New West Feature

New Mexico Governor Takes New Approach to Environment, Energy Industry

When Republican Susana Martinez was elected to succeed two-term Democrat Bill Richardson as governor of New Mexico, voters knew they were getting a conservative budget-slasher who declared the Land of Enchantment is “open for business.”

But the Susana Martinez administration New Mexicans ended up with was a little cozier with the oil and gas industry and more skeptical of climate change and renewable energy programs than many expected.

On her first day on the job, Martinez issued an executive order halting the publication of all pending state rules and regulations, including a greenhouse gas emissions regulation and another rule restricting wastewater discharge from dairies. Environmentalists sued, and in late January the New Mexico Supreme Court overruled Martinez, saying she is not above the law. Following the court’s decision, the rules were published Jan. 31. 

STOP NEGOTIATING?

Now Anti-Wolf Groups Are Blowing It

No reasonable deed goes unpunished, eh?

That must be how wildlife managers or advocates who actually want to resolve the wolf-delisting impasse must feel.

On September 23, I posted a commentary with the title, Pro-Wolf Groups Blew It where I criticized the left-leaning plaintiffs in the various lawsuits for pushing too hard, too long, and turning fence setters and most western politicians into the anti-wolf camp and possibly endangering the integrity of the Endangered Species Act.

Now, the pendulum has swung to the far right.

TIME TO MOVE ON

NRA Still Getting it Right, Except on Tester

Here’s something that isn’t news to anybody. The number of guns Americans own has skyrocketed, but how is this significant?

An incredible--and later proven unfounded--paranoia swept the country starting back in 2008 when it started to look like a perceived anti-gunner, Barack Obama, might become Commander-in-Chief. The rest of the economy tanked, but thanks to Obama, the gun industry flourished and had its best three-year run ever. Firearms manufacturers worked three shifts per day and still couldn’t make enough guns, especially handguns, to meet demand. Not only has the number of handguns owned by private citizens at least doubled, to more than 100 million handguns, about one handgun for every two adults, but sales of long guns and shotguns has also soared. Americans now own at least 250 million guns, more than one per adult, including at least 20 million firearms gun control advocates might call “assault weapons.” The number of privately owned firearms continues to go up by at least 4 million per year, and interestingly, many new handgun buyers are women. 

COULD IT ALL HAVE BEEN OVER ON SEPTEMBER 30?

Leading Sportsman Blasts Montana Senators for Derailing Wolf Delisting

The founder of Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife (SFW), a multi-state conservation group that has been aggressively pushing for a congressional resolution to the wolf delisting controversy, claims Montana Senators Max Baucus and Jon Tester, both Democrats, are not his allies.

Instead, he insists, both the Montana Senators worked behind the scenes to actually derail delisting efforts at the same time they were jointly introducing a bill to delist the wolf.

No, I’m not making it up.

Training for Afghanistan

Air Force Expansion Could Mean Not-So-Friendly Skies Over the West

Attention citizens of Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming: Get ready for new neighbors in your skies as the U.S. Air Force plans to train pilots over far-reaching swaths of the West.

The Air Force’s existing training areas, developed during the Cold War, are too small and flat to prepare pilots for the war in Afghanistan where planes and weapons now have longer ranges and reach higher altitudes than decades ago.  To bring training up to speed with modern aircraft and warfare technology, two Western Air Force bases—Ellsworth in South Dakota and Cannon in New Mexico—are seeking public input on expansions of their training areas.

According to its draft environmental impact statement, Ellsworth Air Force Base plans to more than quadruple the size of its Powder River Training Complex from about 9,500 square miles situated roughly between Miles City, Mont., and Rapid City, S.D., to about 40,000 square miles spanning a swath of North and South Dakota, Montana, and Wyoming. Nearly 3,000 “sorties” or training flights of B-1 and B-52 bombers would be allowed (according to the DEIS at page 2-58), plus additional flights of other aircraft, though wing commander Colonel Jeffrey Taliaferro expects only about 900 flights to go out from Ellsworth annually.  B-1s may fly as low as 500 feet above ground level, but B-52s fly higher.

The planes would drop chaff—very fine strands of silica coated with aluminum that create a cloud-like decoy to hide planes from radar —and lit flares that would burn out before they reach the ground. In addition, though not currently planned, the Air Force would reserve the option for up to 20 aircraft to fly together in special exercises on up to 10 days per year, some reaching supersonic flight, which causes a loud sonic boom, at heights of 10,000 or more feet.

GUEST COMMENTARY

Grizzly Managers Spin Whitebark Pine Woes

Whether or not you care about the recovery of grizzly bears, we face a serious challenge today of how to protect the safety of people who live and recreate in grizzly country, as whitebark pine, the driver of the health of the population for Yellowstone grizzly bear population, continues to suffer from a climate-driven beetle epidemic. At this critical juncture, it has been confusing and unconstructive to see grizzly bear management agencies flip-flop on the fundamental question of whether or not whitebark pine matters to the Yellowstone grizzly bear population, and the effects of its loss on human-bear conflicts.

New Mexico Politics

Examining Legend: The Pardoning of Billy the Kid

The pending pardon of a 150-year-old criminal by the governor of New Mexico would seem like a blip on the international stage--certainly not the stuff of headlines in the Hindu, India’s national newspaper, or the Guardian in London. But this criminal captures what people, here and elsewhere, think they know about the Wild West.

Whether you know him as Henry Antrim, William H. Bonney, Henry McCarty or Billy the Kid, the infamous outlaw skyrocketed into folk legend nearly a century and a half ago.

So does he deserve the exoneration promised long ago and recently revived by Gov. Bill Richardson? That depends. How much do you really know about his story?

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Bill to Cut Congressional Pay Includes Western Co-Sponsors

Congress last had a pay cut in April 1933, during the worst of the Great Depression.

A bill to end that 77-year-long era, H.R. 4720, sponsored by Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick, D-Ariz. and co-sponsored by a bipartisan group of lawmakers was introduced in the House of Representatives in March.

If the bill becomes law, salaries for all senators and representatives would be cut by 5 percent, which would save $4.7 million, and block automatic increases in congressional salaries for 2011.

“The American people have had enough of Washington politicians refusing to live up to their responsibilities,” said Rep. Kirkpatrick. “If elected officials are going to say that this country is facing its most difficult economic times in generations, then they need to act like it.”

Fee Repeal and Expanded Access Act

Risch Joins Effort to Repeal the RAT

Now, it’s four out of four in Idaho and Montana.

On Friday, Senator Jim Risch (R-ID) joined Senator Mike Crapo (R-ID) and Montana’s Senators Max Baucus and Jon Tester, both Democrats, in co-sponsoring S. 868, the Fee Repeal and Expanded Access Act, which would repeal most provisions of the Federal Lands Recreational Enhancement Act (FLREA), the law federal agencies use to charge fees for accessing public lands.