December 2006
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Unlike protection for the Rocky Mountain Front and the dubious Nevada Lands Bill, the Central Idaho Economic Development and Recreation Act, or CIEDRA, which would protect parts of Idaho’s White Cloud and Boulder Mountains as Wilderness, and make side payments to anti-wilderness interests, failed. It was not attached to “Tax Relief and Health Care Act…
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In the old days, it was the House Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs.” The Democrats eventually changed it to the House Natural Resources Committee, but the Republicans changed it to just Resources Committee.” Now the Democrats will put “natural” back in the title. Much more important is the sea change in personnel holding power…
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Just when it looked like the long fight (20 years) over the Rock Creek mine under the Cabinet Mountains Wilderness in NW Montana (grizzly bear habitat) would finally end with the mines’ approval, Governor Brian Schweitzer stepped in. He said Montana will not issue a permit for the mines unless they can prove the underground…
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The BLM has released a new inventory of oil and gas resources on 99 million acres of public lands of the West. It is a deceitful report, and the report will be a major weapon the oil and gas industry is going to use to turn the West into an industrial wasteland. Anyone who spends…
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American fascists like to imagine they know about animals, guns, the West, and the outdoors, so folks might find the columnist in this rag amusing. Wolves and Alligators, The American Spectator.
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Editorial on roadless areas by the Denver Post. This is a fairly good editorial, but I want to point out that battling over these areas will never really end because the bastards keep coming back with their subsidized, destructive, nature-hating proposals. These people just have bad values. Keeping the outdoors in intact will always require…
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I had meant to discuss this too, but KT just posted a detailed comment on the awful White Pine County, NV lands bill that did pass. This measure, which was attached to the omnibus bill, designates over 500,000 acres of scenic desert mountains as Wilderness, but outside the Wilderness it is privatization of our public…
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This Congress finally died (adjourned sine die) after passing a massive bill full of good, bad, and mixed, but almost entirely unrelated matters–“Tax Relief and Health Care Act of 2006”. Among the good items was a legislative ban on new oil and gas leasing along the 100 mile long Rocky Mountain Front to the south…