NEWS ROUNDUP

Green donor or dirty money? Loch Wade fears his adopted hometown of Boulder is about to lose control of its destiny. Once just a bend in the breathtakingly beautiful road above Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument, the fast-growing community is home to a $1.2 million Nature Conservancy project to protect the local watershed and preserve the community's ranching heritage. Some locals view the deal as a solution. But Wade worries that, with some funding for that project coming from the controversial nuclear waste company EnergySolutions, it is only a matter of time before locals find well-heeled outsiders writing future plans for their town. "The thing that concerns me is that The Nature Conservancy will be the proverbial 800-pound gorilla," said Wade, a shop owner, craftsman and summertime watermaster....
Oil, gas royalty fight rages across Colorado Royalty owners are feeling shortchanged by Colorado's multibillion-dollar energy industry. Years ago, landowners with mineral rights were grateful for any royalty fee they received from oil and gas drilling on their land. But as the energy giants cash in on the latest oil and gas boom and take bigger paychecks to the banks, royalty owners say they want a fairer portion of the windfall. They allege that companies make unlawful deductions from the royalty checks. For example, they say companies often deduct costs to gather or squeeze excess water from gas at wellheads when those expenses ought to be paid by the companies. The royalty owners also complain that companies charge higher interstate pipeline costs than in past years. Rising costs not only eat into royalty checks but also push up the price of gas paid by consumers. "Our No. 1 issue is that the price of natural gas at the wellhead and burner tip keep getting farther away from each other," said Jerry Simmons, executive director of the National Association of Royalty Owners. "Pipeline companies are adding fees that royalty owners don't see because of confidential contracts between oil and gas producers and those companies....
SNWA buys Spring Valley ranches and stock Folks in White Pine County will have to come up with a new insult. The Southern Nevada Water Authority can't be accused of being all hat and no cattle anymore. The wholesale water supplier for the Las Vegas Valley will soon own about $3.3 million worth of livestock as part of its latest acquisition in Spring Valley, the White Pine County watershed at the northern end of a proposed pipeline to Las Vegas. The authority board on Thursday, March 15, approved more than $43.5 million to purchase the 11,800-acre El Tejon ranch and the 1,560-acre Huntsman ranch. The two spreads about 250 miles north of Las Vegas come with 1,881 cattle and 4,290 sheep. It is the first livestock to be purchased by the water authority, which has paid almost $79 million for seven Spring Valley ranches over the past eight months. "You are now members of the National Cattlemen's Association and the Nevada Cattlemen's Association," Authority General Manager Pat Mulroy told board members after the vote....
Land management: A new rangeland recipe Does your rangeland look like it's about to become a dust bowl? Are the grasses sparse and stubby, greening up only for a few short weeks during the rainy season? If so, you might conclude your land has been overgrazed. The logical response would seem to be to pull livestock off the land and let it rest for a few years. But maybe the problem is that you just aren't running enough cattle. This is the counter-intuitive solution ranchers are likely to get from Holistic Management International. If the advice the Albuquerque-based group offers range managers around the world wasn't rooted in decades of practical application, it might seem mere wishful thinking. But land managers who have tried the approach say otherwise....
Colo. House opposes Pinon Canyon land seizure Even though they know they can't prevent it, the Colorado House voted Friday to send a message to the U.S. Army over its plans to expand the Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site in Southeast Colorado. Under a bill that received preliminary House approval, lawmakers voted to remove its consent to the "exclusive jurisdiction" right the federal government has under the U.S. Constitution on any of the 418,000 acres it wants to use to expand the training site. While no state has the constitutional authority to supercede the federal government's condemnation rights, the measure is intended to make it "less desirable" for the Army to acquire land that way, supporters of the bill said. "The bill simply follows the Constitution of the United States, which says that before the federal government can acquire any property in a state, consent must be given by that state," said Rep. Wes McKinley, D-Walsh, who introduced HB1069. "The Constitution guarantees us to the right to life, liberty and property."....
Hear the call of the wild Imagine the bumping bass you hear at a stoplight when a teenager behind the wheel wants to share thumping music with the world. Only this is in the darkness of a remote ridge some 3,200 feet above sea level in the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest's upper Applegate River drainage. These low booms are the calls of a great gray owl coming from an mp3 player placed on the hood of a green U.S. Forest Service pickup truck parked on an old logging road by Scott Bodle, wildlife biologist for the Siskiyou Mountains Ranger District. "The calls act as a male challenge," Bodle explained. "We are trying to bring out their territorial aggression. We are trying to get them to come in....
Legal definition leaves mountain bikers out of wilderness areas From the Fourth of July Lake trail, mountain bikers catch some of the widest views of the comb-like peaks of the Boulder-White Cloud mountains, but only if they can take their eyes off the wrist-twisting shale as the trail cuts across the picturesque Alpine basin. So fat-tire aficionados were dismayed last year at the introduction in Congress of the Central Idaho Economic Development and Recreation Act, which would have barred mountain bikes from Fourth of July and 85 miles of other nearby singletrack. The bill passed in the House of Representatives but died with no action taken in the Senate. Still, it's a vexing paradox for the International Mountain Bike Association, whose mission largely is to preserve trails in wild areas across the country. Since the 1980s, the legal definition of wilderness has prohibited mechanized transportation such as snowmobiles, all terrain vehicles and - inexplicably to some - mountain bikes. So now, the association finds itself battling wilderness bills and tangling with conservationists in Idaho, California, Montana and the corridors of Congress....
Working to Diagnose Marine Animal Die-Off In the summer and fall of 2005, marine animals suddenly started dying off the southwest Florida coast, with scores of bottlenose dolphins, manatees and turtles washing up on shore. In October alone, 22 dolphins became stranded and died, compared with the usual monthly average of three. Hoping to unravel the mystery, nearly 50 researchers, part of the Working Group on Marine Mammal Unusual Mortality Events, commissioned a study of the deaths. After taking samples from 130 stranded dolphins, they concluded that red tide -- an algae bloom that creates a neurotoxin known as brevetoxin -- caused the massive die-off. In the 16 years since it was formed under the auspices of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, the working group has investigated scores of similar events. It is detecting a rising number of die-offs -- at the moment the panel is handling eight such cases simultaneously, an unprecedented high that reflects the environmental pressures on marine mammals and the nation's increasingly broad scientific stranding network....
Kennard firefighter sentenced for arson United States Attorney Matthew D. Orwig announced today that a 33-year-old Kennard firefighter has been sentenced to seven years in federal prison for setting arson fires in the Eastern District of Texas. RYAN JAMES EFF was found guilty in November 2006 of setting three arson fires in the Davy Crockett National Forest. United States District Judge Ron Clark sentenced Eff to seven years in federal prison for each of the three fires. The sentences will run concurrently. Judge Clark also ordered Eff to pay $73,512.00 in restitution. Eff was immediately remanded into custody. According to information presented by prosecutors, Eff was employed as a firefighter for the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) and assigned to perform firefighter duties in the federally owned Davy Crockett National Forest....
Laverty for AS/FWP The President intends to nominate R. Lyle Laverty, of Colorado, to be Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Fish and Wildlife and Commissioner of the United States Section of the Great Lakes Fishing Commission (Official of the United States Government). Mr. Laverty currently serves as Director of Colorado State Parks. Prior to this, he served as Associate Deputy Chief of the United States Forest Service. Earlier in his career, he served as Regional Forester of the Rocky Mountain Region of the United States Forest Service. Mr. Laverty received his bachelor's degree from Humboldt State University and his master's degree from George Mason University.
Drilling critics get D.C. hearing Congress is asking Westerners to talk about their efforts to protect wildlife and the interests of hunters and anglers in the face of the energy boom cascading through the Rockies from Montana to New Mexico. A Wyoming man is among seven people, including an energy company official, invited to speak Tuesday before the U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources. The topic: Conflicts between sportsmen and energy developers on federal lands. "This hearing is planned as a forum for the folks who want to ensure that public lands continue to provide hunting and fishing opportunities for future generations," Rahall said in a written statement. That goal has united the "hook and bullet" crowd -- anglers and hunters -- with environmentalists who don't want to see energy development overwhelm public lands, which make up 30 percent or more of many Rocky Mountain states. The unlikely allies have rallied around such spots as the Wyoming Range in western Wyoming, the Roan Plateau in western Colorado and the Otero Mesa in southeastern New Mexico -- all considered significant sources of oil and gas as well as important wildlife habitat....
Fishing, hunting groups protest sale of Montana petroleum leases Some leading Montana conservation groups are protesting the planned sale of federal petroleum leases in the Beaverhead River corridor, a magnet for anglers. Montana Trout Unlimited, the Montana Wildlife Federation and others Friday sent the U.S. Bureau of Land Management a letter challenging the agency's auction set for this Tuesday in Billings. Lands covered by the leases total 27,000 acres. Anglers find the Beaverhead River extraordinarily appealing and do not spend time and money there "to fish amongst wells, pads, pipelines, heavy machinery, industrial noise and wastewater ponds," the groups wrote Gene Terland, state director of the BLM. Like the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks, which earlier sent the BLM a letter against the leasing, the groups say the federal agency did not assess adequately how drilling for oil and gas stands to affect fish and wildlife. The letter Friday follows a formal appeal filed by Montana Trout Unlimited....
County stonewalling conservation efforts For three years, San Bernardino County has quietly blocked nonprofit land conservancies from acquiring tax-defaulted desert land and giving it to federal preserves. Under state law, nonprofits and public entities can apply to redeem defaulted properties before they are sold at public auction. Instead of being considered by the board, however, the status of 90 parcels accounting for at least 2,500 acres remains pending. The de-facto policy was established around three years ago at the request of then-1st District Supervisor Bill Postmus and his chief of staff and successor, Brad Mitzelfelt. Although the Mojave Preserve is an asset to his district, Mitzelfelt said, it doesn't make sense to help conservancies expand it by removing property from county tax rolls. "Private property ownership, in really the most desirable parts of the desert, is a public benefit," he said. "Once we lose it, we'll never get it back."....
Road issue stalls subdivision in middle of woods A private property owner plans to put a 20-acre subdivision on four old mining claims covering about 70 acres in the middle of Bureau of Land Management property west of Clancy. Jack Frazier already has preliminary approval from the Jefferson County Commission for his subdivision, noted Mike Hoffman, assistant county planner and Joe Schmaus, Frazier’s consultant. The only thing blocking the subdivision is approval from the BLM to widen and flatten a logging road that leads to the parcel. The Sheep Mountain Road, which accesses the proposed subdivision, was created by the BLM for logging purposes. BLM officials say it’s about 14 feet wide, with grades of 15 to 20 percent....
Last building at Mustang Ranch destroyed The last remaining building on the grounds where the infamous Mustang Ranch brothel in Nevada once stood has gone up in flames.
The 48-room, 20-thousand-square-foot structure has been destroyed as part of a training exercise for firefighters. The Mustang Ranch was Nevada's first legal brothel. But the government padlocked it in 1999 after years of tax problems. In 2003, the Bureau of Land Management auctioned off building for 86-hundred dollars to brothel owner Dennis Hof. He had hoped to use it as a museum but it was too expensive to move, so he donated it to the firefighters. The B-L-M plans to return the Mustang Ranch land to a natural state and use it for public access to the Truckee River....There are several comments I could make here, but I'll just leave it alone.
'Don't shoot at it; kill it' On his way to feed cattle on his ranch near Miller last spring, Jim McCann saw two critters with a wary reputation emerge from the brush. "These two idiots ran out of the brush and just looked at me," he said. "These two guys just stood there." He didn't hesitate. He fired his .357 Magnum and bagged two feral hogs. To any cattleman wanting to protect his herd, that's the only way to react, McCann said. "I highly encourage anyone out there, if they see one, kill it," he said. "Don't shoot at it; kill it." That's what state law allows and what the Missouri Department of Conservation has encouraged to decrease the spread of feral hogs, now estimated to number up to 10,000 in the state. A 2003 News-Leader story put the number at 5,000....
State kills 257 wild hogs, but eradication unlikely Aerial hunters approved by the state shot and killed 257 wild hogs in Kansas during a two-day hunt last week, but experts say the troublesome swine will continue to wreak havoc in the state. An estimated 2,000 feral hogs make Kansas home, while Missouri might have as many as 10,000. Nationally, feral swine are estimated to number 4 million and cause nearly $1 billion in damage. The hogs are blamed for stealing field crops, ruining wetlands and potentially spreading disease to livestock. And they have no natural predator, meaning they can reproduce with little or nothing to stop them. Although many hunters would like to go after the hogs, the state of Kansas has banned such hunting, hoping to take away the incentive for people to release the hogs into the wild. But landowners say they are still constantly asked by hunters for permission to hunt the hogs....
Crocodile fossil hunt is big fish story A walk into the high desert of Oregon has netted an amateur paleontologist a heck of a fish story, and perhaps some unexpected insight into a Native American totem animal. "That morning, what I saw was a skull weathered out of a hillside," says Andrew Bland of the North American Research Group (NARG), a hobbyists' group looking for fossils last year on a rancher's land in eastern Oregon's Crook County. "I followed it up the hillside and saw there was a lot of it. Then I got excited." Digging into the hillside over a day and a half, the team uncovered almost half of a six to eight-foot long crocodile, Thalattosuchia, which lived more than 160 million years ago during the Jurassic era. Remarkably, the croc had a fish tail, which along with the needle teeth found in the skull must have made it a swift predator at sea. Most intriguing, the fossil croc bears a striking resemblance to the totem animal of Native American tribes, the Kiowa, Sioux, Pomo of northern California and others, says Adrienne Mayor, a visiting scholar at Stanford University, author of Fossil Legends of the First Americans. A University of Oregon artist's depiction of the crocodile greatly resembles the Kiowa artist Silverhorn's 1891-94 sketch of a water monster with scales, a long narrow head with needle teeth and a forked fish-tail drawn to illustrate water serpent legends, Mayor says. The Pomo Indians described a fish-tailed, needle-toothed water monster called Bagil, as well....
Navajo Nation watches ID tracking technology take hold Maybe someone should tell Little Bo Peep. If she'd used the radio identification tags Navajo Nation cattle and sheep ranchers are required to put on their livestock, Peep might have been able to hold on to her sheep. "There are a lot of neat things we can do," said Scott Bender, a veterinarian with the Chinle, Ariz., Veterinary Clinic. The Navajo Nation is bringing technology into the lives of its ranchers, using it to assess herd health, ensure meat quality, find lost animals and locate farms in the rural reservation, where farms often lack addresses. Navajo ranchers are adopting the technology, though not without suspicion. "Opinions vary," said sheep rancher Alton Henderson, 40, of Crownpoint. "Some people feel like it's an invasion of privacy."....
Dwindling breed evokes memories of Montana's rich ranching history The son of bull royalty, Prince Domino IX lived and died on the Willow Creek Ranch at the base of the Highwood Mountains near Belt. Weighing more than a ton, his wide back and square body sat short to the ground — the epitome of the Hereford breed. His strong genes have since passed on to his more than 6 million descendants. "That's what a bull should look like," said Jack Hoover, whose father bought the bull for $5,000 in the 1920s. These days, few do. Once as much a part of Montana's landscape as the prairies it grazed, the Hereford has been replaced. Forty years ago, Montana Hereford breeders registered 23,000 calves a year. Today that's dropped to just 3,000. Driven by aggressive and clever marketing, Angus is king, and Montana is the capital of the kingdom. The state has five of the country's largest Angus breeders and claims more registered Angus cattle than any other state....
A View from the Past That little Agnes Fortier, the twelve year old daughter of Francois Fortier, a rancher living near Hazen, killed a full grown bobcat yesterday with a piece of firewood. The little girl entered the woodshed which was some distance from the house, to secure material for the kitchen stove, when the cat, attracted by the smell of mutton, hanging spitted from the beams, sprang upon her, lacerating her face and neck. Torn by the claws of the ferocious animal the child put up a game fight. Churchill County Eagle - March 14, 1907

Coming home again

By Julie Carter

I am the favorite daughter and the favorite sister. My brothers will have to agree with both statements because I am the only girl in our family of four children.

I am also the eldest of the pack of mountain children, which sounds better than hillbillies, but really, that's what we were.

This weekend we will all be under the same roof for the first time in a dozen years.

I'm not sure how that happens; how a family once so close can get so scattered and caught up in life that we forget to come home, but it has.

My mother is ecstatic about the gathering; as well she should and would be.

As all mothers will do, she will feed us well, give us sage advice and tell us stories from the old days we've probably heard multiple times.

And best of all, she will scold us like she did when we were all under the age of 12. There is something comforting about that.

The teasing and the bantering will be non-stop. The grandchildren will hear tales about their parents that will amaze and delight them. They are old enough now to have an adult concept of their parents as children.

They also begin to understand why their parents are smart enough to know what they are up to; that parents really aren't clairvoyant, just experienced.

We will once again prove that tattling to your parents is not something that stops with adulthood.

People who are now getting AARP propaganda in the mail will still find delight in reminding their mother just how bad their brother or sister was as a teen.

"Mom did you ever know that Julie was really not at her friend's house like she said she was? You knew about that party, right?"

"Mom, did Lonnie ever tell you about the time .... ?" This conversation could take half the weekend.

"Mom, you do know that Bruce wasn't really sick because of your fried chicken, right? Fried chicken doesn't give you a hangover."

"Mom, we know Jim is your favorite but only because he's the baby. He's not really any better than we are. He just got away with it more often."

Sibling relationships slide right into adulthood without much adjustment.

I'm still the bossy older sister with little tolerance for their nonsense and have lost none of my ability to tell them so. They have lost none of their ability to ignore me.

The three "boys" will size each other up for what life has dealt them in the way of careers, wives and children.

After that short assessment is over, they'll all hit the cookie jar looking for mom's specialty-chocolate chip cookies.

The visit probably won't be long enough, but maybe it will fuel the desire to do it again before a decade passes by.

We aren't special or unique. Nor are we any less or any more dysfunctional than most families.

What we are is family. And for that, we do know we are blessed. Even if we don't always show it.

©2007 Julie Carter

OPINION/COMMENTARY

An Inconvenient Economic Truth

AS THEY STRUGGLE to cope with voters' new concern about global warming, the world's politicians seem to be standing in front of Snow White's mirror asking, "Mirror, mirror on the wall, who in the land is the greenest of all?" while desperately chanting the Everly Brothers hit, "Let it be me." Australia's Prime Minister John Howard opened the bidding by banning the sale of incandescent light bulbs, starting in 2010; Britain's Tony Blair and Germany's Angela Merkel are competing for the anti-global warming leadership of Europe, while the British prime minister-to-be entertains Al Gore for what can only be an ample lunch; Tory leader David Cameron is erecting windmills on his house and targeting air travel, with people who fly most often (read: wealth-generating businessmen) to be taxed at the highest rate; California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has converted one of his Hummers to hydrogen and another to biofuel, and says the environmental movement is taking off just like the body-building movement once did; and George W. Bush is lavishing billions of taxpayers' money on America's already-cosseted farmers to get them to grow more corn. All of these plans have two features in common: rationing and new costs....


Who really owns beachfront property?

Few places in the world offer a more spectacular view than the Gulf of Mexico, seen from the top floor of a beachfront condominium in Naples, Fla. That's why – we'll call him Charlie – chose to live in this condo, three miles north of the Naples pier. It was a beautiful March day when Charlie noticed a county truck with four workers driving on the beach in front of his condo. The workers were driving stakes into the ground. Charlie, and other residents of the building, asked the workers not to drive the truck onto their private property and not to put stakes into the ground. The workers said they were identifying where sea oats, an endangered species, would be planted. Charlie and the other residents, again, asked the workers to get off their private property. Presently, another county truck arrived, and the project manager, an employee of Collier County, emerged and, according to Charlie, announced that the property in question was "owned by the federal government."....


TRUTH ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING TOO INCONVENIENT FOR GORE

While former Vice President Al Gore did his best to limit his exposure while testifying at Congressional hearings, he cannot hide from the various mistakes, misstatements and outright falsehoods in his movie and books on global warming, says H. Sterling Burnett, senior fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis.

There are several instances where Gore is out-of- step with science, says Burnett:

* Gore implies that human-caused global warming is instigating a decline in the snow pack on Mount Kilimanjaro; however, according to studies in the International Journal of Climatology and the Journal of Geophysical Research, the retreat began in the late 19th century -- before most human greenhouse gases were emitted.
* Gore also says that human-caused global warming poses a threat of extinction to polar bears; yet current polar bear numbers have increased dramatically, from around 5,000 polar bears in the mid- century to between 22,000 and 25,000 today.

Additionally, Gore has implied that in the near future global warming threatens to raise sea levels between 20 and 40 feet, swamping coastlines and creating 200 million refugees:

* However, the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report provides a high estimate of only 17 inches of sea level rise in the next century -- less than half its previous high estimate.
* And a 2005 study in the Journal of Glaciology by a NASA scientist concludes the glacial loss is occurring slowly: 0.05 millimeters on average per year. At that rate, it will take a millennium for the oceans to rise 5 centimeters (roughly 2 inches) and 20,000 years to rise a full meter.

Source: "Truth About Global Warming Too Inconvenient for Gore," National Center for Policy Analysis, March 21, 2007.

For text:http://www.pr-inside.com/truth-about-global-warming-too-inconvenient-r72576.htm



Gore on the Rocks

As international celebrity and film star Al Gore prepared to testify about global warming on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, it was already apparent that the hot air may be leaking out of the global-warming balloon. After a year of concentrated effort that includes a multimillion-dollar p.r. campaign on top of An Inconvenient Truth and slavish media coverage parroting the climate-alarmist line, recent polls show that public opinion has barely budged. Only about a third of Americans, according to a recent Gallup survey, are agitated about climate change, and even people who say the environment is their most important issue rank climate change behind air and water quality in importance. Meanwhile a backlash in the scientific community has begun. Last week, New York Times veteran science reporter William Broad filed a devastating article about scientists who are “alarmed” at Gore’s alarmism; Gore’s account of global warming goes far beyond the evidence. The dissents from Gore’s extremism, Broad explained, “come not only from conservative groups and prominent skeptics of catastrophic warming, but also from rank-and-file scientists” who have “no political ax to grind.” It appears Gore refused to be interviewed directly for the article; he responded to e-mail questions only. This backlash has been quietly building for a while....


A Milestone of a Mistake: Inconvenient CAFE Truths

Demands for tighter auto fuel-economy standards are a major part of the global-warming bandwagon, and the newly unveiled Markey-Platts bill on auto fuel economy is being touted by environmentalists as a “bipartisan milestone” on the issue. Unfortunately, it’s a milestone of a mistake. It continues a central tradition of proponents of this program, known as CAFE (for corporate average fuel economy)—namely, never admit that CAFE has any impact on auto safety. In fact, CAFE is a well-established killer of a regulation, because it restricts the production of larger, more crashworthy vehicles. According to the National Academy of Sciences 2002 study of CAFE, this downsizing effect contributes to about 2,000 deaths per year—a huge toll for a program that’s been in effect for three decades. But according to the Markey-Platts bill, the NAS study “clearly states that fuel economy can be increased without negatively impacting the safety of America’s cars and trucks”. Actually, the study doesn’t say that at all. It does suggest that new technology can allow CAFE to be increased without further downsizing, but that’s quite a bit different from say CAFE will stop killing people. The NAS study does not conclude that new technology will allow a reversal of the downsizing that’s already occurred under CAFE. Second, the study never addresses the more fundamental point that more stringent standards would very likely restrict the upsizing of the new-vehicle fleet. That upsizing—an increase in average vehicle size and weight—is something that many consumers will want if (or, more likely, when) gas prices stabilize or fall in the future. The more stringent the CAFE standards are, the less the auto industry will be able to respond to that demand. In short, more stringent CAFE standards will be even more deadly than the current ones, and the NAS report is no basis for pretending otherwise....


Don't knuckle under to the enviro-luddites

In spiritually weak moments, I sometimes envy the blind faith of the environ-zealots, even if the object of their faith is hardly sacred. For all their self-congratulation over their allegiance to science and the scientific method, they flatly violate the spirit of scientific inquiry in their approach to environmental issues. Of course they cloak all of their claims with the cover of science. They accompany their manifestos with endorsements from hundreds or thousands of scientists, who serve as the functional equivalent of human shields to insulate their extreme claims from scrutiny by the not yet converted. Never mind that many of the credentialed signatories are anything but experts on climate science. They are scientists, and they buy into the dogma. End of discussion. Never mind that the reports said to be the final word on these subjects are sometimes crafted by results-oriented, ideologically intoxicated bureaucrats and published before the signatories have had the opportunity to read them. What matters is that the bishops of this secular cult have issued an edict proclaiming that a consensus on global warming has been reached: It is occurring, human behavior is contributing substantially to it and radical alterations of that behavior are mandated as a moral imperative....


Ethanol isn't worth getting pumped up about, but oil shale might be

There are no easy answers, but we can develop new sources of power. First, though, we need to move past one attempted solution that simply isn't working: ethanol. Because ethanol comes from homegrown corn (much of it from right here in Illinois) politicians love to pretend that adding ethanol will reduce the need for foreign oil. That's why President Bush recently called for quadrupling the amount of ethanol we use. But ethanol can't solve our energy problems. For one thing, it's expensive to refine ethanol, and it's difficult to add it to the existing fuel supply. That all costs money, which was reflected in last year's higher prices at the pump. Also, scientists have shown that burning ethanol actually wastes money. Cornell University professor David Pimentel found that processing corn into ethanol requires 29 percent more fossil energy than the fuel it produces. Others disagree on the exact percentage, but there's no doubt it takes a significant amount of energy to produce ethanol. "There is just no energy benefit to using plant biomass for liquid fuel," Pimentel says. And, of course, ethanol costs drivers, too. The federal government says that cars burning gasoline mixed with ethanol get fewer miles per gallon. That means more fill-ups, more often....

FLE

Illegals to sue imprisoned deputy sheriff In a case eerily reminiscent of the controversial jailing of Border Patrol agents Jose Compean and Ignacio Ramos while the illegal-alien drug-smuggler they wounded went free, two illegal aliens are now suing imprisoned Texas Deputy Sheriff Gilmer Hernandez for injuries from shell fragments that struck them as the officer shot at the tires of a van in which they escaped from a routine traffic stop. Maricela Rodriguez-Garcia and Candido Garcia-Perez are preparing to file a civil lawsuit against Hernandez and Sheriff Don G. Letsinger, possibly seeking millions of dollars in damages for alleged violation of their civil rights. Jimmy Parks, defense attorney for Hernandez, told WND the lawsuit "has just become standard operating procedure down here on the border." WND has obtained a copy of a draft complaint to be filed in the U.S. District Court in Del Rio, Texas, against Hernandez and Letsinger, both individually and in their official capacities. Parks said he was not surprised by the lawsuit and expects "the illegal aliens are going to sue for millions in this case."....
Border Crossers Rarely Prosecuted Guidelines issued by U.S. attorneys in Texas showed that most illegal immigrants crossing into the state had to be arrested at least six times before federal authorities would prosecute them, according to an internal Justice Department memo. The disclosure provides a rare view of how federal authorities attempt to curb illegal immigration. The memo was released this week in response to a congressional investigation of the dismissals of eight U.S. attorneys. It is unclear when the memo was written, but the Justice Department reviewed the guidelines sometime after a February 2005 performance review of Carol Lam, the top federal prosecutor in San Diego from 2002 until she was fired last month. Some Republican lawmakers had complained that Lam failed to aggressively prosecute immigration violations. The memo was written in response to Justice Department inquiries about immigration prosecutions by the five U.S. attorney offices that cover the 2,000-mile border - San Diego, Phoenix, San Antonio, Houston and Albuquerque, N.M. Guidelines vary by office, but migrants with no criminal records who have not been deported by an immigration judge will almost certainly be turned back to Mexico "numerous times" before getting prosecuted, according to another Justice Department memo dated Nov. 22, 2005. Those "voluntary returns" are booked on administrative, not criminal, violations. Parts of the other memo are blacked out, so it's unclear whether the document refers to U.S. attorneys in Houston or San Antonio. The memo says one Texas district prosecutes migrants if the Border Patrol catches them at least six to eight times. The other district prosecutes after someone is caught at least seven times....I wonder what the guidelines were in NM?
TSA Employees Accused of Thefts at LAX Misdemeanor theft cases are being filed against 10 employees and a transient suspected of pilfering the personal property of travelers at LAX, including hotel heiress Paris Hilton and singer Keyshia Cole, the City Attorney's Office announced today. Most of the alleged thieves are employed by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Transportation Security Administration, said Nick Velasquez of the City Attorney's Office. A news conference is planned at LAX tomorrow morning to discuss details of the investigation and charges. "We're a public law office, so whenever there's a significant announcement or a significant legal actions being taken, it's our duty and obligation to tell the public ... that we are working to ensure the safety and security of travelers at LAX," Velasquez said. Eight of the defendants are TSA employees who work at Los Angeles International Airport and two are employees of an LAX subcontractor, Velasquez said....
Congress Urged to Move Carefully on DC Gun Ban Attempts by "well-meaning members of Congress" to repeal the 1976 Washington, D.C., gun ban could backfire by keeping the case out of the U.S. Supreme Court, said attorneys representing six D.C. residents in a high-profile Second Amendment case. "We appreciate that the Second Amendment's many friends in Congress want to express themselves on the D.C. gun ban, and there are ways in which Congress can have a tremendously positive impact," said Alan Gura, lead counsel in Parker v. District of Columbia, which challenged the 1976 D.C. gun ban. But "Congress has to act very carefully," Gura told Cybercast News Service after a panel discussion of the case. "A congressional repeal of the D.C. gun ban right now could erase the recent court victory," he said, referring to the March 9 ruling by U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia that said the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms. "All of our hard work would be wasted," Gura warned. "We have to work with the members of Congress to make sure that if they want to express themselves legislatively on the D.C. gun ban, they can do so in a way that preserves the issue for litigation, Gura said. Second Amendment supporters have waited many years for the right case to bring before the U.S. Supreme Court. Their goal is for the highest court in the land to interpret the Second Amendment in a way that reinforces the constitutional right of individuals to own guns....
Terror Database Has Quadrupled In Four Years Each day, thousands of pieces of intelligence information from around the world -- field reports, captured documents, news from foreign allies and sometimes idle gossip -- arrive in a computer-filled office in McLean, where analysts feed them into the nation's central list of terrorists and terrorism suspects. Called TIDE, for Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment, the list is a storehouse for data about individuals that the intelligence community believes might harm the United States. It is the wellspring for watch lists distributed to airlines, law enforcement, border posts and U.S. consulates, created to close one of the key intelligence gaps revealed after Sept. 11, 2001: the failure of federal agencies to share what they knew about al-Qaeda operatives. But in addressing one problem, TIDE has spawned others. Ballooning from fewer than 100,000 files in 2003 to about 435,000, the growing database threatens to overwhelm the people who manage it. "The single biggest worry that I have is long-term quality control," said Russ Travers, in charge of TIDE at the National Counterterrorism Center in McLean. "Where am I going to be, where is my successor going to be, five years down the road?" TIDE has also created concerns about secrecy, errors and privacy. The list marks the first time foreigners and U.S. citizens are combined in an intelligence database. The bar for inclusion is low, and once someone is on the list, it is virtually impossible to get off it. At any stage, the process can lead to "horror stories" of mixed-up names and unconfirmed information, Travers acknowledged....
My National Security Letter Gag Order The Justice Department's inspector general revealed on March 9 that the FBI has been systematically abusing one of the most controversial provisions of the USA Patriot Act: the expanded power to issue "national security letters." It no doubt surprised most Americans to learn that between 2003 and 2005 the FBI issued more than 140,000 specific demands under this provision -- demands issued without a showing of probable cause or prior judicial approval -- to obtain potentially sensitive information about U.S. citizens and residents. It did not, however, come as any surprise to me. Three years ago, I received a national security letter (NSL) in my capacity as the president of a small Internet access and consulting business. The letter ordered me to provide sensitive information about one of my clients. There was no indication that a judge had reviewed or approved the letter, and it turned out that none had. The letter came with a gag provision that prohibited me from telling anyone, including my client, that the FBI was seeking this information. Based on the context of the demand -- a context that the FBI still won't let me discuss publicly -- I suspected that the FBI was abusing its power and that the letter sought information to which the FBI was not entitled. Rather than turn over the information, I contacted lawyers at the American Civil Liberties Union, and in April 2004 I filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the NSL power. I never released the information the FBI sought, and last November the FBI decided that it no longer needs the information anyway. But the FBI still hasn't abandoned the gag order that prevents me from disclosing my experience and concerns with the law or the national security letter that was served on my company. In fact, the government will return to court in the next few weeks to defend the gag orders that are imposed on recipients of these letters. Living under the gag order has been stressful and surreal. Under the threat of criminal prosecution, I must hide all aspects of my involvement in the case -- including the mere fact that I received an NSL -- from my colleagues, my family and my friends. When I meet with my attorneys I cannot tell my girlfriend where I am going or where I have been. I hide any papers related to the case in a place where she will not look. When clients and friends ask me whether I am the one challenging the constitutionality of the NSL statute, I have no choice but to look them in the eye and lie. I resent being conscripted as a secret informer for the government and being made to mislead those who are close to me, especially because I have doubts about the legitimacy of the underlying investigation....
City Police Spied Broadly Before G.O.P. Convention For at least a year before the 2004 Republican National Convention, teams of undercover New York City police officers traveled to cities across the country, Canada and Europe to conduct covert observations of people who planned to protest at the convention, according to police records and interviews. From Albuquerque to Montreal, San Francisco to Miami, undercover New York police officers attended meetings of political groups, posing as sympathizers or fellow activists, the records show. They made friends, shared meals, swapped e-mail messages and then filed daily reports with the department’s Intelligence Division. Other investigators mined Internet sites and chat rooms. From these operations, run by the department’s “R.N.C. Intelligence Squad,” the police identified a handful of groups and individuals who expressed interest in creating havoc during the convention, as well as some who used Web sites to urge or predict violence. But potential troublemakers were hardly the only ones to end up in the files. In hundreds of reports stamped “N.Y.P.D. Secret,” the Intelligence Division chronicled the views and plans of people who had no apparent intention of breaking the law, the records show....

All:
I have made some major changes to the Trackways website: http://www.paleozoictrackways.org/. Links to Quick Facts have been added as well as video tours of the listed sites where other tracks were supposed to have been found.
Also, check out the documentation page. This page will continue to grow as time permits, but for now, make sure you look at the video of someone getting a feel good environmental petition signed.
Also, please pass this webpage to anyone concerned about land closures and protecting our right to access public lands in the manner we choose. This proposed national monument is but one of the ways land closure advocates are trying to close our access to public lands in Dona Ana County. Please help and spread the word that we need help in keeping these areas open.
Thanks,
Fred

FindLaw Environmental Case Summaries - March 19-March 23, 2007

U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals

Utah Envtl. Congress v. Troyer (03/21/07 - No. 05-4183)
In an action alleging that representatives of the U.S. Forest Service violated federal law by authorizing six projects in four national forests in Utah, authorization is reversed in part as to three projects where the Forest Service acted arbitrarily and capriciously by failing to apply the applicable regulations when it did not use the best available science standard in approving those projects.
[To view the full-text of cases you must sign in to FindLaw.com.] http://laws.lp.findlaw.com/10th/054183.html

U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals

Action Marine, Inc. v. Continental Carbon Inc. (03/21/07 - No. 06-11311)
In case involving alleged emission of pollutants into the air from defendants' plant that darkened plaintiffs' property, denial of post-trial motion for judgment as a matter of law is affirmed as evidence and relevant law supported the jury's verdict and damage award, the final judgment, and the district court's decision to deny defendants' post-trial motion.
[To view the full-text of cases you must sign in to FindLaw.com.] http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data2/circs/11th/0611311p.pdf

NEWS ROUNDUP

Tourists cause global warming Holidaymakers may be ruining their favourite destinations through pollution and greenhouse gases, making the tourism industry one of the world's worst polluters, experts say. A flight to that pristine beach and a few nights in an air-conditioned hotel room, when repeated on the mass scale of modern tourism, is all it takes to put the holiday business on a polluting par with heavy industries. "Tourism is unfortunately one of the vectors of (climate) change at the moment and contributes, through its excesses, to the process of global warming," World Tourism Organisation (WTO) director general Francesco Frangialli told an international conference on meteorology in Madrid this week. In 2006, 842 million people took a holiday in a foreign country and 40% of them flew to their destinations. That's 336 million people, or more than the population of the United States, taking trips which spew greenhouse gases that fuel global warming....
Grizzlies at Yellowstone no longer 'threatened' Three decades after grizzly bears nearly died out in Yellowstone National Park, federal officials announced on Thursday that the grizzlies have recovered and will cease being a "threatened" species there. The fierce predators, which total more than 500 animals in a 14,000-square-mile region in and around the park, will be taken off the endangered-species list by late April, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director H. Dale Hall said. The notice came seven weeks after the agency said it plans to remove the area's gray wolves from the list by year's end. "We are confident that the grizzly bear in Yellowstone will thrive," Deputy Interior Secretary Lynn Scarlett said. Some conservation groups disagree. The Greater Yellowstone Coalition and the Natural Resources Defense Council both claim climate change and human encroachment threaten key foods and habitat for grizzlies, which coexist poorly with people, reproduce slowly and need big, undeveloped areas to live. The council threatened Thursday to sue for continued federal protection....
New Carbon-Dioxide Tracking Developed With concern growing about global warming, researchers said Wednesday they have developed a new system to track carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Being able to determine where and when this major greenhouse gas increases or decreases should help in projecting future climate change and evaluating efforts to reduce releases of carbon. "This is a pretty exciting opportunity," said Richard Spinrad, head of research at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. It produces an unbiased, objective statement of carbon observations, he said, but doesn't favor any particular policy or economic model. Tracking carbon dioxide release and absorption will improve understanding of its impact, he said, noting that one-third of the economy is weather and climate sensitive ranging from agriculture to transportation to insurance and real estate....
N.D. Lawmakers Consider Blackbird Kills Demand for healthier sunflower oil for potato chip frying is spurring a debate about whether millions of blackbirds should die to make it easier to raise the crop. Demand is rising for NuSun, a sunflower variety that produces oil with less saturated fat and no trans fat, said John Sandbakken, international marketing director for the National Sunflower Association. Saturated and trans fats help clog arteries and increase the risk of heart disease. One reason for NuSun's increased popularity is the decision by the Frito-Lay snack food company to use NuSun oil to cook its major brands of potato chips, Sandbakken said. The company announced the switch in May 2006, and sunflower plantings need to rise by 600,000 acres next year to meet the new demand, he said. But a roadblock to increased sunflower production is blackbirds, which feast on the oilseed crop. The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates the birds cause about $10 million in damage each year to sunflowers in North Dakota, which produces about half of the nation's sunflower output. Last year's North Dakota sunflower crop was valued at $158 million....
Biologists to gather to weigh ways to save border's jaguars He roars like a lion, ambushes prey and kills them with powerful crushing bites. His name is Macho B and he may be the single most photographed wild mammal in Arizona. One of four or five live jaguars seen in the state this century, Macho B ranges across mountainous terrain 30 miles north and south of the Arizona-Mexico border. More than 70 photographs and videos of the 12-year-old cat have been recorded since 1996 by volunteers who provide state biologists with much of what is known about Arizona's jaguars, which became rare about 1900. So far, Macho B is the star attraction. Macho B and his breed will come under review May 2-3 when biologists from Arizona, New Mexico and Sonora, Mexico, meet in Douglas to consider renewing the 1997 regional conservation plan for the cats, which are listed as endangered inside and outside the United States. The jaguar conservation team includes landowners, ranchers and citizen groups, in addition to state and federal agencies....
Mountain Lion Suspected of Killing Cow A 12-hundred pound cow was killed in a pasture near Tioga last week, and wildlife officials suspect it was a mountain lion that attacked the animal. Tioga-area rancher Francis Franson discovered the dead cow last Tuesday and notified authorities who tried to track the suspected mountain lion. Erma Franson says a plane was used in the tracking attempt, but no sign of the cat was found. John Paulson of the USDA Wildlife Service office in Bismarck says research by his staff indicates the attack on the large cow has all the signs of a mountain lion....
Interior chief: Energy development needn't hurt wildlife U.S. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne said Wednesday that new technology will allow resources such as natural gas to be tapped without disturbing wildlife and can reduce American dependence on imported energy. Kempthorne said President Bush's budget dedicates $22 million to restore nearly 500,000 acres in six targeted areas in the West. "These areas have seen growing conflict among competing uses of the land," he said, including wildlife habitat, recreation and energy development. "I am well aware of friction among conservationists, recreationists and energy developers," he told a meeting of the North American Wildlife and Natural Resources Conference. He added that conservation has been the rallying cry for many groups "only equaled by the cry for more energy and less dependence on foreign oil." He said the goal of the administration is to deliver the energy "in an environmentally sensitive way."....Seems to be a lot of concern about wildlife and recreationists, and none about the person who owns or leases the surface.
Arizona lawmakers pushing new ballot measure on state trust land Just months after Arizona voters rejected rival ballot measures on state trust land, lawmakers are pushing a new, scaled-back proposal. Partially a response to actual or threatened legal challenges to past state practices, the measure would provide exemptions to the Arizona Constitution's current prohibition on sale or disposal of trust land unless it is advertised and auctioned for at least the true value of the land, based on an appraisal. Arizona has approximately 9.3 million acres of trust land remaining from property given the state by the federal government at statehood for the benefit of schools and other public institutions. Use of Arizona's trust land has been controversial in recent years as urban areas have grown into surrounding desert and forests. While conservationists have pushed for preservation of open space, developers are seeking access to property for building. Meanwhile, educators want more money for schools and ranchers are fighting to preserve grazing rights....
Pentagon looking at other options on Pinon Canyon Pentagon officials have assured Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., they are looking at leasing land and other options short of condemning property in their plans to expand the Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site. Testifying before the Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday, Philip Crone, a deputy undersecretary of defense, told Allard the Army is looking at leasing agreements and easements as options to expand PCMS by 418,000 acres without having to purchase or condemn land. While Fort Carson officials have said they want to discuss many options with landowners around PCMS, Crone's testimony was the first time that Pentagon officials have made such an offer. Allard has said he will not support the Army's use of eminent domain to expand PCMS and credited Fort Carson officials with looking at ways that ranchers around PCMS may retain their land and grazing ability even if the 238,000-acre training area is expanded....
Stakes are high in roadless rule "Efforts to save roadless areas in the national forests have been going on for 30 years, with little progress. We're losing lands all the time. It's time for the federal government to make a decision," says John Swartout, executive director of Great Outdoors Colorado and one of the 13 members of the Colorado Roadless Task Force. "Last year," Swartout said, "Colorado came up with a proposed rule of protection, with our task force holding 13 public meetings all across the state, receiving thousands of public comments. It was a brutal process, not a lot of fun. We came up with an ugly compromise. None of the sides really liked it, but it was what we could get everyone to agree to, because of diversity on the task force. And it can work." Former Gov. Bill Owens submitted that Colorado rule to the national roadless committee last Nov. 13. But with the change of governors, Colorado has been given additional time for the new administration to evaluate the rule. "Gov. [Bill] Ritter will make the decision within the next two weeks," assured Mike King, deputy director of the Division of Natural Resources....
Refuges losing funds battle National wildlife refuges - after years of budget belt-tightening - have lost so many employees that refuges in Colorado and around the nation have been left unstaffed, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. In the eight-state Mountain-Prairie Region, which includes Colorado, 44 positions have been lost since 2004. An additional 29 are slated to be cut by 2009, the service said. The impact can be seen in fewer programs for visitors and an increasing problem of invasive plants in the refuges, said Ron Shupe, deputy assistant regional director for the National Wildlife Refuge System. Keeping out invasive plants is a critical issue for refuges that are trying to maintain wildlife habitats, he said. "There are about 160,000 acres out of 3 million total upland acres needing maintenance that aren't getting it," Shupe said. Workers are also having to cover huge territories, he said. Only 78 of the 148 refuges in the Mountain- Prairie Region are staffed, Shupe said....
County says its facing economic disaster over well shutdowns Morgan County officials told Gov. Bill Ritter on Thursday the county is facing "economic catastrophe" unless they get emergency help by April 15 for farmers whose water wells were shut down by the state in a water rights dispute. They asked Ritter to issue an emergency executive order for a moratorium on shutdowns for two years so they can find a solution to a problem that has idled thousands of acres of farmland. "If these farming operations and supporting businesses are allowed to collapse or close, the economic benefits they now generate will be gone for good. My question to you, as the leaders of our state government, is, `Are you willing to shoulder the blame for the clearly pending economic catastrophe in Northeastern Colorado which will be in full bloom by the next election or are you ready to listen to the voices in the wilderness and have the courage and foresight to initiate changes which will avert or weaken the pending impact?" Don Jones, president of the Morgan County Economic Development Commission, asked Ritter....
Officials: Spring will see Tumacacori Wilderness bill It’s been nearly three three years since U.S. Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., stood in the shadow of the Tumacacori Mountains west of Tubac and pledged to introduce legislation designating some 83,000 acres of grasslands, riparian canyons, and sky island peaks a federal wilderness area. Now, Grijalva’s party has a majority in the House and Grijalva himself has been given the chairmanship of the committee charged with holding hearings on wilderness legislation. Can Santa Cruz Valley residents expect a Tumacacori Highlands wilderness bill soon? The short answer is yes. So says Doug Scott, policy director with the Campaign for America’s Wilderness and the man who literally wrote the book on the landmark Wilderness Act of 1964. “Legislation will be introduced this spring for sure,” Scott said Wednesday during a tour of the area. “I think this will be a very productive year for wilderness.”....
Activists win on three counts in forest logging challenges A federal appeals court has issued a split decision in an environmental group's challenge of six logging projects in four Utah national forests. The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals this week agreed with the Utah Environmental Congress that the U.S. Forest Service failed to comply with federal environmental laws on three of the projects, all located in southern Utah. But the court upheld the agency on the other three projects at the northern end of the state. Utah Environmental Congress executive director Kevin Mueller calls the decision a significant victory for the preservation of wildlife habitat in Utah forests. Generally speaking, the environmental group challenged Forest Service regulations crafted in 2000 that require the agency use only the "best available science" in making logging project decisions, rather than the more stringent regulations that date back to the early 1980s. In the case of the three southern Utah projects, the Forest Service was bound to the older rules because the individual forest plans predate the 2000 changes. The northern Utah proposals were upheld because those forest plans were updated in 2003....
Forest Service Officially Denies Permit for Off-road Event But Unofficially Gives It the Nod Under scrutiny from conservation groups and local homeowners, the Gila National Forest denied a permit request for a large all-terrain-vehicle "Jamboree" in the Burro Mountains from March 22nd to March 25th. Despite the fact that Forest Service District Ranger Russell Ward determined that "there has been insufficient time for public participation and insufficient time to determine all the environmental effects related to [the Jamboree]," Mr. Ward invoked a bureaucratic loophole to condone and encourage the event to continue without a permit. "With a wink and a nod, the Forest Service is going to let dozens of high-powered off-road vehicles into the Burros despite admitting that this event risks harming sensitive Forest resources and exacerbating conflicts with other Forest users. How is the Service doing this? By waving a magic wand and saying the event doesn't need a permit. And that's appalling," said Chris Kassar, wildlife biologist with the Arizona-based Center for Biological Diversity....
Editorial - Sending swarms to harass our people Let's say government officials want you to turn over a piece of your property to them for free. Let's say you refuse, arguing that you have no legal requirement to do so. And let's say the government officials then embark on a harassment campaign to intimidate you into giving them what they want. Should that be legal? We know that the Fifth Amendment protects the public's right to keep government off their property. But is it implicit in that right that government agents cannot abuse their power to harass you? This is the subject of a case now being argued before the U.S. Supreme Court in Wilkie v. Robbins. As R.S. Radford and Timothy Sandefur of the Pacific Legal Foundation explain in a Legal Times article, Harvey Frank Robbins is a Wyoming man who bought a ranch in 1993, “not knowing that the previous owner had agreed to give the Bureau of Land Management an easement over the land. BLM agents, however, had neglected to record the easement, so when the purchase went through, Robbins got the land free and clear.” This clearly was the mistake of the government agents, yet they weren't about to let Robbins off the hook when he did not accede to their request to reinstate the easement. The agents made threats against him. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg spoke during oral arguments “of a pattern of harassing conduct that included trespasses on this man's lodge and leaving the place in disarray, videotaping the guests, selective enforcement of the grazing laws, a whole pattern of things, even asking the Bureau of Indian Affairs to impound his cattle.” Rather than punish these government agents who have clearly abused their power, the federal government is asserting in the nation's highest court the right of government representatives to act in this very manner....

FLE

Far-reaching Gun Ban Would Cripple The Second Amendment Right now, we need your help in beating back a reintroduction of the so-called "assault weapons ban," the infamous bill that outlawed many types of firearms based primarily on cosmetics, misinformation and scare tactics. The bill is HR 1022, and last month it was introduced by the Queen of Gun Control, Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY). McCarthy entitled her bill the Assault Weapons Ban and Law Enforcement Protection Act of 2007, knowing these firearms aren't "assault weapons" and knowing the bill she is reintroducing does nothing to prevent violent crime -- since the guns in question have seldom been used in crime. McCarthy's bill would reinstate all of the now defunct provisions related to semi-automatic firearms and large capacity magazines. The manufacture and/or importation of many firearms would be prohibited. This would be paired with a strong ban on the possession or transfer of detachable magazines having moderate or larger capacities. Truth be told, HR 1022 is the old ban on steroids. Fourteen more guns are listed by name than in the '94 ban, and only one "dangerous" feature, such as a pistol grip, is needed to make a "nice" gun into a "bad" gun. The old ban required two "dangerous" features, such as a pistol grip and a folding stock. This distinction effectively expands the scope of the bill to ban a far broader variety of firearms. Since the U.S. Department of Justice has already documented that the previous "assault weapons" ban did absolutely nothing to stop violent crime, it is clear that HR 1022 is simply a direct attack on the 2nd Amendment rights of gun owners....
The Witch Hunt Against Gun Owners Two weeks ago, the Roanoke (Va.) Times published an online database of registered concealed handgun permit holders in the paper's community under the sanctimonious guise of "Sunshine Week." The database included both the names and street addresses of some 135,000 Virginians with permits to carry concealed weapons. Columnist Christian Trejbal patted himself on the back for making it easy to snoop on the neighbors: "I can hear the shocked indignation of gun-toters already: It's nobody's business but mine if I want to pack heat. Au contraire. Because the government handles the permitting, it is everyone's business." Trejbal denied that compiling the concealed carry permit holders list was "about being for or against guns." But he exposed his true agenda when he compared law-abiding gun owners to . . . sex offenders: "A state that eagerly puts sex offender data online complete with an interactive map could easily do the same with gun permits, but it does not." The Roanoke Times showed reckless disregard for the safety of the license holders and reckless disregard for accuracy. In his column, Trejbal admitted that he knew some of the information he had obtained was inaccurate -- but published it anyway: "As a Sunshine Week gift, The Roanoke Times has placed the entire database, mistakes and all [emphasis added], online at http://www.roanoke.com/gunpermits. You can search to find out if neighbors, carpool partners, elected officials or anyone else has permission to carry a gun." After an uproar among gun-owners, including domestic violence victims licensed to carry, the Times finally decided to yank the database. Trejbal seems not to feel much remorse: "Did we make it easier [to obtain the information]? Yes. But it's still a public record." Let's review: He published a list he knew contained inaccuracies. His paper admits the decision endangered gun owners. He compiled a convenient shopping list for criminals -- and smacked law-abiding gun owners in the face with his comparison of their choice to exercise their rights with sex offenders....
Community Suggests Gun Possession Is Illegal For Residents Some people in a Nashville neighborhood are furious over a new rule that makes it illegal to own a gun. Residents in Nashboro Village said it's unconstitutional and leaves them defenseless. Two weeks ago, residents received a letter from their homeowners' association indicating that guns are not allowed on the property. Two weeks ago, the property management company at Nashboro Village told its residents no more guns on the property. Officials with Ghertner and Company, the property manager at Nashboro Village, would not make an on-camera comment about the gun policy but said they plan on changing the rule soon to allow firearms on the property. However, they would make it illegal to fire those guns, which residents say is still unconstitutional....
SAF supports Adventure Outdoors battle against Bloomberg The Second Amendment Foundation today confirmed that it is providing financial support to Adventure Outdoors of Smyrna, Georgia in a lawsuit against New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and other New York defendants for attempting to ensnare and defame the store in Bloomberg’s infamous 2006 gun shop “sting.” SAF’s support was requested by attorney and former Georgia Congressman Bob Barr, now working at the Jasper, Georgia law offices of Edwin Marger, which represents Adventure Outdoors. SAF founder Alan M. Gottlieb said the foundation has sent a check to Marger, and promised to help bring public attention to the case. The Justice Department has declined to file criminal charges against any of the gun dealers targeted by Bloomberg, and has advised Bloomberg’s office that it could face “potential legal liabilities” if such sting operations continue. Earlier this year, W. Larry Ford, Assistant ATF Director for Public and Governmental Affairs, confirmed to SAF that the agency “is investigating the matter [Bloomberg’s stings] in order to determine if violations of federal firearms laws occurred.”....
Let's Ditch The Second Amendment But there's a big problem with blasting Silberman for entertaining the notion that the people's right to "keep and bear arms" may actually include an individual right to, well, keep or bear a gun in the District of Columbia: None of these words actually come from his opinion. All, in fact, were written by esteemed liberal law professors. The first is from Laurence Tribe's famed treatise on the Constitution, the latest version of which Tribe altered in recognition of the growing power of the individual-rights view of the amendment--a view he had long rejected. The second is by Sanford Levinson, who--before he stopped believing in the Constitution altogether--wrote an illuminating law review article called "the embarrassing second amendment." The final quotation is from Akhil Reed Amar's ambitious history, The Bill of Rights. One can still muster strong arguments in favor of a collective-rights conception of the Second Amendment, the view that has prevailed in most other circuits; and the individual-rights view does not necessarily doom all gun control (though it probably does doom the most sweeping bans). But the simple truth is that the individual-rights view is in intellectual ascendancy, and not just among gun-loving wing nuts. If Silberman is a radical with blithe disregard for public safety, he is in exceptionally strong company. It's time for gun-control supporters to come to grips with the fact that the amendment actually means something in contemporary society. For which reason, I hereby advance a modest proposal: Let's repeal the damned thing....
Signs of Life in the Second Amendment For nearly 70 years, the Second Amendment has been the Jimmy Hoffa of constitutional provisions -- missing, its whereabouts unknown, and presumed dead. The right to keep and bear arms, though treasured by many Americans, was a complete stranger to the Supreme Court. But recently, a federal appeals court did something no federal court had ever done before: It struck down a gun control law as a violation of the Second Amendment. The District of Columbia statute in question is one of the most stringent in the country. It bans the ownership of handguns except those registered before 1976, and it requires rifles or shotguns to be not only registered but kept unloaded and equipped with a trigger lock. Such tight restrictions, the appeals court said, can't be reconciled with the Bill of Rights. The decision does not prove that the Second Amendment is alive and well. But it does mean that, finally, we are likely to get an answer from the Supreme Court on a question that has generated endless debate: Is the Second Amendment a meaningless anachronism, or a live guarantee? The court will be confronting the issue at a time when legal scholarship is increasingly inclined to say there is indeed a right to keep and bear arms....
Use of deadly force likely to be expanded in Texas Texas legislators have sent to Gov. Rick Perry's desk a bill that allows people to use deadly force against attackers outside their homes under a much broader range of circumstances than current law allows, including in defense of their cars or businesses. There is little doubt Mr. Perry will sign the bill, which broadens the scope of self-defense claims in homicide cases, because it passed unanimously (30-0) in the Texas Senate last week and by a 133-13 margin with no debate in the House on Tuesday. And he publicly has praised the Legislature for passing it. The self-defense legislation, proponents claim, strengthens a resident's right to defend his home and harkens back to the state law before it was changed 33 years ago. The bill has been called the "Castle Doctrine," from the age-old feeling that a man's home is his castle and that he has a total right to defend it. Opponents, including some prosecutors, claim the new legislation, which for the first time includes the right to protect oneself in a vehicle and the workplace, fosters a "shoot first and ask questions later" mentality....
Lawsuit Focuses on Whether Mexico Influenced Arrest of Border Agents A government watchdog group wants to know whether the Mexican government influenced the decision by federal prosecutors to go after two ex-border agents who shot a Mexican suspected of smuggling drugs into the country. Judicial Watch filed a lawsuit on March 16 in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., asking the court to force the Department of Homeland Security, the Justice Department and the State Department to release information related to the case of former U.S. Border Patrol agent Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean, now serving prison sentences of 11 and 12 years respectively for the shooting incident. "We are interested in learning about any deals brokered between the U.S. and Mexico following the shooting in 2005," said Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch. "Given the public and congressional controversy surrounding the case, the more the American people know about what happened, the better." The group brought the suit because the federal agencies did not yet respond to a Freedom of Information Act request filed on Jan. 24....

NEWS ROUNDUP


Gore Challenges Congress on Climate Environmental activist (and former vice president) Al Gore descended on Capitol Hill yesterday, telling two congressional panels that global climate change represents the most dangerous crisis in American history and that the measures needed to fix the problem -- such as an immediate freeze on new emissions from cars and power plants -- are far more drastic than anything currently on the table. Gore, whose documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" won an Academy Award last month, testified before both House and Senate committees in an appearance that drew international media attention and lines of would-be spectators trailing through congressional hallways. In both hearings, he had testy exchanges with lawmakers who doubted his scientific evidence or the feasibility of his solutions. Much of his day, though, was spent basking in an odd spotlight: Gore and his cause have Washington's full attention. But his message, of a feverish planet and dwindling time in which to cure it, made for a grim homecoming. "This is not a normal time. We are facing a planetary emergency," Gore said in the afternoon Senate hearing. "I'm fully aware that that phrase sounds shrill to many people's ears. But it is accurate." Gore's solutions were as sweeping as his metaphors. His recommendations began with the immediate national freeze on new emissions of carbon dioxide -- which could affect everything from cars to lawn mowers to coal-fired power plants -- and included an overhaul of the tax code. Payroll taxes should go down, Gore said, and taxes on polluters, especially those who emit carbon dioxide, should go up. Beyond that, Gore recommended a ban on incandescent light bulbs, which activists say are far less energy-efficient than new compact fluorescent bulbs; raising the fuel-efficiency standards for cars; and a "carbon-neutral mortgage association." The last would allow homeowners to more easily finance renovations to improve energy efficiency, he said. Gore acknowledged that almost all of these measures go well beyond anything lawmakers have contemplated so far....Go here for Gore's testimony and here for Bjorn Lomborg's testimony.
Gore plan would 'ban new cars and people' U.S. Rep. Joe Barton Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, today told former Vice President Al Gore his theories on global warming are not supported by the facts and if Gore's desires are implemented, there would be no new businesses, cars or even people allowed in the United States. "You just gave us an idea for a straight CO2 freeze, if I heard you correctly. I think that's an idea that's flawed. If you take that literally, we can add no new industry, nor new cars and trucks on our streets, and apparently no new people," Barton, who represents the 6th District in Texas, said. "People are mobile-source emitters. Every person emits 0.2 tons of CO2 a year, so an absolute true freeze would be no new industry, no new people, and no new cars." During a hearing before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, Barton challenged the "facts" being used to promote Gore's campaign for a new war on global warming, portrayed in Gore's film "An Inconvenient Truth." Gore has called such warming "a crisis that is by far the most serious we've faced," and described it as "a true planetary emergency."....
'Anti-greenhouse religion' scorched by Czech prez As Al Gore takes testifies before two congressional committees today on "global warming," Czech President Vaclav Klaus is warning "the anti-greenhouse religion" espoused by the former vice president is the modern equivalent of communism. Responding to questions by U.S. Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, and former House Speaker Denny Hastert, R-Ill., the Czech leader said: "As someone who lived under communism for most of my life I feel obliged to say that the biggest threat to freedom, democracy, the market economy and prosperity at the beginning of the 21st century is not communism or its various softer variants. Communism was replaced by the threat of ambitious environmentalism." He added, "The so-called climate change and especially man-made climate change has become one of the most dangerous arguments aimed at distorting human efforts and public policies in the whole world."....Go here to read the Klaus letter.
FBI probes pressure on Alaska regulators before Prudhoe oil spill People contacted by investigators say the FBI is investigating whether Alaska political appointees improperly punished state regulators who tried to enforce environmental rules against oil companies operating in Alaska. The inquiry is being conducted by the FBI and the U.S. Attorney's office in Anchorage. It is connected to an ongoing criminal investigation of BP for allowing pipelines it operates to corrode enough to cause a large oil spill on Alaska's North Slope in 2006. Similar pipeline corrosion discovered later that year forced the shutdown of Prudhoe Bay, the most productive oil field in the United States. Now, the actions of the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation have come under scrutiny from federal investigators, though it's unclear whether current or former state officials would face criminal charges. The DEC is responsible for overseeing oil operations in the state....
Navy mum on sonar use in whale case Citing the threat to national security, the U.S. Navy said it will not tell a U.S. court specifics about its use of sonar over the past four years. That response angered the Natural Resources Defense Council, which is suing the Navy to ensure sailors use sonar in a way that does not harm whales and other marine mammals. A U.S. District Court judge had asked the Navy to submit data for when and where sailors have used sonar since 2003. Navy officials worry such details could give potential enemies tactical information about how sailors use sonar to track and target submarines. Joel Reynolds, a Natural Resources Defense Council attorney, said he would challenge the Navy's position....
Report Says Corps Miscalculated on Levees The design and construction of the New Orleans hurricane levee system was flawed because the Army Corps of Engineers ignored warnings about the power of potential storms and made critical engineering miscalculations, according to a long-awaited investigative report from a team of Louisiana engineers and scientists. The "Team Louisiana" report echoed many of the findings of previous engineering inquiries but offered them in sometimes sterner terms, while highlighting some of the political forces that affected the flood system's formation. Army Corps of Engineers officials appear to have shortchanged the construction of essential flood protection systems to save money, according to the report, while at the same time, under local pressure, expanding the project's reach so that more low-lying land could be developed into new suburbs. Moreover, while the city was vulnerable to a relatively weak storm, Corps officials offered unsubstantiated assurances to the public that the system could withstand a "1 in 300 year" storm event, or a storm so severe it is likely to happen only once in 300 years, the report said....
Alaska to Pay Pilots in Plan to Kill Wolves Alaska will pay pilots licensed to shoot wolves from the air $150 for each wolf they kill under a new plan intended to protect their prey, including moose and caribou, state wildlife officials said yesterday. Efforts to control the wolf population have been complicated this year by rough winds, limited snow and higher fuel prices, making it harder to follow wolf tracks and more difficult and expensive to fly, said Ron Clarke, assistant director of the state’s Division of Wildlife Conservation. So far this year, 98 wolves have been reported killed. State officials have a goal this year of killing 382 to 664 wolves in five key areas, Mr. Clarke said. The state said Wednesday that another reason shootings had declined this year was the success of control efforts in the past. The aerial shooting program has been controversial since it began in 2003. At the time, moose populations had declined by about 50 percent over the previous two decades, affecting sport hunters and people who rely on moose for sustenance, said Bruce Bartley, a spokesman for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game....
Federal trappers kill 2 wolves - Montana Federal trappers shot two wolves that belonged to a pack believed to have killed a heifer on private land west of Wisdom earlier this month. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services investigated the depredation in the Big Hole Valley on March 17 and the wolves were killed two days later. Also, the remains of a dead wolf were recovered from U.S. Highway 191 near the Taylor Fork junction on March 11. The carcass was taken to the state wildlife laboratory in Bozeman for a necropsy, state wildlife officials said.
Deal expands wildlife habitat Cattle will no longer graze on a prime chunk of habitat for elk, moose, grizzlies and wolves south of Yellowstone National Park, according to a recent agreement. The deal involves 178,000 acres of national forest land southeast of Grand Teton National Park that's been identified as one of the best places for wintering elk. It's also been the source of long-running conflicts between predators and livestock. The National Wildlife Federation brokered a deal to retire grazing allotments in the area as part of a larger effort in the Yellowstone ecosystem to find ranchers willing to accept payment to no longer graze livestock in prime wildlife areas. With the latest deal, the group has put together more than 20 agreements covering nearly 500,000 acres. "We're not trying to get rid of all grazing in the Yellowstone ecosystem," said the group's Hank Fischer. "We're focusing on places where there's been conflict year in and year out." The latest effort involves a $450,000 payment to Fish Creek Cattle Co. owner Scott Stanko for the Bacon Creek and Fish Creek allotments on the Bridger-Teton National Forest in the Upper Gros Ventre drainage, Fischer said. About 100,000 acres will be closed to grazing. The remaining portions will allow infrequent grazing, but the emphasis will be on providing forage and habitat for wildlife....
Federal funds to purchase Plum Creek land holdings Montana Democratic U.S. Sens. Max Baucus and Jon Tester have recovered more than $8 million in federal funding to buy land in western Montana, including thousands of acres owned by Plum Creek Timber Co. in the Swan and Blackfoot valleys. The funding had earlier been set aside in the fiscal year 2007 spending bill, but temporarily dried up after Congress elected not to fund some earmarked projects. So the senators lobbied agency officials directly for the funding. The Blackfoot Community Project and Swan Valley Forest Legacy Fund each received $3 million to purchase land from Plum Creek. The funding will help The Nature Conservancy preserve 5,206 acres in the Horseshoe Hills area north of the Blackfoot-Clearwater Game Range and about 860 acres of land near Marcum Mountain east of Ovando. Once the deal is completed, The Nature Conservancy will hand over ownership of the Horseshoe Hills property to the U.S. Forest Service, and the Marcum Mountain lands will go the Bureau of Land Management as part of a long-term strategy to protect Plum Creek lands from development....
Antler hunting: Points of contentions For the past 30 years, Neil Trotta and his family have enjoyed collecting antlers shed by deer and elk on their property near East Canyon. Sometimes Trotta sells the antlers to a dealer he knows in Colorado. His home is decorated with lamps, candle holders, even a peace pipe made from antlers which deer and elk shed during February and March. But with a new regulation prohibiting antler collecting in the Division of Wildlife Resources' (DWR) northern region from Feb. 1 through April 30, Trotta and others like him must wait to get started. "You can't do it May 1," said the Utah landowner. "By May 1, the grass has grown and the sagebrush is growing and filled with ticks. The antlers have turned brown. It's hard to find them." DWR assistant director Alan Clark said the regulation was enacted at the recommendation of a group looking at why deer herds in the Cache unit in northern Utah were struggling to reach population objectives. Fawn survival is a major concern. Because the antlers have become valuable, Clark said, more people are searching for them. Some use all-terrain vehicles and drive off dirt roads, damaging habitat and, potentially, stressing fawns. There are reports of people chasing elk from vehicles, hoping the bulls shed their antlers....
Lawsuit challenges state's firefighting commitment A lawsuit filed by a former Nevada Division of Forestry helicopter pilot claims that state and federal officials conspired to pull Nevada out of the business of fighting fires from the air. Gardnerville resident Glenn Marr, 59, alleges in a wrongful termination lawsuit filed last summer that State Forester Peter Anderson decided to improve working relations between the state and federal government when he was hired in 2004. According to a complaint filed in U.S. District Court, Marr claims that part of that working relationship was to accommodate the federal agencies' desire to take over control of air operations of the Division of Forestry. Marr is suing the state claiming his firing violated his first amendment right to free speech. The complaint alleges that in 2005, the state began reducing the number of pilots and the number of hours flown during fire season. Marr said he complained to state forestry officials Anderson, Robert Ashworth, Mike Dondero, and Peter Cannizarro both directly and through chief pilot Pat Ross that the limitations on air operations were a danger to natural resources, lives, safety and property of residents in the path of wildfires....
Forest Service Once 'Attacked' Pine Beetle Problem One man who worked to save Colorado's forests and trees 50 years ago from a beetle epidemic believes saving the forest is no longer a top priority as pine beetles consume an area of the state the size of Rocky Mountain National Park. The government's handling of the problem now is sometimes criticized as too little, too late. At least 660,000 acres of Colorado pine trees are dead are dying from the current beetle epidemic according to aerial surveys. The government said there's no hope of stopping it. An old Forest Service documentary shows how the beetles were killed 50 years ago with a mixture of deadly pesticide and fuel oil called "goop." Hundreds of workers were trained to head into the forest and fight the beetles' advance. Bill Bailey was one of the so-called goopers. His three man team helped spray a million infected trees. "As far as the forest service was concerned, we practically controlled the infestation at that particular time," said Bailey....
Resident fights for animal owners' rights A Carbondale woman will testify for what she calls "animal owners' rights" before the state Senate's Agriculture Committee today. Lisa Speaker, founder and president of the Colorado Alliance for Animal Owners' Rights, said she will explain to the committee her proposed amendment to the Colorado Veterinary Practices Act. The amendment would allow, among other practices, equine massage therapists to massage horses without direct supervision of a veterinarian, Speaker said. Under the current law, the first conviction for performing an unsupervised massage on a horse is a misdemeanor, and the second a felony under the Colorado Veterinary Practices Act, Speaker said. "The violation is pretty harsh," she said. The bill, HB 1296, is carried by Rep. Wes McKinley, D-Walsh, and Sen. Lois Tochtrop, D-Thornton. It passed the House earlier this year 51-14. The Colorado Veterinary Medical Association, which represents 1,600 veterinarians statewide, opposes the bill. Association president Dr. Stacy Hudelson told the House Agriculture Committee in February her group is "alarmed" by the amendment, which she said would increase risks to the health and well-being of animal patients, "deconstruct" a professional licensing system and allow individual rights to "trump" the public good....Individual rights to trump the public good? Oh no!...I guess the "public good" is the state-enforced monopoly granted to the vets.
Trying to Know Billy the Kid: An Interview with Michael Wallis Michael Wallis’s new book, Billy the Kid: The Endless Ride (W. W. Norton, 328 pages, $25.95), is the closest anyone has come to a definitive biography of the most mythical figure of the American frontier. On July 14, 1881, Billy the Kid was shot and killed by Pat Garrett in Fort Sumner, New Mexico. That is one of the few hard and concrete facts of his life—and even it has been challenged by generations of mythmongers. Beyond that we know little. His mother, Catherine Antrim, was Irish and died of tuberculosis when he was scarcely a teenager. He drifted into New Mexico, got caught up in the swirl of personal, political, and economic clashes known as the Lincoln County War. Nearly everything else said about his life—including when and why he went by the surnames McCarty and Bonney—is open to question. It’s probably a safe bet that he has inspired more books, movies, and controversy per known fact than any other figure in American history. A dime novel hero in his own lifetime, he was the subject of a “biography” by Pat Garrett—or at least with Garrett’s name on the cover—that transcended the dime novels only in length, and his legend generated a small library of pulp by the end of the nineteenth century....