skip to main content
skip to newscasts

Saturday, October 19, 2024

Public News Service Logo
facebook instagram linkedin reddit youtube twitter
view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

Trump delivers profanity, below-the-belt digs at Catholic charity banquet; Poll finds Harris leads among Black voters in key states; Puerto Rican parish leverages solar power to build climate resilience hub; TN expands SNAP assistance to residents post-Helene; New report offers solutions for CT's 'disconnected' youth.

view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

Longtime GOP members are supporting Kamala Harris over Donald Trump. Israel has killed the top Hamas leader in Gaza. And farmers debate how the election could impact agriculture.

view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

New rural hospitals are becoming a reality in Wyoming and Kansas, a person who once served time in San Quentin has launched a media project at California prisons, and a Colorado church is having a 'Rocky Mountain High.'

National Security Bill Questions for NH, White Mountain Nat'l Forest

play audio
Play

Friday, July 8, 2011   

CONCORD, N.H. - A U.S. House committee today is to take up a bill that would expand the powers of the Department of Homeland Security by waiving compliance with 36 environmental laws, including the Clean Water Act, within a 100-mile buffer along borders and coastlines.

Lynn Scarlett, a former deputy Interior secretary under President George W. Bush, has reviewed the bill, H.R. 1505, and says she supports improving border security but thinks giving a single federal agency the authority to ignore laws and other federal, state and local agencies is a dangerous move.

Scarlett cites possible damage to iconic places such as the White Mountain National Forest as well as limits on hunting, fishing, recreation and grazing rights on border public lands and waters. She says she has other concerns as well.

"The danger is also that national security itself will suffer. There's wisdom in these agencies - law enforcement agencies, state agencies, federal agencies with boots on the ground. They have insights and knowledge that actually help us."

Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, introduced the bill, claiming federal and local laws and oversight have interfered with border security and that border areas are "overrun with criminal activity."

John Leshy, who was Department of the Interior solicitor general during the Clinton administration, makes the case that the law isn't needed and points to how it undermines bedrock environmental and land-management laws that also can reach onto private property.

"All of these environmental laws being waived are flexible. They can accommodate national security concerns. The land managers sit down with DHS and they can work these problems out. They are cooperating, they are collaborating."

The text of H.R. 1505, the National Security and Federal Lands Protection Act, is online at thomas.loc.gov. A list of laws to be waived and a map of affected areas is at pewenvironment.org.


get more stories like this via email

more stories
The "Young People First" report showed some of the highest rates of disconnected youth are in Bridgeport, Hartford and Windham. (Adobe Stock)

Social Issues

play sound

A new report offers some solutions for at least 119,000 young people in Connecticut who are described as being "disconnected" from work or school…


Environment

play sound

By Rebecca Randall for Earthbeat.Broadcast version by Trimmel Gomes for Florida News Connection for the Solutions Journalism Network-Public News Servi…

Environment

play sound

By Rebecca Randall for Sojourners.Broadcast version by Chrystal Blair for Missouri News Service for the Solutions Journalism Network-Public News Servi…


Loretta Rush, Chief Justice of the Indiana Supreme Court, said the state's protective order registry had more than 1 million protective orders for workplace or domestic violence in 2023. (Adobe stock)

Social Issues

play sound

Loretta Rush, Chief Justice of the Indiana Supreme Court, has released the 2023-24 annual report for the state's courts. The report shows Indiana's …

Environment

play sound

For now, the Environmental Protection Agency can move forward with plans to establish new, federal carbon pollution standards for power plants…

Countries like Chile are major exporters of farmed salmon. (Ludmila/Adobe Stock)

Environment

play sound

October is National Seafood Month and the fish on your plate might not be coming from where you think. The U.S. imports 90% of the seafood it …

play sound

Artificial intelligence is changing how people learn and work, and universities in North Carolina and across the country are racing to keep up…

Social Issues

play sound

Election Day is less than three weeks away and while the focus for most people is on casting their ballot, Pennsylvania also needs a lot more poll …

 

Phone: 303.448.9105 Toll Free: 888.891.9416 Fax: 208.247.1830 Your trusted member- and audience-supported news source since 1996 Copyright © 2021