Budget deal stops BLM Wild Lands inventory

So much for Harry Reid’s promise that the budget bill wouldn’t be used to carry anti-environment riders

Around Christmas, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced that the administration would be pursuing a BLM Wild Lands initiative, vague direction to BLM to inventory lands which exhibit wilderness characteristics for future Congressional Wilderness designation consideration.

It was a brief respite from Obama’s anti-environment Interior Department.  Now that relief is being defunded, more anti-environment funding cuts carried by the budget bill:

Budget deal stops BLM Wild Lands inventoryIdaho Statesman

The budget deal prohibits the Obama administration from spending federal funds on its proposed Wild Lands initiative.

Idaho Republican Rep. Mike Simpson authored the provision to stop the Bureau of Land Management from carrying out its inventory of public lands with wilderness characteristics.

Will the proposed budget cut funds to administer environmentally destructive subsidized uses of publics lands like welfare ranching ?

47 thoughts on “Budget deal stops BLM Wild Lands inventory

  1. Some random thoughts: too bad Salazar had to announce inventorying BLM wild lands. They probably already had the authority to spend money doing such. Too bad Pelosi didn’t get a budget passed last session (or was that Reid and Obama’s fault?) There’s no question Republican’s are holding the administration hostage. What to do, shut down the government, let the debt ceiling expire? BLM range monitoring funds will probably be cut, it’s discretionary spending. But if so, is that not basis for appeal or litigation?

    1. And come next election environmentalist will again vote for Democrat only because the old “lesser of two evils” will come up again. Now someone please explain how McCain could be any worse. As I’ve said ad nauseam there isn’t a dimes worth of difference between any of them and out country as we knew it is finished, swallowed up by power and greed.

  2. Strange that republicans didnt seem to be able to do this much damage under Bush when they had control of the entire government. It is a 1/3 majority…

    1. Yes, the good old days at Interior with Kempthorne and Gayle Norton in charge, and of course there was all the good that Cheney, Wolfowitz and Rusmfield did. How soon we forget.

      1. Comparing apples to apples to apples. I remember watching the Obummer inauguration and seeing people tearing up over it. Now many of those same people watch him and still tear up, only now they are tears of dismay instead of “hope and change.”

      2. What a nightmare- the choice of Tester or Rehberg, Or Obama or Huckabee, Pawlenty or Donald Trump! Good grief! Or even Palin or Bachman! The house would go on the market- hello Australia!

      3. William

        You will like New Zealand a whole lot better than Austrailia. I do.

      4. I have heard good things about New Zealand. I would love to go to Tasmania and look for thylacines in the bush. For a number of years I communicated with Col bailey, who is one of the foremost bushman in tasmania

      5. I would love to to go to Tasmania, I hear it has wonderful fishing and good bush tramping, plus some good historical buildings and history. When I was in Austrialia I never got that far south. Now back to our normal broadcast.

      6. Unfortunately, Tasmania will be one of the first islands to go under as the oceans rise. Australia is already trying to plan what the hell the do with all those people….

      7. WH, the only thing I can think is that Salazar, Hayes, and the White House have put out a “take one for the team” in hopes of keeping Montana in the blue column. I think it is a useless pursuit to keep the Senate; Dems are too vulnerable in too many seats in 2012. And if a Dem acts like a Republican most of the time…I don’t know about Tom Udall since he is New Mexico, but Mark Udall has been silent on his web page, emails and Facebook about the Endangered Species Act, the wolves..and most things that are of environmental importance in the west in terms of lands and species…I don’t know if Mark is running to the middle in hopes of a future office or appointment, and if so, who is driving him there..staff? DNP?

      8. I havent forgotten any of the horrible things that happened under bush. It seemed like back then democrats and environmental groups had fight in them and were stopping the republicans where they could. Now it seems like there is absolutely no hope. The republicans propose extreme insanity and the democrats “negotiate” and give them exactly what they want anyways.

    2. We relaxed, plain and simple, because we thought it couldn’t get worse than Bush and Rove and Cheney and Gayle. Well, when Democratic politicians won’t stand up for what they say they are for in reelection campaigns; when they get to DC and can’t wait to run to the middle because they figure the other side is worse by far and who else are we going to vote for; we get this kind of crap behind closed doors. Salazar and Hayes need to go. And if some other Western Dem politicians don’t start standing up…including two in my state of Colorado…we need to find some grass root oeople who actually care about Western issues, not just mouthing platitudes when it is easy, but staying silent when it counts.

      1. You have the two Udalls from an iconic bloodline whose legacy served during the awakening of the modern environmental movement. I haven’t heard a peep from either one of them. I don’t think their father would approve of these events

  3. Geez……..They’re going to have to change the name of this site to the “Wildlife Blues” pretty soon if something doesn’t happen to snap this streak of news.

      1. Brian,

        Sometimes the biggest advances are made following difficult periods.

        I know one could attempt to refute that statement by pointing out the failure who was elected president after Bush, but there are a lot of other important factors to consider. A presidential election does not necessarily mark the end of one period of momentum and the beginning of another.

        Only time will tell how the current trend will play out. I try to always move forward with the thought in mind that over the long run we will end up gaining more than we lose.

  4. New Zealand is incredibly hard to emigrate to now; same with Australia. I am thinking seriously of Vancouver BC, somewhere on one of the islands, find a BB to run…I am so discouraged right now with everyone having anything to do with this debacle.

    1. We are on the downward slide as a country. We had a heck of a time, taking out countries w/ our military, exploiting natural resources, becoming the most obese country the world has ever known, but alas, all good things must come to an end.

      Seeya in the Yukon Territory maybe! I love it up their. Beautiful girls for such an isolated place. Laird River Hotsprings is a must…Especially in the winter time 😉

      1. wolf moderate:

        This financial “crisis” is easily solvable. We simply return tax rates for the wealthy to what they have historically been. From 1932 to 1986, the wealthiest Americans paid between 50 and 91% of their income in taxes (http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Docid=213). (Note, the were generally higher during times of war.) Then we started dropping tax rates for the wealthiest Americans concurrent with large government growth (primarily in the military sector). Guess what happens when you cut revenues and increase expenditures?

      2. Easily solved! You can raise the tax rate on the rich as high as you like, but when our wages and benefits that employees of these companies dwarf what workers in other parts of the world will do the same work for, we have issues.

        Also, there is a “brain drain” in this country, as Immer stated the other day. Our kids are all ridlin addicted brats. Until parents give a flip about there kids, rather than who’s on dancing w/ the stars, the “brain drain” will only get worse.

        Also, one of the main reasons that we ever became a “super power” was because WWI and II ruined Europe manufacturing sector, so America was the one that got to become the main supplier for the countries. Of course, like everything I post, it’s just speculation!

      3. JB,

        I hope we all get to see a 91% tax rate for the rich again in this country. I almost want to see it again just purely so people who feel the way you do can be proven wrong. I say this being a supporter of an increased tax rate for those making more than about $750,000/year, as well as an increased tax rates for “carried interest” and a few other current income loopholes.

        What your making is an “all else being equal” statement. Based on an “all else being equal” world you would be right. Unfortunately for those in the world of finance and economics, situations are never exactly the same as they were at any given point in time. That’s why so much of the time even Ph.D’s in economics can’t seem to get things right.

        Increasing tax rates over the long-run will do more to cut budget deficits as long as there isn’t a corresponding increase in spending, but the economic impact of that move over the long-run is anything but easy to predict.

    2. JimT,

      And you think Cannucks like wolves any better than some down here? Boy are you in for a suprise. The Canadian farmers in the East have a scorched earth zone near the St. Lawrence River that has hampered in-migration to Maine, and your own Vermont. On the west coast, Canadians killed off most of the wolves on Vancouver Is. (they are coming back but still hunted there http://www.trophywest.com/wolf.html ), and the folks outside the city of Vancouver, BC, especially the more rural the area have their own opinions about wolves. Start in on the topic in support of wolves, and I expect they will just walk away from you rather than engage in conversation – and they do like their conversation political up there, especially about the states. LOL.

      By the way, the Gulf Islands, cousins to the San Juans in WA are wolf free, I believe. Expect to pay about $1M for your B&B. The place has been found.

      1. Aren’t Cananda and the US both approximately 80%+/- urban and 20% rural?

      2. Hi,

        Could you elaborate on your original post? I’m not following your point. How is it apples and oranges if they both have roughly the same demographics?

        Just curious, because you are obviously knowledgeable. I read your reply regarding the tax rates.

        Thanks.

      3. I really didn’t even need to make that post, I’m just always amazed at how much smaller Canada’s population is than ours.

        It seems like an apples to oranges comparison because their attitudes up north are based on a different ball game. They can get with away with more lax policies on wolves in many places. It seemed like WM was trying to make a parellel between the rural folks in Canada and the US, and I’m just not sold on their attitudes being similar.

      4. Daniel, Wolf mod,

        Actually I wasn’t trying to make any comparison at all. Just commenting on JimT’s consideration of moving to Canada in light of recent depressing political events. There are likely to be fewer sypathetic voices toward wolves there generally, because they have so many.

        I do know for a fact that outfitters hate them, as to many subsistence hunters, and moose hunters generally. The risks to ranchers would be identical to here (maybe they have figured out better ways to co-exist, however), and there are some areas of Canada, especially in the agricultural areas of the eastern provinces that they have just “extirpated” them, for lack of a more diplomatic term. Seems I recall the eastern province situation from comments of John Glowa, a wolf advocate from Maine, who comments here sometimes. He believes a few might be lucky enough over time to slip into the NE states.

      5. Did the research, know the costs. Sanity may be worth the price..As for wolves…the move would be more about more than wolves..it is the admittedly biased view that the Western politicians and traditional interest groups have lost their minds, and we are in for another Sagebrush Rebellion type of time here. There is only so much a left leaning guy can take..:*) Salt Spring Island isn’t the only option being discussed…

      6. I have a friend who lives up in Dawson’s Creek, and we chat about wolves, etc. And he is an avid hunter. But his group of friends, while not exactly wolf lovers, understand their role up there, and they don’t go out of their way to poison or shoot them as seems to be current attitude in the four states currently focused upon in the wolf discussions here. The utter depth of the hatred for wolves down here he doesn’t understand at all…

    1. JimT
      I can’t get enough of those cat videos. The OMG cats are really funny too

      1. I figured a little animal humor would be forgiven for being off thread…:*)

      2. I can relate to your feelings about disgust, I just watched on CNN Grover Nerdquist dispute that lowering the tax rate from 35% to 25% actually increases the deficit. It’s that new fangled type of math that I apparently missed in school. Facts who cares about facts! That wasn’t meant to be a factual statement!

    2. Loved this video JimT!!

      Came close to slamming my not that old HP printer against the wall when it first started claiming “no paper” over and over (even though like the kitty said “the tray’s full) and then the on off button slipped into the plastic casing……….. and there’s no way to retreive it without taking the printer apart.

      Product of China stamped on the bottom.

      1. I don’t know if there are any copiers made here anymore…I am not sure if you made a conscious effort to fill your house with only Made In America products you normally use in every day life, you could do it. We just don’t make things like we did even just 40 years ago…

      2. I find that second hand stores are a good source of brands stamped “Made in USA”.

  5. Here is my take on the wildland issue. Analysising all the frustrations of posters here with regards to a new dark age for enviornmental concerns, and the workings of Washington that feeds the depression, it seems to me a reasonable comparison of what is happening to the environment is the same thing that has happened to other cultures when their countries were being re-made via shock therapy championed by Milton Friedman and the Chicago School of economics theory.

    Ya, I am still reading Naomi Keins book The Shock Doctrine, (thanks to Salle’s referral to it often) and will add my name to support her in recommending you all read it.

    As I was reading it overlooking the river this morning, I was overcome with a thought about how little I often see when looking only at the surface of things. My memory returned to 30 years ago, floating by Childs Glaicer on AK’s Copper River and being dazzled by the beauty of the ice bergs (like Sirens) and face of the mother glacier. At the time, I thought the biggest danger was having a chunk of the face fall off and inundate us with a micro tsunami. Little did I think that the bergs we were pretty close to, could strike the bottom at anytime and roll into us. Forgetting that 80% of the berg is underwater, is where the more weight and significance is. While the top 20% lures us by its beauty, what lies below can have more consequence than we might appreciate.

    Having missed this fact at the time of loating near them, is like missing the same facts about what is happening in Washington. The Shock Doctrine has changed that for me – allowing me to glimpse below the surface where the real danger resides.

    Like battlling smaller skirmishes about wolves, buffalo, and such, while the real battles (megaloads here) carry much more weight effecting it all, and part (most) of that berg finds its birth in Washington. Again, I would suggest Kleins book. BTW, her writing (if you care about such) in itself is very good, even if you don’t agree with what she claims. But, her massive amount of research that went into this is exhastively impressive. Food for thought.

    Oh, and about moving somewhere else. There is never an ultimate place to hide, that a predator like the Disaster Capitialism Wolf can’t find you. Better to stand your ground and prepare wisely for tangling more effectively with the monster. Part of that for me is by gathering additional information, and learning more about the bottom of the berg.

  6. Same manure, new day. Nothing is going to change until we vote a truly eco-savvy house and senate in. Republican or democrat, none of them has the brains God gave a roach. Sadly, roaches thrive in the sh*! holes they create-just like most politicians. Not a brain amungst them….but they have adapted to survive in any situation.
    The problem is, people have to be willing to do the right thing, even if it costs more for gas, groceries, etc. And the simple truth is, they would rather vote for cheap oil than clean air, go to the zoo instead of pay taxes to preserve real habitat. Nauseating!

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