Politics
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The House Subcommittee on Natural Resources chaired by Tom McClintock (R) of California is advocating more active management of our national forests based on the presumption that logging/thinning will reduce large wildfires. A clear indication of McClintock’s perspective is found in the title of a recent hearing he chaired called “Oversight Hearing on Burdensome Litigation…
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The major national monuments of the last 20 years on the chopping block President Trump has just signed a much-predicted executive order that mandates a review of all the national monuments established since 1996 that are larger than 100,000 acres. National monuments are established under the Antiquities Act of 1906 that gives Presidents the power…
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Pocatello, Idaho. Last week 14-year-old Canyon Mansfield watched his yellow lab Casey die from the effects of an explosive cyanide device set out by the federal government agency named Wildlife Services (WS). This happened near his home but on public land (BLM) just east of Pocatello. The device, named an M-44, explosively releases a powder…
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National Forests across the West are facing dire threats from politicians, the timber industry and the Forest Service. The public is currently being misled into thinking that our forests are “unhealthy”, and that they need to be “restored” due to “beetle infestations” and “insect and disease.” All of this is euphemism to drastically ramp up…
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USDA Wildlife Services issued a statement that doesn’t acknowledge that a child was injured. The East Idaho News is reporting that a boy and a 3-year-old lab encountered an M-44 cyanide device on a ridge near Pocatello, Idaho on Thursday. The dog was killed by the device and the boy was covered with the cyanide…
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I regularly hear or read arguments from agencies compromising our natural heritage that such and such studies support their management decisions. However, often the agencies overlook or ignore contrary science that does not support the policy or management decision. To give them a break, the average district ranger or even specialists like wildlife biologists,…
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I recently attended a talk on biomass energy at the Bend City Club. The Bend City Club presentation on biomass was another example of a juggernaut premised on unexamined assumptions without question. At every step of the way there are assumptions that are given and accepted. However, if any of these assumptions is incorrect than…
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A memo leaked today orders all of the bureaus of the Department of Interior, which includes the Bureau of Land Management, US Fish and Wildlife Service, National Park Service, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), Bureau of Indian Affairs, and others, to clear nearly every decision or correspondence with the Office of the Executive Secretariat and…
