New groups join climate lobby fray

The next round of the battle over climate change policy on Capitol Hill will involve more than the usual suspects — way more. Watch soup makers face off against steel companies. Witness the folks who pump gas from the ground fight back against those who dig up rock. And watch the venture capitalists who have money riding on new technology try to gain advantage in a game that so far has been deftly controlled by the old machine. An analysis of the latest federal records by the Center for Public Integrity shows that the overall number of businesses and groups lobbying on climate legislation has essentially held steady at about 1,160, thanks in part to a variety of interests that have left the fray. But a close look at the 140 or so interests that jumped into the debate for the first time in the third quarter shows a marked trend: Companies and organizations that feel they’ve been overlooked are fighting for a place at the table...read more

Beef Group Challenges U.S. EPA Climate Finding

A beef industry group has challenged a ruling by U.S. environmental regulators that greenhouse gas emissions endanger human health, saying the move would hurt agriculture. The ruling earlier this month by the Environmental Protection Agency earlier opens the way for regulation of six heat-trapping gases without new laws passed by Congress. Livestock farms emit carbon dioxide from the tailpipes of machinery and trucks, while waste from cattle also emits methane, a powerful greenhouse gas. The National Cattlemen's Beef Association filed a petition in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals this week, saying EPA climate regulations would hurt large farms. "This unilateral move by the EPA jeopardizes our ability to remain competitive in the global marketplace," said Tamara Theis, chief environmental counsel for the National Cattlemen's Beef Association. She said potential EPA rules could force many farms to get permits to emit greenhouse gases or slow operations. If farms had to buy the permits in a market or curtail beef output it could help force many of them to close...read more

Can farming save Detroit?

John Hantz is a wealthy money manager who lives in an older enclave of Detroit where all the houses are grand and not all of them are falling apart. Once a star stockbroker at American Express, he left 13 years ago to found his own firm. Today Hantz Financial Services has 20 offices in Michigan, Ohio, and Georgia, more than 500 employees, and $1.3 billion in assets under management. Along the way he passes vacant buildings, abandoned homes, and a whole lot of empty land. In some stretches he sees more pheasants than people. And that, he says one afternoon in his living room between puffs on an expensive cigar, "is how I got onto this idea of the farm." Yes, a farm. A large-scale, for-profit agricultural enterprise, wholly contained within the city limits of Detroit. Hantz thinks farming could do his city a lot of good: restore big chunks of tax-delinquent, resource-draining urban blight to pastoral productivity; provide decent jobs with benefits; supply local markets and restaurants with fresh produce; attract tourists from all over the world; and -- most important of all -- stimulate development around the edges as the local land market tilts from stultifying abundance to something more like scarcity and investors move in. Hantz is willing to commit $30 million to the project...read more

Famous San Francisco sea lions leave in droves

Two mysteries surround a huge herd of sea lions that were hanging out on a pier in San Francisco Bay: Why did so many show up, and why did so many leave at once? Just last month, Pier 39, famous in San Francisco for its sea lions and the throngs of tourists they attract, was groaning under the weight of more than 1,500 of the animals. The record number delighted tourists and baffled experts. "Most likely, they left chasing a food source," said Jeff Boehm, executive director of the Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito, which runs an information center and gift shop at Pier 39. "It's probably what kept them here in the first place." The animals began leaving in droves the day after Thanksgiving, almost as if someone had issued an order. But Boehm said the fact that so many sea lions stayed for so long is even stranger than their disappearance...read more

AC/DC concert in doubt over rare bird risk

AUSSIE rockers AC/DC could have to cancel a sold-out concert because their big sound poses a danger to rare birds. Animal rights campaigners are threatening legal action if the veteran band goes ahead with a gig planned for Wels airport in Austria in May. Hans Uhl of BirdLife said birds nesting in the area at the time would be threatened by anthems such as Highway To Hell and You Shook Me All Night Long. "The second biggest colony of curlews in Upper Austria and various other ground-nesting birds must not become endangered," Mr Uhl said...

Damn, guess I'll have to cancel my trip plans.

Horse floaters may be a dying breed

Ever wondered the origins of the saying 'long in the tooth' or 'don't look a gift horse in the mouth?' Horses's teeth, unlike humans', continue to grow with age. They also wear down with use, but the changes in the characteristics of the teeth over time make it possible to make an estimate of a horse's age. When the animal reaches old age, the crowns of the teeth are very short and the teeth are often lost altogether. It's the obscure job of equine dentists - known colloquially as 'horse floaters' - to ward off the problems that wear and tear can have on a horse's pearly whites. Using instruments roughened with diamond grit, horse floaters file down equine teeth so that they don't grow into sharp points that can cut the horses' cheeks or throw off their chewing rhythms. But US veterinary oversight boards in Texas and several other states have moved to curb unlicensed floaters, who use specially modified power tools and sedatives without veterinary supervision or authorisation. Carl Mitz has been a horse floater for 25 years. He and three fellow floaters have responded with a suit accusing the board of violating Article 1, Section 19 of the Texas state constitution, which holds that 'no citizen of this state shall be deprived of life, liberty, property, privileges or immunities, or in any manner disfranchised, except by the due course of the law of the land.' Regulating teeth floating, they say, deprives them of their right to earn an honest living, which is what they believe this clause explicitly protects...read more

I'm gonna start a new group - The Freedom For Floaters Foundation.

Down on the Farm, an Endless Cycle of Waste

Day and night, a huge contraption prowls the grounds at Frank Volleman’s dairy in Central Texas. It has a 3,000-gallon tank, a heavy-duty vacuum pump and hoses and, underneath, adjustable blades that scrape the surface as it passes along. In function it is something like a Zamboni, but one that has crossed over to the dark side. This is no hockey rink, and it’s not loose ice being scraped up. It’s cow manure. Lots of cow manure. A typical lactating Holstein produces about 150 pounds of waste — by weight, about two-thirds wet feces, one-third urine — each day. Mr. Volleman has 3,000 lactating Holsteins and another 1,000 that are temporarily “dry.” Do the math: his Wildcat Dairy produces about 200 million pounds of manure every year. Proper handling of this material is one of the most important tasks faced by a dairy operator, or by a cattle feedlot owner, hog producer or other farmer with large numbers of livestock. Manure has to be handled in an environmentally acceptable way and at an acceptable cost...read more

E. coli-tainted beef infects 21 people in 16 states

Twenty-one people in 16 states have been infected in recent days with a potentially lethal strain of E. coli bacteria, after consuming beef in restaurants supplied by the same Oklahoma meat company, federal officials said. The outbreak spurred the company, National Steak and Poultry, to voluntarily recall 248,000 pounds of beef Dec. 24. The products, which range from steaks to sirloin tips, were packaged in October and shipped to restaurants, hotels and institutions nationwide, according to the company. The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service has only a partial list of restaurants that received the potentially tainted beef, including two chains, Moe's and Carino's Italian Grill, primarily in the West and Midwest. The recall is considered a "class 1" or a "high health risk" by the USDA, which regulates the meat industry, because among the pathogens that can harm human health, E. coli O157:H7 is one of the most lethal. Even for those who survive, there can be long-term health effects. Nine of the 21 sickened have been hospitalized, the USDA reported. The department has identified cases in six states -- Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, South Dakota and Washington. The agency said the contamination appears to have begun with tainted beef used for chopped steak that was "co-mingled" with other products in the plant...read more

Song Of The Day #212

Ranch Radio will continue with early country music from the 20's.

Our first tune is Sweetest Girl In Town by Ford & Morris, The Georgia Songsters and is on their 22 track CD Georgia Songsters 1926-1930.

The second selection is Sam McGee performing Buck Dancer's Choice and it's available on his 23 track CD Sam McGee 1926-1934. Old Sam could pick.

Senator Tester vs. Senator Bingaman: Two Different Approaches

Since Sen. Jon Tester introduced his Forest Jobs and Recreation Act in July, it has been praised as the first legislation in two decades to bring Montana wilderness advocates and logging advocates together. It also has been criticized by people on both sides of the public-lands debate who want more or less than the proposal would provide. The bill, which deals exclusively with portions of national forests in Western Montana, had a Senate Energy Committee hearing earlier this month. This week, Denny Rehberg announced that he will hold a series of public meetings in five Western Montana towns next week to find out what Montanans think of Tester’s bill. The state’s lone U.S. representative said he hasn’t made up his mind on that Senate bill and may introduce his own bill. It’s important for members of Montana’s congressional delegation to communicate with their constituents. Tester held nine public meetings before introducing the legislation, which he said is the result of years of comments from industry, environmentalists and local governments...read more

Interesting. Senator Tester held nine public meetings before the bill was introduced. That's not the way our senior senator treats us. Senator Bingaman held zero public meetings before introducing his wilderness legislation.

Both are Democrats and both represent western states. One values the opinions of his constituents and the other...apparently doesn't.

Suit Seeks Kangaroo Rat Delisting

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service must stop dragging its feet and issue a delisting decision in response to petitions from the Riverside County Farm Bureau to remove the Stephens kangaroo rat from listing under the Endangered Species Act. So argues a lawsuit filed in federal court by attorneys with Pacific Legal Foundation, representing the Riverside County Farm Bureau. PLF is the nation's leading legal watchdog for property rights and a balanced approach to environmental regulations. "For 14 years, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have been disobeying the legal deadline for properly responding to the Riverside County Farm Bureau's petition to delist the SKR," says PLF attorney Damien Schiff. "Now we are asking a federal court to order the agency to get off the dime, obey the law, and issue a decision on SKR delisting." The listing has led to significant restrictions on private property. For instance, to protect the SKR, government officials began restricting brush-clearing by farmers and ranchers. In 1993, after these prohibitions were implemented, intense brush fires destroyed several homes...read more

Little orphan easement?

The second land trust in a small community, the Animas Conservancy never quite achieved financial stability, and in 2006, it asked the older La Plata Open Space Conservancy to take on its 25 easements so that it could dissolve. But that complex transfer has stalled: La Plata worries that it can't enforce Sugnet's two easements because it's unclear what development they allow. And the two organizations still haven't secured the $150,000 or more necessary to help La Plata take care of all of Animas' easements. Land trusts rarely dissolve, but it's likely to happen more frequently as regulation tightens and the number of groups reaches a critical mass. There's no set process for transferring a trust's easements, and it can get complicated if there are a lot of easements or if some have problems, says Larry Kueter, a conservation attorney and board member of the Land Trust Alliance, an umbrella group. But conservation easements represent a massive public investment, and people expect the land to be protected forever, Kueter says. So it's important that easements aren't orphaned: "We want to make sure there's not an abyss that these public assets fall into."...read more

Follow wolf pack's Arctic journey online

Federal scientists are using a GPS-enabled collar to track the movement of a wolf called Brutus and his pack as they roam near the North Pole. And they are posting updates on Brutus' movements on a "Wolves of the High Arctic" blog. Scientists are using the satellite technology to understand the movement of wolves in an area where there is 24 hours of darkness in the winter...read more

But they can't find terrorists.

BLM OKs plan to place 805 wild horses at Ennis-area ranch

The Bureau of Land Management said Monday it is moving forward with a plan to place up to 805 wild horses on the 16,000-acre Spanish Q Ranch in Madison County by February. The agency originally proposed placing 1,500 horses on the Ennis-area ranch, but an environmental study found that those numbers would be destructive to wildlife habitat and soil. Susie Stokke with the BLM Wild Horse and Burro Program has said the ranch will hold horses that have been captured to control population levels on public land, as well as those that that were not adopted at auction. Even though the BLM pared back the proposed herd size, concerns remain about the affects the horses will have on wildlife and the costs associated with placing the animals on private land. Fences around the horses' pasture are expected to be 6 inches higher than what the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks recommends for fences to be passable by wildlife. Also, the average cost for long-term holding pastures is around $1.30 per horse per day, putting the cost holding 805 horses at nearly $400,000 per year...read more

74 wild horses caught in first day of controversial roundup

The Bureau of Land Management captured 74 mustangs in northern Nevada on the first day of a two-month roundup expected to relocate about 2,500 wild horses to other lands. BLM spokeswoman JoLynn Worley said Tuesday that there were no reported problems with the horses on the first day of the capture on Monday, with officials using helicopters to corral the animals from a mountain range about 100 miles north of Reno. The capture was suspended on Tuesday because of heavy snow...read more

HSUS ‘Rescues,’ Forgets Baltimore’s Horses

The so-called “Humane Society” of the United States (HSUS) has once again proven why its name – which conjures up images of saving helpless pets – isn’t deserved. A new Baltimore Sun investigation reveals that the 19 horses HSUS and Baltimore city officials confiscated last month from "A-rabbers" (street peddlers who sell produce in urban neighborhoods) have been penned up in unsanitary conditions and mostly forgotten about. Can someone tell us what's so “humane” about that? On November 10, Baltimore Health Department officials – with HSUS spurring them on – seized 19 healthy horses owned by these streetcart operators from their stable in southwest Baltimore. They were then moved to a rat-infested tent under a bridge shared by 51 other ponies that the city confiscated in 2007. But Bob Wood, a Baltimore veteran of training horses for polo, grew suspicious while viewing photos of these most recently seized horses. After looking into it further, Wood couldn’t disguise his disgust when talking to the Sun...read more

Pressure Rises to Stop Antibiotics in Agriculture

The mystery started the day farmer Russ Kremer got between a jealous boar and a sow in heat. The boar gored Kremer in the knee with a razor-sharp tusk. The burly pig farmer shrugged it off, figuring: "You pour the blood out of your boot and go on." But Kremer's red-hot leg ballooned to double its size. A strep infection spread, threatening his life and baffling doctors. Two months of multiple antibiotics did virtually nothing. The answer was flowing in the veins of the boar. The animal had been fed low doses of penicillin, spawning a strain of strep that was resistant to other antibiotics. That drug-resistant germ passed to Kremer. Like Kremer, more and more Americans — many of them living far from barns and pastures — are at risk from the widespread practice of feeding livestock antibiotics. These animals grow faster, but they can also develop drug-resistant infections that are passed on to people. The issue is now gaining attention because of interest from a new White House administration and a flurry of new research tying antibiotic use in animals to drug resistance in people. Researchers say the overuse of antibiotics in humans and animals has led to a plague of drug-resistant infections that killed more than 65,000 people in the U.S. last year — more than prostate and breast cancer combined. And in a nation that used about 35 million pounds of antibiotics last year, 70 percent of the drugs — 28 million pounds — went to pigs, chickens and cows. Worldwide, it's 50 percent...read more

Piroplasmosis Found in New Mexico Horses

As part of a racetrack screening program, three New Mexico horses have been identified as infected with Theileria equi, a causative agent for equine piroplasmosis. These infections are noteworthy as these horses are not epidemiologically linked to those involved in a larger ongoing investigation centered on horses from a South Texas ranch. Information on the new cases, and an update on the Texas investigation, was included in a Dec. 24 report issued to the World Organization for Animal Health (Office International des Epizooties, or OIE) by John Clifford, DVM, deputy administrator of the USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. See the report. The positive New Mexico horses did not show any clinical signs of disease. Preliminary results of the investigation indicate that the transmission of the organism might have resulted from management practices (use of shared needles or substances between horses) rather than by a tick vector, the OIE report noted. More than 1,300 New Mexico horses have been tested via the screening program...read more

New Mexico exhibit honors Navajo Code Talkers

The largest and most comprehensive exhibition on the Navajo Code Talkers of World War II will be on display at the Gallup Cultural Center through Jan. 29. Part of the Southwest Inaugural 2009 Tour of "Our Fathers, Our Grandfathers, Our Heroes," the exhibit traces the story of the famed U.S. Marine Corps Navajo Code Talkers. It begins with the original pilot group of 29 volunteers, who in 1942 developed and tested the original Navajo Code. Proven fast and accurate, the Marine Corps recruited nearly 400 more Navajos who utilized the code, sending and receiving encrypted messages throughout the Pacific island hopping campaign. The ingenuity of the Navajo Code Talkers baffled Japanese cryptographers and greatly helped in the effort to win the war in the South Pacific.Of the original Code Talkers, about a handful are still living, most in Arizona and New Mexico...read more

On Plants: Baxter Black Was Right

...But before we cede the entire moral penthouse to “committed vegetarians” and “strong ethical vegans,” we might consider that plants no more aspire to being stir-fried in a wok than a hog aspires to being peppercorn-studded in my Christmas clay pot. This is not meant as a trite argument or a chuckled aside. Plants are lively and seek to keep it that way. The more that scientists learn about the complexity of plants — their keen sensitivity to the environment, the speed with which they react to changes in the environment, and the extraordinary number of tricks that plants will rally to fight off attackers and solicit help from afar — the more impressed researchers become, and the less easily we can dismiss plants as so much fiberfill backdrop, passive sunlight collectors on which deer, antelope and vegans can conveniently graze...read more

VIDEO: A Vegetarians Nightmare