MAD COW DISEASE
For Months, Agriculture Department Delayed Announcing Result of Mad Cow Test Although the Agriculture Department confirmed Friday that a cow that died last year was infected with mad cow disease, a test the agency conducted seven months ago indicated that the animal had the disease. The result was never publicly disclosed. The delay in confirming the United States' second case of mad cow disease seems to underscore what critics of the agency have said for a long time: that there are serious and systemic problems in the way the Agriculture Department tests animals for mad cow. Indeed, the lengthy delay occurred despite the intense national interest in the disease and the fact that many countries have banned shipments of beef from the United States because of what they consider to be lax testing policies. Until Friday, it was not public knowledge that an "experimental" test had been performed last November by an Agriculture Department laboratory on the brain of a cow suspected of having mad cow disease, and that the test had come up positive. For seven months, all that was known was that a test on the same cow done at the same laboratory at roughly the same time had come up negative. The negative result was obtained using a test that the Agriculture Department refers to as its "gold standard." The explanation that the department gave late Friday, when the positive test result came to light, was that there was no bad intention or cover-up, and that the test in question was only experimental....
Months-Long Delay in Mad Cow Announcement Stirs Debate Officials at the U.S. Department of Agriculture are facing harsh criticism over a seven-month delay in announcing test results indicating that a suspect animal was infected with mad cow disease, the second such case yet documented in the country. The test in question, described by USDA officials as "experimental," was ordered after two previous faster "Elisa" tests had come up negative for bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), the formal name for mad cow disease. The animal also tested negative on a slower immunohistochemistry test, considered the agency's "gold standard" at the time. Those tests were all conducted by USDA last November. Then, just two weeks ago, and for reasons that remain unclear, agency inspector general Phyllis K. Fong ordered that tissue samples from the cow be sent to a well-respected lab in England for further testing using the Western blot method. Several tests were run, all of which came up positive for BSE. When asked why news of the first positive result from the "experimental" test last November had not been publicized, Agriculture Department spokesman Ed Loyd blamed the delay on a breakdown in internal agency communications. "The laboratory folks just never mentioned it to anyone higher up," he said. "They didn't know if it was valid or not, so they didn't report it."....
U.S. Refused Extra Mad-Cow Test A third and more sophisticated test on the beef cow suspected of having mad cow disease would have helped resolve conflicting results from two initial screenings, but the U.S. refused to perform it in November. That additional test, ordered up by the Agriculture Department's internal watchdog, ended up detecting mad cow — a finding that was confirmed on Friday by the world's pre-eminent lab, in England. Only 18 months ago, the department had used the Western blot test to help uncover the first American case of the brain-wasting illness in cows. The department is pledging that, from now on, it will conduct such testing on suspicious animals. U.S. officials in November had declared the cow free of the disease even though one of two tests — an initial screening known as a rapid test — indicated the presence of the disease. A more sophisticated follow-up — immunohistochemistry, or IHC — came back negative. "They had two diametrically opposed results which begged to be resolved," said Paul W. Brown, a former scientist at the National Institutes of Health who spent his career working on mad cow-related issues....
Beef scare tests US on cow-feed policies The new case of mad cow disease in the United States points to the US Department of Agriculture's two basic and - critics say - potentially conflicting mandates. The agency is charged with ensuring the safety of US agricultural products. But it's also meant to promote those products domestically and abroad. Bad news in the first area can harm the second. Seeking to lessen any concern beef-eaters may have about the recently discovered cow infected with the disease, Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns speaks of "interlocking safeguards" and "the firewalls we have in place." He points to the vastly increased number of cows that now are screened for the deadly infection - more than 388,000 in the past 18 months. Before the first US case of mad cow disease was discovered in December 2003, just a few thousand cows were tested annually. But the388,000 are still less than 2 percent of the approximately 35 million cattle slaughtered in the US each year, far lower than the percentage tested in Europe or Japan. And the most recent episode also shows how that system of checking - even with its improvements - is not foolproof. The latest episode "underscores the need for federal regulations on BSE to be tightened immediately," says Wenonah Hauter, who heads Public Citizen's food program. Ms. Hauter says federal agencies "must eliminate loopholes in the current feed ban which still allow the use of cattle blood, waste from the floors of poultry houses, and processed restaurant and food waste to be fed to cattle." "The use of rendered cattle remains is allowed in feed for hogs and poultry, and in turn, hog and poultry remains can be put back into cattle feed," she says. "All of these loopholes provide pathways for cattle to eat potentially infective tissue from other cattle and create the potential for the disease to spread."....
DNA testing may help lead to source of new case of mad cow The government hopes DNA analysis can pinpoint the herd of the cow that tested positive for mad cow disease and lead investigators to the source of the animal's brain-wasting illness, the Agriculture Department's chief veterinarian said Saturday. Genetic testing is needed because of mistakes in how the beef cow was labeled and how its tissues were stored, John Clifford told The Associated Press in an interview. The cow, a "downer" that could not walk, was delivered last November to a plant where animals unfit for human consumption are killed. The department has not identified the owner or the plant. The cow's type of breed was mislabeled, possibly because the animal had been soiled heavily with manure, and its tissues were mixed with tissues from other cows, Clifford said. "When we went back to this particular owner, the breed we identified, he indicated he did not sell that breed. He sold another breed," Clifford said. "In addition to that, we found that after the tissues were processed, there was some mixing."....
Beef industry circles wagons Colorado, the nation's fourth-largest beef producer and home to three of the industry's largest trade groups, has been hit especially hard by the import ban and likely will endure another round of significant losses, said Steve Gabel, chairman of the Colorado Beef Council and owner of Magnum Feed Yard in Wiggins. Gabel said his company has watched the value of each of its head of cattle drop by $50 - amounting to losses of about $43,000 a week - since June 10. That was when it was announced that British researchers would retest the recently found infected cow. Given that the nation slaughters about 96,000 head of "feed cattle" a day - typically high-quality beef sold to consumers - Gabel estimates that the industry has lost about $4.8 million a day since mid-June. "And that's just a glimpse at the financial pressure our industry feels way before any confirmation is complete," he said....
Canadian border to remain open to U.S. beef Canada, which two years ago was prohibited from exporting its cattle to the United States after a mad cow scare, has no intention of closing its borders to U.S. beef after Washington announced that a cow tested positive there, Canada's agriculture minister said. The comments from Canadian Agriculture Minister Andy Mitchell came as Taiwan reimposed the ban on U.S. beef that it lifted just two months ago. Also, a Japanese government food safety panel expressed concern Saturday about the second confirmed American case, raising speculation that Tokyo may delay a planned resumption of U.S. beef imports. The U.S. ban on Canadian cattle was imposed in May 2003 when an Albertan-born cow was found ill with bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE....
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Sunday, June 26, 2005
Opinion/Commentary on Kelo vs. New London
Cato Scholars Condemn Property Rights Decision
In the landmark Takings Clause case, Kelo v. City of New London, the Supreme Court ruled today, 5-4, that the government has the right to condemn private property and transfer titles to others simply to encourage economic development and a larger tax base. "With today's decision, no one's property is safe," said Roger Pilon, director of Cato's Center for Constitutional Studies, "since any time a government official thinks someone else can make better use of your property than you're doing, he can order it condemned and transferred. Today's decision, the third loss for property owners this term, together with other recent decisions from this Court, marks this as 'The Government's Court,'" Pilon added. This decision comes as a blow to homeowners and small business people who have been robbed of their property by usually large and powerful interests in league with government officials....
I Own It... No You Don't
I own a 2-bedroom, 1,500 sq-ft house.
No you don't. Because someone wants to put a 5-bedroom, 4,000 sq-ft house on your lot. It will bring in more property taxes.
I own a 5-bedroom, 4,000 sq-ft house.
No you don't. Because a local BBQ-purveyor wants to turn your lot into a restaurant, which will turn a profit and produce more taxes than your home.
I own a successful BBQ restaurant.
No you don't. Because a huge chain restaurant wants to turn your BBQ pit into a burger joint that turns more profit than your little spit can.
I own a busy chain restaurant franchise.
No you don't. Because a developer wants to build a hotel there with more profit, higher property taxes, and more employees....
Meet the people who owned the property
Susette Kelo dreamed of owning a home that looked out over the water. She purchased and lovingly restored her little pink house where the Thames River meets the Long Island Sound in 1997, and has enjoyed the great view from its windows ever since. The Dery family, down the street from Susette, has lived in Fort Trumbull since 1895; Matt Dery and his family live next door to his mother and father, whose parents purchased their house when William McKinley was president. The richness and vibrancy of this neighborhood reflects the American ideal of community and the dream of homeownership. Tragically, the City of New London is turning that dream into a nightmare. In 1998, pharmaceutical giant Pfizer built a plant next to Fort Trumbull and the City determined that someone else could make better use of the land than the Fort Trumbull residents. The City handed over its power of eminent domain—the ability to take private property for public use—to the New London Development Corporation (NLDC), a private body, to take the entire neighborhood for private development. As the Fort Trumbull neighbors found out, when private entities wield government’s awesome power of eminent domain and can justify taking property with the nebulous claim of “economic development,” all homeowners are in trouble....
Property Rights Devastated by Supreme Court Ruling
The U.S. Supreme Court today dealt a blow to property rights in a split decision that will hurt homeowners and small business owners across the country. “The Supreme Court has said that local governments can seize private land if government and business interests think they know best how the land should be used,” said Hans Bader, legal counsel for the Competitive Enterprise Institute. “The Court’s decision contradicts the language and intent of the Fifth Amendment,” said Bader. “The Constitution says you can’t take private property except for ‘public use.’ But when government seizes land and hands it over to business interests to jack up tax revenue, the public isn’t ‘using’ the land. “Government can always claim a ‘public purpose,’ but that’s not the same as ‘public use,’” said Bader....
On June 24, 2005, the Supreme Court put a big UP FOR GRABS sign on your home.
The Court said it’s perfectly OK, under the U.S. Constitution, to take your home or business and give it to a politically connected private developer because that developer might be able to produce more taxes and more jobs off of your land. In the face of this disgraceful decision upholding takings for private development, it might seem like the fight is over. Nothing could be further from the truth. We have been overwhelmed by emails and phone calls from citizens who are shocked and outraged by what the Supreme Court has done. We have learned that individual citizens CAN make a difference. We have seen dozens of proposals for eminent domain go down in flames because of popular opposition. We’ve seen cities and states change their laws in response to the outrage of their citizens. Right now, there is a tremendous momentum against this abuse of power, and we ask each of you to begin organizing to change the law in your city or county or state. The Castle Coalition will help you write the language, but now is the time to start organizing your friends and neighbors. Your local government will tell you there’s nothing to worry about, that it would never use eminent domain, or that it's only as a “last resort.” Don’t believe a word of it....
The Supreme Court's reverse Robin Hoods
The Supreme Court's "liberal" wing has a reputation in some circles as a guardian of the little guy and a protector of civil liberties. That deserves reconsideration in light of yesterday's decision in Kelo v. City of New London. The Court's four liberals (Justices Stevens, Breyer, Souter and Ginsburg) combined with the protean Anthony Kennedy to rule that local governments have more or less unlimited authority to seize homes and businesses. No one disputes that this power of "eminent domain" makes sense in limited circumstances; the Constitution's Fifth Amendment explicitly provides for it. But the plain reading of that Amendment's "takings clause" also appears to require that eminent domain be invoked only when land is required for genuine "public use" such as roads. It further requires that the government pay owners "just compensation" in such cases. The founding fathers added this clause to the Fifth Amendment--which also guarantees "due process" and protects against double jeopardy and self-incrimination--because they understood that there could be no meaningful liberty in a country where the fruits of one's labor are subject to arbitrary government seizure. That protection was immensely diminished by yesterday's 5-4 decision, which effectively erased the requirement that eminent domain be invoked for "public use."....
Damaging ‘deference’
The question answered yesterday was: Can government profit by seizing the property of people of modest means and giving it to wealthy people who can pay more taxes than can be extracted from the original owners? The court answered yes. The Fifth Amendment says, among other things, "nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation" (emphasis added). All state constitutions echo the Constitution's Framers by stipulating that takings must be for "public use." The Framers, who weighed their words, clearly intended the adjective "public" to circumscribe government's power: Government should take private property only to create things — roads, bridges, parks, public buildings — directly owned or primarily used by the general public. Fighting eviction from homes one of them had lived in all her life, the New London owners appealed to Connecticut's Supreme Court, which ruled 4 to 3 against them. Yesterday they lost again. The U.S. Supreme Court issued a 5 to 4 ruling that drains the phrase "public use" of its clearly intended function of denying to government an untrammeled power to dispossess individuals of their most precious property: their homes and businesses. During oral arguments in February, Justice Antonin Scalia distilled the essence of New London's brazen claim: "You can take from A and give to B if B pays more taxes?" Yesterday the court said that the modifier "public" in the phrase "public use" does not modify government power at all. That is the logic of the opinion written by Justice John Paul Stevens and joined by justices Anthony Kennedy, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer....
Supreme Court Ruling on Seizure of Private Property Highly Disturbing
Today, Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) voiced their disappointment with the Supreme Court’s decision in the Kelo v. New London, which ruled against a group of homeowners in Connecticut. In a 5-4 decision, the high court ruled against the property owners of a town in Connecticut, affirming the local government’s ability to seize private property for private development. “The Supreme Court has misrepresented the importance of the Fifth Amendment, which entitles just compensation to take land for clear public use, such as roads or schools,” said Grover Norquist, President of Americans for Tax Reform. “The Fifth Amendment is not intended as the means for increased tax revenue from private enterprises at the expense of an individual’s property rights.” Justice Sandra Day O’Connor wrote the dissenting opinion for the court, arguing against the unconstrained authority of government to displace families and small businesses in order to accommodate developers. “The specter of condemnation hangs over all property,” stated the Justice in her opinion. She was joined by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Scalia and Thomas....
They Can't Take That Away From Me... Unless They Can
The government's takings power is a necessary evil that, if used broadly, can destroy the entire concept of private property rights. As Russell Kirk pointed out, doing so will have devastating affects on society: "[F]reedom and property are closely linked. Separate property from private possession, and Leviathan becomes master of all. Upon the foundation of private property, great civilizations are built. The more widespread is the possession of private property, the more stable and productive is a commonwealth." (Link) The Kelo case is a particularly egregious example of how the takings power can be abused. The Supreme Court has held that private property can be seized via eminent domain as part of an urban renewal project when the property is blighted, a loophole that local authorities have greatly abused to seize private property. Yet, in this case, the government didn't even bother trying to hide behind that fig leaf. They baldly asserted the power to seize private homes because they think some other user can put them to a higher tax generating use...This is no minor technical dispute. Kirk's dicta is confirmed by the brilliant work Richard Epstein did in his classic book Takings, which makes a compelling case that the power to take private property is the critical and central power of government that must be constrained if liberty is to have any substance....
DC Mayor To Bulldoze Ruth Bader Ginsberg's House For Homeless Shelter
In an immediate municipal action based upon the just-released ruling by the United States Supreme Court, DC Mayor Anthony Williams has announced that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg "needs to start packing" as the city's plans for a suburban homeless shelter have finally been vetted. Ginsberg was one of five justices who ruled that city governments may seize private property in the name of furthering beneficial municipal programs. "We are allowing time for Ms. Ginsberg to dismantle her Bill Clinton altar, as well as her mannequal tributes to Ruth Buzzi," said Williams. Ginsberg said she will "respect her own ruling" despite the fact that "I do not agree with it anymore."....
And finally, from National Review Online's The Corner: The quickest way to reverse Kelo is to find some conservative town in Utah somewhere to shut down an abortion clinic in order to make room for a Wal-Mart.
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Cato Scholars Condemn Property Rights Decision
In the landmark Takings Clause case, Kelo v. City of New London, the Supreme Court ruled today, 5-4, that the government has the right to condemn private property and transfer titles to others simply to encourage economic development and a larger tax base. "With today's decision, no one's property is safe," said Roger Pilon, director of Cato's Center for Constitutional Studies, "since any time a government official thinks someone else can make better use of your property than you're doing, he can order it condemned and transferred. Today's decision, the third loss for property owners this term, together with other recent decisions from this Court, marks this as 'The Government's Court,'" Pilon added. This decision comes as a blow to homeowners and small business people who have been robbed of their property by usually large and powerful interests in league with government officials....
I Own It... No You Don't
I own a 2-bedroom, 1,500 sq-ft house.
No you don't. Because someone wants to put a 5-bedroom, 4,000 sq-ft house on your lot. It will bring in more property taxes.
I own a 5-bedroom, 4,000 sq-ft house.
No you don't. Because a local BBQ-purveyor wants to turn your lot into a restaurant, which will turn a profit and produce more taxes than your home.
I own a successful BBQ restaurant.
No you don't. Because a huge chain restaurant wants to turn your BBQ pit into a burger joint that turns more profit than your little spit can.
I own a busy chain restaurant franchise.
No you don't. Because a developer wants to build a hotel there with more profit, higher property taxes, and more employees....
Meet the people who owned the property
Susette Kelo dreamed of owning a home that looked out over the water. She purchased and lovingly restored her little pink house where the Thames River meets the Long Island Sound in 1997, and has enjoyed the great view from its windows ever since. The Dery family, down the street from Susette, has lived in Fort Trumbull since 1895; Matt Dery and his family live next door to his mother and father, whose parents purchased their house when William McKinley was president. The richness and vibrancy of this neighborhood reflects the American ideal of community and the dream of homeownership. Tragically, the City of New London is turning that dream into a nightmare. In 1998, pharmaceutical giant Pfizer built a plant next to Fort Trumbull and the City determined that someone else could make better use of the land than the Fort Trumbull residents. The City handed over its power of eminent domain—the ability to take private property for public use—to the New London Development Corporation (NLDC), a private body, to take the entire neighborhood for private development. As the Fort Trumbull neighbors found out, when private entities wield government’s awesome power of eminent domain and can justify taking property with the nebulous claim of “economic development,” all homeowners are in trouble....
Property Rights Devastated by Supreme Court Ruling
The U.S. Supreme Court today dealt a blow to property rights in a split decision that will hurt homeowners and small business owners across the country. “The Supreme Court has said that local governments can seize private land if government and business interests think they know best how the land should be used,” said Hans Bader, legal counsel for the Competitive Enterprise Institute. “The Court’s decision contradicts the language and intent of the Fifth Amendment,” said Bader. “The Constitution says you can’t take private property except for ‘public use.’ But when government seizes land and hands it over to business interests to jack up tax revenue, the public isn’t ‘using’ the land. “Government can always claim a ‘public purpose,’ but that’s not the same as ‘public use,’” said Bader....
On June 24, 2005, the Supreme Court put a big UP FOR GRABS sign on your home.
The Court said it’s perfectly OK, under the U.S. Constitution, to take your home or business and give it to a politically connected private developer because that developer might be able to produce more taxes and more jobs off of your land. In the face of this disgraceful decision upholding takings for private development, it might seem like the fight is over. Nothing could be further from the truth. We have been overwhelmed by emails and phone calls from citizens who are shocked and outraged by what the Supreme Court has done. We have learned that individual citizens CAN make a difference. We have seen dozens of proposals for eminent domain go down in flames because of popular opposition. We’ve seen cities and states change their laws in response to the outrage of their citizens. Right now, there is a tremendous momentum against this abuse of power, and we ask each of you to begin organizing to change the law in your city or county or state. The Castle Coalition will help you write the language, but now is the time to start organizing your friends and neighbors. Your local government will tell you there’s nothing to worry about, that it would never use eminent domain, or that it's only as a “last resort.” Don’t believe a word of it....
The Supreme Court's reverse Robin Hoods
The Supreme Court's "liberal" wing has a reputation in some circles as a guardian of the little guy and a protector of civil liberties. That deserves reconsideration in light of yesterday's decision in Kelo v. City of New London. The Court's four liberals (Justices Stevens, Breyer, Souter and Ginsburg) combined with the protean Anthony Kennedy to rule that local governments have more or less unlimited authority to seize homes and businesses. No one disputes that this power of "eminent domain" makes sense in limited circumstances; the Constitution's Fifth Amendment explicitly provides for it. But the plain reading of that Amendment's "takings clause" also appears to require that eminent domain be invoked only when land is required for genuine "public use" such as roads. It further requires that the government pay owners "just compensation" in such cases. The founding fathers added this clause to the Fifth Amendment--which also guarantees "due process" and protects against double jeopardy and self-incrimination--because they understood that there could be no meaningful liberty in a country where the fruits of one's labor are subject to arbitrary government seizure. That protection was immensely diminished by yesterday's 5-4 decision, which effectively erased the requirement that eminent domain be invoked for "public use."....
Damaging ‘deference’
The question answered yesterday was: Can government profit by seizing the property of people of modest means and giving it to wealthy people who can pay more taxes than can be extracted from the original owners? The court answered yes. The Fifth Amendment says, among other things, "nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation" (emphasis added). All state constitutions echo the Constitution's Framers by stipulating that takings must be for "public use." The Framers, who weighed their words, clearly intended the adjective "public" to circumscribe government's power: Government should take private property only to create things — roads, bridges, parks, public buildings — directly owned or primarily used by the general public. Fighting eviction from homes one of them had lived in all her life, the New London owners appealed to Connecticut's Supreme Court, which ruled 4 to 3 against them. Yesterday they lost again. The U.S. Supreme Court issued a 5 to 4 ruling that drains the phrase "public use" of its clearly intended function of denying to government an untrammeled power to dispossess individuals of their most precious property: their homes and businesses. During oral arguments in February, Justice Antonin Scalia distilled the essence of New London's brazen claim: "You can take from A and give to B if B pays more taxes?" Yesterday the court said that the modifier "public" in the phrase "public use" does not modify government power at all. That is the logic of the opinion written by Justice John Paul Stevens and joined by justices Anthony Kennedy, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer....
Supreme Court Ruling on Seizure of Private Property Highly Disturbing
Today, Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) voiced their disappointment with the Supreme Court’s decision in the Kelo v. New London, which ruled against a group of homeowners in Connecticut. In a 5-4 decision, the high court ruled against the property owners of a town in Connecticut, affirming the local government’s ability to seize private property for private development. “The Supreme Court has misrepresented the importance of the Fifth Amendment, which entitles just compensation to take land for clear public use, such as roads or schools,” said Grover Norquist, President of Americans for Tax Reform. “The Fifth Amendment is not intended as the means for increased tax revenue from private enterprises at the expense of an individual’s property rights.” Justice Sandra Day O’Connor wrote the dissenting opinion for the court, arguing against the unconstrained authority of government to displace families and small businesses in order to accommodate developers. “The specter of condemnation hangs over all property,” stated the Justice in her opinion. She was joined by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Scalia and Thomas....
They Can't Take That Away From Me... Unless They Can
The government's takings power is a necessary evil that, if used broadly, can destroy the entire concept of private property rights. As Russell Kirk pointed out, doing so will have devastating affects on society: "[F]reedom and property are closely linked. Separate property from private possession, and Leviathan becomes master of all. Upon the foundation of private property, great civilizations are built. The more widespread is the possession of private property, the more stable and productive is a commonwealth." (Link) The Kelo case is a particularly egregious example of how the takings power can be abused. The Supreme Court has held that private property can be seized via eminent domain as part of an urban renewal project when the property is blighted, a loophole that local authorities have greatly abused to seize private property. Yet, in this case, the government didn't even bother trying to hide behind that fig leaf. They baldly asserted the power to seize private homes because they think some other user can put them to a higher tax generating use...This is no minor technical dispute. Kirk's dicta is confirmed by the brilliant work Richard Epstein did in his classic book Takings, which makes a compelling case that the power to take private property is the critical and central power of government that must be constrained if liberty is to have any substance....
DC Mayor To Bulldoze Ruth Bader Ginsberg's House For Homeless Shelter
In an immediate municipal action based upon the just-released ruling by the United States Supreme Court, DC Mayor Anthony Williams has announced that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg "needs to start packing" as the city's plans for a suburban homeless shelter have finally been vetted. Ginsberg was one of five justices who ruled that city governments may seize private property in the name of furthering beneficial municipal programs. "We are allowing time for Ms. Ginsberg to dismantle her Bill Clinton altar, as well as her mannequal tributes to Ruth Buzzi," said Williams. Ginsberg said she will "respect her own ruling" despite the fact that "I do not agree with it anymore."....
And finally, from National Review Online's The Corner: The quickest way to reverse Kelo is to find some conservative town in Utah somewhere to shut down an abortion clinic in order to make room for a Wal-Mart.
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Friday, June 24, 2005
MAD COW DISEASE
USDA ANNOUNCES BSE TEST RESULTS AND NEW BSE CONFIRMATORY TESTING PROTOCOL Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns today announced that the U.S. Department of Agriculture has received final test results from The Veterinary Laboratories Agency in Weybridge, England, confirming that a sample from an animal that was blocked from the food supply in November 2004 has tested positive for bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE). Johanns also directed USDA scientists to work with international experts to thoughtfully develop a new protocol that includes performing dual confirmatory tests in the event of another "inconclusive" BSE screening test. "We are currently testing nearly 1,000 animals per day as part of our BSE enhanced surveillance program, more than 388,000 total tests, and this is the first confirmed case resulting from our surveillance," Johanns said. Effective immediately, if another BSE rapid screening test results in inconclusive findings, USDA will run both an IHC and Western blot confirmatory test. If results from either confirmatory test are positive, the sample will be considered positive for BSE....Click here for a transcript of the press conference....
Mad-Cow Disease Confirmed for 2nd Time in U.S. Herd The U.S. confirmed its second case of mad-cow disease after a U.K. lab found traces of the illness in an animal that was cleared by earlier government tests. The finding may delay attempts to revive $2.5 billion of U.S. beef exports and force a review of screening methods. The lab in Weybridge, England, found evidence of the brain- wasting livestock disease in a tissue sample taken in November from an animal that never entered the food supply, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said today in an e-mailed statement. The sample was sent to the U.K. after a series of tests using three different procedures provided contradictory results. ``It is clear now that the USDA had no established procedure to deal with conflicting test results,'' said Senator Tom Harkin, Democrat from Iowa, in a statement. ``This lack of clear direction caused uncertainty for America's beef and cattle markets, consumers and our trading partners.'' Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns said the U.S. will add a second level of testing for any samples with inconclusive results....
R-CALF CEO Says BSE Case Won't Affect Litigation R-CALF United Stockgrowers of America CEO Bill Bullard said Friday that confirmation of a case of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, or mad-cow disease, in the U.S. cattle herd won't have any effect on the organization's litigation against the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In that case, R-CALF USA won a preliminary injunction against the USDA's Final Rule that would have allowed Canadian cattle younger than 20 months of age to enter the U.S. directly for slaughter or for feeding before slaughter. It is pending appeal before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. R-CALF USA sought to prevent cattle from Canada from entering the U.S. because Canada has had four cases of BSE, one of which was found in the U.S. and resulted in lost export markets. The case against the USDA charges the Final Rule is not robust enough to prevent the spread of BSE in the U.S., Bullard said....
BSE Results Won't Impact Japan Beef Talks U.S. Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns said Friday that the newly confirmed second case of mad cow disease in the U.S. won't affect the ongoing talks with Japan to lift its 18-month-old import ban on U.S. beef, Kyodo reported. "I don't think our discussions with Japan will be impacted," Johanns said in a press conference announcing the second case, Kyodo reported. Johanns said Japan also understands it, noting the already incinerated animal was banned from food supply and aged at least eight years old as opposed to Japan's planned reopening of imports from animals aged up to 20 months, according to Kyodo....
Questions On BSE Infected Cow Remain Unanswered By USDA Questions about the second cow to test positive for bovine spongiform encephalopathy in the U.S., such as the animal's origin and how and where it was infected, remain unanswered after an hour-long press conference here Friday. U.S. Department of Agriculture officials said the infected animal had been delivered to a "4D" facility that processes dead, dying, diseased or downer cattle that are not fit for human consumption, but they did not say where that facility was located. ther than the fact that the "beef cow" in question was a downer, meaning it was too sick or injured to walk, USDA Secretary Mike Johanns said: "We're just not going to confirm anything about the animal until we get the (epidemiological) work done. I hope you understand we want to be very, very careful about that." John Clifford, deputy administrator for veterinary services at USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Services, said one person has told the USDA which herd the infected animal came from, but the USDA wants scientific confirmation before releasing the information....
Beef stocks slip on case of mad cow disease Many fast food chains saw their stock prices slip in late trading Friday after the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported the second case of mad cow disease in the United States. The sell-off was not nearly as severe as Dec. 24, 2003, however, when the first case of the brain-wasting mad cow disease sent many restaurant stocks into a tailspin. On Friday, shares in those companies followed the rest of the market lower and dipped further after the USDA's announcement, which came about 90 minutes before the close of trading. Oak Brook, Ill.-based McDonald's Corp. shares dropped about 1 percent to $28.28, near its low for the day. Wendy's International Inc. closed down less than 1 percent to $46.53 and Outback Steakhouse Inc. dropped nearly 1 percent to close $45.05, a few cents off its Friday low....
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USDA ANNOUNCES BSE TEST RESULTS AND NEW BSE CONFIRMATORY TESTING PROTOCOL Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns today announced that the U.S. Department of Agriculture has received final test results from The Veterinary Laboratories Agency in Weybridge, England, confirming that a sample from an animal that was blocked from the food supply in November 2004 has tested positive for bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE). Johanns also directed USDA scientists to work with international experts to thoughtfully develop a new protocol that includes performing dual confirmatory tests in the event of another "inconclusive" BSE screening test. "We are currently testing nearly 1,000 animals per day as part of our BSE enhanced surveillance program, more than 388,000 total tests, and this is the first confirmed case resulting from our surveillance," Johanns said. Effective immediately, if another BSE rapid screening test results in inconclusive findings, USDA will run both an IHC and Western blot confirmatory test. If results from either confirmatory test are positive, the sample will be considered positive for BSE....Click here for a transcript of the press conference....
Mad-Cow Disease Confirmed for 2nd Time in U.S. Herd The U.S. confirmed its second case of mad-cow disease after a U.K. lab found traces of the illness in an animal that was cleared by earlier government tests. The finding may delay attempts to revive $2.5 billion of U.S. beef exports and force a review of screening methods. The lab in Weybridge, England, found evidence of the brain- wasting livestock disease in a tissue sample taken in November from an animal that never entered the food supply, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said today in an e-mailed statement. The sample was sent to the U.K. after a series of tests using three different procedures provided contradictory results. ``It is clear now that the USDA had no established procedure to deal with conflicting test results,'' said Senator Tom Harkin, Democrat from Iowa, in a statement. ``This lack of clear direction caused uncertainty for America's beef and cattle markets, consumers and our trading partners.'' Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns said the U.S. will add a second level of testing for any samples with inconclusive results....
R-CALF CEO Says BSE Case Won't Affect Litigation R-CALF United Stockgrowers of America CEO Bill Bullard said Friday that confirmation of a case of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, or mad-cow disease, in the U.S. cattle herd won't have any effect on the organization's litigation against the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In that case, R-CALF USA won a preliminary injunction against the USDA's Final Rule that would have allowed Canadian cattle younger than 20 months of age to enter the U.S. directly for slaughter or for feeding before slaughter. It is pending appeal before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. R-CALF USA sought to prevent cattle from Canada from entering the U.S. because Canada has had four cases of BSE, one of which was found in the U.S. and resulted in lost export markets. The case against the USDA charges the Final Rule is not robust enough to prevent the spread of BSE in the U.S., Bullard said....
BSE Results Won't Impact Japan Beef Talks U.S. Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns said Friday that the newly confirmed second case of mad cow disease in the U.S. won't affect the ongoing talks with Japan to lift its 18-month-old import ban on U.S. beef, Kyodo reported. "I don't think our discussions with Japan will be impacted," Johanns said in a press conference announcing the second case, Kyodo reported. Johanns said Japan also understands it, noting the already incinerated animal was banned from food supply and aged at least eight years old as opposed to Japan's planned reopening of imports from animals aged up to 20 months, according to Kyodo....
Questions On BSE Infected Cow Remain Unanswered By USDA Questions about the second cow to test positive for bovine spongiform encephalopathy in the U.S., such as the animal's origin and how and where it was infected, remain unanswered after an hour-long press conference here Friday. U.S. Department of Agriculture officials said the infected animal had been delivered to a "4D" facility that processes dead, dying, diseased or downer cattle that are not fit for human consumption, but they did not say where that facility was located. ther than the fact that the "beef cow" in question was a downer, meaning it was too sick or injured to walk, USDA Secretary Mike Johanns said: "We're just not going to confirm anything about the animal until we get the (epidemiological) work done. I hope you understand we want to be very, very careful about that." John Clifford, deputy administrator for veterinary services at USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Services, said one person has told the USDA which herd the infected animal came from, but the USDA wants scientific confirmation before releasing the information....
Beef stocks slip on case of mad cow disease Many fast food chains saw their stock prices slip in late trading Friday after the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported the second case of mad cow disease in the United States. The sell-off was not nearly as severe as Dec. 24, 2003, however, when the first case of the brain-wasting mad cow disease sent many restaurant stocks into a tailspin. On Friday, shares in those companies followed the rest of the market lower and dipped further after the USDA's announcement, which came about 90 minutes before the close of trading. Oak Brook, Ill.-based McDonald's Corp. shares dropped about 1 percent to $28.28, near its low for the day. Wendy's International Inc. closed down less than 1 percent to $46.53 and Outback Steakhouse Inc. dropped nearly 1 percent to close $45.05, a few cents off its Friday low....
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NEWS
Editorial: Rainbows and Nazis WHOSE bright idea was it to relocate the Rainbow Family gathering a mile away from the headquarters of one of the largest neo-Nazi organizations in the country? Somebody in the U.S. Forest Service evidently doesn’t mind inviting trouble. We know the Forest Service has its hands full trying to protect the forest while accommodating thousands of counterculture campers. We know the Rainbow Family rejected some other alternatives. But the National Alliance draws racists and skinheads from many parts of the world to its compound in Pocahontas County. Who decided it would be a good idea to camp a multiracial group of thousands of clothes-avoidant peaceniks next door to them?....
Lawmaker targets fish-data agency Angered by a federal court order that spills water over federal dams to save endangered salmon in the Pacific Northwest, Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, has inserted language into a Senate energy bill that would kill an agency that tallies the survival of fish as they swim through the heavily dammed Columbia and Snake rivers. The federal government has spent far more money trying to prevent the extinction of Northwest salmon than it has on any other endangered species. Craig's move would eliminate the Fish Passage Center, which for more than two decades has been collecting and analyzing data that document how effective that multibillion-dollar federal effort has been. A spokesman for the Idaho senator calls the rider — attached to an energy appropriations bill that moved last week to the Senate floor — "a shot across the bow" to challenge what Craig believes is an agency that advocates a "controversial and one-sided" approach to salmon recovery....
Wildlife smuggling ranks second to drugs on border When it comes to smuggling wildlife across the U.S.-Mexico border, U.S. Wildlife Inspector Ed Marshall has seen it all. Exotic birds given Valium or tequila so they stay quiet through Customs inspections. Sleeves moving with hidden reptiles. Wildcats stashed in trunks. Last week, the Border Patrol seized two white tigers on their way to Mexico. Inspectors have overlooked some things, however, like the African elephant smuggled across the Gateway International Bridge on a truck in 2001. "They call it the 'Dumbo Case,'" Marshall said, shaking his head. "They drove the damn elephant right across the bridge."....
Group Calls for End to the Endangered Species Act's "Reign of Terror" In a letter to House Resources Committee Chairman Richard Pombo (R-CA), the American Policy Center (APC) and over 50 public policy groups called for an end to the federal government’s unconstitutional practice of taking land and property rights under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Chairman Pombo plans to make reauthorizing the ESA a priority of the current Congress. "There are some who claim that the Act needs to be ‘strengthened,’ ‘updated,’ or ‘modernized,’" said APC president Tom DeWeese. "How absurd. For three decades this law has done nothing but steal property, destroy economies, shatter livelihoods, cost billions of dollars, and even take lives. The ESA needs to be repealed, not ‘modernized.’"....
Concerns on water dominate hearing Western lawmakers are stacking the deck as they push for changes in a perennially controversial environmental law. In a textbook illustration of how Congress builds a case, Mariposa Republican George Radanovich on Wednesday summoned witnesses to discuss the Endangered Species Act. Almost invariably, the witnesses complained about the law's impact on water supplies and their own operations. Backed by Radanovich and other Republicans, Cardoza has reintroduced legislation that would tighten rules for designating critical habitat under the Endangered Species Act. Critical habitat is what's considered essential for a species to survive and recover. On designated land - like the 128,035 acres in Stanislaus County called critical for vernal pool species - federal agencies must consult with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service before taking action. The costs, consequences and effectiveness of critical habitat designation remain a matter of dispute. Still, Cardoza's bid to revise critical habitat policies remains so far the leading Endangered Species Act bill to be introduced this Congress. It has 29 House co-sponsors so far, as well as its share of critics....
Officials aim to lure Caspian terns from Oregon to Bay Area But the tall birds with the stout red beaks and mohawk-shaped black crowns have flourished here. So much so that the island is a prime beachhead in a federal plan to relocate the terns from Oregon's Columbia River, where they eat endangered salmon. In a plan of unusual scope and distances, the federal Fish and Wildlife Service proposes to break up and disperse the world's largest Caspian tern colony from a Columbia River island to seven places in California, Oregon and Washington. A sand spit on Brooks Island appears to be the best of the relocation sites, which also include two shoreline spots near Hayward and Fremont, Calif., scientists say. No nets, traps or guards are involved in this relocation of birds with wingspans that can exceed 4 feet. Federal agencies plan to lure the terns to new nesting areas by adding sand and clearing weeds in isolated areas suitable for the birds. If necessary, managers will also display decoys and blare recorded tern calls to lure in birds....
Energy execs say West could rival Saudi Arabia Energy company executives told a House subcommittee on Thursday that Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming could become the next Saudi Arabia if they can find a way to extract the billions of barrels in oil shale, a porous rock containing petroleum. By tapping into oil shale, supporters say, the U.S. could replace all trans-Atlantic oil imports by 2025. But they need help from the federal government, which oversees 80 percent of the land where the oil deposits are found. A key official from Colorado urged Congress to take care, however, and make sure to avoid another boom and bust like the one that hit the state 25 years ago....
LDS joins BLM in fighting Martin's Cove lawsuit The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints can join the federal government's defense against a lawsuit protesting the lease of a historic site to the church, a federal judge has ruled. The American Civil Liberties Union filed the lawsuit in March in U.S. District Court, naming Interior Secretary Gale Norton and Bureau of Land Management Director Kathleen Clarke. The ACLU argues the lease agreement unfairly gives the Mormon church too much control over the Martin's Cove site, which is about 60 miles southwest of Casper, and that visitors are subjected to proselytizing or restricted from some areas if they're not Mormon. U.S. District Judge Alan Johnson on Tuesday granted the church's motion to join the lawsuit....
Operators seek year-round drilling A coalition of natural gas companies is proposing year-round drilling within big game winter range on the Pinedale Anticline in western Wyoming, according to company officials. The three operators are proposing a demonstration program to drill up to 45 new wells -- using up to 32 drilling pads per section with directional drilling techniques -- in order to reduce impacts to wildlife, habitat and air quality, officials said. The use of consolidated drilling pads should result in fewer roads, reduced truck and bus traffic to drilling rigs, faster reclamation of drilling sites, increased worker safety and better growth and economic sustainability of communities such as Pinedale and Big Piney, the operators contend....
Humane Society says 'whoa' to Nevadans' wild horse bill Horse protection advocates said Tuesday that they'll oppose a proposal aimed at boosting adoptions of wild horses unless Congress also bans the slaughter of any horses in the U.S. Leaders of the Humane Society of the United States and other groups said they favor part of the proposal introduced by Nevada's entire congressional delegation Monday to impose a one-year waiting period on the transfer of ownership for wild horses sold through a relatively new sale program at the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. But they said other provisions in the bill would undermine protections for the mustangs unless the bill is accompanied by the slaughter ban, which has passed the House and is awaiting action in the Senate....
Renovated brothel building won't open under Mustang name The old Mustang Ranch brothel will reopen next week at a new location, but without hoopla or its famous name. Lance Gilman, who bought the pink stucco building that once housed Nevada's most storied bordello, is barred by a federal court from using the Mustang Ranch moniker until a lawsuit over its trademark is resolved. So, he intends to open it, without fanfare, on July 1 as Lance Gilman's World Famous Brothel, with 30 rooms and 20 prostitutes....
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Editorial: Rainbows and Nazis WHOSE bright idea was it to relocate the Rainbow Family gathering a mile away from the headquarters of one of the largest neo-Nazi organizations in the country? Somebody in the U.S. Forest Service evidently doesn’t mind inviting trouble. We know the Forest Service has its hands full trying to protect the forest while accommodating thousands of counterculture campers. We know the Rainbow Family rejected some other alternatives. But the National Alliance draws racists and skinheads from many parts of the world to its compound in Pocahontas County. Who decided it would be a good idea to camp a multiracial group of thousands of clothes-avoidant peaceniks next door to them?....
Lawmaker targets fish-data agency Angered by a federal court order that spills water over federal dams to save endangered salmon in the Pacific Northwest, Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, has inserted language into a Senate energy bill that would kill an agency that tallies the survival of fish as they swim through the heavily dammed Columbia and Snake rivers. The federal government has spent far more money trying to prevent the extinction of Northwest salmon than it has on any other endangered species. Craig's move would eliminate the Fish Passage Center, which for more than two decades has been collecting and analyzing data that document how effective that multibillion-dollar federal effort has been. A spokesman for the Idaho senator calls the rider — attached to an energy appropriations bill that moved last week to the Senate floor — "a shot across the bow" to challenge what Craig believes is an agency that advocates a "controversial and one-sided" approach to salmon recovery....
Wildlife smuggling ranks second to drugs on border When it comes to smuggling wildlife across the U.S.-Mexico border, U.S. Wildlife Inspector Ed Marshall has seen it all. Exotic birds given Valium or tequila so they stay quiet through Customs inspections. Sleeves moving with hidden reptiles. Wildcats stashed in trunks. Last week, the Border Patrol seized two white tigers on their way to Mexico. Inspectors have overlooked some things, however, like the African elephant smuggled across the Gateway International Bridge on a truck in 2001. "They call it the 'Dumbo Case,'" Marshall said, shaking his head. "They drove the damn elephant right across the bridge."....
Group Calls for End to the Endangered Species Act's "Reign of Terror" In a letter to House Resources Committee Chairman Richard Pombo (R-CA), the American Policy Center (APC) and over 50 public policy groups called for an end to the federal government’s unconstitutional practice of taking land and property rights under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Chairman Pombo plans to make reauthorizing the ESA a priority of the current Congress. "There are some who claim that the Act needs to be ‘strengthened,’ ‘updated,’ or ‘modernized,’" said APC president Tom DeWeese. "How absurd. For three decades this law has done nothing but steal property, destroy economies, shatter livelihoods, cost billions of dollars, and even take lives. The ESA needs to be repealed, not ‘modernized.’"....
Concerns on water dominate hearing Western lawmakers are stacking the deck as they push for changes in a perennially controversial environmental law. In a textbook illustration of how Congress builds a case, Mariposa Republican George Radanovich on Wednesday summoned witnesses to discuss the Endangered Species Act. Almost invariably, the witnesses complained about the law's impact on water supplies and their own operations. Backed by Radanovich and other Republicans, Cardoza has reintroduced legislation that would tighten rules for designating critical habitat under the Endangered Species Act. Critical habitat is what's considered essential for a species to survive and recover. On designated land - like the 128,035 acres in Stanislaus County called critical for vernal pool species - federal agencies must consult with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service before taking action. The costs, consequences and effectiveness of critical habitat designation remain a matter of dispute. Still, Cardoza's bid to revise critical habitat policies remains so far the leading Endangered Species Act bill to be introduced this Congress. It has 29 House co-sponsors so far, as well as its share of critics....
Officials aim to lure Caspian terns from Oregon to Bay Area But the tall birds with the stout red beaks and mohawk-shaped black crowns have flourished here. So much so that the island is a prime beachhead in a federal plan to relocate the terns from Oregon's Columbia River, where they eat endangered salmon. In a plan of unusual scope and distances, the federal Fish and Wildlife Service proposes to break up and disperse the world's largest Caspian tern colony from a Columbia River island to seven places in California, Oregon and Washington. A sand spit on Brooks Island appears to be the best of the relocation sites, which also include two shoreline spots near Hayward and Fremont, Calif., scientists say. No nets, traps or guards are involved in this relocation of birds with wingspans that can exceed 4 feet. Federal agencies plan to lure the terns to new nesting areas by adding sand and clearing weeds in isolated areas suitable for the birds. If necessary, managers will also display decoys and blare recorded tern calls to lure in birds....
Energy execs say West could rival Saudi Arabia Energy company executives told a House subcommittee on Thursday that Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming could become the next Saudi Arabia if they can find a way to extract the billions of barrels in oil shale, a porous rock containing petroleum. By tapping into oil shale, supporters say, the U.S. could replace all trans-Atlantic oil imports by 2025. But they need help from the federal government, which oversees 80 percent of the land where the oil deposits are found. A key official from Colorado urged Congress to take care, however, and make sure to avoid another boom and bust like the one that hit the state 25 years ago....
LDS joins BLM in fighting Martin's Cove lawsuit The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints can join the federal government's defense against a lawsuit protesting the lease of a historic site to the church, a federal judge has ruled. The American Civil Liberties Union filed the lawsuit in March in U.S. District Court, naming Interior Secretary Gale Norton and Bureau of Land Management Director Kathleen Clarke. The ACLU argues the lease agreement unfairly gives the Mormon church too much control over the Martin's Cove site, which is about 60 miles southwest of Casper, and that visitors are subjected to proselytizing or restricted from some areas if they're not Mormon. U.S. District Judge Alan Johnson on Tuesday granted the church's motion to join the lawsuit....
Operators seek year-round drilling A coalition of natural gas companies is proposing year-round drilling within big game winter range on the Pinedale Anticline in western Wyoming, according to company officials. The three operators are proposing a demonstration program to drill up to 45 new wells -- using up to 32 drilling pads per section with directional drilling techniques -- in order to reduce impacts to wildlife, habitat and air quality, officials said. The use of consolidated drilling pads should result in fewer roads, reduced truck and bus traffic to drilling rigs, faster reclamation of drilling sites, increased worker safety and better growth and economic sustainability of communities such as Pinedale and Big Piney, the operators contend....
Humane Society says 'whoa' to Nevadans' wild horse bill Horse protection advocates said Tuesday that they'll oppose a proposal aimed at boosting adoptions of wild horses unless Congress also bans the slaughter of any horses in the U.S. Leaders of the Humane Society of the United States and other groups said they favor part of the proposal introduced by Nevada's entire congressional delegation Monday to impose a one-year waiting period on the transfer of ownership for wild horses sold through a relatively new sale program at the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. But they said other provisions in the bill would undermine protections for the mustangs unless the bill is accompanied by the slaughter ban, which has passed the House and is awaiting action in the Senate....
Renovated brothel building won't open under Mustang name The old Mustang Ranch brothel will reopen next week at a new location, but without hoopla or its famous name. Lance Gilman, who bought the pink stucco building that once housed Nevada's most storied bordello, is barred by a federal court from using the Mustang Ranch moniker until a lawsuit over its trademark is resolved. So, he intends to open it, without fanfare, on July 1 as Lance Gilman's World Famous Brothel, with 30 rooms and 20 prostitutes....
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Thursday, June 23, 2005
Supreme Court rules against Calif. farmers in water use case
Individual farmers may not sue the federal government to enforce water contracts entered into by their irrigation districts, a unanimous Supreme Court said Thursday in a ruling that limits landowners' ability to seek compensation for reduced flows. Two dozen farmers from California's Central Valley wanted the federal government to pay them about $32 million as compensation for water they were supposed to get under a federal contract. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation diverted the water to comply with Endangered Species Act requirements to protect two threatened fish. But the federal government argued its contract with the Westlands Water District only allowed lawsuits by the district itself - not by individual landowners who are its members. The state of California and the water district agreed, contending that letting farmers sue the government directly could result in a rash of cases and undermine water districts' ability to do business with the Bureau of Reclamation, the federal agency that manages water in the West. Justices concluded that the 1982 Reclamation Reform Act "does not permit a plaintiff to sue the United States alone," Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for the court....
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Individual farmers may not sue the federal government to enforce water contracts entered into by their irrigation districts, a unanimous Supreme Court said Thursday in a ruling that limits landowners' ability to seek compensation for reduced flows. Two dozen farmers from California's Central Valley wanted the federal government to pay them about $32 million as compensation for water they were supposed to get under a federal contract. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation diverted the water to comply with Endangered Species Act requirements to protect two threatened fish. But the federal government argued its contract with the Westlands Water District only allowed lawsuits by the district itself - not by individual landowners who are its members. The state of California and the water district agreed, contending that letting farmers sue the government directly could result in a rash of cases and undermine water districts' ability to do business with the Bureau of Reclamation, the federal agency that manages water in the West. Justices concluded that the 1982 Reclamation Reform Act "does not permit a plaintiff to sue the United States alone," Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for the court....
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NEWS
Ranchers tell governor about problems with wolves Gov. Bill Richardson told a Catron County town hall packed with ranchers and their supporters that he favors re-establishing the endangered Mexican gray wolf in the wild - a program many ranchers would like to see end. "I'm for a sensible, fair wolf restoration program," he told about 80 people at the meeting Wednesday. But ranchers complained about losing livestock to wolves on their allotments in the Gila National Forest of southwestern New Mexico. "The environmentalists have taken away logging; the wolves will take away cattle. This will pretty much ruin this country," said area resident Tom Macnab, who said many of his friends are ranchers. The governor - who asked for suggestions "short of saying 'no wolves' " - ended up appointing a task force headed by Ned Farquhar, his senior energy and environmental policy adviser and including concerned citizens from the town hall. Richardson wants recommendations within 60 days....
President Bush and Sen. Boxer ocean bills conflict on fish farms Imagine thousands of salmon or tuna living in steel cages 20 feet below the surface of the ocean, 10 miles off the Mendocino Coast. That vision could become reality under a bill proposed to Congress by President George Bush earlier this month. Bushs plan to create a process that would allow fish farms three to 200 miles offshore came at the same time as a broad ocean health bill was introduced by Sen. Barbara Boxer. The national media are predicting the Bush and Boxer bills could conflict over aquaculture-fish farms. Environmentalists and some commercial fishing groups support the Boxer bill, while the Bush bill is opposed by both groups....
Senate rejects McCain-Lieberman climate change proposal The U.S. Senate on June 22 rejected a mandatory greenhouse gas emissions reduction proposal from Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn. The Senate rejected the plan by a 60-38 vote, marking a wider margin of defeat than when it voted on a similar plan the men put forward in 2003. At that time, the measure was rejected by only 12 votes. Opponents argue that proven technologies to reduce carbon dioxide emissions are lacking and mandatory caps would damage the economy and contribute to higher energy prices. Proponents of the amendment, which would have been attached to the energy bill, acknowledged ahead of time that passage would be unlikely, especially after the Senate on June 21 approved a voluntary carbon emissions reduction plan....
Bush set to shun G8 allies on global warming Unconvinced that the world is warming, U.S. President Bush looks set to shun pleas by his main industrial allies to step up a fight against climate change at a Group of Eight summit next month. The July 6-8 talks will test how far other G8 nations, and big developing countries whose leaders will also attend, are willing to stick to U.N. schemes to curb emissions of heat-trapping gases without the United States, the top polluter. "The choice at the summit is a weak agreement or no agreement at all," said Elliot Diringer, a director of the Washington-based Pew Center, an environmental think-tank....
Nuclear Industry Poised for Comeback The U.S. has not started a reactor project for 29 years, but President Bush is calling for a new era of nuclear power, saying it would reduce air pollution and dependence on foreign energy. If new reactors are built, the first could go into Clinton or two other possible sites nationwide. The Senate, meanwhile, is preparing subsidies and incentives for utilities to build nuclear plants. The nuclear industry has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into new technology in recent years. And the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has hired scores of engineers to accommodate an atomic renaissance. But the sober reality of nuclear power is that the U.S. will move slowly and cautiously, at best, because Wall Street financiers and the nation's utility industry still have vivid memories of the legal, financial and regulatory debacles that resulted from the building binge of the 1970s. Even with subsidies and other incentives, few expect any construction to start within five years, and only a handful of plants are expected to begin during the next 10 years....
Column: UN Book Exposes Flaws of Environmentalist Argument While environmentalist causes are almost always born anecdotally, they're certainly not always absent of statistics -- and the pages of this UN atlas are chock full of them. Just enough, as they say, to be dangerous. You see, the facts and figures sprinkled throughout this book -- and the bulk of the environmentalist argument in total -- are not necessarily invalid, but they always seem to be missing one concept. That concept is "of." X number of acres of rain forest have been cut down. OK, but of how many total? Cities have grown X amount per year, on average. I believe you, but how much of our remaining space is left? Carbon dioxide emissions for the decade were X tons. Great, that seems like a lot, but what specific events are honestly going to happen because of this? Unfortunately, the caveat question "of" often elicits a lot of "I don't knows," "maybes," and "possiblies." Unless you're one who believes the end result must be dire merely because its source statistic appears in print, the numbers presented by the traditional environmentalist argument are rarely meaningful....
Impostor critters still get new digs Researchers have learned that eight salamanders found at an Ann Arbor high school construction site are not an endangered species. Researchers first thought they were the endangered smallmouth salamanders. But tests show the amphibians are hybrids -- part blue-spotted salamander and part Jefferson salamander, York Township research scientist James Ball determined, the Ann Arbor News reported Monday. Ann Arbor Public Schools officials said they still plan to treat the salamanders as if they were endangered. Per an agreement with the state Department of Natural Resources, the district will create two new ponds and improve others at the site to relocate pond animals disrupted by construction. The district has budgeted $200,000 for the relocation project, a district spokeswoman said....
Column: Hard work teaches many lessons A tour of the Melvin Price Lock and Dam No. 26 at Alton, Illinois brings reality to the need of these massive structures on the Mississippi River. This lock and dam opened shortly after the Flood of 1993, replacing a structure that was worn beyond repair. Following the steamboat era, new transportation methods were introduced for commerce to the rivers in the early part of the 20th century. Parts of the Mississippi River were too shallow for these loaded barges to navigate. Congressional authorization and legislation provided for a 9-foot channel with a minimum width of 300 feet be provided for commercial traffic. An integrated system had to be devised. A series of 29 locks and dams were built in the form of a staircase making navigation possible between Minneapolis, MI and St. Louis, MO. This successful project began in the 1930s but is now outdated for modern navigation and the structures are virtually worn out....
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Ranchers tell governor about problems with wolves Gov. Bill Richardson told a Catron County town hall packed with ranchers and their supporters that he favors re-establishing the endangered Mexican gray wolf in the wild - a program many ranchers would like to see end. "I'm for a sensible, fair wolf restoration program," he told about 80 people at the meeting Wednesday. But ranchers complained about losing livestock to wolves on their allotments in the Gila National Forest of southwestern New Mexico. "The environmentalists have taken away logging; the wolves will take away cattle. This will pretty much ruin this country," said area resident Tom Macnab, who said many of his friends are ranchers. The governor - who asked for suggestions "short of saying 'no wolves' " - ended up appointing a task force headed by Ned Farquhar, his senior energy and environmental policy adviser and including concerned citizens from the town hall. Richardson wants recommendations within 60 days....
President Bush and Sen. Boxer ocean bills conflict on fish farms Imagine thousands of salmon or tuna living in steel cages 20 feet below the surface of the ocean, 10 miles off the Mendocino Coast. That vision could become reality under a bill proposed to Congress by President George Bush earlier this month. Bushs plan to create a process that would allow fish farms three to 200 miles offshore came at the same time as a broad ocean health bill was introduced by Sen. Barbara Boxer. The national media are predicting the Bush and Boxer bills could conflict over aquaculture-fish farms. Environmentalists and some commercial fishing groups support the Boxer bill, while the Bush bill is opposed by both groups....
Senate rejects McCain-Lieberman climate change proposal The U.S. Senate on June 22 rejected a mandatory greenhouse gas emissions reduction proposal from Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn. The Senate rejected the plan by a 60-38 vote, marking a wider margin of defeat than when it voted on a similar plan the men put forward in 2003. At that time, the measure was rejected by only 12 votes. Opponents argue that proven technologies to reduce carbon dioxide emissions are lacking and mandatory caps would damage the economy and contribute to higher energy prices. Proponents of the amendment, which would have been attached to the energy bill, acknowledged ahead of time that passage would be unlikely, especially after the Senate on June 21 approved a voluntary carbon emissions reduction plan....
Bush set to shun G8 allies on global warming Unconvinced that the world is warming, U.S. President Bush looks set to shun pleas by his main industrial allies to step up a fight against climate change at a Group of Eight summit next month. The July 6-8 talks will test how far other G8 nations, and big developing countries whose leaders will also attend, are willing to stick to U.N. schemes to curb emissions of heat-trapping gases without the United States, the top polluter. "The choice at the summit is a weak agreement or no agreement at all," said Elliot Diringer, a director of the Washington-based Pew Center, an environmental think-tank....
Nuclear Industry Poised for Comeback The U.S. has not started a reactor project for 29 years, but President Bush is calling for a new era of nuclear power, saying it would reduce air pollution and dependence on foreign energy. If new reactors are built, the first could go into Clinton or two other possible sites nationwide. The Senate, meanwhile, is preparing subsidies and incentives for utilities to build nuclear plants. The nuclear industry has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into new technology in recent years. And the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has hired scores of engineers to accommodate an atomic renaissance. But the sober reality of nuclear power is that the U.S. will move slowly and cautiously, at best, because Wall Street financiers and the nation's utility industry still have vivid memories of the legal, financial and regulatory debacles that resulted from the building binge of the 1970s. Even with subsidies and other incentives, few expect any construction to start within five years, and only a handful of plants are expected to begin during the next 10 years....
Column: UN Book Exposes Flaws of Environmentalist Argument While environmentalist causes are almost always born anecdotally, they're certainly not always absent of statistics -- and the pages of this UN atlas are chock full of them. Just enough, as they say, to be dangerous. You see, the facts and figures sprinkled throughout this book -- and the bulk of the environmentalist argument in total -- are not necessarily invalid, but they always seem to be missing one concept. That concept is "of." X number of acres of rain forest have been cut down. OK, but of how many total? Cities have grown X amount per year, on average. I believe you, but how much of our remaining space is left? Carbon dioxide emissions for the decade were X tons. Great, that seems like a lot, but what specific events are honestly going to happen because of this? Unfortunately, the caveat question "of" often elicits a lot of "I don't knows," "maybes," and "possiblies." Unless you're one who believes the end result must be dire merely because its source statistic appears in print, the numbers presented by the traditional environmentalist argument are rarely meaningful....
Impostor critters still get new digs Researchers have learned that eight salamanders found at an Ann Arbor high school construction site are not an endangered species. Researchers first thought they were the endangered smallmouth salamanders. But tests show the amphibians are hybrids -- part blue-spotted salamander and part Jefferson salamander, York Township research scientist James Ball determined, the Ann Arbor News reported Monday. Ann Arbor Public Schools officials said they still plan to treat the salamanders as if they were endangered. Per an agreement with the state Department of Natural Resources, the district will create two new ponds and improve others at the site to relocate pond animals disrupted by construction. The district has budgeted $200,000 for the relocation project, a district spokeswoman said....
Column: Hard work teaches many lessons A tour of the Melvin Price Lock and Dam No. 26 at Alton, Illinois brings reality to the need of these massive structures on the Mississippi River. This lock and dam opened shortly after the Flood of 1993, replacing a structure that was worn beyond repair. Following the steamboat era, new transportation methods were introduced for commerce to the rivers in the early part of the 20th century. Parts of the Mississippi River were too shallow for these loaded barges to navigate. Congressional authorization and legislation provided for a 9-foot channel with a minimum width of 300 feet be provided for commercial traffic. An integrated system had to be devised. A series of 29 locks and dams were built in the form of a staircase making navigation possible between Minneapolis, MI and St. Louis, MO. This successful project began in the 1930s but is now outdated for modern navigation and the structures are virtually worn out....
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US poised to rule on cloned livestock
Meat and milk from cloned farm animals is about to be declared safe for human consumption by the US Food and Drug Administration, one of the world's most powerful regulatory bodies. A favourable risk assessment from the FDA is expected to start the commercial exploitation of cloning to improve livestock quality around the world. FDA officials told the BIO 2005 biotech industry conference they had completed a four-year assessment process and concluded that cloned animals and their progeny would be as safe to eat as conventionally bred animals. They also found that cloning was acceptable from the viewpoint of animal welfare. Scientists said the first pork and beef from cloned animals could reach the market next year. John Matheson, senior regulatory scientist at the FDA, said uncertainty in the US government about the ethics of animal cloning had delayed publication of the assessment. But Mr Matheson said he expected the assessment to appear any day. At the FDA's request, agricultural biotechnology companies and the livestock industry have been observing a moratorium on the commercial introduction of meat and milk from cloned animals and their offspring....
===
Meat and milk from cloned farm animals is about to be declared safe for human consumption by the US Food and Drug Administration, one of the world's most powerful regulatory bodies. A favourable risk assessment from the FDA is expected to start the commercial exploitation of cloning to improve livestock quality around the world. FDA officials told the BIO 2005 biotech industry conference they had completed a four-year assessment process and concluded that cloned animals and their progeny would be as safe to eat as conventionally bred animals. They also found that cloning was acceptable from the viewpoint of animal welfare. Scientists said the first pork and beef from cloned animals could reach the market next year. John Matheson, senior regulatory scientist at the FDA, said uncertainty in the US government about the ethics of animal cloning had delayed publication of the assessment. But Mr Matheson said he expected the assessment to appear any day. At the FDA's request, agricultural biotechnology companies and the livestock industry have been observing a moratorium on the commercial introduction of meat and milk from cloned animals and their offspring....
===
THIS LAND IS NOT YOUR LAND
Justices, 5-4, Back Seizure of Property for Development
The Supreme Court ruled today, in a deeply emotional case weighing the rights of property owners and the good of the community, that local governments can sometimes seize homes and businesses and turn them over to private developers. In a case with nationwide implications, the court ruled, 5 to 4, against a group of homeowners in New London, Conn., who have resisted the city's plans to demolish their working-class homes near the Thames River to make way for an office building, riverfront hotel and other commercial activities. The majority held that, just as government has the constitutional power of eminent domain to acquire private property to clear slums or to build roads, bridges, airports and other facilities to benefit the public, it can sometimes do so for private developers if the latters' projects also serve a public good. Writing for the majority, Justice John Paul Stevens said, "Promoting economic development is a traditional and long accepted governmental function, and there is no principled way of distinguishing it from the other public purposes the court has recognized." The court's ruling is certain to be studied from coast to coast, since similar conflicts between owners of homes and small businesses and development-minded officials have arisen in other locales. Of course, he wrote, the city would be barred from taking one's property and transferring it to another private owner strictly for the latter's benefit. But in this instance, he said, the city is promoting a variety of commercial, residential and recreational land uses "with the hope that they will form a whole greater than the sum of its parts" and bring economic benefits to the general community. In a bitter dissent, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor said the majority had created an ominous precedent. "The specter of condemnation hangs over all property," she wrote. "Nothing is to prevent the state from replacing any Motel 6 with a Ritz-Carlton, any home with a shopping mall, or any farm with a factory." "Any property may now be taken for the benefit of another private property, but the fallout from this decision will not be random," she wrote. "The beneficiaries are likely to be those citizens with disproportionate influence and power in the political process, including large corporations and development firms. "As for the victims," Justice O'Connor went on, "the government now has license to transfer property from those with fewer resources to those with more. The Founders cannot have intended this perverse result."....Click here to read the decision in Kelo et al. v. City of New London et al....
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Additional coverage
Institute for Justice Warns: Supreme Court Leaves Homeowners Vulnerable To Tax-Hungry Bureaucrats & Land-Hungry Developers
So Much For Property Rights
High Court Decision Divides New London
===
Justices, 5-4, Back Seizure of Property for Development
The Supreme Court ruled today, in a deeply emotional case weighing the rights of property owners and the good of the community, that local governments can sometimes seize homes and businesses and turn them over to private developers. In a case with nationwide implications, the court ruled, 5 to 4, against a group of homeowners in New London, Conn., who have resisted the city's plans to demolish their working-class homes near the Thames River to make way for an office building, riverfront hotel and other commercial activities. The majority held that, just as government has the constitutional power of eminent domain to acquire private property to clear slums or to build roads, bridges, airports and other facilities to benefit the public, it can sometimes do so for private developers if the latters' projects also serve a public good. Writing for the majority, Justice John Paul Stevens said, "Promoting economic development is a traditional and long accepted governmental function, and there is no principled way of distinguishing it from the other public purposes the court has recognized." The court's ruling is certain to be studied from coast to coast, since similar conflicts between owners of homes and small businesses and development-minded officials have arisen in other locales. Of course, he wrote, the city would be barred from taking one's property and transferring it to another private owner strictly for the latter's benefit. But in this instance, he said, the city is promoting a variety of commercial, residential and recreational land uses "with the hope that they will form a whole greater than the sum of its parts" and bring economic benefits to the general community. In a bitter dissent, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor said the majority had created an ominous precedent. "The specter of condemnation hangs over all property," she wrote. "Nothing is to prevent the state from replacing any Motel 6 with a Ritz-Carlton, any home with a shopping mall, or any farm with a factory." "Any property may now be taken for the benefit of another private property, but the fallout from this decision will not be random," she wrote. "The beneficiaries are likely to be those citizens with disproportionate influence and power in the political process, including large corporations and development firms. "As for the victims," Justice O'Connor went on, "the government now has license to transfer property from those with fewer resources to those with more. The Founders cannot have intended this perverse result."....Click here to read the decision in Kelo et al. v. City of New London et al....
===
Additional coverage
Institute for Justice Warns: Supreme Court Leaves Homeowners Vulnerable To Tax-Hungry Bureaucrats & Land-Hungry Developers
So Much For Property Rights
High Court Decision Divides New London
===
NEWS
Drilling shifts political fault lines in U.S. West Amid the largest natural gas boom ever on public land in the West, a new kind of sagebrush rebellion is stirring. Ranchers, cowboys, small-property owners and local government leaders - the core of the Republican base in the Rocky Mountain West - are chafing at the pace and scope of the Bush administration's push for energy development. The sagebrush rebellion, which started in the late 1970s in the United States, was a backlash against federal restrictions on public land. For the recent drilling, some people are filing lawsuits, challenging federal authority to drill in certain areas. Others are protesting new gas and oil leases. Federal officials say they have received thousands of letters opposed to drilling in areas like the Roan Plateau. One state, Wyoming, has passed legislation giving landowners more say in how mineral rights beneath their property are tapped. The battle cry is the same as in past movements: a call for local control over a distant federal landlord....
Governor praises public land access With summertime fishing and recreation in full bloom, Gov. Brian Schweitzer on Wednesday praised a handful of new laws that protect Montanans' access to state wildlife and waters. "If Montana didn't have 30 million acres of public lands," including wild lands and world-class fisheries, Schweitzer said, we'd be "just like a lot of the other states." The state has some of the best laws in the West guaranteeing access to almost all waters in the state, he said. The 2005 Legislature passed four bills that Schweitzer said makes citizen access to water and wildlife better. Schweitzer cited House Bill 79, by Rep. George Golie, D-Great Falls, which made permanent the state's Habitat Montana program. The program had been scheduled to end. Habitat Montana uses about $4 million a year to work with landowners to conserve game habitat on private land, including purchasing conservation easements....
Most imperiled mammal in North America faces second extermination, conservationists warn The wild-born alpha male of the Francisco Pack of Mexican gray wolves was trapped on Saturday morning in the Gila National Forest of New Mexico and his right front leg was broken as he tried to escape from the steel leghold trap. He underwent initial surgery on Monday and is having his leg amputated today. His mate, the last wolf still alive and in the wild from amongst the first eleven released into the wild in 1998, is due to be shot next week and their pups taken into captivity. All five of her pups from a previous litter died as a result of her being taken captive last year, before she was re-released, according to documents obtained by the Center for Biological Diversity under authority of the Freedom of Information Act. "We are saddened and outraged by the ongoing destruction of the Francisco Pack," said Michael Robinson of the Center for Biological Diversity in Pinos Altos, New Mexico, at the edge of the Gila National Forest. "Today's headlines sound straight out of the 1920s when the goal was extermination."....
Column: Killing of gray wolves an outdated solution Following two meetings between high-level regional officials of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and ranchers, the federal agency has proposed a number of measures: a moratorium on releasing Mexican gray wolves from the captive breeding population into the wild, limitations on rereleases of once-wild wolves that have been captured, and an increase in predator control targeted at wolves. The agency is already implementing its proposed policies by attempting to shoot or trap the Gila National Forest's Francisco Pack, which includes the last animal to roam free from among the first 11 lobos released in 1998 at the outset of the reintroduction program....
Authors detail wolf's journey back to Yellowstone When the wild calls, some do more than listen. They find the lure of silent meadows and high mountain streams undeniable and spend their lives finding ways to sing in tune with their music. For Douglas Smith and Gary Ferguson, authors of "Decade of the Wolf: Returning the Wild to Yellowstone," the path to living and working in the wild took different roads. Smith studied animals as a scientist and has spent the past 10 years helping the gray wolf return to Yellowstone National Park. Ferguson has dedicated his life to writing about wild places, bringing them to life in the imaginations of those less agile, less brave, but equally curious about the places and creatures they may never get to see. This collaboration has produced an eloquent record of the wolf's journey back to Yellowstone....
Feds issue kill order for Mexican gray wolf The U-S Fish and Wildlife Service has issued a kill order for an endangered Mexican gray wolf. They say the wolf has killed two calves and probably a cow in the Gila National Forest of southwestern New Mexico. The agency has also trapped a wolf believed to be the alpha male of another cattle-killing Pack. He injured his front left leg in the trap and it had to be amputated. A separate lone male wolf was caught Sunday on the Plains of San Agustin, New Mexico, near a calf he killed on private land....
Spot a mountain lion? Here's what to do Arizona Game and Fish officials have started a campaign to teach people how to coexist with mountain lions, even though the agency hasn't trapped one here in three years and has dismissed most recent reports about them this year as unsubstantiated. Workers will post signs about mountain lions at trailheads, stuff informational flyers into bills and take educational material into classrooms. Phoenix firm HMA Public Relations has been hired at a cost of more than $60,000 to handle cougar publicity for Game and Fish. This comes a little more than a year after a controversy in Tucson over plans to kill mountain lions that had been spotted stalking hikers there and after a Southern California hiker was mauled by a cougar....
Battle brewing over BLM's new grazing rules A verbal range war has broken out over new grazing rules that the Bureau of Land Management says it will establish next month. The BLM is promising that ranchers who use this federal land will have a more productive working relationship with the agency while the rangeland will be better cared for. A Utah Cattlemen's Association official likes the new rules, saying they will make grazing permittees more responsible and foster improvements to the range. But the director of an environmental group that has battled BLM policies in Utah, the Western Watersheds Project, says the new regulations are illegal and would reduce public control over the federal range. The group plans to sue....
Nevada lawmakers streamline horse, burro adoption guidelines Nevada lawmakers on Monday proposed to make it easier for wild horses and burros to be removed from government care through private adoptions and sales. Bills introduced in the House and Senate contain waiting periods and penalties that lawmakers said should safeguard the animals from abuse and slaughter. Horse advocates, however, said the measures fall short of being fully protective and they would fight the bills. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., were the main sponsors as Nevadans weighed in on an issue that grew controversial this spring when 41 horses were killed at an Illinois meatpacking plant after being sold by the Bureau of Land Management....
Bush eases land use for ranchers For 70 years, the federal government has regulated - or tried to, anyway - the cow herds that graze across millions of acres of public land in the West. It's been a political struggle between preserving a rural way of life that epitomizes the nation's mythical pioneering history, supporting a slice of a regional economy that's dwindled in comparison to recreation and high-tech corridors, and responding to a growing environmental ethic that cares more about watersheds and biodiversity. As it has done with other social and economic sectors dealing with natural resources, such as mining, oil drilling, and logging, the Bush administration is tugging that difficult balance back toward ranchers. The just-issued federal lands regulations make it easier for cowboys to go about their business. The new rules give ranchers more time, up to five years, to reduce the size of their herds if the cattle are damaging the environment, as well as shared ownership in the water rights and some structures on federal land. The regulations also lessen the current requirements for public input in deciding grazing issues....
Guard has enough troops for fires, leader says The adjutant general of the Montana National Guard says there will be as many soldiers, but not as many aircraft, available to help fight forest fires in Montana this summer. "We can put the same number of troops in the field on a daily basis as we did in 2000," Maj. Gen. Randall Mosley said Tuesday during a lunch with members of the Missoula Kiwanis Club. "Our available aircraft is far less than past years, but we're not the first responder for these things." National Guard troops typically back up U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management and other agency firefighting teams when those crews get stretched thin....
Sage grouse numbers rise in Wyoming Early indications are that the number of sage grouse in Wyoming is on the rise after drought and other factors reduced bird populations. Preliminary reports from this year's Game and Fish Department survey show sage grouse making a significant comeback in numbers on most leks, or strutting grounds, this spring, Game and Fish sage grouse coordinator Tom Christiansen said. "There's a lot of factors coming together to make for such a good survey," he said. "It really goes back over a year, because it's the chicks that were born and hatched and survived the last year that was the key."....
Conservationists, educators trying again on trust land issue Conservation and education advocates are making a new attempt to put a trust land package before Arizona voters, this time probably skipping the Legislature and instead trying to reach the ballot through an initiative campaign. Efforts this year and last to reach the voters through a legislative referendum failed as lawmakers focused on other issues considered either more pressing or easier to digest. The trust land issue was difficult for lawmakers partly because it is complex and features potentially competing interests -- producing more money for education from the 9.3 million acres of trust land versus setting aside large parcels for conservation as open space....
Column: Hope - prodigal son of the muddled American West The American West, Wallace Stegner once wrote in one of the region's most quoted aphorisms, is ''the native home of hope.'' Having put this very cheerful sentiment on public record, Stegner soon began to wonder what on earth had possessed him. With its extraordinary landscapes, wide horizons and great natural resources, the West might qualify as hope's native home. But the West is also - in large part because of these very assets - the second home of tension, conflict, regret, dismay, gloom and bitterness. Yet for all these miseries, the West has become the return address for my own sense of hope. I have the good luck to be employed as a kind of shuttle diplomat, carrying messages and attempting negotiations among various contending parties in the West today. That work has given me a deep - if perhaps naive and lamblike - faith that these are great times for bridge building, alliance making and solution finding....
US Appeal on Canada Cattle Imports to be Televised A courtroom battle by the US government to restart imports of live Canadian cattle amid claims mad cow disease in that country may pose a risk to US consumers is to be televised next month. The Canadian Broadcast Corporation has been granted permission to televise the proceedings, a clerk for the US Court of Appeals 9th Circuit in San Francisco told Reuters. The US Agriculture Department is appealing a March ruling by a federal court in Montana that halted, at the request of US ranchers group R-CALF USA, a government plan to allow imports of Canadian cattle under 30 months of age....
'Ranchers' relive history Somewhere in the expanse of West Texas, where everything bites, stings or burns, about 20 people have gathered to build a ranching operation from scratch. They don't have pickups or telephones. No air conditioning or flush toilets. They must live like it is 1867. Texas Ranch House is the latest "living history" program from the Public Broadcasting Service. It comes from the makers of both Frontier House and Colonial House. "In Texas Ranch House, we send a group of modern-day people back to the year 1867. It is the era of Western expansion, a time of rounding up and branding free-roaming cattle," the promotional material states. "It is a time of taming wild horses and sleeping under the stars." It was also a time of hard living and long cattle drives. It was a time of "endless, punishing days in the saddle, chowing down on pork and beans, and surviving lonely nights out on the plains."....
===
Drilling shifts political fault lines in U.S. West Amid the largest natural gas boom ever on public land in the West, a new kind of sagebrush rebellion is stirring. Ranchers, cowboys, small-property owners and local government leaders - the core of the Republican base in the Rocky Mountain West - are chafing at the pace and scope of the Bush administration's push for energy development. The sagebrush rebellion, which started in the late 1970s in the United States, was a backlash against federal restrictions on public land. For the recent drilling, some people are filing lawsuits, challenging federal authority to drill in certain areas. Others are protesting new gas and oil leases. Federal officials say they have received thousands of letters opposed to drilling in areas like the Roan Plateau. One state, Wyoming, has passed legislation giving landowners more say in how mineral rights beneath their property are tapped. The battle cry is the same as in past movements: a call for local control over a distant federal landlord....
Governor praises public land access With summertime fishing and recreation in full bloom, Gov. Brian Schweitzer on Wednesday praised a handful of new laws that protect Montanans' access to state wildlife and waters. "If Montana didn't have 30 million acres of public lands," including wild lands and world-class fisheries, Schweitzer said, we'd be "just like a lot of the other states." The state has some of the best laws in the West guaranteeing access to almost all waters in the state, he said. The 2005 Legislature passed four bills that Schweitzer said makes citizen access to water and wildlife better. Schweitzer cited House Bill 79, by Rep. George Golie, D-Great Falls, which made permanent the state's Habitat Montana program. The program had been scheduled to end. Habitat Montana uses about $4 million a year to work with landowners to conserve game habitat on private land, including purchasing conservation easements....
Most imperiled mammal in North America faces second extermination, conservationists warn The wild-born alpha male of the Francisco Pack of Mexican gray wolves was trapped on Saturday morning in the Gila National Forest of New Mexico and his right front leg was broken as he tried to escape from the steel leghold trap. He underwent initial surgery on Monday and is having his leg amputated today. His mate, the last wolf still alive and in the wild from amongst the first eleven released into the wild in 1998, is due to be shot next week and their pups taken into captivity. All five of her pups from a previous litter died as a result of her being taken captive last year, before she was re-released, according to documents obtained by the Center for Biological Diversity under authority of the Freedom of Information Act. "We are saddened and outraged by the ongoing destruction of the Francisco Pack," said Michael Robinson of the Center for Biological Diversity in Pinos Altos, New Mexico, at the edge of the Gila National Forest. "Today's headlines sound straight out of the 1920s when the goal was extermination."....
Column: Killing of gray wolves an outdated solution Following two meetings between high-level regional officials of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and ranchers, the federal agency has proposed a number of measures: a moratorium on releasing Mexican gray wolves from the captive breeding population into the wild, limitations on rereleases of once-wild wolves that have been captured, and an increase in predator control targeted at wolves. The agency is already implementing its proposed policies by attempting to shoot or trap the Gila National Forest's Francisco Pack, which includes the last animal to roam free from among the first 11 lobos released in 1998 at the outset of the reintroduction program....
Authors detail wolf's journey back to Yellowstone When the wild calls, some do more than listen. They find the lure of silent meadows and high mountain streams undeniable and spend their lives finding ways to sing in tune with their music. For Douglas Smith and Gary Ferguson, authors of "Decade of the Wolf: Returning the Wild to Yellowstone," the path to living and working in the wild took different roads. Smith studied animals as a scientist and has spent the past 10 years helping the gray wolf return to Yellowstone National Park. Ferguson has dedicated his life to writing about wild places, bringing them to life in the imaginations of those less agile, less brave, but equally curious about the places and creatures they may never get to see. This collaboration has produced an eloquent record of the wolf's journey back to Yellowstone....
Feds issue kill order for Mexican gray wolf The U-S Fish and Wildlife Service has issued a kill order for an endangered Mexican gray wolf. They say the wolf has killed two calves and probably a cow in the Gila National Forest of southwestern New Mexico. The agency has also trapped a wolf believed to be the alpha male of another cattle-killing Pack. He injured his front left leg in the trap and it had to be amputated. A separate lone male wolf was caught Sunday on the Plains of San Agustin, New Mexico, near a calf he killed on private land....
Spot a mountain lion? Here's what to do Arizona Game and Fish officials have started a campaign to teach people how to coexist with mountain lions, even though the agency hasn't trapped one here in three years and has dismissed most recent reports about them this year as unsubstantiated. Workers will post signs about mountain lions at trailheads, stuff informational flyers into bills and take educational material into classrooms. Phoenix firm HMA Public Relations has been hired at a cost of more than $60,000 to handle cougar publicity for Game and Fish. This comes a little more than a year after a controversy in Tucson over plans to kill mountain lions that had been spotted stalking hikers there and after a Southern California hiker was mauled by a cougar....
Battle brewing over BLM's new grazing rules A verbal range war has broken out over new grazing rules that the Bureau of Land Management says it will establish next month. The BLM is promising that ranchers who use this federal land will have a more productive working relationship with the agency while the rangeland will be better cared for. A Utah Cattlemen's Association official likes the new rules, saying they will make grazing permittees more responsible and foster improvements to the range. But the director of an environmental group that has battled BLM policies in Utah, the Western Watersheds Project, says the new regulations are illegal and would reduce public control over the federal range. The group plans to sue....
Nevada lawmakers streamline horse, burro adoption guidelines Nevada lawmakers on Monday proposed to make it easier for wild horses and burros to be removed from government care through private adoptions and sales. Bills introduced in the House and Senate contain waiting periods and penalties that lawmakers said should safeguard the animals from abuse and slaughter. Horse advocates, however, said the measures fall short of being fully protective and they would fight the bills. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., were the main sponsors as Nevadans weighed in on an issue that grew controversial this spring when 41 horses were killed at an Illinois meatpacking plant after being sold by the Bureau of Land Management....
Bush eases land use for ranchers For 70 years, the federal government has regulated - or tried to, anyway - the cow herds that graze across millions of acres of public land in the West. It's been a political struggle between preserving a rural way of life that epitomizes the nation's mythical pioneering history, supporting a slice of a regional economy that's dwindled in comparison to recreation and high-tech corridors, and responding to a growing environmental ethic that cares more about watersheds and biodiversity. As it has done with other social and economic sectors dealing with natural resources, such as mining, oil drilling, and logging, the Bush administration is tugging that difficult balance back toward ranchers. The just-issued federal lands regulations make it easier for cowboys to go about their business. The new rules give ranchers more time, up to five years, to reduce the size of their herds if the cattle are damaging the environment, as well as shared ownership in the water rights and some structures on federal land. The regulations also lessen the current requirements for public input in deciding grazing issues....
Guard has enough troops for fires, leader says The adjutant general of the Montana National Guard says there will be as many soldiers, but not as many aircraft, available to help fight forest fires in Montana this summer. "We can put the same number of troops in the field on a daily basis as we did in 2000," Maj. Gen. Randall Mosley said Tuesday during a lunch with members of the Missoula Kiwanis Club. "Our available aircraft is far less than past years, but we're not the first responder for these things." National Guard troops typically back up U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management and other agency firefighting teams when those crews get stretched thin....
Sage grouse numbers rise in Wyoming Early indications are that the number of sage grouse in Wyoming is on the rise after drought and other factors reduced bird populations. Preliminary reports from this year's Game and Fish Department survey show sage grouse making a significant comeback in numbers on most leks, or strutting grounds, this spring, Game and Fish sage grouse coordinator Tom Christiansen said. "There's a lot of factors coming together to make for such a good survey," he said. "It really goes back over a year, because it's the chicks that were born and hatched and survived the last year that was the key."....
Conservationists, educators trying again on trust land issue Conservation and education advocates are making a new attempt to put a trust land package before Arizona voters, this time probably skipping the Legislature and instead trying to reach the ballot through an initiative campaign. Efforts this year and last to reach the voters through a legislative referendum failed as lawmakers focused on other issues considered either more pressing or easier to digest. The trust land issue was difficult for lawmakers partly because it is complex and features potentially competing interests -- producing more money for education from the 9.3 million acres of trust land versus setting aside large parcels for conservation as open space....
Column: Hope - prodigal son of the muddled American West The American West, Wallace Stegner once wrote in one of the region's most quoted aphorisms, is ''the native home of hope.'' Having put this very cheerful sentiment on public record, Stegner soon began to wonder what on earth had possessed him. With its extraordinary landscapes, wide horizons and great natural resources, the West might qualify as hope's native home. But the West is also - in large part because of these very assets - the second home of tension, conflict, regret, dismay, gloom and bitterness. Yet for all these miseries, the West has become the return address for my own sense of hope. I have the good luck to be employed as a kind of shuttle diplomat, carrying messages and attempting negotiations among various contending parties in the West today. That work has given me a deep - if perhaps naive and lamblike - faith that these are great times for bridge building, alliance making and solution finding....
US Appeal on Canada Cattle Imports to be Televised A courtroom battle by the US government to restart imports of live Canadian cattle amid claims mad cow disease in that country may pose a risk to US consumers is to be televised next month. The Canadian Broadcast Corporation has been granted permission to televise the proceedings, a clerk for the US Court of Appeals 9th Circuit in San Francisco told Reuters. The US Agriculture Department is appealing a March ruling by a federal court in Montana that halted, at the request of US ranchers group R-CALF USA, a government plan to allow imports of Canadian cattle under 30 months of age....
'Ranchers' relive history Somewhere in the expanse of West Texas, where everything bites, stings or burns, about 20 people have gathered to build a ranching operation from scratch. They don't have pickups or telephones. No air conditioning or flush toilets. They must live like it is 1867. Texas Ranch House is the latest "living history" program from the Public Broadcasting Service. It comes from the makers of both Frontier House and Colonial House. "In Texas Ranch House, we send a group of modern-day people back to the year 1867. It is the era of Western expansion, a time of rounding up and branding free-roaming cattle," the promotional material states. "It is a time of taming wild horses and sleeping under the stars." It was also a time of hard living and long cattle drives. It was a time of "endless, punishing days in the saddle, chowing down on pork and beans, and surviving lonely nights out on the plains."....
===
Wednesday, June 22, 2005
BLM disputes Wyoming split estate law
The federal government maintains a new state law providing protections to landowners from oil and gas development does not apply to the 11 million acres of Wyoming land on which the federal government owns the mineral rights. The stance by the Bureau of Land Management would mean the law would not apply to 92 percent of the 12 million acres where there are separate owners of the land and the minerals underneath -- so called split estates. Gov. Dave Freudenthal and Attorney General Pat Crank maintain the state law does apply to private land over federally owned minerals. "If the BLM wants to sue us, I think they should do so," Crank said Tuesday. "I think we would ultimately be successful if they brought such a challenge." Crank said the BLM has not threatened to file a lawsuit. The BLM's position was stated in a letter last week by BLM Director Kathleen Clarke. "The recent Wyoming statute and the proposed regulations would impose additional financial requirements that would burden the federal mineral estate," Clarke wrote in the June 13 letter. Lara Azar, spokeswoman for Freudenthal, wrote in an e-mail Tuesday that the governor "believes the Wyoming split estates statute is fair and reasonable, which means that it doesn't place some undue burden on the federal government."
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The federal government maintains a new state law providing protections to landowners from oil and gas development does not apply to the 11 million acres of Wyoming land on which the federal government owns the mineral rights. The stance by the Bureau of Land Management would mean the law would not apply to 92 percent of the 12 million acres where there are separate owners of the land and the minerals underneath -- so called split estates. Gov. Dave Freudenthal and Attorney General Pat Crank maintain the state law does apply to private land over federally owned minerals. "If the BLM wants to sue us, I think they should do so," Crank said Tuesday. "I think we would ultimately be successful if they brought such a challenge." Crank said the BLM has not threatened to file a lawsuit. The BLM's position was stated in a letter last week by BLM Director Kathleen Clarke. "The recent Wyoming statute and the proposed regulations would impose additional financial requirements that would burden the federal mineral estate," Clarke wrote in the June 13 letter. Lara Azar, spokeswoman for Freudenthal, wrote in an e-mail Tuesday that the governor "believes the Wyoming split estates statute is fair and reasonable, which means that it doesn't place some undue burden on the federal government."
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Southern California wildfire threatens hundreds of homes
A 300-acre wildfire raced through this Mojave Desert community Wednesday afternoon, burning at least seven homes and threatening as many as 700 more, authorities said. The fire erupted at about 1 p.m. and was burning into a "very inhabited area" about 100 miles east of downtown Los Angeles which consists of about 2,000 scattered ranches and homes on large lots, said Dave Dowling, a spokesman for the San Bernardino County Fire Department. About 200 homes were immediately threatened and as many as 700 more were in the fire's path as it moved east and south through heavy grass on both sides of Highway 62 toward the Joshua Tree National Park, county fire Battalion Chief Paul Summers said. A voluntary evacuation was called, according to Summers. The only reported injury was a firefighter with a hurt knee, he said....
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A 300-acre wildfire raced through this Mojave Desert community Wednesday afternoon, burning at least seven homes and threatening as many as 700 more, authorities said. The fire erupted at about 1 p.m. and was burning into a "very inhabited area" about 100 miles east of downtown Los Angeles which consists of about 2,000 scattered ranches and homes on large lots, said Dave Dowling, a spokesman for the San Bernardino County Fire Department. About 200 homes were immediately threatened and as many as 700 more were in the fire's path as it moved east and south through heavy grass on both sides of Highway 62 toward the Joshua Tree National Park, county fire Battalion Chief Paul Summers said. A voluntary evacuation was called, according to Summers. The only reported injury was a firefighter with a hurt knee, he said....
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NEWS
Green Tinge Is Attracting Seed Money to Ventures Ira Ehrenpreis may be a kind of prophet advocating investments in alternative energy companies, but don't accuse him of being noble. In recent months Mr. Ehrenpreis, a venture capitalist at Technology Partners in Palo Alto, Calif., has been asked any number of times to speak to audiences about "clean tech," a term that encompasses such things as solar energy, water purification systems and alternative automotive fuels. He begins and ends every speech the same way: with a slide that stresses that to the extent his motivations are tinged green, it has to do with the color of money. Top venture firms on Sand Hill Road in Menlo Park, Calif., are beginning to show serious interest in the alternative energy sector, though that typically means venturing outside their core expertise. They hope to capitalize on the growing worldwide demand for energy at a time of rising energy costs, and they see potential for huge profits in technology that can address challenges like climate change and dwindling natural resources....
Wrangling water The persistent drought in much of the Intermountain West, including Idaho, was one of the key reasons that the The Cecil Andrus Center decided to convene its "Troubled Water: Exploring Solutions for the Western Water Crisis" conference in April. The international conference had several goals. First, it sought to bring together experts, officials and activities of various persuasions to address the question of water and its uses in the western United States. While the ongoing drought and its management was a central concern, attendees were also presented with discussions and a hard-hitting, role-playing scenario that entered into related topics such as the changing patterns of use and ownership of water, demographic developments in the West, the need for new dams and litigation concerns. Second, the conference sought to explore international water issues, as drought is a persistent phenomenon that occurs worldwide....
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Green Tinge Is Attracting Seed Money to Ventures Ira Ehrenpreis may be a kind of prophet advocating investments in alternative energy companies, but don't accuse him of being noble. In recent months Mr. Ehrenpreis, a venture capitalist at Technology Partners in Palo Alto, Calif., has been asked any number of times to speak to audiences about "clean tech," a term that encompasses such things as solar energy, water purification systems and alternative automotive fuels. He begins and ends every speech the same way: with a slide that stresses that to the extent his motivations are tinged green, it has to do with the color of money. Top venture firms on Sand Hill Road in Menlo Park, Calif., are beginning to show serious interest in the alternative energy sector, though that typically means venturing outside their core expertise. They hope to capitalize on the growing worldwide demand for energy at a time of rising energy costs, and they see potential for huge profits in technology that can address challenges like climate change and dwindling natural resources....
Wrangling water The persistent drought in much of the Intermountain West, including Idaho, was one of the key reasons that the The Cecil Andrus Center decided to convene its "Troubled Water: Exploring Solutions for the Western Water Crisis" conference in April. The international conference had several goals. First, it sought to bring together experts, officials and activities of various persuasions to address the question of water and its uses in the western United States. While the ongoing drought and its management was a central concern, attendees were also presented with discussions and a hard-hitting, role-playing scenario that entered into related topics such as the changing patterns of use and ownership of water, demographic developments in the West, the need for new dams and litigation concerns. Second, the conference sought to explore international water issues, as drought is a persistent phenomenon that occurs worldwide....
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NEWS
9th Circuit Court may split Congressional Republicans are hoping yet again to split the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which covers nine Western states and has issued some rulings to the dismay of conservatives, saying a breakup is the best way to reduce the caseload of the circuit's federal judges. Next week, Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., plans to introduce a bill to split the circuit into three parts. Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, has already introduced legislation this year that would create at least one, if not two, new appellate courts for the area. And because the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee has linked the addition of any new judgeships across the country to dividing the circuit, lawmakers may have reason to view the prospect with an open mind....
Senate refuses to block offshore oil inventory Fresh from one successful move to protect Florida from offshore oil drilling, the state's two senators suffered a setback Tuesday when the Senate rejected their effort to block an inventory of the nation's offshore energy resources. Sens. Mel Martinez, a Republican, and Bill Nelson, a Democrat, argued unsuccessfully that the inventory -- one element in a massive energy bill -- would make it easier for the energy industry to eventually remove the ban on drilling in the eastern Gulf of Mexico. 'It tantalizes pro-drilling interests. It's like saying to pro-drilling states, `Come and get it,' '' Martinez said. Proponents of the inventory said it would help the nation identify where oil and gas resources were located for possible future use....
Senate Votes to Give Feds Final Word on LNG Sites The Senate voted today to give federal regulators the last word on the location of liquefied natural gas terminals, despite objections from governors, including California's Arnold Schwarzenegger, that states should be an equal partner in deciding where the controversial facilities are built. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) led a bipartisan group of senators in an attempt to add to energy legislation a provision that would give governors an opportunity to veto projects they consider a safety risk. The measure was rejected 52-45. The House-approved energy bill includes a similar provision that would give the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission the final say over where the terminals are built, virtually ensuring that the measure will be included in any final bill that emerges from Congress....
Senate votes to add voluntary emission-cutting plan to energy bill The U.S. Senate voted June 21 to include a climate change plan as part of the energy bill now under debate. However, it opted for a voluntary, incentive-based program favored by much of the business community but condemned by most environmentalists as too weak. At one time, it appeared that a mandatory greenhouse gas emission cap proposed by Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., might be included as part of the energy bill because Energy Committee Chairman Pete Domenici, R-N.M., expressed interest in it. However, as the vote neared, Domenici decided instead to back the voluntary plan proposed by Chuck Hagel, R-Neb. "It has become clear to me that we need to do something to address climate change," Domenici said. Domenici said he was impressed by a plan proposed by the National Commission on Energy Policy, on which Bingaman based his mandatory cap-and-trade proposal. "However, as we began developing details of how NCEP would be implemented, particularly how credits would be allocated, it became clear that we do not have something ready to be added to the energy bill," Domenici said. "This is just too tough to do this quickly."....
Bush: U.S. needs more nuclear power plants Pushing for the construction of nuclear power plants, President Bush on Wednesday pressed Congress to send him an energy bill, though he acknowledged that even when he signs the legislation, gasoline prices at the pump won't fall overnight. Bush is promoting nuclear power as a way to take the pressure off fossil fuels - oil, natural gas and coal. "It's time for this country to start building nuclear power plants again," said Bush, who noted that while the U.S. gets 20 percent of its electricity from nuclear reactors, France meets 78 percent of its electricity needs with nuclear power....
Despite promises, gaps remain in U.S. defense against mad cow disease American cattle are eating chicken litter, cattle blood and restaurant leftovers that could help transmit mad cow disease -- a gap in the U.S. defense that the Bush administration promised to close nearly 18 months ago. "Once the cameras were turned off and the media coverage dissipated, then it's been business as usual, no real reform, just keep feeding slaughterhouse waste," said John Stauber, an activist and co-author of "Mad Cow USA: Could the Nightmare Happen Here?" The Food and Drug Administration promised to tighten feed rules shortly after the first case of mad cow disease was confirmed in the U.S., in a Washington state cow in December 2003. "Today we are bolstering our BSE firewalls to protect the public," Mark McClellan, then-FDA commissioner, said on Jan. 26, 2004. FDA said it would ban blood, poultry litter and restaurant plate waste from cattle feed and require feed mills to use separate equipment to make cattle feed. However, last July, the FDA scrapped those restrictions. McClellan's replacement, Lester Crawford, said an international team of experts assembled by the Agriculture Department was calling for even stronger rules and that FDA would produce new restrictions in line with those recommendations. Today, the FDA still has not done what it promised to do. The agency declined interviews, saying in a statement only that there is no timeline for new restrictions....
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9th Circuit Court may split Congressional Republicans are hoping yet again to split the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which covers nine Western states and has issued some rulings to the dismay of conservatives, saying a breakup is the best way to reduce the caseload of the circuit's federal judges. Next week, Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., plans to introduce a bill to split the circuit into three parts. Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, has already introduced legislation this year that would create at least one, if not two, new appellate courts for the area. And because the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee has linked the addition of any new judgeships across the country to dividing the circuit, lawmakers may have reason to view the prospect with an open mind....
Senate refuses to block offshore oil inventory Fresh from one successful move to protect Florida from offshore oil drilling, the state's two senators suffered a setback Tuesday when the Senate rejected their effort to block an inventory of the nation's offshore energy resources. Sens. Mel Martinez, a Republican, and Bill Nelson, a Democrat, argued unsuccessfully that the inventory -- one element in a massive energy bill -- would make it easier for the energy industry to eventually remove the ban on drilling in the eastern Gulf of Mexico. 'It tantalizes pro-drilling interests. It's like saying to pro-drilling states, `Come and get it,' '' Martinez said. Proponents of the inventory said it would help the nation identify where oil and gas resources were located for possible future use....
Senate Votes to Give Feds Final Word on LNG Sites The Senate voted today to give federal regulators the last word on the location of liquefied natural gas terminals, despite objections from governors, including California's Arnold Schwarzenegger, that states should be an equal partner in deciding where the controversial facilities are built. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) led a bipartisan group of senators in an attempt to add to energy legislation a provision that would give governors an opportunity to veto projects they consider a safety risk. The measure was rejected 52-45. The House-approved energy bill includes a similar provision that would give the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission the final say over where the terminals are built, virtually ensuring that the measure will be included in any final bill that emerges from Congress....
Senate votes to add voluntary emission-cutting plan to energy bill The U.S. Senate voted June 21 to include a climate change plan as part of the energy bill now under debate. However, it opted for a voluntary, incentive-based program favored by much of the business community but condemned by most environmentalists as too weak. At one time, it appeared that a mandatory greenhouse gas emission cap proposed by Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., might be included as part of the energy bill because Energy Committee Chairman Pete Domenici, R-N.M., expressed interest in it. However, as the vote neared, Domenici decided instead to back the voluntary plan proposed by Chuck Hagel, R-Neb. "It has become clear to me that we need to do something to address climate change," Domenici said. Domenici said he was impressed by a plan proposed by the National Commission on Energy Policy, on which Bingaman based his mandatory cap-and-trade proposal. "However, as we began developing details of how NCEP would be implemented, particularly how credits would be allocated, it became clear that we do not have something ready to be added to the energy bill," Domenici said. "This is just too tough to do this quickly."....
Bush: U.S. needs more nuclear power plants Pushing for the construction of nuclear power plants, President Bush on Wednesday pressed Congress to send him an energy bill, though he acknowledged that even when he signs the legislation, gasoline prices at the pump won't fall overnight. Bush is promoting nuclear power as a way to take the pressure off fossil fuels - oil, natural gas and coal. "It's time for this country to start building nuclear power plants again," said Bush, who noted that while the U.S. gets 20 percent of its electricity from nuclear reactors, France meets 78 percent of its electricity needs with nuclear power....
Despite promises, gaps remain in U.S. defense against mad cow disease American cattle are eating chicken litter, cattle blood and restaurant leftovers that could help transmit mad cow disease -- a gap in the U.S. defense that the Bush administration promised to close nearly 18 months ago. "Once the cameras were turned off and the media coverage dissipated, then it's been business as usual, no real reform, just keep feeding slaughterhouse waste," said John Stauber, an activist and co-author of "Mad Cow USA: Could the Nightmare Happen Here?" The Food and Drug Administration promised to tighten feed rules shortly after the first case of mad cow disease was confirmed in the U.S., in a Washington state cow in December 2003. "Today we are bolstering our BSE firewalls to protect the public," Mark McClellan, then-FDA commissioner, said on Jan. 26, 2004. FDA said it would ban blood, poultry litter and restaurant plate waste from cattle feed and require feed mills to use separate equipment to make cattle feed. However, last July, the FDA scrapped those restrictions. McClellan's replacement, Lester Crawford, said an international team of experts assembled by the Agriculture Department was calling for even stronger rules and that FDA would produce new restrictions in line with those recommendations. Today, the FDA still has not done what it promised to do. The agency declined interviews, saying in a statement only that there is no timeline for new restrictions....
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NEWS
Final report released on Flathead plane wreck Becker is the mother of 30-year-old Matthew Ramige, one of two who survived the wilderness accident. He and four other U.S. Forest Service employees were en-route to the Schafer Meadows airstrip, deep in the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex east of Kalispell, when the plane crashed Sept. 20, 2004. Ramige, Jodi Hogg and Ken Good survived the impact, but Good died later of his injuries. Pilot Jim Long and Davita Bryant both died in the crash. The NTSB report indicates severe weather the day of the crash, revealing that Long delayed scheduled liftoff for some two hours due to violent storms....
Forest Service Study Shows Housing Developments Putting Watersheds At Risk A U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service study shows our nation's private forests continuing to become fragmented by housing development over the next 25 years--putting many forested watersheds at risk. The private forests that provide about 90% of timber harvested in the US; nearly 30% of all fresh water, and the key to conservation of many fish and wildlife species are increasingly likely to experience housing development, according to a new study by the USDA Forest Service. A U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service study shows housing density increasing in our nation's private forests over the next 25 years, which will impact natural resources across the country. At least 15 key forested watersheds nationwide are most at risk of development. "Every day, America loses more than 4,000 acres of open space to development; that's more than 3 acres per minute, and the rate of conversion is getting faster all the time," said Forest Service Chief Dale Boswoth....
Mules take over job: Critters replace helicopters on supply runs Mules are winding their way from the desert into the high pines around Manning Camp in the Rincon Mountains of Saguaro National Park today. The critters - Patty, Willie, Elvis, David, Smokey and Summer - are just back from a three-year stay in Texas. They are taking the 10-mile trip from Madrona Ranger Station near the valley floor to the 100-year-old summer outpost built on Mica Mountain by turn-of-the-century Tucson Mayor Levi Manning. They will replace helicopters as carriers of supplies to firefighters stationed for the season near Manning Camp, said Patricia Wands, fire program management assistant and supervisor of the mule program at the national park. The packer, Ross Knox, rides the sixth animal....
Cattle on the move to summer range All through May and June big cattle trucks have rumbled along the highways threading the Blue Mountains, hauling livestock from low-elevation winter pastures up to the summer range. “We’re like those Mongolian nomads,” says Ron Currin of Currin Ranches. “Spring comes and we keep working uphill.” The Currins started in April this year, moving almost 2000 head of cattle from their ranch on Little Butter Creek, near Heppner, up to Ritter Butte in northern Grant County. Usually they don’t start on the summer range until June, but the dry winter left Butter Creek dusty and hot, with no green grass....
Animal activists fire back in defense of wolves Wolves belong in the wild, and ranchers should find a way to coexist, said a supporter of an effort to reintroduce Mexican gray wolves to the wild. Officials with the federal government's reintroduction program in southwestern New Mexico and southeastern Arizona held four public meetings last week to gather feedback on the recovery program, which began in March 1998. "If you're going to graze (cattle) on public lands, you're going to do it at your own risk," Oscar Simpson, New Mexico Wildlife Federation president, said at the meeting here Saturday. Simpson and Dave Foreman, an Albuquerque resident who directs The Rewilding Institute, suggested that the government buy out grazing leases from ranchers who don't want to continue running livestock on public lands where there are wolves....
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Final report released on Flathead plane wreck Becker is the mother of 30-year-old Matthew Ramige, one of two who survived the wilderness accident. He and four other U.S. Forest Service employees were en-route to the Schafer Meadows airstrip, deep in the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex east of Kalispell, when the plane crashed Sept. 20, 2004. Ramige, Jodi Hogg and Ken Good survived the impact, but Good died later of his injuries. Pilot Jim Long and Davita Bryant both died in the crash. The NTSB report indicates severe weather the day of the crash, revealing that Long delayed scheduled liftoff for some two hours due to violent storms....
Forest Service Study Shows Housing Developments Putting Watersheds At Risk A U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service study shows our nation's private forests continuing to become fragmented by housing development over the next 25 years--putting many forested watersheds at risk. The private forests that provide about 90% of timber harvested in the US; nearly 30% of all fresh water, and the key to conservation of many fish and wildlife species are increasingly likely to experience housing development, according to a new study by the USDA Forest Service. A U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service study shows housing density increasing in our nation's private forests over the next 25 years, which will impact natural resources across the country. At least 15 key forested watersheds nationwide are most at risk of development. "Every day, America loses more than 4,000 acres of open space to development; that's more than 3 acres per minute, and the rate of conversion is getting faster all the time," said Forest Service Chief Dale Boswoth....
Mules take over job: Critters replace helicopters on supply runs Mules are winding their way from the desert into the high pines around Manning Camp in the Rincon Mountains of Saguaro National Park today. The critters - Patty, Willie, Elvis, David, Smokey and Summer - are just back from a three-year stay in Texas. They are taking the 10-mile trip from Madrona Ranger Station near the valley floor to the 100-year-old summer outpost built on Mica Mountain by turn-of-the-century Tucson Mayor Levi Manning. They will replace helicopters as carriers of supplies to firefighters stationed for the season near Manning Camp, said Patricia Wands, fire program management assistant and supervisor of the mule program at the national park. The packer, Ross Knox, rides the sixth animal....
Cattle on the move to summer range All through May and June big cattle trucks have rumbled along the highways threading the Blue Mountains, hauling livestock from low-elevation winter pastures up to the summer range. “We’re like those Mongolian nomads,” says Ron Currin of Currin Ranches. “Spring comes and we keep working uphill.” The Currins started in April this year, moving almost 2000 head of cattle from their ranch on Little Butter Creek, near Heppner, up to Ritter Butte in northern Grant County. Usually they don’t start on the summer range until June, but the dry winter left Butter Creek dusty and hot, with no green grass....
Animal activists fire back in defense of wolves Wolves belong in the wild, and ranchers should find a way to coexist, said a supporter of an effort to reintroduce Mexican gray wolves to the wild. Officials with the federal government's reintroduction program in southwestern New Mexico and southeastern Arizona held four public meetings last week to gather feedback on the recovery program, which began in March 1998. "If you're going to graze (cattle) on public lands, you're going to do it at your own risk," Oscar Simpson, New Mexico Wildlife Federation president, said at the meeting here Saturday. Simpson and Dave Foreman, an Albuquerque resident who directs The Rewilding Institute, suggested that the government buy out grazing leases from ranchers who don't want to continue running livestock on public lands where there are wolves....
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Tuesday, June 21, 2005
Monday, June 20, 2005
NMSU Roper Finishes Second in Country
Date: 06/19/2005
Contact: Jim Dewey Brown, (505) 646-3659, brownji@nmsu.edu
Reporter: Darrell J. Pehr, (505) 635-2017, pehr@nmsu.edu
CASPER, Wyo. – New Mexico State University team roper Nate Mortensen of Virden, N.M., and his partner finished in second place in the nation Saturday at the College National Finals Rodeo in Casper.
Mortensen is the heeler on the team. The header is Chance Means of Central Arizona College. Both are freshmen.
“They had another solid run Saturday,” said NMSU rodeo coach Jim Dewey Brown.
The two had a combined time of 31.6 seconds on four runs during the week-long competition. They roped their calf in 7.7 seconds on their final run Saturday.
Brown said the final results were not known until after the rodeo was finished, and all the scores had been tallied. Brown said Mortensen was typically quiet and modest when he heard the news.
“He was pretty happy,” Brown said, “but it was just like Nate. He didn’t say much.”
A team from Southeastern Oklahoma State University won the team roping.
For Brown, the national results are satisfying. NMSU calf roper Clay Snure finished in third place at last year’s national finals, so Brown is pleased to see progress.
“We’re slowly inching our way up to a first,” Brown said.
Aggie barrel racer Wylene Penrod of Laveen, Ariz., and breakaway roper Janelle Manygoats of Winslow, Ariz., each finished in 14th place. The women’s team finished in 15th and the men were 23rd.
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Date: 06/19/2005
Contact: Jim Dewey Brown, (505) 646-3659, brownji@nmsu.edu
Reporter: Darrell J. Pehr, (505) 635-2017, pehr@nmsu.edu
CASPER, Wyo. – New Mexico State University team roper Nate Mortensen of Virden, N.M., and his partner finished in second place in the nation Saturday at the College National Finals Rodeo in Casper.
Mortensen is the heeler on the team. The header is Chance Means of Central Arizona College. Both are freshmen.
“They had another solid run Saturday,” said NMSU rodeo coach Jim Dewey Brown.
The two had a combined time of 31.6 seconds on four runs during the week-long competition. They roped their calf in 7.7 seconds on their final run Saturday.
Brown said the final results were not known until after the rodeo was finished, and all the scores had been tallied. Brown said Mortensen was typically quiet and modest when he heard the news.
“He was pretty happy,” Brown said, “but it was just like Nate. He didn’t say much.”
A team from Southeastern Oklahoma State University won the team roping.
For Brown, the national results are satisfying. NMSU calf roper Clay Snure finished in third place at last year’s national finals, so Brown is pleased to see progress.
“We’re slowly inching our way up to a first,” Brown said.
Aggie barrel racer Wylene Penrod of Laveen, Ariz., and breakaway roper Janelle Manygoats of Winslow, Ariz., each finished in 14th place. The women’s team finished in 15th and the men were 23rd.
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NEWS
Unprecedented Move by APS Improves Natural Environment Arizona's first commercial hydroelectric power plants ceased operation today as part of a unique endeavor between APS, government agencies, Native American tribes, conservation groups and academia. By closing the Childs and Irving hydroelectric power plants in central Arizona, full water flow was restored to Fossil Creek after nearly a century of restricted flows. The Childs and Irving power plants, located in a remote area between Strawberry and Camp Verde, were considered an engineering and logistical marvel when constructed almost 100 years ago. The small hydroelectric power plants provided energy essential to Arizona's growth, powering the booming mining operations in Jerome and the Bradshaw Mountains, and later energized the growing communities of Prescott and Phoenix. In 1999 and in concert with the Yavapai-Apache Nation, American Rivers, Arizona Riparian Council, Center for Biological Diversity, The Nature Conservancy and Northern Arizona Audubon Society, APS decided to decommission the Childs and Irving plants and restore full flow to Fossil Creek at the cost to APS of about $13 million. Despite the cost of decommissioning and lost revenue from plant operations, APS determined that restoring Fossil Creek to its natural flow outweighed the business benefits provided by the facility....
Air tankers OK, but pilots grounded Air tanker pilots working under a new contract with the U.S. Forest Service this summer are being asked to complete a security questionnaire that may keep some of them out of the cockpit. Wildfire News of Prescott, Ariz., stated Tuesday that the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, which reviews the questionnaires, has had "issues" with flight pilots already and temporarily disqualified them from flying. Some of them work for Chico-based Aero Union Corp. Ron Hunter, director of flight operations for the company, confirmed that four pilots were brought under scrutiny because of answers they gave on the forms. He said the company wasn't able to find out what the agency was questioning. "All we were told is they can't fly," Hunter said. In recent days Hunter said two of the pilots have been cleared, but two others haven't yet satisfied the reviewers....
Editorial: Is mining or recreation more important? Idaho is a state approaching a fork in the road. Will we choose to depend on industry and mining to bring money into the state, or should we work to expand the state's healthy tourism industry? Truth is, we need both. Last week, the U.S. Forest Service gave the Simplot company a green light to explore phosphate deposits in a 400-acre parcel in Caribou County when it denied the final appeal of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition, which had attempted to stop the exploration. Geologists speculate some 4.5 million tons of phosphate ore lie beneath the earth in the area to be explored. That equates to about three years of work for Simplot and 200 jobs at the mine and 350 additional jobs at the plant. It also is a vital source of fertilizer for farmers. Even so, Idaho Department of Commerce and Labor statistics show that mining, including hard rock and phosphate mining, ranks as the sixth largest industry in the state. Recreation and tourism, including fishing and hunting, rank third....
Editorial: Sound science, not extremism, will help forests, rural economies Bryan Bird of the self-proclaimed "Forest Guardians" makes several phony claims in his flawed attempt elsewhere on this page to challenge our June 12 editorial that suggested the timber industry should be allowed back into our Western forests. The editorial, "Reversing a blunder: Reopening forests to industry the right way to aid rural communities," pointed out that taxpayers have sent $2 billion to rural counties in the West to help compensate for the devastating loss of jobs and tax revenues caused by overzealous enforcement of environmental regulations. The Tribune long has opposed such extremism and has supported proposals to involve timber companies in thinning operations that are now desperately needed to return our overgrown and diseased forests to health. Bird and the "Forest Guardians" will have none of that. He declares that the real issue is whether taxpayers should subsidize rural counties or the timber industry. Taxpayers should subsidize neither. The timber industry doesn’t need to be subsidized if it is not overregulated to the point of unprofitability. Timber companies operating on Arizona’s Indian reservations — under strict harvesting guidelines — not only turn a healthy profit but provide income to the tribes and keep the forests from becoming overgrown tinder boxes....
Elite crew often babysits blazes but lets them burn to improve forest health At some point while clearing fallen branches from trails to fire lookouts, training to climb trees and burning massive piles of fallen tree limbs, an elite Montana fire crew will be dispatched to their first big blaze of the season. When the call comes, the crew members' responsibilities will be different than they often are. This time, their job will be to watch the fire burn. It might sound odd, firefighters promoting fire, but in much of the Western wilderness, fire is being put to work. The Lewis and Clark Fire Use Module, a collection of highly skilled fire personnel based in Choteau, is one of 12 teams in the nation who are experts in allowing fires to burn in wild areas when the time is right....
Rare fern is discovered on Park Service land An Iowa State University botanist working for the U.S. Forest Service has discovered a rare plant in Wind Cave National Park. Botanists have been trying to locate a rare form of moonwort fern called Botrychium campestre in the Black Hills since a single plant was collected in 1973. Donald Farrar was hired to find the plant in Black Hills National Forest, but he wound up locating it on National Park Service land at Wind Cave, according to the park. Botrychium campestre is commonly found on prairie remnants in Iowa and Minnesota and east through the Great Lakes region. The only other place it has been found this far west is a single site in eastern Colorado....
Technology center's tank full of ideas lets loose for celebration Missoula's Technology and Development Center, run by the U.S. Forest Service, is not just a think tank. It's a think-and-solve-the-problem tank, where inventions become solutions for real-life forestry problems. On Saturday, the center's work is on display for the public, with tour guides to show and explain the details, history and use of many of its important inventions, from fire shelters to better parachutes to ways of keeping bears from stealing food in the backcountry. It's all part of the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the U.S. Forest Service, and involves open houses and public tours at several locations, including the Museum of Mountain Flying, the National Museum of Forest Service History, the Technology and Development Center, and the Missoula Smokejumper Center. Missoula's technology center is one of two run by the Forest Service; the other is in California. Proposals come in from the field, a steering committee screens the requests, Washington funds the projects, and Forest Service engineers and experts tackle the problems and test the solutions....
Landmark law on environment to be scrutinized Power outages in Nogales and traffic backups around Las Vegas are just a few of the hassles critics of a federal environmental law say residents of the Southwest face because the law needs to be changed. But environmentalists and others say the law helps ensure people can protect the air, land and water on public lands from potentially destructive projects. Congressional leaders on a task force charged with giving the landmark National Environmental Policy Act a "hard look" will hear about those concerns and more at a hearing Saturday morning in Pinetop-Lakeside. Critics, including many Republicans, contend the law has spawned a nightmare of lawsuits designed to block proposed roads, power lines and other projects....
Guest opinion: Legislation offers logical plan for wild bison In the past two decades, millions of dollars have been allocated to eradicate brucellosis by hazing and slaughtering the Yellowstone buffalo. Common sense tells us the Interagency Bison Management Plan isn't working. Now Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks and the federal animal and plant health inspection agencies want to spend more of our hard-earned money. They want to expand facilities for bison quarantine experiments that, according to scientists, may take upward of 10 years to establish brucellosis-free buffalo herds. To all Montanans, I ask you, how much more do you want to spend before enough is enough? To go the direction the IBMP continues to take will only result in rising costs for taxpayers and endless controversy and hyperbole. On May 18, Rep. Maurice Hinchey, D-N.Y., and Rep. Charles Bass, R-N.H., introduced to the U.S. House of Representatives HR 2428, the Yellowstone Buffalo Preservation Act. The purpose of this act is to provide protection for the last wild and genetically pure Yellowstone buffalo. It addresses temporal/spatial separation of livestock from the buffalo herd, continued cattle vaccination and fencing as more practical ways of reducing the blatant misuse of our state and federal money....
Plans to save grouse lack pecking order A chicken-sized bird has hundreds of heads scratching. The Gunnison sage grouse, which lives only in western Colorado and one Utah county, has declined so much in recent years that wildlife officials estimate just 3,200 of the birds exist. The continuous drop in the bird’s numbers has led to a host of conservation strategies, stretching from the local level all the way to federal public lands managers. Last week during the annual conference of the Western Governor’s Association in Breckenridge, Gov. Bill Owens announced the creation of the Sagebrush Conservation Council....
Environmental group argues to support spill Attorneys representing the National Wildlife Federation say a federal judge was right to order four Snake and Columbia River dams to spill water this summer to save endangered salmon runs. Attorneys Todd True of Seattle and Daniel Rohlf of Portland, Ore., represented the group in a filing to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The filing came in response to the federal government's request to halt an order issued last month by U.S. District Judge James Redden. The order is intended to provide water to help float millions of endangered salmon and steelhead down the mainstem rivers to the Pacific Ocean....
Ferret program may take hit A federal program that raises and releases the endangered black-footed ferret may itself be endangered if budget squeezes proceed in a way some wildlife managers fear. Mike Lockhart, Laramie-based recovery coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's black-footed ferret program, called the expected budget crunch "pretty dire." "To me it's pretty frightening," he said. "We've made some very substantial progress. We can see a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel if we can keep it going. If this really happens, this will set the program back a long ways." Mary Henry, Denver-based assistant regional director for the Ecological Service arm of the Fish and Wildlife Service -- which oversees the endangered species program -- said there are "financial difficulties" across the Ecological Service program as a whole. She said it is not clear if funding will be cut entirely, but unless new money is added to the ferret program, it is in jeopardy....
Column: The Northwest Salmon Win an Upstream Fight The Bush administration's plan to protect endangered salmon stocks in the Northwest is shaping up as a battle between a neoconservative political agenda that seeks to roll back landmark environmental protections and the scientific exigencies of the Endangered Species Act. Last month, U.S. District Judge James Redden ruled that Bush's plan violated the Endangered Species Act. Then on June 10, Redden, still steaming from the administration's "exercise in cynicism," dropped a judicial bomb he had held in reserve. Despite a projected $69 million in lost revenue, he ordered the Bonneville Power Administration to execute a "summer spill" from four dams to help juvenile salmon reach the sea. After noting that the government's best salmon-recovery efforts have brought native fish stocks to the brink of extinction, Redden challenged the stakeholders — the National Marine Fisheries Service, the Bonneville Power Administration, Indian tribes, conservation organizations and scientists — "to take advantage of this moment" and solve the problem....
A mouse and a man: researcher finds himself in uncomfortable spotlight after asking that mouse be removed from endangered list Biologist Rob Roy Ramey figures he has risked his life many times for endangered species — scaling cliffs to help with peregrine falcons and California condors, challenging sheep poachers in Mongolia, being chased by elephants in Africa. His toughest encounter, though, could be with a mouse thought to exist only in a narrow corridor along the east face of the Rockies. His conclusion that the Preble’s meadow jumping mouse isn’t unique has made it the poster animal for critics of the Endangered Species Act and outraged fellow scientists and environmentalists who accuse him of faulty science. The study by Ramey and his colleagues says the Preble’s mouse is the same as the more common Bear Lodge meadow jumping mouse and shouldn’t be listed as a threatened subspecies....
Project aims to rebuild kit fox habitat You could call the program Habitat for Kit Foxes. It involves burying 35 igloo- shaped "dog houses" and laying 70 tunnels in the sagebrush desert to protect one of the state's endangered species. The joint effort between the Center for Native Ecosystems, a Denver-based environmental organization, and the Bureau of Land Management launches Tuesday northwest of Grand Junction. "The installation of dens and escape tunnels are a critical first step to recovering the kit fox in Colorado," the Center for Native Ecosystems said in a statement. The tunnels, made of 8-inch pipe laid just below the ground surface, are intended to give foxes an emergency escape from predators. The manmade dens will be buried about five feet in the ground....
Nevada oil, gas exploration expected to pick up after record sale High gasoline prices helped spur a record quarterly sale of oil and gas leases on federal land in Nevada, Bureau of Land Management officials said. Last week's sale at the BLM state office in Reno netted nearly $3.1 million in bids, by far the most in 14 years of competitive oil and gas lease sales in the state, they said. It also resulted in the highest number of total bids and acres sold. The BLM sold 163 of 344 parcels available for leasing across central and northern Nevada - or 335,537 acres of 710,215 acres....
BLM, church limit use to protect trail The wagon wheel ruts are still visible in places. Even after 150 years, they mark the toiled struggles of thousands of pioneers who settled the West. And while they are well off modern highways, these parallel grooves in the sand and clay are again attracting tens of thousands of pioneers from around the world who seek to relive the experiences of their ancestors. But in a twist of history, the new trekkers -- mostly members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints -- are making their own tracks and endangering parts of the original trail. Some areas of the trail started "looking more like a road than a historic trail," said Jack Kelly, manager of the Bureau of Land Management office in Lander....
Montana's meat label law illegal, group says As the fight continues in Congress over mandatory meat labels, one also may be brewing in Montana over the state's labeling law. The American Meat Institute, a meatpackers' trade group, contends federal law — namely, the federal Meat Inspection Act — prohibits the state from requiring country of origin meat labels. ‘‘No state may impose a labeling requirement that is different than or in addition to what's allowed under federal law,'' Mark Dopp, AMI senior vice president for regulatory affairs and general counsel, said in a recent interview. The Montana law, set to take effect next year, requires placards denoting the country of origin of beef, lamb, pork and poultry products sold at grocery stores and other retails outlets. Products whose origin is not known would be labeled as such....
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Unprecedented Move by APS Improves Natural Environment Arizona's first commercial hydroelectric power plants ceased operation today as part of a unique endeavor between APS, government agencies, Native American tribes, conservation groups and academia. By closing the Childs and Irving hydroelectric power plants in central Arizona, full water flow was restored to Fossil Creek after nearly a century of restricted flows. The Childs and Irving power plants, located in a remote area between Strawberry and Camp Verde, were considered an engineering and logistical marvel when constructed almost 100 years ago. The small hydroelectric power plants provided energy essential to Arizona's growth, powering the booming mining operations in Jerome and the Bradshaw Mountains, and later energized the growing communities of Prescott and Phoenix. In 1999 and in concert with the Yavapai-Apache Nation, American Rivers, Arizona Riparian Council, Center for Biological Diversity, The Nature Conservancy and Northern Arizona Audubon Society, APS decided to decommission the Childs and Irving plants and restore full flow to Fossil Creek at the cost to APS of about $13 million. Despite the cost of decommissioning and lost revenue from plant operations, APS determined that restoring Fossil Creek to its natural flow outweighed the business benefits provided by the facility....
Air tankers OK, but pilots grounded Air tanker pilots working under a new contract with the U.S. Forest Service this summer are being asked to complete a security questionnaire that may keep some of them out of the cockpit. Wildfire News of Prescott, Ariz., stated Tuesday that the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, which reviews the questionnaires, has had "issues" with flight pilots already and temporarily disqualified them from flying. Some of them work for Chico-based Aero Union Corp. Ron Hunter, director of flight operations for the company, confirmed that four pilots were brought under scrutiny because of answers they gave on the forms. He said the company wasn't able to find out what the agency was questioning. "All we were told is they can't fly," Hunter said. In recent days Hunter said two of the pilots have been cleared, but two others haven't yet satisfied the reviewers....
Editorial: Is mining or recreation more important? Idaho is a state approaching a fork in the road. Will we choose to depend on industry and mining to bring money into the state, or should we work to expand the state's healthy tourism industry? Truth is, we need both. Last week, the U.S. Forest Service gave the Simplot company a green light to explore phosphate deposits in a 400-acre parcel in Caribou County when it denied the final appeal of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition, which had attempted to stop the exploration. Geologists speculate some 4.5 million tons of phosphate ore lie beneath the earth in the area to be explored. That equates to about three years of work for Simplot and 200 jobs at the mine and 350 additional jobs at the plant. It also is a vital source of fertilizer for farmers. Even so, Idaho Department of Commerce and Labor statistics show that mining, including hard rock and phosphate mining, ranks as the sixth largest industry in the state. Recreation and tourism, including fishing and hunting, rank third....
Editorial: Sound science, not extremism, will help forests, rural economies Bryan Bird of the self-proclaimed "Forest Guardians" makes several phony claims in his flawed attempt elsewhere on this page to challenge our June 12 editorial that suggested the timber industry should be allowed back into our Western forests. The editorial, "Reversing a blunder: Reopening forests to industry the right way to aid rural communities," pointed out that taxpayers have sent $2 billion to rural counties in the West to help compensate for the devastating loss of jobs and tax revenues caused by overzealous enforcement of environmental regulations. The Tribune long has opposed such extremism and has supported proposals to involve timber companies in thinning operations that are now desperately needed to return our overgrown and diseased forests to health. Bird and the "Forest Guardians" will have none of that. He declares that the real issue is whether taxpayers should subsidize rural counties or the timber industry. Taxpayers should subsidize neither. The timber industry doesn’t need to be subsidized if it is not overregulated to the point of unprofitability. Timber companies operating on Arizona’s Indian reservations — under strict harvesting guidelines — not only turn a healthy profit but provide income to the tribes and keep the forests from becoming overgrown tinder boxes....
Elite crew often babysits blazes but lets them burn to improve forest health At some point while clearing fallen branches from trails to fire lookouts, training to climb trees and burning massive piles of fallen tree limbs, an elite Montana fire crew will be dispatched to their first big blaze of the season. When the call comes, the crew members' responsibilities will be different than they often are. This time, their job will be to watch the fire burn. It might sound odd, firefighters promoting fire, but in much of the Western wilderness, fire is being put to work. The Lewis and Clark Fire Use Module, a collection of highly skilled fire personnel based in Choteau, is one of 12 teams in the nation who are experts in allowing fires to burn in wild areas when the time is right....
Rare fern is discovered on Park Service land An Iowa State University botanist working for the U.S. Forest Service has discovered a rare plant in Wind Cave National Park. Botanists have been trying to locate a rare form of moonwort fern called Botrychium campestre in the Black Hills since a single plant was collected in 1973. Donald Farrar was hired to find the plant in Black Hills National Forest, but he wound up locating it on National Park Service land at Wind Cave, according to the park. Botrychium campestre is commonly found on prairie remnants in Iowa and Minnesota and east through the Great Lakes region. The only other place it has been found this far west is a single site in eastern Colorado....
Technology center's tank full of ideas lets loose for celebration Missoula's Technology and Development Center, run by the U.S. Forest Service, is not just a think tank. It's a think-and-solve-the-problem tank, where inventions become solutions for real-life forestry problems. On Saturday, the center's work is on display for the public, with tour guides to show and explain the details, history and use of many of its important inventions, from fire shelters to better parachutes to ways of keeping bears from stealing food in the backcountry. It's all part of the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the U.S. Forest Service, and involves open houses and public tours at several locations, including the Museum of Mountain Flying, the National Museum of Forest Service History, the Technology and Development Center, and the Missoula Smokejumper Center. Missoula's technology center is one of two run by the Forest Service; the other is in California. Proposals come in from the field, a steering committee screens the requests, Washington funds the projects, and Forest Service engineers and experts tackle the problems and test the solutions....
Landmark law on environment to be scrutinized Power outages in Nogales and traffic backups around Las Vegas are just a few of the hassles critics of a federal environmental law say residents of the Southwest face because the law needs to be changed. But environmentalists and others say the law helps ensure people can protect the air, land and water on public lands from potentially destructive projects. Congressional leaders on a task force charged with giving the landmark National Environmental Policy Act a "hard look" will hear about those concerns and more at a hearing Saturday morning in Pinetop-Lakeside. Critics, including many Republicans, contend the law has spawned a nightmare of lawsuits designed to block proposed roads, power lines and other projects....
Guest opinion: Legislation offers logical plan for wild bison In the past two decades, millions of dollars have been allocated to eradicate brucellosis by hazing and slaughtering the Yellowstone buffalo. Common sense tells us the Interagency Bison Management Plan isn't working. Now Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks and the federal animal and plant health inspection agencies want to spend more of our hard-earned money. They want to expand facilities for bison quarantine experiments that, according to scientists, may take upward of 10 years to establish brucellosis-free buffalo herds. To all Montanans, I ask you, how much more do you want to spend before enough is enough? To go the direction the IBMP continues to take will only result in rising costs for taxpayers and endless controversy and hyperbole. On May 18, Rep. Maurice Hinchey, D-N.Y., and Rep. Charles Bass, R-N.H., introduced to the U.S. House of Representatives HR 2428, the Yellowstone Buffalo Preservation Act. The purpose of this act is to provide protection for the last wild and genetically pure Yellowstone buffalo. It addresses temporal/spatial separation of livestock from the buffalo herd, continued cattle vaccination and fencing as more practical ways of reducing the blatant misuse of our state and federal money....
Plans to save grouse lack pecking order A chicken-sized bird has hundreds of heads scratching. The Gunnison sage grouse, which lives only in western Colorado and one Utah county, has declined so much in recent years that wildlife officials estimate just 3,200 of the birds exist. The continuous drop in the bird’s numbers has led to a host of conservation strategies, stretching from the local level all the way to federal public lands managers. Last week during the annual conference of the Western Governor’s Association in Breckenridge, Gov. Bill Owens announced the creation of the Sagebrush Conservation Council....
Environmental group argues to support spill Attorneys representing the National Wildlife Federation say a federal judge was right to order four Snake and Columbia River dams to spill water this summer to save endangered salmon runs. Attorneys Todd True of Seattle and Daniel Rohlf of Portland, Ore., represented the group in a filing to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The filing came in response to the federal government's request to halt an order issued last month by U.S. District Judge James Redden. The order is intended to provide water to help float millions of endangered salmon and steelhead down the mainstem rivers to the Pacific Ocean....
Ferret program may take hit A federal program that raises and releases the endangered black-footed ferret may itself be endangered if budget squeezes proceed in a way some wildlife managers fear. Mike Lockhart, Laramie-based recovery coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's black-footed ferret program, called the expected budget crunch "pretty dire." "To me it's pretty frightening," he said. "We've made some very substantial progress. We can see a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel if we can keep it going. If this really happens, this will set the program back a long ways." Mary Henry, Denver-based assistant regional director for the Ecological Service arm of the Fish and Wildlife Service -- which oversees the endangered species program -- said there are "financial difficulties" across the Ecological Service program as a whole. She said it is not clear if funding will be cut entirely, but unless new money is added to the ferret program, it is in jeopardy....
Column: The Northwest Salmon Win an Upstream Fight The Bush administration's plan to protect endangered salmon stocks in the Northwest is shaping up as a battle between a neoconservative political agenda that seeks to roll back landmark environmental protections and the scientific exigencies of the Endangered Species Act. Last month, U.S. District Judge James Redden ruled that Bush's plan violated the Endangered Species Act. Then on June 10, Redden, still steaming from the administration's "exercise in cynicism," dropped a judicial bomb he had held in reserve. Despite a projected $69 million in lost revenue, he ordered the Bonneville Power Administration to execute a "summer spill" from four dams to help juvenile salmon reach the sea. After noting that the government's best salmon-recovery efforts have brought native fish stocks to the brink of extinction, Redden challenged the stakeholders — the National Marine Fisheries Service, the Bonneville Power Administration, Indian tribes, conservation organizations and scientists — "to take advantage of this moment" and solve the problem....
A mouse and a man: researcher finds himself in uncomfortable spotlight after asking that mouse be removed from endangered list Biologist Rob Roy Ramey figures he has risked his life many times for endangered species — scaling cliffs to help with peregrine falcons and California condors, challenging sheep poachers in Mongolia, being chased by elephants in Africa. His toughest encounter, though, could be with a mouse thought to exist only in a narrow corridor along the east face of the Rockies. His conclusion that the Preble’s meadow jumping mouse isn’t unique has made it the poster animal for critics of the Endangered Species Act and outraged fellow scientists and environmentalists who accuse him of faulty science. The study by Ramey and his colleagues says the Preble’s mouse is the same as the more common Bear Lodge meadow jumping mouse and shouldn’t be listed as a threatened subspecies....
Project aims to rebuild kit fox habitat You could call the program Habitat for Kit Foxes. It involves burying 35 igloo- shaped "dog houses" and laying 70 tunnels in the sagebrush desert to protect one of the state's endangered species. The joint effort between the Center for Native Ecosystems, a Denver-based environmental organization, and the Bureau of Land Management launches Tuesday northwest of Grand Junction. "The installation of dens and escape tunnels are a critical first step to recovering the kit fox in Colorado," the Center for Native Ecosystems said in a statement. The tunnels, made of 8-inch pipe laid just below the ground surface, are intended to give foxes an emergency escape from predators. The manmade dens will be buried about five feet in the ground....
Nevada oil, gas exploration expected to pick up after record sale High gasoline prices helped spur a record quarterly sale of oil and gas leases on federal land in Nevada, Bureau of Land Management officials said. Last week's sale at the BLM state office in Reno netted nearly $3.1 million in bids, by far the most in 14 years of competitive oil and gas lease sales in the state, they said. It also resulted in the highest number of total bids and acres sold. The BLM sold 163 of 344 parcels available for leasing across central and northern Nevada - or 335,537 acres of 710,215 acres....
BLM, church limit use to protect trail The wagon wheel ruts are still visible in places. Even after 150 years, they mark the toiled struggles of thousands of pioneers who settled the West. And while they are well off modern highways, these parallel grooves in the sand and clay are again attracting tens of thousands of pioneers from around the world who seek to relive the experiences of their ancestors. But in a twist of history, the new trekkers -- mostly members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints -- are making their own tracks and endangering parts of the original trail. Some areas of the trail started "looking more like a road than a historic trail," said Jack Kelly, manager of the Bureau of Land Management office in Lander....
Montana's meat label law illegal, group says As the fight continues in Congress over mandatory meat labels, one also may be brewing in Montana over the state's labeling law. The American Meat Institute, a meatpackers' trade group, contends federal law — namely, the federal Meat Inspection Act — prohibits the state from requiring country of origin meat labels. ‘‘No state may impose a labeling requirement that is different than or in addition to what's allowed under federal law,'' Mark Dopp, AMI senior vice president for regulatory affairs and general counsel, said in a recent interview. The Montana law, set to take effect next year, requires placards denoting the country of origin of beef, lamb, pork and poultry products sold at grocery stores and other retails outlets. Products whose origin is not known would be labeled as such....
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