Obama's Environmental Agenda

Carol Browner, who headed the Environmental Protection Agency under President Bill Clinton, has been named by Barack Obama to be his Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change. This new and undefined office could give her broad influence over economic policy. That is a frightening prospect, not merely because of her participation in a group with overtly socialist ties, but because of the way hostile foreign powers such as China are manipulating the modern Green movement to serve their own national purposes. Between her two tours of duty in Washington, Browner served on the Commission for a Sustainable World Society, which is part of the Socialist International. The Socialist International works closely with the United Nations, and the Commission hopes to influence the UN Climate Change Convention that will meet in Copenhagen in December to draw up a new treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol. Until then, the Commission is holding a series of conferences on “global solidarity.” By this, it means re-orienting policy towards helping the developing world at the expense of the Western nations, which the Green movement deems over-developed. Cristina Narbona, Spanish Ambassador to the OECD and former Minister of the Environment, said at the Commission’s September meeting in Stockholm, socialists are “offering a different discourse, shifting the current economic paradigm towards one based on greater equity.” In other words, the Commission proposes a global transfer of wealth from the West to the rest....

The Rule Of The Green Czar

...What makes Browner’s association with the Socialist International noteworthy is that, after the worldwide failure of socialism, she continues to share many of its anti-capitalist views – and if confirmed as climate czar, she promises to translate them into policy. For example, Browner, calls herself a “strong backer” of “utility decoupling.” Under “decoupling” schemes, utility companies will be required to provide less energy, while the government guarantees the companies steady or increased profits through “taxpayer subsidies” and “voluntary” conservation measures. In other words, taxpayers will be given grim Carter-era exhortations to put on sweaters rather than turn up the thermostat and be forced to pick up the tab for utility companies’ reduced earnings, while getting less energy in return. Browner’s penchant for such dubious environmentalist schemes is just one troubling aspect of her nomination. Another is her history of abusing her office for political gain and a record on minority rights that can rightly be called troubling. In 1995, Browner used her position at the EPA to lobby environmental groups to oppose the Republican-led Congress, faxing out documents opposing the GOP’s regulatory initiatives. In a rare show of political unity, Browner was condemned by Republicans and Democrats, who accused her of violating the Anti-Lobbying Act. A stinging letter to Browner from a bipartisan subcommittee of the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee noted, “The concerted EPA actions appear to fit the definition of prohibited grass-roots lobbying...The prima facie case is strong that some EPA officials may have violated the criminal law.” This was not the only time that Browner was accused of abusing her authority. According to a February 2001 report in Time magazine, the EPA was plagued with “festering racial problems” during Browner’s time in charge. One African-American EPA employee, Dr. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo, told Time that she’d been passed over for promotions for being “too uppity,” adding, "We [African-American employees] were treated like Negroes, to use a polite term. We were put in our place.” Coleman-Adebayo was later awarded $600,000 in damages in a settlement that found the EPA guilty of “discrimination and retaliation against whistleblowers.” Shortly thereafter, Congress passed the “No Fear” government whistleblower protection act in response to the Coleman-Adebayo v. Carol Browner decision. Dr. Coleman-Adebayo lamented in a recent interview, “The very woman I prevailed against in court is being elevated to a White House decision-level position.” At least 150 EPA employees filed similar lawsuits during Browner’s time there....

GAO

Defense Infrastructure: Army's Approach for Acquiring Land Is Not Guided by Up-to-Date Strategic Plan or Always Communicated Effectively. GAO-09-32, January 13.
http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-09-32

Defense Infrastructure: Additional Information Is Needed to Better Explain the Proposed 100,000-Acre Expansion of the Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site. GAO-09-171, January 13.
http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-09-171

National Marine Fisheries Service: Improvements Are Needed in the Federal Process Used to Protect Marine Mammals from Commercial Fishing. GAO-09-78, December 8.
http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-09-78

Traveling Eco-Friendly

And if people want to live “green” lives by voluntarily eschewing some of the advantages of modern life, that’s great. But sometimes the suggestions for eco-friendly living, including travel, seem, well, a little silly. Eversave.com has just put out a list of ten, which include buying luggage made of hemp, refilling your bottles of water with tap water, and arranging to be picked up by a hybrid vehicle. My favorite was number one: Go Before You Go. If you wanna avert a little CO2, use the airport lavatory, not the one on the plane, since, believe it or not, the fuel used for every mile-high flush could run a car for 6 mi. Plus, who doesn’t want to avoid the cramped, nasty-smelling airplane bathroom? Well, I guess that would work if it is a short flight. Perhaps eco-conscious travelers could wear adult diapers for the transcontinental flights!

Texans ask Bush to commute agents’ sentences

Nearly all members of Texas’ congressional delegation are asking President Bush to commute the sentences of two Border Patrol agents. All but three of the 34 Texans in Congress signed a letter to Bush asking for the leniency. Agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean are serving sentences of more than 10 years each. The two were convicted in 2006 of shooting a man they suspected was a drug smuggler and trying to cover it up. The man was later convicted on drug charges from a separate drug smuggling attempt. The two agents were working the border in Texas.

'Attempted hit' put on Ramos family

The family of imprisoned Border Patrol agent Ignacio Ramos was the victim of an attempted hit on their lives this month, as the agent's wife says someone broke into their El Paso home and filled it with gas, trashing photographs and pummeling their dog. Just weeks after Monica Ramos spoke with WND about the difficulty of enduring Christmas without her husband, her family returned from visiting Ignacio in prison on Jan 3. While she was away, burglars stole DVDS, a BB gun and cell phone and slashed her couch with a knife. They even beat her dog and ripped cherished wedding pictures and family photos of their life with Ignacio off the walls, smashing them on the ground. But the vandalism wasn't the worst part, Monica revealed in a Jan. 12 BlogTalkRadio interview just before she left again to visit her husband. "It wasn't so much that stuff was burglarized or that they actually took much," she said. "What was really hard was that when we got here, the gas was turned on. It was very intentional in that somebody was trying to hurt us."....

EPA nominee pledges to quickly review California's emissions standard

Lisa Jackson, President-elect Barack Obama's choice to head the Environmental Protection Agency, told senators Wednesday that she will move quickly on California's request to enact its own far-reaching vehicle emissions standards. "My commitment is that I will immediately review that," Jackson, New Jersey's top environmental official, told Sen. Barbara Boxer, the California Democrat who chairs the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. "I will look to science and the law, and rely on the expert advice of the staff." That was a signal from Jackson, during her confirmation hearing to become EPA director, that she is likely to approve the state's bid — turned down by the Bush administration a year ago — for a waiver from the Clean Air Act to enforce its own standards. Obama pledged to grant the waiver during the presidential campaign. Stephen Johnson, outgoing EPA director, overruled the unanimous recommendations of his scientific and legal staff when he turned down the California standard, angering Boxer and other Democrats on the committee. New Jersey and at least 15 other states, with more than 40 percent of the nation's population, are ready to enact the California standard, designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent in new cars and light trucks by 2016....

Salazar confirmation hearings expected to yield few fireworks

Compared to Norton, Salazar - whose confirmation hearings before the Senate begin today - is no lightning rod. To some environmentalists, the pragmatic Salazar was not the first choice. But along with a smattering of skepticism and criticism, his selection drew mostly praise from conservation groups that had worked with him to push for a more cautious approach on oil shale development and energy drilling in general. Compared to Norton, "Salazar's record is far and away a more reasonable record on the environment," said Culp, now communications director for the Alaska Wilderness League. "He has shown a much greater willingness to listen to the concerns of the environmental community." Even Republicans are predicting smooth sailing for Salazar when he squares off with his former colleagues on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee....

Pork-filled 'wilderness' bill gets Senate approval

Calling a rare Sunday procedural vote, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., moved the U.S. Senate closer to passing a 1,300-page lands bill that would allocate $5 million in federal tax dollars on botanical gardens in Hawaii and Florida and $3.5 million to celebrate the 450th anniversary of the founding of St. Augustine in 2015 -- and place an additional 2 million acres in nine states off limits for any productive economic use by labeling them "wilderness" and/or declaring new and additional rivers to be wild and scenic. Yes, Americans who live so far away they will likely never see the "wilderness" areas in question -- all in the Western states, you understand, none throwing anyone out of work in Georgia, Illinois, Connecticut or Massachusetts -- may sleep more cozily now, believing that, far away in the distant West, something nice has been done for the birds and the bunnies. But those who actually live in the affected regions may not find it much of a "consolation" to be deprived of gainful employment in any number of resource industries -- mining, ranching, lumber -- that will now be barred from making any productive use of yet an additional 2 million acres. Such legislation is "necessary for the day-to-day functioning of the Western economy," intoned Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, the top-ranking Republican on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources committee, and among the Senate's largest, second-generation pork wranglers. Oh, hogwash. To the Americans actually attempting to make their livings on or near the lands in question, "wilderness" is not just about cozier dreams of happy squirrels. It's about loss of livelihood as a full- or part-time miner, rancher, sawmill worker, or even mushroom picker....

Army says it has been good steward in Pinon Canyon

Opponents of a proposed Army training site expansion in southern Colorado are disputing the military's claims that it has been a good steward of ranch land it seized by force in 1983. They include Gene Schroder, a third-generation rancher and one of a dozen ranchers who owned a grazing association when troops in military helicopters swooped in and ordered them off 33,000 acres of their land at gunpoint. That land went to the Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site, operated by Fort Carson south of Colorado Springs. "This isn't good stewardship. This is a fire hazard," Schroder said, pointing across the Purgatoire River during a recent field trip to swathes of wild plains where the Army conducts its training. Schroder said he visited his former property a year ago - with Army permission - and found windmills trashed, fences in disrepair and weeds and grass growing rampant, posing a wildfire hazard. The land is located west of Kim, 190 miles southeast of Denver, where roadsides are dotted with signs saying that private property is not for sale to the Army....

Army misfiring in shot at more Piñon Canyon land

The Army failed to adequately explain to Congress how it would use an enlarged Piñon Canyon Maneuver Site and its reasons for downsizing its request from 418,577 acres to 100,000 acres, according to a Government Accountability Office study. The report, released Tuesday, also questions why the Army says the estimated price of purchasing the land increased from $280 per acre in 2007 to a higher, undisclosed figure. In the report, the GAO said the Army budgeted $52.6 million over three years to expand the Piñon Canyon Maneuver Site — which sits 100 miles southeast of Fort Carson — but the Army did not say how much would be spent per acre. According to the report, an Army official said the increased cost is partly a reflection of how buying from only willing sellers and not using eminent domain can raise the price-per-acre average. The report also said the Army shortened the acquisition schedule from five to three years in an attempt to "accommodate the concerns of expansion opponents" who said uncertainties over expansion caused them economic hardship. U.S. Sen. Mark Udall said he was disappointed in what the report disclosed....

Settlement reached over critical habitat in NM

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and two environmental groups have reached a settlement that requires the agency to consider designating critical habitat for four endangered species found in southeastern New Mexico and Texas. A federal judge approved the settlement Tuesday. It gives the agency until March 11 to propose the designation of critical habitat in the Bitter Lake National Wildlife Refuge near Roswell. Three of the species — the Roswell springsnail, Koster's springsnail and Noel's amphipod — are found only at the refuge. The fourth species, the Pecos assiminea snail, is found at the refuge and two spots in Texas. Under the settlement, the Fish and Wildlife Service will have to make a final decision on whether to set aside critical habitat at the refuge and in Texas by July 2010. "Time is of the essence and we've lost a lot of time already," Michael Robinson of the Center for Biological Diversity said, referring to the legal battle that resulted in the settlement. The Fish and Wildlife Service initially proposed designating more than 1,500 acres of critical habitat for the Pecos assiminea snail and just over 1,100 for the other three in 2002. A final decision released in 2005 trimmed the Pecos snail's critical habitat to nearly 400 acres in Texas and did not designate any critical habitat for the other species. The action prompted the center and WildEarth Guardians to sue. The groups argued that without critical habitat, the four species would be vulnerable to oil and gas development and other threats....

Environmental group wins oil and gas appeal

U.S. Forest Service officials, in a rare move, have granted an appeal by a Western environmental group concerned about the impacts of potential oil and gas development on tens of thousands of acres in northern New Mexico. The Santa Fe National Forest amended its land and resource management plan last summer to give forest officials more guidelines for dealing with oil and gas exploration and development on forest land that borders the San Juan Basin, one of the largest natural gas fields in the nation. WildEarth Guardians asked regional forest officials to overturn the plan, saying the Santa Fe Forest failed to safeguard air and water quality and wildlife. The group argued the forest's decision would have cleared the way for the Bureau of Land Management to lease more than 113,000 additional acres of the forest, resulting in more development and more emissions. Deputy Regional Forester Gilbert Zepeda granted the appeal, saying the forest's plan lacked analysis required by the Endangered Species Act and did not include current air quality data. The forest now has to prepare either a supplement with the required information or new environmental impact statement.

Credit Tightening in Agricultural Loans

The credit crunch may force local farmers and ranchers to tighten their already snug belts. "It's depressing it's not a lot of good news," Rancher Guy Bell at the annual Beef Expo, said. "Not everybody can survive it." Jason Henderson, Vice President and Branch Executive of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, Omaha Branch gave the forecast to a crowd of ranchers on Tuesday. "Thinner profit margins in 2009," he said. Henderson says land values will dip slightly, while banks ask for more collateral of clients to offset risks in the market. "It is a gamble every time a farmer plants a crop, and it's a gamble when he comes to harvest a crop and that's what he and the banker are trying to sort out when they decide to loan him money," Jim Brueggen with the New Mexico Branch of the USDA, said. While profits are expected to fall in 2009 the cost of fertilizer and equipment continue to grow. Energy costs are yet another unknown in a business based on the biggest unknown of all, the weather. "Your whole livelihood is dealt around moisture," Bell said....

Raccoon: It's what's for dinner

He rolls into the parking lot of Leon’s Thriftway in an old, maroon Impala with a trunk full of frozen meat. Raccoon — the other dark meat. In five minutes, Montrose, Mo., trapper Larry Brownsberger is sold out in the lot at 39th Street and Kensington Avenue. Word has gotten around about how clean his frozen raccoon carcasses are. How nicely they’re tucked up in their brown butcher paper. How they almost look like a trussed turkey … or something. His loyal customers beam as they leave, thinking about the meal they’ll soon be eating. That is, as soon as the meat is thawed. Then brined. Soaked overnight. Parboiled for two hours. Slow-roasted or smoked or barbecued to perfection. Raccoon, which made the first edition of The Joy of Cooking in 1931, is labor-intensive but well worth the time, aficionados say. Raccoons go for $3 to $7 — each, not per pound — and will feed about five adults. Four, if they’re really hungry. The meat isn’t USDA-inspected, and few state regulations apply, same as with deer and other game. No laws prevent trappers from selling raccoon carcasses....I hereby designate Racoon as The Westerner's official Freedom Meat!
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History teaches us that Davy Crockett ate more than his share of racoon meat.

Feds admit that decades-old Mexican gray wolf recovery plan needs updating

Federal wildlife officials admit in a new assessment that the plan guiding their efforts to return the endangered Mexican gray wolf to its former glory in the Southwest is nearly three decades old and in need of an update. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service released a conservation assessment of the Mexican wolf on Friday. The public has until March 10 to review the draft document and submit comments. The agency said litigation over the status of gray wolves in other parts of the country has prevented it from creating a new recovery plan for the Mexican wolf, a subspecies of the gray wolf. However, Fish and Wildlife Service regional director Benjamin Tuggle said the assessment will provide the most up-to-date scientific information on the beleaguered wolf. "It will help to inform the many other components of our conservation efforts for the Mexican wolf, including captive management, reintroduction and recovery planning and implementation," Tuggle said in a statement. Environmentalists are calling the assessment "a substitute for action." Michael Robinson of the Center for Biological Diversity, which has been pushing for reforms in wolf management for years, said Tuesday the report contains valuable information about the Mexican wolf but fails to set new policies....

Fish and Wildlife Service to delist gray wolves

Montana’s gray wolf may be off the federal threatened and endangered species list next month. “We believe this is a major success story for conservation,” deputy secretary of the Interior Lynn Scarlett said Wednesday in a teleconference from Washington, D.C. “We’ve laid the groundwork for recovery to continue far into the future.” U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials decided to delist most of the wolf populations in the continental United States, including those in Montana, Idaho, Utah and the Great Lakes states of Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin. However, they stopped short of including Wyoming’s wolf population, citing that state’s inadequate wolf management plan. The change should be published in the Federal Register next week, Scarlett said. It will formally take effect 30 days after publication. Delisting means wolf management will become a job for state and tribal wildlife agencies instead of the federal Fish and Wildlife Service. There are about 1,500 wolves in the northern Rocky Mountains. That includes about 390 in Montana and 788 in Idaho. Wyoming has about 340 wolves....

Environmental groups appeal to Obama for shift in land use

Some 40 Western environmental groups are asking the incoming Obama administration for a fundamental shift in the way the federal government manages energy production in Colorado and the West. In a detailed, 17-page letter, the groups cite a litany of Bush administration actions they say have put energy development too far ahead of other land uses, including wilderness and wildlife protection. Much of the letter identifies locations at risk in Colorado. "We urge the Obama administration to restore balance to the management of our public lands and resources and to ensure that oil and gas development does not compromise the West's water, air, wildlife and rural communities," the letter said. The letter, written in December but released Monday, puts more pressure on the nominee for Interior secretary, U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar, who must juggle the demands of many environmental and conservation groups with the desire of an industrial coalition for continued access to federal lands. An advocate for energy development said the letter and other recent documents from environmental activists show their real interest is in shutting down industry on public lands....

Democrats Look for Ways to Undo Late Bush Administration Rules

Democrats are hoping to roll back a series of regulations issued late in the Bush administration that weaken environmental protections and other restrictions. Potential targets include regulations allowing concealed weapons in some national parks and forbidding medical facilities that get federal money from discriminating against doctors and nurses who refuse, on religious grounds, to assist with abortions. “Congress is going to have to roll up its sleeves and review these midnight regulations,” Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, said in an interview, “because it’s clear that they are part of a desire for the administration, as it heads out the door, to put some ideological trophies on the wall.” Mr. Wyden, the chairman of a subcommittee on natural resources, said he was focusing on a series of recently issued environmental rules. Among them are measures relaxing protections for endangered species, allowing uranium mining near the Grand Canyon, and making it easier for coal companies to dump mining debris in nearby streams and valleys. The enactment of such rules has been the subject of a drumbeat of news reports in recent months. Though it can take years for a new administration to complete the process necessary to overturn a rule that has taken effect — allowing a president to tie his successor’s hands — Democrats will have far greater opportunity to rescind Mr. Bush’s late rules than has typically been the case in a period when the party in power changes. With Democratic control of both chambers of Congress and the White House, the political planets are aligned to make much of the Bush administration’s late handiwork unusually vulnerable....

Obama bumps up against egos in Congress

Obama was mindful of the week's perils and, in several cases, managed to resolve the conflicts. But others remain in play to varying degrees of tension. For one thing, even some Senate committees had to scramble to learn Obama's Cabinet choices. The Energy and Natural Resources Committee, led by Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), never got official notice of two Cabinet nominees within its jurisdiction: Energy Secretary-nominee Steven Chu and Interior Secretary-nominee Ken Salazar. Rather, the staff of the committee pestered aides on the Obama transition team for clues as to whom the picks might be, ultimately ferreting out the names through their own efforts. "Did Bingaman receive a phone call from Obama, Biden or [transition co-chairman John] Podesta? No, he did not," a committee aide said. "We were very curious and wanted to keep our chairman informed. At our initiative, we pressed these [Obama staff] guys pretty hard. And through breaking news and leaks and our own undisclosed sources and through our own people working on the inside, we did know in advance."...Hat Tip Mathew Reichbach.