IT'S BECOME A REAL BATTLEFIELD BILL

THIRD UPDATE: March 25, 12:15 PM. The House voted 283-140 to pass public lands bill with 136 Republicans and 4 Democrats voting "nay." This would have been enough to pass for a super-majority, two-thirds vote.

SECOND UPDATE, March 25, 9:15 am.

UPDATED March 19, 11 a.m. at end of article.

Anybody interested in protecting public land knows about S.22, a massive piece of legislation, a compilation of 190 bills that Congress has been working on for years. Six days ago, it unexpectedly failed (click here), unable to get a super majority in the U.S. House of Representatives by a mere two votes, 282-144, even though the Senate had passed it 73-21.

That bad beat made political insiders scratch their heads. Why would the House leadership bring S. 22 up for a vote under suspension of rules, which requires a two-thirds majority, without the votes to pass it?

I've been calling around on to get the answer to that question and to find out what might happen next. Here's the skinny on the House vote and alas, how President Obama will have the opportunity to sign this bill into law as early as next week. You could call it "revolutionary" politics. [more]

THIS JUST IN

UPDATED at 12:55 pm. Update at end of article.
In a surprise vote this morning, the U.S. House of Representatives failed to achieve the two-thirds majority needed to pass a landmark public lands protection bill that would have ensured access and opportunity for hunters and anglers today and for generations to come.

That news just in courtesy of Trout Unlimited, one of the main backers of the massive bill that the U.S. Senate has already passed. [more]

NOTHING THERE BUT POLITICAL DOWNSIDE

I went to my first gun show a couple of weeks ago, but when I wrote about it, I left out the buzz concerning the proposed reauthorization of the so-called "Assault Weapon Ban (AWB)." I have a lot to say about it, so I saved it for this column.

For starters, with all the massive messes the Obama administration has to unravel, why is our new president allowing his attorney general to embark on a meaningless mission to nowhere? And in conflict with his campaign commitments and his party's plans to stay in power? [more]

POLITICS CREATES THE STRANGEST BEDFELLOWS

Editor's Note: I posted my weekly column (Are Bison Wildlife or Livestock?) early this week, but I couldn't help filling up my normal Thursday slot with this little political irony for all my gun nutty friends.--Bill Schneider

Politics can be frustrating and maddening, but it can also be interesting and ironical. [more]

AN EASY, QUICK WAY FOR OBAMA TO KEEP HIS PROMISE

In early December President Bush kept his promise and came through for gun owners who supported him by loosening rules allowing loaded, concealed guns in national parks and wildlife refuges.

Now, President-elect Obama needs to keep his promise and come through for gun owners who supported him by allowing this rule to stand as currently written. [more]

FIRST AND ONLY ON NEWWEST.NET

Environmentalists see the Blue Tide as more of a Green Tide, and they not only have their hopes up, but their sleeves rolled up.

A huge coalition of green groups, 98 in all, has just finished a massive analysis of the current regulatory situation governing the U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service amd prepared a lengthy quick fix list to President-elect Obama's transition team.

Based on this action-packed letter, Obama's choices for Secretary of the Interior and Secretary of Agriculture will have a lot of homework to do long before they start work in January. [more]

BROTHERS MAKING THEIR MARK FOR COLORADO

The Denver Post is reporting this morning that Senator Ken Salazar (D-CO) is now the leading candidate for Secretary of the Interior. If so, he has bypassed early leaders Congressman Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) and Interior Deputy Secretary John Berry.

The Post also reports that Congressman John Salazar (D-CO.), Ken's older brother, has been on the short list for Secretary of Agriculture, but now he is more likely to be appointed to his brother's job in the U.S. Senate by Colorado Governor Bill Ritter, also a Democrat [more]

KEEP THOSE GUN MAVERICKS UNDER CONTROL

If you've followed my recent columns on gun rights, you know that I have a big bet on the table--not an all-in bet, hopefully, but really big!

Our new administration and Congress has a lot of anti-gun baggage, but I've argued, unsuccessfully so far, that two colossal political realities will keep the Blue Tide from seriously pursuing any new gun laws.

So convinced am I of this that during several email exchanges, online and offline, with gun nuts, I bet them no gun bill would get through Congress any time during the next four years. So Mr. President-elect and Ms. Speaker of the House, please come through for me. Don't make me a big loser.
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WE NEED THIS GUST OF FRESH AIR

Juliet Eilperin of the Washington Post and several bloggers are naming Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.) as a "leading contender" for Obama's pick for Secretary of the Interior. This cabinet position usually goes to a westerner, and Grijalva would be an excellent choice.

He current chairs the House Resources Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands and has been an outspoken advocate for protecting national parks, wilderness and wildlife habitat in the West, recently opposing the Bush Administration's plans for oil and gas leasing and coal mining in critical areas and resisting deep cuts in national park budgets. [more]

Here in Montana, and across the Rocky Mountain West, the election of Barack Obama represents the startling culmination of social, cultural and political changes that have been underway in this region for many years. You've heard a lot of this by now: the Mountain West, increasingly populated by amenity-seeking coastal migrants and Latino immigrants, and with an independent-minded electorate that's resistant to Republican over-reaching on social issues, is no longer solid red, but rather "in play." And if the breadth of Obama's victory ultimately rendered the electoral votes of Colorado and New Mexico and Montana and Nevada superfluous, the deeper significance of the changes remain.

It certainly didn't play out the way any pundit might have predicted a couple of years ago. Obama, for starters, is hardly the "Western" candidate that many Western Democrats imagined would be the standard-bearer for the inevitable breakthrough. "You guys have a nice deal around here," Obama said in Missoula last spring, with all the wonder of a first-time tourist. He joked about going fly fishing (a river runs through it, after all!), but it's hard to picture him in waders.
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