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On June 4, 2013, Governor Brian Sandoval signed into law AB227—“Nevada Land Management Implementation Committee”—making Nevada the fifth western state to actively explore the transfer of public lands to western states. AB227 creates the Nevada Land Management Task Force, which will conduct a study addressing the transfer of public lands in the state. This movement advocating for the transfer of western public lands began in Utah in 2012.

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has released a plan to guide management of more than 434,000 acres of public land for the next 20 years. The planning area is outside Billings in Big Horn, Carbon, Golden Valley, Musselshell, Stillwater, Sweet Grass, Wheatland and Yellowstone counties. The BLM Billings office also oversees management of the 51-acre Pompey’s Pillar National Monument, as well as 4,298 acres of public land in Big Horn County, Wyoming — a portion of the Pryor Mountain Wild Horse Range. To view this plan please click here. The draft plan contains four management alternatives. Alternative D is...

In the final days of the election I made what turned out to be a clearly futile effort to demonstrate that the future of energy production, as well as the associated jobs and economic boost which go with it, could be significantly affected by the outcome. One candidate had a substantially pro-energy policy which included completing the Keystone pipeline and unshackling promising areas of domestic energy development. The other did not. Taking a line from Bruce Willis for a moment... I hate it when I'm right. The Interior Department on Friday issued a final plan to close 1.6 million acres...

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- An al Qaeda website is now calling for recruits to set wildfires in the United States. The targets of the fires are areas prone to dry conditions, like California. Both Cal Fire and the U.S. Forest Service said they are taking the threats seriously -- but they're not worried, they said. The agencies tell Action News they're ready for wildfires, no matter what or who causes them. "Ever since 9/11 we've had a heightened sense of awareness for terrorism and we do talk about that," said Cal Fire Battalion Chief Julie Hutchinson. "In the last three...

Meteorologist Brian Sussman blows whistle on president's scheme The environmentalist movement isn’t about protecting the environment at all, according to meteorologist-turned-journalist Brian Sussman. It’s about destroying private property, controlling behavior, and expanding government – and the Obama administration has a secret plan to further all of it, he says. Sussman is now blowing the whistle on the real nature of environmentalism in his explosive brand-new book, “Eco-Tyranny.” He reveals secret memos from inside Obama’s Bureau of Land Management, or BLM, outlining a covert plan “to pursue a program of land consolidation” for the federal government to secure tens of millions...

Several Western states, fed up with a federal government some claim is locking down public land against oil drilling, are demanding Washington return millions of acres to state control. The pleas mark a new front in the battle over states' rights, and one state has already codified its demand into law. Utah Gov. Gary R. Herbert, a Republican, signed a law several days ago that asks the federal government to return 20 million acres, which could be used to develop oil and other natural resources to bolster the state economy. Republican state Rep. Ken Ivory said Tuesday the land is...

Funny how some projects attract the EPA like flies to, well, you know and others? Meh. The LA Times reports: Construction cranes rise like storks 40 stories above the Mojave Desert. In their midst, the "power tower" emerges, wrapped in scaffolding and looking like a multistage rocket. Clustered nearby are hangar-sized assembly buildings, looming berms of sand and a chain mail of fencing that will enclose more than 3,500 acres of public land. Moorings for 173,500 mirrors — each the size of a garage door — are spiked into the desert floor. Before the end of the year, they will...

Whether the threat was ever as real as many gun rights activists feared, a draft plan put forth by the Bureau if Land Management that called for curtailed recreational shooting on public lands was officially derailed Wednesday by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. In a memo to the BLM director, published by Washington Whispers, Salazar said this: "It is a priority of the Department of the Interior to support opportunities for hunting, fishing, and recreational shooting on America's public lands. By facilitating access, multiple use, and safe activities on public lands, the Bureau of Land Management helps ensure that the vast...

Don't you wonder what ELSE McCain has been up to since he bought his Arizona senate seat AGAIN????? Time will tell! (Yes..I said bought...about $75.00 per vote!) Sept. 7, 2010 - Twenty-three Senators gave their support to a deceptive bill S.B. 1689 that will, among other things, create an illegal immigration superhighway, remove access to natural resources, and strip ranchers of their grazing rights, all under the excuse of “preserving” wilderness. 23 voted to move S.B. 1689 to the floor including, McCain, Alexander, Landrieu, and Lincoln. Headline: Senators support illegal immigration super highway SB 1689 [snip]When New Mexico's Senators Jeff...

A multi-day eradication effort by the Southern Oregon Multi-Agency Marijuana Eradication Team.... removed more than 40,000 pot plants estimated to be worth as much as $120 million. ....on Aug. 23, Josephine County sheriff's detectives stopped a vehicle with five Hispanic men in it on Forest Road 4105, which wends into the hills above the Sixmile recreation site toward the roughly 5-acre marijuana garden. Four of the men inside the vehicle wore camouflage clothing... The driver, David Barragan-Salazar,told investigators that he was paid $500 to take men to the growing operation in the forest. All are suspected of being in the...

Have you heard of the "Great Outdoors Initiative"? Across the country, White House officials have been meeting quietly with environmental groups to map out government plans for acquiring untold millions of acres of both public and private land. It's another stealthy power grab through executive order that promises to radically transform the American way of life. In April, President Obama issued a memorandum outlining his "21st century strategy for America's great outdoors." It was addressed to the interior secretary, the agriculture secretary, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency and the chair of the Council on Environmental Quality. The memo...

Omnibus Public Lands Bill to be Voted on Tomorrow! The American Motorcyclist Association urges everyone to contact their Representative to vote "No" on the rule and on the final passage of H.R. 146, the Revolutionary War and War of 1812 Battlefield Acquisition Grant Program. This bill was formerly known as S. 22, the Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009, which would prohibit all motorized vehicle access on over 2 million acres of public lands. As you may know, S. 22 was defeated two weeks ago, on March 11, in the U.S. House of Representatives. Following defeat of the bill,...

Richard Beardall is getting exactly what he wanted: a trespassing ticket from federal land managers for ignoring the rules and riding his ATV on a closed road in the San Rafael Swell. Beardall, three other ATV riders and a Jeep, moved a 10-foot barricade near an old uranium mine and made a half-mile roundtrip along the access road to the Muddy River on Saturday. The Bureau of Land Management closed the area to recreational vehicles in 1993 due to riparian damage, said Price, Utah-based BLM manager Roger Bankert. Beardall, president of the Americans with Disabilities Access Alliance knows that, but...

Tejon Ranch and its conservation partner, The Trust for Public Land, have figured out which 100,000 acres of the ranch's 270,000 acres will be carved out into a preserve. If the deal goes through, some of Tejon's majestic peaks and canyons in the Tehachapi Mountains could forever be saved from development. A step is being taken in that direction today, though an actual deal is much further away. The majority of the land is in the southeastern portion of the Tehachapis. There's also a swath next to Interstate 5 intended to connect the future preserve with the Wind Wolves Preserve...

Mormons planning to re-enact treks on national historic trails in central Wyoming will have to do so without the use of support vehicles and only Mondays through Fridays, according to a decision signed Monday. Permits will be available for a total of 7,500 people annually in groups of 26 or more -- far fewer than the 12,000 handcart trekkers who have used the area in recent years. Jack Kelly, Bureau of Land Management Lander field office manager, said the changes reflect the agency's need to minimize impacts to the area that have been growing with the boom in use. "We...

RENO, Nev. - Call them the ``Outhouse Brigade.'' A group of northeast Nevadans feuding with the U.S. Forest Service over control of a remote national forest road near a trout stream is vowing to defy the agency and drive up the road to clean out a public outhouse. The Forest Service, concerned about the effects on the threatened bull trout, has forbidden vehicles from using South Canyon Road since the Jarbidge River flooded and washed out most of it in 1995. A coalition of anti-federal activists and a local citizens group in Elko County dubbed the ``Shovel Brigade'' began trying...

SALEM - Grant Wheeler wants to add a second shift to his Reedsport hardwood sawmill, his Westwood Lumber Co. remanufacturing plant in Junction City and his planing mill in Saginaw. But a shortage of the alder sawlogs that Wheeler converts into Fender guitar bodies, Purdy paintbrush blanks and parts for kitchen cabinets will keep employment at the three facilities hovering at 135 workers. At least in the short term. "If I had more logs, I would add more employees," Wheeler said. "The market is there." To get those logs, Wheeler and other independent sawmill operators are taking the unusual route...

CAMP SHERMAN -- The trees with the blue ribbons will be cut. Everything decked in pink stays. Of the 50 or so ponderosa pines in a quarter-acre patch of the Deschutes National Forest, as few as 13 could be spared the chain saw. "There's going to be a huge difference. And I'm going to get hammered by some people," says Tim Lillebo, Eastern Oregon field representative for the Portland-based Oregon Natural Resources Council. When President Bush travels to Oregon this week, he is expected to call national attention to this sort of effort to thin the overgrown forests of the...

BELLEVUE, Wash. -- A Bellevue couple, who had more than two dozen trees on public land chopped down or severely pruned to improve their hilltop view, have agreed to pay the city $150,000. If the city council approves the deal, Kendall and Janice Kunz will not be prosecuted for violating a city ordinance that bars cutting trees on city property. The Kunzes also agreed to apologize publicly and contribute 32 hours of community service in the proposed settlement reached Friday. The city council is scheduled to vote Monday on the settlement. "This sends the message that our public forests belong...

By Launce Rake <lrake@lasvegassun.com>LAS VEGAS SUNInterior Secretary Gale Norton will attend Thursday's sale of 1,030 acres of federal land, Interior officials said Tuesday. Norton will attend the public auction to showcase a program that has turned over more than 7,800 acres of Bureau of Land Management to private ownership in the Las Vegas Valley, BLM spokesman Phil Guerrero said. The auctions in that program, a dozen so far, have produced more than $220 million, most of it going to the purchase and protection of environmentally sensitive land in Clark County and the Lake Tahoe area, as well as improvements to...