Sunday, October 22, 2017

~~ Bear Essentials ~ Oct. 22, 2017~~


 vBe sure to Vote:  Nov. 7, Tuesday, or mail in your Ballot
vvForest Service meeting this week:  San Juan County Commissioner meeting Tuesday Oct 24th at the Monticello community/senior center. The local Forest Service Agency presentation at 9:45 am, with a Q & A session. If you care about cattle grazing, road obliteration; if you are against the USFS creating a large wilderness area in the forest; or are concerned about limiting access to ATV's, and perhaps firewood gathering, hunting, and all other recreational opportunities in the Manti La Sal Forest, you ought to go to the meeting. It starts at 9:00, Forest Service scheduled at 9:45. But come early in case they are ahead of schedule.

v Satire of the week:
v Roast Marshmallows, Not Forests  “We cannot preserve a beautiful forest forever like a photograph, because it is still growing, and eventually dying. Today’s overgrown national forests produce at least twice as much new growth as managers remove every year, so the situation continues to get worse while Congress fiddles. Our generation has thus squandered the great legacy of the conservation movement, our national forests.”

Good News Bears

n  Definitely time for Antiquities Act Reform  Op-ed by Matt Anderson
n   Grazing not to blame for bull trout decline  14 yr. Old law suit dismissed


  Bad News Bears         
According to a tally from that year, there were more than 20 federal agencies or departments that EACH had MORE personnel than Congress.  The Department of Agriculture alone had nearly six times more employees (95,223 vs. 16,432). Utah State Rep. Ken Ivory (R), co-chair of the Commission on Federalism, describes America’s current state as a bike with lopsided tires – one overinflated, the other completely flat. To him, it’s not so much about who is holding the handlebars. America simply can’t move forward until the air pressure is more equitably distributed.
So in February, members of Utah’s Commission on Federalism, with Trumpian winds at their back, drew up a list of more than five pages of powers they’d like to bring back to the state. Among them: Mitigate catastrophic fire risk on national forests and rangelands.”
~~~~~


                                     Documenting Bears Ears “No Monument” efforts since July 2016

Sunday, October 8, 2017

~~ Bear Essentials ~ Oct. 8, 2017~~


Quote of the week: “It is often said we now live in two Americas. Nowhere is that description truer then when it comes to land owned by the federal government. In the United States east of the Rockies, the federal government owns just 4 percent of all land. But west of the Rockies, the federal government owns more than half of all land including almost two thirds of all land in Utah. When an unelected and unaccountable bureaucracy owns and manages more than half the land in your state, that is a recipe for disaster.”               Senator Mike Lee
“Creating too large national monuments — results in agencies lacking the necessary resources to adequately manage sites. The federal government currently has a backlog of $18.62 billion in maintenance projects. A better approach is to right-size monuments and allow for limited economic activity in areas where there won’t be damage.” 
v National Monuments Discussed by Heritage Foundation Washington DC (10-4)  Includes: Senator Mike Lee, Congressman Rob Bishop, Matt Anderson, Ryan Benally, New England fisherman, and Maine sportsman. The Antiquities Act was also discussed.  This was very informative.  Listen and Learn..

 “In the nearly fifty years since it was signed into law, the ESA has done more to impede economic activity, obstruct local conservation efforts, and give federal bureaucrats regulatory control over private property, than it has done to protect endangered species."    Senator Mike Lee

v KUER Looks a Bears Ears Stories   Local interviews with Judy Fahys

v Brief History of Recapture Canyon  A video series compiled by Monte Wells

v Consider Donating to Free Range Report (Majorie is a non-NGO funded, patriot who deserves our support and thanks.  No one has helped San Juan County more.)

                         
Good News Bears
~Mr. Zinke has ordered all his agencies to put a priority on active management against wildfires. “We are spending $2 billion a year fighting fires, money that could be going to far better conservation efforts,” he says, visibly annoyed. ~Such mismanagement is what drives Western frustration, which threatens to become a new Sagebrush Rebellion. “Some of the anger is that our grand bargains have been broken, and those bargains said that you had wilderness, but you also have grazing; you could also hunt and fish,” Mr. Zinke says. Now Westerners “watch these catastrophic fires, and they’ve lost any faith that the federal government is capable of being a good steward.”
“We will hold people accountable when we are informed that they have failed in their duties and obligations,” Bernhardt
There is a reason we allow presidents to undo the actions of their predecessors. A president who could unilaterally set policy forever would have far too much power and be free of political checks and balances.  President Barack Obama designated most of his record-setting monuments during the twilight of his second term, long after the threat of electoral defeat had passed. Free of political checks, he ran wild with this power.”

Federal lands included in Bears Ears and other national monuments need management by local people on the ground , not by judges in black robes. A starting point would be to require approval by state congressional delegations of any national monument designated in their state. Let state wildlife managers have more say in whether grizzlies are removed from the endangered species list. Entrust Indian tribes with management of their antiquities as they already are with Canyon de Chelly National Monument.  Most of Bears Ears is under the purview of the Bureau of Land Management. It is time to return to the BLM motto: “Land of many uses”—not land of no uses.” 
n  Standing in Another Man’s Shoes   by Jim Stiles, Canyon Zephyr editor

 
Bad News Bears         
~~~~~

                                     Documenting Bears Ears “No Monument” efforts since July 2016