Ranchers using plan to help endangered species Federal officials have approved a habitat conservation plan that will let a group of southwestern ranchers improve and maintain their lands while helping several species considered threatened or endangered. The plan will enable ranchers affiliated with the Malpai Borderlands Group in southeastern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico to continue using their lands for cattle-raising activities while providing long-range benefit to plant, fish and animal species that are threatened or endangered. And it will let them address endangered species issues in a more efficient way than on a project-by-project basis, said U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services spokesman Jeff Humphrey. ``It's so hard not to be reactive when you're a landowner when it involves endangered species,'' said Bill McDonald, chairman of the Malpai group, which includes more than 20 of about 30 ranching families spread across 828,000 acres in the two states. Their plan, finally approved in October, is designed to let ranchers improve grasslands and watersheds and enable them to manage their ranching functions. Fish and Wildlife has issued a permit that allows Malpai members to ``take,'' or kill, a threatened or endangered species if it is incidental to their lawful operations and if the taking will not jeopardize the population's survival....

Judge scales back ruling on roadless nat'l forests A federal magistrate judge ruled Tuesday that a Clinton-era ban against new road construction and development on millions of acres of national forest would apply only to 10 western states. Two years ago, Judge Elizabeth Laporte invalidated a 2005 Bush administration rule that overturned the 2001 "Roadless Rule," which protected 58.5 million acres of federal land in about 40 states. But in August, a federal judge in Wyoming invalidated President Bill Clinton's Roadless Rule, leading the Bush administration to request that the two judges modify their conflicting rulings. In response, Laporte reduced the geographic scope of her 2006 ruling. The move is only a temporary fix. Federal appeals courts in San Francisco and Denver are expected to rule on the case next year, and road construction rules also could change under President-elect Barack Obama's administration....

States blast feds' sheep rule The Bush administration is attempting to usurp wildlife management authority from Western states through an end-of-term, under-the-radar move on bighorn sheep, state officials and wildlife advocates charge. Without consulting or even notifying any state agencies, the U.S. Forest Service and the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service have drafted an agreement that would, in effect, take jurisdiction over the transplantation of bighorn sheep on national forests. That's according to documents provided to the Star-Tribune by the Western Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies and the state of Wyoming. Although the federal action was drafted sometime in September, regional wildlife agencies didn't find out about it until the third week in November, state officials said. According to the written agreement itself, it was created out of concern for the declining bighorn sheep population in the West. But critics say the real reason for the move is to protect domestic sheep producers, at the expense of bighorns. In a letter sent Monday to USDA Undersecretaries Mark Rey and Bruce Knight, the wildlife agencies' association condemned the agreement for being "drafted without input from any state wildlife agency, whose statutory authority to manage resident wildlife is clearly established." As written, the action "contravenes existing law and policy, is unworkable in day-to-day management of the states' wildlife resources and produces a host of undesirable (and perhaps unintended) consequences," the letter contends. Member agencies of the group know of no law or regulation providing the Forest Service with the authority to require disease testing of bighorn sheep or any other native resident wildlife, the group argues....

West Slope pushing BLM on health study Western Slope communities are pressing the federal Bureau of Land Management to add a comprehensive health study of oil and gas drilling to its environmental assessment for managing public lands. The request is in response to worries voiced repeatedly by residents as oil and gas development grows in the region. "What we need is adequate data to know how things are changing and where change is coming from," said Keith Lambert, the mayor of Rifle and one of those asking for the assessment. The request comes after a string of health studies released this year found no immediate health risk — but raised questions. Outside the Front Range, volatile organic pollution from oil and gas operations is projected to rise to 69 percent of all sources in 2010, up from 35 percent in 2005, according to a state Air Pollution Control Division analysis. The question is whether those emissions will have, either locally or regionally, health effects....

Solar thermal projects gather steam -- and opposition Just up the road, past pump jacks bobbing in California's storied oil patch, look sharp and you'll catch a glimpse of the state's energy future. Rows of gigantic mirrors covering an area bigger than two football fields have sprouted alongside almond groves near California 99. This is a power plant that uses the sun's heat to produce electricity for thousands of homes. Owned by Palo Alto-based Ausra Inc., it's the first so-called solar thermal facility to open in California in nearly two decades. It's part of a drive to build clean electricity generation using the sun, wind and other renewable sources with an urgency not seen since the days of environmentalist Gov. Jerry Brown. Add President-elect Barack Obama's stated intention to push for more renewable power and you've got the equivalent of a green land rush. At least 80 large solar projects are on the drawing board in California, more than in any other place in the country. The scale of some is unrivaled on the planet. One facility planned for the Mojave Desert is projected to take up a land mass the size of Inglewood....

Government backs off plan to drill in Utah canyons A section of whitewater rapids tucked between high cliffs, little changed since explorer John Wesley Powell boated through in 1896, and a canyon decorated with thousands of ancient rock art panels have been pulled off the auction block by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. For the second time in a week, the bureau announced late Tuesday that it was pulling auction parcels from an expanded oil-and-gas leasing program in Utah. The latest tracts include land inside Nine Mile Canyon and Desolation Canyon on the Green River. The bureau didn't say why it was pulling the lease tracts, but the prospect of drilling near Utah's scenic treasures brought condemnation from conservation groups. Together with previous deferrals, the BLM has pulled nearly 100,000 acres from an auction set for Dec. 19, leaving more than 276,000 acres up for bid....

Activists sue to shut down Delta pumps Reaching back to the laws of ancient Rome, environmentalists sued Monday to cut off Delta water operations and dramatically shake up the long-term balance between economic and environmental needs in the region. If it succeeds, the lawsuit would shift the focus from the worsening conflict between individual species of fish and the amount of water pumped out of the Delta to a comprehensive attempt to balance competing interests. "The only things that are already protected are already endangered," said Michael Jackson, a lawyer for the environmental groups. "But what's happening is the whole bottom is falling out of the ecosystem. You cannot list everything (as an endangered species) and you can't protect species by species." By invoking the public trust doctrine, a legal concept that dates to the Roman Empire, the environmental groups seek to force regulators to consider the environment, recreation, aesthetics and other values to be passed to future generations in the Delta much more rigorously. The lawsuit, filed in Sacramento County Superior Court by the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, the California Water Impact Network and retired federal biologist Felix Smith, seeks to stop water deliveries from the Delta until the massive state and federal pumping stations near Tracy come into compliance with laws that the environmentalists say are being broken....

New Trade Case Welcomed As Cattle Producers Lose Over One Million Dollars Per Day The Canadian Cattlemen’s Association (CCA) fully supports the announcement today that the Government of Canada is requesting consultations with the United States, pursuant to the World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreement, concerning the U.S.’ implementation of mandatory Country-of-Origin Labeling (COOL) regulations for meat products. CCA President, Brad Wildeman stated, “We have been working with the federal government to prepare a possible trade challenge for some time now. We congratulate federal Agriculture Minister, Gerry Ritz, and Stockwell Day, Minister of International Trade for initiating this process to stand up for Canadian cattle producers. This is the first formal step that must be undertaken before a trade dispute settlement panel can be established under WTO rules.”....

How’s this for a job? So, you think you’ve got a big job, keeping down the weeds in your yard? Meet Mike Berry of Whitewater, Colo., who operates Remote Weeds, a weed spraying business that takes him into the far reaches of the remote wilderness on almost a daily basis throughout the summer months. At the beckoned call of the BLM, the U.S. Forest Service, the Nature Conservancy, the U.S. Park Service, oil companies, and private landowners, Berry has covered thousands of acres in Colorado and surrounding states in an effort to wipe out the plague of noxious weeds invading the West. He’s worked as far north as the Tetons, west into Utah, and was leaving to work the site of the Hayman fire over by Woodland Park, when he hung around long enough to be interviewed. Although he sometimes carries out his duties on a 4-wheeler or with a truck-mounted sprayer, he prefers to be horseback, even though it’s more work, and most jobs find him mounted on his trusty saddle horse, Red, and leading a molly mule by the name of – you guessed it – Molly! This outfit takes the place of five or six people with backpack sprayers, and it’s quicker and more economical for the agency or person footing the bill. Molly’s Decker pack saddle is loaded with four spray tanks, each holding five gallons of chemical containing a water-soluble blue dye, which allows Berry to see where he’s been and not miss any places and not waste time or chemical by overlapping his 30-foot swaths. Also in the mule’s pack is a 12-volt battery. Attached to his wrist Berry wears a small remote control that operates the spray nozzle, so he can turn it off and on at will. One advantage of the battery-powered remote control is that the spray is not under pressure, as it might be with a CO2 system, which some folks use....

Green card holders will be fingerprinted and photographed at U.S. borders

The Bush Administration has issued final rules, which will become effective two days before Barack Obama's inauguration, that will require millions of "Lawful Permanent Residents" -- non-citizens who hold green cards and are allowed to live in the U.S. -- to be fingerprinted and have their faces photographed by DHS whenever they return from abroad at a U.S. airport or land border entry point. The new rules will treat lawful permanent residents (LPRs) more like visiting foreign nationals, who currently are required to submit their fingerprints and facial photos under the US-VISIT program, than U.S. citizens, who are not required to be fingerprinted or photographed. Approximately 4.4 million lawful permanent residents – as well as 33 million U.S. citizens – arrive at U.S. airports and seaports each year, according to DHS....

When the Warmest in History Isn't In that spirit, many papers (including The Chronicle) have reported on a UC San Diego science historian who reviewed 928 abstracts of peer-reviewed articles on global warming published between 1993 and 2003, and concluded, "Remarkably, none of the papers disagreed with the consensus position." Over 10 years, not one study challenged the orthodoxy -- does that sound right to you? If that were true, it would strongly suggest that, despite conflicting evidence in this wide and changing world, no scientist dares challenge the politically correct position on the issue. No wonder, David Bellamy -- an Australian botanist who was involved in some 400 TV productions, only to see his TV career go south after he questioned global warming orthodoxy -- wrote in The Australian last week, "It's not even science anymore; it's anti-science." Bellamy notes that official data show that "in every year since 1998, world temperatures have been getting colder, and in 2002 Arctic ice actually increased." Exhibit B: Richard S. Lindzen, the MIT Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Sciences, recently wrote, "There has been no warming since 1997 and no statistically significant warming since 1995." Such findings rarely are reported, even as, Marc Morano, communications director for the Republicans on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee told me, "Scientists keep coming out of the woodwork" to challenge the so-called consensus. "It's almost like a bandwagon effect." The Global Warming Petition Project urges Washington to reject the Kyoto international global warming pact as there is "no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate." So far, The Politico reports, more than 31,000 scientists have signed it....

Criminalizing Carbon A British jurist wants to form an international court for the environment with the power to punish states and businesses. Will fossil fuels soon become controlled substances? The United Nations Climate Change Conference kicked off in Poznan, Poland, on Monday with representatives from around the world working to negotiate the framework for a successor to the failed Kyoto Protocol. Stephen Hockman, the former head of the British Bar Council and a deputy High Court judge, has an idea why Kyoto failed to reach its emission goals and has proposed a remedy: creating a body similar to the International Court of Justice in The Hague. The new court would have the ability to sanction and perhaps even punish those who violate or fail to obey climate change treaties such as Kyoto. It's tempting to dismiss this as the pipe dream of a barrister who also supports bringing Shariah law to Britain. But the idea of enforcing greenhouse gas reductions through legal means has been voiced by others and could easily snowball into widespread acceptance....

Drought deepens strain on a dwindling Colorado The drought gripping Utah, Southern California and the rest of the Southwest this century shows no sign of ending. Scientists see it as a permanent condition that, despite year-to-year weather variations, will deepen as temperatures rise, snows dwindle, soils bake and fires burn. That's grim news for all of us in the West, perhaps most especially for the 10 million residents along the northern stretch of the Colorado River -- Utah, New Mexico, Wyoming and Colorado -- whose water rights are newer, and therefore junior, to those in Southern California, Nevada and Arizona. Making matters worse, the Colorado -- the 1,450-mile-long lifeline that sustains more than 30 million souls and 3.5 million acres of farmland in seven states, 34 tribal nations and Mexico -- is in decline, scientists warn. Even so, demand for the Colorado's water echoes from city leaders, industry giants, oil drillers, farmers, fishers, ranchers, boaters, bikers and hikers -- along with silent pleas from wildlife and the ecosystem. Trend analyses by federal scientists, probably conservative, predict the population dependent on the river will reach at least 38 million during the coming decade....

Plague spurs prairie dog die-off in grasslands An outbreak of the plague is killing off the black-tailed prairie dogs on the Comanche National Grassland in southeast Colorado, in a dramatic die-off that has raised concerns for the future of the species in one of its richest habitats. The U.S. Forest Service, which runs the 443,750-acre grassland, said Monday that prairie dog colonies decreased from 16,000 acres in 2005 to just 3,607 this year. The plague occurs regularly among prairie dogs throughout their range, spreads quickly through colonies, and can infect pets and humans that come into contact with them, the agency said. The news comes at a time of scrutiny on the small, plains rodent. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is expected to determine, possibly as soon as today, whether the prairie dog should be protected under the Endangered Species Act. Conservation groups, who sued to try to get the agency to reverse an earlier decision not to protect the prairie dog, say the Comanche population was one of the largest and best-documented in the state, and the die-offs indicate the species needs the federal protection....

Confession tossed for Forest Service coercion tactics Agents with the U.S. Forest Service broke an accused Cherokee National Forest arsonist's spirit to glean a confession too tainted to be used against him, a judge ruled Monday. In a massive 65-page ruling, U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce Guyton painstakingly painted the line between investigative creativity and police coercion. He then opined that forestry agents employing what has been dubbed by defense attorney Gregory P. Isaacs as the "Save Jane" ruse stepped over it in the case of alleged firebug John Wesley Irons. "The court finds that in this case law enforcement took their ruse too far," Guyton ruled. In his ruling, Guyton tossed out as evidence against Irons his alleged confession to setting hundreds of fires in the Coker Creek community in Monroe County and surrounding Cherokee National Forest. In so doing, he backed Isaacs' assertion Irons rattled off an involuntary confession to protect the women he loved - his estranged wife and U.S. Forest Service Agent Jane Wright. Irons allegedly told forestry agents his compulsion to set fires began when he was a teenager. Now 61, Irons allegedly admitted torching woods using candles and setting ablaze structures including the home of a U.S. Forest Service agent who was inside with his family at the time. But Guyton questioned just how "voluntary" that statement was given that it was gleaned when a "distraught" Irons lay handcuffed beside Wright, also handcuffed as part of a fake arrest, and murmured words of "unrequited" love, unaware he was being tricked into believing his confession would set her free....

Lawyers call for international court for the environment A former chairman of the Bar Council is calling for an international court for the environment to punish states that fail to protect wildlife and prevent climate change. Stephen Hockman QC is proposing a body similar to the International Court of Justice in The Hague to be the supreme legal authority on issues regarding the environment. The first role of the new body would be to enforce international agreements on cutting greenhouse gas emissions set to be agreed next year. But the court would also fine countries or companies that fail to protect endangered species or degrade the natural environment and enforce the "right to a healthy environment". Mr Hockman, a deputy High Court judge, said that the threat of climate change means it is more important than ever for the law to protect the environment. The UN Climate Change Conference in Poznan, Poland this month is set to begin negotiations that will lead to a new agreement to replace the Kyoto Protocol in Copenhagen next year. Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister, has agreed the concept of an international court will be taken into account when considering how to make these international agreements on climate change binding....

‘America is Back’ as a Leader on Climate Change, Sen. Kerry Says After eight years of resisting cap-and-trade proposals as offered in the Kyoto Protocol, for instance, America is back as a leader on the issue of climate change and will press ahead with policy changes that address environmental and economic challenges that are now interlinked, according to Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) Kerry, the incoming chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, made those comments in speaking with reporters during a conference call Tuesday. The call was organized to address an upcoming climate change conference (Dec. 1-12) in Poznan, Poland. With scientific evidence weighing in favor of the idea that global warming is man made, it is imperative for the global community to shift away from dependence on fossil fuels and to a green economy as a matter of survival, Kerry said. The PolandClimate Change Conference should be viewed as a “steeping stone” to help set up a framework for future discussions and is not meant as a substantive negotiation session, said Kerry. The December meetings will instead lay the groundwork for the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark where a treaty could be produced, he said....

The recession's here. Let's tax carbon! The first hundred days of any presidency rarely go off as planned, but, for now, Barack Obama seems to know what's at the top of his to-do list. In late October, he told Time's Joe Klein that "a new energy economy" would "be my number-one priority when I get into office." But then, as if to cut off a lurking objection, Obama quickly tacked on a qualifier: "assuming, obviously, that we have done enough to just stabilize the immediate economic situation." The caveat seemed to nod at a nascent conventional wisdom: Now that the United States is staring down the barrel of a nasty recession, many Washington types wonder if Obama will have to tear up that to-do list and rein in his ambitious climate and energy proposals. True, not all of Obama's green ideas are controversial: You can't pick up a newspaper op-ed page these days without seeing yet another economist argue that government spending on clean energy and eco-friendly infrastructure could provide the Keynesian boost necessary to haul the economy out of its mire. But the linchpin of Obama's energy platform wasn't new spending; it was an economy- wide cap on carbon-dioxide emissions, in which a decreasing number of tradeable pollution permits would be auctioned off each year, so as to ratchet down greenhouse gases and help avert drastic global warming. Energy experts tend to agree that it's not enough for the government to fund alternative-energy sources; the only way to usher in the "new energy economy" Obama envisions is to make it costlier to burn fossil fuels. But that's the catch: Since Obama's cap-and-trade proposal would essentially act as a tax and increase the price of oil, gas, and coal, he downplayed this aspect of his plan on the trail--and it's the one idea that now looks most vulnerable. The queasiness is understandable. On the surface, it really doesn't sound like a hot idea to impose broad new regulations on a struggling economy. In this case, though, the fear is misguided. Global warming is urgent enough that the next administration will need to go all-out on the issue, passing not just a green stimulus package but especially a cap on carbon. And, not only is the recession a poor excuse to hold back, it may even be all the more reason to act....

The True Costs of EPA Global Warming Regulation Legislation designed to address global warming failed in Congress this year, largely due to concerns about its high costs and adverse impact on an already weakening economy. The congressional debate will likely resume in 2009, as legislators try again to bal­ance the environmental and economic considerations on this complex issue. Meanwhile, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), pursuant to a 2007 Supreme Court decision, has initiated steps toward bypassing the legislative process and regulating greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act. The EPA's Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR) is nothing less than the most costly, compli­cated, and unworkable regulatory scheme ever pro­posed. Under ANPR, nearly every product, business, and building that uses fossil fuels could face require­ments that border on the impossible. The overall cost of this agenda would likely exceed that of the legisla­tion rejected by Congress, reaching well into the tril­lions of dollars while destroying millions of jobs in the manufacturing sector.[1] The ANPR is clearly not in the best interests of Americans, and the EPA should not proceed to a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking and final rule based upon it....

Ocean currents can power the world, say scientists A revolutionary device that can harness energy from slow-moving rivers and ocean currents could provide enough power for the entire world, scientists claim. The technology can generate electricity in water flowing at a rate of less than one knot - about one mile an hour - meaning it could operate on most waterways and sea beds around the globe. Existing technologies which use water power, relying on the action of waves, tides or faster currents created by dams, are far more limited in where they can be used, and also cause greater obstructions when they are built in rivers or the sea. Turbines and water mills need an average current of five or six knots to operate efficiently, while most of the earth's currents are slower than three knots. The new device, which has been inspired by the way fish swim, consists of a system of cylinders positioned horizontal to the water flow and attached to springs. As water flows past, the cylinder creates vortices, which push and pull the cylinder up and down. The mechanical energy in the vibrations is then converted into electricity....