Price of protecting spotted owl habitat could approach $4M -- report 05.21.08

Greenwire

(05/21/2008)
Eric Bontrager, Greenwire reporter

Protecting the northern spotted owl's critical habitat will cost federal taxpayers between $2.4 million and $3.78 million over the next 20 years, the Fish and Wildlife Service said in a draft analysis released yesterday.

The agency estimates that it would bear about 30 percent of the anticipated costs to protect the 5.3 million acres in Washington, Oregon and California proposed for designation as critical habitat last year. The owl currently has nearly 6.9 million acres of critical habitat.

The Forest Service will pick up 60 percent of the tab, with the Bureau of Land Management covering 10 percent.

The analysis addresses the additional economic impacts associated with the proposed critical habitat designation and not costs associated with the owl's listing under the Endangered Species Act.

The owl has been at the center of a protracted battle between the timber industry and environmentalists on how to mange old-growth forests in the Pacific Northwest since it was given federal protection in 1990. Some timber companies have blamed the owl's critical habitat -- and the Northwest Forest Plan created to protect it -- for the demise of many timber operations.

The proposed critical habitat designation was based on recommendations in the 2007 draft recovery plan for the owl.

Last week, the agency released its final recovery plan, which calls for forest conservation in the Pacific Northwest and reducing the threat of the rival barred owl.

The plan calls for a network of 133 managed owl conservation areas totaling nearly 6.4 million acres of federal property on the western slope of the Cascade Mountains. The areas are intended to sustain adequate numbers of breeding pairs to allow the owl population to grow to sustainable numbers.

The plan also mandates maintaining owl habitat across the eastern range and studying ways to manage the barred owl (E&ENews PM, May 16).

The agency is accepting comments on the draft economic analysis and the proposed habitat revision until June 20.

Political influence may be wider than MacDonald -- GAO 05.22.08

Land Letter

(05/22/2008)
Allison Winter, Land Letter reporter

This story first ran in E&ENews PM.

Problems with political influence on endangered species decisions may be bigger than the Interior Department has recognized, despite efforts made to clean up corruption at the agency, according to a new federal investigation.

The Government Accountability Office found Interior has come up short in its effort to try to crack down on political meddling in scientific decisions.

The Fish and Wildlife Service has been reviewing several Endangered Species Act decisions that may have been inappropriately influenced by former Interior political appointee Julie MacDonald.

But the scope of that review was likely too small, according to Robin Nazzaro, the head of GAO's natural resources and environment division. MacDonald's imprint may be on many other species decisions not studied. Also, other political appointees still employed at the department could be exerting undue political influence.

"Questions remain about the extent to which Interior officials other than Ms. MacDonald may have inappropriately influenced ESA decisions and whether broader ESA policies should be revisited," Nazzaro told the House Natural Resources Committee yesterday. "The scope of the study the agency engaged in was a rather narrow scope, just looking at Ms. MacDonald -- if they had broadened it, they may have come up with others."

House Democrats were less diplomatic in their criticism.

"The agency's well-publicized, post-MacDonald review, ostensibly designed to correct listing and critical habitat decisions -- decisions tainted by politics -- was a boondoggle; it is fixing nothing," said Natural Resources Committee Chairman Nick Rahall (D-W.Va.). "It was too narrow, too fast and too sloppy.

"As a result, we can have no confidence that political tinkering with the ESA program is being addressed any better now than it was under MacDonald's reign," Rahall added. "At this point, the best hope for endangered species may simply be to cling to life until after January when this president and his cronies, at long last, hit the unemployment line."

Republicans argued that the greater flaw is with the Endangered Species Act itself and blamed Democrats for blocking previous efforts in the GOP Congress to revise the act.
FWS reviewing 7 decisions

FWS decided to revisit seven endangered species-related decisions in the wake of the scandal that MacDonald, the former deputy assistant secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks, caused.

MacDonald resigned one year ago, after Interior Inspector General Earl Devaney issued a scathing report that found she had violated ethics rules, edited scientific decisions on endangered species issues and passed internal agency information to outside parties suing the department.

FWS Director Dale Hall asked each region last year to recommend species decisions that had potential meddling from MacDonald. The criteria were whether MacDonald directly influenced the decision, whether the science was compromised and if there was a significant change and potential negative effect on the species. As a result of the review, FWS is revisiting seven rulings that denied endangered species listings or limited critical habitat designations.

GAO found that the influence of political appointees may have reached beyond those criteria. In interviews and surveys with GAO, FWS employees cited at least four other Interior appointees, three of whom still work at the agency, who may have influenced decisions.

"There is potential they were also involved," Nazzaro said. "They potentially inappropriately influenced it; I'm not saying they did influence."

The investigators also found that even when MacDonald was not directly involved in a decision, FWS employees under her would try to "Julie-proof" their recommendations, writing them in anticipation of what criteria she would be looking for.

The Interior Department did not have a direct response to the report, but Lyle Laverty, Interior's assistant secretary for Fish, Wildlife and Parks, said the agency has made efforts in the past year to ensure scientific integrity. The agency implemented a "code of scientific conduct," new guidance for use of science and a policy to keep scientific and policy decisions separate, Laverty said. He maintains Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne has put a strong emphasis on ethical conduct since taking the helm of the department.

"I believe the department and the service have made great strides over the past year in ensuring that our ESA decisionmaking processes are clearly delineated and that we maintain a strong emphasis on ethical conduct and continue our commitment to maintaining the integrity of the science used in the decisionmaking process," Laverty said.

FWS releases 30-year plan, cost estimate to save spotted owl 05.22.08

Land Letter

(05/22/2008)
Eric Bontrager, Land Letter reporter

This story compiles dispatches from E&ENews PM and Greenwire.

The Fish and Wildlife Service released its long-awaited final recovery plan for the northern spotted owl last week, emphasizing that forest conservation and reducing the threat of the rival barred owl are essential to preventing the spotted owl's extinction.

Estimating that it could take 30 years to remove the spotted owl from the endangered species list, the agency proposed 34 different recovery actions to address what it considers the three greatest threats to its survival: the barred owl, commercial logging and catastrophic wildfires.

First listed as a threatened species in 1990, the spotted owl has been at the center of the debate over logging in the Pacific Northwest's old-growth forests. The Clinton administration's 1994 Northwest Forest Plan attempted to strike a balance between logging and habitat protection, but litigation from environmentalists and the timber industry forced the government to revisit the plan.

To solve the habitat question, federal scientists propose two different solutions for the eastern and western sides of the Cascade Mountains in California, Oregon and Washington.

On the western slope, the plan calls for a network of 133 "Managed Owl Conservation Areas," or MOCAs, totaling nearly 6.4 million acres of federal land intended to sustain adequate numbers of breeding pairs that will hopefully allow the owl to expand across the network.

But on the arid eastern slope of the Cascades, such a network is not possible because of the frequent natural disturbances like wildfires and insect infestations. To overcome this obstacle, the plan calls for maintaining spotted owl habitat in viable patches across the eastern range in hopes they eventually will be acceptable habitat.

There is less certainty over what to do about the barred owl, but scientists say the rival species is a much bigger threat today than when the spotted owl was first listed 18 years ago.

"It has the probability of inflicting the most damage in the shortest amount of time," said FWS recovery plan project leader Paul Phifer.

On an interim basis, FWS suggests that federal land managers should maintain older, complex forests along the Cascades' western range beyond the MOCAs to act as a buffer between the barred owl and spotted owl populations.

Over the next 10 years, FWS hopes the Barred Owl Work Group will have quantified the threats from the barred owl and developed control techniques that eventually will establish a long-term policy for the barred owl. While extermination is among the possibilities, FWS Pacific Region Director Ren Lohoefener said the agency is open to other possibilities.
A better plan?

The final plan represents a significant departure from the draft plan released last year that was accused of ignoring the most recent and best available science in its plan and downplaying the importance of the owl's old-growth habitat.

The last assessment on the draft from the Portland, Ore.-based Sustainable Ecosystems Institute released last month concluded that the draft recovery plan underestimated the threat of habitat loss from large fires and the harvest of larger trees and was not clear about how much habitat would be protected (Greenwire, April 22).

The eastern slope conservation plan, along with other provisions in the final plan, is a direct result of the SEI report, according to FWS spokeswoman Joan Jewett.

But the final plan already is being questioned by both conservation and timber groups for its lack of detail, including what kind and how much of these older forests will be preserved in the buffer ranges.

"The plan talks about protecting old growth, but it is unclear that the plan actually does that," said Randi Spivak, executive director of the American Lands Alliance, who also blasted FWS's refusal to have the final plan peer-reviewed.

The American Bird Conservancy assailed the 6.4 million acres of MOCAs, which is significantly less than the existing system of reserves on 7.5 million acres created under the Northwest Forest Plan.

Meanwhile, the American Forest Resource Council also criticized the MOCAs and surrounding older forests protections, saying the new plan ignores solid research from the draft plan.

"Instead, they have again opted to draw arbitrary reserve lines on maps and walk away from addressing the habitat and prey needs of the owl," AFRC President Tom Partin said in a statement. "It didn't work in the last decade and it won't work in the next."
Price of protecting habitat could approach $4M

Protecting the northern spotted owl's critical habitat will cost federal taxpayers between $2.4 million and $3.78 million over the next 20 years, FWS said in a draft analysis released Tuesday.

The agency estimates that it would bear about 30 percent of the anticipated costs to protect the 5.3 million acres in Washington, Oregon and California proposed for designation as critical habitat last year. The owl currently has nearly 6.9 million acres of critical habitat.

The Forest Service will pick up 60 percent of the tab, with the Bureau of Land Management covering 10 percent.

The analysis addresses the additional economic impacts associated with the proposed critical habitat designation and not costs associated with the owl's listing under the Endangered Species Act.

The proposed critical habitat designation was based on recommendations in the 2007 draft recovery plan for the owl.

The agency is accepting comments on the draft economic analysis and the proposed habitat revision until June 20.

FWS releases 30-year plan to save spotted owl 05.16.08

E&E Daily

(05/16/2008)

Eric Bontrager, E&ENews PM reporter

The Fish and Wildlife Service released its long-awaited final recovery plan for the northern spotted owl today, emphasizing that forest conservation and reducing the threat of the rival barred owl are essential to preventing the spotted owl's extinction.

Estimating that it could take 30 years to remove the spotted owl from the endangered species list, the agency proposed 34 different recovery actions to address what it considers the three greatest threats to its survival: the barred owl, timber harvest and catastrophic wildfires.

First listed as a threatened species in 1990, the spotted owl has been at the center of the debate over logging in the Pacific Northwest's old-growth forests. The Clinton administration's 1994 Northwest Forest Plan attempted to strike a balance between logging and habitat protection, but litigation from environmentalists and the timber industry forced the government to revisit the plan.

To solve the habitat question, federal scientists propose two different solutions for the eastern and western sides of the Cascade Mountains in California, Oregon and Washington.

On the western slope, the plan calls for a network of 133 "Managed Owl Conservation Areas" (MOCAs) totaling nearly 6.4 million acres of federal land intended to sustain adequate numbers of breeding pairs that will hopefully allow the owl to expand across the network.

But on the arid eastern slope of the Cascades, such a network is not possible because of the frequent natural disturbances like wildfires and insect infestations. To overcome this obstacle, the plan calls for maintaining spotted owl habitat in viable patches across the eastern range in hopes they eventually will be acceptable habitat.

There is less certainty over what to do about the barred owl, but scientists say the rival species is a much bigger threat today than when the spotted owl was first listed 18 years ago.

"It has the probability of inflicting the most damage in the shortest amount of time," said FWS Recovery Plan Project Leader Paul Phifer.

On an interim basis, FWS suggests federal land managers maintain older, complex forests along the Cascades' western range beyond the MOCAs to act as a buffer between the barred owl and spotted owl populations.

Over the next 10 years, FWS hopes the Barred Owl Work Group will have quantified the threats from the barred owl and developed control techniques that eventually will establish a long-term policy for the barred owl. While extermination is among the possibilities, FWS Pacific Region Director Ren Lohoefener said the agency is open to other possibilities.

A better plan?

The final plan represents a significant departure from the draft plan released last year that was accused of ignoring the most recent and best available science in its plan and downplaying the importance of the owl's old-growth habitat.

The last assessment on the draft from the Portland, Ore.-based Sustainable Ecosystems Institute released last month concluded that the draft recovery plan underestimated the threat of habitat loss from large fires and the harvest of larger trees and was not clear about how much habitat would be protected (Greenwire, April 22).

The eastern slope conservation plan, along with other provisions in the final plan, is a direct result of the SEI report, according to FWS spokeswoman Joan Jewett.

But the final plan already is being questioned by both conservation and timber groups for its lack of detail, including what kind and how much of these older forests will be preserved in the buffer ranges.

"The plan talks about protecting old growth, but it's unclear that the plan actually does that," said Randi Spivak, executive director of the American Lands Alliance, who also blasted FWS's refusal to have the final plan peer-reviewed.

The American Bird Conservancy assailed the 6.4 million acres of MOCAs, which is significantly less than the existing system of reserves on 7.5 million acres created under the Northwest Forest Plan.

Meanwhile, the American Forest Resource Council also criticized the MOCAs and surrounding older forests protections, saying the new plan ignores solid research from the draft plan.

"Instead, they have again opted to draw arbitrary reserve lines on maps and walk away from addressing the habitat and prey needs of the owl," AFRC President Tom Partin said in a statement. "It didn't work in the last decade and it won't work in the next."

Wildfire, rural schools money finds home in Iraq supplemental 05.08.08

E&E Daily and Land Letter

(05/08/2008)
Eric Bontrager, Allison Winter and Dan Berman, Land Letter reporters

This article first ran in E&E Daily.

The Senate's Iraq supplemental spending bill includes $450 million for wildfire-related activities and $400 million for rural schools and counties in timber country suffering due to the decline of logging on national forests.

The fiscal 2008 supplemental bill is likely to cost in the range of $200 billion and includes numerous domestic spending proposals despite President Bush's urging to focus funding for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Senate Appropriations Committee will mark up the bill this afternoon.

For wildfires, the bill includes $450 million for the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management for fire suppression and burned area rehabilitation and restoration, a committee spokesman said.

Senate Interior Appropriations Subcommittee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) sought the money as lawmakers have complained about limited funds in the Bush administration's fiscal 2009 budget proposal, claiming that it overemphasizes firefighting while failing to adequately fund efforts to prevent the fires in the first place.

Under the White House proposal, fire suppression would see a $148 million increase to just under $1 billion -- a figure based on the 10-year average of fire suppression costs -- but the budget would cut other fire-related activities. The budget would provide $297 million for hazardous fuels reduction projects, down from $310 million in fiscal 2008, while fire preparedness would fall to $588 million from $666 million.

Feinstein admitted that it may be difficult to add domestic priorities to the bill without overloading it to the point the president would veto it.

"We all understand the problem getting a bill clean enough for the president to sign, and by clean enough I mean unencumbered enough," she told reporters yesterday.

According to a summary from the committee, the bill also includes more than $10 billion for continued recovery efforts from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, $451 million for a federal highway emergency relief program and $1.2 billion for science-related programs under NASA, the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health and the Energy Department.

In Louisiana, the measure includes $75 million to accelerate the closing of the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet (MRGO), $35 million for Mississippi River dredging performed by the Army Corps of Engineers, and language directing the corps to examine options for pumping stormwater in the New Orleans area, according to the office of Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.)

The $400 million for rural schools and counties in areas near national forests would help those areas that have suffered in recent years due to decreased funding from timber sales. The Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act was a 2000 law that paid out billions to compensate Western counties for the steep decline in timber sales on federal lands in the 1990s, but the bill expired at the end of 2006.

It would take additional legislation to reauthorize the 2000 law for another year, but it may be too late for some schools. The final checks went out at the end of last year, and some communities and schools in Western states that once benefited from large timber sales may have to make drastic budget cuts in the coming months.

"Pink slips have already gone out to the teachers," Feinstein said. Without this funding, almost 7,000 teachers and other educational staff will be laid off across the country, as of June 30, 2008, when their contracts expire.

Senate panel clears 45 land-use, water bills, 2 nominees 05.08.08

Land Letter

(05/08/2008)
Eric Bontrager, Land Letter reporter

This story first ran in E&E Daily.

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee cleared 45 different land-use, historical and water bills yesterday along with two Bush administration nominees for posts at the Interior and Energy departments.

Members spent the majority of the two-hour markup debating legislation from the late Sen. Craig Thomas (R-Wyo.). S. 1281 would designate certain rivers and streams of the headwaters of the Snake River as additions to the National Wild and Scenic River System.

The Snake River, which starts in northwest Wyoming and flows into Idaho, is one of the cleanest sources of fresh water in the United States that supports several native trout fisheries.

Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), who was appointed by Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal (D) last year to fil Craig's seat, introduced a substitute version of the bill that he said would clear up technical concerns to allow its passage.

"The wild and scenic designation is the best of the best. It's the badge of honor," Barrasso said.

The bill was scheduled to be cleared during a similar markup last year but was held amid concerns from Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) that it could infringe on water rights in his state. The bill was the last Thomas introduced before he died last June after a long battle with leukemia.

Despite the changes, Craig claimed the designation would open the door to litigation that could restrict use of the water's resources. He offered two different amendments, one which sought to remove about 10 percent of the streams and lakes from the designation and a second that he said would strengthen the bill's claims that the designation would not affect water rights.

But Barrasso said the substitute version explicitly states that water rights would not be infringed, and committee staff said provisions in Craig's second amendment could possibly give Idaho river users greater power than their Wyoming counterparts. Both of Craig's amendments were defeated by roll call vote.

The bill itself was cleared by voice vote along with 42 other measures.
Fight over Wyoming Range

The committee approved legislation that would withdraw more than 1 million acres of land from future energy development, a contentious issue given record oil and gas prices.

S. 2229 from Barrasso and Sen. Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) would withdraw 1.2 million acres of the Wyoming Range -- part of the Bridger Teton National Forest that sits south of Jackson Hole and Grand Teton National Park -- from future energy development and would prohibit new oil and gas leasing on the land.

The legislation would provide a buy-out process for current leaseholders and would permit the remaining leases to be voluntarily purchased by conservation groups and other entities to retire the leases.

But Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) said the bill was counterproductive because it would remove potential energy reserves at a time when the entire country is suffering from high gas prices. "This not a local issue, this is a national issue," Landrieu said.

The Bureau of Land Management estimates the land at stake contains 8.8 trillion cubic feet of natural gas -- an amount roughly equal to one-third of a year's annual natural gas consumption for the entire nation -- and 331 million barrels of oil that are "technically recoverable using today's technology."

The bill cleared by roll call vote, much to the anger of industry observers.

"We find it outrageous that senators would be voting to reduce access to natural gas at a time when consumers all over the country are reeling from high prices, in this case, unnecessary high prices," said Paul Cicio, president of the Industrial Energy Consumers of America.
Forest restoration, wilderness

As part of the unanimous consent agreement, the committee approved legislation to establish a collaborative and science-based forest landscape restoration program that would prioritize and fund ecological restoration treatments.

Claiming that overaggressive fire suppression and development have impaired forest landscapes across the country, sponsors say S. 2593 would lead to an overall reduction of wildfire management costs by focusing funding on collaborative, sustainable projects that would offer the greatest protections against devastating wildfires.

Federal land managers would work with state and local authorities to identify parcels of at least 50,000 acres comprised mostly of national forest lands that need active ecosystem restoration. The projects must include several stakeholders representing multiple interests.

The panel also passed several wilderness bills, including S. 2833 would designate more than 517,000 acres in the Owyhee-Bruneau Canyonlands of southwestern Idaho as wilderness and nearly 315 mile of wild and scenic rivers. It would establish a science review to address management issues of rangelands in Owyhee County and closes 200 miles of roads and routes near the proposed wilderness areas to motorized vehicle use except in emergencies.

In exchange, about 190,000 acres of BLM lands treated as potential wilderness would be subject to "soft release," opening the door to multiple uses including off-road vehicle use and grazing following BLM land-use evaluations. The bill also provides for the sale or trade of private inholdings within these proposed wilderness areas.

S. 1380 would designate parts of the Rocky Mountain National Park as wilderness and adjust the boundaries of the Indian Peaks Wilderness and Arapaho National Recreation Area in Colorado's Arapaho National Forest.

S. 570 would create several new wilderness areas in Virginia's Jefferson National Forest as well as designate 11,000 acres as national scenic areas.

S. 2379 would authorize the cancellation of certain grazing leases on land in Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument in Oregon, to provide for the exchange of certain monument land in exchange for private land, to designate certain monument land as wilderness.

H. R. 5151 would add about 37,000 acres of wilderness West Virginia's Monongahela National Forest through expansions of the Dolly Sods, Cranberry and Otter Creek wilderness areas as well as protecting three new wilderness areas across the forest.

S. 868 would designate 40 miles of the Taunton River as wild and scenic, from the headwaters all the way to Mount Hope Bay in Fall River, Mass.
DOI, DOE nominations

The two Bush administration nominees were also cleared under the en bloc vote.

Jeffrey Kupfer is nominated to be DOE's deputy secretary, the No. 2 position at the department. Kupfer is serving on an acting basis, replacing Clay Sell, who left the department at the end of February.

Kameran Onley, if confirmed, would become assistant Interior secretary for water and science. She has been in that position since July, while also serving as assistant deputy secretary since January 2006.
Parks, trails, historical areas, water bills

Other bills that passed yesterday by voice vote:

H. R. 523 would require the secretary of the Interior to convey certain public land located wholly or partially within the boundaries of the Wells Hydroelectric Project of Public Utility District No. 1 of Douglas County, Wash., to the utility district.

H. R. 2515 would authorize funding for the Lower Colorado River multispecies conservation program. The 50-year plan is designed to save 27 species by restoring wildlife habitat. Covering a 400-mile stretch of the river, the program aims to create more than 8,100 acres of riparian, marsh and backwater habitat for six federally protected species and 20 others native to the river system.

S. 1281 would amend the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act to designate certain rivers and streams of the headwaters of the Snake River System as additions to the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System.

S. 832 would to provide for the sale of approximately 25 acres of public land to the Turnabout Ranch in Escalante, Utah.

S. 900 would authorize the Boy Scouts of America to exchange certain land in Utah acquired under the Recreation and Public Purposes Act.

S. 2124 would convey land in the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest to Jefferson County, Mont., for use as a cemetery.

H. R. 189 would establish a national historical park in the Great Falls area of Paterson, N. J. The park would recognize and preserve Alexander Hamilton's breakthroughs in industrial production by incorporating the Pierre L'Enfant-designed, Hamilton-commissioned water power system at the Passaic Great Falls into the park system. It would also lay claim to the nearby Hinchliffe Stadium, the host of historic Negro League baseball games.

H. R. 1528 would create a 220-mile national historic trail in Connecticut and Massachusetts.

H. R. 3998 is an omnibus public lands bill authorizing 10 studies of potential national parks or trails including a national trail alongside the Mississippi River from Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico.

S. 617 would make the National Parks and Federal Recreational Lands Pass available for $10 to any honorably discharged veteran.

S. 2262 would authorize the Preserve America Program and Save America's Treasures Program.

S. 662 would authorize Interior to evaluate resources at the Harriet Beecher Stowe House in Brunswick, Maine, to determine the suitability and feasibility of establishing the site as a unit of NPS.

H. R. 3332 would provide for the establishment of a memorial within Hawaii's Kalaupapa National Historical Park to honor and perpetuate the memory of those individuals who were forcibly relocated to the Kalaupapa Peninsula from 1866 to 1969.

S. 783 would adjust the boundary of the Barataria Preserve Unit of the Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve in Louisiana.

S. 1633 would authorize a special resource study to determine the suitability and feasibility of including the battlefield and related sites of the Battle of Shepherdstown in Shepherdstown, W. Va., as part of Harpers Ferry National Historical Park or Antietam National Battlefield.

S. 2207 would authorize a study of the suitability and feasibility of designating Green McAdoo School in Clinton, Tenn., as a unit of the National Park System.

S. 2513 would modify the boundary of the Minute Man National Historical Park in Massachusetts.

H. R. 2197 would modify the boundary of the Hopewell Culture National Historical Park in Ohio.

H. R. 2627 would establish the Thomas Edison National Historical Park in New Jersey as the successor to the Edison National Historic Site.

S. 2804 would adjust the boundary of the Everglades National Park to include the Tarpon Basin property. The property contains habitat for the wood stork and the West Indian manatee, both of which are listed as endangered species. It also includes approximately 10 acres of subtropical hardwood hammock, found only in South Florida and the Florida Keys.

H. R. 1285 would convey National Forest System land in Kittitas County, Wash., to facilitate the construction of a new fire and rescue station.

H. R. 1311 would both convey the Alta-Hualapai Site in Nevada to the city of Las Vegas for the development of a cancer treatment facility.

H. R. 1483 would create six new national heritage areas, including one that would surround the entire city of Tucson, Ariz., and extend the funding authorization for nine others.

Proposals in the bill include the Santa Cruz Valley National Heritage Area, the Muscle Shoals National Heritage Area in Alabama, the Journey Through Hallowed Ground National Heritage Area through historic battlefields in Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia and Pennsylvania.

S. 827 would establish a heritage area that encompasses 36 communities in Massachusetts and eight communities in New Hampshire that have significance to U. S. history.

S. 2512 would establish the Mississippi Delta National Heritage Area.

S. 2254would establish the Mississippi Hills National Heritage Area.

S. 2604 would establish the Baltimore National Heritage Area.

S. 2814 would authorize Interior to provide financial assistance to the Eastern New Mexico Rural Water Authority for the planning, design and construction of a rural water system.

H. R. 1725 would authorize the secretary to participate in the Rancho California Water District Southern Riverside County Recycled Non-Potable Distribution Facilities and Demineralization Desalination Recycled Water Treatment and Reclamation Facility Project.

S. 27 authorizes $217 million in direct spending for the implementation of the San Joaquin River Restoration Settlement.

S. 1171 would amend the Colorado River Storage Protect Act and Public Law 87-483 to authorize the construction and rehabilitation of water infrastructure in Northwestern New Mexico and other purposes.

S. 1929 would authorize Interior and the Bureau of Reclamation to study water augmentation alternatives in the Sierra Vista Subwatershed in Arizona.

S. 2370 would clear title to certain property in New Mexico associated with the Middle Rio Grande Project.

H. R. 123 would ensure that once $85 million in federal funds is appropriated for the San Gabriel Basin Water Quality Authority and the Central Basin Municipal Water District the money would be subject to a 35 percent non-federal matching requirement from each entity.

H. R. 356 would remove certain restrictions on the Mammoth Community Water District's ability to use certain property acquired by that District from the United States.

H. R. 1855 would authorize Interior and the BLM to enter into a cooperative agreement with the Madera Irrigation District for purposes of supporting the Madera Water Supply Enhancement Project.

H. R. 2085 would authorize the secretary of the Interior to convey to the McGee Creek Authority certain facilities of the McGee Creek Project.

The committee voted by roll call to clear S. 27, which authorizes $217 million in direct spending for the implementation of the San Joaquin River Restoration Settlement.
Bills dropped

Three of the bills on the shortlist were held from the markup due to technical issues. They are:

S. 390 would trade about 40,000 acres of BLM lands for 42,000 acres of environmentally sensitive state lands, many of which have wilderness characteristics.

S. 1477 would authorize the rehabilitation of Colorado's Jackson Gulch.

H. R. 2381 would promote Interior efforts to provide scientific basis for the management of sediment and nutrient loss in the Upper Mississippi River Basin, due to concerns it would duplicate existing federal programs.

Editorial:Wilderness is Multiple Use 05.08.08

THE NEW WEST
LET'S GET OUR WORDS STRAIGHT

By Bill Schneider, 5-08-08

Have you ever heard somebody say they prefer “multiple use” over Wilderness? I have what seems like a thousand times, and every time I hear it, I say to myself, wrong!

So, it seems like a good time to say it out loud because the words, “multiple use” have been lost in the Wilderness.

In the common vernacular, especially among those who favor commercial uses of public lands, “multiple use” means development instead of protection. What they really mean when then say, “muliple use” is “logging use” or “commercial use” or “motorized recreation use” or most appropriate, perhaps, “single use.” But in reality, congressionally mandated Wilderness, as designated under the provisos of the Wilderness Act of 1964, is much closer to being multiple use management than mining, logging and other commercial uses of public land.

The Multiple Use and Sustained Yield Act of 1960 brought the words into common usage. Officially and ironically, the Act lists the five multiple uses as outdoor recreation (listed first, but no hidden message in that, right?), range (i.e. livestock grazing), timber, watershed, and “wildlife and fish purposes.”

(Actually, the five muliple uses are listed alphabetically, but the bill’s drafters had to abandon the common usage of “fish and wildlife” and go to “wildlife and fish” so it wouldn’t be listed first. There’s definitely a message behind that one.)

Legally, Wilderness allows all of these uses except timber. Any grazing allotments in place before designation remain active unless purchased or retired, and as a result, some designated Wilderness areas currently have livestock grazing within their boundaries. Even mining is legally allowed in Wilderness if the leases were in place before designation, although enviros commonly oppose any proposal to do so, and end up defeating or delaying most Wilderness mines.

The Multiple Use and Sustained Yield Act is a long, complicated piece of legislation open to interpretation, but right on the first page, it prominently states: “Multiple use means the management of all the various renewable resources of the national forests so that they are utilized in the combination that will best meet the needs of the American people.”

I interpret that definition as our roadless lands could all be designated as Wilderness to “meet the needs of the American people"--and fit into the definition of “multiple use.” This law doesn’t list mining as one of the “multiple uses,” nor does mining meet the definition because gold, silver, copper, coal, et al are not renewable resources. So, let’s be clear on this one. Mining is single use.

Compare Wilderness, which allows four out of the five defined muliple uses and protects three of them (fish and wildlife, outdoor recreation and watershed) to a large mining development or mountainside being clear cut, both considered “multiple use” by its supporters. But where is the “multiple use”? Where is the fish and wildlife, outdoor recreation, livestock grazing or watershed protection? All are gone at least during active development if not long into the future in the case of mining. Ever see cows grazing on an active mining site? No hiking or even ATVing there. No wildlife or hunting or fish or fishing. And watershed protection? Ever see the water flowing out of an active mine--or sadly, many abandoned decades ago? Or taste it? Likewise, how many streams have been silted up for years in the wake of poorly planned timber cutting?

Timber development, incidentally, can be managed correctly to preserve watershed and wildlife values and still be good hunting or hiking land after the cutting stops if roads are retired, even opened to livestock grazing again, but how often does this really happen? Not enough, I’m sure.

The words, “multiple use” have been lowered to a political catch phrase. Ever hear a politician say he or she favors “muliple use” instead of Wilderness? Politicos should be honest and say they want commercial use of public lands and stop trying to fool us by using “muliple use” because it sounds so wide-reaching politically while hiding the true intent. If they really wanted more multiple use, they would support Wilderness designation.

The worshippers of “multiple use” pretend to represent a broad range of interests when they are, in reality, supporting special, single use or abuse of public land we all own. Contrarily, whether or not we choose to admit it, Wilderness supporters represent the majority of us, even those who never go there. We marvel at the scenery; drink the pure water; breath the invisible air; enjoy the wildlife; or just feel good about a small part of the country remaining untamed.

So, please stop the muliple misuses of the words.

Wyden urges Forest Service to approve logging 05.01.08

Capital Press

Thursday, May 01, 2008

BEND, Ore. (AP) -- With Eastern Oregon's timber industry struggling amid the deflation of the housing bubble, U. S. Sen. Ron Wyden has asked the U. S. Forest Service to quickly approve logging in areas of Grant and Harney counties that were burned by wildfire in recent summers.

"The conservation community, the timber industry and the local elected officials in Eastern Oregon have proposed an agreement that will salvage valuable timber, provide needed product for local lumber mills and aid the ailing economies in a rural area of my state," Wyden, D-Ore., said in a letter Tuesday to Mark Rey, the undersecretary for Natural Resources and Environment at the Department of Agriculture.

The proposed agreement between environmentalists and timber companies would result in the logging of nearly 40 million board feet of timber, The Oregonian newspaper reported.

Though environmentalists typically oppose salvage logging, Tim Lillebo, a field representative for the group Oregon Wild, said his organization wants to ensure local mills survive the current economic downturn so the timber industry can perform future thinning and conservation projects on public lands.

In the agreement, conservation groups would support salvage logging in parts of the Malheur National Forest if the timber companies promise not to log sensitive areas.

"If a project can stay out of those key areas - the unroaded stuff, the Wild and Scenic River stuff, the core areas for wildlife - maybe we can agree to this as a one-time thing," Lillebo said.

In 2006, the Shake Table fire burned about 14,500 acres near John Day. Last summer, the Egley complex of fires covered more than 140,000 acres near Burns.

Besides dropping challenges to the salvage sale proposed by the Forest Service for the Shake Table fire, environmentalists would encourage the agency to expedite an environmental review of the Egley salvage sale.

That would mean logging would start there as early as this summer.

Editorial: Courts call president's hand on environment 05.24.08

Sacramento Bee

Judges at all levels have ruled against a long record of delay and non-compliance

Saturday, May 24, 2008

When President Bush took office in 2001, it was clear his appointees would try to streamline environmental reviews that often prove burdensome to industry. The only question was whether the administration would follow legal means to advance this agenda or try to dodge the law.

The answer is now clear. Over the past eight years, the Bush administration has consistently failed in court when faced with legal claims it is violating the nation's major bedrock environmental statutes.

In case after case, federal judges have rejected administration attempts to increase logging in national forests, avoid protections for threatened wildlife and allow industries to sidestep the mandates of the Clean Air Act.

Bush's defenders say the administration is the victim of activist judges, but this claim doesn't stand up to close scrutiny. Here in California, a U. S. District Court judge in Fresno, Oliver Wanger, ordered a reduction in increased water pumping from the Delta because federal agencies hadn't adequately analyzed the impacts on an endangered fish, the Delta smelt.

No one would accuse Wanger – an appointee of the first President Bush – of being a tool of environmentalists. Previously he has ruled in favor of irrigators in some landmark decisions.

It would also be a stretch to claim the U. S. Supreme Court is a robed hugger of trees. Yet the high court last year sided with California, and against the Bush administration, in determining that carbon dioxide is a pollutant that can be regulated under the Clean Air Act. That landmark decision sets the stage for California to implement a 2002 law regulating C02 emissions from automobiles, except that the Bush EPA is refusing to issue a waiver the state is seeking.

Are environmental laws complex? Undoubtedly. Could some of them be modified and modernized to reflect 21st century priorities, such as the need to quickly address forest fire threats? Sure they could.

But instead of leading that long-needed discussion, the Bush administration has chosen to sidestep laws that ensure that people have some involvement in decisions that could potentially damage their air, water and natural heritage.

As Congress and news reports have documented, Bush appointees have been caught, time after time, altering the findings of mid-level biologists and other scientists. Time after time, judges have scolded Bush lawyers for novel interpretations of federal laws, filling their decisions with terms such as "foot-dragging" and "surprise switcheroo."

The saddest part of this legacy is the money wasted. Although no one has yet compiled a tally, federal taxpayers have probably spent tens of millions of dollars defending the administration's egregious decisions in court, and conservation groups also have invested huge sums in using the courts to enforce laws.

As a result, vast sums have gone to lawyers instead of on-the-ground efforts to clean up our air, protect vital habitats, restore forests and develop new sources of geothermal power and other alternative energies.

While environmentalists can take pride in their legal victories, they have little to celebrate. Nor does President Bush. It will take a new White House occupant to repair the damage, and he or she can't get there soon enough.

Senate Approves County Payments Extension 05.23.08

Salem News

(WASHINGTON, D. C.) - Voting 75 to 22, the U. S. Senate approved an amendment to the Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2008 (HR.2642) that included a one-year $400 million extension of the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self Determination Act.

“Once again an overwhelming majority of the Senate voted to keep our rural schools and communities afloat,” said Wyden. “Today’s vote sends a strong message to both the House and the White House that funding county payments is a critical national emergency.”

The “county payments” extension was included in S. AMDT.4803 which contains all domestic emergency spending ranging from federal aid for natural disasters to home heating assistance. The amendment is attached to the Iraq War funding bill and now must be approved by the House of Representatives.

Wyden also commented on Congressman Peter DeFazio’s (D-Springfield) announcement today that the House of Representatives will vote on a multi-year extension of the county payments program.

“I’m also ecstatic to hear that Peter DeFazio has secured a vote in the House of Representatives on a 4-year reauthorization of county payments,” said Wyden. “The Senate already passed the four year reauthorization I authored in 2007 by a vote of 74-23, so when Peter’s bill passes, both Houses of Congress will be on the record for a long-term fix. Then we will all ask President Bush, once again, not to turn his back on rural counties.”

The Secure Rural Schools and Community Self Determination Act of 2000, originally authored by Wyden and U. S. Senator Larry Craig (R-Idaho) established a six-year payment formula for counties that receive revenue sharing payments for the United States Forestry Service (USFS) and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) lands. Based on historical timber receipts, the formula established a stable source of revenue to be used for education, roads and various other county services in rural areas.

Over 700 counties in 39 states have received funding under the original country payments law, which was allowed to expire in September 2006. Last year by a vote of 74 to 23 the Senate approved a multi-year extension of the county payments as an amendment sponsored by Senator Wyden to the FY 2007 Emergency Supplemental Appropriations bill; however after negotiations with the House of Representatives, the law was only extended for one year.

Source: Ron Wyden

**New Address!** American Lands' DC office has moved to a new location!

American Lands Alliance has moved from 726 7th Street, SE, Washington, DC 20003 to a new location. Our new location is at 122 C Street, NW, Suite 240, Washington, DC 20001. Please update your records accordingly.

Thanks!

American Lands Alliance Staff

Development pact between federal gov't and private owner draws ire 07.07.08

Greenwire

(07/07/2008)

The Bush administration is preparing to allow Plum Creek Timber Co., a former logging company turned real-estate developer, to convert hundreds of thousands of acres of mountain forestland to residential subdivisions, angering local officials and environmentalists.

The deal puts Plum Creek -- whose holdings of more than 8 million acres make it the nation's largest private landowner -- in position to develop its Missoula County land in western Montana.

The county is threatening to sue over the change, as it for years relied Forest Service policies to protect the land from development. "We have 40 years of Forest Service history that has been reversed in the last three months," said Missoula County official Pat O'Herren.

Local environmentalists find themselves in the unfamiliar position of defending logging. "Now that Plum Creek is getting out of the timber business, we're kind of missing the loggers," said Ray Rasker, executive director of Headwaters Economics, a nonprofit that studies land management. "A clear-cut will grow back, but a subdivision of trophy homes, that's going to be that way forever. It's kind of the ugly face of the new economy."

But with residential lots selling for between $11,000 and $100,000 per acre, the development should not be a surprise, according to University of Montana's Larry Swanson, who estimates the value of an acre of preserved forest at $500. "It's a pretty straightforward proposition: The region's economy is moving from extraction to amenities, and you would expect the same thing to happen with its largest landowner," he said. "It's a tough deal. Change is hard, and this is a pretty fundamental change. But what's happening here is perfectly understandable."

Plum Creek owns 57 percent of Missoula County's private land, which under Montana law gives it veto power over any zoning restrictions (Karl Vick, Washington Post, July 5). -- PR

The WASHINGTON POST



Closed-Door Deal Could Open Land In Montana
Forest Service Angers Locals With Move That May Speed Building

By Karl Vick
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, July 5, 2008; A01

MISSOULA, Mont. -- The Bush administration is preparing to ease the way for the nation's largest private landowner to convert hundreds of thousands of acres of mountain forestland to residential subdivisions.

The deal was struck behind closed doors between Mark E. Rey, the former timber lobbyist who oversees the U. S. Forest Service, and Plum Creek Timber Co., a former logging company turned real estate investment trust that is building homes. Plum Creek owns more than 8 million acres nationwide, including 1.2 million acres in the mountains of western Montana, where local officials were stunned and outraged at the deal.

"We have 40 years of Forest Service history that has been reversed in the last three months," said Pat O'Herren, an official in Missoula County, which is threatening to sue the Forest Service for forgoing environmental assessments and other procedures that would have given the public a voice in the matter.

The deal, which Rey said he expects to formalize next month, threatens to dramatically accelerate trends already transforming the region. Plum Creek's shift from logging to real estate reflects a broader shift in the Western economy, from one long grounded in the industrial-scale extraction of natural resources to one based on accommodating the new residents who have made the region the fastest-growing in the nation.

Environmentalists, to their surprise, found that timber and mining were easier on the countryside.

"Now that Plum Creek is getting out of the timber business, we're kind of missing the loggers," said Ray Rasker, executive director of Headwaters Economics, a nonprofit that studies land management in the West. "A clear-cut will grow back, but a subdivision of trophy homes, that's going to be that way forever.

"It's kind of the ugly face of the new economy."

Rey said he, too, laments the ascension of "McMansions" over working forest, but he insisted that the law obliged him to accommodate Plum Creek's request for clarification of its rights to cross public land. Rey emphasized that during the private negotiations, Forest Service lawyers leveraged promises from Plum Creek to moderate the impact, including mandating "fire-wise" measures to reduce the danger from summer wildfires.

Under the new agreement, logging roads running into areas controlled by Plum Creek could be paved -- and would thrum with the traffic of eight to 12 vehicle trips per day to and from each home, according to O'Herren. Critics say that will further imperil grizzly bears, lynxes and other endangered species in the Crown of the Continent ecosystem, a region of rugged peaks, glacier-carved valleys, and sparkling rivers and lakes that straddles the border between Montana and Canada -- and that in parts remains as Lewis and Clark found it.

"For us, this is kind of an arterial bleed, and we're either going to get a handle on it or not," said Melanie Parker, executive director of Northwest Connections, an environmental group in the Swan Valley, 60 miles northeast of Missoula.

Parker recently eased an SUV through Glacier Ridge, a nascent subdivision marked by freshly scraped lots and sumptuous views of the Mission Range on one side, the Swan Range on the other and the still-sparsely populated valley in between. The spring-fed bottomland is prime bear habitat where her husband, Tom, a hunting guide, saw his first grizzly.

"Look at that, Tom!" Parker yelped, after a climb up a knoll revealed a three-story log home, still wrapped in Tyvek HomeWrap insulation. "They're like mushrooms. You get a few sunny days and they pop right up."

Most are the second, third or even fourth homes of wealthy newcomers who have transformed the local economy -- 40 percent of income in Missoula County is now "unearned," from, say, dividends -- and typically visit only in the summer. In Antler Ridge, across Highway 93, Web cameras installed over bird nests and a bear den beam photos to a hedge fund partner who visits his 200 acres just a few times a year.

"He was actually in France when the bear left the den," said "remote wildlife viewing" contractor Ryan Alter, on his way to install a camera at an owl's nest. "So I sent him pictures on his BlackBerry."

"I wanted to own land out there because I was always very interested in the concept of restoration, conservation," Paul Gurinas, the hedge fund partner, said by phone from Chicago. "The fact that it's almost become kind of a housing subdivision, that isn't what I was looking for. I guess I wish I had bought the whole thing up, and then I wouldn't have to worry about it."

That same impulse drives a different kind of land deal in the area: The buyers are the Nature Conservancy and other organizations that purchase desirable private land to preserve it. Since 2000, the groups have paid Plum Creek market rates to secure 280,000 sensitive acres in Montana alone.

Another 320,000 acres are being preserved under a provision that Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) forced into the farm bill, which survived President Bush's veto. The measure includes $250 million to back bonds to buy Plum Creek lands that otherwise might be developed.

"This is like the last big, wild, intact landscape in the Lower 48," said Eric Love of the Trust for Public Land, a conservation group that with the Nature Conservancy announced the $510 million purchase on Monday. "If these lands are going to be sold, someone is going to buy them. The question is, who?"

Plum Creek said it has sold only 3,000 of its Montana acres to developers in the past five years, and it expects to sell even less in the next five, the company's president, Rick Holley, wrote in a recent op-ed in the Missoulian newspaper. But critics point out that its calculations may shift with the real estate market.

A decade ago, while repairing an image as the "Darth Vader of the timber industry," as one congressman put it, the company showcased good-forestry practices on a hillside above Flathead Lake.

That parcel is now Eagle's Crest, a gated subdivision with its own airstrip and lots on offer for $100,000 an acre. Remote corners of Swan Valley are selling for $11,000 an acre, with broker inquiries arriving from Europe. By comparison, the "net present value per acre of forest" runs at most $500, said Larry Swanson, director of the O'Connor Center for the Rocky Mountain West at the University of Montana.

"It's a pretty straightforward proposition: The region's economy is moving from extraction to amenities, and you would expect the same thing to happen with its largest landowner," Swanson said.

"It's a tough deal. Change is hard, and this is pretty fundamental change. But what's happening here is perfectly understandable."

Missoula County officials say their objection is not to change, which traditionally rural jurisdictions have struggled to manage, but to being blindsided by Rey's announcement of a far-reaching change negotiated in secret.

Plum Creek owns 57 percent of Missoula County's private land, a posture that under state law gives it veto power over any zoning. Over the decades that the Forest Service enforced limits on logging roads, the county came to regard federal policy as a firebreak against development.

"All these years, we've been told those roads are not for residential use," said Jean Curtiss, who chairs the county commission. "These are logging roads. They're for timber management."

If the deal goes into effect, the county stands to lose money in providing services such as snow plowing and ambulances to remote new developments. "You're looking at a real nightmare scenario in managing wildfires," Rasker said. "And you're going to have access issues: If these now become gated subdivisions, it's going to be harder for people to go hunt and fish, and that's pretty important to people in Montana."

Owls not to blame for forest problems 07.09.08

Register-Guard

Guest Viewpoint

By Ron Sadler

July 9, 2008 12:00AM

As a society, we now demand concise, simplistic explanations of all our most complex problems. If it can’t be explained in a few short sentences or a 20-second sound bite, we lose interest.

So it is with Oregon counties’ current budgetary problems caused by the drastic drop in federal Bureau of Land Management timber receipts and the reluctance of Congress to provide a monetary lifeline.

The most commonly accepted explanations of how we got into this mess are that it was because of the spotted owl or because of some nefarious scheme by wacko environmentalists, or perhaps both.

I was the BLM’s forestry planning chief through much of the 1970s and early 1980s. I’d like to set the record straight.

We completed a forest inventory and a proposed land use plan revision in 1980. It had become quite clear by that time that the old growth ecosystem was about to disappear throughout Western Oregon. It already had been essentially liquidated on industrial forest land.

Given then-current levels of sustained-­yield timber production, the old growth ecosystem was within a decade or two of being liquidated on much of the BLM lands.

The Endangered Species Act was in place at that time, but the spotted owl had not yet been listed as endangered. However, ongoing research had identified the spotted owl as the standard bearer for the 300-odd species of plants and animals, the survival of which depended on old growth forests.

There was great consternation among wildlife biologists and foresters about the detrimental effects on timber production levels if the owl became listed as officially endangered, thus bringing the stringent and inflexible mandates of the Endangered Species Act into play.

An interagency task force was convened to determine the minimum number and distribution of owl habitat sites that would need to be protected if the spotted owl were to be kept from being listed as officially endangered.

The BLM’s allocation was a total of 90 sites. We used those 90 sites as core locations for a distribution of old growth stands that we thought sufficient to maintain the old growth ecosystem.

As part of our plan, we included connector corridors to provide for genetic flow among the sites, as well as extended harvest rotation areas and other provisions to manage for a reasonable distribution of the old growth ecosystem over time.

The net impact of these land use allocations was that the allowable cut would have been reduced by about 15 percent to 20 percent on BLM lands in Western Oregon. Thus, O&C timber receipts to the counties — revenue from BLM-­managed lands that once belonged to the Oregon & California Railroad — would have fallen a like amount.

We felt this was a reasonable impact, given the more drastic reductions foreseeable if the owl became listed.

We took our new proposal back to Washington, D. C., where we presented it to the newly minted Reagan political appointees that made up the top echelons of the Department of Interior and the BLM. Their responses still are indelibly fixed in my mind: “The spotted owl will not be listed during this administration,” they said. “This administration will raise timber production, not lower it.”

As to the first, they were correct in that the spotted owl did not become listed as officially endangered until the early days of the first President Bush’s administration. As to the second, they were badly off the mark.

Rather than accept a reasonable 20 percent reduction in timber output, which would have provided a reduced but still reasonable level of receipts back to the counties, the Reaganites set us off on a tortuous path that eventually led to a 90 percent reduction in timber output and the resultant need for fiscal help from Congress.

Let’s stop throwing rocks at the poor spotted owl. He’s got enough problems, especially now with his crazy relative, the barred owl, showing up on his doorstep.

It’s the Reagan revolution that got us into this mess!

---

Ron Sadler of North Bend is a retired Bureau of Land Management worker,who headed up forestry planning in Oregon and Washington.

Lawmakers take a second look at qualifications for RFS 07.21.08

E&E Daily

July 21, 2008

Allison Winter, E&E Daily reporter

Lawmakers frustrated with the eligibility requirements of the renewable fuels standard will get a chance to vent their frustration this week to the House Agriculture Committee.

The hearing is intended to take a step back from the recent debate over whether U. S. EPA should scale back the requirements to increase U. S. ethanol usage, which were included in the 2007 energy bill. The Agriculture Committee's focus is on more technical issues about feedstocks that are eligible for the incentives, according to committee staff.


The panel will hear from EPA, stakeholder groups and academics about how some of the specific requirements in the mandate could shape the future for the next generation of biofuels. Of particular concern for several lawmakers on the panel are the biomass and greenhouse gas requirements, a committee aide said.

But the waiver request for the renewable fuels standard will almost certainly come up at the hearing, which is scheduled for the same day EPA faces a deadline to reply to Texas Gov. Rick Perry's (R) request. Perry asked EPA to reduce the renewable fuels standard from 9 billion gallons to 4.5 billion gallons for 2008. EPA is supposed to make a decision by July 24.

Two more lawmakers -- Virginia Sens. John Warner (R) and Jim Webb (D) -- joined in the appeal Friday, when they sent a letter to EPA requesting a waiver.

Although the committee is scheduled to hear from EPA, their focus is not the size of the mandate or its effects on food prices, according to aides. At issue are a number of requirements and environmental restrictions included as part of the RFS for what could qualify for the incentives for advanced biofuels.

As part of the energy bill's eventual 36 billion gallon renewable fuels standard, the act includes requirements that the new biofuels emit fewer greenhouse gases than does gasoline, including not only direct emission sources but also indirect sources such as land-use change. Some academics have questioned whether any fuels would qualify if all of their emissions are taken into account.

The law also prohibits the use of materials from national forests and other federally protected areas -- an issue of particular concern for lawmakers from states with significant national forest land.

They are concerned the requirements, included as part of the leadership negotiations on the bill, could keep out viable fuel options. They want to be sure markets can develop for woodchips, slash and other wood waste that result when federal forest managers or private landowners thin forests for fire control or cut down trees to contain disease or insect infestation.

Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (D-S.D.), a member of the House Agriculture Committee, has introduced legislation that would broaden the energy bill's definition and allow for federally sourced biomass. John Thune (R-S.D.) has introduced a similar bill.

Herseth Sandlin's bill has 17 cosponsors, including Agriculture Committee ranking member Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.). Several forestry and biofuels industry groups are also backing the proposal, but the Natural Resources Defense Council and other environmental groups oppose it.

Environmental groups hailed the restrictions of what qualifies as a "renewable biomass" as a great step forward for biofuels, saying it would ensure the sustainability of cellulosic ethanol. They say the requirements are key to creating incentives for biofuels without harvesting important forests or wildlife habitat.

But farm state lawmakers are not alone in their concerns. Other key players in energy on Capitol Hill -- including Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) and ranking member Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) -- have also expressed concerns that the narrow RFS requirements risk excluding important new technologies, including fuels from hazardous fuels reduction and urban and commercial wood waste (E&E Daily, Feb. 8).

Schedule: The hearing is Thursday, July 24, at 10 a. m. in 1300 Longworth.

Enviros decry Bush admin revisions to mining regs 07.17.08

Land Letter

07/17/2008

Scott Streater, special to Land Letter

The Bush administration has proposed 11th-hour revisions to federal rules that would make it easier to mine gold, copper and other minerals on U. S. Forest Service land, a move critics fear will have devastating environmental impacts.

The proposal is a wide-ranging revision to federal rules governing mining activity on Forest Service land and addresses mine inspections, environmental violations and other routine issues. Within the extensive proposal lies a section involving small exploratory mining operations that has some environmentalists and conservation advocates extremely concerned.

If approved, the revisions would exempt mining companies from conducting costly -- and time-consuming -- environmental assessments before drilling exploratory wells, dredging creek bottoms and taking other measures to search for gold, silver, copper and other minerals. In addition, the Forest Service would not have to notify the public before approving the exploratory mining activity, nor would the agency be required to make mining plans available for public inspection.

What's more, the revisions would allow miners searching for valuable minerals to use a controversial process called suction dredge mining.

"It's like you take a large vacuum and place it into the bottom of the streambed and suck up what's on the bottom, hoping it's gold," said Lauren Pagel, policy director at Earthworks, a group highly critical of the proposal. "Unfortunately, there are a lot of other things on the bottom, such as eggs that salmon and other fish would lay."

Requirements within the proposal include that the exploratory work be confined to a 5-acre area and that the miners supply a bond fund to pay for any environmental damage that occurs.

"Beyond that, no one would know what you were doing out there," Pagel said. "That, from our perspective, is not how you want to manage public lands."

Pagel and others are extremely concerned that the Forest Service has conducted no detailed analysis on the potential environmental impacts of the proposed revisions, as required by the National Environmental Policy Act. Instead, the federal agency has proposed to "categorically exclude" the policy revisions from the full review process outlined under NEPA.

Use of the exclusion provision is usually reserved for mundane activities on federal lands that clearly do not require an environmental review, not a major policy revision that could have significant impacts on the nation's forests, said Jeffrey Parsons, a senior attorney with the Western Mining Action Project, a nonprofit law firm that specializes in mining and pollution law.

Parsons' group in May submitted a nine-page, scathing review of the Forest Service proposal that was signed by 36 different groups, ranging from national environmental organizations such as the Sierra Club and Environmental Working Group to the Karuk Tribe of California.

"These are major changes that deserve all the analysis due under federal law," Parsons said. "They can't just administratively do an end-around some of the nation's most critical environmental regulations. But that's what they intend to do."

Forest Service on the defensive
Mike Doran, who leads the Forest Service's locatable minerals program in Boise, Idaho, insists the revisions are mainly an attempt to clarify rules and regulations for the mining industry, and to better use agency resources and manpower by focusing on big, complicated projects that require detailed analysis to prevent major environmental impacts.

"This will make minerals management for the Forest Service more efficient," said Doran, who authored the proposed revisions.

Doran said he is confident the revised rules would not cause any major harm to public lands. He said years of experience have shown the Forest Service that relatively small-scale exploratory mining activity does not cause major environmental damage.

"We've already analyzed these things to death," Doran said. "We know what to do with them. We know what's needed to minimize adverse impacts."

Still, Doran said the agency is sensitive to public concerns. He noted that the original proposed rule change -- unveiled with little fanfare on March 25 -- would have allowed small mining projects, in addition to exploratory mining activity, to skip environmental impact studies and public notice requirements. He said the agency plans to restrict the revisions to exploratory mining activity only, though it has not yet formally done so.

"The Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management are important sources for the minerals that we use to sustain our economy and our standard of living," Doran said. "At the same time, we understand that mining for these minerals has got to be balanced with minimizing effects to the environment."

'Midnight regulations'
The mining rule changes are just one of a number of controversial policy proposals that have been devised by the Bush administration in the waning months of his second term. Some fear the White House is gearing up to approve many more extremely controversial policy changes before Bush's term ends.

Some of the "midnight regulations" already on tap would eliminate or reduce federal protection of endangered and threatened species; weaken regulations intended to reduce emissions from older power plants and other industrial facilities; and permit mine operators to dump more waste material near creeks and streams during "mountaintop removal" activity.

One of the most controversial proposals would make it easier for power plants and other industrial pollution sources to build facilities relatively near to national parks (Land Letter, July 3). And it comes at a time when national parks are already dealing with growing air pollution problems. Newly installed air monitors have detected surprisingly high levels of ozone in remote areas, including at very high elevations in the Rocky Mountains in Colorado, according to Forest Service ecologist Bob Musselman.

These late proposals are of particular concern to activists because of the Bush administration's poor track record on environmental regulations and policies, said Francesca Grifo, director of the scientific integrity program for the Union of Concerned Scientists.

"I think our fears are absolutely warranted," she said. "And we need to be worried and watchful."

Headed to the courts
The Forest Service proposal would amend Section 228, Subsection A of the Code of Federal Regulations, which deals with minerals mining on parks, forests and public property. The purpose of these regulations, as stated in the law, is to ensure that mining activities "shall be conducted so as to minimize adverse environmental impacts on National Forest System surface resources."

Few people disagree that the regulations, first adopted in 1974, need to be updated. There have been two minor revisions to the regulations in 34 years, Doran said. The National Research Council, in a study published in September 1999, made a host of recommended changes, including streamlining the approval process for exploration proposals.

The proposed revisions would, among other things, create a system under which a mining company, or an individual prospector, inform the Forest Service that it planned to conduct exploratory mining on a specific public site and provide a reclamation bond containing enough money to cover any damages. The Forest Service district ranger would determine how much is needed in the bond account on a case-by-case basis. The exploratory mining activity would be limited to two years, and an environmental assessment would be required before full-blown mining activity could begin.

"We think the proposed revisions are a necessary good overall," said Luke Popovich, a spokesman for the National Mining Association, an industry trade group.

The goal, according to an internal Forest Service analysis of the proposed changes, is to ensure that "mineral operators will spend less time and money waiting for approval for their short-term and low impact operations."

Doran and mining industry officials say this change is in line with policy revisions made in 2001 by the Bureau of Land Management concerning mining activity on BLM-managed property.

But a federal district court in 2003 threw out portions of that policy, ruling that BLM has an obligation to apply the proper land protection standards, specifically as they relate to environmental protection, said Parsons, the Western Mining Action Project attorney.

"There's little question that this issue will once again be decided in the courts," Parsons said.

Weakening protections
The revisions come at a time when copper and gold are in increasing demand worldwide, particularly in rapidly developing countries such as China and India. Requests for mining permits on federal lands have skyrocketed in the western United States, threatening the Coronado National Forest in southern Arizona and the Gifford Pinchot National Forest in Washington state.

Environmentalists say the increased mining activity is all the more reason to strengthen, not weaken, laws to ensure that the activity is done correctly.

For example, current Forest Service regulations require mining operations to take steps to avoid adverse environmental impacts "where feasible" on federal agency land. But the proposed revisions would change the wording to require miners to avoid environmental damage "where practical."

"To me it means the same thing," Doran said.

Not so, said Parsons. He said the distinction carries legal significance that would allow mining companies to skip environmental protections if they feel they are too expensive.

"It would allow the companies to say, 'Well, it's not in our economic best interests to do this,'" he said.

There are other problems with the proposed revisions, said Jessica Walz, conservation director of the Gifford Pinchot Task Force.

Walz said she is particularly disappointed that the Forest Service revisions include suction dredge mining as an exploratory activity that would be exempt from a full-scale environmental assessment. She points to damage to fish breeding areas in Yellow Jacket Creek in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest over the past 30 years that was caused by this mining technique.

She said the task force is working with Washington state regulators and local groups to introduce larger numbers of salmon and other native species to the creek -- plans that could get ruined if more suction dredge mining is allowed.

"Our main concern is it makes it hard for us to do this," Walz said. "If we start to ease restrictions, even though they are pretty loose as it is, it's going to cause a lot of problems."

Scott Streater is a freelance journalist based in Colorado Springs, Colo.

Byrd details $24.1 billion supplemental, says GOP has votes to lift drilling bans 07.31.08

E&E Daily

Eric Bontrager, Ben Geman and Allison Winter, E&E Daily reporters

Senate Appropriations Chairman Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) yesterday outlined a proposed $24.1 billion supplemental spending bill but acknowledged Republicans have the votes to lift offshore drilling bans if the measure is brought before his committee.

Designed partially as an economic stimulus package, the bill includes billions of dollars for energy, transportation infrastructure and disaster recovery programs. Byrd said he has been working with committee members to reach an agreement to mark up the package but concluded that bringing it before the panel would give the GOP a drilling victory that would be hard to reverse.

"Unfortunately, it became clear that an attempt to add language to the supplemental, repealing the two-decade-old ban on offshore oil and gas drilling would be successful, resulting in the necessity of having to produce 60 votes on the Senate floor to strip the repeal," Byrd said in a statement.

The Appropriations Committee has 15 Democrats and 14 Republicans, but Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) of Louisiana is a strong supporter of wider offshore drilling, and at least two other Democrats on the panel are open to limited expansions.

Byrd, when unveiling the outline of the bill, said it would be on the Senate floor in September.

The supplemental was scheduled to come for a vote before the Appropriations Committee last week along with the Interior appropriations bill, which contains the OCS moratorium that is renewed every year through the spending bill, but both markups were canceled (E&E Daily, July 23). Byrd at the time cited the short period before the August break and pending floor consideration of energy legislation as reasons for the cancellation.

Byrd's comments yesterday drew attacks from Senate GOP leadership. "In other words, if there had been a vote on deep-sea exploration, a bipartisan majority of the committee would have supported it," said Don Stewart, a spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). "So while there were some denials from the Democrat leadership, it is now entirely clear why the markup was canceled."

Republicans have been pushing for votes on relaxing oil-and-gas leasing bans that cover federal waters off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, and the eastern Gulf of Mexico.

Energy, transportation program funding included

The spending bill includes $1.5 billion in funding for renewable energy and efficiency programs, according to Byrd's office. The largest share -- $900 million -- would fund a program in last year's major energy bill that helps automakers retool plants to make highly efficient vehicles.

Another $300 million would fund programs to help develop better advanced batteries for use in electric-powered cars. A summary from Byrd's office says developing such batteries is "the biggest hurdle to bringing plug-in hybrid or pure plug-in vehicles to the marketplace." It would also provide $300 million for renewable energy and energy efficiency projects undertaken by local, state and tribal governments.

Other energy-related items include $1.25 billion in additional funding for low-income heating and cooling assistance, and $250 million in weatherization assistance.

An additional $250 million would be provided for the cleanup for Energy Department nuclear sites, and DOE's science programs would get $150 million.

The bill also provides $4.8 billion in transportation funding. This includes $3.6 billion for highway investments for states to improve roads and bridges, which Byrd's office said would generate 124,000 jobs. The supplemental bill also contains a provision that transfers cash into the Highway Trust Fund to ensure it remains solvent through fiscal 2009.

Other transportation provisions provide $892.5 million for public transit agencies to meet growing demand, and $100 million for Amtrak capital projects.

Cash to close Enron loophole, assist USDA

The bill would give an extra surge of money to help the Agriculture Department and Commodity Futures Trading Commission launch water and energy projects included in the farm bill.

CFTC would get an extra $13.1 million to enhance enforcement and implement its new authorities from the farm bill. When Congress passed the farm bill earlier this year, it included language to close the "Enron loophole" by beefing up CFTC jurisdiction over futures markets that set contract prices.

Other farm bill programs would also get extra cash. The supplemental includes $172 million for USDA to upgrade its computers and implement new farm bill programs.

The department would get another farm bill supplement with $200 million in budget authority for grants and loans for water projects in rural communities. The farm bill gave an influx of money for the waste disposal and clean water projects, but a $1.4 billion backlog remains, according to USDA.

Aid for farmers, commercial fishers
The supplemental includes aid to states damaged by the recent Midwest floods. Natural disasters get a total of $10.1 billion in extra funding under the proposal, in addition to the nearly $3 billion in flood assistance that Congress approved in the Iraq supplemental in June.

USDA would get $150 million for two different emergency watershed programs -- adding to the $390 million the agency received for the programs in the war supplemental. Both programs help producers or local governments recover from flooding and other disasters, including the purchase of flood plain easements or activities to prevent soil erosion.

The Natural Resources Conservation Service has estimated Iowa will need at least $500 million to restore watersheds.

Other flood assistance money would go to grants for states that want to repair water and sewer facilities or restore housing. The proposal also has $1.2 billion for emergency road and bridge repair.

Cash-strapped fishing communities would also get a helping hand. The supplemental includes $75 million to assist fishing communities hit by natural disasters or regulations that reduced their catch.

The Commerce Department declared a "fishery failure" for West Coast salmon earlier this year and approved regulations to shut down this year's commercial and recreational catch for California and most of Oregon. The freeze on the salmon fishery -- the first since the West Coast fishing industry began 150 years ago -- came in response to collapsing populations of the fish. The farm bill includes $170 million to aid commercial fishers and businesses affected by the salmon closure in California, Oregon and Washington.

Clean water, wildfires, rural schools
The spending package will also include funding for clean water programs, firefighting efforts and payments for rural communities affected by the decline in federal timber revenues.

U. S. EPA would get some $200 million for its Clean Water State Revolving Fund, which provides funding to states for low-cost loans for local sewage projects. The agency estimates that it may cost more than $200 billion to keep up with sewer needs over the next two decades. The president's fiscal 2009 budget proposal requests $555 million for the fund.

The bill calls for $910 million for the Interior Department and Forest Service, $300 million of which would go toward fire prevention activities, such as hazardous fuels reduction, burned area rehabilitation and firefighter recruitment and retention.

Congress approved a similar supplemental fire bill last year following after rampant wildfires depleted federal fire accounts before the end of the wildfire season, and the recent string of wildfires in California have strained the government's resources again this year.

The Forest Service alone has already spent $893 million -- more than 70 percent of the $1.26 billion in available firefighting funds.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency would get $1.8 billion for disaster relief. The government tapped more than $154 million from the agency's funds for the California wildfires.

A one-year, $400 million extension of the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act is also included in the supplemental.

The rural schools act paid out millions to rural communities hit by the decline in timber sales on federal lands to pay for basic municipal services such as schools and infrastructure. It expired two years ago but was extended for one year in last year's Iraq supplemental bill.

Lawmakers have made several attempts to pass an extension of rural schools during the summer as a standalone bill or part of a larger spending package, but they have all been unsuccessful. Most recently, a four-year extension was included in a tax package from Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.). Two attempts to proceed to the tax bill on the Senate floor this week failed.

Thinning techniques could make forests less flammable 07.31.08

E&E

By partnering with the logging industry to explore new management practices, forest supervisors in Arizona hope to reduce the risks of mammoth blazes that are ravaging the American West this summer.

Small blazes are used to clear the forest understory, but a century of fire suppression has allowed a tangle of small trees to turn the woods into a timberbox.

To replace the work previously done by cyclical fires, the U. S. Forest Service's White Mountain Stewardship Project is paying loggers to harvest understory growth -- which is too thin to use as timber -- in order to turn it into wood-stove pellets, paneling and other consumer products.

The program hopes to strike a compromise between environmentalists, who frequently oppose logging, and the timber industry, which says that logging prohibitions are increasing the severity of forest fires.

A billboard in Herber, a town where 400 homes were destroyed by fires in 2002, provides a reminder of the debate that still simmers. It reads: "Thank you, environMENTALists for making the 2002 fire season all it could be" (Bettina Boxall, Los Angeles Times, July 31). -- PR

Spending bills to hold until next year -- Reid 07.10.08

E&E News

Thursday, July 10, 2008

Ben Geman, E&ENews PM senior reporter

The Senate will likely leave spending bills for federal agencies that oversee energy production, public lands and environmental policy for the next administration, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said today.

Reid told reporters only the fiscal 2009 Defense and military construction measures will likely be completed this year, with Congress rolling the other appropriations bills, including the Interior, Energy and Water, Transportation and Commerce measures, into a continuing resolution lasting into next year.

In the meantime, the Appropriations Committee has been instructed to continue marking up bills. "We are going to attempt to do all our appropriations bills, and then attempt to bring those that we can to the Senate floor," Reid said, singling out the two military bills, adding, "the rest, we will just have to wait and see."

Reid, hoping Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) wins the presidential race in November, said he did not anticipate handling the remaining bills through a lame-duck session. "I would hope that before we would leave here this year, we would do a continuing resolution that would get us until after Senator Obama becomes president," Reid said.

Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), chairwoman of the Transportation Appropriations Subcommittee, said spending panels are making sure bills are "ready to go" for inclusion in whatever form or timeline the next year's spending package takes.

But she said there is less impetus for floor action because of the White House's insistence on lower spending levels than lawmakers want. "There is no sense in us wasting time on this floor putting toge