Montana considers cashing in on 1.2B tons of coal

Montana officials are on track to seek bids this fall to mine a massive reserve of state-owned coal near the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation -- a deposit with enough fuel to feed the United States' coal appetite for a year. Experts describe the state's Otter Creek reserve as world class: more than 1.2 billion tons of coal massed beneath the rolling hills of the Powder River Basin. The Montana Land Board is to decide in September whether to seek a company to mine the reserve, following recent public hearings that revealed a local community divided over the proposal. The board is chaired by Gov. Brian Schweitzer, an outspoken coal advocate who has said the tracts will be put up for auction. Lining up behind development is a powerful alliance of coal industry supporters. That includes many of the area's elected officials and proponents of the Tongue River Railroad, a long-stalled $341 million line proposed from Miles City south through Otter Creek to the Wyoming border. The railroad would cut through dozens of ranches. Opposition to the line has long been a rallying cry for those landowners nervous about the change coal development would bring. The fight has attracted the Sierra Club, which along with the Billings-based Northern Plains Resource Council has organized ranchers and tribal members against the project. Aiding them behind the scenes has been candy company billionaire Forrest Mars Jr. He owns the 140-square-mile Diamond Cross Ranch along the Tongue River south of Ashland and doesn't want the railroad to cross his property...BusinessWeek

FWP to reconsider sheep’s place on public land

Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks plans to take another look at whether it should allow sheep ranchers to trail their livestock across a 28,000-acres swath of land in Southwestern Montana. Earlier this month, three conservation groups challenged the agency for allowing domestic sheep to cross the Robb-Ledford Wildlife Management Area, a practice the groups say makes the habitat inhospitable to bighorn sheep due to diseases the domestic sheep can give to bighorns. “The most immediate issue regarding bighorns in Montana is the domestic sheep trailing FWP allows on the Robb-Ledford Wildlife Management Area,” wrote Summer Nelson, Montana legal counsel for the Western Watersheds Project in Missoula on behalf of her group, the Gallatin Wildlife Association and hunting group Safari Club International. “WWP, GWA and SCI contend this use is incompatible with WMA purposes, public trust responsibilities over native wildlife and restoring and maintaining healthy bighorn herds.” Pat Flowers, director of FWP Region 3 based in Bozeman, said his agency has never done an environmental analysis of allowing domestic sheep onto the Robb-Ledford, since sheep don’t graze there. Rather, the sheep spend about two days on the Robb-Ledford en route to and from grazing allotments in the Gravelly Mountains south of Ennis...BozemanDailyChronicle

Ohio Sets Forth Livestock Standards Board

The Ohio Senate has unanimously approved a resolution that would allow voters to create the Ohio Livestock Care Standards Board, which would provide oversight of how farm animals are raised. The House approved its version of the resolution yesterday by a vote of 84-13. According to the Ohio Farm Bureau, the final version of the resolution, once approved, will put the measure on the November ballot. The board will comprise a broad base of experts in livestock and poultry care, including family farmers, veterinarians, a food safety expert, a representative of a local humane society, members from statewide farm organizations, the dean of an Ohio agriculture college and members representing Ohio consumers. Over the past several months, the Ohio Farm Bureau and other agricultural groups had engaged in extensive discussions on how to best achieve farm animal well-being while protecting the state’s farmers and consumers from restrictive, short-sighted and emotionally driven regulations. Such regulations had been pushed by activists in other states and Ohio was expected to be the next target. Pork

Michigan Legislators Pushing for Livestock Standards

Lawmakers in Ohio aren't the only ones taking a proactive approach to livestock care standards. Michigan State Representatives Mike Simpson and Jeff Mayes introduced a group of bills last month to standardize livestock care requirements by establishing the Department of Agriculture and Agriculture Commission as the sole authority in regulation of livestock health; implementing science-based standards farmers must use by 2020 and more. Two State Senators have introduced identical bills. They were referred to the Senate Ag and Bioeconomy Committee. Representative Mayes said these new standards will ensure people think of quality products when they think of Michigan agriculture - but certain animal rights organizations - like Farm Sanctuary - feel they would be harmful to livestock for many reasons. Farm Sanctuary Director of Legal Campaigns Delcianna Winders says the legislation would create a council dominated by the agricultural industry and codify the procedures that Farm Sanctuary believes are inhumane. Winders says Farm Sanctuary will probably work with the Humane Society of the United States to reach out to people to oppose it...HoosierAgToday

ID INFO EXPO 2009 To Explore Viable Alternatives For Functional Animal Identification

As the debate rages about animal identification in the United States, ID INFO EXPO 2009 will explore the challenges facing a national animal identification program and ways to move animal identification forward. ID INFO EXPO 2009, presented by the National Institute for Animal Agriculture, is set for Aug. 25-27 at the Westin Crown Center, Kansas City, Mo. “ID INFO EXPO will provide a collaborative atmosphere in which concerns and solutions can be addressed in order to enhance animal identification,” states Glenn Fischer, chairman of the ID INFO EXPO Planning Committee. “Based on comments received at USDA Secretary Vilsack’s listening sessions regarding animal ID, we know what won’t work; this conference will focus on what can work.” Victor Velez, vice chairman of the Planning Committee, emphasizes that the conference will zero in on four key areas: 1) the current state of, and need for, animal identification in the United States; 2) the obstacles to gaining ID participation; 3) the ID opportunities that exist; and 4) the next crucial steps to developing a functional animal identification program in the United States. The EXPO’s opening general session will start with an up-to-the-minute report on the status of animal identification programs in the United States and outline what full participation in animal ID could mean to animal agriculture. Other opening general session topics include global implications of identification and models of traceability within other commodities and industries...cattlenetwork

Its all Trew: Doing more work has helped us overcome

My grandfather, who survived the Great Depression and Dust Bowl plus another recession or two before that, often said, "I blame most of the average person's problems on a family named Jones. Trying to keep up with the Joneses is always a losing proposition." During a recent Barbed Wire Collectors show in Shamrock, a few old-timers sat together and talked about their memories of coping with hard times. Here is a sample. One man said just after he started school in the second grade, morning and evening on his way to and from school he fetched the milk bucket off a neighbor widow's porch and milked her cow, returning the fresh milk to her back porch. He received a dime per day for this chore. He also said he was the only kid in his school with a steady job. Another man down in Collingsworth County earned 10 cents per day as a first-grader by arriving at his country school early enough to carry out yesterday's wood stove ashes and build a fire to warm the building for the students arriving later. A 15-year-old girl played piano for my father's dance band in the 1930s, earning 50 cents per night. Not much pay for four hours of dance music, however, she was the only girl in the school with a paying job and therefore the richest young lady in her class. I have written before about the mail carrier at Dime Box, Texas, who would leave you a can of snuff if you left him a dime clamped in a wooden clothes pin. The reason for the clothes pin? His hands were so crippled from arthritis he couldn't pick up a loose coin...AmarilloGlobeNews

Song Of The Day #079

Here's Carl Smith and his recording of Mr. Moon.

It's available on his Don't Just Stand There: 20 Greatest Hits CD and on the wonderful 5 disc box set Satisfaction Guaranteed.

Designation of Mount Taylor results in beatings and arrest

The fight over Mount Taylor's designation as a Traditional Cultural Property has led to bloodshed and an arrest. Five Native American men reported severe beatings between June 9 and June 18, according to Grants Police Department reports. Another known beating was not reported by the victim and details are unknown, except that it follows a similar pattern to the other racial violence. “We made a report to the FBI for hate crimes,” said GPD Detective Kevin Dobbs, “and they'll get back to us.” According to reports, an anonymous caller told officers that Longoria was boasting of “beating up the men because the Native Americans had got Mount Taylor and now they owned him.” Seven known victims were barraged by rocks, struck with bats and gashed with knives and brass knuckles. The following are multiple accounts of the incidents from the victims to officers...CibolaBeacon

Protection sought again for giant, spitting worms

Fans of the giant Palouse earthworm are once again seeking federal protection for the rare, sweet-smelling species that spits at predators. They filed a petition Tuesday with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service requesting the worm be protected as an endangered species. "The giant Palouse earthworm is critically endangered and needs the protection of the Endangered Species Act to have any chance of survival," said Noah Greenwald of the Center for Biological Diversity. The center filed the lawsuit along with Friends of the Clearwater, Palouse Prairie Foundation, Palouse Audubon and Palouse Group of Sierra Club. The worm has been seen only four reported times in the past 110 years, but supporters contend it is still present in the Palouse, a region of about 2 million acres of rolling wheat fields near the Idaho-Washington border south of Spokane. Only about 2 percent of the Palouse prairie remains in a native state, he said. The worm can reach 3 feet in length, is white in color and reportedly possesses a unique lily smell, said Greenwald, who is based in Portland, Ore. It is the largest and longest-lived earthworm in North America...AP

The EPA Silences a Climate Skeptic

Wherever Jim Hansen is right now -- whatever speech the "censored" NASA scientist is giving -- perhaps he'll find time to mention the plight of Alan Carlin. Though don't count on it...So much so that one of President Barack Obama's first acts was a memo to agencies demanding new transparency in government, and science. The nominee to head the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Lisa Jackson, joined in, exclaiming, "As administrator, I will ensure EPA's efforts to address the environmental crises of today are rooted in three fundamental values: science-based policies and program, adherence to the rule of law, and overwhelming transparency." In case anyone missed the point, Mr. Obama took another shot at his predecessors in April, vowing that "the days of science taking a backseat to ideology are over." Except, that is, when it comes to Mr. Carlin, a senior analyst in the EPA's National Center for Environmental Economics and a 35-year veteran of the agency. In March, the Obama EPA prepared to engage the global-warming debate in an astounding new way, by issuing an "endangerment" finding on carbon. It establishes that carbon is a pollutant, and thereby gives the EPA the authority to regulate it -- even if Congress doesn't act. Around this time, Mr. Carlin and a colleague presented a 98-page analysis arguing the agency should take another look, as the science behind man-made global warming is inconclusive at best. The analysis noted that global temperatures were on a downward trend. It pointed out problems with climate models. It highlighted new research that contradicts apocalyptic scenarios. "We believe our concerns and reservations are sufficiently important to warrant a serious review of the science by EPA," the report read. The response to Mr. Carlin was an email from his boss, Al McGartland, forbidding him from "any direct communication" with anyone outside of his office with regard to his analysis. When Mr. Carlin tried again to disseminate his analysis, Mr. McGartland decreed: "The administrator and the administration have decided to move forward on endangerment, and your comments do not help the legal or policy case for this decision. . . . I can only see one impact of your comments given where we are in the process, and that would be a very negative impact on our office." Mr. McGartland blasted yet another email: "With the endangerment finding nearly final, you need to move on to other issues and subjects. I don't want you to spend any additional EPA time on climate change. No papers, no research etc, at least until we see what EPA is going to do with Climate." Ideology? Nope, not here. Just us science folk. Honest...WSJ

For a thorough backgrounder, including links to the emails and the Carlin report, see E-mails indicate EPA suppressed report skeptical of global warming.

Congress's Travel Tab Swells

Spending by lawmakers on taxpayer-financed trips abroad has risen sharply in recent years, a Wall Street Journal analysis of travel records shows, involving everything from war-zone visits to trips to exotic spots such as the Galápagos Islands. The spending on overseas travel is up almost tenfold since 1995, and has nearly tripled since 2001, according to the Journal analysis of 60,000 travel records. Hundreds of lawmakers traveled overseas in 2008 at a cost of about $13 million. That's a 50% jump since Democrats took control of Congress two years ago. Although complete travel records aren't yet available for 2009, it appears that such costs continue to rise. The Journal analysis shows that the government has picked up the tab for travel to destinations such as Jamaica, the Virgin Islands and Australia's Great Barrier Reef. In mid-June, Sen. Daniel Inouye (D., Hawaii) led a group of a half-dozen senators and their spouses on a four-day trip to France for the biennial Paris Air Show. An itinerary for the event shows that lawmakers flew on the Air Force's version of the Boeing 737, which costs $5,700 an hour to operate. They stayed at the Intercontinental Paris Le Grand Hotel, which advertises rooms from $460 a night...WSJ

I wonder what the carbon footprint is of all this travel.

California group pushes for Endangered Species God Squad

Less than 24 hours after a top Obama administration official rejected the idea of convening Endangered Species Committee to resolve California’s water woes, Sacramento-based Pacific Legal Foundation launched a campaign to force the committee’s activation. The foundation sent letters to President Barack Obama and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger requesting they act to convene the committee, also known as the God Squad, said Rob Rivett, the foundation’s president. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar rejected the idea at a news conference in Fresno June 28. “That would be admitting failure. I am not about failure,” Salazar said. Under the Endangered Species Act, the special committee may be formed and empowered to override the law when it causes excessive destruction of jobs and the economy. “There’s a reason to have it in the statute,” Rivett said, “and there isn’t a better reason or circumstance than right now when we have an economy that is being devastated by the implementation of the Endangered Species Act." Salazar should take a step back to see what can be done that would modify “the Draconian measures that are being taken to try to save some of our farmworkers’ jobs and our farms,” he said. The foundation launched an online petition June 29, to be presented to the president, Salazar and Schwarzenegger. The petition is at www.pacificlegal.org, Rivett said...Packer

Ethanol-free gas rare but popular

Gasoline without ethanol has become a hot commodity for the only two vendors who sell it in Brevard County. "We just recently started bringing it in because there's been such a hue and cry for it from the marinas," Ken Marshall, vice president of Glover Oil in Melbourne, said Thursday. Favored by boaters and motorcyclists, the fuel -- known as recreational gasoline -- was put on sale to the public last month by Glover Oil. Ethanol absorbs water and can degrade rubber seals and gaskets. Boat engines, weed trimmers, lawn blowers, generators, motorcycles and older auto engines are most affected. Ethanol contains one-third less energy than gasoline. And many makers of lawn care machinery, marine engines, motorcycles and high-performance autos recommend avoiding gasoline with ethanol...FloridaToday

Idaho judge turns down committee report on bighorn sheep

A federal judge says the US Forest Service can't use an advisory committee's report on whether domestic sheep pose a disease risk to bighorn sheep because the committee was improperly formed. The decision from U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill could complicate the Forest Service's decision on whether to close 61 percent of the domestic sheep grazing allotments in the Payette National Forest. The Idaho Wool Growers Association filed the lawsuit in 2008, arguing that the Forest Service hand-picked scientists, who then met behind closed doors, to come up with opinions supporting a decision to close grazing allotments to domestic sheep. In his ruling, Winmill declined to comment on the conclusions of the committee, noting only that the process itself was flawed. AP

Work begins to remove dam in Washington's Wind River Watershed

Preparations began this week to remove Hemlock Dam on Trout Creek in Washington's Wind River Watershed, a project that conservationists say will help restore native fish runs and educate the public about rivers and the wildlife they support. The project, directed by American Rivers and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, will eliminate a 26-foot-high dam that was classified as High Hazard -- one that could threaten lives if it failed. The project covers roughly a 1/2 mile stretch of the creek near the Wind River Nursery north of Carson, Wash. The Mount Adams Ranger District of the U.S. Forest Service began rescuing and removing fish from the site this week, the first step to the $2 million project that will continue through the summer. The entire stream flow will be re-routed with pumps and pipes. A thick layer of sediment will be excavated from the shallow reservoir and the dam will be deconstructed. Crews will reconstruct the stream bed, using rocks and logs before returning the stream to its natural channel. Native plants that were salvaged from the site will be replanted...Oregonian

Mountain lion wipes out petting zoo

At first Stewart Loew was excited by the sight: a mountain lion on the family's farm near Amado. In 40 years on the Agua Linda Farm, Loew said this was first large cat he had seen when it appeared in the donkey pen about a month ago. But soon, his animals started to turn up mauled or dead. First there were four sheep. Then, on June 15, an awful sight: 16 pygmy and nubian goats — all the mammals in the farm's petting zoo — were killed. Only the geese were spared. Loew and his wife, Laurel, who run the all-natural, community-supported farm, faced a tough choice: Try to kill the wild cat or put their animals and possibly their farm's visitors — including many children — at some risk. "We were really conflicted," Stewart Loew said. But when they thought about it, there was no choice...ArizonaDailyStar

HT: Outdoor Pressroom

Feds could seize Calif. parks if closed by budget

California officials said Wednesday they are trying to avert the federal government's threat to seize six parks that could be closed to help reduce the state's ballooning budget deficit. National Park Service Regional Director Jonathan Jarvis warned in a letter to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger that all six occupy former federal land that could revert to the U.S. government if the state fails to keep the parks open. The sites are Angel Island, a former federal military and immigration facility in San Francisco Bay; the top of Mount Diablo east of San Francisco, where the Navy once operated a microwave relay station; Point Sur State Historic Park in coastal Big Sur; and three beaches — Fort Ord Dunes near Monterey, Point Mugu State Park near Malibu, and Border Fields along the Mexican border. The properties are among the 220 state parks Schwarzenegger has proposed closing to save $143 million. Legislators are considering the move as part of efforts to close a $26 billion budget deficit...AP

Purity of Federal 'Organic' Label Is Questioned

Three years ago, U.S. Department of Agriculture employees determined that synthetic additives in organic baby formula violated federal standards and should be banned from a product carrying the federal organic label. Today the same additives, purported to boost brainpower and vision, can be found in 90 percent of organic baby formula. The government's turnaround, from prohibition to permission, came after a USDA program manager was lobbied by the formula makers and overruled her staff. That decision and others by a handful of USDA employees, along with an advisory board's approval of a growing list of non-organic ingredients, have helped numerous companies win a coveted green-and-white "USDA Organic" seal on an array of products. Grated organic cheese, for example, contains wood starch to prevent clumping. Organic beer can be made from non-organic hops. Organic mock duck contains a synthetic ingredient that gives it an authentic, stringy texture...WPost

Song Of The Day #078

Let's get things rolling this week with Leon McAuliffe playing Panhandle Rag.

This version is from his Columbia Historic Edition LP.

In a First, Navajos to Vote on Their Power Structure

Navajo voters have never had much of a say in how their modern government was shaped. But that may soon change, after a tribal judge cleared the way for a special election on a restructuring that could alter the balance of power on the sprawling reservation. The government structure was forced upon Navajo voters 86 years ago and was reorganized under three branches without their consent. Maybe Navajos “will have a greater sense of ownership in the government than they now have,” said Dale Mason, who teaches Navajo government at the University of New Mexico, Gallup. Voting on the measures, which would cut the Tribal Council membership by more than half and give the president line-item veto authority, “would come close to that,” Mr. Wilkins said. A tribal hearing officer ruled that the initiatives could go forward after a legal fight between the Navajo president, Joe Shirley Jr., and the Tribal Council speaker, Lawrence Morgan. An election was ordered held within six months, but an appeal is planned...AP