Conservative Blogs Take on EPA with Anti-Regulation Video Contests

HotAir.com, a conservative blog published by Salem Communications and NetRightNation have each launched a video contest searching for the video that best exhibits the unintended negative consequences of federal regulations. Launched in response to a federal contest run by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that seeks homemade videos touting the benefits of federal regulations, the anti-regulation video contests seek to demonstrate “the danger and damage” that can be caused by federal regulation. “[W]e’re pleased to announce the launch of a new contest for video submissions that show the danger and damage that existing federal regulation already does,” the HotAir announcement reads. The NetRightNation contest encourages contestants to “get creative” in looking for instances when federal regulations have done more harm than good...more

For background, see my post EPA Contest Seeks Videos Promoting Government Regulations

Supreme court crushes law against animal cruelty videos and photos

The Supreme Court struck down on free-speech grounds Tuesday a federal law that makes it a crime to sell videos or photos of animals being illegally killed or tortured. In a 8-1 ruling, the justices overturned the conviction of a Virginia man who sold dog-fighting videos. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., speaking for the court, said the First Amendment does not allow the government to criminalize whole categories of speech and expression that are deemed undesirable. Roberts also said the law was too broad and could allow prosecutions for selling photos of out-of-season hunting, for example. Only Justice Samuel Alito dissented. Congress passed the law a decade ago to halt the practice of selling videos that depicted tiny animals being crushed to death. It had been rarely used, however, and came under challenge when prosecutors used it against the dog-fighting industry...more

US climate report publicized in runup to Senate bill

An environmental coalition publicized a new U.S. draft report on climate change on Monday, one week before the expected unveiling of a compromise U.S. Senate bill that aims to curb greenhouse gas emissions. The Project on Climate Science, a coalition of environmental groups, publicized the report in advance of Earth Day on April 22, a spokeswoman said. The report was released with little fanfare on April 7 and posted on the Federal Register on April 8. The report, a draft of the Fifth U.S. Climate Action Report that will be sent to the United Nations, says bluntly: "Global warming is unequivocal and primarily human-induced ... Global temperature has increased over the past 50 years. This observed increase is due primarily to human-induced emissions of heat-trapping gases." The effects of climate change are already evident, the draft said: warming air and oceans, vanishing mountain glaciers, thawing permafrost, signs of instability in the ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica and rising sea levels...more

Gallup says Americans are not behaving greener

Americans are today no more environmentally friendly in their actions than they were at the turn of the century. While more than three in four recycle, have reduced household energy use, and buy environmentally friendly products, these numbers have barely budged since 2000. The stability of these findings stands in juxtaposition to the political and media attention paid to global warming and climate change over the past decade, particularly since Al Gore's 2006 documentary "An Inconvenient Truth." Gallup also finds Americans no more worried about the threat posed by global warming than they were at the start of the decade and that very few Americans name the environment as the most important problem facing the country. In fact, Gallup recently found Americans' level of concern about many environmental problems at a 20-year low, and environmental quality ratings rebounding to where they were at the start of the decade...more

EPA Contest Seeks Videos Promoting Government Regulations

President Obama's Environmental Protection Agency is encouraging the public to create video advertisements that explain why federal regulations are "important to everyone." The contest, which ends May 17, will award $2,500 to the makers of the video that best explains why federal regulations are good and how ordinary citizens can become more involved in making regulations. The videos must be posted on YouTube and can be no more than 60-90 seconds in length. In the current contest, each video must include the slogan “Let your voice be heard,” and it must direct viewers to the government’s regulatory website www.Regulations.gov. The winning video will then be used by the entire federal government to promote the regulatory process and enhance the public’s participation in it...more

This seems awfully blatant, but truth be known we've been funding the government to promote itself for a long time. It's one of the few things they do well.

President Obama Launches Initiative to Develop a 21st Century Strategy for America's Great Outdoors

President Barack Obama signed a Presidential Memorandum today establishing the America's Great Outdoors Initiative to promote and support innovative community-level efforts to conserve outdoor spaces and to reconnect Americans to the outdoors. The President spoke before leaders representing the conservation, farming, ranching, sporting, recreation, forestry, private industry, local parks and academia communities from all 53 states and territories. The Presidential Memorandum calls on the Secretaries of the Interior and of Agriculture, the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the Chair of the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) to lead the Initiative, in coordination with the Departments of Defense, Commerce, Housing and Urban Development, Health and Human Services, Labor, Transportation, Education, and the Office of Management and Budget. The Initiative will support a 21st century conservation agenda that builds on successes in communities across the country, and will start a national dialogue about conservation that supports the efforts of private citizens and local communities...more

Go here to view the Presidential Memorandum.

Obama Announces "No American Left Inside"

President Obama released a memorandum that urges federal and state lawmakers to fund outdoor recreation programs. The memorandum has been referred to as "No American Left Inside," and is specifically focused on finding ways for Americans to connect with the great outdoors at a low cost. Obama specifically focused on urban environments where such programs do not currently exist. This covers everything from the public acquisition of private land for parks and preserves, as well as integrating outdoor activity and wildlife exposure into public school classrooms. Critics of Obama's plan point out that no specific enforcement or money has been committed to the presidential memorandum. To some critics, Obama's announcement is an appeal to moderates and Republicans who have been wary of the president's stance on gun control and fair use of public land. If the America's Great Outdoors Initiative passes muster, it could mean a swell in government jobs related to conservation and outdoor recreation. An outreach program will be put in place to ascertain where services are needed the most and what wild areas require more protection...more

Colorado Seeks Roads in Wilderness

A proposal by Colorado's Gov. Bill Ritter that would allow industries to build roads on some protected national forest land to expand coal mining, oil drilling and other controversial activities is putting the Obama Administration in a tricky spot. The Democratic governor of this politically important swing state is asking the administration for an exemption to certain protection laws, in part to boost the local economy, but environmentalists are balking. The proposal, which requires federal approval, addresses land designated as "roadless" wilderness under a national forest-management plan issued a decade ago. The national plan, which aimed to protect from development nearly 60 million acres of forest from coast to coast, has been challenged in court repeatedly by industries upset that it puts so much land off-limits. Just this spring, the Obama Administration was in federal court in Denver, defending the plan's validity. That case is still pending. The governor's plan would allow the development of more ski runs in 14 areas, expansion of three existing coal mines and drilling at more than 100 unexplored oil and natural-gas leases in Western Colorado. It would also allow road building to log trees afflicted by a bark-beetle infestation to reduce the fire hazard they pose to rural communities. Colorado officials say their proposal strengthens protections for all but a few swaths of the state's 4.2 million acres of roadless forest land, as it would put other conservation measures in place...more

Lawmakers urge road access in forest to vent methane from mine

Colorado lawmakers on Friday weighed into the Obama administration's deliberations over a proposal submitted by Gov. Bill Ritter for managing national forest roadless areas in the state. A bipartisan group of 15 state legislators asked Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to grant the U.S. Forest Service authority to allow temporary roads in a roadless area in western Colorado for the purpose of venting gas from a coal mine. The lawmakers' letter points out that "the Colorado Roadless Rule Petition (recently submitted to your office) specifically authorized these venting operations" in roadless areas. State lawmakers "request that you immediately re-delegate your authority in this matter to the Forest Service so that consultations with the State of Colorado can be completed as quickly as possible," said the letter circulated and signed Friday morning. At stake is how much recreation, mining, logging and other activities the federal government will allow on 4.2 million roadless acres of Colorado's 14.4 million national forest acres...more

Are Rosemont mining claims valid?

Dig, baby, dig? Or wait, baby, wait? Those questions loom large for the proposed Rosemont Mine in the Santa Ritas as officials debate whether the federal government must check out the validity of claims before deciding on a mining application - and if so, whether that means, contrary to more than a century of tradition, that the feds can say "no" to a mine. A January 2010 letter from U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack promised Pima County officials that the feds wouldn't decide on Rosemont until they did a "thorough review" of whether its nearly 900 mining claims are valid. That process, rarely done, can cost tens of thousands of dollars and take up to five years, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management said. And it could significantly delay the Rosemont project at a time when it hopes to win federal approval and start construction by the end of this year and begin mining by 2012. In a court filing in late March, the Obama administration seemed to take the opposite tack. Responding to an environmentalist lawsuit, the administration said on March 30 that it would defend rules handed down in the waning days of the Bush administration that said the feds don't need to review the validity of claims. But in an interview last week, Vilsack deputy Jay Jensen indicated that the court filing and the letter don't mean what they seem on the surface...more

Power Grab - New Book On Obama's Green Policies

Here is Christopher Horner's interview on Hannity:

California considers easing rules on black bear hunting

As outdoor activities in California go, bear hunting is not particularly popular. Officials estimate that, at most, 1% of the state's population hunts black bears. Many of the other 99% are appalled that anyone does. "I think most people think of it as an anachronism," said state Fish and Game Commissioner Michael Sutton, who speculates that the state's voters may soon ban the practice. So Sutton and his fellow commissioners — hunters all — weren't surprised when proposals to expand black bear hunting drew protest. Nearly 70 environmental, community and animal welfare organizations have lined up against the proposals, most notably the Humane Society of the United States, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and various chapters of the Sierra Club. In San Luis Obispo County, the board of supervisors passed a resolution last month opposing expansion of hunting into their area. "We find the totality of the proposal to be unsporting, unfair, inhumane and reckless," said Jennifer Fearing, the Humane Society's Sacramento lobbyist. But officials at the state Department of Fish and Game say they proposed the changes because California's black bear population is flourishing and spreading...more

Grasshopper Plague Could Mean Spectacular Fishing in Western States This Summer

It seems like ranchers and farmers in the West can't get a break. From drought, to hail, to floods, and fires, they're always dealing with some natural disaster. In 2010, the impending plague involves grasshoppers. Leave it to fly fishers, however, to find a silver lining in all of this. I'm not a grasshopper entomologist, but I think I can safely assume that the swarming insects will flutter en masse into rivers like the Bighorn, the Yellowstone, and The Snake. In other words, the trout don't know it yet, but a veritable smorgasbord of protein is about to rain from the sky. In fact, we're already seeing hoppers popping along some Colorado rivers right now, months earlier than normal. There is nothing I like better than watching the slow, deliberate rise of a trout eating a grasshopper fly...more

Running Fence: Christo and Jeanne-Claude

...the success of Running Fence, an older Christo Jeanne-Claude collaboration, shows us that The Gates was not nearly ambitious enough. An exhibit at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, “Christo and Jeanne-Claude: Remembering Running Fence“ revisits this extraordinary work. In 1976, the artists completed the construction of a 24.5 mile-long ‘fence’ that stretched across Northern California’s gentle hills before disappearing into the ocean. The fence consisted of an endless ribbon of white nylon secured by intermittent steel posts. In the wind, it swelled gently, like an engorged sail or white sheets hung up on a clothes line. Running Fence’s visual success did not lie in the structure itself, but in its interaction with the monotonously beautiful surrounding landscape. A gallery of photographs in the SAAM exhibit shows us that the piece looked different depending on the time of day and where one stood. Ultimately, it is Running Fence’s use of nature as an artistic tool that made it a great artwork, unlike The Gates which remained a mere curiosity. Running Fence forced viewers to contemplate man’s relationship to nature and our own smallness...more

I've posted here about the couples "Over The River" project, but I'd never seen any of their work. Now I have and so have you. What do you think of this?

Callous, uncaring death tax's impact

Gary Walker and his family built a 60,000-acre cattle ranch, and he stands to lose it all to the death tax. Walker’s Turkey Creek Ranch borders Fort Carson in Pueblo County. Part of the ranch is under conservation easement bought by Fort Carson as a buffer. Like most family ranches, Walker’s is partly owned by his aging parents. After they die, Walker will owe a death tax calculated on their share of ownership. Estate tax is calculated on the “fair market value” of the item at the time the owner died. Walker’s land, like many rural properties, is being appraised at an inflated value so the government can collect more death tax. An ordinary land transaction involves a willing buyer and seller, each having an interest in the valuation of the property. The owner wants the highest possible appraisal; the buyer wants the lowest. The rational compromise, long established by the appraisal industry, has been to assign the fair market value based on the “highest and best use” that’s legally permissible. When it comes to the estate tax, the system of appraisal is grossly unfair. It typically involves an owner with no desire to sell or develop the property, and motivation to see the property valued as low as possible. The federal government has all the power and wants the property valued as high as possible in order to collect more taxes. The government additionally controls the appraisal process and assumes the right to dictate to the property owner what the land is worth. This fundamentally transforms the buyer/seller relationship into a coercive, involuntary transaction that’s rife with conflict of interest...more

Ranch rodeo has 24 teams compete

A total of $7,000 was awarded to rodeo winners at Spring Creek’s 25th annual Ranch Hand Rodeo Saturday and Sunday. Ranchers came from places as far as Utah and Wyoming to compete in this year’s ranch rodeo events. A total of 24 ranch teams competed in five categories, including branding, saddle bronc riding, team roping, ranch doctoring and wild cow milking. The Jim Ranch won first place overall with 37 points which included honorary buckles and $700 per team member. “If I die tomorrow I don’t even care,” said the Jim Ranch team captain Dirk Jim. “This was my dream right here.” The Jim Ranch — which includes Jim and his three sons Daxton, Dalton and Steven — also won first in the saddle bronc riding category. Jim said his sons have been ranching since they were little boys...more

Looks like a wreck to me.

Baxter Black: Homegrown vets are harder to find

Typically, smaller, more rural communities have no veterinarian, or at least none who will take a calving call or a horse colic emergency. Veterinary schools, veterinary associations, concerned farmers and isolated ranchers continue their search for new veterinarians interested in practicing large animal or equine medicine. While we are searching in our front yard, it is possible that the answer is sneaking up behind us. If we look to our fellow professionals in human medicine, it is not uncommon to find yourself being examined and treated by a foreign-born physician. They may have graduated in their native country and/or received a degree in the U.S. Of the 22,500 doctorates in the natural sciences and engineering awarded by U.S. universities in 2007, more than half were to foreign-born students. According to statistics, 60 percent remain in the U.S. to work. The Irish and Chinese came and built our railroads. The Germans built our bomb. The Mexicans are building our skyscrapers. The Japanese came here and made our cars better. Dr. Sudesna Bose was Grandpa Tommy's Parkinson's doctor. They did not think that the work was too hard and the pay too little. I can't say if it's too soon, but the next time you've got a wounded horse in the middle of the night, and the nearest capable large-animal veterinarian is two hours away, you might give it some thought...more

Song Of The Day #289

Ranch Radio invites you to listen to some really early Hank Thompson as he performs Playin' Possum.

His stuff is widely available, as you can see here.

Wind resistance

Wyoming may be the best place in the U.S. to generate electricity from wind. Thanks to a dip in the Continental Divide as it wends through the state, it has about half of all the top-quality wind in the country. A turbine here can crank out as much as 30 percent more juice than one in, say, Texas or California. With a population of just half a million, the state has plenty of uninhabited spaces for turbines, and it is famous for welcoming energy development. So companies have stampeded into the Cowboy State, reaching for every gust they can. Wyoming's governor compares the frenzy to a gold rush. That rush, however, is faltering. Today, Wyoming has just 1,100 megawatts of wind capacity, one-eighth of what Texas has. Facing regulatory and political uncertainty, at least one wind-farm proposal has been yanked off the table, and the future of others is in doubt. Legislators, wildlife officials and the governor's office have sent out increasingly mixed messages about the wind rush. It is, indeed, confusing. Because most of the objections to wind farms cite environmental problems, it might appear that Wyoming has finally gone green — standing up to energy developers in hopes of preserving its wild lands. And many environmentalists do see wind as yet another "clean" energy source with a dark side, like hydroelectric dams or coalbed methane, which has transformed swaths of the state into drill-rig pin cushions. Much of the resistance to wind actually comes from the fossil fuel industry and the politics it bankrolls. Wyoming is the largest coal producer in the nation and the third-largest producer of natural gas. Severance taxes and royalties from these industries keep the state's government, schools and other services afloat. In a sometimes convoluted way, wind threatens that old-school energy dynamic...more

Dispute threatens Colorado’s rafters

For years, Mark Schumacher has guided white-water rafts up and down the Taylor, a swift-moving river that cuts through the canyons and cliffs outside Gunnison. So when a wealthy developer who had bought a swath of nearby ranchland told local rafting outfitters last year that they could no longer float through his property, Schumacher was aghast. “Locals have been running this river since the ’40s,” he said, “and here was this guy who was going to use every legal means to shut us down.” Now, the dispute over the Taylor is reviving an old battle in Colorado, long a mecca for white-water rafting. At issue are the state’s water and property laws, which say that while the water in local rivers and streams is public, the beds and banks belong to whoever owns the adjacent land. “The problem is that they want unlimited rights,” Dick Bratton, a lawyer for the developer, Lewis Shaw II, said of commercial rafting companies. “We’re saying they need to modify this and take into consideration the landowner’s rights also.” Among Shaw’s concerns, Bratton said, is a fear that rafters will interfere with the fishing he wants to offer as an incentive for people who are thinking of buying lots and building homes on his land. Lee Spann, a cattle rancher whose land abuts a number of Colorado rivers, worried that expanding access for rafters would limit his ability to protect his property and would disrupt his private fishing business. “Until now, we’ve had virtually no problems,” Spann said. “They come and talk to me and say, ‘We’d like to float through.’ I say, ‘Fine, as long as you stay off the bank and stay off the bottom.’”...more