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Open in TheBrain

nat'l parks bak

917

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includes fed lands, but see blm

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promoted to 2ndary 9/14 as proxy for environment, commons, fed govt

originally attacked by wacko sagebrush wise use (reborn in militia and Bundy-ites post-Obama election?)

plus pol sellouts who want a cut of free extraction booty (energy independence is "patriotic")

plus (or cloaked in) libertarian (along with amorphous cranky gubmint can do no right)

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omg

http://www.alternet.org/animal-rights/radical-gop-led-bill-promotes-killing-americas-threatened-species

ast week, the U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources passed the Sportsmen’s Heritage and Recreational Enhancement Act—the so-called SHARE Act—with votes coming only from Republican members of the committee.

Democrats recognized that this bill has little to do with rank-and-file sportsmen’s issues, and saw it for what it is: a grab bag of shameful provisions aimed at opening National Park Service lands to grizzly bear killing (of all places, they should be protected on our “national preserves”), poisoning wildlife with the use of lead tackle and ammunition (even though there are practical and affordable alternatives), and promoting the killing of threatened species (e.g., wolves and polar bears).

The bill has gained extensive media attention not for these provisions, but for one to allow the use of suppressors, often called silencers — a perfect tool for poachers in the field (hunters and other shooters already have a range of ear protection gear, from foam to custom ear plugs, so this provision to preserve hearing is an overreach).

The committee’s action in supporting this radical bill is not only at odds with common sense, but also with the unmistakable demographic patterns in the United States. Just last week, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service released its periodic report on wildlife recreation. Among other things, the report revealed that the number of wildlife watchers is soaring (a 20 percent increase in the last five years to 86 million in 2016), while hunter numbers have declined by two million since 2011, when the agency last examined the question, to just 11.5 million. Wildlife watchers outnumber sport hunters by a ratio of seven to one and spend $75.9 billion on their pursuits, as compared to $25.6 billion spent by hunters.

The Natural Resources Committee’s vote is really more about the wishes of the NRA and the Safari Club, and not about helping hunters and fishermen, who get almost nothing from this boondoggle of a bill and who would be shocked by its anti-conservation provisions. The vast majority of sport hunters are shooting deer or birds and consuming the meat. They are not the kind of sportsmen who wish to shoot threatened species such as grizzly bears or wolves, who are inedible and killed mainly for trophies only.

The bill includes an amendment from Alaska Congressman Don Young to strip protections for wolves and bears on National Park Service (NPS) lands in Alaska. This is his latest attempt to unwind an NPS rule that forbids extreme hunting methods on lands that never were meant to be set aside for these purposes. Last week, the full House narrowly passed an amendment on an annual spending bill to block implementation of the rule. What sport is there in killing wolves and their pups in their dens and luring grizzly bears with bait in order to shoot them at point-blank range? This disgraceful behavior shouldn’t happen anywhere, least of all on America’s national preserves.

The SHARE legislation includes a raft of other odious provisions, like loosening restrictions on the baiting of migratory waterfowl and barring EPA restrictions on the use of lead-based fishing equipment. SHARE also handcuffs the departments of Interior and Agriculture by prohibiting either agency from regulating the use of lead-based ammunition, ammunition cartridges, or fishing tackle where such uses are allowed by the state where the hunting and fishing occurs. One other provision would roll back the Marine Mammal Protection Act and provide a sweetheart deal to help 41 wealthy polar bear trophy hunters import the heads of rare polar bears they shot in Canada. It’s the latest in a series of these import allowances for trophy hunters, and it effectively encourages them to kill rare species around the world and then wait for a congressional waiver to bring back their trophies.

The most sweeping provision of the SHARE Act would give trophy hunters and commercial trappers priority access to the more than 100 million acres of congressionally designated “wilderness areas” across the nation. This provision weakens the core purpose of the Wilderness Act, which Congress enacted to preserve wild areas “where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain.”

Let’s hope the U.S. House and Senate won’t give any meaningful attention to a package with these provisions. No representative or senator should be duped by a bill that masquerades as a measure to benefit sportsmen and sportswomen, but in reality is an all-out attack on wild native carnivores and threatened species, and an opening of our most cherished public lands to these unacceptable and gratuitous practices.

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INTERIOR SECRETARY RECOMMENDS SHRINKING 4 WESTERN NATIONAL MONUMENTS And changing the way others are managed. [WaPo]

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http://www.alternet.org/environment/how-trump-jeopardizing-future-americas-public-lands

budget cuts

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polling

http://www.alternet.org/environment/americas-public-lands-are-under-attack-politicians-voicing-misleading-claims-about

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Donald Trump signed an Executive Order threatening Grand Staircase-Escalante with drilling, mining and logging.

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http://www.alternet.org/environment/forest-service-ready-approve-controversial-arizona-copper-mine-threatening-environment

U.S. Forest Service is poised to sign one of the two federal permits needed for a giant, mile-wide open-pit copper mine in Arizona. The announcement for what would be the third-largest copper mine in the county, if approved, was quietly published Monday in the Federal Register.

The developer of the controversial project has been represented in Washington by David Bernhardt, the former lobbyist who has been nominated for the No. 2 spot at the Interior Department. Bernhardt briefly headed the transition team for Trump’s Interior.

HERE’S THE FINAL ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STATEMENT ON THE ROSEMONT MINE PROJECT

“No rational analysis could lead the stewards of our public lands to conclude that this devastating project is acceptable,” said Randy Serraglio, conservation advocate with the Center for Biological Diversity. “This decision is motivated by politics and corruption.”

Bernhardt lobbied for the proposed Rosemont copper mine in the 1.78-million-acre Coronado National Forest from 2011 through 2015. He remained a consultant for the project. Rosemont Copper Co. paid about $1.8 million in lobbying fees from 2011 to 2016 to a Denver law firm, Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, where Bernhardt is a shareholder.

Rosemont Copper Co. paid Bernhardt more than $5,000 forlegal services, according to his ethics disclosure form. The exact amount was not released. Bernhardt is expected to be questioned by the U.S. Senate about possible conflicts of interest such as Rosemont. The Interior Department doesn’t oversee the Forest Service, which is part of the Department of Agriculture.

The Federal Register announcement said a “Record of Decision” is expected to be signed in early June.

Hudbay Minerals Inc., the Canadian firm behind the project, said that the permit is one of two federal permits needed for the project. The other is a Clean Water Act permit that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers previously recommended be denied. The reviewers said the mine would “cause or contribute to” violations of Arizona water quality standards.

Hudbay CEO Alan Hair told analysts in February that he expected the company would receive the permits “in due course.”

The proposed mine is in the Santa Rita mountains of southern Arizona where the nation’s only wild jaguar lives. Another endangered large cat, the ocelot, has also been photographed nearby.

Hudbay plans to mine up to 90,000 tons of ore a day over the estimated 19-year life of the mine and produce 1.25 billion tons of waste rock and mine tailings. A feasibility study in March said the company has found other ore deposits nearby that it could also mine.

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e Trump administration intends to scrap and rewrite an Obama-era rule designed to make fracking on federal lands safer.

Drilling has taken place on federal lands for years, with more than 100,000 wells in existence. In 2015, the Interior Dept. issued new standards aimed at making the process safer, including stricter and higher design standards for wells and waste fluid storage facilities to mitigate risks to air, water and wildlife. Companies would also be required to publicly disclose chemicals used in fracking.

However, U.S. District Judge Scott Skavdahl blocked the Obama rule in June after accepting the argument from energy companies and several states that federal regulators lack congressional authority to set rules for fracking.

The Obama administration appealed the decision to the 10th Circuit, but the rule could be killed for good. The Trump administration said in court filings Wednesday it is withdrawing from the lawsuit.

Justice Dept. lawyers representing Interior and the Bureau of Land Management asked the court to "continue the oral argument and hold these appeals in abeyance pending a new rulemaking" on the issue.

"As part of this process, the Department has begun reviewing the 2015 Final Rule (and all guidance issued pursuant thereto) for consistency with the policies and priorities of the new Administration," the motion reads. "This initial review has revealed that the 2015 Final Rule does not reflect those policies and priorities."

A spokeswoman for Interior Sec. Ryan Zinke confirmed with the Associated Press that the administration intends to submit a new rule.

Neal Kirby of the Independent Petroleum Association of America praised the withdrawal of the rule, calling it "unnecessary, duplicative and would further drive away independent producers from federal lands."

"Every energy-producing area has different needs and requirements, which is why the states are far more effective at regulating hydraulic fracturing than the federal government," he said.

Many environmental advocates felt that the 2015 rule was already too lenient, but the Trump administration's latest action could be even more worrisome to fracking opponents.

"This disturbing decision highlights Trump's desire to leave our beautiful public lands utterly unprotected from oil industry exploitation," said Michael Saul, an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity. "Backing away from these modest rules is doubly dangerous given the administration's reckless plans to ramp up fracking and drilling on public lands across America."

Other environmental organizations spoke out against the announcement.

"Today's news demonstrates the degree to which Secretary Zinke and the Trump administration are in the pocket of the oil and gas industry," said Earthjustice attorney Mike Freeman. Earthworks policy director Lauren Page said: "By moving to overturn these common-sense protections, the Trump administration is positioning itself against the disclosure of toxic chemicals, protecting clean water and preserving our public land."

Groundwater contamination is one of the biggest concerns about unconventional oil and natural gas production. While the industry maintains the safety of the process, in December the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released its highly anticipated final report identifying cases of impacts on drinking water at each stage in the hydraulic fracturing water cycle.

The disposal of fracking wastewater into underground wells has also been linked to the alarming increase in seismic activity in states such as Oklahoma and Kansas.

"With [Wednesday's] decision, Trump is making it clear that he thinks we need more fracking operations contaminating our drinking water, causing earthquakes and polluting our environment, not less," Sierra Club Beyond Dirty Fuels campaign director Lena Moffitt said. "The Sierra Club will continue to defend this rule, ensuring that our publicly-owned lands remain protected from fracking and Donald Trump."

President Trump has plans to open up federal lands for more energy development. As a candidate, Trump campaigned on a promise to "unleash America's $50 trillion in untapped shale, oil, and natural gas reserves, plus hundreds of years in clean coal reserves."

He accused President Obama of "denying millions of Americans access to the energy wealth sitting under our feet" by restricting leasing and banning new coal extraction.

Incidentally, the actions of the current administration go against the sentiments of the majority of Americans, who are opposed to fracking and drilling of public lands, according to a new Gallup poll.

The poll, released on Tuesday, determined that 53 percent of Americans oppose fracking as a means of increasing the production of natural gas and oil in the U.S. Only 46 percent support for opening up federal lands for oil exploration, compared to 65 percent who favored it in 2014.

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http://www.alternet.org/environment/gop-and-alecs-brazen-plan-sell-americas-public-lands-fossil-fuel-industry

GOP and ALEC's Brazen Plan to Sell Off America's Public Lands to the Fossil Fuel Industry

Western states have already sold and privatized 31 million acres of state lands—an area about the size of Louisiana.

By Brad Brooks / AlterNet February 21, 2017

...Forests, refuges and other public lands have been important to Americans since the realization in the mid-19th-century that our wild places were disappearing. Today, these protected, shared lands are valued for their beauty, recreation and economic values as well as the clean air, water and wildlife habitat they provide.

Protected forests and red rock lands in Nevada and Utah belong to vacationing families in Massachusetts and New Mexico. Parks and refuges in Montana and California belong to campers and birdwatchers from South Carolina and Illinois.

But the political regime change in Washington, D.C. means that our wild American lands—and the outdoor recreation opportunities they offer—are under direct attack.

The armed standoff at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge at the hands of the Bundys and their allies last January may have seemed distant and unimaginable to most American communities. But what these reckless delinquents are after and what some politicians are supporting in Congress is very similar: reducing the “federal estate”—parks, forests, refuges and monuments that belong to all Americans, and turning them over to private interests to log, mine, drill and otherwise develop for short-term gain. The freedom to access these places for America’s favorite outdoor pastimes like hunting, camping, hiking and fishing will be lost.

A no-trespassing sign in New Mexico, where oil and gas production is by far the largest source of revenue on state lands. (credit: Mason Cummings, The Wilderness Society)]

Anti-federal voices mangle facts and distort the truth about the history behind America’s public lands. For starters, our public lands—all 640 million acres of national forests, wildlife refuges, deserts, grasslands and parks—belong to the American people. They are cared for, on our behalf, by agencies like the Bureau of Land Management, the National Park Service, the U.S. Forest Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. When criminals like the Bundys suggest we need to “give” public lands “back” to the people, they are conveniently distorting the truth to steal these lands from every one of us.

In fact, this effort to reduce and dismantle public lands has virtually no legal merit, according to a 2016 report by 12 western attorneys general, and is nothing more than an attempt to give away the nation’s outdoor legacy. ..

Rep. Chaffetz did the right thing in listening to an overwhelming tide of constituents who castigated him for such an un-American piece of legislation. But this is just one victory in a broader defense of public lands at large.

The congressman’s troubling record on public lands issues in general—including his open push to roll back protection for sacred sites like Utah’s Bears Ears National Monument—means the Wilderness Society and many other sportsmen and conservation groups will keep Rep. Chaffetz and his allies under close scrutiny. At a town hall meeting just last week outside of Salt Lake City, Rep. Chaffetz faced an angry and volatile crowd demanding answers to numerous public lands questions.

Another Chaffetz bill, H.R. 622, would eliminate law enforcement officers from U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management lands, making it even harder for the chronically underfunded agencies to protect wildlife habitat, prevent poaching, preserve cultural sites, prevent reckless off-road vehicle use and otherwise take care of the nearly 440 million acres of land these two agencies collectively manage.

Furthermore, an association of federal agents and officers said it "vehemently disagrees" with Chaffetz's proposal because it will put public and federal workers at risk and embolden anti-public lands interests like the Bundy family, potentially leading to more violent incidents like the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge standoff.

In early February, a survey highlighted that many staffers from national wildlife refuges and other public lands feel less safe than in the past, with about one in five saying they, their staff or their families have been threatened or harassed over land management disputes. Slashing law enforcement in such places only emboldens anti-federal vigilantes like the Bundys to trash the land and resources we all treasure and take the law into their own hands....

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Republicans Are Majorly Infighting Over a Plot to Sell Off Federal Wilderness

Plenty of right-wingers want to sell off the wilderness, but they're getting opposition from unexpected corners.

By Amanda Marcotte / Salon February 7, 2017

ni link

Despite his overt moves towards authoritarianism in his first couple weeks of office, Donald Trump still has the loyalty of most Republicans, who either agree with him or simply see him as a useful tool to cram in their agenda.

Among those feeling newly empowered by the Trump presidency are a group of anti-environmentalist extremists, including some members of Congress, who cannot wait to use the Trump presidency to cut down forests and sell off millions of acres of federal land at cut-rate prices to drilling interests and developers.

In an interesting twist, the debate over federal land ownership is exposing real rifts in the Republican coalition. It may even create a rift between business interests and conservative voters who love to hunt, fish and enjoy nature.

This tension revealed itself last Wednesday, during Sean Spicer’s daily White House press briefing, which featured a bizarre exchange between Spicer and right-wing talk-radio host Lars Larson, a radical anti-environmentalistwho believes that all land should be owned by private citizens or corporate interests. Larson had a chance to ask a question through the new Skype service the White House is using, and things did not go well.

After addressing the press secretary as “Commander Spicer,” Larson demanded to know whether Trump wants “to start returning the people’s land to the people.”

Then in an especially strange move, Larson appeared to attack the very existence of forests.

Can the president, Larson asked, “tell the Forest Service to start logging our forests aggressively again to provide jobs for Americans, wealth for the Treasury, and not spend $3.5 billion a year fighting forest fires?”

Spicer, who looks bug-eyed and nervous under normal circumstances, responded to this attack on parks and trees with some awkward rhetorical dodging, promising that Trump and his pick for Department of the Interior secretary, Ryan Zinke, would “figure out how to best utilize” natural resources. But Spicer did not commit to selling off public lands to “the people,” which in this context is right-wing code for corporate interests, and he completely ignored Larson’s question about the imminent danger posed by letting trees live.

But tree-hating right-wing talk-radio hosts aren’t the only people who hope that the Trump presidency presents an opportunity to turn large tracts of American wilderness into suburban tract housing or fields of oil and gas wells.

Rep. Jason Chaffetz has a long history of hostility to the concept of public lands, even though his home state of Utah has some of the most beautiful wilderness areas in the country. Last week he introduced a bill, House Resolution 621, that would force the federal government to sell off 3.3 million acres of public land, mostly in Western states.

In a phone interview, Louis Geltman, policy counsel for Outdoor Alliance, explained that Chaffetz had brought forward similar bills in the past, “as sort of a messaging bill to express his feelings about public lands.” But with Trump in office, there is suddenly reason to fear that he might rubber-stamp such a sale, just as it’s assumed he’ll endorse House Speaker Paul Ryan’s plan for upper-class tax cuts or Vice President Mike Pence’s anti-choice agenda.

“Now that this thing has a real chance of becoming law, people are starting to give it a harder look,” Geltman continued. “The reality is that it was something that was not well thought through.”

That became immediately evident when a surge of opposition to the proposed sale poured in, both offline and in social-media channels like Instagram and Twitter, often using the hashtag #keepitpublic. In an exciting twist, a lot of the people pushing back weren’t just liberal tree huggers but conservatives who enjoy hunting and fishing.

“These issues really transcend left and right typical constructs,” explained Alan Rowsome, a senior government relations director for the Wilderness Society, over the phone. “You’re seeing conservatives, liberals, people of all political bents getting more and more fired up over these issues.”

“The vast majority of hunting and sportsman recreation on public lands is done on Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management” property, he added.

Within a week’s time, Chaffetz had pulled the bill and put up perhaps the thirstiest Instagram post in the history of politicians on social media:

ni img

He didn’t have a chance to bribe the guys from “Duck Dynasty” to pose with him, but he did end up using the very same hashtag (#keepitpublic) that people were using to organize against him.

“Orweillian is an overused term, but I can’t come up with a better one at the moment,” George Nickas, the director of Wilderness Watch, wrote in an email when asked about Chaffetz’s use of this environmentalist hashtag. “It shows, however, that Rep. Chaffetz recognizes the unpopularity of divesting of public lands, hence he’s trying to appear to be a champion of them.”

But as all the wilderness activists I spoke to hastened to add, Chaffetz is not viewed as trustworthy on this front. He and many other Republicans are still eyeing our public lands, wiping drool off their faces at the idea of turning them over to private business interests.

For instance, Chaffetz has also introduced House Resolution 622, a bill that would bar federal law enforcement from federal lands and turn such authority over to local police, which functionally would end effective law enforcement on those lands. Local police in sparsely populated counties, as local police are unlikely to have the manpower and equipment needed to encompass vast areas of federal land.

HR 622 “is a really egregious piece of legislation,” Rowsome said, “that says, ‘If we’re not going to transfer these lands to states, then we’re just not going to manage them with law enforcement and people can just do what they want on them.'"

If this bill became law, it would be easier for right-wing radicals like the Bundy family and friends who took over the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon last year to pull similar stunts in the future. It would also make the lands less safe for outdoorsmen, hunters and others who want to use the lands for recreation. So while HR 621 has been retracted, the issue of privatizing public lands has not gone away. As Tania Lown-Hecht, communications director of the Outdoor Alliance, explained over the phone, people should look below the surface of right-wing rhetoric that tries to cast such privatization efforts in populist terms.

“Right now, the lands are owned by all the people and managed on their behalf by the federal government,” Lown-Hecht said. “Privatizing them by turning them over to states to sell them to private enterprises, to developers or to private real estate, is certainly not returning land to the people.”

Amanda Marcotte is a politics writer for Salon.

http://www.alternet.org/environment/republicans-are-majorly-infighting-over-plot-sell-federal-wilderness

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http://www.ecowatch.com/big-oil-drill-national-parks-2188885054.html

under threat: http://www.ecowatch.com/anniversary-national-park-service-1986247990.html

The president-elect plans to open up federal lands for more energy development and, according to Reuters, energy companies and industry lobbyists are already expecting a flurry of new federal drilling and mining leases with the incoming administration.

"This opportunity is unique, maybe once in a lifetime,"Jack Gerard, president of the Washington DC-based American Petroleum Institute lobby group, told the news service in regards to increased access to federal leases.

Vast quantities of oil, natural gas, coal and uranium are tucked away in government-owned national parks and forests, wildlife refuges and tribal territories from the Arctic to the Gulf of Mexico.

As Reuters noted, under the Obama administration, oil output on federal land made up about a fifth of the national total in 2015, down from more than a third in 2010. Onshore drilling leases also fell about 15 percent.

However, Trump campaigned on a promise to "unleash America's $50 trillion in untapped shale, oil, and natural gas reserves, plus hundreds of years in clean coal reserves." He has accused Obama of "denying millions of Americans access to the energy wealth sitting under our feet" by restricting leasing and banning new coal extraction.

The U.S. government owns roughly 640 million acres of land, and the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) manages most of it. In December, Trump nominated U.S. Rep. Ryan Zinke of Montana, a climate change skeptic and coal mining advocate as head of the department.

As it happens, The Wilderness Society calculated that 90 percent of the lands held by the Bureau of Land Management, a bureau of the DOI, is already open to oil and gas development. Most of these lands are in the West and Alaska....

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http://www.alternet.org/environment/big-water-vs-national-parks-fight-against-bottled-water-goes-federal

nice overview

mid-December, Congress passed a provision within a $1.8 trillion budget bill requiring the National Park Service to file a report justifying a ban on selling bottled water at a number of parks around the country. Meanwhile, the bottled water industry promoted a rider in the appropriations bill prohibiting use of federal funds to support banning bottled water in national parks. So far, over 20 parks have gone bottled-water-free, including the Grand Canyon, Canyonlands, Zion and Bryce Canyon, and Fort Sumter National Monument. This is another development in the ongoing fight between the National Park Service and Big Water over banning bottled water.

Earlier this December, more than 30 members of Congress signed a letter to National Park Service director Jonathan Jarvis opposing Big Water's effort to sabotage the bottled water ban. "As Members of Congress concerned with the preservation of our National Parks," the letter read, "we support the National Park Service in increasing the availability of public water and adopting bottled water free policies on National Park premises."

Several big-name corporations bottle water: Nestlé owns Arrowhead, Pepsi bottles Aquafina, and Coca-Cola bottles Dasani.

The International Bottled Water Association (IBWA), a trade association of bottled water companies, then released a statement commending Congress for requiring the National Park Service "to provide the facts about how it justifies banning the sale of bottled water in America's national parks." The group also claimed, "In addition to being the healthiest package beverage consumers can choose, bottled water has the smallest environmental footprint of any package beverage."

This past July, a study published in the American Journal of Public Health, entitled "The Unintended Consequences of Changes in Beverage Options and the Removal of Bottled Water on a University Campus," looked at the impact of a bottled water ban at the University of Vermont. The study concludes that "[t]he bottled water ban did not reduce the number of bottles entering the waste stream from the university campus, the ultimate goal of the ban. With the removal of bottled water, consumers increased their consumption of less healthy bottled beverages." Big Water - and even the right-wing college newspaper The College Fix - pounced on the study to confirm its position against bottled water bans. The IBWA said the study "has confirmed the International Bottled Water Association's (IBWA) position that efforts to ban or restrict the sale of bottled can lead to increased consumption of less healthy beverages and plastic waste."

However, Corporate Accountability International, a nonprofit organization focused on challenging corporate abuse, argued that the "design of the study was too limited to draw real conclusions about any consequences - unintended or not - of the bottled-water-free policy at UVM." On top of that, they point out that the study's authors make causal claims that are not backed up by the study. There are correlations, such as the increase in students consuming sugary beverages after the bottled water ban. But the study's data does not provide enough information to prove that the ban led to students buying more sugary beverages. In addition, UVM had a 30 percent healthy beverage ratio policy - all campus locations selling bottled beverages needed to provide at least 30 percent "healthy" beverages - which was enacted in August 2012: five months prior to the bottled water ban implemented in January 2013. Corporate Accountability International pointed out that the study's authors "provide no explanation or interpretation of the fact that there was an increase in sugary beverage consumption after that policy was enacted - before the bottled-water-free policy was put into place."

There is another reason to question the authors' and Big Water's argument that banning bottled water leads to increased consumption of sugary, unhealthy bottled beverages: Such an argument presumes that those are the only two choices that exist. If a school bans bottled water but does not install more water fountains to compensate, and continues to sell sugary beverages, then it seems probable that people will drink more Pepsi, Coke and similar beverages. It is less about the ban but more about the choices presented. In a national park, it is rare to see vending machines selling Pepsi, Dr. Pepper or Mountain Dew along a trail. It would not make any sense, especially since such drinks lead to more, rather than less, dehydration. So, in that situation, banning bottled water would likely not lead to an increase in consumption of sugary beverages.

Lauren DeRusha, senior national campaign organizer with Corporate Accountability International, told Truthout that parks that go bottled-water-free "are increasing access to tap water. So any place where there used to be access to bottled water, now there's access to tap water." Parks also undergo a long feasibility process before they ban bottled water.

"If you think about [it], you're going hiking, in the Grand Canyon. Are you going to take a liter of Coca-Cola with you in your pack to stay hydrated on the trail?" DeRusha asked. "No. You need to have access to water." As a result, more people visiting parks that ban bottled water are bringing their own bottles and filling them at the designated water stations. That trend has played out in other places where bottled water has been banned, as well. "What we're actually doing, when institutions go bottled-water-free - it's always, always coupled with increasing access to tap water," DeRusha said. Thus, the framing of bottled water versus sugary beverages is a false choice.

Several parks have gone bottled-water-free largely because of the waste that bottled water produces. For example, Grand Canyon National Park banned the sale of bottled water in 2012, and then installed designated water refilling stations. The park claimed - before the ban was instated - that "disposable plastic water bottles comprise an estimated 20% of Grand Canyon's waste stream and 30% of the park's recyclables."

Plastic water bottles have serious environmental impacts. Shawn Norton, National Park Service branch chief of sustainable operations and climate change, explained, "Americans discard approximately 50 billion plastic water bottles each year. Producing that number of water bottles consumes approximately 20 billion barrels of oil and generates more than 25 million tons of greenhouse gases." Plastic bags and bottles are the most common form of pollution in oceans and on beaches. On average, each square mile of ocean is littered with over 46,000 pieces of plastic. Of the nearly 100 million tons of plastic produced every year, 10 million tons end up in the ocean - the majority (80 percent) coming from land. Most plastic bottles are not recycled. Over 80 percent of plastic water bottles end up in landfills every year. Plastic water bottles are not biodegradable. Instead, they photodegrade, meaning they break up into tiny fragments over time, sometimes taking a year or more. This kind of decomposition requires exposure to sunlight, which is very rare for plastic bottles in landfills.

DeRusha explained that Big Water has been waging a long campaign to make the public distrust tap water in order to sell bottled water. She said Big Water has spent "millions of dollars in misleading marketing to make us distrust our public water infrastructure. And they've also undermined the political will to invest in our infrastructure."

Because many in the public are told - and believe - that tap water is bad, people are more willing to buy bottled water under the impression that it's cleaner and safer, thereby giving more money and power to the bottled water industry. This also gives a private industry greater control over a public resource. As a result, DeRusha said, "We are not as focused as we need to be, as a country, on reinvesting in our public water infrastructure so that we can always rely on having clean, safe tap water."....

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U.S. Forest Service is considering letting Arch Coal, the second biggest coal company in the country, bulldoze thousands of acres of publicly-owned roadless forest in order to mine more than 170 million tons of coal and create hundreds of methane well pads.  12/15

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The Koch Brothers Are Behind a Plot to Open Up the Grand Canyon Watershed to Toxic Uranium Mining

Last year, Arizona Rep. Raúl Grijalva introduced a bill to protect the greater Grand Canyon as a national monument. But it has stalled.

By Marcia G. Yerman / Huffington Post August 3, 2016

http://www.alternet.org/environment/koch-brothers-are-behind-plot-open-grand-canyon-watershed-toxic-uranium-mining

Grand Canyon National Park is the United States 15th oldest national park. Named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1979, the park is located in northwestern Arizona

This summer, like all summers, one of the top spots for travel consideration is the majestic Grand Canyon.

President Teddy Roosevelt, considered the “conservationist” president, declared the Grand Canyon a monument in 1908. It was made a national park in 1919 by the National Park Service, which was established in 1916.

Roosevelt had a clear understanding of the importance of preserving America’s resources—and the actions of those who would despoil them for monetary gain. He signed the Antiquities Act of 1906. The goal was to create a tool that would allow future presidents to protect the country’s historical and natural sites.

Now, calls are out to President Obama to make the “greater” Grand Canyon a national monument. This would encompass approximately 1.7 million acres of public lands surrounding the park.

Why? It is a response to potential encroachment on the gateway to the Grand Canyon.

Unsurprisingly, the issue at hand involves revenue, big power brokers, ramifications of Citizens United, and a familiar actor in the anti-environmental space—the Koch brothers.

The debate is about mining, which has been a source of contention for over a century, when land claims were first staked. Older mines that were “validated” went forth. One of those, Canyon Mine, is located six miles south of the Grand Canyon.

Many of the original owners of mining claims shifted their land over to tourist properties. However, there are approximately 3,000 “unvalidated” claims currently on hold under a temporary 20-year ban issued by the Secretary of the Interior in 2012. The impetus was to protect lands from “imminent threat.”

Now, with Obama leaving office, the struggle to get permanent protection has intensified.

The lands of the Havasupai Tribe lands border the Grand Canyon. They are specifically concerned about water radiation and contamination. Environmentalists and Indigenous groups are pitted against various politicians, the National Mining Association, and the Arizona Chamber of Commerce Foundation. The latter all have ties to Koch brothers funding.

As a precursor of what could possibly be in store, it must be noted that there was a superfund site on the southern rim of the Grand Canyon.

Mining not only scars the earth, it disturbs the ecosystem of the canyon. It threatens the tourism industry ($700 million), releases toxic chemicals into the air (uranium dust can cause lung cancer), and puts water supplies in danger.

Those who are against a permanent ban on uranium mining at the Grand Canyon gateway make up an unsavory stew. At the state level, the same players who support suing the EPA over the Clean Power Plan, are part of the mix. The groups supporting uranium mining—and against giving the Grand Canyon and its environs full protection—use the Kochian Newspeak of “limited government” and “federal overreach.”

Greg Zimmerman, policy director at the Center for Western Priorities, co-authored an article with a very succinct drill-down on the money trail.

I asked Zimmerman for his thoughts. He wrote via e-mail:

“These efforts are being driven by wealthy, ultra-conservative industrialists who are committed to rolling back over a century of land protections across the American West, including at the Grand Canyon. Mining at the gateway of the Grand Canyon remains incredibly unpopular among Arizonans and Americans alike, but it’s not stopping these individuals from undermining our outdoor legacy.”

A poll of Arizona residents who expect to vote in November 2016 confirmed Zimmerman’s assertion of support for monument status. The numbers showed that statewide, 80 percent favored the establishment of the Greater Grand Canyon National Heritage Monument. When asked if a candidate’s stance on the issue would impact their choice, they answered in the affirmative by a “three times as likely” ratio.

David Metz, who worked on the project told me:

“Data doesn’t get much clearer than this.  Survey after survey shows overwhelming support among Arizona voters for a national monument near the Grand Canyon. Arizonans understand it, want it, and they are ready to back members of Congress who will work to make it a reality.”

Rep. Raúl Grijalva, of Arizona’s 3rd District, has been on the case since 2008. In November 2015, Grijalva introduced the Greater Grand Canyon Heritage National Monument Act (H.R.3882). It is currently languishing in the Subcommittee on Federal Lands.

Roger Clark, program director of the Grand Canyon Trust, speaks with passion about how the Grand Canyon’s future hangs in the balance. On the phone he underscored the point, “The Grand Canyon has always been sought after for monetary gain. Yet, it’s inconceivable that profiteers would spend so much money to undermine one of our nation’s greatest treasures.”

The conversation ended with Clark’s observation, “Citizens everywhere must rally! The barbarians are at the gate.”

As the Koch brothers undermine protections at the Grand Canyon, let’s remember what our children are at risk of losing.

“The Grand Canyon fills me with awe. It is beyond comparison...Let this great wonder of nature remain as it now is...You cannot improve on it. But what you can do is to keep it for your children, your children’s children, and all who come after you, as the one great sight which every American should see.” ~ President Theodore Roosevelt

This story originally appeared on the website Moms Clean Air Force

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8/15

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}:

:{Their latest target is one of our most successful parks programs, the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF). LWCF has helped protect everything from the Grand Canyon to local ballparks, but after 50 years of ensuring access to outdoor recreation areas for all Americans, LWCF is set to expire. We need Congress to reauthorize it or we risk losing these treasured opportunities for future generations. 

And it won’t be easy. While fringe Republicans in Congress try to siphon away money for parks to pay for their own pet projects, new attacks by Koch brothers-backed groups are putting LWCF’s renewal at even greater risk. 

If you've ever visited a national park or played at a local baseball diamond in your neighborhood, tell Congress today: Reauthorize and fully fund the Land and Water Conservation Fund before it’s too late » 

The good news is that renewing LWCF has bipartisan support. LWCF protects and maintains America’s parks without a penny from taxpayers, and since its establishment 50 years ago, LWCF has helped fund tens of thousands of projects in every state across the country. 

However, new Koch-backed groups are trying to prevent its renewal entirely. The Property and Environment Research Center (PERC), one of these groups funded by the fossil fuel industry, has launched efforts to undermine LWCF. If PERC and the Koch brothers have their way, new parks could lose their funding and be vulnerable to development — and no one wants unrestricted access to public lands more than the fossil fuel industry. }:

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 5/15

Senator John McCain is just one of many who’ve made crazy statements against protecting national parks and wildlife.

When it comes to climate change, some politicians have a penchant for outrageous, headline-grabbing statements. “There isn’t even one study that can be produced that shows carbon dioxide is a harmful gas,” former Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann (R-MN) famously told the House of Representatives in 2009.

In recent months, however, the flair for the sensational has extended beyond climate, overtaking the rhetoric of some politicians who are eager to weaken protections for America’s parks, wildlife, and conservation laws. In a recent op-ed, for example,House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Rob Bishop (R-UT), used the tragic death of a hiker in Utah as the basis for arguing that one of America’s most popular conservation programs be dismantled.

Congressman Bishop is not alone in his affinity for the melodramatic. Here are six other mind-boggling statements members of Congress have recently made in attempts to undermine the popularity and effectiveness of the laws protecting our lands, water, and wildlife.

Reintroducing wolves would solve the “homeless problem”

Rep. Don Young (R-AK), who is no stranger to controversial statements, often directs his ire to taxpayer-owned public lands.

In a recent rant against the Endangered Species Act and the protection of wolves, Young “mocked” 78 members of Congress who asked the Secretary of the Interior to protect gray wolves. Young — who has long fought protections for land and wildlife — claimed that their districts would benefit from releasing wolves in urban areas because “you wouldn’t have a homeless problem anymore.”

State control of national forests would mean fewer terrorists

Utah state representative Ken Ivory — who has had ethical questions raised against him for his efforts to seize and sell off America’s public lands — has used a potential threat of forest fires started by terrorists to claim the state and private ownership of our national forest, monuments, and other conservation lands would reduce the risk of terrorism. According to the Salt Lake Tribune:

Rep. Ken Ivory, R-West Jordan, said he was told by a terrorism expert that forests are now a terrorist target and argued that the fire risk would be reduced if they were managed by the states instead of the federal government.

In reality, a century of fire suppression, coupled with a warming climate, worsening drought, and longer fire seasons have increased the prevalence of mega fires in Western states. The federal government spends over $3 billion annually to help protect communities from wildfire, a sum that would bankrupt most Western states if national forests were transferred to state ownership.

Environmental protections enable “drug cartels and human smugglers”

The U.S.-Mexican border is a perennial target of anti-environmental members of Congress, and multiple bills have been introduced that would waive environmental protections on national parks, wilderness, and other public lands on both the northern and southern borders.

When introducing his most recent bill on the issue, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) stated that “For decades, drug cartels and human smugglers have exploited U.S. land management laws by crossing our borders illegally and harming Arizona’s national parks and protected areas.”

But officials from U.S. Customs and Border Protection have testified that existing protections on America’s public lands do not restrict access or inhibit border security, and instead assert that a close working relationship with natural resource agencies “allows [them] to fulfill our border enforcement responsibilities while respecting and enhancing the environment.”

Drinking water protections will regulate “your grandmother’s bird bath”

A proposal from the Environmental Protection Agency to protect clean drinking water has also been a top target of anti-environment lawmakers and special interests. Detractors claim that the proposed drinking water protections would threaten private property rights and could “apply to every instance where a drop of water touches the earth.”

Last year, Senator Pat Toomey (R-PA) called the proposal a “terrifying power grab,” where “common sense has gone out the window.” He went on to say that “the EPA’s new position seems to be that a puddle from your garden hose will ultimately end up in a navigable waterway, so the agency should have dominion over that water too.”

The Koch Brothers’ Americans for Prosperity even went as far as asking, “will the EPA soon seek to regulate puddles on your property, baby pools, standing water in the local Wal-Mart parking lot, or your grandmother’s bird bath?”

However, the proposed clean water rule“does not protect any waters that have not historically been covered under the Clean Water Act,” and instead is intended to only “protect critical streams and wetlands that are currently vulnerable to pollution and destruction.”

Obama will “negotiate with Iran,” but not on Alaska oil drilling

Angered by the Obama administration’s work to protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from oil drilling, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) said that administration “is willing to negotiate with Iran, but they won’t negotiate with Alaska.”

In fact, the Obama Administration held extensive public meetings and gathered public input from Alaskans on how best to manage the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and is beginning the process for gathering input on whether and where to allow offshore drilling in the Arctic Ocean.

What’s more, the administration’s initial plans for offshore drilling in Alaska would actually allow drilling on 92 percent of the Arctic waters off the state’s coast, notwithstanding Senator Murkowski’s claims that the proposal puts oil and gas resources off limits to development.

Obama is an “imperialist” or a monarch for conserving public lands

In response to the announcement that President Obama was planning to protect one of Colorado’s most popular rivers, Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO) said of the President: “He is not king. No more acting like King Barack. That is not how we do things in the U.S.”

Rep. Doc Hastings (R-WA), a former member of the House, called Obama an “imperial president” for expanding a national monument that protects critical areas of the Pacific Ocean. Yet 16 presidents, from both political parties, have protected incredible landscapes using their executive authority, including President George W. Bush.

Some of these same politicians are also fond of accusing the president of a government “land grab” when designating new national monuments, even though national monuments protect lands already owned by the federal government.

Jessica Goad is the advocacy director at the Center for Western Priorities. You can follow her on twitter at@Jessica_Goad. Claire Moser is the research and advocacy associate with the Public Lands Project at the Center for American Progress. You can follow her on twitter at @Claire_Moser.

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The new chair of the powerful Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee secured a vote Thursday afternoon in the U.S. Senate on a controversial proposal to sell off America’s national forests and other public lands.

U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski’s (R-AK) amendment, which passed by a vote of 51 to 49, is now part of the Senate’s nonbinding budget resolution. The proposal would support and fund state efforts — which many argue are unconstitutional — to seize and sell America’s public lands. These include all national forests, wildlife refuges, wilderness areas, historic sites, and national monuments.

Murkowski’s amendment, which would need further legislation to become law, follows a similar proposal from House Natural Resources Committee Chair Rob Bishop (R-UT) to spend $50 million of taxpayer dollars to fund the sale or transfer of U.S. public lands to states.

The land grab proposals in Congress this year appear to echo the calls of outlaw rancher Cliven Bundy, best known for his armed standoff with federal officials last year, who has infamously refused to recognize the authority of the federal government, including over public lands.

Murkowski’s proposal to sell off public lands, however, is meeting stiff opposition from other western senators. On a conference call yesterday, Senators Martin Heinrich (D-NM) and Michael Bennet (D-CO) said that they are determined to turn back legislative attacks on the outdoors. Bennet called efforts to sell off lands to reduce the federal deficit “an assault on our public lands.”

Senator Heinrich also introduced an amendment Wednesday which would block any effort to sell off public lands to reduce the federal deficit. Heinrich said that “selling off America’s treasured lands to the highest bidder would result in a proliferation of locked gates and no-trespassing signs in places that have been open to the public and used for generations.”

Public opinion research has found that a majority of Westerners oppose land grab efforts and believe that transferring public lands to state control will result in reduced access for recreation; higher taxes; increased drilling, mining and logging; and a high risk that treasured public lands will be auctioned off to the highest bidder.

Over the past few months, sportsmen’s groups have also been battling state efforts to seize and sell off public lands by rallying in state capitols across the West. Land Tawney, Executive Director of Backcountry Hunters and Anglers,thanked Senator Heinrich for introducing his amendment and fighting for public lands.

“American hunters and anglers have consistently stood up in support of U.S. public lands since Theodore Roosevelt set them aside for all Americans more than a century ago,” Tawney said. “Today, Congress has responded.”

Claire Moser is the Research and Advocacy Associate with the Public Lands Project at the Center for American Progress. You can follow her on Twitter at @Claire_Moser.

http://www.alternet.org/print/environment/will-national-forests-be-sacrificed-biomass-industry

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The second installment of our “Bundy’s Buddies” series featured 15 incumbent members of Congress; we have now added Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Rep. Raúl Labrador (R-ID), as well as one new congressional hopeful from Arizona’s 1st district, who will join the previously identified candidates on the ballot in November 2014.

Arizona

California

Idaho

Kentucky

Nevada

New Mexico

Oregon

Texas

Utah

Washington

Claire Moser is a Research and Advocacy Associate with the Public Lands Project at American Progress. Matt Lee-Ashley is a Senior Fellow and the Director of the Public Lands Project at American Progress.

* New Bundy’s Buddies not previously identified in the Center for American Progress Action Fund’s series or on BundysBuddies.com.

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Protecting Factory Farming from Regulation

One of the lesser publicized ventures of Koch Industries was its large-scale confined animal feed operations (CAFOs). At one point,Koch Beef Company was one of the largest cattle feeders in the U.S. When it sought to increase one of its already huge operations by 20,000 head of cattle, workers living a few hundred feet away expressed concerns for their health, and neighbors complained about an exponential increase in smell from Koch’s CAFO. But Koch persuaded friendly state regulators that the neighbors' concerns lacked “technical merit”-- although it ultimately divested the feed lots, while maintaining its Matador Cattle Company and grazing operations near Yellowstone National Park, along with other agricultural operations.

Is ALEC interested in protecting CAFOs? You bet. One of its bills,the**“Right to Farm Act,**” would bar any lawsuits by neighbors claiming nuisance from any activities that are typical in farming, including industrial agriculture. If this bill passed, it would likely benefit ALEC's agribusinesses members.

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For more than 100 years, the Antiquities Act of 1906, brainchild of Theodore Roosevelt, has ensured that the executive branch can move quickly to stop business from destroying our national cultural resources by declaring them national monuments.

But House Republicans, led by Tea Party Caucus member Rob Bishop, recently passed a bill that would make it harder for President Obama and all future presidents to protect our great outdoor spaces and designate new national monuments.

We have to speak out now to stop it. That's why I started my own campaign on CREDOMobilize.com, which allows activists to start their own petitions. My petition, which is to the United States Senate, says the following:

H.R. 1459 is a blatant attempt to make it more difficult for President Obama and future presidents to conserve our natural resources by creating national monuments. I urge you to reject this misguided bill.

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The American Land Rights Association was founded in 1977 by property owners located within Yosemite National Park and was known as the National Park Inholders Assosiation.

"Its mission was to protect private property landowners from unwanted acquisition by the National Park Service," ALRA's website states.[1] In 1980 it changed its name to National Inholders Association (NIA) to broaden its focus to all private land owners within or adjoining public lands. In 1995, the NIA was renamed the American Land Rights Association (ALRA).

"ALRA is a national clearinghouse and support coalition encouraging family recreation, multiple-use, commodity production, and access to federally-controlled and state lands. Its purpose is to oppose selfish, single-use, restrictive land use designations that damage local economies, schools and roads in rural America," it states on its website.[2]

ALRA was one of the leading groups in the anti-environmental Wise Use Movement that reached its peak in the 1990's opposing public lands initiatives of the Clinton administration. With Republicans taking control in Congress and the White House, ALRA had more friends in Washington DC [3] but has still opposed some Republican initiatives [4] and nominees [5].

It sponsors the Land Rights Network, a nationwide mail, phone, fax and e-mail lobby network.

Other SourceWatch resources

Contact details

ALRA

30218 N.E. 82nd Ave.

PO Box 400

Battle Ground, WA 98604

Tel: 360-687-3087

FAX: 360-687-2973

Web: http://www.landrights.org

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