As meat industry plays for time and the election, allies in Congress blast proposed market rules

As the meat industry tries to delay new U.S. Department of Agriculture rules designed to curb anti-competitive practices that hurt producers, hoping a more Republican Congress will be elected Nov. 2, its allies in Congress are raising a bipartisan cacophony of objections. "The fight over these regulations is an earthquake in agriculture and in much of rural America. The fight is over who will have the power to shape the relationship between farmers and ranchers and meat producers — and this will shape the economic and social future of many communities in rural America," Bill Bishop writes for the Daily Yonder.

"The scene at the House Agriculture Subcommittee on Livestock, Dairy and Poultry hearing Tuesday was brutal, as one member of Congress after another labeled the regulations as 'silly,' a 'serious mistake,' 'offensive' and a 'clear violation' of what legislators intended" when they directed USDA to write such rules, Bishop reports. "After this week’s lambasting, it seems likely that USDA will grant additional time for comments" on the rules, as the meatpacking lobbies have requested. Bishop's story has good background and links on the issue; read it here.

The National Pork Producers Council and National Cattlemen's Beef Association have filed formal requests for the Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration to triple the usual 60-day comment period. The requests from "Big Pork and Big Beef" for delays show how little the groups carry about producers, agricultural journalist Alan Guebert opines in his syndicated Food and Farm File column.

"If new rules are not forthcoming to limit the massive market-moving capabilities of massive meatpackers, open and transparent markets will vanish, as they have in poultry markets, and production, like in poultry, will be by invitation -- contract -- only," Guebert predicts. "That's what NPPC and NCBA advocate when each parrots the packers' call to delay the GIPSA rule comment period in hopes of killing it." Guebert argues that the extended comment period, called for by the industry groups, only serves to give them more time to undermine GIPSA's new administrator and elect "a more packer-friendly Congress" on Nov. 2.

NPPC claimed the new rules "could limit pork producers' options in selling pigs to processors," and NCBA said it believed "this rule ... could have a huge impact on the marketing of cattle in the United States." Guebert agrees, and argues it would be for the good. He quotes DTN livestock analyst John Harrington's commentary about meatpacking giant JBS's recent purchase of the 130,000-head McElhaney Feedyard in Arizona, giving the company ownership of 47 percent of all cattle it slaughters: "While there is significant disagreement over exactly how much such captive sourcing hurts negotiated cash (prices), most would agree that the category of packer-owned cattle tends to be the most toxic in poisoning cash market demand." (Read more, via Farm World)

Project develops taste, skills for entrepreneurship among rural youth so they might stay or return

"Amid predictions of continuing migration from Appalachia by its young people, a new educational program is teaching elementary and middle school students in Appalachian Kentucky the entrepreneurial skills that can prepare them for a future in the region, creating jobs for themselves and others," reports Jon Hale of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues.

The E-Discovery Challenge includes instruction in economics, mathematics and other essential business skills, but they say their biggest lesson was the value of working together and trading ideas with others as they used small seed grants to develop a product and offer it for sale. “I learned you have to trust your teammates and work with them to do the job,” Morgan County student Josh Adkins, whose team made T-shirts, told Hale, a native of the region.

Another middle-school student, Devon Middleton of Elliott County (at right in photo, with his mother and teacher), told Hale that the program made him and his teammates consider becoming entrepreneurs as adults. Students and teachers in the program said the most valuable lesson may have been that there is opportunity in Appalachia. “It helped them see that they are not necessarily stuck,” Lawrence County teacher Joe Halfhill told Hale. “If they have a new idea or a twist on an old idea they don’t have to do what they have always done, what their parents did.”

The project is run by the Kentucky Entrepreneurial Coaches Institute at the University of Kentucky, which trained 55 teachers in 15 of the 40 Kentucky counties labeled economically distressed by the Appalachian Regional Commission. Institute Director Ron Hustedde said it reached nearly 1,700 students and created close to 500 small businesses. He noted that 18 percent of rural Americans already have their own business, and that number is projected to rise. (Read more)

Columnist: Rural America must merge technology with culture to ensure a better future

Merging the blessings of technology with small-town culture is key to the revitalization of rural America, one commentator writes. "To put it bluntly: culture eats technology on any day of the week," Sylvia Lovely, former executive director of the Kentucky League of Cities, writes for NewGeography. Lovely outlines a variety of examples where culture has trumped investment in technology, but outlines five elements to finding the proper blend between combining "the technology that will lift up economic prosperity and build wealth and while understanding better the role of local culture in creating the resilient rural communities of the future."

Lovely terms her recommendations the five Ps: perspective, people, place, preservation and prosperity. Rural America needs "perspective and hard-nosed research to know where you stand: who is coming to or staying in your community or region," Lovely writes. It also needs "investment in people and their education, health and other documented needs, recognition and promotion of place, preservation of what is dear in our culture, and finally putting all that together with technology that can bring economic prosperity not only in dollars but in quality of life."

"We certainly need to take what technology offers, with its gift of allowing us to live and work anywhere. But this is a hollow benefit unless we imbue it with the culture that makes our lives special," Lovely concludes. "It won't be computers that will make our rural places unique. It will be the native music, crafts and stories and how we preserve and adapt them to modern times." (Read more)

Farm-state senators ask EPA to not toughen regulations on farm dust

Worried that the Environmental Protection Agency will crackdown on dusty farms, 21 senators from farm-heavy states have asked EPA not to tighten federal standards for coarse particulate matter. In a letter the senators said that if EPA follows through on a scientific advisory panel's recommendation to impose tougher standards farmers would face "the most stringent and unparalleled regulation of dust in our nation's history," Gabriel Nelson of Environment & Energy Daily reports. "The dust kicked up by agricultural operations is subject to the same air-quality rules as particulates from automotive tailpipes and coal-burning power plants," Nelson writes.

"We all want a clean and healthy environment, but it defies common sense to mandate that farmers keep dust between their fence rows when combining, or that the county government keep gravel dust on the road," Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley, who is a farmer and spearheaded the letter, said in a statement."In a draft policy assessment published earlier this month, EPA scientists said the agency would be justified in 'retaining or revising' standards for the type of coarse dust commonly produced by farming operations," Nelson writes. EPA is expected to complete its review of particulate matter standards by late next year. (Read more, subscription required)

Alfalfa could be feedstock for cellulosic ethanol

As scientists continue to look for more fuel sources to make ethanol, one group is pointing to alfalfa, which is known as forage and hay for livestock but could one day be used more for fuel. "The idea is to have Midwest farmers who now grow corn all the time or corn and soybeans in rotation to start growing corn and alfalfa," Philip Brasher of the Des Moines Register reports. (Photo of flowering alfalfa by Howard Schwartz, Colorado State University, Bugwood.org)

"Critics question whether alfalfa could ever be an economical fuel crop for many farmers," Brasher writes. However, alfalfa can, like soybeans, replenish nitrogen that corn takes from the soil, which would allow farmers to use less fertilizer, reducing runoff into streams. "Alfalfa also could provide soil protection, limiting erosion, because the crop would be left in the ground for a couple of years before the field is replanted to corn." The type of alfalfa used for ethanol production would be a super-sized variety of the crop now planted on 21 million acres nationwide. "The leaves would be sold for cattle feed," Brasher writes. "The stems would be processed into a feedstock for next-generation ethanol plants."

Minnesota Valley Alfalfa Producers, a farmers' cooperative, plans to start construction next month on a facility that would grind alfalfa into pellets that could be processed by an ethanol plant. The group does not yet have an ethanol producer to make the biofuel, Brasher reports. Big producers like Poet are working to reduce the cost of cellulosic ethanol, but "are struggling to reduce the cost to a level that's economically feasible and to attract investors," Brasher writes. Some, like Minnesota farmer Keith Poier, say even if the fuel cost slightly more than gasoline it would be better "than all those dollars leaving the community, going out of the country" for fossil fuels. (Read more)

Eastern Kentuckian returns home to show what locals can do to help revitalize Appalachia

Much has been made of the "brain drain" taking rural America's best students to cities, but one Eastern Kentucky man is hoping to reverse that trend by returning home with a proposal to help reclaim strip-mined land. When Nathan Hall of Allen, Ky., population 150, turned 18, he moved to Wisconsin but after several years away he "felt a growing need to re-connect with his home region," Elizabeth Lynch writes for the Daily Yonder. This summer he's using money from his Watson Fellowship to travel around the world to communities that, like his home Floyd County, "have relied on a single industry as well as communities that are working on land-recovery efforts," Lynch writes.

Hall was awakened to strip-mine issues while working with the Mountain Justice Summer camp, an anti-mountaintop-removal group comprised mostly of non-Appalachians. His experience "crystallized my intentions and my approach to the work I would do," he told Lynch. "Through my time in Louisville and with Mountain Justice Summer I had a 180˚ on my perspective on this region. This part of the country and the world needs positive work more than just about anywhere." Hall planned to work in a coal mine for several years to gain better insight into the industry, but left after a few months, following safety concerns from his family, in favor of attending Berea College.

Hall created his own major at Berea in sustainable industrial and agriculture management. After graduating in 2009 he developed "a biodiesel oil converter, a machine that turns cooking oil into fuel that can be used for tractors or other equipment that runs on diesel," Lynch writes. Hall's design, right, is mobile so he can bring it to small towns and schools across the state to illustrate the value of entrepreneurship. He has also developed an extensive agro-forestry plan for reclaimed strip mines that would "remove the exotic and invasive species that were planted as a cheap, short-cut cover up and break up compacted mine refuse," Lynch writes. (Photo by Lynch)

Hall points to motivation for change as the key to stopping the rural brain drain. "It’s tricky nowadays because I don’t see a lot of people around here who have that idea of needing to do something to help," he told Lynch. "To me that is the biggest barrier. You really have to try to encourage and motivate kids in depressed rural areas to come back and do something positive." (Read more)

Former Georgia governor looks to reverse 2002 mistake by focusing campaign on rural areas

The Democratic nominee for governor of Georgia is more or less abandoning metropolitan Atlanta to focus his campaign on rural areas. Former Gov. Roy Barnes, left, "has bet his campaign on rural Georgia — the one that turned its back on him in 2002 for his removal of the Confederate battle emblem from its place on the state flag," Jim Galloway of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports. That year, Barnes rarely campaigned outside the metro area and lost the governor's seat to Republican Sonny Perdue, who focused his campaign on 70 rural counties that had voted for Barnes. (AJC photo by Rich Addicks)

Barnes campaign manager Chris Carpenter acknowledged the similarities between Barnes' current campaign and that of Perdue, who is term-limited this time. "Roy Barnes told me about six months ago that if he wins this election he’ll have to win it south of Macon," Bobby Rowan, a former state senator and former member of the Public Service Commission, told Galloway. Rowan, who lives in Enigma, population about 870, said those who think the Republican have a stranglehold on rural Georgia are incorrect. "We frankly don’t care anymore," he told Galloway. "Partisan politics has passed us. Now, I wouldn’t be surprised if Roy Barnes could roll up a 60 to 70 percent win in our county."

"Margins of that size, reached in multiple rural counties, could offset balloting from the Republican-dominated counties of metro Atlanta," Galloway writes. "A heavy turnout for Barnes in rural Georgia would essentially crack the super-majority of white voters required for statewide GOP victories." Rowan says the economy has labeled the playing field for Barnes after the 2002 flag controversy. "This whole election, it ain’t about a $3 tag, it ain’t about a chicken in every pot," he told Galloway. "It’s about a job for every man that’ll work. That’s the issue." Former Secretary of State Karen Handel and former Congressman Nathan Deal are in a runoff election for the Republican nomination.

Galloway writes that Barnes will be so focused on campaigning in rural precincts that he won't even return to Atlanta for an August visit from President Obama. "Sounds like a convenient excuse or a strategy -- avoiding association with a president who is unpopular with white voters in the state," says Al Cross, director of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Commuinity Issues, which publishes The Rural Blog. (Read more)

End of Saturday mail would hurt rural areas most

If the U.S. Postal Service follows through on its plan to end Saturday mail delivery, rural Americans may be among those hurt the most by the decision. The end to Saturday mail could be particularly painful for "rural customers who live far from post offices and depend on letter carriers for government checks, prescription medicines and parts for farming equipment," Ledyard King of Gannett Co.'s Washington, D.C., bureau reports. While post offices would remain open on Saturdays, for access to mailboxes, that may be "little solace to residents, especially the elderly, who live in remote areas underserved by the Internet," King writes.

"The very principle of the Postal Service is to give universal service to everybody. If they don’t do it, the people will lose that benefit in the rural areas," Paul Katzer, a letter carrier from Montrose, S.D., who serves 276 customers on his 130-mile route, told King. "The New York Citys, the Chicagos, if there’s a need for delivery service, there’s a company that will do it in those areas, but not out here. Rural America will be hurt by this." Groups that rely heavily on six-day service, including weekly newspapers and prescription mail-order companies, are protesting the proposal, but officials say the other "alternative is a significant across-the-board increase in postal rates and that would anger other users," King writes.

"Some people haven’t quite come to terms with that. Just because you go to five-day (delivery), it doesn’t mean the whole world collapses for them," Samuel Pulcrano, vice president of sustainability for the Postal Service, told King. "It’s simply a matter of adjusting." Chip Sawyer, program manager for the Center for Rural Studies at the University of Vermont, told King while the proposal will hurt rural communities they should focus their energy on pushing for greater electronic access, such as expansion of broadband services."It would be worse for rural areas if they were not provided with universal high-speed Internet access in the near future," he told King. "If one is to assume that rural residents are using the mail primarily for paying bills and corresponding socially, then it would seem that those who would lose out the most with the removal of Saturday delivery are those who have the hardest time connecting to and using current Internet options." (Read more)

Health-care expert creates roadmap of impact of reform legislation in rural America

A new publication from the Rural Policy Research Institute and the University of Iowa hopes to explain for rural-healh advocates the 900-plus page health care-reform legislation's effects on rural Americans. The publication, titled "The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act: A Summary of Provisions Important to Rural Health Care Delivery," was authored by Keith Mueller, director of RUPRI's Center for Rural Health Policy Analysis and head of the university's Department of Health Management and Policy, the North Liberty Leader reports. The summary can be accessed at http://cph.uiowa.edu/rupri.

The summary organizes the legislation into specific categories, including access to affordable insurance, insurance market reforms, quality improvement, public health, health-care workforce, Medicaid, Medicare and overall system changes. "This document creates a 'rural roadmap' for advocates, analysts, practitioners and policymakers as they continue the important task of improving the system as it affects rural interests," Mueller said. "During the legislative process, rural-conscious members of Congress succeeded in inserting provisions specific to rural needs, such as extending special payment policies in Medicare, extending and modifying the Rural Hospital Flexibility Program, and including rural areas in various demonstration projects and pilot programs. Their efforts are evident in this summary." (Read more)

Town that was home to first Homestead Act tract passes a new one to boost its tax revenue

The Homestead Act of 1862 was the federal government's vehicle for populating the West. Now towns across the country are re-examining similar strategies as a possible method for increasing tax revenue. Beatrice, Neb., home to the first federally recognized homestead in 1862, passed the "Homestead Act of 2010" in part to replenish its city coffers, Monica Davey of The New York Times reports. "The calculus is simple, if counterintuitive: hand out city land now to ensure property tax revenues in the future," Davey writes. Tobias J. Tempelmeyer, the city attorney, quipped, "There are only so many ball fields a place can build."

"Around the nation, cities and towns facing grim budget circumstances are grasping at unlikely — some would say desperate — means to bolster their shrunken tax bases," Davey writes. "Like Beatrice, places like Dayton, Ohio, and Grafton, Ill., are giving away land for nominal fees or for nothing in the hope that it will boost the tax rolls and cut the lawn-mowing bills." Despite recent signs of an economic recovery, municipalities may not emerge from the recession for several years because of slumping revenues from property taxes and sales taxes and reduced support from state governments. These areas are looking to other alternatives to raise money, including a controversial proposal in Manchester, N.H., and Concord, Mass., to re-examine the tax-exempt status of local non-profit organizations.

Beatrice was recognized as the home of the first Homestead Act application nearly 150 years ago when the federal government bought the property back to build a national monument, Davey reports. (NYT photo of Beatrice homestead monument by Kevin Moloney) While other small towns across the Great Plains have turned to homesteading in recent years to boost dwindling populations, Beatrice, whose population has held steady around 12,000 for decades, has a much different goal. "If the city were to give away just a few lots — and if people were to, as required by the law, build homes on them and stay for at least three years — Beatrice would secure annual real estate taxes on them, collect money for water, electric and sewer use, and no longer pay to mow the lawns," Davey writes. Since the act took effect in May, just two families have filled out homestead applications and both have since delayed plans to move. (Read more)

Gangs moving to rural areas

As estimated gang membership passes the 1 million mark nationally, gangs are no longer solely an urban phenomenon. "Gang members are fanning out from cities, looking for fresh recruits and new markets to sell drugs and guns," Raju Chebium of Gannett Co.'s Washington bureau reports. "Some flee to rural areas to hide from the police or other gangs." The Justice Department’s 2009 National Gang Threat Assessment reveals by 58 percent of all law enforcement agencies reported gang activity in their jurisdictions in 2008, up from 45 percent in 2004.

"We have seen gangs that were centered in one city become national," Attorney General Eric Holder told the Senate Judiciary Committee in April. "We in law enforcement have to adapt to that and break old models, old ways of thinking. Gangs are not simply an urban phenomena any more." Ralph Weisheit, a criminal justice professor at Illinois State University, told Chebium that small-town gangs tend to be less violent than their urban counterparts and gang-related murders are rare in these groups.

Still, "Across rural America, authorities are stepping up enforcement when they see clear proof of gang-related crimes," Chebium writes. "In May, 600 federal, state and local law enforcement officers descended on Newburgh, N.Y., population 29,000, people, carrying 78 indictments naming members of the Bloods and the Latin Kings." Weisheit also questions the Justice Department's claim that gang membership has reached 1 million nationwide. He said "sometimes a "gang" is just a bunch of kids acting rowdy, wearing gang colors or imitating gang signs they see in the movies or on TV," Chebium writes. The key, Weisheit said, is learning how to distinguish a "gang from punkish behavior." (Read more)

Indiana electric cooperative agrees to cut air pollution, invest in alternative energy projects

A Southern Indiana rural electric cooperative has agreed to install state-of-the-art pollution control technology at its two coal-fired power plants as part of a settlement with the Justice Department and the Environmental Protection Agency. The settlement calls for Hoosier Energy Rural Electric Cooperative to pay a civil penalty of $950,000 and spend $5 million on environmental mitigation projects to address the impacts of past emissions, according to a press release. The settlement also requires Hoosier to reduce sulfur dioxide emissions by almost 20,000 tons per year and nitrogen oxide emissions by more than 1,800 tons at its Merom and Ratts plants.

Hoosier must direct $200,000 for projects to mitigate the harm caused by Hoosier's excess emissions at lands owned by the U.S. Forest Service. The remaining $4.8 million will be spent on one or more of the following projects: Tapping coal-bed methane to generate electricity and sending the resulting carbon dioxide to a greenhouse; sponsoring chaneouts and retrofits for wood-burning appliances; retrofitting public diesel engines with emission-control equipment; or installing solar power systems on public schools or facilities of non-profit groups. (Read more)

The co-op serves about 290,000 customers through 18 member cooperatives, one of them in southwestern Illinois.

Black president from Hawaii needs more blacks from rural South near him, black Democrats say

We rarely take major note of opinion columns, but when they make assertions of fact that ring true and at least offer a fresh perspective, as Maureen Dowd does about the White House and race in The New York Times today, we make an exception.

The issue is the Obama admimistration's summary ouster of Shirley Sherrod from her job as the Department of Agriculture's Rural Developent director for Georgia, and Dowd's best source appears to be Rep. James Clyburn, the No. 3 Democrat in the House and, for our money, one of the most solid people in Congress. Clyburn represents most of rural lowland South Carolina (NationalAtlas.gov map).

“I don’t think a single black person was consulted before Shirley Sherrod was fired — I mean, c’mon,” Clyburn told Dowd – who calls him “so temperate that he agreed with an op-ed piece in The Wall Street Journal on Friday by Senator James Webb of Virginia, which urged that 'government-directed diversity programs should end.'” (Actually, Webb said they should be continued for African Americans.) Here's Clyburn's punch line: “The president’s getting hurt real bad. He needs some black people around him.”

Dowd notes that Obama was "raised in the Hawaiian hood and Indonesia," and writes, "Unlike Bill Clinton, who never needed help fathoming Southern black culture, Obama lacks advisers who are descended from the central African-American experience. . . . The West Wing white guys who pushed to ditch Shirley Sherrod before Glenn Beck could pounce not only didn’t bother to Google, they weren’t familiar enough with civil rights history to recognize the name Sherrod. And they didn’t return the calls and e-mail of prominent blacks who tried to alert them that something was wrong. Charles Sherrod, Shirley’s husband, was a Freedom Rider who ... was a key member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee."

Implicitly dismissing Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack's contention that he made the decision on his own, without consulting the White House, Dowd writes of Obama, "His closest advisers — some of the same ones who urged him not to make the race speech after the Rev. Jeremiah Wright issue exploded — are so terrified that Fox [News] and the Tea Party will paint Obama as doing more for blacks that they tiptoe around and do less." Vilsack has offered Sherrod a civil-rights job in USDA, or her old job; Dowd has another suggestion for Obama: "He should give her a new job: Director of Black Outreach. This White House needs one." (Read more)

Treaty rules could stop exports of burley tobacco

The market for a major variety of tobacco "would be devastated by proposed international regulations designed to restrict the content of cigarettes, according to growers and lawmakers who are fighting the proposal," James R. Carroll reports for The Courier-Journal of Louisville. (C-J photo by James Crisp: Ryan Peach of Lawrenceburg, Ky., tends his crop)

The variety is burley, which is the main type of tobacco grown in Kentucky, Tennessee and some other states. "Because of its harsh characteristics, burley requires the use of flavorings and processing ingredients as it is blended with other tobaccos," Carroll notes. But cigarettes could contain nothing but tobacco, under regulations that the World Health Organization is developing under an international tobacco treaty that the U.S. has signed but not ratified. The regulations are on the agenda for a November meeting.

Nearly three-fourths of U.S. burley is exported, but the proposed regulations would effctively ban its export, U.S. Rep. Ed Whitfield of Kentucky's 1st District told Carroll. He and all but one other member of the state's congressional delegation (Rep. John Yarmuith, D-Louisville) are fighting the proposal. Kentucky is the nation's leading producer of burley, generating $274 million last year for 5,000 to 10,000 farmers.

The regulations are designed to make it more difficult for cigarettes manufacturres to make their product appealing to children. Roger Quarles, president of the Burley Tobacco Growers Cooperative Association, said those pushing the rules "want it to taste like you-know-what so you would be less inclined to use it.” (Read more)

Milk security system among projects stemming from rural Ky. congressman's hometown earmarks

A University of Kentucky food engineer stands to benefit from the investment in homeland security as his high-tech "milk-transport security system" nears completion. Fred Payne, who has started a company, TranSecurity Systems Inc. to market his system, began his research with $2.67 million in federal grants from the National Institute for Hometown Security, established by Kentucky Republican Rep. Hal Rogers in his hometown of Somerset, John Cheves of the Lexington Herald-Leader reports. "Other NIHS-funded projects have included research on face recognition, disaster prediction, pedestrian surveillance and trying to reduce the explosiveness of ammonium nitrate fertilizer," Cheves writes.

Payne's idea arose after many food scientists began questioning the safety of the nation's food supply following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Payne and his partners, "including dairy expert Chris Thompson of the UK College of Agriculture, designed a hand-held wireless computer to record a truck's contents and send that information to remote locations; a global positioning system to identify a truck's whereabouts at all times; and secure locks on the dome lid and rear doors, with a key pad to enter access codes," Cheves writes. (Payne, left, and Thompson in Herald-Leader photo by Matt Goins)

NIHS was created when Rogers earmarked $52 million in federal funds for the project, in part to pay for anti-terrorism research at Kentucky universities. Rogers' critics have questioned the decision to establish "his own homeland security agency in a small town with no obvious terrorist targets," Cheves writes, and claim "Rogers is building an empire for himself in southeastern Kentucky using his so-called budget earmarks." NIHS chief executive Ewell Balltrip, a former newspaper editor and publisher in the region, told Cheves that "Politics doesn't have anything to do with what we do," and the organization provides a needed plug for a hole in national security. (Read more)

Bureau of Land Management says it will continue wild horse roundup despite recent deaths

In June we reported the Bureau of Land Management's plan to round up wild horses in the West. Agency officials say they will not abandon the plan despite calls from animal-rights groups to do so after a spike in wild-horse deaths following the plan's early stages. Last week, BLM officials "suspended a wild-horse roundup in northeast Nevada's Elko County after seven animals died," April Reese of Environment & Energy News reports. "Another was euthanized after it broke its leg in a holding pen, and two others died from neck injuries sustained during the roundup. Later, another nine horses died of dehydration." (BLM photo)

"In a letter to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar last week, philanthropist Madeleine Pickens, the Animal Welfare Institute, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign and other animal rights organizations called for the suspension of all BLM wild horse roundups this summer to avoid further deaths," Reese writes. Don Glenn, division chief of BLM's Wild Horse and Burro Program, said most of the deaths have been because of conditions beyond the agency's control so the roundup will continue as planned with BLM set to capture and remove another 5,800 wild horses and burros from six Western states.

"It's not because we rounded them up. It's because they didn't have water," Glenn told Reese. "It was a combination of a drought and too many horses trying to drink. That's why we do these roundups, because they become overpopulated." Elliot Katz, president of In Defense of Animals, said "BLM has overstated the severity of the overpopulation problem and is removing wild horses from the range unnecessarily," Reese writes. "Furthermore, he added, the agency often exaggerates the health conditions of the herds to justify removals." (Read more, subscription required)

Forest Service considering closing Western caves to slow spread of bat-killing disease

Federal and state agencies in the Eastern U.S. have been closing caves in an effort to slow the spread of mysterious white-nose syndrome killing bat populations; now Western U.S. parks are considering similar closures, though the syndrome still appears to be hundreds of miles away. "The closures would limit human access to caves on Forest Service lands in Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska and most of Wyoming and South Dakota in hopes of stemming white-nose syndrome, which scientists believe people can transport on clothing, boots, caving gear and other equipment," Eryn Gable reports for Environment & Energy Daily.

"It is something we are considering, but we are yet to make the final decision," Janelle Smith, a spokeswoman for the service's Rocky Mountain region, told Gable. The closure issue could be announced in the next couple of weeks and is expected to last for 12 months, Gable writes. The order could also limit access to some trails that lead to caves. Karen Carter, the agency's spokeswoman for the Southwest region, told Gable the agency is expected to make a decision on its response to the disease, including cave closures, in the next few weeks.

White-nose syndrome was first discovered in a cave in upstate New York in early 2006 and has since been discovered in 14 states and two Canadian provinces with bats throughout much of the affected area now dying at extremely high rates. Cave closures have shaken the caving community as officials look to fight the spread of the disease. Colorado Cave Survey chairman David Lambert told Gable the decision to close caves in that state was "difficult and controversial" and "a bitter pill," but his organization supported the closures. "Cavers rightfully consider themselves to be stewards of the underground world," he told Gable. "Across the West, our claim to that identity will be measured to some extent by our support for these closures." (Read more, subscription required)

Colorado developer creates a controversy by trying to ban river rafting through his property

Whitewater rafting can be a boon for many rural communities, but a Colorado controversy shows the tension between public and private land ownership can be an obstacle. "Most of Colorado's raftable rivers flow through a patchwork of public and private land," Bente Birkeland of National Public Radio reports. "The state constitution says the waterways are open to the public for their enjoyment, but private landowners often own the riverbeds and banks. Touching an underwater rock or coming ashore could be considered civil trespassing." (Associated Press photo by Ed Andrieski)

Texas-based developer Lewis Shaw brought the issue to the fore when he told two rafting companies they could no longer float rafts along the river past his ranch, where he is building an exclusive fishing community with multi-million-dollar homes. "Everyone seems to lead off with the statement that a rich Texan flies in, in his Learjet, and wants to shut down rafting in Colorado," Shaw, whose ranch lies on the banks of the Taylor River near Crested Butte, told Birkeland. "None of that is true. My goal was simply to develop this and the little bit of heaven that it is and have peace." State lawmakers stepped in this spring with a controversial bill that would have given rafters the legal right to float regardless of land ownership.

"I labeled this a 'right to trespass' bill," Republican state Rep. Jerry Sonnenberg told Birkeland. "Are we trying to set a precedent that maybe then hunters can go on our property on the eastern plains — where we don't have rafting — in the name of recreation? And I think that's why we saw people from across the state get involved in this." The bill died on the final day of the legislative session, and Democratic Gov. Bill Ritter brokered a temporary compromise on the Taylor River case, giving the rafting companies floating rights for the next four years. Rafters continue to worry, due to the legislature's inaction that the issue won't go away. "I just have always believed that the rivers belong to the public," Matt Brown, who co-owns Scenic River Tours, one of the companies involved in the dispute, told NPR. "Everybody has the right to use them." (Read more)

Massey Energy suggests big April mine disaster was act of God or a giant burst of methane gas

Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship made the national media rounds in Washington yesterday, spreading the message that coal-mine disasters like the one that killed 29 miners at a Massey mine in West Virginia in April, are often unavoidable acts of God. "I’m a realist. The politicians will tell you we’re going to do something so this never happens again; you won’t hear me say that," Blankenship told the National Press Club. "I believe that the physics of natural law and God trump whatever man tries to do. Whether you get earthquakes underground, whether you get broken floors, whether you get gas inundations, whether you get roof falls, oftentimes they are unavoidable just as other accidents are in society."

Ken Ward Jr. of The Charleston Gazette reports on his Coal Tattoo blog, "At a news conference Massey went into 'Act of God' mode in full force today, blaming the Upper Big Branch Mine disaster on a gigantic outburst of methane into the mine that company officials say there was little — if anything — they could do to control." Ward, the top coal reporter in the country, notes that he wasn't allowed to participate in the post-conference phone call between Massey and reporters because he wasn't on Massey's approved media list.

Massey seemingly pointed to an "unexpected release of methane gas into the UBB mine" that "was intense and overwhelming to the normal safety systems" as a possible cause for the disaster in a news release. Davitt McAteer, West Virgina Gov. Joe Manchin’s special investigator for the disaster, told Ward Massey was likely shifting blame in the wrong direction. "The effort to place blame on God or another person is not an uncommon practice after disasters, particularly in the mining industry," he said. "But investigations have almost always led to the conclusion that it wasn’t God who did it." (Read more)

Harry Reid delays climate bill, maybe forever; 2 Dems on House panel back delay of EPA regs

"Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) will bring a limited package of oil-spill response and energy measures to the floor next week, delaying action until at least this fall on a broader proposal that would impose greenhouse gas limits on power plants," reports Darren Goode of The Hill, citing "senior Senate Democratic aides" who "insisted Reid’s decision is a nod to the packed floor schedule the Senate faces before it leaves in two weeks for the August recess, and that he he has not abandoned plans to try and bring up a broader climate and energy plan later in the year. But other legislative priorities and election-year politics may scuttle the wider climate and energy plan altogether." (Read more)

Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, told Environment & Energy News that he didn't have a "clear understanding" of Reid's plan, "but likes the idea of moving ahead with legislation that can pass the Senate," says the story by Josh Voorhees, Robin Bravender, Alex Kaplun and Katherine Ling. "I've been of the view that we should go ahead and bring up a fairly narrowly crafted bill if we can get the votes to proceed and pass it," Bingaman told E&E. "If Senator Reid can identify some provision that relates to energy and the oil spill that he can get 60 votes for, I would urge that he go ahead and go for it." (Read more, subscription required)

Meanwhile, a House appropriations subcommittee deadlocked today on an amendment that would have delayed for two years any Environmental Protection Agency regulation of greenhouse gases from power plants and other stationary sources. Voting for the measure were all committee Republicans and two Democrats: Rep. Alan Mollohan of West Virginia, the No. 2 coal-producing state, and Rep. Ben Chandler of Kentucky, the third-ranking state.

Chandler, left, meets with directors of coal-dependent Kentucky rural electric cooperatives. Chandler's Bluegrass Region district has no coal mines but the state gets 92 percent of its electricity from coal, and his vote for the House cap-and-trade bill last year spurred Republican opposition to him and his re-election bid is likely to be his most contested yet. "A similar measure introduced by Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) will go to the Senate floor at some point this year, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said last month," reports Greenwire's Gabiel Nelson. (Read more, subscription required)