Free Republic

Record-high gasoline prices are causing Americans to rethink their opposition to drilling for oil and natural gas in the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and other federal areas... A nationwide survey by the Pew Research Center shows half of Americans now support drilling in ANWR, up from 42 percent five months ago. And a CNN poll released Thursday found 73 percent of Americans favor exploration for oil and gas off the Pacific and Atlantic coasts. The public’s changing energy priorities are most evident in the growing percentage that views increased energy exploration — including mining and drilling,...

In the 1930s, when the United States was mired in a Great Depression, Congress wisely and with great vision approved the O&C Lands Act to guide the management of federal lands that once belonged to the Oregon & California Railroad... The act established a method for funding Oregon counties, allowing them to provide such vital services as public safety and road maintenance. Now, because of the efforts of the environmental movement and its litigious attorneys, the O&C funding formula that was successful for decades has been severed. Environmental groups and their allies argue that tourism can take the place of...

Mountain bikers worry proposal could kill ‘epic ride’. Many of the area's skilled mountain bikers are concerned about a proposal that would ban them from some of their most-prized local trails, including a segment of the Colorado Trail. The proposal is part of a draft plan by the Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service to guide management of 2.4 million acres of public lands in Southwest Colorado. The plan recommends classifying 55,000 acres as new wilderness, including 51,000 acres west of Hermosa Creek. Congress is ultimately responsible for establishing wilderness areas, which cannot be used by motorized vehicles...

Bumper stickers that read "No Moo in '92," and "Cattle Free by '93" signaled the open warfare between Western ranchers and environmental groups in the last decade. The war is still raging. Groups such as the New Mexico Wilderness Alliance, the Wilderness Society, the Sierra Club and others set out years ago to free the West of cattle, sheep and the ranchers responsible for them. A favorite tool used by these well-funded organizations is the Wilderness Act of 1964. This law was enacted originally to preserve 9 million acres of wilderness so "future generations could see what their forefathers had...

Firefighters in this mountain resort town love to tell the story of the couple from Texas who wanted to know where they could buy one of those beautiful red evergreens that surround Lake Dillon. They offered the couple a chain saw and told them to take as many as they wanted. The trees aren’t red, they’re dead. The stately green lodgepole pines that once provided million-dollar views high in the Rockies are turning red and then brown in waves as tiny bark beetles eat their way across the Continental Divide. But environmentalists say that’s no reason to chop them down....

Even though federal authorities say Bert Fingerhut cheated bank investors out of millions of dollars, many in the Aspen community have shown support for him. Pitkin County Sheriff Bob Braudis is among them. Braudis, who had never met Fingerhut until recently, wrote a letter to the federal judge who sentenced Finger­hut to two years in federal prison Friday. Braudis’ letter spoke highly of Fingerhut. It also surprised federal authorities. “That struck us that a sheriff would write a letter sup­porting a criminal,” said Assistant U. S. Attorney Karl Buch. “And he wrote it on his professional letterhead.” Fingerhut, 63, also...

Frivolous Enviro Lawsuits Hurt Economy, Environment & Taxpayer Washington, DC – Today the House of Representatives passed H.R. 4571, the Lawsuit Abuse Reduction Act (LARA). While this legislation largely targets baseless tort lawsuits, it will also make great strides in stemming the tide of frivolous litigation initiated by environmental fundraising organizations. Regardless of the plaintiff, frivolous litigation chokes the legal system, kills jobs, and hampers economic growth. H.R. 4571 would restore mandatory sanctions for filing frivolous lawsuits in violation of Role 11 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, requiring monetary sanctions against any party making a frivolous claim, including...

Environmental activists should focus on making progress at the local rather than federal level, Gov. Bill Richardson told the national governing council of the Wilderness Society in Albuquerque on Thursday. The Bush administration and Congress are not advancing environmental policies, but governors and mayors are making progress, the governor told the group. "I know things are not good now (in Washington, D.C.), but at the state level, there are so many ways we can protect our land," Richardson said. As an example, he said he has sued the federal government over oil and gas drilling in southern New Mexico's Otero...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger appointed Bridgett Luther Thompson to head the state Department of Conservation Friday. Thompson, 50, was previously a regional development director for Hands on Bay Area, which matches its network of volunteers to local charities. Prior to that, she was national development director for Republicans for Environmental Protection. "Bridgett shares my dedication to protecting our environment and ensuring our natural resources are wisely conserved," Schwarzenegger said in a statement. Thompson, a member of both the Sierra Club and the Wilderness Society, has also served as program director for the Trust for Public Land in Charlotte,...

Summary: The head of the Heinz charitable foundations happens to be the wife of John Kerry, the Democratic Senator and presidential candidate. What's the relationship between the foundation's charitable gifts to environmental groups and environmentalist supporters of the Senator's presidential campaign? What might that mean for a Kerry presidency? Teresa Heinz Kerry is the widow of the late Pennsylvania Senator and ketchup heir H. John Heinz III. She is the current wife of presidential candidate and Massachusetts Sen. John F. Kerry (D.). And she is a member of the board of three Heinz foundations that altogether are worth more than...

While Congress debates legislation to speed up thinning of fire-prone forests, officials who oversee the U.S. Forest Service and other federal agencies are crafting administrative changes aimed at conveying portions of President Bush's controversial forest management plan. Some possible changes in regulations could be unveiled this month, Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey said in a recent telephone interview, including a "categorical exclusion" that would allow "certain categories of relatively minor fuels reduction activities" without an environmental assessment or environmental impact statement."And we're working on such a categorical exclusion right now," he said. Rey oversees the Forest Service and is also...

<p>Last month, environmental groups across the country hollered like banshees when politicians and local communities began taking them to task for the massive wildfires that are today gutting the West. The crescendo came when Arizona's Gov. Jane Dee Hull, watching half a million acres of her state go up in smoke, flatly blamed greenies for obstructing work to clean up national forests. She was talking about the never-ending stream of appeals and lawsuits they file to halt thinning, road building and firebreaks.</p>