Quick hits: Mississippi bans lab-grown dairy; Lawyers for Reporters; pay phones help boomers and zoomers connect

State-level bans like Mississippi's can restrict access to the 
 lab-grown dairy industry. (Photo by A. Chaudhary, Unsplash)

Mississippi is the first state to ban lab-grown dairy after passing a bill effective July 1, reports Karen Bohnert for Dairy Herd Management. Lab-grown dairy is "produced through precision fermentation or cell-culturing techniques" and often referred to as "fake milk," Bohnert explains. The bill, HB 1153, requires strict labeling requirements and updated authority to state inspectors to prevent the manufacture, sale and distribution of cell-cultured dairy throughout the state, Bohnert reports.

Lawyers for Reporters, created by the Cyrus R. Vance Center for International Justice, is a free resource for American local and public-interest journalism organizations needing legal services, reports Tandy Lau for E&P Magazine. There's a five-person in-house legal team based in New York offering assistance, and they partner with outside counsel for extra support in farther areas. Managing Attorney Kay Murray told E&P they "really guide [journalists] to ensure that they've got the backup to get it right, that they are confident about getting it right [and] that their understanding with their sources is something that everybody is on the same page about." They hope to soon provide more support for investigative reporting and coverage of immigration issues as well. "If I was trying to quantify the value of [Lawyers for Reporter's assistance], it would add up to easily tens of thousands of dollars if not well into the six figures," Warwick Sabin, CEO and president of Deep South Today, told E&P.

A new study found a long-term shift in cancer death trends, with rural areas facing higher cancer death rates than urban areas in recent years, reports Dennis Thompson for U.S. News & World Report. Previously, between 1969 and 1971, “large cities had the highest overall cancer death rates, followed by small- to medium-sized cities.” However, rural areas had the highest rates in 2021 to 2023, and large cities had the lowest rates. Specifically, lung cancer deaths among rural men were 26% lower than city dwellers in 1969 to 1971, but 55% higher in 2021 to 2023. Researchers said the shift and continuously widening gap is “likely driven by limited access to health care, lower cancer screening rates, higher poverty, more smoking and other lifestyle and environmental factors” in rural communities.

In a new social experiment by Matter Neuroscience, two old payphones set up at a nursing home in Nevada and near Boston University allow "zoomers" and "boomers" to call each other from 3,000 miles apart, reports Scottie Andrew for CNN. Designed to help people feel less lonely, this pilot project will last at least a month, according to Matter Neuroscience. "Friendship could come in all ages. Wisdom can come in all forms, and we just want people to get out of their comfort zone and have a conversation," Matter Neuroscience social strategist Calla Kessler said.

GM announced it will be adding a day of factory
production to it heavy-duty truck line. 

General Motors is increasing its heavy-duty truck production, as consumer demand remains strong despite rising gas and diesel prices, reports Christopher Otts for The Wall Street Journal. GM's Flint Assembly plant in Michigan will operate six days a week now, rather than five, producing more heavy-duty versions of the Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra pickups, Otts reports. Workers will be "mandated into overtime hours to cover the additional day of production," explains Otts. As gas prices have risen by about one-third since the beginning of the Iran war, GM's stock has declined about 10% so far this year, and forecasters predict new-vehicle sales to fall 6.5% in the first quarter.

Middle Eastern farming techniques and skills are the secret to success of organic vegetable farmers in New York state

A couple who run an organic vegetable farm in Norwich, New York, have become highly popular with restaurant chefs who shop at a Manhattan stand, and their success stems from an unusual business model in agriculture.

Zaid and Haifa Kurdieh in a high tunnel (NYT photo)

“If (Zaid and Haifa) Kurdiehs’ produce is uncommon, so is the way they grow it — with technology and farmers from one of the world’s oldest, most advanced agricultural nations: Egypt,” reports Priya Krishna of The New York Times.

“Each year, they enlist about 25 farmers from that country to work for six to 10 months. They use high tunnels, unheated greenhouses developed in the 1950s and still not widely used in the United States, and even adapt some varieties that are popular in the Middle East.”

The Kurdiehs bought a house in Norwich where real estate was inexpensive and started growing vegetables in the backyard in 1998. Then they bought some acreage nearby and installed high tunnels, a type of low-tech greenhouse that requires less equipment and maintenance.

Today their business, Norwich Meadows Farm, is a certified organic grower of produce, poultry and eggs with a heavy reliance on high tunnels to gain control over adverse weather at their farm. They also design and build high tunnels for other farms.

Chefs know the Kurdiehs because they produce unique varieties of vegetables that thrive with cultivation methods unique to the Middle East. Zaid Kurdieh, 55, was born in the United States but grew up in the Middle East. His father was an oil industry engineer.

As the farm expanded, the Kurdiehs wanted to leverage skills they knew existed along the Nile River. “In 2002, Mr. Kurdieh flew to Egypt, an early adopter of the high-tunnel system, and found a group of farmers to work for him. Before they arrived in Norwich, Mr. Kurdieh was cultivating 200 varieties; he now grows more than 1,300 on the 250-acre farm,” the Times reports.

New York landowners win right to negotiate pre-fracking oil and gas leases with Chesapeake Energy

More than 4,400 landowners in New York have won the right to seek more favorable oil and natural gas leases, after the state attorney general and a subsidiary of Oklahoma-based Chesapeake Energy Corp. came to terms last week.

"The leases, which were signed in the mid-1990s to the early 2000s, were prior to the proliferation of high-volume hydrofracking, a much-debated gas-drilling process that made formations such as the Marcellus Shale profitable. As such, the terms of the contracts are generally well under current market value," reports Jon Campbell of the Democrat & Chronicle in Rochester.

“Make no mistake about it," said Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman, "this agreement will provide a safety net for thousands of landowners by allowing them the opportunity to negotiate fairer lease terms, both financial and environmental, regardless of their existing contracts. For landowners across the state, this deal literally will provide a new lease on life.”

"The leases had been subject to a force majeure claim from Chesapeake Appalachia LLC, which had tried to extend their terms amid an ongoing environmental review of natural-gas development in New York," notes Jay F. Marks of The Oklahoman. "Such claims typically involve uncontrollable circumstances such as natural disasters."

The agreement covers leases that have expired or would have expired before Dec. 31, 2013. Landowners will be able to negotiate leases with other energy companies, but Chesapeake retains the right to match those terms. Chesapeake admitted no wrongdoing, but the company will pay $250,000 to reimburse the state for its investigation of landowners' complaints. (Read more.)

Resistance to hydraulic fracturing in gas drilling continues in Marcellus Shale states

As Democratic Sen. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania introduced legislation for federal regulation of hydraulic fracturing in natural-gas drilling last week, there was action in other states underlain by the deep, dense, gas-rich Marcellus Shale (map), a prime target of the frackers.

Maryland’s House of Delegates "advanced a plan calling for a two-year study of Marcellus Shale drilling, overriding the objections of Western Maryland lawmakers who want to see the potentially lucrative activity sooner, " writes Julie Bykowicz of the Baltimore Sun. Delegate Maggie McIntosh said "the state needs time to study hydraulic fracturing and that proceeding quickly could prove harmful to Maryland's waterways," Bykowicz reports.

In West Virginia, after the legislature declined to establish new regulations for Marcellus drilling, “Lawmakers and surface-owner groups met to announce the signing of a letter urging Randy Huffman, secretary of the Department of Environmental Protection, to use his emergency authority to halt the issuance of new horizontal drilling permits in the Marcellus Shale,” reports Taylor Kuykendall of the Register-Herald in Beckley.

Supporters of the moratorium in West Virginia include the Lewisburg City Council, which Peggy Mackenzie of the Mountain Messenger reports “may well be the first municipality in the state to declare the prohibition of locating, drilling, equipping, operating or producing any oil and gas wells within the city limits.” The council approved a resolution expressing “concerns about the lack of protection afforded the state’s water resources, particularly the Greenbrier River watershed, which is the source of water for Lewisburg’s regional system, serving 4,732 customers,” writes Tina Alvey of the Register-Herald.

New York state is enforcing a moratorium on Marcellus drilling until at least July 2011, reports the Associated Press.

Falling milk prices force many dairy farms to quit

Dairy farmers are bracing for the year ahead, since milk prices have dropped to their lowest since June 2006. Debra Groom reports for The Post-Standard in Syracuse, N.Y., that projected prices for milk in January and February are under $12 CWT (a hundred pounds of milk, or 11.6 gallons), nearly half the price from a year ago.

The cost fluctuations force many dairy farms to go out of business since the price they receive for their milk is "set each month based on a formula beginning with cheese prices from the Chicago Mercantile Exchange," Groom explains. Tim Halsey, a former dairy farmer in Mexico, tells Groom, "You need to make about $18 a hundred just to cover the cost of production." In New York alone, the 2007 Census of Agriculture showed five counties lost 151 dairy farms between 2002 and 2007. The downturn in the world economy is another factor resulting in less dairy demand. Read more.

Chain starts Web-only news outlet in city where the newspaper has virtually no Web presence

Here's a shot across the bow of rural newspapers that aren't effectively on the Web: GateHouse Media has started a Web-only news outlet in Batavia, N.Y., where The Daily News site offers only subscription information and sales of archived news stories. The Batavian started quietly in April. "The strategy is to launch an innovative news and community site that will eat the lunch of an incumbent newspaper that has ignored the Web," writes Scott Karp of Publishing 2.0, which is advised by GateHouse online director Howard Owens.

"The Batavian practices what Howard preaches," Karp writes. "The site is anchored by a blog and has a full suite of community features (powered by Drupal), including blogs for registered users. The homepage features blog posts from community members. Many posts have generated lively discussions in comments." (Read more)

On The Batavian, Owens wrote in May about the depth and richness of journalism and interaction that are available online, using as an example concerns about decline of the city of 16,000. "A clearer picture emerges of the goals and aspiration of the City Council to clean up the city before things get too far gone," Owens wrote. "Traditional, print journalism could never achieve this depth of coverage of a single issue. By offering a method and manner to discuss choices, consequences and conditions in Batavia, The Batavian hopes to help make Batavia a stronger community." For The Batavian's birth announcement, click here and go to the bottom.

Owens writes on his own site, "We wanted to go to a town where we didn’t have a newspaper so that we could have the freedom to experiment without concerns about disrupting one of our own publications. We picked Batavia because it’s a neat, vibrant town; it’s close to our home office; and the daily newspaper there was doing nothing on the Web. ... The site is still very young, still under development (we’re working on a new design and adding additional features as we speak), but the local reception has been pleasantly strong so far."

The Daily News, which has a circulation of 12,500, serves three counties between Buffalo and Rochester. Its home Genesee County has a population of 60,000; the other two, shown in map from Daily News Web site, each have about 44,000 people.

Daily News Publisher Tom Turnbull told us in an e-mail that the newspaper's Web site, "a source of frustration for our entire staff," will be expanded "very soon" and "has been delayed for a variety of reasons." He wrote, "The Daily News has committed to bringing a first-class local news web site to our market for some time now, long before The Batavian made its debut. ... I am confident that the combination of our unique local content, the local knowledge and experience of our professional staff and our well-branded image will very quickly make the Daily News Web site the number one local news web site in our market."

Turnbull questioned whether The Batavian is a viable business enterprise, and said, "Incredibly, despite all the talk about The Batavian on the Web recently, you are the first and only member of the web community that has even attempted to contact us. And web bloggers wonder why they get no respect from the journalism community." He concluded, "I’m sure my comments will open up a firestorm of indignant responses from the Web blogging community. I don’t plan on answering any of them. I’m too busy running a news business." Turnbull's full e-mail appears as a comment below.

Rochester, N.Y., foundation makes its first grant for improving health in surrounding rural counties

In July, The Rural Blog highlighted a report on the growing divide between grant money given to urban and rural areas, so we're obliged to report examples of a charitable organizations targeting rural. One such example is a new initiative by a foundation focused on improving health in eight rural counties around Rochester, N.Y.

In the past, the Greater Rochester Health Foundation has mainly targeted urban health initiatives. The foundation has now set aside $1.5 million over the next three years to create free dental clinics, fight obesity, and monitor water safety in rural areas, in addition to its work in urban Rochester. The foundation's president, John Urban, told the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, "In talking with people in those counties, it was very clear that, while they had many of the same issues that Monroe County has, they're really accustomed to working on the issues in different fashion."

Andrea Haradon, coordinator of a network that includes health departments in three of the targeted counties, said the grant will help rural health departments, which are often critically understaffed. "This gives them the opportunity to really have a long-term positive effect on health and health costs," she said. (Read more)

Ailes buys weekly newspaper in new hometown

Not long ago we reported that Rupert Mudoch would remain a small-town publisher because his News Corp. had decided not to sell Ottaway Newspapers, acquired as part of Dow Jones & Co. Now his associate Roger Ailes, the creator and head of Fox News, is also a small-town publisher -- of the Putnam County News and Recorder in Cold Spring, N.Y., where he recently built a home. The town is on the east bank of the Hudson River just upstream and across from West Point, about 55 miles from midtown Manhattan. (Reuters photo)

The paper announced its sale last month, and The New York Times picked up on it today. Brian Stelter writes, “Residents of the area should not expect any sort of makeover, ideological or otherwise. The paper will 'probably stay the same,' said Elizabeth Ailes, Mr. Ailes’s wife, who will be the publisher. 'We bought it not to change it, but perhaps it will evolve over time.' The Aileses do not plan to manage the paper day to day; rather, they will hire a general manager. For now, the seller, Brian O’Donnell, who has been the publisher for 12 years, will stay on as a senior consultant.” O'Donnell declined to comment to the Times.

“It’s a really quaint paper,” Mrs. Ailes told Stelter in a telephone interview. “It reflects the community. We really like it, and that’s why Roger wanted to buy it.” (Read more) The paper is 142 years old but does not appear in the Editor & Publisher International Yearbook database. Stelter reports the paper has a circulation of about 3,000. The paper says the circulation is "100% paid" and it prints the legal notices for Putman County, two towns, two villages and two school districts.

Journal Register Co., owner of more than 300 newspapers, sees stock and debt ratings slide

The stock of the Journal Register Co., a Yardley, Pa.-based newspaper chain, has been falling for weeks. On Monday, the stock closed at 22 cents per share, slightly up from the day's low of 19 cents, reports The Associated Press.

As of yesterday afternoon, the stock was trading at 28 cents per share, and Moody Investors Service downgraded the company's debt rating "two notches deeper into junk territory late Thursday on concerns the publisher of the New Haven (Conn.) Register is losing too much top-line revenue to cover its repayment obligations," reports Mark Fitzgerald of Editor & Publisher.

Journal Register stock (NYSE: JRC) has been trading below $1 for the past month and is in danger of being de-listed. The company announced earlier this week that it might put itself for sale and that it had hired Lazard Freres & Co. LLC for financial advice. Fitzgerald writes that there are reports the company is considering filing for bankruptcy. (Read more)

Besides its flagship Register, the company owns 21 other daily newspapers and 310 non-daily publications in Connecticut, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania. The Hartford Courant's Capitol Watch sees other signs of trouble. "When New Haven Register's longtime Capitol bureau chief, Gregory Hladky, was abruptly laid off exactly one month ago, some Capitol insiders said the already weak finances of the Journal Register Company must be worse than anyone realized," Christopher Keating writes, adding, "Hladky's position had once been considered safe by many because his articles from the Capitol appeared in a wide variety of the JRC's publications, including the weeklies." (Read more)

UPDATE, April 14: Alan Mutter explains in his Reflections of a Newsosaur blog that the company is "highly profitable" but is suffering from too much debt, largely from buying a chain of papers in the Detroit area.

Daily editor leaves corporate journalism for his and his wife's own, 'mostly unfettered' weekly in N.Y.

Jim Kevlin, who wrestled with newsroom budgets as a daily editor for 15 years, has a message for his former counterparts: "There is an alternative, an exciting one, where you can practice, mostly unfettered, whatever type of journalism you believe in." It's buying a weekly newspaper, as he did almost two years ago.

Kevlin, publisher of the Freeman's Journal in Cooperstown, N.Y., writes about his experience in the current edition of American Journalism Review. Chris Stadelman, editor and publisher of the weekly Parsons Advocate in West Virginia, tells us his experiences after daily journalism were eerily similar. Much of the story is about the business aspect of the paper, which now has a circulation of 2,500, up from 1,800 when he and his wife bought it. (Photo of paper's storefront from its Web site)

"Coming out of the newsroom, much of the work — ad sales, distribution, bookkeeping — was new to me," Kevlin writes. "It was exciting to find that the survival skills developed by the harassed and haggard daily editor — strategizing, adapting, budgeting, schmoozing and occasionally acting on a creative idea or two — were transferable. ... To set an interviewee or a shopkeeper at ease, you need to establish common ground. But none of that speaks to the joy of weekly newspapering. Foremost, this is pure journalism. You can cover what you want the way you think it should be covered. You can free yourself from the corrosive union that's developed between journalism and marketing — two warring animals — in the past quarter-century. To the degree you can tolerate the consequences, you can speak truth to power."

Ah, yes, to the degree you can tolerate the consequences — the ever-looming link between news and the business side, always closer in community journalism. Kevlin writes, "Often, you can put a price tag on an editorial decision. One potentially major advertiser, for instance, wants access to the news columns as well. That was a $2,000 decision to say no. The jingoists are right: Freedom isn't free. I can put a dollar value on what it's cost me to exercise the First Amendment — but it's been worth every nickel. And the paper is profitable, we're making a living and in five years we'll have the note paid off." (Read more)

Rural sound, urban setting: Roots music grabs NYC

"New York has lately become remarkably hospitable to musicians upholding more rustic ideals." than the "indie-rock upstarts, jazz improvisers and hip-hop survivors" for which it is more commonly known, Nate Chinen reports in The New York Times. He notes that the city has some history with bluegrass and other "roots music," such as the folk revival of the late 1950s, "but there has also been help from a couple of fairly recent surprise hits in the pop mainstream: the Appalachian-steeped soundtrack to “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” and “Come Away With Me,” Norah Jones’s folk-pop debut. Both albums were game-changers, creating new opportunities and fan bases for bluegrass pickers and singer-songwriters."

Here's the booking that made us tingle and smile: Ralph Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys March 16 at the B.B. King Blues Club and Grill. If you can't make that one, make a note: Guitarist Michael Daves, right, "leads a popular jam session at the Parkside Lounge on the first Monday of every month," Chinen notes. For more on bluegrass in the Big Apple, go to nycbluegrass.com. (Photo by Julieta Cervantes)

Daves, an Atlanta native who moved to Brooklyn five years ago, told Chinen that he finds the New York area liberating. “Bluegrass audiences in New York don’t have the same rigid expectations for the music that you find in the South,” he said. “People here don’t have those deeply ingrained perceptions of the music. I can say, ‘I think bluegrass is this iconoclastic, messy, raucous thing.’ And people are like: ‘O.K. Sure, sounds good.’ ” (Read more)

Sharp drop in N.E. bat population could hurt crops

Thousands of bats are dying in caves of the Northeastern U.S., and while scientists aren't sure why, they do know that a lack of bats could hurt the area's agriculture, reports Beth Daley of The Boston Globe.

"A mysterious illness is sickening and killing thousands of hibernating bats in New York and Vermont, baffling scientists who fear that tens of thousands more may be dying in abandoned mines and dark caves throughout the Northeast," Daley writes. "Humans are not believed to be at risk from the disease, but the death of large numbers of bats could indirectly affect New Englanders: Bats devour crop pests, midges, and mosquitoes."

Scientists first spotted the disease in Albany, N.Y., in January 2007. By March, the New York Department of Environmental Conservation had found 11,000 bats had died from what scientists dubbed "white nose syndrome," called that "because of a flaky white fungus on the nose of many of the sick and dead bats," Daley writes. (Above, bats afflicted with the illness in a photo by DEC's Nancy Heaslip.) Recently the disease has been spotted in more places, including Vermont, and it has been affecting the Indiana bat, an endangered species. The affected area is growing: sick bats have been found as much as 135 miles apart.

Many labs are searching for answers to the mystery, and the best theory so far is that the disease has been spread by humans since the affected caves are popular with cavers. (Read more) Hat tip to Al Tompkins and his "Morning Meeting" for the link.

N.Y. paper defends request for gun-permit list

The Glens Falls Post-Star is at the center of controversy — all about something that has not even run in its pages or on its Web site. Ken Tingley, the editor of the 32,000-circulation daily in upstate New York, wrote to readers this week to explain the situation, which was turning into a fight between gun owners and the paper.

Tingley writes that a month ago, a reporter filed an open-records request "to the county clerks in Warren, Washington and Saratoga counties asking for the names and towns of residence of all gun permit holders in their counties." He explains the concerned response of gun owners, especially those who want to know what the paper was planning to do with that information. He emphasizes that the paper would do nothing "to endanger private citizens or make information conveniently available that might lead to a safety concern." The purpose of the request was to aid in computer-assisted reporting. One of the possible stories to come out of the research would be to cross-reference a database of convicted felons with the database of gun permit holders to see if there were any felons who had guns who shouldn't.

Tingley wrote, "We consider this newspaper an institution that is an important part of each and every community as a news source, a watchdog of government and an entity that seeks to serve our readers and make our communities better." Since being published online Feb. 4, the column has received more than 50 reader comments, with a fairly even split between those for and against the permit request. (Read more)

Rural towns in northern New York wonder what will happen if four of six area prisons close

Rural Franklin County, New York, is home to five state prisons and one federal prison, which have sparked the local economy for decades. Not all the state prisons are full, so Gov. Eliot Spitzer has planned to shut down four to cut costs — a plan that has the area's rural residents worried about the future, reports Fernando Santos of The New York Times (NYT graphic).

The county's situation is not unique — we recently mentioned a similar one in Iowa — because many rural counties have come to depend on prisons for jobs. "As rural economies across the country crumbled in the 1980s and the population of prison inmates swelled, largely because of tougher drug laws, states pushed prison construction as an economic escape route of sorts," Santos notes. "Throughout the 1960s and ’70s, an average of four prisons were built each year in rural America; the rate quadrupled in the 1980s and reached 24 a year in the 1990s, according to the federal Agriculture Department’s Economic Research Service."

The prisons brought jobs, but they also kept towns from pursuing other economic-development opportunities. None of the workers at the closing prisons will be laid off, but it is uncertain where they would have to transfer in order to stay on the state payroll. The prisons and their inmates provide valuable services — including helping to build the ice palace that is the centerpiece of the local Winter Carnival — and boost the county's population when it comes to state and federal aid. (Read more)

After leaving New York City for rural Long Island, some newcomers don't like what they've found

A few weeks ago, we reported about how some new rural dwellers were surprised by the real sights and sounds of rural life near horse farms in Georgia. Some New Yorkers who moved from the city to parts of Long Island are experiencing the same culture shock, reports The New York Times.

Recently, more New Yorkers have moved to the North Fork area of Suffolk County on Long Island (at left in a Times graphic) to escape the sprawl of the city and of the nearby Hamptons. The new development has brought the newcomers into conflict with their farming neighbors, reports Corey Kilgannon. The newcomers "are not nearly as enamored of the less pleasant aspects of farms, like noisy machinery, animal smells, pesticides, dust from plowing, and zoning that lets homeowners keep barnyard animals," Kilgannon writes. "More and more, those culture clashes are the subject of town hall meetings and political campaigns in Riverhead and Southold, with officials caught in the battle over supporting farmers’ livelihoods and other homeowners’ quality of life."

Suffolk County leads the state agricultural production and has 700 farms that cover about 34,000 acres, Kilgannon reports. That farmland is the main draw for summer tourists and these new homeowners, but increasing development might put it in jeopardy. "People move out to farm country and want its benefits — the views, the charm — without realizing that farms make noise and create a degree of odor and dust,” Joseph M. Gergela, executive director of the Long Island Farm Bureau, a lobbying organization, told Kilgannon. “This has become farming in suburbia, and farmers have to be good neighbors, but it isn’t Disneyland.” (Read more)

Tribes, New York governor say Interior secretary is biased against off-reservation gaming

Indian tribes contend Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne is letting his personal beliefs dictate policy when it comes to off-reservation gaming, reports the Legal Times. Tribes say they have submitted applications for gaming facilities, only to see lengthy delays in the processing — delays they say are costing them millions of dollars, writes Carrie Levine. Some tribes, such as the St. Regis Mohawk Tribe of New York, have been outspoken with their complaints about Kempthorne, but others are holding back publicly — at least until after the next presidential administration takes control.

Tribes and others have asked Congress to correct these delays. The Native Americans' allies include New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer, who sent a strong letter to Rep. Nick Rahall of West Virginia, a fellow Democrat and chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, asking for a hearing. Writing on behalf of the St. Regis Mohawk Tribe, he said Kempthorne, “as a government official, should not be able to hold up a project by a continuing failure to reach a decision,” and notes that the tribe’s application has been complete for about seven months. “I am aware that Secretary Kempthorne does not like off-site Indian casinos, but this cannot be the basis of a refusal to act.”

When he was governor of Idaho, Kempthorne, a Republican, opposed nonreservation casinos, a stance that many say is guiding his work at the Interior Department, Levine writes. “As secretary, he has a different role to play, and he has to reconcile his public policy stance with his role as a trustee," an Interior spokeswoman told Levine. "So he’s looking at past precedents and decisions, and the circumstances in individual cases, in order to come up with a proper, well-founded, balanced decision." (Read more; registration or subscription required)