Dust-Up Clouds Spill Test

A tiny federal agency that investigates deadly chemical accidents said it was being thwarted in its probe of the Deepwater Horizon disaster by other federal agencies. The bureaucratic dust-up between the Chemical Safety Board and the federal Joint Investigation Team probing the accident could complicate the team's final report and any federal prosecutions related to the accident. Investigators with the Chemical Safety Board say they are being treated as a junior partner in tests scheduled to begin Monday on the Deepwater Horizon's blowout preventer. The huge stack of valves didn't shut down the BP PLC well on April 20, resulting in the massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Eleven rig workers died in the accident. The safety board has threatened to go to court to block the tests if it isn't permitted to have a larger role alongside the joint team, which is led by the U.S. Coast Guard and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement. Michael Bromwich, head of the Interior Department's Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, said in a recent interview the safety board has created a "disturbance and distraction."...more

Update on Sue Krentz - The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly....

Most of you already know Sue Krentz was hit by a drunk drive about 6 weeks ago. She and a friend were crossing the street in Douglas, AZ when they were hit.

Sue and I became friends about 14 years ago when we both started attending the Jaguar Conservation Team meetings. Through the years it became obvious the state and federal agencies were out of control and needed to be held accountable for their decisions. As a result of our dissention we got nicknamed the "evil twins" - a name we glory in!!

Last week I had the pleasure of staying with Sue a few days. Here's an update on her injuries.

As a result of the accident, Sue suffered 5 breaks in her pelvis, 4 in front and 1 in back. As her surgeon told her, "she got her butt busted". She now wears an external fixator (or halo) below her waist that is screwed into either side of her pelvis to hold her together as her breaks heals. She can not stand or walk but slides on a board from bed to wheel chair. Last week her surgeon said she had an abundance of new bone growth and things are looking good. This week he said she'd get the fixator off Nov 23rd. She will not be able to put any weight on her hips for at least two more months so she'll be wheel chair bound during this time.

Sue also had two cracked vertebras in her neck and a fracture at the base of her skull. She wears a neck brace to keep from compounding these injuries. I'm not sure how long she'll have to wear this contraption. Although she suffered some head trauma, it was not extensive and she's not lost a lot of memory or comprehension. She does not remember the day of the accident, but that's probably a good thing.

The tip of her right tibia was shaved off behind the knee. It was fixed soon after the accident and is healing well.

Add to all this, the man who hit her had 6 prior DUI arrests and no insurance. Her insurance has been pretty good but is now saying they may no longer pay for her therapy. Her stay in the Rehabilitation Center may soon come to an end too so pray this all gets straightened out and she gets the help she needs until fully recovered.

And then.... I called her today. She tells me the Coronado Forest Service showed up at their ranch yesterday with a Caterpillar. They intend to cut a road from the Krentz's forest allotment south through two of her neighbors' forest allotments to Hwy 80. The families were given no advance notice, no NEPA has been done and they have no say in what the Service is doing.

My first thought was why is the Forest Service cutting a north/south road through one of the drug corridors they warn everyone to avoid?? Nothing makes sense any more. What's the intent? Where's the accountability? Who's in charge of the asylum???

Sue appreciated all the cards, flowers and well wishes but she still needs your support and prayers.

ACGA has established an account to help the family with all the costs. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact their office- 602-267-1129.

Wells Fargo - Sue Krentz Recovery Fund 5206283169

Keep everyone in your prayers!!

Judy

Rename Heyburn? Mtn & town named after Senator who hated Forest Service

In a blog he writes for the Colorado-based High Country News, Boise State University professor John Freemuth recently suggested it’s time to rename Mount Heyburn, arguably Idaho’s most majestic peak. “The early Forest Service ... had its enemies,’’ said Freemuth, who teaches political science and public policy. “One of them, Sen. (Weldon) Heyburn of Idaho, tried to defund the new agency and have it abolished; it was that ‘damn federal government’ standing in the way of Heyburn and his cronies... “It is simply amazing, then, that a walk around or boat ride on Redfish Lake ... reveals Mount Heyburn in the Sawtooth Mountain range, one of the Forest Service’s most proud and important places. Shouldn’t this mountain have a name more suited to someone who did something to protect the Sawtooths and at least dealt honorably with the agency that manages them? It is time to start the process to change the name of this peak.” In nine years on Capitol Hill, the senator opposed every one of President Theodore Roosevelt’s initiatives to protect public lands. And after Roosevelt left the White House, Heyburn came close to wrecking the agency that now manages 21.4 million acres of Idaho land...more

Hell, they should name the whole state after him.

Idaho lawmaker wants to seize federal lands via eminent domain

Earlier this year, the Utah Legislature passed a bill authorizing the state government to seize federally-managed lands through eminent domain. Utah legislators, frustrated with what they feel to be mismanagement of public lands, approved legislation on the belief that the state could care for the lands in a much better manner than the feds. A state lawmaker in Idaho, Rep. Eric Anderson, R-Priest Lake, is eying what’s happening in Utah and may look to pass a similar bill in Idaho in 2011. According to Idaho Sen. Mike Crapo’s website, 63 percent of Idaho’s land is owned and managed by the federal government in one form or another. Private entities – citizens and business interests – control 30.7 percent of lands in the state, while the Idaho state government owns 5.1 percent. Utah lawmakers want to take advantage of natural resources on the lands and generate more tax revenue for the state. Anderson said that the same goal will be found in his legislation, which will be a near-copy of the Utah bill. “Why are proceeds from those lands going back to Washington, D.C.?” asked Anderson, who added that timber and geothermal resources are available on federal lands and possibly even natural gas. “There have been some natural gas pockets discovered and who knows how much is out there on federal lands,” he said...more

More wilderness

No more wilderness — these three words evoke an emotional response among people with a variety of interests in public lands in Utah and the West. The much-disputed “no more wilderness” deal made between former Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt and former Interior Secretary Gale Norton seven years ago during the George W. Bush era has effectively, and wrongly, put a stop to federal protection of more lands with wilderness qualities. Now, under the Obama administration, conservationists are dismayed, even angry, that Interior Secretary Ken Salazar seems inclined to uphold the agreement and its barrier to designating more Wilderness Study Areas. On the other side, the possibility of “no more wilderness” is making oil and gas developers and others who view land protection as denial of legal access positively gleeful. ntil 2003 it was accepted by courts, presidents and members of Congress that the Bureau of Land Management had the authority to designate Wilderness Study Areas when public lands were found to have the characteristics outlined in The Wilderness Act of 1964. WSA designation protects the land until Congress designates it wilderness or returns it to unprotected status. The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, Sierra Club and other environmental groups and individuals contend that the 2003 agreement’s interpretation of FLPMA as authorizing only one inventory of wilderness-quality lands, the one completed in 1993, is wrong, unprecedented and unenforceable. We agree. And we’re disappointed that Salazar told Sen. Bob Bennett that the BLM currently has no authority to designate more WSAs...more

Appeals court rules against EnergySolutions on nuclear waste

A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that a nuclear waste group comprised of several Western states has the authority to regulate storage of low-level radioactive waste and can prohibit EnergySolutions from importing foreign waste. The ruling by the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturns a decision by U.S. District Judge Ted Stewart, who held that the Northwest Interstate Compact on Low-Level Radioactive Waste cannot regulate EnergySolutions’ Clive, Utah, facility. “It is important to remember the state of Utah conditioned the license it granted on the Clive Facility’s compliance with the authority of the Northwest Compact,” the court wrote in a unanimous opinion. “It is unlikely that Utah would have agreed to issue the necessary licenses if it was powerless to control the flow of waste past its borders.” The court returned the case to Stewart for further proceedings, although EnergySolutions said in July that it was abandoning its plan to import waste. Company CEO Val Christensen said Tuesday that the company would not appeal the decision, bringing the dispute to a close...more

Betty White Named Honorary U.S. Forest Ranger

Betty White is well-known for both her acting skills and her love of animals. The 88-yr-old actress was honored for that love of animals when the U.S. Forest Service presented her with the title Nov. 9. During a ceremony held at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., White was given a U.S. Forest Ranger badge, Stetson hat, and a toy Smokey Bear. The real Smokey Bear turned up to give his support and the two shared a bear hug during the event. Afterwards, she told reporters she always wanted to be a forest ranger, but the job wasn’t open to women. The Forest Service started in 1905, but didn’t have very many women on the staff. Even today, only 38 percent of the U.S. Forest Service workforce is female. White said she plans to use the honorary title to help promote the Forest Service and the work it does to preserve and protect wildlife and plant life...more

She actually should help all the widows who get their grazing permit cut by Smokey.

NM Geotourism project seeks world status

The Trail of the Ancients Scenic Byway has partnered with the National Geographic Society to capture the history and heritage of the Four Corners area through a new program designed to celebrate the region. The Four Corners Geotourism Project is working to increase the quantity and quality of international tourism to the area, making it part of an elite group of less than 15 regions marketed to the international community as world-class destinations. Geotourism is defined as tourism that sustains or enhances the geographical character of a place, including its environment, culture, aesthetics, heritage and the well being of its residents. Geotourism also incorporates the concept of sustainable tourism, which is the idea that destinations should remain unspoiled for future generations, and the idea that tourism revenue should help to promote conservation and the economic health of the region. According to National Geographic’s Center for Sustainable Destinations, geotourism works to protect the world’s distinctive places through wisely managed tourism and enlightened destination stewardship. Through this project, history buffs, backpackers and hikers, birders and sightseers will be able to discover what the Four Corners area has to offer. But this project needs the input of those who know the area best—local residents. The collaborators of the Four Corners Geotourism Project want to know what makes this area unique and noteworthy...more

NM: Fed, state land managers team up to fight fungus affecting bats

Federal and state land managers in New Mexico have teamed up to limit the spread of a fungus that has wiped out entire bat colonies in the eastern United States. Officials with the Bureau of Land Management, the National Park Service, the Forest Service Southwest region and the state Game and Fish Department will be enacting partial closures for some caves and abandoned mines on public lands in New Mexico in response to white-nose syndrome. Developed caves such as Carlsbad Caverns National Park will not be affected by the closures, but officials there are considering a screening process for some visitors, much like the one enacted at Mammoth Cave in Kentucky. Carlsbad, one of the more famous cave systems in the Southwest, draws around 430,000 visitors annually, and the bats are one of the park's main draws. First spotted in New York in 2006, the disease has been confirmed in dozens of hibernating locations in Canada and the U.S., ranging as far south as Tennessee and west to Oklahoma...more

Song Of The Day #436

Ranch Radio will slow it down a little as we close out Western Swing week. Here is Bill Boyd & His Cowboy Ramblers performing Homecoming Waltz.

White House Changed Report, Implying Experts Supported Deepwater Drilling Moratorium

The White House tampered with language in a controversial Interior Department report on its deepwater drilling moratorium, implying a group of independent scientists supported language recommending the ban, according to the agency's watchdog. Interior's inspector general said edits made by the White House to the Interior report "led to the implication that the moratorium recommendation had been peer reviewed by the experts." At issue is the May 27 report on oil and gas drilling safety that was compiled at President Obama's request after the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, sparking the nation's worst oil spill. The report made several recommendations for safety improvements at offshore drilling rigs and called for the six-month ban on deepwater drilling and permitting. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar tapped 15 experts to review the safety recommendations made in the main body of the report, but they never endorsed the moratorium and later blasted Interior's use of their names to support the ban...more

House Natural Resources Committee Ranking Member Doc Hastings released the following statement:

"This report begs more questions. Who at the White House actually rewrote the Interior Department document? Is that person a scientist with relevant experience or a political appointee? Furthermore, what other Interior Department decisions are being changed or made by unknown White House staff? This moratorium has cost thousands of jobs and caused severe economic impacts throughout the Gulf. We need to get answers as to who and how these policy decisions are being made and ensure that they are actually based on sound science."

Anger overflows on drilling halt report

Gulf State lawmakers are accusing the Obama administration of putting politics above science after a government watchdog said Interior Department officials misled the public by altering a report to suggest that a group of outside scientists supported a blanket ban on deepwater drilling. The administration maintains that the flap is the result of rushed editing and nothing more. However, members of Congress from the Gulf region, already incensed over what they described as a heavy-handed, one-size-fits-all reaction to the BP oil spill, are crying foul. "This was not an accident at all. It was a deliberate attempt to use the prestige of the scientists to support their political decision," said Rep. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, one of several Republicans who this summer requested an investigation into the moratorium by the Interior Department's inspector general. Mr. Cassidy, who said the IG's conclusions will come as "bitter news" to about 12,000 workers who lost their jobs because of the moratorium, noted that the administration ignored later arguments by five of the panel's seven scientists in favor of targeted inspections over a blanket ban - something he said violated Mr. Obama's vow to let science, and not politics, guide his policies. The IG investigation revealed that an aide to White House energy adviser Carol M. Browner who was making last-minute edits to the Interior report inserted language into the executive summary saying an independent seven-member panel had signed off on the recommendations in the document...more

Fudging the facts on oil

Apparently there is nothing the Obama administration won’t do or say to justify the way it does business - including lying. Case in point, an administration report used to justify its six-month ban on new deep-water drilling in the Gulf of Mexico in the wake of the BP oil disaster. Now the Interior Department’s inspector general has confirmed that the White House did indeed alter a report that was supposedly the work of scientists and experts in the field to make it appear they supported the ban. With some deft editing, the White House made it appear the drilling moratorium recommendation was “peer reviewed” when, in fact, the only thing peer-reviewed were new safety measures for offshore drilling. “We believe the report does not justify the moratorium as written and that the moratorium as changed will not contribute measurably to increased safety and will have immediate and long-term economic effects,” the scientists wrote in a letter to Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and the state’s senators earlier this year...more

This Boston Herald editorial concluded by saying:

Still a congressional inquiry into the matter - and White House involvement - when the new House takes its seats next year would not be out of order.

Environmentalists fear Ken Salazar's complacency will drive extinctions

his week the Fish and Wildlife Service released the Candidate Notice of Review (CNOR) on the status of species waiting for ESA protection. The news was somber for animals and plants that have been languishing on the same list for years. The report revealed that 251 species have been stalled on the “candidate” list, although many have been on the same list for decades. According to the Center for Biological Diversity, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service under the Obama administration has provided Endangered Species Act protection to just 51 plants and animals and most of them were in the state of Hawaii. By comparison, the Clinton administration protected 522 species; the George H.W. Bush administration protected 231. The conservation group WildEarth Guardians has filed 130 lawsuits or petitions to pressure Salazar to utilize the powerful Endangered Species Act for the purpose it was intended; to protect species from extinction. “It’s time for Ken Salazar to realize there’s an extinction crisis unfolding right here in the U.S. The best way to stop it is to bring more imperiled species under the protection of the Endangered Species Act, rather than leaving them out in the cold,” stated Nicole Rosmarino of WildEarth Guardians. In addition, the Center for Biological Diversity has joined other groups in an active lawsuit against the government’s continued delays. The suit focuses on the illegality of not making timely progress on listing threatened species for ESA protection, as required by the law...more

Given this and other recent stories, it is clear the enviros are after Salazar and actively seeking to have him replaced with a Secretary more to their liking.

Pilots association –TSA scans “out of control”

The union representing many American Airlines pilots is working to exempt its membership from the Transportation Security Administration’s imaging body scans, saying the screening process “has spun out of control.” In a Nov. 1 letter to its members provided to Government Security News, Allied Pilots Association president Capt. David Bates recommends that pilots “politely refuse” Advanced Imaging Technology (AIT) scans and request alternate pat-down searches. He said the pat downs are “demeaning,” unnecessary and recommends pilots request it be done in an out-of-view area away from passengers. “It’s long past time that policymakers take the steps necessary to exempt commercial pilots from airport security screening and grant designated pilot access to SIDA [security identification display areas] utilizing either Crew Pass or biometric identification,” he told APA members. The APA represents about 11.000 pilots. Bates made his recommendations because of concerns over the repeated exposure of pilots to radiation from backscatter X-ray exposure used by AIT technology and because pilots should be a trusted part of air travel security...more

Song Of The Day #435

Ranch Radio continues this week of Western Swing with Spade Cooley performing Fiddle Boogie.

You'll find the tune on his 34 track CD Spade Cooley 1941-1947.

Interior Extorts $$ In Interagency Border Battle

The Border Wilderness Interagency Battle

Mitigation or Extortion?

By Stephen L. Wilmeth

     In the drama that passes as national security along the Mexican border, a subplot has found its way into the environmental agenda of federal land management agencies as they interact with Customs and Border Protection (CBP).  It was first revealed to the American public in a letter from Homeland Security secretary Janet Napolitano in October 2009 when the secretary revealed the contents of a memorandum of agreement for natural and cultural resource mitigation between CBP and the Department of Interior (DOI).

    What the secretary was referring to were the payments being extracted from CBP by the DOI in return for the right to access lands managed by that agency.  The Secretary acknowledge the payments, but also defended her agency when she wrote, “The USBP believes that operations are generally functionally equivalent to mitigation.”  In other words, if the Border Patrol was allowed full and unencumbered access to those federal lands, the flow of illegals could be reduced and that would serve as real mitigation for those natural resources being devastated on the border.

     The Secretary went on to detail some of the so called mitigation payments.  That initial summary of mitigation projects funded by CBP totaled nearly $13 million, but there was a disclosure that a deal had actually been made to transfer $50 million!

     In a closer look, the demand by DOI reveals that, for the right to perform its mission which includes access and or the installation of such things as repeater towers and other high tech surveillance equipment placement, the CBP must pay a schedule of payments.  On the surface, the placement of such equipment must be expected to create a lot of surface damage to the lands in question, but the actual payments are not being used for disturbance.  Rather, the money is going to be used for a wide array of projects not even associated with that disturbance. 

     For example, the initial projects demanded that $4.4 million be paid toward three studies and monitoring activities of jaguars, lesser and Mexican long-nosed bats, and four species of Rio Yaqui fish.  The jaguar study is just part of another $3.1 million schedule to be levied against the CBP for monitoring jaguars in both Arizona and New Mexico.  

"Within the federally designated wilderness areas, the interagency disputes have allowed the human and drug smuggling corridors to expand, and, as a result, the entire nation has been put at risk." 

    In a recent GAO report, the full disclosure of the $50 million interagency deal reveals that the projects range from a $10,000 demand for a New Mexico habitat survey of the Sneed’s pincushion cactus to a $14,100,000 payment to be made for “Quino checkerspot butterfly, gnatcatcher”  in California.  Another $13,236, 672 will be paid for a “Cameron County ocelot and jaguarondi corridor” in Texas. 

     The initial $50 million represented by Secretary Napolitano has actually grown to $52,474,593 in projects spread across Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California in exchange for certain operational and access considerations along and within the designated Wilderness dominated border lands of Arizona.  Of that total, only $1.2 million is going to go to any actual mitigation by CBP activity on the land itself.  All the rest is going to various wildlife projects.  Asked about that issue, Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument superintendent, Lee Baiza, remarked, “The $50 million is a small amount compared to the $600 million Congress agreed in August to spend on agents, inspectors, and other law enforcement officials as well as communications equipment and unmanned aerial drones to monitor border activities.”  

     Taxpayers have little idea of the danger that has been created on the Arizona border surrounding the ever expanding environmental agenda, conflicting federal land agency missions, and the actions of bureaucratically entitled managers like Mr. Baiza.  Within the federally designated wilderness areas, the interagency disputes have allowed the human and drug smuggling corridors to expand, and, as a result, the entire nation has been put at risk.

     While the land agencies have battled and thrown administrative and operational obstacles at CBP, the schedule of demands is growing. Discussions have now taken place to expand the demand beyond the initial $50 million.  Funding for non-endangered wildlife, wetland and riverfront acquisitions, soil and cultural resource enhancement, and even the protection of native human remains outside of federal land holdings have been discussed. 

      Meanwhile, the danger of the border lands has increased, and the agencies are even starting to disallow their own personnel from entering certain areas. Such contradiction of actions would lead an objective observer to conclude that the real agenda has nothing to do at all with the degradation of resources stemming from illegal smuggling.  Rather, it is the expansion of the land agency bureaucratic domain along with acceptance of the environmental agenda that is truly driving the interagency chaos.  How else would any federal manager justify the funding of a “peninsular bighorn sheep study” in California for the allowance of a repeater tower to be installed in the CBP Tucson Sector in Arizona? 

      In the private sector, such strong arm tactics for funds would not be termed mitigation.  It would be called extortion . . . and somebody would be going to jail. 

Stephen L. Wilmeth is a rancher from southern New Mexico.  He is an advocate of the value of land stewardship predicated on assumed risk and economic responsibility.  “Risk must be assigned to the manager or peripheral agendas become the guiding force.  History is full of examples where those two forces diverge, and failure results.”   

          

             

      

    

           

Desperate Days For Global Warmers

The United Nations wants $100 billion a year in taxes to deal with climate change. Two groups of researchers plan to go on the offensive against global warming "denialists." When will the madness end? The U.N.'s craving for money it hasn't earned is insatiable. So it's no surprise that one of its panels has proposed to raise $100 billion a year from taxes on carbon dioxide emissions and international transportation, and possibly on financial transactions as well, to mitigate the effects of climate change. At roughly the same time the U.N. announced this plan to dig deeper into our pockets, a group of researchers led by John Abraham of St. Thomas University in Minnesota said it was mobilizing a "climate rapid-response team" that would also mount a media campaign to defend its position. The researchers, the Tribune News Service reports, are even willing to appear before "potentially hostile audiences on conservative talk radio and television shows." According to Scott Mandia, a professor of physical sciences at Suffolk County Community College in New York, this team will "not only communicate science," but also "aggressively engage the denialists and politicians who attack climate science and its scientists." It seems they're afraid that with the GOP in control of the House, political funding for their climate change research will dry up. Having virtually invested their lives in the needless spread of fear, they must feel that they've been thrown into a struggle for relevance...more

Is The Western Climate Establishment Corrupt? Asks SPPI

The Science and Public Policy Institute (SPPI) continues raising serious concerns for policy makers and the public as to whether the “adjustments” that government-funded employees continue making to raw surface and ocean temperature data sets can be trusted. In a new collaborative paper, Is The Western Climate Establishment Corrupt?, Dr. Dave Evans has gathered substantial evidence that corruption has become endemic within government-sponsored climate units. Key findings of the paper include: * Official thermometers are overwhelmingly in warm localities such as near air conditioner exhaust vents, buildings, concrete, tarmac, asphalt, and even fermenting vats of warm sludge. * Officials hide the modern ARGO data which shows the world’s oceans are cooling. * They ignore hundreds of thousands of weather balloon results that show the climate models overestimate future warming by at least 300%. * Officials frequently point to the last 130 years of global warming. But almost never mention the full story: that the planet started the current global warming trend before 1700, over a century before humans started pumping out meaningful amounts of CO2...more

The Crash Of The Climate Exchange

As the case for global warming and cap-and-trade has collapsed, so too has the market that was to exploit this manufactured crisis for fun and profit. The climate-change bubble has burst. Lost in the hubbub leading up to the Republican and Tea Party tsunami on Nov. 2 was the collapse of the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX). But its implications for the future of the American economy and the business climate are staggering: It is an acknowledgment that both the case for climate trade and cap-and-tax legislation has also collapsed. On Oct. 21 the exchange announced it was ending carbon trading, which, as Pajamas Media's Steve Milloy points out, was "the only purpose for which it was founded." Launched as a "voluntary" method of trading "carbon credits," CCX rested on the hope that cap-and-tax legislation would make such trading mandatory — and profitable. CCX billed itself as "North America's only cap-and-trade system for all six greenhouse gases, with global affiliates and projects worldwide." Barack Obama served on the board of the Joyce Foundation from 1994 to 2002, when it issued CCX start-up grants. Presidential adviser Valerie Jarrett also once sat on the Joyce board...more

There's that damned old market again. No wonder the DC Deep Thinkers hate it so.