August 2006, Newsletter #13
Welcome to THE RED LODGE CLEARINGHOUSE,
the full-service information source for collaborative groups
throughout the Interior west committed to resolving resource-use
conflicts.
Our website serves not only as a current magazine illuminating collaboration activities past and present, successful or not, but adds substance to our Newsletter stories and provides a solid understanding
of the laws and regulations that inform natural resource policy.
For instance:
|
 |
Almost a full year to the day following the White House Conference on Cooperative Conservation, the Bush Administration has revealed step two in its "cooperative conservation" strategy — a nationwide series of listening sessions.
The White House Conference featured 1300 attendees engaged in spontaneous, thoughtful, diverse, and constructive discussions. On the other hand, the conference itself and the plenary sessions in particular, were carefully controlled and choreographed.
Unfortunately, the conversations that took place in the concurrent sessions could not lead to agreement on recommendations, priorities or key issues, even if agreement emerged during the course of discussion.
The shapers of the conference inferred that the Federal Advisory Committee Act precluded the specifying of conference attendee agreement on such recommendations, priorities or key issues.
Will the same fate befall the comments from speakers at the listening sessions?
OUR FULL COVERAGE OF THE WHITE HOUSE CONFERENCE >>
Comments old on new listening tour
BY MATT GOURAS, BILLINGS GAZETTE (AP), 08/15/06
The Bush administration's "cooperative conservation" listening tour may be new, but the complaints coming from industry, environmentalist and farming groups don't appear to have changed much.
SEE FULL STORY >>
First of 24 public meetings on Bush enviro proposals solicits mixed opinions
GREENWIRE, 08/11/06
The first of 24 national public meetings on the Bush administration's cooperative conservation national environmental plan opened this week in Spokane, Wash., and more than 180 people signed up to speak.
SEE FULL STORY >>
Meeting on Bush enviro proposal draws disparate views
BY NICHOLAS K. GERANIOS, SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER (AP), 08/10/06
Well, it was billed as a "listening session."
More than 180 people signed up to speak at the first public hearing on the Bush administration's "cooperative conservation" plan, which is seeking ideas on how groups with radically different goals can work together to protect the environment.
SEE FULL STORY >>
Summaries of the comments made at listening sessions
Read the notes taken by attendees of the first listening sessions.
SPOKANE SESSION >>
HELENA SESSION >>
|
 |
Democratic takeover no guarantee of Hill action on warming
BY DARREN SAMUELSOHN, GREENWIRE, 08/02/06
If Democrats take back the House or Senate this November, conventional wisdom says climate change would vault to the top of the congressional agenda. But the reality is more complicated.
SEE FULL STORY >>
Hunters and anglers turn GOP "greener"
BY MIKE SORAGHAN, DENVER POST, 08/01/06
Hunters and anglers are increasingly joining environmentalists in efforts to block oil and natural- gas drilling and other development on wildlife-rich lands in the Rocky Mountain West.
SEE FULL STORY >>
Global warming poses 'single greatest threat' to national parks — report
BY DAN BERMAN, E&E NEWS PM, 07/25/06
Rising temperatures in the West are threatening iconic national parks such as Yellowstone, Yosemite and Joshua Tree, two advocacy groups say in a report released today.
"Global warming is the single greatest threat to ever face Western national parks," Theo Spencer, senior project manager of the Natural Resources Defense Council's climate center, said in a telephone news conference.
SEE FULL STORY >>
Taking liberties
BY RAY RING, HIGH COUNTRY NEWS, 07/24/06
This fall, voters in Arizona, California, Idaho, Montana, Nevada and Washington will consider ballot initiatives which arise allegedly in response to the Supreme Court's Kelo v. New London eminent domain decision. Ray Ring covers the initiatives for High Country News:
The initiatives have titles like "Protect Our Homes," "The Home Owners Protection Effort" and "People’s Initiative to Stop the Taking of Our Land" — as if the government is about to come in with bulldozers to sweep everyone off their property. But here’s how the initiatives would work: If you could fit 20 houses on your land, plus a junkyard, a gravel mine, and a lemonade stand, and the government limits you to six houses and lemonade, then the government would have to pay you whatever profit you would have made on the unbuilt 14 houses, junkyard and mine. Generally, if the government can’t or won’t pay you, then it would have to drop the regulations.
SEE FULL STORY >>
OPINION: "I-154 IS A SCAM AIMED AT MONTANA COMMUNITIES" >>
|
 |
|
|
