Free Republic

The House Committee on Natural Resources held a legislative hearing on June 15 on HR 3397, sponsored by Rep. John Curtis, R-Utah, to require the director of the Bureau of Land Management to withdraw the proposed conservation rule. In her prepared testimony, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem told the committee that nearly 98% of BLM surface lands in South Dakota are grazed by permittees; her state hosts 76 actively producing oil and gas leases that cover 36,762 acres; and the acres managed by the BLM provide recreation opportunities. Noem said the proposed rule overemphasizes conservation rather than the economic needs...

While the bureau put more days on the public comment calendar, the administration still has announced no plans to hold additional meetings. After outcry from Western constituencies and their representatives in Congress, the Bureau of Land Management has extended the public comment period on its proposed public lands rule that threatens to upend those Americans’ way of life. The new rule proposed in March establishes a framework for “conservation leases” elevated over other uses such as mining, grazing, and gas development. The agency guidelines, which were created without a congressional vote, would implement a radical departure from the “multiple use...

The new BLM rule introducing so-called conservation leasing will likely become the administration’s vehicle for locking up federal property. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is preparing to fundamentally reshape how public lands are managed without congressional approval. In March, the agency unveiled a sweeping proposal to establish a framework for “conservation leases” that places a newfound priority on preservation. The new Public Lands Rule presents a radical departure from the “multiple use mandate” Congress outlined for the agency in the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 (FLPMA). New Rules Are a ‘Game Changer’.. FLPMA requires federal lands...

School leaders in rural northwest Oregon are worried about big budget cuts. The Oregon Department of Forestry is working on a plan to protect habitats for endangered species across 640,000 acres of state forest. The loss of timber revenue will affect local schools. The Jewell School District expects to be the most heavily impacted because it gets almost all of its funding from timber revenue. It could see budget cuts of 40 percent. The Jewell School District has about 150 students and a budget of $5 million. District superintendent Cory Pederson estimates the cuts will bring his annual budget down...

TIERRA MONTE, N.M., July 31 (Reuters) - After the U.S. government started the largest wildfire in New Mexico's recorded history in April, it is asking victims to share recovery costs on private land, jeopardizing relief efforts, according to residents and state officials. The blaze was sparked by U.S. Forest Service (USFS) prescribed fires to reduce wildfire risk. The burns went out of control after a series of missteps, torching 432 residences and over 530 square miles (1373 square km) of mostly privately owned forests and meadows, much of it held by members of centuries-old Indo-Hispano ranching communities. "Today I'm announcing...

Two blazes that grew into New Mexico's largest ever wildfire were both started by the U.S. Forest Service (USFS), the agency said on Friday, prompting the state's governor to demand the federal government take full responsibility for the disaster. Forest Service investigators determined the Calf Canyon Fire was caused by a "burn pile" of branches that the agency thought was out but reignited on April 19, the Santa Fe National Forest said in a statement.

The name of a Navy veteran may be cleared after he was convicted, fined, and imprisoned for digging ponds in a wooded area near his Montana home, to supply water in case of fire. The Supreme Court has vacated a lower court ruling against Joe Robertson, who was sent to federal prison and ordered to pay $130,000 in restitution through deductions from his Social Security checks. Any definitive legal victory for Robertson would be posthumous, since he died March 18 at age 80. But his lawyers describe the Supreme Court’s action as a “big win” for Robertson’s widow, Carrie, who...

The federal office that protects employees against reprisals for whistleblowing is advocating on behalf of a federal employee in Alaska who complained about the handling of an Arctic offshore lease sale. The U.S. Office of Special Counsel announced .. it’s filing a whistleblower retaliation complaint with the Merit Systems Protection Board on behalf of Jeffrey Missal, a regional environmental officer for the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement. Missal was fired after filing a complaint with the Interior Department’s inspector general and contending that the department violated environmental regulations to facilitate Arctic oil exploration. ... Missal...

BOISE, Idaho — Four conservation groups have asked a judge to block a Trump administration plan allowing drilling, mining and other activities in seven Western states they say will harm sage grouse. Western Watersheds Project and other groups asked for the injunction in U.S. District Court in Idaho late last week for Idaho, Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, Nevada, California and Oregon.

Two men were riding road bikes when the cougar attacked both of them. One person was killed and a second person injured in a cougar attack near North Bend Saturday. The attack happened in a very remote area northeast of Snoqualmie. According to the King County Sheriff's Office, two men were riding road bikes when the cougar attacked both of them. A 31-year-old man was taken to Harborview Medical Center for his injuries; he was alert and listed in serious condition. The second man fled into the woods to escape the cougar, but the animal chased after him. Search crews...

Sam Krop’s characterization of catastrophic wildfire on public and privately owned forest lands (guest viewpoint, Oct. 4) doesn’t match the reality of what Oregon experienced this summer. But I can see why Cascadia Wildlands and other special interest groups oppose solutions such as the Resilient Federal Forests Act. These bills untie the hands of our federal land managers, and provide them with more tools and resources to restore the health of our public forests, before and after a fire. Has “hands-off” forest management reduced the size and severity of forest fires? Are we choking on less wildfire smoke every summer?...

Earlier this year Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas and other Midwestern states suffered catastrophic damage to range lands, property, homes and thousands of animals from massive wildfires. The ranchers, farmers and small communities impacted by these fires are still struggling to recover, and losses continue to add up. At least 6 people died, and thousands of cattle were killed by the fires that covered nearly 2 million acres.

The rule defines eight categories of waters of the U.S. Six categories include traditional navigable waters, interstate waters, territorial seas (these three are called “jurisdictional waters”), impoundments of jurisdictional waters, “tributaries,” and “adjacent” waters. These are jurisdictional by rule in all cases, requiring no additional analysis in order to be regulated. To be adjacent, the rule uses the rubric of “neighboring,” which can be met by waters in the 100-year floodplain—meaning land which might be wet one out of every 100 days is a water of the U.S. and can be federally controlled. Texas coastal prairie wetlands are another type...

County officials in western Colorado have regularly lambasted Planning 2.0 and this week, Garfield County joined in with five other counties in the western United States considering suing to halt the rule, which they have criticized as a central-planning measure. The BLM this month announced that the rule was final and on Monday, Garfield County agreed to spend as much as $40,000 with the Texas-based property-rights organization, the American Stewards of Liberty, to halt it. While Garfield County is taking an active role, Mesa County officials are looking to Congress and a Republican administration under President-elect Donald Trump to deal...

Santa Fe County has agreed to pay $75,000 to a man who claims a Pojoaque Pueblo police officer assaulted him after a traffic stop seven years ago. Tribal Officer Glen Gutierrez was acting under authority of the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office when he pulled over Jose Luis Loya of El Paso on a claim that the motorist was driving recklessly. The settlement, reached last month, is the final installment in a years long dispute over which government agency is legally responsible when officers from other jurisdictions who are cross-commissioned by the sheriff are sued. Santa Fe County since then...

It was a rough morning for U.S. attorneys arguing the federal government’s case against Ammon Bundy, Ryan Bundy and six other defendants accused of conspiring to occupy an Oregon wildlife refuge. A visibly frustrated Judge Anna Brown struck from the record a previous ruling that effectively allowed evidence from defendants’ Facebook accounts into next month’s trial. Despite calling an assistant U.S. attorney, two legal assistants and an FBI agent as witnesses, prosecutors weren’t able to explain to the court how protected information from 11 Facebook accounts used by defendants ended up being shared as part of discovery. Judge Brown ordered...

From state highways, foothill campgrounds and aerial surveys, it's easy to see the catastrophic tree die-off in California forests. What isn't as easily grasped is the scale of rapidly expanding tree mortality in the state's 40 million acres of forestland—and what to do about it. The U.S. Forest Service said in June that its survey showed more than 66 million trees, mostly pine species, have died in the southern Sierra Nevada alone, and more are dying. Forestry experts say the scale of the die-off is beyond anything ever observed. They attribute the tree mortality to four years of drought, bark...

Peruvian natural resource managers have questions about how to protect their country’s forests, and they came to Summit County for answers. A U.S. Forest Service division called International Programs, which promotes sustainable forest management and biodiversity conservation in foreign countries, brought top-level Peruvian officials for an educational tour that started Monday in Washington D.C. and ends Friday in Denver. ... In 2009, a U.S-Peru free trade agreement stipulated that Peru must curtail illegal logging, which undercuts the U.S. timber sector, and sustainably manage natural resources, said Erin Carey, who worked with the Forest Service International Programs for the last five...

There’s a lot of teeth gnashing and stomping of feet by Democrats whenever a proposal is on the table for local government to take control of public land. But now it appears to be fine and dandy to take control of national forests for development, when said proposal is actually proposed by Democrats. For this we have to thank U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, U.S. Rep. Jared Polis, and former U.S. Sen. Mark Udall. ... They’re the trio behind the 45-acre Forest Service sale to Summit County, upon which a new housing project will be developed. Yes, it certainly is amazing....

A Louisiana man issued a federal oil and gas lease in 1982, but denied the right to explore his property since approval of his application for permit to drill (APD) in 1985, recently responded formally to a brief filed by the United States government in which it argued that it has authority to cancel his lease and will cancel his lease as soon as its proposed schedule for doing so is approved by the federal court. Mountain States Legal Foundation (MSLF) represents Sidney Longwell of Baton Rouge, whose company Solenex, LLC owns the Reagan-era lease, and which sued Secretary of...