Liberty Matters News Service
September 26, 2002
U.S. District Judge James Parker, Wednesday, ordered the Bureau of Reclamation to “release water earmarked for [New Mexico] cities and irrigators” into the Rio Grande for the sole benefit of the Rio Grande silvery minnow. Judge Parker accused the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service of “arbitrary and capricious’ judgement by deciding there was no ‘reasonable’ way to save the minnow without jeopardizing the water supply of people. “Federal Judge Parker today of all the options presented to him chose the path most destructive to human beings in the city of Albuquerque,” stormed Mayor Martin Chávez..
The mayor
said the city will appeal the decision to the Tenth Circuit Court of
Appeals and ask the New Mexico congressional delegation to amend the
Endangered Species Act. The
environmentalists’ attorney, Laird Lucas, defended the Judge:
“He’s erring on the side of the species.
Judge Parker has tried to follow the Endangered Species Act in
which Congress said we protect species if at all possible.”
Albuquerque
to Appeal
Judge's Water Ruling
Judge
Orders Water Released for Minnow
Property owners
in Nevada County, California cannot build structures next to streams, on
steep slopes, or in oak groves, according to regulations adopted by the
Board of Supervisors, so they qualified an initiative for the November
elections to counter the restrictions.
Measure ‘D’ requires the county to compensate landowners if
county regulations adversely affect their property.
Norm Sayler, owner of Donner Ski Ranch near Lake Tahoe expressed
the feelings of many long-time residents:
“The green people, the tree people; everybody is trying to put
demands on your property.” If people “zone us out of the use of our property, then
someone should pay for it.”
County officials cry that the measure would break them, but
others scoff at the notion. “I’m
really surprised that it seems to cause so much concern,” said lawyer
Gregg Lien, who helped draft the measure.
“It is intended to encourage good planning and careful
consideration of the impacts on the property owner.”
Voters in Oregon passed a similar initiative in 2000 that is
currently being challenged in the courts.
Norm Sayler said the restrictive regulations are a deterrent to
development. He lost
a deal to sell his ski area to an investment group for $9 million
“after they talked to the county a month and had it in escrow, they
said Nevada County isn’t worth fiddling with.”
Property
Rights Battle Heats Up in Rural County
Sierra Club Shocked
Carl
Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club publicly chastised their
environmental darling, California Senator Diane Feinstein over her
support of legislation to thin the nation’s overgrown forests in an
attempt to avoid more catastrophic fires. In a statement, Mrs. Feinstein
recognized that over six million acres of forests have burned this year,
including one half million acres in California.
In addition, twenty-one people have died and 3,079 structures
have been destroyed. The
Sierra Club’s Mr. Pope told reporters it is unconscionable that
Feinstein would sponsor legislation that would limit environmental
review and boost logging on federal lands to reduce the treat of
wildfires. Mr. Pope stated;
“Depending on what happens down the road, this has the
potential to be a very serious break [with Mrs. Feinstien].”
The Senator blasted Pope saying;
“I regret that the Sierra Club board of directors has chosen to
malign and misrepresent the efforts by Sen. Wyden, (D-OR), and myself to
try to protect our forests from catastrophic fire.”
Sen. Feinstein: “It [the fire devastation] is the greatest human and
ecological threat now facing virtually every Western State. This is a crisis that transcends the issue of party
politics….”
Statement
of U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein
Greens See Red
S.
2708
S. 1602, The Chemical Security Act
Farmers,
ranchers and other agricultural chemical users may not be very secure if
S. 1602, the Chemical Security Act, an amendment
to the Homeland Security Act, becomes law.
The legislation, sponsored by Senator Jon Corzine (D-NJ), would allow the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate
about 40 materials deemed hazardous, including fertilizer, pesticides,
and chemicals used in the agriculture community.
Some twenty conservative organizations are lobbying against its
passage, claiming it advances an environmental agenda under the guise of
anti-terrorism, but does little to increase security of chemical
facilities. “It’s commonly known inside the Beltway, that this bill
is sort of a dream come true for the folks at Greenpeace,” said Ian
Walters of the American Conservative Union.
“This bill is excessive legislation,” he continued.
The measure is unpopular with trade organizations, who stated in
a letter to Congress, that granting the “EPA excessive new authority
...may be detrimental to advancing our nations’ critical
infrastructure security.” Darius
Goore, spokesman for Corzine, defended S. 1602, saying;
“The senator doesn’t think we should wait for another attack
or a tragedy before we take common sense steps to address what we know
is a vulnerability in our homeland security.”
Conservative
Groups Step Up Efforts to Kill Corzine Bill