PHOENIX – Opposition to the Republican tax proposal in the Senate is growing in the conservation community – because the bill includes a provision to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas drilling.

Supporters justify the move by saying it will bring jobs and generate revenue, which will offset a small part of the $1.5 trillion the bill would add to the deficit with a huge tax cut for corporations.

Mike Quigley, Arizona state director for The Wilderness Society, is pushing Arizona's two U.S. senators to vote against the bill or support an amendment to remove the part authorizing drilling in the refuge.

"We are calling on both Sen. (John) McCain and Sen. (Jeff) Flake to stand on principles here: the principle to preserve America's most special places and the principle to remain fiscally conservative," Quigley states.

In the Arctic coastal plain, 95 percent of the area already is open to oil drilling, where oil spills large and small are common.

Quigley cautions that an accident in this pristine wilderness would be almost impossible to clean up.

Tice Supplee, director for bird conservation at Audubon Arizona, says the refuge is crucial to the migration of caribou and birds.

"Over 200 species of birds that migrate through all of our other states and six continents nest in this location,” she points out. “Audubon calls the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge coastal plain the bird basket of the Americas."

Sandhill cranes, snow geese, tundra swans and pintail ducks are some of the many birds that stop over in Arizona on their northward journey to the Arctic.

David C. Raskin, president of the Friends of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, splits his time between Green Valley, Ariz., and Homer, Alaska. He says he enjoys seeing the sandhill cranes in both locations.

"We go to Whitewater Draw and sometimes see as many as 30,000 sandhill cranes there,” he relates. “So it would be a great loss to the people of Arizona and Alaska to have their breeding grounds in the Arctic refuge damaged."

The bill could go to a floor vote in the Senate as early as Wednesday.





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An update to the Northwest Forest Plan is expected soon, and Washingtonians who enjoy the outdoors are being urged to follow the process closely.

While the plan doesn't specifically mention recreation, the Northwest Forest Plan is the land management plan for millions of acres of forest in the region.

Michael DeCramer, policy and planning manager with the Washington Trails Association, says the U.S. Forest Service should keep in mind the people hiking trails within the plan area.

"Outdoor recreation is the primary way in which the public interacts with those lands. So, this management plan is key to assuring that there's continued conservation of resources, but also opportunities to recreate and enjoy the forests in the Pacific Northwest," he said.

DeCramer added the outdoor recreation economy is also important to the region. It generates more than $26 billion annually in Washington, according to the Outdoor Industry Association.

The Northwest Forest Plan was adopted in 1994 for management of forests in Washington, Oregon and northern California. The U.S. Forest Service is set to release a draft Environmental Impact Statement for the plan amendment next month.

The Forest Service plans to address is the impact of climate change on the region, among other factors.

Betsy Robblee, conservation and advocacy director for Washington-state based group The Mountaineers, said increasingly frequent wildfires are hurting trails. She contributed recommendations with the federal advisory committee on the plan amendment to address this.

"Restore recreation sites after climate-related events and reopen them to the public. One thing that we're seeing is more lengthy closures of areas after wildfire," she explained. "Places can be closed for a number of years for public access."

Robblee encourages people who enjoy recreation to follow along as the Northwest Forest Plan amendment is released, because there will be an opportunity for the public to comment on it.

"It's easy for folks to think, 'Oh, this is all about logging or wildlife, and it doesn't affect me.' But it definitely affects people's recreation experience and the places that they love and care about," she added.


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From power outages to burnt farmland, North Dakota is coming to grips with the impact of several large wildfires that are linked to at least two deaths. The fires intensified this past weekend around the western half of the state, with crews working in recent days to get them under control. Gov. Doug Burgum said when they get the final numbers, it is possible the fires will have consumed as many as 50,000 acres of farmland.

Daryl Ritchison, North Dakota State Climatologist, said windy and dry conditions fueled the devastation, adding that there's no doubt the agricultural community was hard hit.

"Farmers lost cattle. Farmers lost grazing land. Farmers lost houses. Farmers lost their fencing," he continued.

The North Dakota Farmers Union reminds ranchers who lost cattle, pasture and equipment in the fires that the federal Farm Service Agency has resources to help them recover. Information can be found on the USDA website. Meanwhile, the governor has said this could be one of the worst groups of fires in state history when factoring in acreage.

Ritchison suggested it's too early to link this disaster to climate change, noting the state's history with prairie fires, especially this time of year, and added that if there is a silver lining, early warnings to farmers - to pause their fall harvest - appeared to be effective.

"If there's any good in this, I think it could have potentially been even worse considering the wind gusts up to 60, 70 miles per hour, how dry the conditions were, the low relative humidity," he explained.

Globally, scientists say climate change is one of several factors as to why wildfires are becoming more destructive and difficult to contain. It's prompting more calls for state and local governments to become better prepared and alert the public ahead of time. A recent report found that preparation lapses hindered evacuations during the deadly Maui fires in Hawaii last year.

New legislation making its way through the U.S. Senate would conserve more than 730,000 acres of federal public lands in and around Colorado's Gunnison Basin.

Tony Prendergast, a cattle rancher near Crawford, was one of a number of stakeholders who worked for a decade to shape the legislation. He said farmers, ranchers, hunters, anglers, hikers, mountain bikers, wildlife advocates and others realized the lands were being "loved to death," and if nothing was done, everyone would lose.

"We came together to say, 'Well, how can we work together to protect what exists, and protect it well in the future and into future generations?'" Prendergast explained.

The Gunnison Outdoor Resources Protection Act, led by Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., and Sen. John Hickenlooper, D-Colo., taps federal wilderness and special management area protections for important fish and wildlife habitat. The bill would also transfer the Pinecrest Ranch into a sovereign land trust for the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe. Six Colorado counties and 16 advocacy organizations support the measure but some in Congress continue to oppose any increased public lands protections.

The measure would not affect water rights or existing land uses, such as mining or oil and gas leases. But Prendergast pointed out the legislation will give land managers the tools they need to mitigate conflicts after a surge in outdoor recreation.

"New mountain bike trails were appearing all the time," Prendergast noted. "The motorized recreation was spreading out across the landscape. Gates were being left open. There would be conflicts, livestock dogs chasing off mountain bikers."

He added the legislation would also allow land managers to prioritize the needs of wildlife during critical times, such as the end of winter when animals are weak and nutrition levels are at their lowest.

"In an area where wildlife is close to having their young, there may need to be closures from dusk to dawn from human activity, so wildlife can have a break," Prendergast added.


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