by Frank Dubois

Two foolish comments from Interior’s boss and ranching on the Mexican border

Secretary of Interior Sally Jewell recently visited Burns, Oregon to visit with Malheur Wildlife Refuge employees, local officials and community members about the recently concluded 41-day standoff at the refuge.

During one of the meetings Secretary Jewell said, “Well, this is land that belongs to all Americans.”

I’m so tired of hearing that.… Read the rest

Beleaguered Bundys

On February 10th Cliven Bundy was travelling from Nevada to Oregon, where his two sons were being held in jail and four holdouts remained at the Malheur Wildlife refuge. His travel was interrupted by SWAT teams at the Portland International Airport, where he was arrested at 10:10 p.m. Bundy, 69, was then booked into the Multnomah County jail at 10:54 p.m. on charges related to the 2014 standoff at his Nevada ranch.… Read the rest

by Frank DuBois

This month we look at Congressional cowardice & chicanery

Congress recently passed the 2,000-page Omnibus spending bill and many had hoped that with a new Speaker in the House this legislation would start bringing spending under control and place road blocks to the Obama Administration’s most outrageous environmental power grabs.

Recent appropriations bills had included policy riders that would:

Prevent the listing of the sage grouse under the Endangered Species Act,

Require the de-listing of wolves in Wyoming and the Great Lakes from the endangered species list

Prevent the implementation of Secretarial Order 3310, issued on December 22, 2010 (Wildlands policy)

Require a government-wide report on expenditures for global warming, and

Prevent enforcement of the waters of the United States (WOTUS) rule

And in this bill?… Read the rest

This column reviews a weird year, with insect meat, toad roads,
bobcat bridges & zoo poo

Insect Meat

This is the season when one can reflect back on the happenings and issues that have occurred over the previous months. As one who reports in issues affecting the West and especially livestock producers, I can definitely say this has been one weird year.

It started on January 4th, when I wrote about scientists in the Netherlands who published a study on their discovery that insects produce significantly less greenhouse gas per kilogram of meat than cattle or pigs.After… Read the rest

Monumental grazing problems, a “terrorist rancher” injustice, & laser fences for
airborne avians

I, along with others, felt the anti-grazing language in the recent Presidential Proclamations designating the two new national monuments in New Mexico would set a precedent for all future monument designations. Environmental nirvana had been reached. The enviros had lost some recent court cases seeking to limit grazing in national monuments and they needed new language in the Proclamations that would prevent such losses in the future.… Read the rest

The Bird

Would she or wouldn’t she? Everyone was waiting to see if Interior Secretary Jewell would place the sage grouse on the endangered list. Interior had a court-ordered September 30 deadline to make a decision. At stake was the future of 173 million federal acres.
On the 21st Interior said they would have a big announcement the next day and on the 21st I predicted that the bird would not be listed; that loud hosannas would be shouted about the collaboration process undertaken by the feds, the states and private individuals; the Endangered Species Act would be praised; and that some of the more radical elements in the environmental community would challenge the decision in court.… Read the rest

This column is about wildfire, federal mismanagement, settlement with enviros, and solar panels for chicken coops

So far this year we’ve had thousands of fires that have burned more than 7 million acres.  Three firefighters have been killed, hundreds of homes destroyed, thousands of people evacuated and for the first time the Forest Service expects to spend more than half of it’s budget on fire suppression. We have 29,000 firefighters in the field, including some from Canada, and are now bringing in additional numbers from New Zealand and Australia

As a result political tongues are wagging again about mismanagement of federal lands and ranchers are speaking up.… Read the rest