Free Republic

It’s no coincidence that sage grouse habitat also happens to intersect both the largest untapped coal deposits in the country as well as large parts of the Bakken oil field. It’s clear the primary motivation to focus on sage grouse for ESA listing is to provide yet another tool for special interest groups to block energy development. And in this obstructionist toolbox, there’s no heavier sledgehammer than the Endangered Species Act. What an interesting irony, then, that so much effort is going into “protecting” one bird from energy development, when the Obama administration is turning a blind eye to hundreds...

Atheists and agnostics like to claim that religion or belief in God isn’t necessary for living a moral life. “I can be a good person without God,” they say. Some go a step further and try to build a case for why they can be even better people without God. For example, they might claim that whereas theists are concerned about obeying religious commands that will get them into a heavenly afterlife, unbelievers are able to apply all their energies to making this world a better place.In a certain sense, it’s correct to say that one can be a...

Al Gore pops his head up at Davos…say, how’d he get there? A fossil fueled flight?…to make a racist pronouncement (via Climate Depot). Stopping overpopulation is one way the dangers of climate change can be mitigated, according to two of the most prominent believers in global warming. Former Vice President Al Gore and Microsoft founder Bill Gates (how did Gates get to Davos? Anyone think he flew commercial?) said at the World Economic Forum in Davos that contraception is a key in controlling the proliferation of unusual weather they say is endangering the world. “Depressing the rate of child mortality,...

Last Thursday, thanks largely to Senator Pam Roach (R-Auburn), the Washington State Senate provided an opportunity to discuss the Growth Management Act (GMA) in a public work session. Last year, I wrote about a less formal work session held by Representative Dean Takko (D-Longview). However, the recent Senate work session demonstrated notable willingness to look at Washington State’s GMA in a comprehensive manner without constraining the comments of those who testified.

But Gina McCarthy tells GOP lawmakers she can't answer climate-change questions: 

“I just look at what the climate scientists tell me."

Why is the EPA altering state boundaries in Wyoming - and reversing over 100 years of established law? Well, apparently the city of Riverton now falls under the jurisdiction of the Wind River Indian Reservation. Wyoming Governor Matt Mead warned of the dangers to all Americans of this type of unilateral land redistribution by the EPA: ...My deep concern is about an administrative agency of the federal government altering a state's boundary and going against over 100 years of history and law. "This should be a concern to all citizens because, if the EPA can unilaterally take land away from...

A new bill would lift Michigan's cap on electric market choice. Proponents of the bill say the current cap prevents most of Michigan customers from using competition to lower their electric rates, which are the highest in the region and well above the national average. House Bill 5184 is sponsored by Rep. Mike Shirkey, R-Clarklake. The state's current electric competition cap was established in 2008 when Public Act 295, the "Clean, Renewable and Efficient Energy Act," was signed into law. Under the act, Michigan's two largest electric utilities, Consumers Energy and Detroit Edition, were returned to a quasi-monopolistic status. It...

How’s that Obama Smart Meter working out for you? Are you sleeping better at night? Do you get to follow your energy usage minute by minute if you have enough strength left to get out of bed after being essentially microwaved 24/7? Have you driven by Florida Power and Light’s big “Data Mining Center” right across the street from its Next Era, Next Gen power complex in Jupiter-Juno Beach? With all of the money FP&L stands to gain from its huge rate hikes proposed at the Florida Public Service Commission hearing on January 7, maybe they’ll even be able to...

(CNSNews.com) - The Energy Department on Tuesday is rolling out new, improved software to help Americans measure the energy efficiency of their homes. DOE says its energy-scoring software -- called the Home Energy Scoring Tool -- is like a vehicle's mile-per-gallon rating because it allows homeowners to compare the energy performance of their homes to other homes nationwide. It also provides homeowners with suggestions for improving their homes' efficiency. The software is part of the government's effort to reduce the nation's energy consumption; but it's also billed as a way to keep home-retrofitting going, at a time when stimulus funds...

Ford's Global VP/Marketing and Sales, Jim Farley, said something both sinister and obvious during a panel discussion about data privacy today at CES, the big electronics trade show in Las Vegas. Because of the GPS units installed in Ford vehicles, Ford knows when its drivers are speeding, and where they are while they're doing it. Farley was trying to describe how much data Ford has on its customers, and illustrate the fact that the company uses very little of it in order to avoid raising privacy concerns: "We know everyone who breaks the law, we know when you're doing it....

Salvage logging on lands burned by last summer's Douglas Complex wildfire in southwestern Oregon is in full swing on privately owned forests, but not on public lands. ... On BLM lands, federal environmental laws require a lengthy planning process that includes the public. The Douglas Complex fires burned through 76 square miles on a patchwork of public and private lands.

The fact that a state legislature would decree population density mandates to cities in the state is an intolerable tyranny. Naturally, the California legislature is doing it. But it has officially decided to worry about the environment of a fantasy world, not the real one.

BREAKING NEWS: A train is derailed west of Casselton, North Dakota. It happened at 35th Street and 154th Avenue Southeast just before 2:20 p.m. Monday. Several area emergency teams are on scene and are setting up an incident command center. A viewer who is about a half mile from the derailment tells Valley News Live she can see large flames. Several train cars are on fire and huge plumes of black smoke can be seen for miles. Emergency crews are urging people to stay inside and a code red alert has been sent out to residents in a two mile...

Privately operated airboats, icons of the Gladesmen culture of the Everglades, will be dwindling in number because the Park Service isn’t granting any new licenses.

<p>ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) - New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has signed a law requiring manufacturers of thermostats with mercury to collect their old temperature controls in an effort to keep mercury out of the environment.</p> <p>The measure requires they establish collection programs and in 2015 start filing annual reports on collections.</p>

An experiment to see if killing invasive barred owls will help the threatened northern spotted owl reverse its decline toward extinction is underway in the forests of Northern California. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Friday that specially trained biologists have shot 26 barred owls in a study area on the Hoopa Valley Indian Reservation northeast of Arcata, Calif. The service is spending $3.5 million over six years to remove 3,600 barred owls from sites in Oregon, Washington and California. It is not unusual to kill one species to help a threatened or endangered one. Cormorants and sea lions...

Q uestions about the health benefits of vitamin supplements have been percolating in the medical establishment for decades — even as the multivitamin industry has grown to a multi-billion powerhouse in the U.S. This week, the respected journal the Annals of Internal Medicine put its well-heeled foot down. "We believe that the case is closed — supplementing the diet of well-nourished adults with (most) mineral or vitamin supplements has no clear benefit and might even be harmful," the journal said in an editorial. "These vitamins should not be used for chronic disease prevention. Enough is enough." Here's Dr. Edgar Miller...

The Bureau of Land Management held a public meeting surrounding its draft environmental impact statement surrounding greater sage grouse habitat and possible measures to protect sage grouse habitat. The EIS listed six alternatives, with alternative D listed as the preferred alternative. It’s aimed at balancing competing human interests, land uses and the conservation of natural and cultural resource values, while sustaining and enhancing ecological integrity across the landscape, including plant, wildlife and fish habitat. BLM Branch Chief for Renewable Resources and Planning Joe Tague, who traveled across parts of northern California and Nevada to discuss the DEIS and inform the...

Freedom: It's bad enough that the president's health insurance takeover costs more, breaks his pledge of letting you keep your plan and diminishes choice. It actually restricts your travels too. 'We have never had to put a wall up to keep our people in." Those words from President John F. Kennedy in June 1963, standing at the Berlin Wall, neatly illustrated the moral superiority of the free West over the Soviet bloc. But Americans are now about to find themselves grappling with their own bureaucratic Berlin Wall. The American Thinker's Stella Paul has exposed the virtually unnoticed fact that within...

Elko County Commissioner Grant Gerber suggested the BLM and U.S. Forest Service are seeking comment on a regional sage-grouse conservation plan only to placate critics of the push to protect the greater sage grouse, which is found in 11 Western states, including Nevada, Utah, Idaho and Oregon. Ranchers, miners, energy developers and state officials fear restrictions on the use of public lands in sage grouse habitat would have deep economic consequences in the rural West. Former Republican Assemblyman John Carpenter said he believes the government is determined to list the chicken-sized game bird as part of a bigger strategy to...