US Appeals Court Allows Wolf Hunts

By Matthew Brown

Billings, Montana - A federal appeals court on Wednesday rejected a lawsuit from conservation groups that want to block wolf hunting and trapping that have killed more than 500 of the predators across the Northern Rockies in recent months.

The ruling from a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Congress had the right to intervene when it stripped protections from wolves last spring.

Lawmakers stepped in after court rulings kept wolves on the endangered list for years after they reached recovery goals. Wildlife advocates claimed in their lawsuit that Congress violated the Constitution's separation of powers by interfering with the courts.

But in an opinion authored by Judge Mary Schroeder, the court said Congress was within its rights. 

Schroder wrote that lawmakers changed the Endangered Species Act to deal with Northern Rockies wolves, and did not directly interfere with the court's prerogative to decide when the law is being followed.

The amendment marked the first time Congress has forcibly removed a species' endangered status. It was tacked onto a federal budget bill by Idaho Republican Rep. Mike Simpson and Montana Democratic Sen. Jon Tester.

"This case has made it clear that those who persist in trying to manage wildlife through the courts, in spite of all scientific evidence that this species has recovered, no longer have a defensible position," Simpson said Wednesday.

Michael Robinson with the Center for Biological Diversity, one of the groups that sued to restore protections, said a Supreme Court appeal was possible but no decision had been made.

"We're very disappointed and very saddened," Robinson said. "Hundreds of wolves have been hunted and trapped and snared, and they are essential to their ecosystem."

He called the congressional budget bill rider that lifted protections "undemocratic" and said that it set a precedent for future political meddling with imperiled wildlife.

Wolves once thrived across North America but were exterminated across most of the continental U.S. by the 1930s, through government sponsored poisoning and bounty programs.

They were put on the endangered list in 1974. Over the last two decades, state and federal agencies have spent more than $100 million on wolf restoration programs across the country.

The Northern Rockies is now home to more than 1,700 wolves in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming and expanding populations in portions of eastern Oregon and Washington. That figure is up slightly from 2010, although Wyoming and Idaho saw slight declines.

In the Northern Rockies wolf hunting is allowed in Montana and Idaho and could resume in Wyoming this fall.

Minnesota, Michigan and Wisconsin also are considering wolf seasons after protections for wolves were lifted in the upper Great Lakes in December.

Wisconsin's legislature on Wednesday approved a measure to establish a hunting and trapping season that would run from mid-October through the end of February. It still has to be approved by the governor.

There more than 4,400 of the animals in the Great Lakes and a struggling population of several dozen wolves in the Desert Southwest. Alaska, where the animals never went on the endangered list, has an estimated 10,000 wolves.

In parts of Montana, ranchers and local officials frustrated with continuing attacks on livestock have proposed bounties for hunters that kill wolves. Montana wildlife officials said they will consider ways to expand hunting after 166 wolves were killed this season, short of the state's 220-wolf quota.

Idaho allows trapping. Its 10-month wolf season runs until June and has claimed 353 wolves so far.

Prior lawsuits resulted first in the animals' reintroduction to the Northern Rockies and then later kept them on the endangered list for a decade after the species reached recovery goal of 300 wolves in three states.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is monitoring the hunts. But agency officials have said they have no plans to intervene because the states have pledged to manage wolves responsibly.

Federal officials have pledged to step in to restore endangered species protections if wolf numbers drop to less than 100 animals in either Montana or Idaho.

Even without hunting, wolves are shot regularly in the region in response to livestock attacks. Since their reintroduction, more than 1,600 wolves have been shot by government wildlife agents or ranchers.

Georgetown Student Dismisses Limbaugh Apology

Washington D.C. - The Georgetown University law student labeled a "slut" by conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh says his apology changes nothing and that Americans have to decide whether to support companies that continue to advertise on his program.

Sandra Fluke told ABC's "The View" on Monday that she hasn't heard from Limbaugh since he issued a written apology late Saturday. But she says his comments about her testimony before members of Congress have been so personal, she'd rather not have him call. Fluke testified to Democratic members of Congress in support of a requirement that health care companies provide coverage for contraception.

Seven companies have now pulled advertising from Limbaugh's three-hour radio show. Fluke says his comments were an "attempt to silence me" and an attack on women's health.

Justice Dept. Ignored Law Requiring Annual Submission of Surveillance Reports to Congress

United States - For five years, the U.S. Department of Justice failed to inform Congress about the surveillance by federal law enforcement of certain types of email and telephone information, despite a lawful requirement to do so.

 

Using what’s known as pen register and trap-and-trace capturing, agencies such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Marshals Service and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives increasingly snooped on Internet communications by the tens of thousands from 2004 to 2008.

 

During this period, the frequency of this wiretapping method nearly doubled, from 10,885 to 21,152, according to Wired’s Danger Room.

 

But the Justice Department did not report as required to lawmakers on this activity. The Senate Judiciary Committee, which is supposed to receive these reports, also was not pro-active in reminding the agency that it had failed to comply with federal law.

 

Types of information collected through pen registers and trap-and-trace capturing include phone numbers of calls made and received, as well as the senders and recipients (and sometimes the subject lines) of email messages.

 

With a collective straight face, the Justice Department has claimed that the failure to submit the annual surveillance reports to Congress was an oversight or a “mistake.” In 2004, the Justice Department turned in its reports for 1999-2003, and in December 2010 it posted its reports online for the years 2004-2009.

Environmental Groups Going After Obama and Congress

Washington D.C. - Not even a week after winning the fight against the Keystone XL pipeline, environmental activists are staging a rally hours before Barack Obama delivers the annual State of the Union address. Their main focus is not just the President, but others in Congress who they see as too influenced by the oil and gas industries.


Dressed as referees, the activists are planning to “blow the whistle” at lawmakers who have taken financial contributions from the lobbying groups, but haven't specified who exactly would be the targets.
The founder of one group, 350.org's Bill McKibben, said they plan to keep the environment one of the key issues of the 2012 elections. Some of the other groups are National Resources Defense Council and Greenpeace.


Due to the fact the Keystone XL pipeline would increase the amount of greenhouse gases dramatically as well as destroy a major source of water, environmentalists plan on stopping the project altogether, even going so far as to pledge to not vote in the next election. President Obama, with his disenfranchised base, needs all the votes he can get and the threatened sit-out of the environmental groups would be a devastating blow to his re-election chances.

Book Examines America's Turn from Science, Warns of Danger for Democracy by Renee Schoof

WASHINGTON — Americans have trouble dealing with science, and one place that's especially obvious is in presidential campaigns, says Shawn Lawrence Otto, who tried, with limited success, to get the candidates to debate scientific questions in the 2008 presidential election.

Otto is the author of a new book, "Fool Me Twice: Fighting the Assault on Science in America," which opens with a quote from Thomas Jefferson: "Whenever the people are well informed, they can be trusted with their own government."
And if the people and their leaders aren't well informed and don't use scientific information to solve modern problems, Otto suggests, the United States could soon skid into decline.
"Without the mooring provided by the well-informed opinion of the people, governments may become paralyzed or, worse, corrupted by powerful interests seeking to oppress and enslave," he writes.
Today, he adds, Congress seems paralyzed and "ideology and rhetoric increasingly guide policy discussion, often bearing little relationship to factual reality."
In 2008, Otto and a group of other writers tried to organize a presidential debate on science issues. Neither Barack Obama nor John McCain was interested. In the end, the two candidates agreed to respond to 14 questions in writing, and Otto's group posted them on its ScienceDebate.org website.
Otto said the group plans to try for another science debate in 2012.

Reporters play a role in whether science is discussed in campaigns. A League of Conservation Voters analysis in early 2008 found that prime-time TV journalists asked 2,975 questions in 171 interviews. Only six questions were about climate change, "and the same could be said of any one of several major policy topoics surrounding science," Otto writes in the book.
Today's policymakers "are increasingly unwilling to pursue many of the remedies science presents," he argues. They "take one of two routes: Deny the science, or pretend the problems don't exist."
Otto said he wasn't looking for simple answers in the book:
"I don't blame corporations because they are stuck in a system we have created and they can't solve it all themselves," he said in an interview. "I don't blame the Republican Party for going anti-science because there are a lot of factors that led to that socially, and I don't think it's a decision of Republican Party leadership to one day say, 'oh, we're not going to accept science anymore.' And it's not just because evangelicals got involved in politics. There's a lot of compex reasons."

Here are some questions with the author and his answers:
- Are Americans rejecting science?
"I think it's a myth Americans aren't interested. It's a myth they don't like science and scientists ... But there's some partisan political affiliation going on, and sometimes science tells them they don't want to hear and they don't like to deal with. Climate change is a great example, because the problem is so enormous and the implications mean restructuring our economy and our energy supply system."
"Science does two things that we don't love. It does lots of things that we do love, but the two things we don't love are: Whenever we extend our knowledge, we have to parse that new knowledge morally and ethically . . . . The other thing is that it either confirms or vexes somebody's vested interested."
- Will we hear about science issues in the 2012 campaign?
"I think science is going to remain a charged issue . .. Science is such a major part of everything, but particularly our unsolved challenges."
On climate change, Republican presidential candidates generally say they don't think the science is settled, even though the nation's scientific organizations have reported a consensus view that the Earth is warming mostly as a result of pollution from fossil fuel combustion.
Things could change after the primaries, when the eventual candidate appeals for swing voters and tries to avoid an anti-science label, Otto said.
The Obama administration accepts the scientific understanding of climate change, but rarely mentions it, stressing instead ways that clean energy could create jobs and boost competitiveness.

- What makes dealing with climate change so difficult?
"Nobody wants to feel bad about the future. Everybody wants to be hopeful."
The nation was settled by "insanely hopeful immigrants," Otto said, and Americans still have a strong sense of opportunity, including the idea that hard work pays off and that people get what they deserve.
"It doesn't mean that we're bad or stupid. It just means that it's just hard. It's hard to get our minds around and embrace, because it means maybe we've screwed up somehow and nobody wants to feel that way. But the great thing about Americans is that because of that hopefulness, once we get through this painful process of self-reflection ... then we really kick it in and we can solve problems like nobody else."

Environmental Regulations Don't Kill Jobs

Washington D.C. - Anyone who tells you “environmental regulations kill jobs and hurt businesses” is at worst a liar and at best severely misinformed and there are documents to prove it.

Those who pay attention to politics, especially when it comes to regulation, knows the all-too-familiar rhetoric. After a regulation is proposed, usually by a Democrat, the Republicans moan and gnash their teeth about how it's going to destroy industries and put the country deeper into debt. While companies tell this to Republicans they are saying something completely different to their investors and financial regulators.

The Associated Press released an article in which two companies: DTEEnergy and FMC Corporation told Republican lawmakers what they want to hear regardless of the facts.

DTE Energy said on April 15^th to a House committee “Without the right policy, we could be headed for disaster.” In reality they don't know what effect it will have, saying to their investors it was “reviewing potential impacts of the proposed and recently finalized rules, but is not able to quantify the financial impact ... at this time." DTE environmental issues vice-president Skiles Boyd later said the testimony was meant to state the potential economic hardship on customers and the SEC report focused on the company's financial condition. Page 52 of the report (available if requested) states “We are subject to extensive environmental regulation. Additional costs may result as the effects of various substances on the environment are studied and governmental regulations are developed and implemented. Actual costs to comply could vary substantially. We expect to continue recovering environmental costs related to utility operations through rates charged to our customers.” In other words they will pass on the cost to the customer, but will not kill businesses or jobs.

FMC Corp's Jim Pearce, when called to a House hearing in February of 2010, said “The current U.S. approach to regulating greenhouse gases ... will lead U.S. natural soda ash producers to lose significant business to our offshore rivals...." Soda ash is used to produce glass, and is a major component of the company's business.” Just 13 days later in its SEC filings however the company said it was "premature to make any estimate of the costs of complying with unenacted federal climate change legislation, or as yet unimplemented federal regulations in the United States.

It continues to state (Note: Signing up is required to see the exact text, though I can email the document if requested) “At this point our U.S. facilities are not subject to any state or regional greenhouse gas regulation, and our foreign operations outside of Europe and Canada are not subject to national or local greenhouse gas regulation. Although some of our European and Canadian operations may be subject to greenhouse gas regulation, the cost to these facilities has not been and is not expected to be significant, and effect of European Union and Canadian greenhouse gas regulation has not been and is not expected to be material to FMC. We have considered the potential physical risks to FMC facilities and operations and the indirect consequences of regulation or business trends as a result of potential future climate change. Because of the many variables, not only with respect to the science, but also with respect to the nature and effect of future global climate change regulation itself, it is impossible to predict in any meaningful.”

However the truth isn't stopping the Republicans from touting their lies. Using the continued meme they plan to attack the President Barack Obama, the Democratic Party, and the Environmental Protection Agency. They are also holding hearings and trying to pass several bills to stop environmental regulation from passing. None have passed the Senate. The Obama Administration doesn't help matters any when it postpones the regulations under the guise of “looking at them”, after which they silently throw it away or “give it up” in exchange for another proposal.

Thankfully not all of the Democrats break so easily. Henry Waxman, one of California's Representatives, said of the SEC filings they “show that the anti-regulation rhetoric in Washington is political hot air with little or no connection to reality." California Senator Barbra Boxer said about the bills “I will see to it, to the best of my ability, to try to stop everything...Republicans will lose seats over this.”

Thankfully some people in Washington are paying attention to not just what the businesses are saying but what they're putting in their economic reports as well. Otherwise we'd just have a bunch of people listening to and believing what is being told by them and nobody doing any fact-checking.