Free Republic

Yellowstone's grizzlies, now classified as a threatened species, were briefly removed from protected status by the federal government in 2007, when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service declared that the outsized, hump-shouldered bears had made a healthy comeback. At the time, the number of grizzlies in the region had exceeded the government's recovery goal of 500 bears, the government said. But conservationists successfully challenged the de-listing in court, arguing that the government discounted climate changes ... On Wednesday, members of the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee sought to reverse that decision, recommending a new de-listing after reviewing a report suggesting Yellowstone's...

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) says it will work to change its strategic plan to ensure the safety of the U.S.’s growing population of older drivers and passengers. In a statement released earlier this week, the NHTSA says its changes are the result of the growing population of elderly drivers. The agency says it will make a number of changes, including researching a number of advanced vehicle technologies including vehicle-to-vehicle communications, refining its data collection systems, and shifting its focus to efforts on public education and identifying functional changes including vision, strength, flexibility and cognition. “NHTSA’s Older Driver...

A new plan to protect the sage grouse in eastern Oregon would disproportionately affect ranchers in certain designated areas. The proposal would cut grazing by about 118,000 acres in the region. Cattle grazing reductions likely in some areas under proposal. Some Oregon ranchers would be disproportionately harmed by grazing restrictions under a proposed plan to protect sage grouse, according to leaders of a state cattlemen’s group. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management recently offered a draft plan for managing the greater sage grouse, a candidate for federal protection under the Endangered Species Act.

Past experience in Idaho, northeastern Oregon and Washington state illustrate that it's time to take gray wolves completely off the federal list of endangered species. The West’s wolf problem started in 1995 and 1996. That’s when 66 wolves from Canada were reintroduced in Idaho and Yellowstone National Park. Those wolves multiplied and spread into Wyoming, Utah and Oregon. They also took up residence in Washington state and Montana, where other wolves from Canada already lived. Today at least 1,674 wolves live in 321 packs within the region, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. That’s in addition to the...

Federal agencies have a packed schedule for the coming year that includes expected rules targeting greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, tightening control over hydraulic fracturing on public lands and updating efficiency requirements on a variety of appliances, according to a sweeping plan released by the White House today.

Happy holidays from the Obama administration. Federal agencies are currently working on rolling out hundreds of environmental regulations, including major regulations that would limit emissions from power plants and expand the agency’s authority to bodies of water on private property. On Tuesday, the White House released its regulatory agenda for the fall of 2013. It lists hundreds of pending energy and environmental regulations being crafting by executive branch agencies, including 134 regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency alone. The EPA is currently crafting 134 major and minor regulations, according to the White House’s regulatory agenda. Seventy-six of the EPA’s pending...

An example of the tension between Western Democrats and the Obama administration surfaced Monday when Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper told a rural audience that Washington bureaucrats are pushing a “slanted version” of the sage-grouse issue to political decision-makers. Mr. Hickenlooper, a Democrat who’s running for re-election in 2014, said Interior Secretary Sally Jewell is receiving one-sided advice from staff at the Fish and Wildlife Service over the issue of whether to place the Gunnison sage grouse on the endangered-species list. “She has an open mind, right, she’s not well-versed in this issue, and she recognizes that,” said Mr. Hickenlooper in...

Wildlife lovers clamoring to bring gray wolves to Colorado may want to pay attention to those wooden outhouse-style structures in rural Catron County, New Mexico. They’re called “kid cages,” and they’re built to protect children waiting at school bus stops–from wolves. “The wolf issue is an example, especially with the kid cages, about how you’re putting the interest of wildlife over the interests of human beings,” said filmmaker David Spady. “Every American should be concerned about seeing kids in cages and wolves out wandering around freely.” Spady’s remarks came during a Tuesday screening of his film, “Wolves in Government Clothing,”...

A plan to squeeze most residents of the San Francisco Bay Area into multifamily housing offers a test case of whether land-use bureaucracies nationwide, encouraged by the Obama administration, should be allowed to transform American lifestyles under the pretext of combating climate change. Currently, 56 percent of households in the nine-county Bay Area live in single-family homes. That number would drop to 48 percent by 2030, under a high-density development blueprint called Plan Bay Area, recently enacted by the Association of Bay Area Governments and the region’s Metropolitan Transportation Commission. Plan Bay Area has already drawn several legal challenges, and...

A plan to squeeze most residents of the San Francisco Bay Area into multifamily housing offers a test case of whether land-use bureaucracies nationwide, encouraged by the Obama administration, should be allowed to transform American lifestyles under the pretext of combating climate change. Currently, 56 percent of households in the nine-county Bay Area live in single-family homes. That number would drop to 48 percent by 2030, under a high-density development blueprint called Plan Bay Area, recently enacted by the Association of Bay Area Governments and the region’s Metropolitan Transportation Commission. Plan Bay Area has already drawn several legal challenges, and...

On Election Day this year, CBS4′s Shaun Boyd had a story detailing the true intentions of the national environmentalist groups pushing fracking bans in four northern Colorado towns. The article contained an admission from local fractivists that national groups seeking a total ban on fracking in Colorado were driving their campaign. But the fractivists were successful in getting their admissions and national connections stricken from the story by lobbying higher ups at CBS. Sources say Shaun Boyd is none too pleased with the edits. The current version of the story lacks a quote from Water Defense, a national environmental group...

Despite the U.S. Food and Drug AdministrationÂ’s repeated warnings, the latest just this October, about Made-in-China jerky treats suspected of causing thousands of illnesses and deaths of American dogs and cats since 2007, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) gave approval for four Chinese poultry processors to import into the United States, thereby lifting a ban set to protect Americans against deadly avian influenza breakouts. The contaminated chicken jerky were recalled and blamed for 2,500 animal illnesses and more than 500 dogsÂ’ deaths. The FDA later found falsified documents, mislabels, and import shortcuts. Samantha Olson reports for Medical Daily,...

Did you know that the Obama administration is negotiating a super secret “trade agreement” that is so sensitive that he isn’t even allowing members of Congress to see it? The Trans-Pacific Partnership is being called the “NAFTA of the Pacific” and “NAFTA on steroids”, but the truth is that it is so much more than just a trade agreement. This treaty has 29 chapters, but only 5 of them have to do with trade. Most Americans don’t realize this, but this treaty will fundamentally change our laws regarding Internet freedom, health care, the trading of derivatives, copyright issues, food...

Voters slammed on the brakes last week, rejecting Amendment 66, a $1 billion across-the-board income tax hike, and three heavily-subsidized union school board candidates. Instead, voters gave reform candidates the green light. Jeffco voters elected three conservative school board candidates Julie Williams, John Newkirk and Ken Witt – all of whom opposed Amendment 66. Williams, Newkirk and Witt, who campaigned as the “WNW” ticket, will now hold a majority on the five-member school board that includes union-cozy incumbents Lesley Dahlkemper and Jill Fellman, whose terms end in 2015. The new trio is expected to take office on Nov. 21. Forty-eight...

While the country is immersed in Obamacare headlines and a congressional tussle over delays and mandates, the Obama administration is stealthily moving toward unprecedented control over private property under a massive expansion of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Water Act authority. The proposed rule, obtained by the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee in advance of EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy’s testimony at a Thursday oversight hearing, widely broadens the definition of waterways over which the federal government has jurisdiction to as little as a water ditch in a backyard. The Clean Water Act redefinition of “waters of the United States”...

Tennessee’s second poorest county will suffer even more if the federal government buys 120,000 acres of land in that area, near Memphis, all for the stated purpose of wildlife preservation, said that county’s mayor. Lauderdale County Mayor Rod Schuh told Tennessee Watchdog Friday that his county, while poor, relies on farming and agriculture as the primary drivers of its economy. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife’s plan to expand the Lower Hatchie National Wildlife Refuge, assuming it buys out as many properties as it can, will rob the county of its most valuable commodity, Schuh said. Primarily, almost 60 percent of...

SALT LAKE CITY — A coalition of conservation groups is hailing a federal judge's ruling Monday to strike down portions of the Richfield Bureau of Land Management plan they said gave deference to off-road vehicles at the expense of the environment. "This landmark decision is a resounding rejection of the BLM’s mismanagement of Utah’s stunning public lands,” said Stephen Bloch, legal director for the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance. ... The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance was among seven groups that filed a legal challenge to the Bush-era plans following their adoption in 2008, contending they imperiled pristine landscapes. The Richfield plan...

Originally entitled, "Relating Environmental Fascism to Baalism and the End Times," the Gulag has posted a very interesting presentation on the connections between ancient fertility cults, modern environmentalism, and the road to the apocalypse. And yes, one way to aptly characterize National Socialism's eugenic policies is to compare it to an ancient nature worship fertility cult like Baalism, all dressed up in modern vernacular, and presented to the German people as the latest 'science,' even though it was nothing but crackpot biology with strong ecological undercurrents …

A new Common Core-aligned lesson is teaching third-graders across the United States that “the commands of government officials must be obeyed by all,” and that “the wants of an individual are less important than the well-being of the nation.” Those un-American and unconstitutional concepts are being peddled to elementary students by the Pearson Education company, one of the nation’s leading producers of school curricula, reports MinutemenNews.com.The historically inaccurate lesson appears to be part of a Pearson Education unit that teaches kids about Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War – “Hold the Flag High” – while doubling as an English assignment....

Americans spend an estimated $5 billion a year on unproven herbal supplements that promise everything from fighting off colds to curbing hot flashes and boosting memory. But now there is a new reason for supplement buyers to beware: DNA tests show that many pills labeled as healing herbs are little more than powdered rice and weeds. Using a test called DNA barcoding, a kind of genetic fingerprinting that has also been used to help uncover labeling fraud in the commercial seafood industry, Canadian researchers tested 44 bottles of popular supplements sold by 12 companies. They found that many were not...