Free Republic

CHEYENNE, Wyo. — The U.S. Supreme Court has turned away an appeal challenging a federal rule that bars development on 50 million acres of roadless areas in national forests. The justices said Monday they will leave in place a federal appeals court decision that upheld the so-called roadless rule that took effect late in the presidency of Bill Clinton.

Western lawmakers are crying foul over new Interior Department guidelines that resurrect the controversial Wild Lands policy that was killed by Congress in April 2011. Bureau of Land Management manuals uncovered by Rep. Rob Bishop (R-Utah) and Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) include language nearly identical to the draft proposal put forth by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar in December 2010. The “Wild Lands” policy was intended to identify and manage wilderness areas while circumventing the normal — and transparent — congressional process. Pulling manuals from the BLM site on July 31, the lawmakers compared the policies and found the new language...

Note: The following text is a quote: Official Explains Approach to Climate Change, Energy By Army Sgt. 1st Class Michael J. Carden American Forces Press Service WASHINGTON, May 21, 2010 – Developing a deliberate approach to energy and climate change is an important platform to national security and the U.S. military mission, a senior Defense Department official told members of Congress here yesterday. Dorothy Robyn, deputy undersecretary of defense for installations and environment, testified before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee about the Pentagon’s take on the California Desert Protection Act of 2010. The proposal, introduced to Congress in...

Gov. Schwarzenegger recently escalated a battle of words with federal officials over how to manage the remaining wilderness areas in Southern California's national forests. In an August letter to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Schwarzenegger accused the federal government of not doing enough to make sure wilderness in the San Bernardino, Cleveland, Angeles and Los Padres national forests is protected from road construction. The state and environmental groups want more restrictions on forest roads than are outlined in new forest management plans, 10- to 15-year master plans for land use in the forests. Schwarzenegger charged the federal government with not...

YAPHANK, N.Y., Sept. 1 — In the musical revue “Yip Yip Yaphank,” based on his time as an Army trainee here during World War I, Irving Berlin wrote with uncanny augury about what the repeated exposure to sudden loud noises can do to a person’s otherwise good nature. “I’ll amputate his reveille/and step upon it heavily,” Mr. Irving wrote about the Army bugler in “Oh, How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning,” the most famous song from his revue. The Army’s training camp here, Camp Upton, is gone, as is Mr. Berlin, but the spirit of jangled nerves...

Boxer's Wilderness Plan Favors the Few... Public Lands Should Benefit All By Rep. John Doolittle (R-CA) I have the privilege of representing one of the most spectacular areas in the entire nation. California's Fourth Congressional District spans from Lake Tahoe to Yosemite, taking in vast swaths of publicly-owned land. Because the extraordinary natural resources on these public lands help meet our aesthetic, economic, biological, recreational, and even spiritual needs, it is our responsibility to manage them for the benefit of all Americans, not just an elite few. Senator Barbara Boxer has proposed legislation to designate millions of acres of...

A new push for wilderness: Keep the idea alive in Oregon A Register-Guard Editorial    Recommend this story to others.   When U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer and a coalition of environmental groups met earlier this month to launch a campaign to expand Oregon wilderness areas, the idea seemed destined for referral to the Federal Department of Lost Causes. The Bush administration is more interested in rolling back protection for lands within national monuments than in declaring more acres off limits to development. But wilderness is not a lost cause until there are no more wild lands to protect. That's not...