Climate-Change Fight Shifting To Western US Coal Mines

Western U.S. coal producers are increasingly coming under fire by environmental groups that see a chance to fight climate change by curbing output from the nation's largest coal basin. For years environmentalists have lobbied for tougher limits on the emissions of heat-trapping gases blamed for climate change from power plants, vehicles and other direct sources. But the collapse of federal climate-change legislation in recent weeks and growth of coal exports to Asia is leading some groups to look past the smoke stacks and aim to quash emissions by stymieing production of fuel. The Powder River Basin, which underlies Wyoming and Montana, is one of the country's largest sources of fossil fuel, accounting for about 40% of U.S. coal output. Combustion of this coal in power plants accounts for about 13% of all U.S. carbon dioxide emissions each year, according to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. Most of the basin's coal is mined through federal leases by the largest U.S. producers such as Peabody Energy Corp. (BTU) and Alpha Natural Resources Inc. (ANR). Groups including the Sierra Club and WildEarth Guardians, a New Mexico-based environmental group, are challenging the legality of a series of new leases the Bureau of Land Management, or BLM, has begun issuing. They say the leases could open up as much as 5.8 billion tons of coal reserves for mining, ensuring the basin's dominance for years to come. The environmentalists claim the BLM isn't properly taking into account the impact of burning the coal on the climate...more

It's time rewrite the rules for endangered animals

I never thought I would hear myself say this, much less write it, but the Endangered Species Act needs an overhaul. It's not working as intended and shows no signs of improving. I'm not saying scrap it completely, but it's definitely time to reboot it. If it were a computer, it would crash doing simple math. EXHIBIT A: GRAY WOLF Idaho's wolf population has steadily grown since the predators were reintroduced and has far exceeded minimum recovery goals. Even after successful hunts in Idaho and Montana last year the population is about the same. But a judge ruled the animals are endangered according to the Endangered Species Act. There's plenty of blame to go around on that one. But when the wolf population is above recovery goals, still growing and migrating to other states yet still considered endangered, the act is clearly broken. The Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation came to the same conclusion...more

Taking the bite out of wolf reintroduction

Today Oregonians face the coming of the Canadian gray wolf -- an icon to some, a threat to others. Whatever the view, it's clear that wolves must be dealt with and the conflicts they create must be addressed. The Oregon Wolf Conservation and Management Plan is currently up for review, and the Oregon Cattlemen's Association seeks reasonable adjustments to it. Many new issues have arisen since the plan's inception five years ago, but one thing remains constant: Ranchers have a great need to protect their livestock. OCA members seek the same types of management tools provided to ranchers in Idaho and other states that have experienced successful wolf reintroductions. They also seek a fair and equitable compensation plan that takes into account unconfirmed kills. Ranchers care deeply for their livestock. They fight tooth and nail to keep them alive every day from birth. It's difficult for a rancher to do nothing when a wolf is threatening his livestock. Wolves are prolific predators, hard to manage and not efficient killers like cougars, which keep bloodshed to a minimum and kill quickly. Wolves often leave their victims partially consumed before the animals finally die of blood loss or violent injuries...more

'Research hunts' weighed for wolves

Wildlife officials in the Northern Rockies said Wednesday they are considering hunting gray wolves in the name of research to get around a recent court ruling that restored federal protections for the animals. Environmentalists derided the proposal, vowing to challenge in court any new plans for hunting the estimated 1,367 wolves in Idaho and Montana. Hunters in Idaho and Montana killed 258 wolves during hunts last fall — the first for wolves in the lower 48 states in decades. State officials said the hunts proved wolves can be hunted without driving the population to extinction. But the Aug. 5 ruling from U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy is likely to cancel or postpone wolf seasons scheduled to start next month in the two states. Still, the ruling left officials scrambling for new ways to control a predator responsible for increasing attacks on livestock and big game herds. Montana wolf program coordinator Carolyn Sime said one option under consideration was to apply for a federally permitted "research hunt" to better understand the impact of public hunting on wolf populations. In the absence of hunting, more than 1,200 wolves have been killed during the last 15 years by government agents and ranchers in response to livestock attacks. Sime said a research hunt could reveal if a regulated public harvest could accomplish the same task...more

Wolf Hunt Canceled, Debate Rages On

In a showdown between the federal courts and state government, a judge ruled that wolves in Montana and Idaho should be protected under the federal Endangered Species Act last week. The ruling effectively canceled planned hunts in the two states and baffled hunters and wildlife officials across the West. Thankfully, Montana wildlife officials are not giving up just yet. They announced a plan today to seek a special federal permit that would allow public wolf hunting despite the court order. But because of the large amount of red tape involved, even if the permit is granted it’s unlikely that they’ll be able to save the 2010 wolf hunt in either Montana or Idaho. Another option could be trying to downgrade wolves to threatened and then getting federal permission to hunt them. The ruling last week came shortly after Montana decided to more than double its wolf hunt quota from 75 to 186. Idaho had also decided to increase the number of wolves hunters could take in the 2010 season (both states had their first wolf hunt in decades last year). But as of right now, all of that counts for nothing and the wolf hunt is off the table...more

State of Texas Challenges Federal Government's Offshore Drilling Moratorium

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott today filed a legal challenge to the Obama Administration’s offshore drilling moratorium. The State’s legal challenge charges the Administration with violating a federal law that requires the Secretary of Interior to consult with affected states before imposing an offshore drilling moratorium. Filed on behalf of the State of Texas, Governor Rick Perry and Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson, today’s legal action names the following defendants: the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI); DOI Secretary Kenneth Salazar; the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement – formerly known as the Minerals Management Service – and BOEM Director Michael Bromwich. “The federal government ignored the State of Texas and failed to comply with the law when the Secretary of the Interior unilaterally imposed the Administration’s offshore drilling ban,” Attorney General Abbott said. “Under federal law, affected states are guaranteed the right to participate in offshore drilling-related policy decisions, but the Obama Administration did not bother to communicate, coordinate or cooperate with Texas. Worse, the Secretary of the Interior failed to consider the economic consequences of his decision, which will cost the Texas economy millions of dollars – and threatens far too many hard-working Texans’ jobs.”...more

Moratorium and litigation may stall drilling for years

Will one-third of U.S. oil continue to be produced offshore? Political forces at play in the aftermath of BP's disastrous oil spill make it increasingly doubtful. Failure to consider the full effect of proposed laws and moratoria, as well as the operation of existing laws, could jeopardize thousands of jobs and further damage the Gulf Coast economy. The Deepwater Horizon accident, taking 11 lives and slowly impacting countless livelihoods, was shocking. BP's brown muck of oil, coating wildlife and marshes and once-pristine beaches, creates a powerful visual argument against future drilling. But this horrific incident contrasts with a decades-long history of safety. Since 1980, the largest spill from a blowout in federal waters besides the Deepwater Horizon was only 800 barrels. For every barrel produced, only .000001 was spilled. It is certainly possible to produce oil offshore with reliability and safety...more

Feds round up more than 100 mustangs along CA-NV border

Federal land managers have captured more than 100 wild horses a day after an appellate court refused to stop the mustang roundup along the California-Nevada border. The Bureau of Land Management District Manager Nancy Haug says 119 animals gathered Wednesday were reported to be in good health. The roundup of about 2,000 wild horses is expected to last at least a month. Horse protection advocates had sought an emergency injunction for the roundup. In Defense of Animals argued the horses have more legal right to the public range than the thousands of livestock grazing there. The BLM says the overpopulated mustang herds about 120 miles north of Reno are damaging public rangeland and threatening their own well being. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals denied the advocates' request Tuesday night. AP

Horse Sanctuary Closer to Reality

Philanthropist and businesswoman Madeleine Pickens says she is one step closer to her dream of a sprawling sanctuary for wild horses to be built in northern Nevada. Pickens first told the I-Team about her plan for a sanctuary two years ago during an aerial tour of northern Nevada ranches. She hoped to buy a ranch with her own money, donate it to a non-profit foundation, then add public range creating an eco-tourism center in Elko County which could be home to thousands of already captured mustangs. Wednesday, Pickens confirmed she has signed a deal for ranch property up north. "I'm really excited. The check went out today. It got wire transferred. I'm purchasing a ranch and hopefully the BLM will co-operate, if not I guess I"ll just have to graze cows like everyone else. It would be a shame because my desire is not to be a cattle rancher," she added, "We are asking the government since they have removed these horses from the public land that they have a fiscal and moral responsibility to take care of these horses." Pickens says the combined property encompasses more than 900 square miles. Though she still needs the BLM to give its permission to use adjacent public range for horses instead of for cattle grazing...more

Chupacabra Ca-Ching

Once relegated to South Texas, the mythical chupacabra, or “goat sucker,” is migrating north. This spring, Runaway Bay, a town northwest of Fort Worth, made the chupacabra its official town mascot. That was after a groundskeeper at the municipal golf course found what mayor Robert Ryan describes as a “very strange-looking dead animal that was hairless with a long beak near the 14th hole.” “Apparently there was an understanding that it must be a chupacabra,” Ryan said. “At least that’s what went out in our press release.” El chupacabra didn’t always roam our state. The first reported sighting was in Puerto Rico in 1995, where the beast earned its nom de guerre for sucking the blood from livestock animals, its favorite flavor being goat. The sightings spread from there to Mexico and the rest of Latin America. Over the years it has been described as everything from a bug-eyed alien on two claw-like feet to a hairless blue-skinned mutated dog-like creature. No one loves a chupacabra. Or do they? The creature has the undeniable ability to make money for small towns across Texas. Call it the chupacabra stimulus. In Runaway Bay, the town’s Chamber of Commerce knew it was onto something good. The chamber commissioned golf shirts and T-shirts for sale. The shirt features the chupacabra holding a golf club, surrounded by a corona of fireworks. A local restaurant created the “legendary chupacabra burger.” The merchandise alone has already generated $4,000 for city coffers...more

Longhorn bulls, lightning rods, a floating coffin and a bird of paradise

When Zachary Taylor’s army marched from Corpus Christi to the Rio Grande in 1846, a soldier, out of boredom, shot at a longhorn bull. The bull charged the soldier, who ran into the column of troops for protection. The bull charged into their midst, shaking his horns and scattering several regiments. The feisty little bull came out on the other side of the column, unhurt, but he left a scattered army behind him. John Dunn wrote about another bull in “Perilous Trails of Texas.” A company of Rangers, camped near King Ranch, would build a bonfire on cold nights. Dunn noticed that after the men went to sleep an old bull would slip into camp and settle down by the fire. One night the bull got too close to the fire. He got burned and went ballistic, snorting and bellowing, and the Rangers, startled from sleep, fired their guns, thinking they were under attack. The bull scattered coals of the fire and some bedrolls went up in flames. Casualties were two wounded men, some burned blankets, a broken bridle bit, a broken wagon tongue, and a saddle shot full of holes. Dunn saw the scorched bull three miles from camp. He thought he must have been a sensible animal who learned from experience. He never came back to claim a warm spot by the fire...more

NATIONAL COWGIRL HALL OF FAME TO INDUCT FIVE WOMEN

Fort Worth, Texas (August 10, 2010) - The National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame is proud to announce Betty Dusek, Kay Gay, Temple Grandin, Joyce Gibson Roach and Hortense Ward as inductees to the Hall of Fame for 2010. All five women will be honored during the 35th annual Induction Luncheon Ceremony on October 28, 2010, at the Will Rogers Memorial Center in Fort Worth, Texas...

Betty Dusek
Vancourt, Texas

Part of the golden age of the all-girl rodeo, Betty Dusek aided in the early development of the Girls Rodeo Association as director of calf roping contests. Betty won several awards including world champion calf roping, team roping, flag racing and ribbon roping through the GRA. Betty is a long-time member of several organizations including, the 4-H Adult Leaders Association, Texas Sheep and Goat Raisers Association, American Quarter Horse Association, West Texas Barrel Racer Association, and Women's Pro Rodeo Association. Receiving her GRA Gold Card in 1985, Betty is an all-around champion, having won 14 titles.

Kay Gay
Terrell, Texas

Kay Gay is an important part of Texas rodeo history. From scheduling long-haul truckers for rodeo stock to serving as secretary to keeping time, she has filled most roles within the rodeo arena.For the Mesquite Championship Rodeo, among others, she coordinated the grand entry and opening ceremonies, carried the American flag and competed as a barrel racer. Her interest in the preservation of Western culture is evident through not only working with the Mesquite Rodeo and others, but also for taking charge of the Pivot Setters and Rodeo costumes at the Fort Worth Stock Show and Rodeo. Her work with the wardrobe often meant designing and even sewing costumes. Kay is generally acknowledged as being one who is encouraging and nurturing to all competitors, and her dedication to maintaining and promoting professional rodeo and our Western heritage is readily seen through her life's work.

Temple Grandin
Fort Collins, Colorado

Temple Grandin, Ph.D., is a champion of the agriculture and livestock industry. Temple has published four books and well over 200 articles and essays on the subjects of animal welfare, livestock handling and other topics relevant to the livestock industry. Having designed the livestock facilities for six different countries, at least 30 percent of the handling done in North America is done through one of Temple's designs. She developed a system that causes the animal to feel minimal anxiety while providing greater safety and efficiency for the plant. Temple overcame double adversities of being female in a male-dominated industry and the challenges associated with being autistic. She has published on the subject of autism and speaks publicly to better inform others about the developmental disorder. Temple is currently a professor of animal sciences at Colorado State University.

Joyce Roach
Keller, Texas

Joyce Gibson Roach is an author, teacher, cattle rancher and naturalist. Her writing credits include awards and prizes in non-fiction, short story, children's literature, and humorous prose, all of which focus on Texas and the Southwest. As adjunct professor of English at TCU, she taught the Western Novel and reintroduced Literature of the Southwest as a part of regional studies. She is a Fellow of Texas State Historical Association, Fellow of Texas Folklore Society, an elected member of the Texas Institute of Letters and Philosophical Society of Texas, and is national president of the Horned Lizard Conservation Society. "The Cowgirls," in print since 1978, is considered the foundational textabout women on horseback from ranch to arena. The family ranch, Crosswinds, is located in the Western Cross Timbers in Wise County, Texas, whereshe has established the Center for Western Cross Timbers Studies dedicated to communicating about and conserving the region.

Hortense Ward
Houston
(1872- 1944)

Known as a defender of women's rights and as the first woman admitted into the Texas Bar Association, Hortense broke barriers for women during the beginning of the 20th century. Five years after being admitted to the Texas bar, Hortense became the first woman from Texas, as well as the first woman below the Mason-Dixon Line admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court. Hortense was the president of the Houston Equal Suffrage Association, Chief Justice of the All-Woman Supreme Court and vice president of the Women Lawyers Association. She was also the first woman registered to vote in Harris County. In the 1920s, she publicly supported the campaign of Miriam A. "Ma" Ferguson, the first woman governor of Texas. Hortense spearheaded the Married Woman's Property Rights law, which became known as the "Hortense Ward Act," and allowed married women in Texas to control their own property and earnings.

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Song Of The Day #378

Here is the #5 song from 1959: Billy Bayou by Jim Reeves.

Maes beats McInnis

Poised for an improbable triumph, Republican Dan Maes took the stage just before midnight to declare victory over former Congressman Scott McInnis for the GOP gubernatorial nomination. Maes — an unknown, underfinanced gubernatorial candidate who has never held public office — was ahead by more than 1 percentage point, leading McInnis 50.7 percent to 49.3 percent, with 93 percent of the vote counted. "I am confident I am your Republican candidate for governor," Maes told supporters at Lodo's Bar & Grill in Denver. The Denver Post called the race for Maes shortly after midnight...more

This is good news to the ranchers and others opposed to the expansion of Fort Carson's Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site. McInnis was a prominent proponent of the expansion and had been critical of those opposing the expansion.

A good day for property rights.

Invasion of the Invasive Species! - Local biodiversity is increasing

Here’s a fact that I suspect most people don’t know: Wherever we humans have gone in the past two centuries, we have increased local and regional biodiversity. Biodiversity, in this case, is defined as increasing species richness. Yet, “the popular view [is] that diversity is decreasing at local scales,” Brown University biologist Dov Sax and University of California, Santa Barbara biologist Steven Gaines report [PDF]. Ample scientific evidence shows that this popular view is wrong, however. For example, more than 4,000 plant species introduced into North America during the past 400 years grow naturally here and now constitute nearly 20 percent of the continent’s vascular plant biodiversity. The fear among opponents of "invasive species" is the aggressive outsiders will cause a holocaust among the native plants. That might initially seem reasonable because there are a few species, like kudzu, purple loosestrife, and water hyacinth, that grow with alarming speed wherever they show up. But that doesn't mean other species are in danger. “There is no evidence that even a single long term resident species has been driven to extinction, or even extirpated within a single U.S. state, because of competition from an introduced plant species,” Macalester College biologist Mark Davis notes [PDF]. Yet this spurious threat of extinction persists as one of the chief reasons given for trying to prevent the introduction of exotic species. Meanwhile, there are plenty more examples in which local and regional species richness has been increasing...more

Wilderness ad campaign stirs lively debate

An advertising campaign by one group supporting the creation of federal wilderness in Do-a Ana County proved to be the elephant in the room Tuesday, at a meeting of the Advertising Federation of Las Cruces. The campaign and differing stances in the wilderness debate have created a wedge of sorts between two major business groups locally: the Greater Las Cruces Chamber of Commerce and the Hispano Chamber of Commerce de Las Cruces. Leaders from both groups, as well as other supporters and opponents of the wilderness bill, were present at the monthly Advertising Federation meeting. Their assignment? To talk about the advertising and publicity strategies each has used so far to get its message to the public. It was about 45 minutes into the session before the Hispano Chamber's campaign, which includes an ongoing TV commercial on Comcast Cable, gained the spotlight. eting organizers played the commercial, which urges support for Senate Bill 1689, saying it will conserve the outdoors for future generations. Afterward, wilderness bill critics from the Greater Las Cruces Chamber and People for Preserving Our Western Heritage, a ranchers group opposed to creating wilderness, pressed Hispano Chamber representatives to reveal the source of funding behind the campaign...more

Cougars invade sheep ranch, kill five

Over the past two months, six cougars have attacked sheep on a Linn County ranch, killing five of them. Cathy Stepp and her son 12-year-old son, Colton, said they feel like they’ve been cast in a movie with their sheep as the “disposable” extras and cougars playing the elusive killers. “It’s kind of like being in a scary movie,” said Cathy. “You’re just very, very cautious, constantly.” Five of the six cougars have been killed by the county trapper. “You never know when something’s going to be laying on the hay pile or lurking around or whatever,” Cathy said. Colton is no longer allowed to play in the woods...more

Las Vegas Considers Hula-Hoop Ban

This is a city where tourists are welcome to wander certain streets with open bottles of alcohol, where the phone books contain hundreds of color page ads for "escorts" and where gambling is so ubiquitous that slot machines appear in most 7-Elevens. Yet the Las Vegas City Council is now zeroing in on halting a new public menace: Hula-Hoops. OK, not all Hula-Hooping. Specifically, city leaders later this month may ban the use of the usually plastic, hip-gyrating equipment on a five-block pedestrian mall known as the Fremont Street Experience in the city's downtown core because, they argue, their use obstructs traffic flow and causes public disruptions...more

Los Payasos at work again.

Cow whisperer aims to improve livestock handling

The herd of lowing cows parted like a wave before Curt Pate, who rode straight up to the bull and let him know who was in charge without making a sound. Pate, a 49-year-old Montana cowboy who consulted on the 1998 Robert Redford film "The Horse Whisperer," switched his focus to cows about five years ago and has been traveling the country teaching ranchers to think like cattle and use low-stress methods of handling livestock. At the moment, his work is sponsored by the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, which is eager to counter bad publicity generated by a widely seen, secretly recorded video of cows on an Ohio dairy farm being beaten and prodded with pitchforks. "It makes me ill," Pate said. "I really can't stand it. If you care about animals, you just can't stand those things." He said his goal is to teach modern ranchers traditional livestock handling methods used 100 years ago. Back then, there were fewer corrals and fences, and a ranch manager didn't spend as much time on a computer as with livestock. When he confronted the bull, Pate was demonstrating how to steer it away from the agitated females and into an empty pasture without upsetting it or getting the cows even more excited...more

I wonder if there is a market for my skills - I'm a wife whisperer.

U.S. farm group wants crackdown on meatpackers

A grass-roots group of U.S. farmers and ranchers on Tuesday called for tighter government oversight of beef and poultry companies, charging that corporate monopolies are unfairly squeezing independent producers. The outcry is aimed at rallying support for the Agriculture Department's Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration (GIPSA), which is completing a new rule aimed at promoting fairness in the marketing of livestock and poultry. GIPSA published the rule in June and a comment period expires Nov 22. Competition in the U.S. meat industry is also getting the attention of the U.S. Department of Justice which is holding a forum on industry antitrust concerns in Colorado on Aug. 27. The group of farmers and ranchers meeting in Omaha this week are working to rally support for the GIPSA rule and to beat back an intense lobbying effort by the corporate meat companies and organizations working to weaken regulation...more