether animals are infected with brucellosis, but blood samples from these particular cows were put through a battery of six diagnostic tests apiece, all of which produced "strong" positive reactions. That indicates a high probability the animals were indeed infected with the disease, said State Veterinarian Walt Cook. The cattle were slaughtered, and tissues from the animals are in the process of being analyzed at the Wyoming State Veterinary Laboratory in Laramie to confirm the blood tests, Cook said. It could take two weeks or more before the final results are available. Montana is expected to lose its brucellosis-free status in the coming days after a cow there tested positive for exposure to the bacterial disease, the second case in that state in just over a year....
Tex quits cows Most people in the White Mountains know him as "Tex." At 91, Tex Truelock is tough as a boot heel and sharp as a barbed wire fence. More than 60 years after he came to northeastern Arizona, he decided to get out of the cattle business for good. He summed up the reasons as only a Texas cattleman could: "Can't get help, there's no feed, costs have gone up, and the environmentalists." You could spend hours discussing the plight of cattlemen in the West, but that's about it. At noon on June 6 he told the photographer and me, "177 cows went out this morning." A mixture of grief and relief played on his face - grief to see the last of his mother cows go off in trucks, relief that the work was over. The "work" being a lifetime of roping, riding, branding, fence building, pulling wells, moving cattle, shipping cattle, repairing machinery, calving and doctoring, training colts, putting out salt and feed, chopping ice and all the other chores that make up the life of a rancher. That was in addition to working for wages to support a family. He looked at me, grinned and said, "I'm tired."....
Girls, Courtrooms and Heroes Stories where the good guys turn out to be bad guys, where the courtroom unearths corruption, where a town is forced to question its identity. They usually involve a girl who lives a little too fast with a father who exited early and an overworked and tired mother. They are girls who grow up fast and hard with bright smiles. In Ada, Oklahoma, it’s the story of the wrongly imprisoned Ron Williamson. A dead girl, a fallen baseball hero, dirty cops and an imprudent district attorney helped John Grisham hit the NY Times Bestseller List with An Innocent Man. Head north and a little west to Kalispell, Montana for the story of Dick Dasen, the seemingly altruistic businessman who fed the meth habits of young girls in exchange for sex. Turn straight down and east to Las Cruces, New Mexico to find the story of Cricket Coogler, most recently chronicled by Paula Moore in Cricket in the Web. Moore writes that Cricket was one of those girls. A waitress, a high school dropout, the daughter of a dead father and a hard-working mom, Cricket Coogler lived hard and fast for an seventeen year old girl in 1940s Las Cruces. She ran with political types from Santa Fe who were drawn to Las Cruces by the sparse and friendly law enforcement and the prolific illegal gambling. On March 31, 1949, the last night she was seen alive, she frequented no more than five bars in the company of three different men. Seventeen days later they found her body under a creosote bush in Mesquite, New Mexico....
'Pushed out' by bigger operation Doak Good had settled in comfortably in his rock and adobe house at Portales Springs, but his peaceful existence did not last long. In 1882 Jim Newman began bringing his cattle from Texas to Salt Lake and established the DZ Ranch near Arch, 11 miles east of Good’s place. The springs that fed Salt Lake only provided enough water to fill a few dirt troughs, so Newman’s cattle would drift over to the plentiful water at the lake, which was fed by the Portales Springs. Bad feelings developed and violence was bound to follow. After the fight with Gabe Henson, which he blamed on Newman, Good was afraid to stay by himself, and he picked up a transient boy about 14 years old to work for him. Old-time cowboy Col. Jack Potter had this to say about the new cowhand: “He was a hard-looking kid; had an old Stetson hat with the crown out, thrown away by some cowpuncher. He had long hair and it stuck out through the crown of the hat. He was dubbed by the cowboys as ‘Portales Bill,’ though I learned later his real name was McElmore.” Good gave him a few dogies or mavericks for his work, and it was commonly believed that he added to his herd by rustling other people’s cattle....
Single-horned beast appears A deer with a single horn in the center of its head -- much like the fabled, mythical unicorn -- has been spotted in a nature preserve in Italy, park officials said Wednesday. ''This is fantasy becoming reality,'' Gilberto Tozzi, director of the Center of Natural Sciences in Prato, told The Associated Press. ''The unicorn has always been a mythological animal.'' The 1-year-old Roe Deer -- nicknamed ''Unicorn'' -- was born in captivity in the research center's park in the Tuscan town of Prato, near Florence, Tozzi said. He is believed to have been born with a genetic flaw; his twin has two horns. Calling it the first time he has seen such a case, Tozzi said such anomalies among deer may have inspired the myth of the unicorn. The unicorn, a horse-like creature with magical healing powers, has appeared in legends and stories throughout history, from ancient and medieval texts to the adventures of Harry Potter. ''This shows that even in past times, there could have been animals with this anomaly,'' he said by telephone. ''It's not like they dreamed it up.'' Single-horned deer are rare but not unheard of -- but even more unusual is the central positioning of the horn, experts said....

Passing on the stories
Cowgirl Sass & Savvy

Julie Carter

The Native Americans pass legends down through the generations through designated storytellers.

It's the job of a gifted tribe member to be the keeper of the stories and to pass them on to the next generation from the many generations before.

Cowboys do much the same thing. Where the Native American storyteller will have a name like Grandmother Two Bears or Old Father Story Teller, the cowboy will simply be named Ben, Joe or Charlie.

If those same fellows were in a tribe somewhere, they could possibly bear names such as Man Who Walks Like Penguin. Old cowboys tend to be shorter than they were in their youth, a bit bow-legged and waddle when they walk.

The days of that long-legged strolling stride left when the "Itis boys" (Arthur, Burs and Tendon) showed up in every limb of their body. What they don't have left in athletic ability has been enhanced with humor and their imaginative re-telling of "legends."

The number of topics from the old days when cowboys were king is endless. First, know that things were bigger, better and wilder "back then." They may not be able to accurately give you their wife's full name, but they can name every one of the jug-headed horses they rode during the past 40 years.

In every story of every wreck they were ever in that involved a rope and cow, they can also describe, in detail, the appearance, personality and pedigree of the horse they rode. And not always in the verbiage fit to repeat in polite company.

For whatever reason, that same horse will consistently be either be the best he ever rode, or the sorriest. There doesn't seem to be any recollection of any mediocre nags from that era.

The topic second in line for the windiest stories includes incredible tales of snakes. There are generations of big ugly diamondbacks that slithered into bedrolls, traveled up a catch rope to meet the roper or fell out of a tree on an unsuspecting cowboy riding by.

Snakes, in their mystical ability to strike the fear in the heart of all men, garner a corner of cowboy history dedicates to that species. Ask any old bowlegged, cowboy-booted hombre you run into for his best snake story. It is guaranteed he will have not just one.

Additionally, there are the "goin' to town" stories. In the old days, not so long ago, cowboys went to town only to buy a few groceries and other necessary supplies.

During that same trip they might eat a steak at the local restaurant, spend a couple bucks for a haircut and then wile away a few hours of sundown time at the local watering hole, imbibing in adult beverages.

One of my favorite cowboy storytellers told a great tale that had all the going-to-town ingredients. He gleefully recalled, often upon request, riding a young barely broke horse into a bar.

The blaring jukebox music didn't frighten the colt until it stopped and then the silence brought him to life. He blew up, fell over on the pool table and in doing so, broke the cowboy's foot. Decades later, the cowboy delighted in detailing the reason for that particular limp.

The cowboys that fill my pages with their stories have had no expectations that their shenanigan-nonsense would entertain so many.

I delight in being able to pass on those reasonable presentations of the truth

They don't all stay at the ranch
Cowgirl Sass & Savvy

Julie Carter

Ranch raising is the best way any kid could grow up. It teaches life's lessons in the most basic ways for all the formative years. Then one day the ranch kid wakes up and he is an adult with big-people dreams and plans that often don't include staying at the ranch.

Cowboy life is not always awash in glamour. A good bit of it involves farm implements, a shovel, plumbing tools, fence stretchers and carpenter skills. It's that seedy side of the career than will send a young man looking for the excitement.

My own younger brother was a good example of this natural migration. Being the last one left at home - his older brothers already gone, making the big bucks in the construction industry - he was the last cowboy standing. Well into that stage of maturity where Dad didn't know a thing about anything, ranch work was just another frontier of disagreement. To improve his circumstances, he joined the U.S. Army.

The irony was that after basic training, they sent him to live on an Army-owned ranch in Colorado to be in the cavalry regiment that performed in parades and re-enactment. In this newfound career, he cleaned stalls, tended to horses and preformed other ranch chores.

Eventually his tour was up and he moved back home. However, cowboy glamour at the ranch soon left again in the midst of moving sprinkler pipe in the hay fields and other such tedious chores.

The lad re-enlisted, but not without throwing in a tour of duty tending bar in a big city honky-tonk, teaching country dance lessons and landing a role in a beer commercial for the really big bucks. His cowboy expertise came in quite handy.

Through the years, the armed forces have been the "great escape" for a number of cowboys.

In Texas, Donnie was still at home, helping his dad out with the family ranch while considering his career opportunities. During the last rainy spell, his dad decided that the house roof needed new shingles. Donnie came to mind for this job.

Soon, Donnie found himself up on the ridge row with a shingling hatchet, a bundle of shingles and a nail apron firmly in place. After the first couple of rows of shingles, the summer sunshine was losing its charm.

Donnie managed to work the head off the hatchet and was climbing down when Dad, who was paying more attention than Donnie realized, tossed him up a hammer. It took Donnie a while to break the handle on the hammer, but he got it done. Dad had another one ready for him.

While nailing on a couple more rows of shingles, he decided that Dad was preoccupied. The hammer slipped out of his grasp and landed about 500 feet away in the stock tank. That just happened to be the last hammer on the place, so Dad sent Donnie to the hardware store in town for more hammers to finish the job.

On the way to town, Donnie noticed he had a couple of extra shirts and pairs of Wranglers in the truck so he went on down the road to Mineral Wells and joined the Army.

Three years went by before Donnie returned stateside and got back to Texas where he headed home. On the way, he remembered what started it all.

He stopped by the hardware store, got a couple of hammers and when he walked in the door at home told his Dad, "Here's your hammers. I got them just like you told me."

These are a little old, didn't get them posted before they shut me down on 5/31.

FLE

Border Agents, Lured by the Other Side The smuggler in the public service announcement sat handcuffed in prison garb, full of bravado and shrugging off the danger of bringing illegal immigrants across the border. “Sometimes they die in the desert, or the cars crash, or they drown,” he said. “But it’s not my fault.” The smuggler in the commercial, produced by the Mexican government several years ago, was played by an American named Raul Villarreal, who at the time was a United States Border Patrol agent and a spokesman for the agency here. Now, federal investigators are asking: Was he really acting? Mr. Villarreal and a brother, Fidel, also a former Border Patrol agent, are suspected of helping to smuggle an untold number of illegal immigrants from Mexico and Brazil across the border. The brothers quit the Border Patrol two years ago and are believed to have fled to Mexico. The Villarreal investigation is among scores of corruption cases in recent years that have alarmed officials in the Homeland Security Department just as it is hiring thousands of border agents to stem the flow of illegal immigration. The pattern has become familiar: Customs officers wave in vehicles filled with illegal immigrants, drugs or other contraband. A Border Patrol agent acts as a scout for smugglers. Trusted officers fall prey to temptation and begin taking bribes....
Mexico crime wave takes ten more lives Ten people were found shot execution style, including three beheaded bodies, in 24 hours of drug-related warfare in northern Mexico, the Juarez prosecutor's office said Wednesday. A local police officer's head was found inside a plastic bag with a note warning the Sinaloa drug cartel: "so you know we're not playing around." It was signed by La Linea, a rival drug group fighting for control of this city on the US border, the office said. On a blanket spread over a bridge in nearby Chihuahua, 360 kilometers (215 miles) south of here, were scribbled the names of several local police officers and a threat -- "these guys are next," the prosecutor's office added. The ten bodies found late Tuesday and Wednesday included two in Ciudad Juarez, two in Loma Blanca, two in and around Durango, two on roads leading to Chihuahua, one in Casa Grandes, and one in Ignacio Zaragoza, the office added in a statement. One of two decapitated bodies found in Durango was topped by a pig's head and laid out in a cemetery, it added. The violence came after seven federal police officers were killed Tuesday in a shootout with drug traffickers in northeastern Culiacan, the Public Safety Ministry said, adding that a criminal was also killed in the firefight....
Mexican Police Fleeing Drug Cartel Assassins The escalating violence by Mexico’s various drug cartels has taken a heavy toll on Mexico’s police forces in recent months, with the month of May proving especially brutal. At least four high-ranking police officials were gunned down in May, along with many other police and soldiers. “Drug cartels are sending a brutal message to police and soldiers in cities across Mexico: Join us or die,” reported the Associated Press on May 19. Ciudad Juarez, across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas, has been one of the worst hit cities along the U.S.-Mexican border. The AP story notes: “Police who take on the cartels feel isolated and vulnerable when they become targets, as did 22 commanders in Ciudad Juarez when drug traffickers named them on a handwritten death list left at a monument to fallen police this year. It was addressed to ‘those who still don’t believe’ in the power of the cartels. Of the 22, seven have been killed and three wounded in assassination attempts. Of the others, all but one have quit.” “These are attacks directed at the top commanders of the city police, and it is not just happening in Ciudad Juarez,” Mayor Jose Reyes Ferriz said at the funeral of the latest victim, police director Juan Antonio Roman Garcia. “It is happening in Nuevo Laredo, in Tijuana, in this entire region,” he said. “They are attacking top commanders to destabilize the police force.” More than 1,100 lives have been taken in the wave of narcoterror so far this year. The cartels have become more brazen, even attacking with machine guns and hand grenades in full daylight in public venues....
9 men killed as Juárez violence continues Violence continued to rage Wednesday night and Thursday in Juárez as at least nine more men were shot dead and the ankle of a 7-year-old girl was nearly severed in a shooting that wounded several members of her family. Four unidentified men were shot and killed when shooters unloaded 84 rounds Thursday afternoon outside a butcher shop in the Division del Norte area of the city, state police said. In addition, a double homicide occurred near the community of Barreales outside Juárez. Before dawn Thursday, two unidentified men who had been shot several times died outside the emergency room of the general hospital. In a separate incident, it was unclear whether the family of a girl, identified by police as Berenice Alanis Mata, was targeted or merely caught in the crossfire Wednesday night when 35 shots were fired in the Praderas de los Alamos neighborhood. Television news aired graphic video of Berenice and relatives driving up in private vehicles and bleeding heavily at Clinica 66 medical center....
Border Governors Head to Mexico As Violence Rises Governors from both sides of the border are meeting in Mexico City to push for more crime-fighting and border security amid unprecedented violence in Mexico. The governors of California, Texas and New Mexico planned to offer support to Mexican President Calderon on Thursday for his crackdown against the drug trade, in which he has deployed more than 20,000 federal troops across Mexico. Cartels have responded with increasingly bold attacks against police and other security officials. On Tuesday, seven federal officers were killed in a shootout at a suspected drug safe house. Beyond policy talks, it's not clear what the U.S. governors and the governors of the six Mexican states will be able to accomplish, because many of the actions they are seeking require congressional approval....
ABC Reality Show Will Chronicle Work of Border Agents A new reality show, led by executive producer Arnold Shapiro of "Big Brother" fame, will give viewers an inside look at a day in the life of border patrol agents working to stop illegal smuggling and immigration. ABC has ordered 11 hours of "Border Security USA," which is said to be the first multi-episode television series to be shot in cooperation with the Department of Homeland Security, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The show, based on the Australian series "Border Security: Australia's Front Line," will include security screeners at a New York airport, a Coast Guard boat off Puerto Rico and border patrol in Texas, the newspaper reported. Some plots in the episode include customs agents finding a human skull sent through the mail and a Coast Guard boat chasing cocaine smugglers. "We're showing everyday heroes who are risking their lives to protect us," Shapiro told The Hollywood Reporter. "Every mode of transportation to get into the country, we have covered." Shapiro told the newspaper they were free to tape the day-to-day efforts, but were asked to keep several tactics used by border agents confidential....
Jesus Statue Made of Cocaine Seized in Laredo A drug dealer named The Spider is wondering why his Jesus Christ still hasn't appeared in Dallas. Thanks to an unusual bust by federal agents in Laredo, they're not going to connect. Drug traffickers mixed as much as six pounds of the illicit white powder into a paste and used it to make a regal statue of the Christian savior, complete with painted-on flowing hair and a gold cape. Smugglers were likely hoping the statue, which could be worth as much as $30,000 on the streets, would be dismissed by border guards as just another of the hundreds of plaster representations hawked to borderland tourists. But a dog trained to sniff out drugs confirmed it was anything but another religious memento....
Report says courts can handle terrorism cases Two former federal prosecutors say that when it comes to handling accused terrorists, the best way is the old way: Put them on trial in civilian courts, not military tribunals. A report examines 123 terrorist cases from the past 15 years, and the study's two principal authors say that the courts were able to produce just, reliable results while protecting national security. The report comes at a time when the Bush administration's system of military commissions remains mired in delays. Whether the case is the first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993 or the East African embassy bombings in 1998, judges, juries, defense attorneys and prosecutors are able to get the job done correctly, they say. Although the justice system is far from perfect, it has proved to be adaptable and has successfully handled a large number of important and challenging terrorism prosecutions, said New York lawyers Richard Zabel and James Benjamin of the law firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld....
Customs inspectors charged in NY drug probe Two federal customs officers were arrested Wednesday, accused of taking bribes in exchange for letting large quantities of hashish and counterfeit watches and sunglasses into the country through Kennedy Airport. The two U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers were among seven people charged as a result of a long investigation into corruption at the airport. Federal prosecutors said the probe had already resulted in the convictions of more than 20 people including distributors and overseas suppliers. Walter Golembiowski, of Bethpage, N.Y., a supervisory Customs and Border Protection officer, and Officer John Ajello, of Hicksville, N.Y., were charged with bribery conspiracy and narcotics importation. Prosecutors said Golembiowski, 65, regularly accepted and solicited bribes from 2004 to this year in exchange for permitting shipments of contraband to pass through Customs without inspection. Ajello, 51, also accepted bribes, in one instance asking for $80,000, a charging document said....

NOTE TO READERS

I still don't have access to the internet. The lovely people at Qwest hooked up my phone on Tuesday, but didn't hook up the DSL. The lovely people at Qwest are scheduled to return this Wednesday to hook up the DSL. Please pray for me.

Posting from Arby's WiFi....

Sorry for the delay in posts. My dad is moving into a handicap accessible home and he will not have internet until sometime next week.

Celebrated my birthday yesterday, so this is a shortened version.

PETA calls for changes at Winn-Dixie The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has submitted a shareholder resolution calling on Winn-Dixie Stores Inc. to report any progress it has made toward adopting animal welfare policies that pertain to the purchase of eggs, pigs, chicken and turkey. PETA acquired 180 shares of the Jacksonville-based grocer just in time to attend its last annual shareholder meeting Nov. 7, 2007. Members of the media were not permitted to attend the meeting, but according to a representative of PETA who was there Winn-Dixie CEO Peter Lynch pledged to study the controlled-atmosphere method of killing PETA proposed. PETA alleges in the resolution that the poultry that Winn-Dixie purchases are conscious during slaughter, the eggs are from suppliers that give hens very little space and that the pigs are kept virtually immobilized. The non-profit also said other grocery stores, including Safeway and Harris Teeter, have updated their purchasing practices to improve animal welfare standards for some animals by using suppliers that utilize controlled-atmosphere killing....
New ethanol plant bets on a better method than corn The fabled road to U.S. energy independence has wound its way to this small town east of Lake Charles, where a plant opening today could help usher in a new era for ethanol. The 1.4 million-gallon-per-year demonstration plant will attempt what others have found difficult — to produce large quantities of ethanol as cheaply from agricultural waste and nonfood crops as from corn, the main crop used to make the fuel in the U.S. It may be a big bet. Some experts say that so-called cellulosic ethanol still costs at least $1-per-gallon more to produce than corn-based ethanol. But Verenium Corp, the Cambridge, Mass.-based energy firm behind the project, has developed a process it believes will help reduce costs, pave the way for wide-scale cellulosic ethanol production and silence ethanol's detractors. "The issue isn't, 'is there going to be ethanol,' " Verenium Chief Executive Carlos Riva said Wednesday as he stood outside the just-completed plant. "But how can we do it right?" President Bush has signed legislation calling for production of 36 billion gallons of biofuels by 2022, five times the current level, to help reduce what he has called the nation's addiction to oil....
The Carbon Curtain Czech President Vaclav Klaus warns that environmentalism is becoming a new totalitarianism. There is still a bear in the woods, but it's no longer the Russian bear. This time, it's a polar bear. Having lived much of his life in a nation once ruled by communists, Klaus recognizes a tyrannical ideology where elites trample on individual freedoms for the greater good when he sees one. Speaking Tuesday at the National Press Club to introduce the English version of his book, "Blue Planet, Green Shackles," Klaus said that global warming is being used as a means to erode our freedoms. Klaus called alarms about man-made climate change a "quasi-noble idea that transcends the individual in the name of something above him" and that it is being exploited by a new elite "certain they have the right to sacrifice man and his freedom to make their idea a reality." On June 2, the Senate is going to take up the America's Climate Security Act, a cleverly titled assault on both our freedoms and our economy offered up by Sens. Joe Lieberman and John Warner. The bill essentially limits how much gasoline and other fossil fuels Americans can use, as Klaus puts it, "in the name of the planet." A study by Charles River Associates puts the cost (in terms of reduced household spending per year) of Senate Bill 2191 at $800 to $1,300 per household by 2015, rising to $1,500 to $2,500 by 2050. Electricity prices could jump by 36% to 65% by 2015 and 80% to 125% by 2050. The Heritage Foundation says the bill would raise gasoline prices by $1.10 per gallon by 2030. More importantly, Heritage notes, the act "represents an extraordinary level of economic interference by the federal government" that "promises extraordinary perils for the American economy."....
BLM imposes restrictions for grouse Coal-bed methane development plans of more than one well per 500 acres will be shelved in certain areas of the Powder River Basin for the next two years, according to federal land regulators. Federal officials are drawing boundaries over large blocks of areas spanning the industry's "fairway" down the center of the basin between Gillette, Buffalo and Sheridan where the temporary limitations will be enforced beginning this summer. "The oil and gas (industry) is certainly the most significant issue in terms of people, jobs and money," said Bureau of Land Management Buffalo field office manager Chris Hanson. Grazing, recreation and other land uses could also be limited. Hanson and other federal land managers faced a hostile crowd of more than 300 coal-bed methane workers and landowners here Wednesday as they laid out a sage grouse planning process that will shelve numerous pending developments and likely lead to layoffs in the industry....
Climate Debate Rejects Science For Ideology I'm not a global warming believer. I'm not a global warming denier. I'm a global warming agnostic who believes instinctively that it can't be very good to pump lots of CO2 into the atmosphere, but is equally convinced that those who presume to know exactly where that leads are talking through their hats. Predictions of catastrophe depend on models. Models depend on assumptions about complex planetary systems — from ocean currents to cloud formation — that no one fully understands. Which is why the models are inherently flawed and forever changing. The doomsday scenarios posit a cascade of events, each with a certain probability. The multiple improbability of their simultaneous occurrence renders all such predictions entirely speculative. Yet on the basis of this speculation, environmental activists, attended by compliant scientists and opportunistic politicians, are advocating radical economic and social regulation....
U.S. District Court: Groups ask to shield wolves Conservationists who oppose the removal of wolves from under federal protection - and who call the delisting unlawful - sought an emergency injunction Thursday to stop the animals' killing. Last month, a coalition of 11 environmental groups sued the U.S. Department of the Interior in an effort to keep gray wolves in the Northern Rockies region on the endangered species list. At a hearing in Missoula on Thursday, the coalition's attorney, Doug L. Honnold of Earthjustice, tried to convince U.S. District Judge Donald W. Molloy to extend federal protections until the lawsuit is resolved. About 17 lawyers representing as many state agencies and nonprofit policy groups defended the management plan, which requires states to maintain a minimum of 300 wolves. Agency officials say they are committed to maintaining at least 450 wolves and that the actual population likely will be about 1,000. The region's wolf population is increasing by about 24 percent annually, according to wildlife officials. But environmentalists say state officials and ranchers have already killed 77 wolves since the delisting, at a rate of more than one wolf per day, and that the states' wolf management scheme represents a return to many of the policies that resulted in wolves' eradication from the Western landscape....
Liberty Is Worth the Abuse We get a lot of abuse, those of us who publicly defend private property rights and voluntary arrangements against the varied depredations of government. Having to constantly face such attacks is a substantial part of the cost of speaking out, and probably explains why more people don't take the risk. For those who might be considering publicly taking up the cause of "life, liberty, and property," I offer the following example to give you a taste of what you can expect. Note that it is far from the most egregious example I could relate; it is not intended to discourage you, but only to prepare you for the cost you may have to bear — to help you develop the requisite toughness. In California, there are two competing eminent-domain propositions on the June 3 ballot. One (Proposition 98) would offer some real protection against such abuses, while the other (Proposition 99), written and qualified for the ballot by those who inflict the abuses (i.e., government entities) and those who gain from them (e.g., big developers), is designed to confuse voters into overriding the real reforms....

Foggy Science In London Back in London, though, the world’s oldest science academy, the Royal Society of London, recently has become a vocal advocate of climate alarmism. RS fellows have included Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin. But, under the previous leadership of Lord Robert May, the Society seems to have taken a wrong turn. They even tried to enlist other science academies into joining them in an alarmist manifesto. However, the U.S. National Academy, though sharing some of these views, decided not to sign up, and the Russian Academy of Sciences has taken an opposing position. In June 2007, the Royal Society published a pamphlet, titled “Climate Change Controversies: a simple guide,” designed to undermine the scientific case of climate skeptics. They presented what they called “misleading arguments” on global warming and then tried to shoot them down. In countering the RS pamphlet, I have prepared a response that is being published tomorrow by the London-based Centre for Policy Studies under the title “Not so simple? A scientific response to the Royal Society’s paper.” Throughout, the Royal Society has relied heavily on the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which used to be regarded as a reliable source of scientific information. The RS thus adopts the IPCC claim that current warming is almost certainly anthropogenic (human-caused) but presents no independent evidence to support such a claim. In its pamphlet, the Royal Society purports to speak on behalf of a consensus of scientists. But no such consensus exists. Direct polling of climate scientists has shown that about 30% are “skeptical” of anthropogenic global warming. More than 31,000 American scientists recently signed the Oregon Petition, which expresses doubt about the major conclusions of the IPCC, and opposes the drastic mitigation demands of the Kyoto Protocol and the proposed “cap-and-trade” legislation of the U.S. Congress. My response to the RS is based on the work of some two dozen independent climate scientists from 16 nations who contributed to the report of the Non-governmental International Panel on Climate Change, or NIPCC, titled “Nature, Not Human Activity, Rules the Climate.” NIPCC corrects many of the errors and misstatements made in the IPCC report, discusses evidence ignored by the IPCC, and cites evidence available since May 2006, the cut-off date for the latest IPCC Report of May 2007....
Publishing convention not quite green BookExpo America, the publishing industry's annual showcase and trend-spotter, is admittedly a little behind in the race to go green. This weekend's convention in Los Angeles will include much discussion about the environment. Three panels will review recent trends and initiatives and a featured speaker, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, will promote his new book, "Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution - and How It Can Renew America." Virtually every major publisher, from Random House Inc. to Scholastic Inc., has announced environmental goals, mostly through the increased use of recycled paper and fiber from forests certified by the Forest Stewardship Council, an international environmental organization. But the revolution has not quite arrived at BookExpo. Around 30,000 event guides, just over 40 pages long, will be distributed at the Los Angeles Convention Center, along with 19,000 copies of the 700-page program guide. More than 10 million pages in all will be printed, none on recycled paper....
Odd Falcon Behavior May be Linked to Chemicals Used to Fight Wildfires New research on wild falcons has uncovered strange behavior which may be linked to chemicals used in wildfire suppression. Last year a digital video camera mounted in a remote area of western Montana by wildlife biologist Byron Crow captured an established peregrine falcon pair nesting in an cliff aerie, Crow said. It was rare footage because of its intimacy and volume—weeks of 24-hour-a-day recordings from a few feet away. Crow’s camera recorded the mother falcon lay its first clutch—four eggs. At first, the camera captured what might be termed “awesome but regular” falcon doings. The wild peregrine falcons ate fish, for instance, which was new to researchers of the bird. More interestingly, the peregrines allowed pack rats to clean out their nests. The rats actually collected bones and other stuff under the beaks of the birds. “Then the first egg starts hatching. The mother looks at the chick, and as soon as it moves, she destroys it and eats it. Pardon my language, but we were, like, s---!” Crow said. “Then she destroys the other eggs and eats the material.”....
Judge partially rejects claims over endangered falcon A federal judge has rejected part of a challenge by environmental groups to a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service decision to designate the northern aplomado falcon as a nonessential, experimental population in New Mexico and Arizona. U.S. District Judge William Johnson last week denied claims that the agency violated the Endangered Species Act by not responding to a petition from the environmentalists within a set period and did not rely on the best science in designating the population in the two states as experimental. Johnson, however, agreed with the environmentalists' argument that Fish and Wildlife unlawfully withheld or unreasonably delayed action on critical habitat for the bird in Texas. He stressed that his decision meant only that Fish and Wildlife is required to answer the environmental groups' 2002 petition within 30 days. Johnson said Friday he was not requiring the agency to designate critical habitat in Texas....
ONDA wins grazing injunction A U.S. District Court judge is barring cows from two grazing allotments in the Malheur National Forest (MNF) this summer. The May 16 injunction ordered by Judge Ancer L. Haggerty is intended to protect fish habitat, but observers say it comes as part of a larger movement to challenge grazing rights on public lands across the West. "This was a real blow," said Loren Stout, a Dayville rancher who won't be able to turn his cows onto the forest as he had planned on July 15. "They are putting an industry in jeopardy." Haggerty granted a temporary restraining order and injunction on two MNF allotments, one in the Murderers Creek area and the other on the Lower Middle Fork John Day River. The injunction affects six permittees who had been given permission to run cattle between June and October. The injunction was sought by the Oregon Natural Desert Association (ONDA), the Center for Biological Diversity and the Western Watersheds Project, which contend that the grazing practices threaten habitat for steelhead and bull trout, two species of fish that are federally listed for protection. They also contend that the U.S. Forest Service isn't adequately monitoring the conditions of the allotments and any damages caused by grazing....
Delisting of wolves raises hackles Ever since humankind first huddled around a fire, the eerie howl and piercing amber eyes of wolves have been both fascinating and fearsome. Today, some of those primal emotions are at play as ranchers and politicians, bureaucrats and environmental activists work out the future of Canis lupus in the northern Rocky Mountains. Like many contested issues involving wildlife, this one is in federal court. Federal agencies, affected state governments, and ranching and hunting interests say there are so many gray wolves in the Rockies now that it’s time to remove them from the list of endangered species. Wolf advocates say it’s too soon to do that, and later this week a federal judge in Missoula, Mont., will decide how the case should proceed. In many parts of the rural West, the federal government controls much of the landscape (64 percent of Idaho), and Uncle Sam is seen as big brother imposing an environmentalist view. “It should be the people in Idaho deciding whether we have wolves or not,” says Rex Rammell, a veterinarian, former elk rancher, and independent candidate for the US Senate seat being vacated by Larry Craig (R). A native Idahoan and lifelong hunter who lives in Rexburg, Idaho, Dr. Rammell contradicts official reports in asserting that elk and moose herds in many places have dropped substantially due to wolves. He also takes a strict state-rights position: “All of these western states should have the land turned over to them.”....
Ranchers go to court over bison Cattle ranchers upset over a herd of bison still lingering outside Yellowstone National Park went to court Wednesday, seeking to compel the Montana Department of Livestock to move the animals and accusing the agency of jeopardizing the state's brucellosis-free status. The Department of Livestock said it already planned within days to haze the bison into the park and off of private land whose owners want the state to leave the animals alone. To do so would be a violation of a federal-state agreement that calls for killing or removing bison that migrate outside Yellowstone to prevent the spread of brucellosis – a disease that can cause cows to abort their calves. Since February, 1,728 Yellowstone bison have been killed or removed under the program. "They have to be hazed back in, captured or shot," said Errol Rice with the Montana Stockgrowers Association. "Now's the time to be extremely cautious, not more tolerant of bison in Montana." For the last three years, state officials have allowed bison to linger outside the park past a May 15 deadline outlined in the 2000 federal-state agreement. On Wednesday, the stockgrowers group and two ranchers went to court in Helena to compel the Department of Livestock to comply with the agreement – just hours before the state said between 85 and 100 of the animals would be pushed back into the park from 700 acres owned by the Galanis family....
Court rulings resolve little in packhorse flap In the ongoing legal battle between the U.S. Forest Service and environmental groups over commercial horsepacking in two Sierra Nevada wilderness areas, the only loser seems to be the taxpayer. Months after throwing out a $7.5 million plan to manage horsepacking in the John Muir and Ansel Adams wilderness areas, a federal judge has ordered only slim reductions in usage levels for commercial operators. In her May 8 ruling, Judge Elizabeth D. Laporte reinstated the Forest Service's 2001 management plan and trimmed trail quotas for commercial stock use by 5%. Laporte's latest decision, however, seems unlikely to halt the 8-year-old tussle between environmental groups, the Forest Service and 17 horsepacking outfits. Last October, Laporte ordered the Forest Service to vacate its 2005 management plan, ruling that some elements violated federal laws designed to protect wilderness areas. She ruled the plan allowed for "significantly increased commercial packstock use in some parts of the wilderness, including areas previously recognized by the Forest Service as already being heavily damaged from excessive stock use." By reverting to the 2001 plan, horsepack operators again will be governed by a trail quota system that limits the number of stock that can enter a trail on a single day....
New Threat To Spotted Owl Exposed A new study provides a baseline distribution of blood parasites and strains in Spotted Owls, suggesting a more fragile immune health than previously understood for the already threatened Northern and California Spotted Owls. The study, co-authored by San Francisco State University biologists, is the first to show a Spotted Owl infected with an avian malaria (Plasmodium) parasite. According to the researchers, the infected Northern Spotted Owl (Strix occidentalis caurina) may have been exposed to the parasite by coming into contact with mosquitoes that fed on a Barred Owl (Strix varia). The increasingly invasive Barred Owls compete with Spotted Owls for food and nesting sites. Ishak and Sehgal expect their findings will prompt more research into this species and enhance general knowledge of the role and effects of blood-borne pathogens in wild bird populations....
Climate Change to Bring Storm to US Livestock The U.S. Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) released the report entitled: "Synthesis and Assessment Product 4.3 (SAP 4.3): The Effects of Climate Change on Agriculture, Land Resources, Water Resources, and Biodiversity in the United States." "The report issued today provides practical information that will help land owners and resource managers make better decisions to address the risks of climate change," said Agriculture Chief Economist Joe Glauber. The report finds that climate change is already affecting U.S. water resources, agriculture, land resources, and biodiversity, and will continue to do so. USDA agencies are responding to the risks of climate change. For example, the Forest Service is incorporating climate change risks into National Forest Management Plans and is providing guidance to forest managers on how to respond and adapt to climate change. The Natural Resources Conservation Service and Farm Services Agency are encouraging actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and increase carbon sequestration through conservation programs. USDA's Risk Management Agency has prepared tools to manage drought risks and is conducting an assessment of the risks of climate change on the crop insurance program....
Air quality concerns halt drilling A Denver energy company's plan to drill hundreds of natural gas wells in Nine Mile Canyon should not proceed until an environmental study is rewritten to include more information about air quality, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says. In a May 23 letter to Selma Sierra, the Utah director of the federal Bureau of Land Management, EPA Region 8 administrator Robert Roberts said BLM's draft environmental impact study (EIS) for the West Tavaputs Plateau full-field development didn't satisfy requirements of the Clean Air Act. The EPA is particularly concerned with a study finding that the Bill Barrett Corp. project would cause only very small increases in ground-level ozone, a conclusion EPA said "is not technically defensible." The EPA's recommendation could slow Bill Barrett Corp.'s plan to drill 807 wells on 138,000 acres. The public land includes Nine Mile Canyon, which holds more than 10,000 known Ancient Puebloan rock-art images and ruins. But Duane Zavadil, Bill Barrett's vice president for government and regulatory affairs, said the unprecedented action makes no sense because EPA's new ozone standards mean hundreds of counties across the nation now are out of compliance with the Clean Air Act. "Is it appropriate to require this sort of project-specific ozone analysis?" Zavadil said. "The notion that we should go back and remodel and say the same thing is in my opinion tantamount to obstructionism and bullying by the EPA. The models aren't meant to be regulatory tools."....
Ranchers use sun to power water pumps Though ranchers want rain, the hot, sunny weather has been helping some of them get water to cattle in remote pastures. Velva-based Verendrye Electric Cooperative started installing solar-powered pasture well systems for its members in 1991, after about 10 years of studying the idea. More than 130 systems are installed in Verendrye’s seven-county area around Minot. Tom Jespersen, the co-op’s energy adviser, said about 50 or 60 more will be installed this year. AP photo Randy Hauck, left, member service manager, and Tom Jespersen, energy adviser, both of Verendrye Electric Cooperative, stand next to a solar-powered pasture well west of Velva Thursday. Randy Hauck, a member service manager for Veren-drye, said the company was looking for alternatives to building power lines to remote sites....
USDA Opens Conservation Reserve Land to Grazing, Haying The USDA today announced that it will authorize 24 million acres enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Program, about 65 percent, to be grazed or hayed for “critical feed” for livestock. The agency cites rising crop prices, high demand for feed and steep competition for acres as its reasons for opening up the CRP lands. The USDA estimates the critical use program will generate 18 million tons of feed worth $1.2 billion. For the 2008 season, 36.8 million acres are enrolled in CRP, which pays landowners to take their land out of production for 10-15 years to restore habitat, curb erosion and improve water quality. For 2007 enrollments, landowners will get a total of $1.8 million in rental payments, at an average of of $49.49 per acre and per farm, about $4,130 a year, according to recent USDA statistics....
Ritter's animal care bill ensures that farmers and ranchers have a voice Governor Ritter's recent signing of a new farm practices bill was welcome news to Colorado farmers and ranchers. It will, over the long term, help make sure our agriculture and livestock community has a strong voice in the regulation of animal care practices in this state. That seems entirely reasonable. After all, farmers and ranchers have a rich heritage in Colorado, and that heritage is inseparable from the well-being of the livestock we raise. It's only natural we care for the interests of our animals and consider their humane treatment one of our greatest responsibilities. As any farmer or rancher could tell you, animals don't know about holidays, days off or vacations. They need care twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, 52 weeks a year. They need care on the snowiest winter nights and the hottest summer days. It's hard work. But it's what we do to ensure the health and safety of our animals. In the last few years, concerns have been raised about some of the standard practices we've used for many years in raising farm animals. All of these practices, it's important to note, have been developed over time by livestock veterinarians and other animal scientists. And while in most cases the people who are raising these concerns are well meaning, they're not farmers or ranchers, haven't raised livestock or lived around farm animals, and don't know how much care we give them....

U.S. Forest Service cancels agreement with energy company The U.S. Forest Service has canceled an arrangement with an energy company seeking to drill for oil and gas along a scenic western Wyoming mountain range. The arrangement between the Bridger-Teton National Forest and Denver-based Stanley Energy raised protests from Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal and others. The Forest Service had agreed to let Stanley Energy pay for an environmental analysis of proposed oil and gas leases that the company was seeking to acquire on the Wyoming Range. Freudenthal said the arrangement was inappropriate and compromised the environmental analysis. Bridger-Teton Forest Supervisor Kniffy Hamilton says the arrangement with Stanley was a mistake and the Forest Service will now take over the analysis. Freudenthal welcomed the move but says the Forest Service is still proceeding too quickly....
Wyden proposes Badlands wilderness area near Bend Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said Tuesday he would introduce a bill to create a desert wilderness area east of Bend. Wyden made the announcement amid the juniper and sagebrush of the area known as the Badlands, which is overseen by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. "After years of increasing interest and excitement about protecting this beautiful place, I am ready to introduce the legislation necessary to create the 30,000-acre Oregon Badlands Wilderness," he said. The Oregon Natural Desert Association, a Bend group integral in creating the Steens wilderness during the Clinton administration, has been advocating for converting the Badlands to wilderness. The area 15 miles east of Bend is managed as a wilderness study area by the BLM, which bestows some of the same protections. But only Congress can designate a wilderness, which would exclude motorized recreation from the Badlands. Motorized groups, such as ATV users, have provided the primary opposition. Three years ago their testimony helped lead Deschutes County commissioners to refrain from endorsing the Badlands proposal....
U.S. Forest Service to fill hundreds of vacancies The U.S. Forest Service wants to fill more than 500 positions in California in its next round of hiring. Forest Service officials say they will be ready for this year's fire season. "Absolutely," said spokesman Jason Kirchner. Earlier this month, Mark Rey, undersecretary of Agriculture, wrote in a letter to Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-California, that there were 363 firefighter vacancies in California. The difference between the 500-plus number spelled out in a Forest Service document and the vacancy number Rey gave is because as the agency fills positions internally, new vacancies will be created, Kirchner said. "The reason why it's a lot higher is that we fill most of our vacancies with current employees," he said. An April Forest Service report on firefighter retention said the highest attrition rates in the Southern California forests were among entry-level firefighters. Kirchner said the region has recruited so many that 206 will be promoted to the next level, known as GS-05. At that level, the agency has 729 vacancies, but that number will be reduced to 523 once the 206 firefighters are promoted, Kirchner said. Those remaining 523 openings will be filled with temporary employees....
Landowners Beware Under the guise of making more land accessible for the public's use and providing tax relief for land-rich but cash-poor landowners, the government has found a convenient way to restrict the use of private land - often without the original landowner's knowledge. Enter The Nature Conservancy and other large land trust conglomerates that approach farmers or large landowners with what seems like a "win-win" for all involved. In return for donating their land for conservation purposes, the landowners are provided with federal and state tax breaks and agree never to convert, develop or use the land for any purpose other than farming or ranching. A total of 37 million acres of land throughout the United States are currently under the control of land trusts. However, according to a new report by the National Center for Public Policy Research titled, "Conservation Easements: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly," all-too-often that acquired land, placed under "conservation easements," goes from the land trust right into the governing hands of the largest landowner in the United States, the federal government. Dana Joel Gattuso, author of the report and senior fellow of the National Center, explains these "prearranged flips" provide a back door approach to acquiring land control that is good for the government and the original land trust, but bad for the unsuspecting landowner, who has been kept out of the loop. How profitable is it for conglomerates like The Nature Conservancy to participate in flips? Gattuso cites their annual report, which states about a fifth of the land trust's annual support and revenues come from the sales of easements to the government. "In one example, The Nature Conservancy bought an easement for $1.26 million, then directly sold it to the federal Bureau of Land Management for $1.4 million," she says....
Wolf Shot Near West Yellowstone for Frequenting Campgrounds Montana wildlife officials shot a wolf near West Yellowstone because it had been frequenting campgrounds and residential areas over the past two weeks. State Fish, Wildlife and Parks officials say the wolf was exhibiting aggressive behavior toward people and dogs and showed no fear of people. It was shot Tuesday. Regional Wildlife Manager Kurt Alt says most wolves post no threat to people or domestic animals, but occasionally there can be problems. He says such incidents are evaluated on a case-by-case basis. Montana has 420 wolves, mostly in the western portion of the state. The Northern Rocky Mountain gray wolf population was removed from protection under the Endangered Species Act in late March.
Killing the wolves again This year, on Feb. 27, given the reintroduction's success, the Bush administration removed the gray wolves of the northern Rockies from the federal Endangered Species List. It's now legal to shoot a wolf in more than 85 percent of the state of Wyoming, even if the wolf being shot has no history of preying on livestock or domestic animals. On March 28, the day that new state wolf policies went into effect, a hunter stationed near elk feeding grounds in Daniel, Wyo., shot and killed Limpy. In the parlance of wolf management, Limpy was a "clean" wolf who'd never been known to prey on livestock or domestic animals. Limpy is not the only victim. In the past two months, wolf-hunting parties in Wyoming have been gathering near elk feeding grounds. "They're having weekend wolf-hunting parties by snowmobile," says Suzanne Stone, Defenders of Wildlife's northern Rockies wolf conservation specialist. "It's very easy to kill wolves during this time of year because they're so stationary. The whole pack tends to keep very close to their den sites." Some wolves have been chased by snowmobiles for miles before being gunned down. In Idaho, wolves suspected of "molesting or attacking livestock or domestic animals" can be killed without a permit. Montana and Wyoming have also made it easier to shoot a wolf that threatens livestock, and all three states plan to hold wolf-hunting seasons this year. While the wolves that stay in national parks, like Yellowstone and Grand Teton, are still protected, those that stray out of them are at risk of being shot. Since late March, at least 40 wolves in Montana, Wyoming and Idaho have been shot dead....
Polar bear is the linchpin to greens' agenda A preventive war worked out so well in Iraq that Washington has launched another. The new preventive war — the government responding forcefully against a postulated future threat — has been declared on behalf of polar bears, the first species whose supposed jeopardy has been ascribed to global warming. The Interior Department, bound by the Endangered Species Act, has declared polar bears a "threatened" species because they might be endangered "in the foreseeable future," meaning 45 years. The bears will be threatened if the current episode of warming, if there really is one, is, unlike all the previous episodes, irreversible, and if it intensifies, and if it continues to melt sea ice vital to the bears, and if the bears, unlike in many previous warming episodes, cannot adapt. But Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne says the "threatened" label is mandatory because sea ice has been melting and computer models postulate future melting caused by human activity. So, now that human activity is assumed to be the primary cause of warming, the decision to classify the bears as threatened has become a mighty lever. Now that polar bears are wards of the government, and now that it is a legal doctrine that humans are responsible for global warming, the Endangered Species Act has acquired unlimited application. Anything that can be said to increase global warming can — must — be said to threaten bears already designated as threatened. Want to build a power plant in Arizona? A building in Florida? Do you want to drive an SUV? Or leave your cell phone charger plugged in overnight? Some judge might construe federal policy as proscribing these activities....
Sue, Sarah, Sue The polar bears are doing just fine, thank you very much. So says Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who announced last week that her state would sue to block Washington from listing the animals as "threatened" under the Endangered Species Act. And it's a good thing, too - because the new bear-population protections mask what may be the most serious threat to American economic might in decades. Yes, polar bears. The polar bear, you see, marks the first species on the "threatened" list whose supposed predicament is linked directly to global warming. The current Alaskan polar-bear population may be near an all-time high. But Interior Department computer models - such as they are - project widespread melting of the polar ice the bears need to hunt. And that's a big problem, given the near-limitless powers embedded in the Endangered Species Act. The act, for one, requires the department to ensure that "all actions authorized, funded or carried out" by all federal agencies aren't likely to "result in the . . . adverse modification of habitat" of listed species. This was odious enough when the presence of a few worthless snail darters was sufficient to derail massive public-works projects. But because polar bears are now imperiled by global warming (officially, anyway), any carbon emissions anywhere in the country could conceivably be judged an illegal threat to their habitat....
Polar bear listing is big win for area group This month's listing of the polar bear as a threatened species was the biggest victory in the 19-year history of Tucson's Center for Biological Diversity. It was also the single biggest step to advance the cause of global warming on the worldwide stage of public opinion, according to the environmental group's friends and foes alike. One legal observer, University of Denver law professor Fred Cheever, likened it to the effect of the endangered-species listings of the bald eagle and peregrine falcon, which led the U.S. to ban the pesticide DDT a quarter-century ago. "If you had to rank them, what single thing has brought the most attention in the U.S. to the climate-change issue?" asked Oliver Houck, a Tulane University law professor who specializes in environmental law. "Would it be Al Gore winning the Nobel Prize, the movie 'Inconvenient Truth,' or a picture of a polar bear on shrinking ice? I say maybe the picture would win. "That image is so much in the public mind that the Bush administration didn't want to list it but had to. Not listing it would be like killing Flipper or Smokey Bear," Houck said. But like scores of other species-protection cases won by the Center for Biological Diversity in the past, this is but the first step in a long, arduous process to translate the listing into action. The center petitioned for the polar bear's listing back in 2005. It later sued along with Greenpeace and the Natural Resources Defense Council to force the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to list it. The center's blueprint for saving the polar bear is ambitious and complex. It includes: ● Challenging offshore oil and gas leasing in Alaska within six months. ● Launching a large-scale challenge to the licensing of coal-fired power plants around the country sometime after that. ● Finally, challenging large-scale, local government development plans in major cities....
Group announces intent to sue over walrus petition A conservation group gave notice Tuesday that it will sue to force federal action on a petition to list the Pacific walrus as a threatened species because of threats from global warming and offshore petroleum development. The deadline was May 8 for an initial 90-day review of the petition by the U.S. Department of the Interior, according to Center for Biological Diversity attorney Brendan Cummings. The group filed the petition in February. Shaye Wolf, a biologist and lead author of the petition, said Arctic sea ice is disappearing faster than the best predictions of climate models. "As the sea ice recedes, so does the future of the Pacific walrus," she said. The conservation group was one of three that successfully petitioned to have polar bears listed as threatened because of sea ice loss caused by global warming, a decision announced May 14 by Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne. That listing also followed court action to force deadline decisions....
Protesters Fear Prairie Dogs Will Be Fed To Ferrets Protesters were trying to stop a large colony of prairie dogs from being destroyed in Douglas County Tuesday. The colony is on 87 acres near the corner of Lucent Boulevard and Highlands Ranch Parkway. Shea Properties owns the land and is planning a retail development. The protesters say Shea Properties has backed out of a deal to help relocate the prairie dogs. The protesters represent a group called Douglas County Citizens for Wildlife. The group had a verbal agreement with Shea Properties to safely relocate the prairie dogs, according to spokeswoman Leslie Johnson. It's estimated that 1,000 prairie dogs live there and something will need to be done with them before the land can be developed. The protesters say the developer intends to use some of the prairie dogs as food for an endangered species -- the black-footed ferret. CBS4 was able to confirm there is a ferret-breeding project in Larimer County. A biologist with the program said prairie dogs are typically captured and shipped still alive to the program. But protestors say they are afraid many of the animals would simply be eradicated....
'Critical habitat' set for sturgeon Eight years after the federal government put the Alabama sturgeon on the endangered species list, it is poised today to name 326 miles in the Mobile River Basin as "critical habitat" needed to keep the species in existence. The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service will announce a plan to apply the habitat designation to 245 miles of river channel on the Alabama River and another 81 miles on a connected stretch of the lower Cahaba River, according to a Monday e-mail notice from Jeff Powell, a biologist in the agency's Daphne field office. The proposal, which carries a 60-day public comment period, is required by a federal court order. A final decision is due by mid-May of next year, Powell said in the notice. Under federal law, critical habitat refers to specific areas essential for conservation of a threatened or endangered species, he said, and may require "special management and protection."....