Public Lands Bill Defeated in House

By Kate Phillips
New York Times

For now, the mega-public lands bill that would have greatly expanded public wilderness areas, parks and miles and miles of public trails, is stalled. House Republicans managed to maintain enough opposition to the omnibus measure to defeat it earlier today in a vote requiring two-thirds of the House members, by 282-144.

House Democratic leaders had brought the bill to the floor under suspension of the rules, as a way to keep the opposition from altering the legislation through amendments. But getting two-thirds remained dicey. Democrats tried to persuade Republicans (and conservative Democrats) that the bills were gun-friendly by the insertion of an amendment that would have prohibited any effort to close lands in the omnibus to hunting and fishing, but many Republicans still believed the legislation did not include enough gun rights protections.

Three Democrats voted no; 34 Republicans voted with Democrats; and six did not vote. It fell two votes short of passage.

Beyond guns, the House Republican leadership had complained all along that the total size of the bill was extraordinary, and would cost billions of dollars. It also opposed the legislation on the grounds that many pieces of the omnibus, totaling more than 150 bills that would have created new national parks, expanded the boundaries of existing ones, created monuments or “heritage areas” and nationalized trails, had never been thoroughly examined in the House.

The Senate had already passed the bill, S. 22, after Senator Harry Reid, the majority leader, scheduled votes on a Sunday in early January for consideration of the omnibus bill.

Republicans also objected to the Democrats’ decision to pursue the vote through a suspension of the rules, contending that the procedure should be used mainly for renaming post offices or ceremonial items as opposed to something as massive as this bill. In addition, private land rights came into play as well as concerns that closing off so much land would affect energy resources.

Representative John Boehner, the minority leader in the House, said today: “The legislation Democrats attempted to force through the House today would have made matters even worse by blocking environmentally safe energy production, increasing gasoline and other energy costs, and costing American jobs we cannot afford to lose.”

A senior Democratic aide in the House said the best option under consideration would be to have the Senate shoehorn it onto another bill and ship it back. House Democratic leaders have not definitively ruled out a floor vote using a simpler rule, needing only a majority for passage, but that move would leave the measure wide open for amendments.

As for the ever-present gun lobby, an amendment by Democrat Jason Altmire, Democrat of Pennsylvania, was meant to assuage those concerned about hunting and fishing rights. And Democrats’ pointed to the N.R.A.’s satisfaction with that amendment. But Gun Owners of America sent out a letter this week objecting to the overall omnibus on many grounds, and urged House members to vote against it.

Groups seek $2.7 million for fighting power line

Critic calls intervenor claims 'great way to make a living'

By DAVE DOWNEY
North County Times

Opponents of San Diego Gas & Electric Co.'s power line have petitioned the state to compensate them for $2.7 million in costs they say they incurred over three years battling the Sunrise Powerlink ---- costs that would be passed on to utility ratepayers.

The groups were "intervenors" in the Sunrise case under a program that allows opponents to take on a formal role in arguing merits of utility projects before the California Public Utilities Commission, the regulatory body that licenses electric, gas and telephone projects.

The state lets intervenors recoup their costs.

But critics say the reimbursement requests are excessive. And because of the prospect of making big money, they suggest the program encourages groups to routinely oppose utility projects, whether ill-conceived or not.

The intervenors counter that their bills are reasonable. They say their involvement helped hold down costs of the $2 billion transmission line, and prevented it from being built in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park and North County.

See highlights of the Sunrise Powerlink intervenor compensation requests

The most prominent intervenor, the San Diego consumer group Utility Consumers' Action Network (UCAN), asked for $1.2 million to cover fees for attorneys, experts, document preparation and travel from late 2005 through early 2009.

The commission also received requests for:

-- $797,673 from the environmental group Center for Biological Diversity.

-- $473,379 from the community group Rancho Penasquitos Concerned Citizens.

-- $257,617 from the Mussey Grade Road Alliance, represented by the husband and wife team of Joseph Mitchell and Diane Conklin of Ramona.

If granted, the consumer group's award would be the largest compensation given to an intervenor since at least 1996, according to commission records. And the environmental groups' compensation would be third-highest since then.

The current record of $866,884 was awarded to The Utility Reform Network, a San Francisco consumer group.

At the same time, the San Diego-based utility spent more than $125 million to promote its power line, and those costs will be passed on to ratepayers, said Jennifer Briscoe, a company spokeswoman.

The total includes costs associated with the 11,000-page environmental impact report prepared for the project, the company's legal bills, applications for various permits, and hosting dozens of public meetings and open houses around the region. Briscoe said the company hasn't finished tallying those expenses.

Good intentions

The intervenors billed ratepayers $300 to $480 per hour for attorneys and $75 to $270 an hour for "expert" witnesses.

And they are seeking more than $16,000 to cover the time they spent preparing their compensation claims.

The deadline for submitting claims was last week. SDG&E and the commission staff have until March 25 to file responses to the claims, and commissioners are expected to decide how much the groups will get sometime after that.

The Sunrise Powerlink is a 120-mile, high-voltage line that was given the green light by the state commission in December.

Construction is scheduled to start in 2010. The wires are to be strung from metallic towers up to 150 feet tall through southern San Diego County and southwestern Imperial County. The project was one of the most contentious and heavily studied in California history.

Designed for these types of projects, the state's intervenor program sought to empower small, poorly funded grass-roots organizations to credibly challenge corporate giants in the commission's complicated courtlike proceedings, said Susan Carothers, a commission spokeswoman.

"By hearing from different perspectives, the California PUC is better able to make informed decisions," Carothers said.

But critics say intervenors often take advantage of the program ---- and clearly did so in the Sunrise case.

"I can see how the original intent might have been a positive one," said Lani Lutar, president and chief executive officer of the San Diego County Taxpayers Association, in a telephone interview Wednesday. "But it seems to have gone out of control with unintended side effects. It has become an incentive to have these just-say-no nonprofit groups. Groups like UCAN now make it their mission to oppose every utility project that comes forward."

Scott Barnett, a San Diego-area tax watchdog who operates TaxpayersAdvocate.org, said the Sunrise reimbursement requests are unreasonably high.

"It seems like quite a racket to me," he said. "I need to get into the intervenor business, I think. It's a great way to make a living."

Both taxpayer groups favored the line.

Michael Shames, executive director for the Utility Consumers' Action Network, insisted his group does not routinely oppose projects for the sake of boosting coffers with intervenor-compensation dollars.

And he disagreed the program gives the wrong incentive.

"Intervenors don't earn even one dollar unless our opposition is sound, credible and effective," Shames said by e-mail. "The economic incentive is for us to be effective, not for us to just oppose."

The commission's Web site tells intervenors this: "You may request compensation for the time and expenses you incurred to participate in the proceeding as long as your participation made a 'substantial contribution' to the outcome of the proceeding."

Shames said his personal hourly rate of $330 and his group's $1.2 million claim is justified.

"Why is that appropriate? Because SDG&E made us do a tremendous amount of work ---- they filed the equivalent of three different applications with continuous modifications throughout," he said. "We spent the better part of three years in extensive litigation and totally disproved and discredited SDG&E's representations about the economic benefits of the line and the need to route it through Anza-Borrego."

Years of fighting

The battle aside, Barnett and Lutar, the taxpayer advocates, charged the four intervenors duplicated much of the work of the Division of Ratepayer Advocates, the arm of the commission responsible for representing ratepayer interests.

"It seems like we're paying twice for the, quote, independent perspective," said Andrew Poat, vice president of public policy for the San Diego Regional Economic Development Corp. and a backer of Sunrise Powerlink.

Scott Logan, a regulatory analyst for the division who handled the Sunrise case, said there was little duplication.

"We look at it as both a complement and supplement to DRA's work," Logan said.

Because the commission frowns on repetition, the intervenors ---- in their claims ---- stressed the unique accomplishments they say they made.

The consumer group said it held down project costs, the Sierra Club and Center for Biological Diversity said they shaped the environmental report and kept the line out of Anza-Borrego, and the Ramona group said it secured extra measures to prevent wires from starting wildfires.

Harvey Payne, an attorney for Rancho Penasquitos Concerned Citizens, said his group persuaded SDG&E to scrap the last 15 miles of the power line, sparing neighborhoods in Rancho Penasquitos and Carmel Valley.

And Payne maintains his group's request for almost a half-million dollars is justified.

"This was three years of constantly fighting SDG&E," he said. "This was approximately 1,000 hours of time over three years for me. This was my expert's time over three years. But, most importantly, we are saving the ratepayers at least $72 million."

Payne hired a retired transmission engineer for Pacific Gas & Electric Co., William Stephenson, to provide expertise.

When it came to intervenor costs, the environmental groups submitted the highest hourly rate: $480. That was to cover work by San Diego attorney Steven Siegel, whom they hired for their Sunrise opposition campaign.

Kieran Suckling, executive director for the Center for Biological Diversity in Tucson, said the $480-per-hour rate is "perfectly reasonable."

The commission's allowable range for attorney compensation is $150 to $535 per hour.

"He is a very experienced senior attorney, so we billed him out at a higher rate," Suckling said. "We feel like our success in the case came from having a senior attorney. Steve did a great job for us."

The environmental groups also are seeking $70 to $150 an hour for experts who provided information about endangered animals, such as the desert bighorn sheep that roams Anza-Borrego, and native plants.

Likewise, Conklin, of the Ramona group, defended her group's $257,617 bill.

"We were totally consumed by this," Conklin said. "We worked incredible hours. We didn't bill for all those hours. It sounds like a lot ---- a quarter of a million dollars ---- but we tried to be as reasonable as possible."

Future Dim for Nuclear Waste Repository

A little-used portal into Yucca Mountain, the proposed site for a national nuclear power waste facility that now seems unlikely to happen. The Associated Press

By MATTHEW L. WALD
New York Times

WASHINGTON — President Obama’s proposed budget cuts off most money for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste project, a decision that fulfills a campaign promise and wins the president political points in Nevada — but raises new questions about what to do with radioactive waste from the nation’s nuclear power plants.

The decision could cost the federal government additional billions in payments to the utility industry, and if it holds up, it would mean that most of the $10.4 billion spent since 1983 to find a place to put nuclear waste was wasted.

A final decision to abandon the repository would leave the nation with no solution to a problem it has struggled with for half a century.

Lawyers are predicting tens of billions of dollars in damage suits from utilities that must pay to store their wastes instead of having the government bury them, with the figure rising by about a half-billion dollars for each year of additional delay.

The courts have already awarded the companies about $1 billion, because the government signed contracts obligating it to begin taking the waste in 1998, but seems unlikely to do so for years. The nuclear industry says it may demand the return of the $22 billion that it has paid to the Energy Department to establish a repository, but that the government has not yet spent.

The spent fuel that emerges from nuclear power plants has been accumulating for decades in steel-lined pools or giant steel-and-concrete casks near the reactors.

Yucca Mountain, a ridge of volcanic rock about 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, has been the leading candidate site for a repository since the 1980s. But it was not selected by any scientific process of elimination; it was selected from a list in 1987 by Congress, which declared it dry and remote enough.

Scientific concerns have since emerged, including the realization that water flows through Yucca Mountain a lot faster than initially believed. That raises the prospect that the nuclear waste would leach over time, polluting the water table. The scientific merit of the site has not been established by independent judges.

Nevada has fought the project bitterly in court and in Congress. The ascension of Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, as Senate majority leader, and President Obama’s campaign promise to stop the Yucca Mountain depository and look for alternatives may finally settle the question.

In fact, the political wind is blowing so strongly against using Yucca Mountain that the nuclear industry’s trade association is not opposing Mr. Obama head-on. Instead, in response to his budget proposal, it called for creation of an independent panel to study how the government should meet its “legal and moral obligation” to take the waste. Mr. Obama himself is calling for more study.

Mr. Reid does not appear to have the votes to kill the Yucca Mountain depository entirely, because many members of Congress want to stick with the consensus they achieved two decades ago to bury the waste there. If Congress changes the law that designates Yucca Mountain as the prime candidate, said Edward F. Sproat III, who was the Energy Department official in charge of the depository project for the last two and a half years of the Bush administration, “everybody knows their state is going to be back in play.”

The site’s suitability is supposed to be established in hearings by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which must decide whether to license the repository. Now, the Obama administration is proposing to provide only enough money that project officials can answer questions from the hearings. Eliot Brenner, a commission spokesman, said the hearings would proceed.

“What happens once we say yes or no is out of our hands,” Mr. Brenner said.

Opponents of nuclear power contend that the nation’s failure to find a permanent repository for the waste is a reason to shut down nuclear reactors and forget about building more.

Abandonment of the Yucca Mountain depository would be a blow for the nuclear industry, which is hoping to begin work on new reactors for the first time in 30 years.

If the commission does not issue its decision until the next administration, that could keep Yucca Mountain viable.

Extensive lands protection bill could thwart new energy development

By SCOTT STREATER
New York Times

The 111th Congress is poised to usher in the largest expansion of the nation's wilderness in a generation, with 2.1 million acres of public land in line for the strictest environmental protections allowed under federal law.

An omnibus lands bill that could receive final congressional approval this month would create new wilderness areas in nine states -- from the San Gabriel Mountains of California to Michigan's Lake Superior shoreline to a portion of the Appalachian Trail in Virginia -- covering almost as much land as the 2.4 million acres designated during the entire eight years of the Bush presidency.

Meanwhile, Reps. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.), and Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.) last month introduced the Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act, which would designate 24 million acres of mostly Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service land in five states as wilderness area.

The wilderness proposals carry significant implications, particularly for BLM and the Forest Service, which must manage public lands for multiple uses, including oil and gas drilling, minerals mining, timber harvesting and a variety of recreational uses.

By contrast, wilderness areas are by their very definition sanctuaries of quiet solitude, or as the 1964 law states, areas "where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain." In practical terms, that means wilderness is off limits to all human activities except hiking, canoeing and some hunting and fishing.

The surge in congressional interest in wilderness designations, particularly by Democrats but also some Republicans, is a tonic to many conservation groups who are still angered by Bush administration policies that they say favored natural resource extraction priorities like mining and drilling over land preservation.

"If you've ever gone out and taken a look at areas intensively drilled for oil and gas, you're talking about lands that look like a moonscape. They're ecologically devastated," said Paul Spitler, national wilderness campaigns associate director for the Wilderness Society. "These designations are significant because people don't realize that public lands are open to a wide variety of uses that can be just as damaging as putting up a bunch of condos."

There are, however, potential drawbacks to expanding wilderness designations, especially when it comes to energy production.

Roughly a third of the country's domestic energy is produced on lands managed by the Interior Department, officials say, and those numbers are expected to grow as more wind and solar energy projects are approved on public lands.

But wind farms, solar arrays and geothermal plants are forbidden in wilderness areas, said Mike Olsen, a former Interior senior administrator now with the environmental strategies group at the law firm Bracewell & Giuliani.

That is a huge concern, Olsen said, because the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act includes billions of dollars in incentives and tax breaks to encourage the development of renewable energy.

"You are in effect closing these lands off to domestic energy development," Olsen said. "In this world, where domestic energy production is so important, what does this mean to have additional public land taken off the table for energy development? I'm not placing value on one over the other. But we need to consider these impacts."

Spitler acknowledged the wilderness designations could affect some alternative energy development. He also is sensitive to the concerns of those who worry the wilderness designations could lessen their enjoyment of public land. Motorized vehicles such as snowmobiles are forbidden in wilderness areas.

But he and other conservationists say the increased protections are necessary.

"Between energy production and off-road vehicles we're losing land at a rapid pace," Spitler said. "We need these areas to receive permanent protection before they're lost."

A new vision

At issue is the National Wilderness Preservation System and attempts to add to the 107 million acres of public land already designated as wilderness.

The centerpiece of the latest effort to expand wilderness designations is the "Omnibus Public Land Management Act," which the Senate approved in January. The bill consolidates dozens of individual wilderness bills, from designating 37,000 acres within the Monongahela National Forest in West Virginia to 700,000 acres and 105 miles of rivers and streams in California.

If Congress approves the measure, it will be the single largest wilderness designation since the 1994 California Desert Protection Act, which extended the highest federal protection to 3.5 million acres of BLM lands in the Mojave Desert.

The new push for wilderness represents a stark change from the Bush administration and 12 years of the Republican-controlled Congresses, which tended to view public lands as resources that should be tapped for their abundant fossil fuels, timber and minerals, said Myke Bybee, a public lands representative for the Sierra Club.

"The wilderness designations in the omnibus bill will add a level of protection that's far more extensive than what they are now, and I think it's necessary," said Bill Wade, executive council chairman of the Coalition of National Park Service Retirees, which was critical of the Bush administration's conservation policies.

Some of the wilderness designations in the bill, such as expanding the 14,000-acre Little River Canyon National Preserve in northeast Alabama, would have tremendous environmental value. Little River, atop Lookout Mountain, is one of the nation's longest mountaintop rivers and proponents want to ensure it stays pristine.

Other designations, like the expansion of the Fort Davis National Historic Site in west Texas, are vulnerable but have cultural significance as well. The fort, built in 1854, housed the Army's all-black regiments known as the Buffalo Soldiers.

Most of the proposed wilderness areas in the bill are the result of lengthy negotiations between interest groups, and in some cases the new designations involve trade-offs between preservation and development interests.

For example, Zion National Park in southwest Utah is in the fastest-growing county in the state, and large developments have been proposed to the east and north of the park that could hamper the quality of the natural resource, said David Nimkin, director of the southwest region for the National Parks Conservation Association.

The omnibus lands bill would designate 123,743 acres -- more than 90 percent of the park -- as wilderness. In exchange, lawmakers agreed to sell 9,300 acres of public land to developers and use the money to purchase private parcels within the park boundaries, Nimkin said.

"Getting this thing done is a big deal," he said. "It codifies the protections for the national park into law. There are different administrations, different land managers, and various degrees of local pressure. This takes the administrative decisionmaking and discretion out of the hands of the public land manager."

Planning for global warming

One reason environmentalists are pushing to expand wilderness areas is to protect plants and animals from the damaging effects of climate change.

Scientists have calculated that for every increase in temperature of 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit, the vegetation belt shifts 60 miles north or 550 feet higher in elevation. As vegetation shifts, so too will thousands of species of mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians. Those species whose habitat is not obstructed by highways, subdivisions and other development should be able to migrate to more hospitable climates; those that cannot will die.

The Interior Department and Forest Service have worked the past several years with a conservation effort know as the Wildlands Network to develop and maintain carefully plotted corridors connecting already preserved lands to one another. The network's goal is to create a 5,000-mile-long wildlife corridor stretching from Mexico to Alaska -- an effort that would take decades.

To succeed, the program must connect protected parcels that would allow for northward migration of at-risk species, said John Kostyack, executive director of wildlife conservation and global warming for the National Wildlife Federation.

"Global warming is leading to a complete transformation of how we look at conservation," Kostyack said.

Congress acknowledged that fact last year in the failed Climate Security Act of 2008 sponsored by Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), and John Warner (R-Va.). The bill, which would have been the first to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, included a provision to allocate as much as $7.2 billion a year to BLM, the Park Service, Forest Service and other agencies to purchase conservation easements and restore degraded habitats.

President Obama pledged support for the creation of such a fund during the 2008 campaign. And House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has listed the creation of such a fund as a priority in any future greenhouse gas legislation.

"All the science tells us that we'll need to have connected landscapes for animals and plants to move as the climate warms, and we've already seen in some cases massive shifts of vegetative communities northward," Kostyack said. "It's certainly a key rationale for expanded wildlife designations."

OHV destruction

Another reason cited by environmental groups for expanding U.S. wilderness areas is to protect wildlife and habitat from damage caused by off-highway vehicles like dirt bikes, snowmobiles and all-terrain vehicles, which have surged in popularity in recent years.

Snowmobiles in Yosemite National Park, for example, have sparked controversy and court battles, with park managers ultimately setting a daily cap on the number of snowmobiles allowed in the park because their engines scare away wildlife. And in Southern California's Mojave Desert, use of off-highway vehicles on BLM land have crushed hundreds of endangered desert tortoises.

"On the fragile ecosystem in the deserts in the West, where we don't get a lot of rain, the vegetation is already making a living in a very harsh environment," said Ileene Anderson, staff biologist for the Center for Biological Diversity in Los Angeles. "So having somebody come riding their motorcycle or [all-terrain vehicle] through a pristine desert and running over everything, it has a cascading effect on the plants, insects and animals. These fragile lands can't take this continuous assault."

While acknowledging "there are a few knuckleheads" who cause damage to natural resources, Bill Dart, director of land use for the Bakersfield, Calif.-based Off-Road Business Association, a national trade group, said such incidents do not justify a federal prohibition on OHV use by law-abiding citizens on public lands.

"The impacts of off-road vehicles on wildlife have been overblown," Dart said.

Still, Dart said he is encouraged by the fact that federal officials and some advocacy groups have been willing to work with his group when developing wilderness area proposals.

For example, Rep. Buck McKeon (R-Calif.) consulted the Off-Road Business Association when developing a proposed 27,000-acre wilderness designation in the San Gabriel Mountains in Northern California. The proposed Pleasant View Ridge Wilderness Area is one of the projects in the omnibus lands bill.

"They were willing to take out all the [off-road trails] that were of interest to us," Dart said. "Wildlife designations are appropriate as long as they don't get carried away. There is a way to do this that's a win-win situation for everyone."

A sign of things to come

While larger than anything proposed under the last several Congresses, the 2009 wilderness proposals are just a glimpse of things to come, congressional watchdogs and conservation leaders say.

Once the omnibus lands bill is approved, the floodgates will open and lawmakers will introduce dozens of wilderness proposals covering potentially millions of acres, experts say.

"There's a whole suite of bills ready to go," said Spitler of the Wilderness Society.

Many of the proposals will come as reintroduced bills from the past six years "that just never got their day in their sun," said Bybee, the Sierra Club official.

Many of the proposals will be modest and noncontroversial, such as a bill by Rep. Dave Reichert (R-Wash.) to add about 22,000 acres to the Alpine Lakes Wilderness Area in Washington.

Others are huge proposals covering vast expanses of public land. They include:

• California Wild Heritage: Sponsored by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), the bill seeks to designate 2.5 million acres of wilderness, and an additional 400 miles of national wild and scenic rivers across the state. Originally introduced in 2002, Boxer is expected to revive the bill this spring.


• America's Red Rock Wilderness: By far the largest proposal, this bill would designate 9 million acres across Utah as wilderness. The proposal has been introduced in every Congress since 1989 but has never won support from a majority of of Utah's congressional delegation. Nevertheless, plans are under way to reintroduce the bill this session.


• Boulder-White Clouds Wilderness: Proposed by Rep. Mike Simpson, (R-Idaho), the bill would extend wilderness protection to roughly 315,000 acres in the Sawtooth and Salmon-Challis national forests in east-central Idaho.

"Up until recently you had a Congress that wasn't very receptive to wilderness designations, particularly on the House side," Spitler said. "We're finally starting to unclog the pipeline on wilderness designations."

Public Lands Bill Threatens Energy, Economy

Written by William F. Jasper
New American

With our economy already staggering under an avalanche of debt, taxes, regulations, and the high costs of energy, Democrats in the Senate have decided to pile on a real economy killer: the Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009 (S. 22). Incredibly, nearly 20 Republicans in the Senate joined with them in support of this destructive bill.

S. 22 is a mammoth piece of legislation combining over 160 bills and running to more than 1,300 pages. It is loaded with pork-barrel spending and harmful provisions, but the most objectionable features of the bill are those that would lock up millions of acres of our most promising areas for badly needed oil, natural gas, and mineral production.

Sponsored by Senators Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) and Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and originally introduced in the 110th Congress, the Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009 passed the Senate on January 15 and is now awaiting action in the House of Representatives. The lopsided 73-21 vote (with four not voting) saw 19 Republicans join with the liberal-left Reid-Boxer-Schumer Democrats in favor of the lock-up. Those Republican senators are: Alexander (Tenn.), Barrasso (Wyo.), Bennett (Utah), Bond (Mo.), Cochran (Miss.), Collins (Maine), Corker (Tenn.), Crapo (Idaho), Enzi (Wy.), Gregg (N.H.), Hatch (Utah), Lugar (Ind.), Martinez (Fla.), Murkowski (Alaska), Risch (Idaho), Snow (Maine), Specter (Pa.), Voinovich (Ohio), and Wicker (Miss.).

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), one of the principal opponents of the legislation, outlined some of the many egregious features of the legislation in a press release on his Senate website.

• A provision that takes about 8.8 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 300 million barrels of oil out of production in Wyoming, according to the Bureau of Land Management. The energy resources walled off by this bill would nearly match the annual production levels of our two largest natural gas production states — Alaska and Texas.


• $3 million for a “road to nowhere” through a wildlife refuge in Alaska.


• $1 billion for a water project designed to save 500 salmon in California. At this price, each salmon would be worth far more than its weight in gold.


• $3.5 million to help celebrate the 450th birthday of St. Augustine Florida, in 2015....


• $5 million on botanical gardens in Hawaii and Florida.

“If the Senate wants to debate lands legislation once we’ve helped stabilize the economy we should begin by better managing the land we already oversee,” says Dr. Coburn. “We have a $9 billion maintenance back log within the national park service because Congress prefers to create new pet projects rather than responsibly oversee the parks we’ve already created. Moreover, we are not suffering from a lack of wilderness areas in the United States. According to the Census Bureau, we have 106 million acres of developed land and 107 million acres of wilderness land. What we are suffering from, however, is a lack of common sense in Washington.”

Other critical analyses of the bill by the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) and the Republican Study Committee (RSC) point out many ways S. 22 threatens our nation’s economic viability. Those provisions include:

• Blocking millions of acres from new oil and gas leasing, logging, mining, and all other business activity in these areas.


• Eliminating 1.2 million acres from mineral leasing and energy exploration in Wyoming alone — withdrawing 331 million barrels of recoverable oil and 8.8 trillion cubic feet of natural gas from domestic energy supply.


• Designating more than two million acres of land as wilderness areas and permanently eliminating human access to these areas for energy exploration or recreational opportunities.


• Eliminating a proposed terminal site for importing liquefied natural gas (LNG) in Massachusetts by designating a river that runs through a city as “wild and scenic."


• Authorizing $5.5 billion of new discretionary spending and $915 million of direct spending.


• Codifying the National Landscape Conservation System (NLCS) within the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), creating a duplicative agency that will tend to greatly restrict or eliminate ranching, mining, logging, hunting, fishing, and recreation on BLM’s massive land holdings.


• Adding over 80 new wilderness designations or additions to federal lands.

The Republican Study Committee's critique of S. 22 notes:

The federal government already owns nearly 650 million acres of land, which amounts to 30 percent of the total land area of the United States. The District of Columbia, established by the Constitution as the federal city, has only 24.7% of its total acreage owned by the federal government. Twelve states rank above DC in federal land ownership. 85% of Nevada is federally owned and the federal government occupies more than 45% of the land in California.

Pew and other public opinion polls have shown repeatedly that Americans favor more offshore drilling for gas and oil and favor opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to drilling, along with other public lands that have been put off limits. With the likelihood that gasoline prices could again shoot up into the $4 range (or higher), it not only makes good economic sense, but also makes good national security sense, since greater domestic production would mean less dependence on foreign suppliers and less transfer of our wealth to regimes that may mean us ill. Instead of yielding to these common sense proposals supported by the public, Senate Democrats and some Senate Republicans have joined hands to tighten the energy stranglehold on America’s energy jugular. Now the fight has moved to the House, and it will take an outpouring of public outrage to stop this legislation and the harm that it would do.

Destroying Both Jobs And Energy Security

OPINION

By NEWT GINGRICH AND ROY INNIS
Investor's Business Daily

Who is really in charge of our public lands and resources? The American public — or the radical left?

The recession continues to worsen. Stores and companies are closing their doors. Millions are unemployed. Families are struggling to pay for homes, food, cars and fuel.

President Obama just signed a controversial, pork-laden, trillion-dollar "stimulus" package. We'll spend another $350 billion this year on imported oil.

And with the stroke of a pen, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar canceled 77 Utah oil and gas leases that had gone through seven years of studies, negotiations and land-use planning. In an instant, he eliminated hundreds of jobs, terminated access to vital oil and gas deposits, and deprived taxpayers of millions in lease bonus, rent, royalty and tax revenues.

The canceled leases represent one-third of acreage estimated to contain enough oil to fuel 3 million cars and enough natural gas to heat 14 million homes for 15 years. They were rejected because temporary drilling operations might be "visible" from several national parks more than a mile away.

Secretary Salazar is supposedly a moderate on land use and energy development. But this decision, after one week in office, suggests that he actually has strong anti-energy attitudes — or is too easily "persuaded" by environmental pressure groups.

They've already eliminated logging and mining in most of the West. They're now going after oil, gas, coal, oil shale and uranium — and after that ranching and snowmobiling.

Anti-energy zealots always say these areas only have three weeks or, at most, a few months of oil. But by this logic, why conserve, recycle or reduce pollution? Your personal contribution is trifling. Why plant corn or wheat? Your fields won't make a dent in world hunger.

Obviously, it's the cumulative impact that matters.

According to a 2008 Interior Department "inventory" of federal energy resources, 163 million acres of public lands are off-limits to oil and gas leasing. That's more than the total area of Montana and Wyoming combined.

These land withdrawals make 62% of the oil and 41% of the natural gas in our nation's onshore public lands unavailable — along with the jobs and revenues that developing these vital resources would provide. Another 65 million acres are severely restricted — for an additional 30% of our onshore federal oil and 49% of our gas.

That's right. An area the size of Texas and Oklahoma, 92% of our onshore publicly owned oil, and 90% of our onshore natural gas — are off-limits to Americans suffering through this recession.

This precedent to cancel leases (or never issue them), because drilling rigs might be visible from park and wilderness areas, threatens to make millions of additional acres off-limits. Such shortsighted actions will destroy jobs and drive up energy prices and the cost of everything we eat and do.

Offshore, Secretary Salazar has stalled oil and gas drilling yet again, by extending the comment period of the current leasing plan another eight months. Americans rose up successfully during the summer of 2008, to end the decades-long congressional offshore drilling ban, because it was bad policy. Salazar's actions suggest we might be headed toward new anti-energy policies.

Protecting the environment is crucial. And most people understand that, thanks to modern technologies, we can be pro-energy and protect the environment simultaneously.

For instance, while the left incites fear about offshore oil spills, the facts clearly show that current drilling techniques are enormously successful and incredibly safe. The same is true onshore.

In fact, three-fourths of Americans want more drilling, not less. They want out of this recession. They don't want it prolonged with anti-energy, anti-job, anti-revenue policies imposed on us by the radical left.

In the current economic gloom, there is no reason to revert back to the destructive policies that gave us $4-per-gallon gasoline and record-high heating bills.

Every American who supports a pro-energy agenda should contact the Department of the Interior (http://www.doi.gov/contact.html or 202-208-7351) and tell Secretary Salazar that developing all of our energy resources is the only reasonable option, if we want to create American jobs, improve the American economy, and support American national security.

Gingrich is a former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives and chairman of American Solutions for Winning the Future.

Innis is chairman of the Congress of Racial Equality and author of "Energy Keepers — Energy Killers: The New Civil Rights Battle."

Future of long-sought Utah lands bills in question

By Lee Davidson
Deseret News


When the Senate convened this year, it quickly passed a much-ballyhooed package of hundreds of public lands bills — including several affecting Utah. Quick House passage for that omnibus bill was expected, but something funny happened on the way to that forum.

Upon closer inspection, members of both parties there found much in it that gave them heartburn. It has forced Democratic leaders to keep delaying consideration, because they are not sure they have enough votes to pass it.

That is putting into doubt several long-sought Utah bills in the package, including a major one worked out over many years to determine which areas of Washington County should be maintained as pristine, and which should allow development. Others bills affect Park City open space, a Bountiful gun range, a Utah Boy Scout Camp and trails used by Mormon pioneers.

"As good as the Utah bills are, there is so much else that is so outrageously bad that it kind of hurts your heart," says Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah.

He has two bills in the package himself (affecting Park City and Bountiful). But as the ranking Republican on the House Natural Resources Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands, he is helping formulate GOP opposition to the bill as now written.

He says the question for Republicans, and many Democrats, is whether they will put up with a lot of bad to pass small, good home-state bills they personally seek.

Bishop said, "Somebody described the whole thing to me like this: You purchase a book that is full of erotic violence because you like a paragraph on page 242. The overall package is still bad."

Among the controversial bills in the package are: increasing penalties for those who take fossils from public lands (which some worry might make amateur fossil hunters criminals); granting wild and scenic status to the Taunton River in Massachusetts, even though it includes some heavy industrial areas; allowing a road through an internationally recognized wetland in Alaska; and codifying a National Landscape Conservation System set up by the Clinton administration but opposed by many Republicans.

"If they could cull out maybe 50 of the real stinkers (in the package), they might have a bill that's not bad enough to get people upset," Bishop said.

Also, he says many House Democrats have heartburn because the Senate stripped from its version all amendments that the House had earlier added to individual bills when it had debated and passed many separately, before they were all bundled together.

"So some of those (stripped) amendments that are bringing them grief now are protection of hunting and fishing rights, gun rights … (and) private property rights," Bishop said.

With the problems, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., last week would not say exactly when the bill may reach the floor, but said he hoped it would be before the House's spring recess.

House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Nick Rahall II, D-W.V., explained the delay to Congressional Quarterly, saying, "We want to make sure we have the votes."

So again hanging in limbo is the Washington County land bill that had been negotiated for more than a decade.

It would create two new national conservation areas to provide permanent protection for the endangered desert tortoise and other at-risk species near St. George, allowing development in other areas. It would also do such things as create more than 250,000 acres of wilderness areas in the county and enlarge Zion National Park to include some of them.

That bill also would designate 165.5 miles of the Virgin River as a wild and scenic river, sort of a wet wilderness area. It also authorizes the U.S. Bureau of Land Management to sell excess BLM lands in the county not considered to be environmentally sensitive, and to use the proceeds to buy lands that are considered biologically significant.

The other Utah bills hanging in limbo include a trade to give a Boy Scout camp near Brian Head more usable land; one to give Park City some federal tracts within its boundaries to protect as open space; a trade to bring federal land to Bountiful including a gun range operated by the Lion's Club; and a bill to correct a surveying error that put part of the Turnabout Ranch for troubled youth into the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.

Another bill would study the possibility of giving federal protection to some alternate routes used by early travelers on the Mormon Pioneer, Pony Express, California and Oregon trails.

New Green Path North proposal would avoid sensitive desert areas

By JANET ZIMMERMAN
The Press-Enterprise






A new route proposed for a controversial power line would sidestep sensitive Mojave Desert land by running towers parallel to existing lines along Interstate 10 and through San Timoteo Canyon to Lytle Creek.

The seventh and latest potential route for the Green Path North project to carry renewable energy to Los Angeles was confirmed Thursday by city Department of Water and Power officials.

It won cautious praise from desert preservationists who have been fighting to keep high-voltage transmission towers off of public land and wilderness areas near Joshua Tree National Park.

"If they continue to work on the I-10, that's the appropriate place for it. But we're not there yet," said April Sall, founder of the California Desert Coalition.

She said a San Timoteo route is of concern and urged DWP to instead share the I-10 corridor with Southern California Edison.

The new proposal avoids widespread condemnation of private properties that would be necessary under one of the other proposed routes to bring power from geothermal, wind and solar projects in from the desert.

An earlier suggested route from the utility would run towers along I-10 as far west as Interstate 15 and cross 3,500 properties.

The route that drew the most criticism from groups like Sall's involved cutting across sensitive desert areas, including the privately owned Pipes Canyon Wilderness near Pioneertown in San Bernardino County.

The most recent proposal, known as Route A3, would establish additional rights of way near existing utility paths along I-10 from north of Palm Springs to Beaumont.

The route then would cut north through the historic San Timoteo Canyon, to Loma Linda, Colton, Rialto and San Bernardino, said Joseph Ramallo, a DWP spokesman.

The new path would end at the utility's transmission lines at Lytle Creek north of Fontana. From there, electricity could be routed to Los Angeles, he said.

"It involves 10 cities and is by no means an easy route," Ramallo said. "Just as there were opponents who expressed concerns about the route through Morongo and Yucca valleys, we expect there will be concerns raised about A3."

Sherli Leonard, executive director of The Redlands Conservancy, was upset Thursday to learn about the latest potential route.

Her group is a nonprofit land trust that maintains a hiking trail along San Timoteo Creek.

Eventually, the group plans a linear park along the entire 17-mile canyon that stretches from Redlands to Moreno Valley.

The existing Edison lines on hilltops and in the canyon "are pretty ugly," said Leonard, adding that construction of more lines would be "devastating to wildlife habitat and corridors."

If the DWP project affects the canyon, "The Redlands Conservancy will take an active role in objecting to it," she said.

The utility proposes to acquire additional rights of way parallel to those used by Edison and Union Pacific railroad, Ramallo said.

A Union Pacific spokeswoman said DWP had not approached the railroad.

David Nahai, DWP general manager, said the proposed towers have been reduced from 500 kilovolts to 230 kilovolts, which means the towers would be equally tall but require about 200 feet of width instead of 330 feet.

BURYING LINES

The lower voltage would allow the lines to be buried for up to 15 miles of the 80-mile route to protect sensitive areas and preserve views.

Sandi Blain, manager of transmission project licensing for Edison, said DWP contacted Edison about two weeks ago to set up new discussions.

Route A3 would involve about 300 private properties, Ramallo said.

The plan has not been publicly announced and was only pitched to desert stakeholders in a private meeting at DWP offices last week.

Joan Taylor, California-Nevada desert energy chairwoman for the Sierra Club, said she was told at the meeting that the route would affect 30 permanent structures and seven mobile homes.

Many of those with an interest in the latest alternative haven't heard about it, including the cities of Redlands and Loma Linda.

San Bernardino County Supervisor Neil Derry, whose district includes most of the affected cities, said he welcomed a less intrusive project than the controversial desert route.

"The fact that they are being flexible is always a good thing," he said. "But my opposition remains until we see solid information that they're willing to share with the public."

Dennis Halloway, Loma Linda city manager, said his city wouldn't have a problem with Route A3 if it uses existing Edison routes through the Loma Linda Preserve, 1,700 city-owned acres in the hills south of town.

DWP officials said they cannot release detailed information or maps because it is too early in the process.

"All of these routes are conceptual," Nahai said. "It's possible as we go through the process that new routes will suggest themselves and the ones we have may get altered."

The first step in the environmental review process is expected within the next six weeks with a notice of intent that includes right-of-way and permit applications to the federal government, Nahai said.

Public meetings and environmental analysis will follow. DWP hopes to complete Green Path North by 2014.

The project will help Los Angeles meet state-mandated renewable energy goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

About 11 percent of DWP's electricity comes from renewable sources. By 2020, it will need to be 35 percent.

Art Show Features Celebrated Desert Painters

City News
City of Palm Desert





Verbena and dune artwork by Sally Ward.



See wind sculpted sand, shadow stained mountains, and verbena blooming in a profusion of color, all captured on canvass by three living legends of desert art during the first Historical Society of Palm Desert Art Show, on display March 6 through 14, at the Historical Society.

Desert landscapes by Carl Bray, Sally Ward, and Bill Bender will be available for purchase throughout the event, which kicks off on Friday, March 6, from 3 to 6 p.m. with a public open house where guests can meet the nonagenarian artists.

Bray, 91, famous for his skill at painting the wispy, gray green smoke tree, will be on hand along with Bender, 90, who is creating a desert landscape specifically for this show. Ward, who is 99, is unable to attend. Her daughter, Sue Ward, will be at the reception to answer questions about her mother’s work.

Admission is free. A portion of the proceeds from sales will benefit the Historical Society of Palm Desert, which is located at 72-861 El Paseo. For more information, please call 346-6588.

Las Vegas Running Out of Water Means Dimming Los Angeles Lights

A boat is marooned at what used to be Lake Mead Marina in Nevada. If the level of the Lake Mead reservoir keeps dropping, Las Vegas may lose 40 percent of its water by 2012. Photographer: Andy Freeberg/Bloomberg Markets via Bloomberg News

By John Lippert and Jim Efstathiou Jr.
Bloomberg.com

Feb. 26 (Bloomberg) -- On a cloudless December day in the Nevada desert, workers in white hard hats descend into a 30- foot-wide shaft next to Lake Mead.

As they’ve been doing since June, they’ll blast and dig straight down into the limestone surrounding the reservoir that supplies 90 percent of Las Vegas’s water. In September, when they hit 600 feet, they’ll turn and burrow for 3 miles, laying a new pipe as they go.

The crew is in a hurry. They’re battling the worst 10-year drought in recorded history along the Colorado River, which feeds the 110-mile-long reservoir. Since 1999, Lake Mead has dropped about 1 percent a year. By 2012, the lake’s surface could fall below the existing pipe that delivers 40 percent of the city’s water.

As Las Vegas’s economy worsens, the workers are also racing against a recession that threatens the ability to sell $500 million in bonds so they can complete the job.

Patricia Mulroy, manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority, is the general in this region’s war to stem a water emergency that’s playing out worldwide. It’s the biggest battle of her 31-year career.

‘We’ve Tried Everything’

“We’ve tried everything,” says Mulroy, 56, who made no secret of her desire to become secretary of the U.S. Interior Department before President Barack Obama picked U.S. Senator Ken Salazar of Colorado in December.

“The way you look at water has to fundamentally change,” adds Mulroy, who, after 20 years of running the authority, said in January she’s ready to start thinking about looking for a new job, declining to say where.

Across the planet, people like Mulroy are struggling to solve the next global crisis.

From 2500 B.C., when King Urlama of Lagash diverted water in the Tigris and Euphrates Valley in a border dispute with nearby Umma, to 1924, when Owens Valley, California, farmers blew up part of the aqueduct that served a parched Los Angeles, societies have bargained, fought and rearranged geographies to get the water they need.

Mulroy started her push with conservation. She’s paying homeowners $1.50 a square foot (0.09 square meter) to replace lawns with gravel and asking golf courses to dig up turf. That helped cut Las Vegas’s water use by 19.4 percent in the seven years ended in 2008, even as the metropolitan area added 482,000 people, bringing the total to 2 million. It wasn’t enough.

Paul Bunyan

So she’s planning a $3.5 billion, 327-mile (525-kilometer) underground pipeline to tap aquifers beneath cattle-raising valleys northeast of the city. She’s even suggested refashioning the plumbing of the entire continent, Paul Bunyan style, by diverting floodwaters from the Mississippi River west toward the Rocky Mountains.

If Mulroy’s ideas are extreme, one reason is that the planet’s most essential resource doesn’t work like other commodities.

There’s no global marketplace for water. Deals for property, wells and water rights, such as the ones Mulroy must negotiate to build the pipeline, are done piecemeal. As the world grows needier, neither governments nor companies nor investors have figured out an effective and sustainable response.

“We have 19th-century ways of utilizing water and 21st- century needs,” says Brad Udall, director of Western Water Assessment at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Unyielding Pressure

Water upheavals are intensifying because the population is growing fastest in places where fresh water is either scarce or polluted. Dry areas are becoming drier and wet areas wetter as the oceans and atmosphere warm. Economic roadblocks, such as the global credit crunch and its effects on Mulroy’s attempts to sell bonds, multiply during a recession.

Yet local governments that control water face unyielding pressure from constituents to keep the price low, regardless of cost. Agricultural interests, commercial developers and the housing industry clash over dwindling supplies. Companies, burdened by slowing profits, will be forced to move from dry areas such as the American Southwest, Udall says.

“Water is going to be more important than oil in the next 20 years,” says Dipak Jain, dean of the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, who studies why corporations locate where they do.

No Cheap Water

Even before the now decade-long drought began punishing Las Vegas, people used more than 75 percent of the water in northern Africa and western Asia that they could get their hands on in 2000, according to the United Nations.

In 2002, 8 percent of the world suffered chronic shortages. By 2050, 40 percent of the projected world population, or about 4 billion people, will lack adequate water as entire regions turn dry, the UN predicts.

“We can no longer assume that cheap water is available,” says Peter Gleick, editor of The World’s Water 2008-2009 (Island Press, 2009). “We have to start living within our means.”

Over the Sierra Mountains from Las Vegas, Shasta Lake, California’s biggest reservoir, is less than a third full because melting snow that fed it for six decades is dwindling. A winter as dry as the previous two may mean rationing for 18 million people in Southern California this year, says Jeffrey Kightlinger, general manager of the Metropolitan Water District.

Across the Pacific Ocean, wildfires fueled by a 10-year drought and fanned by 60-mile-per-hour winds around Melbourne killed more than 200 people in February.

Developing Giants

In Asia, developing giants are battling pollution as their populations grow. China, home to 21 percent of the world’s people last year, has just 7 percent of the water. Nine in 10 Chinese-city groundwater systems are fouled by industrial toxins, pesticides and human waste, says Maude Barlow, the first senior adviser on water to the UN and author of “Blue Covenant” (New Press, 2007).

In India, with 1.2 billion people, three-quarters of the surface water is contaminated, that country’s government said in September.

In the Mideast, where the Dead Sea is dropping 3 feet (1 meter) a year, Israel, Jordan and Syria are diverting water upstream from the Jordan River. That’s adding another source of discord to an already volatile region.

‘Gambling, Gluttony and Girls’

“There’s a growing risk of conflict over water shared by nations, ethnic groups or economic interests,” Gleick says.

Las Vegas, an adult-entertainment haven carved into the Mojave Desert, may not draw much sympathy as a poster child for water emergencies.

For decades, new residents imported their cravings for lawns, sprinklers, pools and golf courses to a region that receives 4 inches (10 centimeters) of rain a year, about 1/10 of what Chicago enjoys. Casinos and hotels with water slides and river rides sucked up limited groundwater.

Until the real estate meltdown, Nevada was the fastest- growing U.S. market, with a 33 percent surge in new homes from 2000 to ‘07.

Now the city is getting a dose of reality, says Cecil Garland, a rancher in neighboring Utah who opposes Mulroy’s groundwater pipeline.

“Las Vegas is a place of gambling, gluttony and girls,” Garland, 83, says.

He says there’s no extra water along the proposed route, which travels through valleys green with 3-foot-tall shrubs called greasewood. If pumping kills the greasewood, dust storms that plague his town of Callao would soar 5,000 feet into the sky, he says.

‘Driest Areas’

“We live in one of the driest areas of the driest part of the U.S.,” Garland says. “How in the world can anybody with reason or common sense think they can pump water in the amount they’re talking about and leave the integrity of the valley in place?”

Mulroy says Nevada’s resorts use 3 percent of the state’s water compared with 90 percent going for farms and ranches.

For the past two decades, Mulroy, a lifelong government employee whose business attire tends toward pantsuits with the collar of her blouses pointed up behind her neck, has wrestled with the competing truths that dog all water managers: There’s only so much to go around, somebody has already claimed most of it, and citizens and companies keep demanding more.

“People view water as a human right and expect it to be virtually free,” says Michael LoCascio at Boston-based Lux Research Inc., which analyzes water issues. “Governments respond to that, and you end up with inefficiency.”

Without price-setting markets, water that cost 33 cents a cubic meter for the first 15 cubic meters delivered to homes in Memphis, Tennessee, in June 2007 was $3.01 in Atlanta and 57 cents in Las Vegas.

That’s cheap compared with Copenhagen, where the same amount that month was $7.71 per cubic meter, Gleick says.

Human Survival

Robert Glennon, a University of Arizona law professor, says governments must provide enough water for human survival. Beyond that, only freely functioning markets can allot it to people who need it most, he says.

Fast-growing cities should buy from farmers who use water on marginal land, says Glennon, author of “Unquenchable” (Island Press, 2009). That would cut inefficiency caused by irrigating deserts, such as those around Las Vegas, to raise alfalfa or beef, he says.

Worldwide, about 60 percent of fresh water goes to irrigate crops through flooding, losing 70 percent of the moisture to evaporation, Lux Research says.

Rudimentary Markets

The rudiments of water markets are cropping up across the American West.

In 2005, after 19 years of negotiations, Los Angeles’s Metropolitan Water District signed a 35-year “dry year option” with the Palo Verde Irrigation District south of Las Vegas in California. Los Angeles pays 7,000 farmers to leave land fallow during droughts and ship their water to city residents. The city gives a one-time payment of $3,170 an acre (0.4 hectare) to farmers who sign up and then $630 per year for every acre not farmed.

Companies and investors that see moneymaking opportunities in strategies to quench the world’s thirst may draw lessons from corporations that have tried.

In October, General Electric Co. named the third head of its water unit in three years. GE had paid $3.8 billion to buy several treatment and filtration companies, including Watertown, Massachusetts-based Ionics Inc., which makes reverse-osmosis membranes for purifying salt water.

Big Deals

Last year, GE opened a $250 million desalination plant, Africa’s largest, with state-owned Algerian Energy Co. GE had hoped to profit from its newly acquired water technologies with the backing of its General Electric Capital Corp. financing arm, says Jeffrey Fulgham, chief marketing officer for the Trevose, Pennsylvania-based unit. Instead, GE wound up footing a lot of the building work for the plant, he says.

“At the end of these big hardware deals, there isn’t much profit,” says Fulgham, who adds that GE now focuses on water technology and avoids construction.

Pure Cycle Corp., which buys and transports water for housing developments near Denver, seemed to have scored a windfall. Starting in 1976, it paid $110 million for water rights valued at $4 billion last year, Chief Executive Officer Mark Harding says. Yet shares in the Thornton, Colorado, company tumbled by 47 percent during the six months ended on Feb. 25. to trade at $3.25 apiece.

The real estate slowdown convinced investors that profits from water rights may be years away, Harding says.

Just financing water for municipal use is getting harder in the global recession.

$8.3 Billion

The southern Nevada authority is about halfway through a 30-year, $8.3 billion construction campaign. Last year, 57 percent of the money for it came from a $6,310 fee to hook up new homes. The Las Vegas real estate slump is so severe that total hookup collections dropped to $61.5 million last year from $188.4 million in 2006. Mulroy says the authority actually lost money on hookups in January because of refunds to developers who abandoned construction projects.

As a result, reserves in the construction fund dropped 6 percent in the first six weeks of 2009, to $480 million. Without those reserves, Mulroy says, she couldn’t assure investors the authority would be able to repay the $500 million in bonds she plans to start selling by early fall to complete the Lake Mead project. The authority had $3.9 billion in liabilities on June 30.

‘Rub Two Sticks Together’

The authority also gets money from water deliveries, property taxes and fees from federal land sales. If she has to protect the reserves, Mulroy says, she’ll raise water rates, which total about $21 a month for a single-family home.

She’s asked fellow Nevadan Harry Reid, the U.S. Senate majority leader, for a federal guarantee on the bonds. Reid is exploring how to help big municipal water systems, including Mulroy’s, get easier access to credit, spokesman Jon Summers says.

In February, Mulroy presented such a dire description of the authority’s finances to the Nevada legislature that Jerry Claborn, chairman of the Natural Resources Committee, told her, “You’ll have to do like you did years ago: rub two sticks together.”

Mulroy said afterward she wanted to quash any notion that cash-strapped legislators could appropriate her reserves for some other purpose.

To Richard Bunker, who hired her as an administrative assistant when he managed Clark County, Nevada, in 1978, Mulroy’s hardball tactics are a delight.

“She walks into a room with guys who’ve been on the river 50 and 60 years and they just cringe,” he says with a smile.

‘Pay Me Enough’

One thing Mulroy has ruled out, even in the economic meltdown, is using water as an excuse to limit Las Vegas’s growth.

“During the next 50 years, this country’s population is expected to explode by another 140 million,” she says, citing U.S. Census projections. “I always ask, ‘Where do you want the people to go?’”

Mulroy also opposes the idea of privatizing water, or giving investors power to set prices.

“You’d be telling people, ‘Pay me enough or I withhold it,’” she says, her voice rising, in the cafeteria of Clark County’s terra cotta-colored municipal headquarters. “It’s like you’re telling me I can live.”

Mulroy’s unflagging commitment to keeping Las Vegas green and growing gets the blessing of casino owner Stephen Wynn.

“Pat is the best public servant I’ve met in my 40 years on the Strip,” says Wynn, who credits her with teaching him to save money by using treated groundwater for the lagoons surrounding the artificial volcano at the Mirage hotel, now owned by MGM Mirage.

Lake Mead

Finding the water for casinos is one reason crews are working around the clock at Lake Mead.

In 2002 alone, lack of rainfall lowered the deep-blue waters by 24.6 feet, leaving white bathtub-ring-like marks on the brown cliffs and stranding docks half a mile from shore.

Today, the lake is 1,112 feet above sea level. Should it fall to 1,075 feet, the federal government would cut the water to seven states that depend on the Colorado River, according to an agreement they all signed in 2007. If that happens, the states would likely renegotiate a 1922 pact that divided up the river’s water rights in the first place, Mulroy says. Mexico’s allocation under a 1944 treaty could also change.

If the drought persists and more water is diverted from the Colorado, the lake could drop to 1,050 feet. That would prevent water from flowing into the intake pipe and cut 40 percent of Las Vegas’s supply -- the disaster Mulroy is trying to head off. Hoover Dam, completed in 1935 to regulate the river and form Lake Mead, wouldn’t be able to produce electricity for the 750,000 people it supplies in Los Angeles.

No More Water

At 1,000 feet, the remaining intakes and the rest of the Lake Mead water would go. Because of climate change and population growth, chances of this are as great as 50 percent by 2026, the University of Colorado’s Udall says.

When Mulroy, a daughter of a civilian employee of the U.S. Air Force, arrived in Las Vegas in 1974, the city had yet to be consumed by a water quest. Until the 1940s, parts of downtown had freely flowing springs.

Mulroy, a native of Germany, studied German literature; got her master’s degree from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas; and went to work for Bunker at Clark County. A Mormon bishop, he later ran the state’s Gaming Control Board and the Nevada Resort Association.

Shoeboxes

Bunker supported her promotion to administrator for the county justice court, which was storing records in shoeboxes when she took over. In 1989, he backed her as general manager of the Las Vegas Valley Water District, which the state legislature had formed four decades earlier. Mulroy helped create the seven- community Southern Nevada Water Authority two years later.

“Absent her being here, I don’t know where we’d be,” Bunker says.

Around the time Mulroy became water czar, Wynn unleashed the era of Wall Street-financed megaresorts with his 30-story Mirage. He tinted the hotel’s windows with real gold.

Mulroy raced to boost water deliveries throughout the city by as much as 20 percent a year. With Bunker’s help, she started planning the pipeline to tap melting snow under Wheeler Peak, Nevada’s second-highest mountain.

The pipeline’s planned path runs northeast out of Las Vegas, enters Lincoln County and passes through the Pahranagat National Wildlife Refuge, where, in December, gold leaves of cottonwoods shimmer and migratory birds swoop onto lakes fed by artesian springs. Farther north, hilltops are dotted with abandoned mining towns and bands of wild horses.

‘Already Spoken For’

As Mulroy marched north to secure land and permits, she ran headfirst into what Gleick says is a fundamental truth about water across the U.S. and other parts of the world.

“Nearly every drop is already spoken for, often more than once,” he says.

Determined to get what she required, Mulroy went into horse-trading mode.

“You need a large amount of money and some very powerful people to make water projects happen,” says Greg James, a California water rights attorney and a consultant for pipeline opponents.

She struck a deal with Harvey Whittemore, then Nevada’s top gambling lobbyist. Members of Whittemore’s law firm include Rory Reid, Harry Reid’s son. The younger Reid later served as the water authority’s vice chairman, from 2003 to ‘08.

120,000 New Homes

Whittemore, 56, is also a developer who’s planning a new suburb called Coyote Springs, 55 miles north of the Las Vegas Strip. Even with the real estate crash, Coyote Springs will have 120,000 homes and a dozen golf courses when it’s finished in four or five decades, he says.

Whittemore’s land included one of the most productive wells ever drilled in southern Nevada. He sold 9,000 acre-feet of groundwater that he wasn’t using to Mulroy for $30.1 million. (One acre-foot equals about 326,000 gallons, or 1,240 kiloliters, enough for two average U.S. homes for a year.) That led to what Mulroy describes as a partnership in which Whittemore will help pay for the pipeline and use it to ship water to Coyote Springs.

In 2003, Mulroy bargained with reluctant officials in neighboring Lincoln County, persuading them to drop opposition to the project by ceding back to them some of the water rights that she held.

In 2006, farther up the route, she learned how tough the water business can be. She paid $22 million for a ranch that had cost $4.5 million six years earlier. The seller, Carson City, Nevada-based Vidler Water Co., a unit of PICO Holdings Inc., based the price on similar purchases Whittemore had made, Vidler President Dorothy Timian-Palmer says.

Fight Over Greasewood

Last year, Mulroy got into a fight over greasewood with Tim Durbin, a hydrologist who’d once been a consultant for her. Durbin disputed Mulroy’s assessment that the pipeline would avoid major damage to the shrub. In his rebuttal, Durbin described a scene that still touches an open wound in the psyche of the American West.

In 1913, William Mulholland built a 223-mile aqueduct from Owens Valley in California’s Sierras to Los Angeles, where he was water superintendent. The aqueduct drained a 40-foot-deep lake, exposing the valley floor and unleashing dust storms that plagued Los Angeles throughout the 20th century. The aqueduct also inspired the 1974 movie “Chinatown.” In 1970, Los Angeles built a second aqueduct.

‘A Model’

Today, the valley’s 75-mile-long expanse looks like it did a millennium ago. The water diverted to Los Angeles makes economic development in the valley impossible.

“Because of groundwater pumping, vegetation was disappearing in the Owens Valley,” says Durbin, who was chief hydrologist for the U.S. Geological Survey in California and Nevada before becoming a private consultant in 1984. “It’s a model for what one would expect in eastern Nevada.”

Because of such memories, Mulroy hasn’t won many friends among eastern Nevada’s old-timers.

Rancher Dean Baker fears Mulroy’s pipeline would drain the water that’s let him survive in Snake Valley, in the shadow of Wheeler Peak, for more than half a century.

Baker, 69, remembers when people staked uranium claims only to realize their Geiger counters were clicking because of residue from atomic tests outside Las Vegas. He recalls flying solo in a Piper J-3 Cub before he could drive.

Most of all, Baker remembers water. He rose at dawn to deliver it to cattle 50 miles away. He culled his herd and watched greasewood wither during droughts. It took 20 years for him to afford a backhoe with a jackhammer that could break rocks that covered a spring on his ranch.

Legacy of Dust

“Water is the limiting factor in everything we do,” Baker says. “The legacy of this pipeline will be dust.”

Baker says people who want to move to Las Vegas should look instead to Mississippi and Louisiana. “People should go where there’s water,” he says.

Mulroy says her job is to bring water to the people. Last year, she said she thought the proposed pipeline could begin transporting water in 2015. Now, because of the recession, she doesn’t know when she’ll have the money to build it.

She says she’ll wait for the economy to recover to decide -- unless Lake Mead drops even more and forces her to act.

Mulroy’s struggle to get water to a growing desert population wouldn’t have surprised John Wesley Powell, the first known explorer to pass through the entire Grand Canyon 130 miles east of Las Vegas.

“You are piling up a heritage of conflict and litigation over the water rights,” he told the International Irrigation Congress in Los Angeles in 1893. “There is no sufficient water to supply the land.”

‘Little Bubbles’

Four generations later, Mulroy is a veteran of these age- old conflicts. She says the region’s water emergency is becoming more dangerous because of climate change and population growth. The crisis is too big to be solved one river or one continent at a time, she says.

“We’ve managed water in such small, incremental units,” she says. “We won’t be able to survive in our little bubbles.”

Even people who agree with Mulroy’s warning won’t have an easy time acting on it. As she has, they’ll discover the effort it will take to quench the world’s thirst and realize that the time and money to do so -- like water itself -- are running short.

The Dispute Over Johnson Valley

Johnson Valley Map. Look closely. One of off-roading's most beloved places could be lost. Photography by Kevin Blumer.

By Kevin Blumer
Off-Road Magazine

As off-roaders, we're used to getting closed out, locked out, and legislated off of the lands we dearly love to recreate on. Anyone who remembers the California Desert Protection Act will recall how millions of acres of the Mojave Desert were systematically removed from vehicular access with the help of the Sierra Club, the late Senator Alan Cranston, and Senator Dianne Feinstein. Off-roaders had little say in the matter even though we were directly affected by this legislative juggernaut. Senator Feinstein, a longtime ally of pro-Wilderness, anti-OHV special interests, turned a deaf ear to our cries. This time, it's different.

For those who haven't heard, the U.S. Marine Corps base in Twentynine Palms, California, is looking to expand and is considering the acquisition of the Johnson Valley OHV area. The new expansion area will be used for live-fire exercises as Marines train for combat.

Those who think this means only the loss of the infamous Hammer rock-crawling trails, which directly abut the western border of the Twentynine Palms Marine base, need to think again. The Marines might end up taking the whole Johnson Valley OHV area. This means we'll also lose access to the areas off of Camp Rock Road, Bessemer Mine Road, and Boone Road. This isn't just a threat to rock crawlers. This is a threat to truck and buggy racers, prerunner enthusiasts, dirt-bike riders, quad riders, and side-by-side UTV drivers. As off-roaders, we're all lumped into this together.

As U.S. residents, we depend on the Marines to keep us safe in the world. We deeply appreciate the service they provide and the freedom we enjoy. On an individual level, many Marines are avid off-roaders and appreciate the need for open land on which to recreate.

The Johnson Valley OHV area is to the west of the Twentynine Palms Marine base. But the Corps is also considering expanding eastward for training and war games. The off-road community needs to respectfully request the Marines' planning commission look elsewhere for new training grounds. We need to encourage eastward expansion, and discourage any westward movement.

A Chance To Speak Up

Why is it different this time? It's different because off-roaders have a listening ear in the Marine Corps. "We want to expand our base of operations in the way that will do the most good and will negatively impact the fewest people,"said Dr. Jim Cassidy of the Marines during an Open House Scoping Meeting in Ontario, California. His colleague, public-affairs specialist Captain Amy Malugani, concurred: "As we've held these meetings, we've heard lots of anecdotal evidence about how much the off-road community loves Johnson Valley. People have shared lots of emotion about their connections to Johnson Valley. While we appreciate the anecdotes and the emotion, we need quantification and hard facts in order to make our decision."

What does quantification mean in this instance? Cassidy shed some light: "We need to know how many people use Johnson Valley for recreation. We need to know how much money they've invested in their recreational equipment. We need to know where they're from and how long they've been going to Johnson Valley. Recently, a couple told us that they use off-road trips to Johnson Valley as a reward to their grandkids for being good. That example means that Johnson Valley has inter-generational significance. These are the types of quantification we're after."

How The Process Works

There are seven milestones along the way, three of which include opportunities for public comment. These are opportunities to make our voices heard.

Pursuant to the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, federal agencies must analyze the environmental impacts of their proposed activities, producing an Environmental Impact Statement, or EIS.

Here Are The Milestones:

1. Notice of Intent to Prepare an EIS. This milestone was passed on October 30, 2008, and was an official public announcement of the military's intent to expand the Twentynine Palms Marine Corps Base.

2. Scoping Period. The Marines "scope" around for the public's input and presents a range of alternatives for the proposed expansion. There are six alternatives being presented. The Scoping Period began October 30, 2008, and ended January 31, 2009. It's December 15, 2008, as this is being written, and our lead time doesn't allow us to get this news in print any sooner. For this reason, we put this same information on our website, www.off-roadweb.com, during December '08. Even though the period for public comment ended on January 31, there are still two more opportunities for public comments down the line.

3. The Draft EIS is prepared. The Draft EIS will be prepared beginning February 1, 2009, and be finished by Spring 2010. No public comments are taken during this time.

4. Notice of EIS availability, followed by public meetings and comment period. Here's when we get to speak up. A federal register will notify the public that the Draft EIS is available. This will happen during Spring 2010. After the Draft EIS is available, there will be a 90-day period for public meetings and public comment.

5. The Final EIS will be written, taking public comments into account, during Winter 2010.

6. The Final EIS will be available for public comment for 30 days, and the public will be informed of its availability. This is another chance to voice opinions and state facts from our point of view.

7. A final decision will be made and announced during Spring 2011.

How To Take Action

Speak up! This means writing letters, sending emails, and making phone calls. You don't have to go through your Congressional representative. You can go directly to the Marines. When the next public comment period comes around in Spring 2010, be ready with your comments.

Our basic message to the Corps: The off-road community wants the Marines to expand the Twentynine Palms base to the East.

We need to tell the Marines how much we love playing in Johnson Valley, and we need to tell them how many people we bring with us and for how many years, and we need to tell them how much money we've invested in off-roading. The Marines recognize emotion, but they need the hard facts, too.

The Marine Corps has set up a website for this project. The site includes maps, links, and other information pertinent to this proposed expansion.

The website: www.29palms.usmc.mil/las

Supreme Court to hear Mojave cross case

Justices will decide whether the monument can stand in a national preserve to honor fallen soldiers. It will be the Roberts court's first chance to rule on separation of church and state.

The Supreme Court has agreed to decide whether an eight-foot-tall cross in the Mojave National Preserve in San Bernardino County can stand in a national preserve to honor fallen soldiers. Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times / File

By David G. Savage
Los Angeles Times

Reporting from Washington -- In a case that could reshape the doctrine of separation of church and state, the Supreme Court agreed Monday to decide whether a cross to honor fallen soldiers can stand in a national preserve in California.

The case will give the Roberts court its first chance to rule directly on the 1st Amendment's ban on "an establishment of religion."

In the last two decades, the justices have been closely divided on whether religious symbols, such as the Ten Commandments or a depiction of Christ's birth, can be displayed on public property.

Four years ago, then-Justice Sandra Day O'Connor cast a fifth and deciding vote against the display of the Ten Commandments in a Kentucky courthouse. She said such a public display of a religious message violated the 1st Amendment because it amounted to a government endorsement of religion.

In dissent, the court's conservatives said religious displays on public land generally do not violate the 1st Amendment, since no one is forced to listen to a religious message or participate in a religious event.

A year later, O'Connor retired and was replaced by Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., President Bush's second appointee, who could form a new majority on religion.

At issue is an eight-foot-tall cross in the Mojave National Preserve in San Bernardino County. A smaller wooden cross was first erected by the Veterans of Foreign Wars in 1934 and was originally maintained as a war memorial by the National Park Service.

The American Civil Liberties Union objected to the cross and filed a suit on behalf of Frank Buono, a Catholic and former Park Service employee. The suit noted that the government had denied a request to have a Buddhist shrine erected near the cross.

Two years ago, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled for the ACLU and declared the cross an "impermissible governmental endorsement of religion."

Congress had intervened to save the cross. It ordered the Interior Department to transfer to the VFW one acre of land where the cross stood. The 9th Circuit judges were unswayed, however.

Bush administration lawyers appealed to the Supreme Court last fall and said the "seriously misguided decision" would require the government "to tear down a cross that has stood without incident for 70 years as a memorial to fallen service members."

The government also questioned Buono's standing to challenge the cross, since he lives in Oregon and suffers no obvious harm because of the Mojave cross.

In a friend-of-the-court brief, the VFW, American Legion and other veterans groups said the 9th Circuit's ruling, if allowed to stand, could trigger legal challenges to the display of crosses at Arlington National Cemetery and elsewhere.

The court said it had voted to hear the case, now relabeled Salazar vs. Buono. Arguments will be heard in October, and Obama administration lawyers will be in charge of defending the presence of the cross.

Monday saw the return of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. She had surgery for pancreatic cancer on Feb. 5, but as promised, she was back on the bench when the court resumed hearing oral arguments. Lab tests said her cancer was in a very early stage and had not spread.

Collect a rock, lose your car

YOUR GOVERNMENT AT WORK

Ominous forfeiture provisions in new bill restrict use of federal land

WorldNetDaily

This souvenir could land you in hot water under the provisions of pending legislation. (DanielCD)

WASHINGTON – A land management bill that swept through the U.S. Senate last month and is headed for a House vote this week punishes rock collectors and paleontologists with arrest and expropriation of their cars and other equipment for even unknowingly disturbing fossils on public land, say critics.

In the Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009, a "forfeiture" provision would let the government confiscate "all vehicles and equipment of any person" who digs up or removes a rock or a bone from federal land that meets the bill's broad definition of "paleontological resource," says a report by Jon Berlau of the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

"The seizures could take place even before a person and even if the person didn't know they were taking or digging up a 'paleontological resource," writes Berlau. "And the bill specifically allows the 'transfer of seized resources' to 'federal or non-federal' institutions, giving the government and some private actors great incentive to egg on the takings."

Tracie Bennitt, president of the Association of Applied Paleontological Sciences, is protesting the bill's vague language and severe penalties.

"We can visualize now a group of students unknowingly crossing over an invisible line and ending up handcuffed and prosecuted," she wrote to members of Congress.

Subtitle D of the bill called the "Paleontological Resources Preservation Act" would make it illegal to "excavate, remove, damage, or otherwise alter or deface or attempt to excavate, remove, damage, or otherwise alter or deface any paleontological resources located on Federal land" without special permission from the government.

"Paleontological resource" is defined in the bill as "any fossilized remains, traces, or imprints of organisms, preserved in or on the earth's crust, that are of paleontological interest and that provide information about the history of life on earth." Penalties for violations include up to five years in jail.

Berlau believes picking up rocks could be interpreted as a violation of the law since most would fit the broad definition under the law.

The forfeiture provision is effective before a trial and conviction, making the defendant guilty until proven innocent, Berlau suggests.

Berlau believes the House will take up a vote on the bill this week. He is urging Americans to contact representatives before the bill, known both as S. 22 and the "Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009" is approved, as expected, and heads to the White House for President Obama's signature.

Touch a rock and get mugged by the feds

by J.D. Tuccille
Examiner.com

A few years ago, I was backpacking in an Arizona canyon where the sun didn't reach our camp until well after we'd rolled out of our sleeping bags. Desperate to get warm, a friend and I decided to scale the canyon wall to find a patch of warm sunlight and see the view. We soon discovered that the rocks were speckled with fossils -- mementos of long-gone life. Somewhere, I have a souvenir from that climb -- a keepsake that, under new legislation, could could get my truck and camping gear confiscated even without a trial, and my friend and I imprisoned for five years with one.

The new legislation is the Paleontological Resources Preservation Act, passed in the Senate as Subtitle D of S.22, the Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009, and pending in the House. Under the new law, "A person may not excavate, remove, damage, or otherwise alter or deface or attempt to excavate, remove, damage, or otherwise alter or deface any paleontological resources located on Federal land" without jumping through hoops created by the federal government. Do so, and you could face up to five years in federal prison.

Strictly speaking, that souvenir of mine might not be illegal under the new bill. The act does allow for "the collecting of a reasonable amount of common invertebrate and plant paleontological resources for non-commercial personal use." But that reasonable amount "shall be determined by the Secretary." Just hope the current officeholder's hemorrhoids aren't acting up the day he or she decides what you can tuck in your pocket during the course of a hike without facing the wrath of the federal government.

"Our government does not need to put scientists in jail and confiscate University vans. We can visualize now a group of students unknowingly crossing over an invisible line and ending up handcuffed and prosecuted."

And do hope for leniency. Because that five years in prison may not be the worst of it. At least a criminal conviction requires a trial before a jury that's occasionally unimpressed by arbitrary and intrusive federal laws. If the feds don't want to bother proving their case in court, they can just steal your car, truck, camping eqipment and any other gear you may have.

Really.

Section 6308 says:

(b) Forfeiture- All paleontological resources with respect to which a violation under section 6306 or 6307 occurred and which are in the possession of any person, and all vehicles and equipment of any person that were used in connection with the violation, shall be subject to civil forfeiture, or upon conviction, to criminal forfeiture.

You noticed that "subject to civil forfeiture, or upon conviction, to criminal forfeiture" didn't you? That's a example of a notorious practice called "civil asset forfeiture," which means the government gets to steal your stuff without proving a case against you, and you have to sue to get it back. Oh, and the law also says the government gets to keep or dispose of the stolen goods as it wishes, so there's an incentive to steal as much and as often as possible.

Civil asset forfeiture has a disturbing history of abuse for the benefit of government agencies, including actual highway robbery. Some law-enforcement agencies have become notorious for stopping cars, seizing cash and goods without ever even pretending to bring criminal charges, and returning the loot only if the folks passing through bring suit and win a court order. The situation got so bad a decade ago that it culminated in a bipartisan piece of legislation, the Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act of 2000 (PDF). Compromise that it was, the bill softened some of the worst abuses of forfeiture, but left the practice in place.

Obviously.

Tracie Bennitt, president of the Association of Applied Paleontological Sciences, points out that the bill also threatens prison time for any person who might "make or submit any false record, account, or label for, or any false identification of, any paleontological resource excavated or removed from Federal land."

That's a problem, says Bennitt, because "[w]hat you find and label in the field may not be what you find as preparation is undertaken in the lab. Penalties for misidentification of fossils will place every museum in jeopardy. There is not one museum that is free from labeling errors on specimens on exhibit or in collections."

Ultimately, says Bennitt, "Our government does not need to put scientists in jail and confiscate University vans. We can visualize now a group of students unknowingly crossing over an invisible line and ending up handcuffed and prosecuted. An honest mistake is just that and should be treated accordingly."

Yes, "honest mistakes" should be treated as such, but so should simple rock gathering and poking in the dirt. If the feds want to target real pirates who are going after fossils on public lands with front-end loaders, they need to do so with weapons that don't threaten hikers, scientists and hobbyists.

And they need to entirely abandon the monstrous practice of civil asset forfeiture.

Oh, and if the feds want that souvenir back, they should feel free to send somebody around to collect it. Just have him stand back about 90 feet. That's the distance from home plate to first base. I can throw that far.