Environmentalist organizations have once again petitioned the EPA to ban ammunition using lead.

Environmentalist organizations have once again petitioned the EPA to ban ammunition using lead.

The ban sought by environmental groups would not apply to ammunition used by law enforcement and the military. In addition to bullets and pellets used in hunting and recreational activity like range shooting, the petition seeks to limit the use of the metal in fishing tackle and weights.

Government agencies get a pass, but not private gun ranges, eh? These petty dictators have really only one goal, and it has nothing to do with protecting wildlife. They want to prevent private citizens from having access to ammunition, which in turn will prevent them from having access to guns.

A federal appeals court has rejected a lawsuit from various environmental groups that was trying to overturn Congressional legislation that removed the wolf from the endangered species list.

A federal appeals court has rejected a lawsuit from various environmental groups that was trying to overturn Congressional legislation that removed the wolf from the endangered species list.

The ruling from a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Congress had the right to intervene when it stripped protections from wolves last spring.

Lawmakers stepped in after court rulings kept wolves on the endangered list for years after they reached recovery goals. [emphasis mine]

I emphasis the last sentence because it once again illustrates how completely irrelevant reality is to these environmental laws and to those who defend them.

Fakegate: Global warmists try to hide their decline

Fakegate: Global warmists try to hide their decline.

Fakegate shows us, with the precision of a scientific experiment, several key truths about the global warming movement. It shows that most warmists, both the scientists and the journalists, will embrace any claim that seems to bolster their cause, without bothering to check the facts or subject them to rigorous investigation. (Anthony Watts notes how few journalists bothered to contact him before reporting the claims about him that are made in the fake memo.) And it shows us that warmists like Gleick have no compunction about falsifying information to promote their agenda, and that many other warmists are willing to serve as accomplices after the fact, excusing Gleick’s fraud on the grounds that he was acting in a “noble cause.” It shows us that “hide the decline” dishonesty is a deeply ingrained part of the corporate culture of the global warming movement.

Gleick wasn’t just an obscure, rogue operator in the climate debate. Before his exposure, his stock in trade was lecturing on “scientific integrity,” and until a few days ago he was the chairman of the American Geophysical Union’s Task Force on Scientific Ethics. So this scandal goes to the very top of the global warming establishment, and it compels honest observers to ask: if the warmists were willing to deceive us on this, what else have they been deceiving us about?

Between Climategate and Fakegate, the warmist establishment now has zero credibility, and we must call all of their claims into question. [emphasis mine]

And in related news, the EPA has scrubbed its grants database of any mention of the grants it had awarded to Peter Gleick and the institute he heads.

“the EPA touches on the lives of every single American every single day.”

Obama today: “The EPA touches on the lives of every single American every single day.”

Truer words were never spoken, but not in the way the President intended. He was speaking to a gathering of EPA employees in Washington, DC, and was praising them for their work. To the rest of the nation, however, the EPA’s effort is increasingly seen as a terrible burden that is squelching both the economy and the freedom of Americans.

The Supreme Court looks hard at the EPA and doesn’t like what it sees

The Supreme Court looks hard at the EPA and doesn’t like what it sees.

This case is about the EPA’s ongoing effort to steal property from private landowners.

The Sacketts wanted to build a home on a 0.63-acre lot near Priest Lake in the Idaho panhandle that they bought for $23,000. But after three days of bringing in fill dirt and preparing for construction in 2007, officials from the EPA and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers ordered the activity stopped and said they suspected the land contained wetlands.

Months later, the agency sent the Sacketts a “compliance order” that said the land must be restored as a wetlands before the couple could apply for a building permit. The government acknowledged Monday that fines for failure to comply with the orders could be as much as $75,000 a day.

Top 10 Worst Federal Rules of 2011

The top ten worst federal rules of 2011.

All are crippling, but this one is plain stupid:

4. The Equine Equality Rule. As of March 15 (the Ides of March, no less), hotels, restaurants, airlines, and the like became obliged to modify “policies, practices, or procedures” to accommodate miniature horses as service animals. According to the Department of Justice, which administers the rule, miniature horses are a “viable alternative” to dogs for individuals with allergies or for observant Muslims and others whose religious beliefs preclude canine accompaniment.

Budget deal cuts EPA by three percent

Another science budget update from Nature states that the budget deal will cut EPA by three percent.

This cut reduces EPA’s budget from its 2011 numbers by about $400 million. However, the agency’s total 2012 budget of $8.4 billion is still $1 billion more than it got in 2008, hardly what I’d call a draconian cut.

Once again, the inability of Congress to seriously face the deficit issue threatens to eventually destroy the U.S.’s ability to do any science. A bankrupt nation can’t do much but feed itself, as the scientists in the Soviet Union learned back in the 1990s.

The battle in Congress of the EPA’s effort to regulate dust

The battle in Congress over the EPA’s effort to regulate dust.

Not surprisingly, the Democrats all support the EPA’s effort, while there are Republicans who oppose. What I consider significant is that more than a hundred agricultural organizations oppose the regulations.

One of the agricultural groups that is supporting the bill [to block the EPA regulations], the National Association of Wheat Growers (NAWG), wrote a letter to the committee last month, saying that a slight raise in overall particulate matter standards would require the EPA to regulate farm dirt under the current standards. “And, for what purpose? Scientific studies have never shown rural dust to be a health concern at ambient levels,” said the NAWG letter. [emphasis mine]

Louisiana Man Wins $1.7 Million From EPA For Malicious Prosecution

The abuse of power: A Louisiana man has won a $1.7 million lawsuit from the EPA for malicious prosecution.

The judge wrote that [government prosecutor Keith] Phillips, “set out with intent and reckless and callous disregard for anyone’s rights other than his own, and reckless disregard for the processes and power which had been bestowed on him, to effectively destroy another man’s life.” Furthermore, Judge Doherty railed against the complete absence of evidence against Mr. Vidrine and ordered the U.S. government to pay Mr. Vidrine $127,000 in defense fees, $50,000 in lost income, and $900,000 in loss of earning capacity.

EPA arbitrarily declares a couple’s property a wetland

We’re here to help you: The EPA arbitrarily declared a couple’s property a wetland and then threatened them with heavy fines if they didn’t restore the property to its pristine state.

The plot is not connected either to the lake or a nearby creek, though Mike Sackett, 45, says part of the land got “wet” at times in the spring. “We sued because we wanted our day in court to say, ‘This is not a wetland,’ ” he says.

The Sackett’s case is now before the Supreme Court.

EPA approves 15% ethanol gasoline despite the risk of engine damage

We’re here to help you: The EPA has approved a warning label for its approval of 15% ethanol gasoline.

EPA says tests show E15 won’t harm 2001 and newer vehicles, which have hoses and gaskets and seals specially designed to resist corrosive ethanol. But using E15 fuel in older vehicles or in power equipment such as mowers, chainsaws and boats, can cause damage and now is literally a federal offense.

Why the Endangered Species act doesn’t work

Why the Endangered Species Act doesn’t work.

[R]adical green groups . . . [are] engaged in an industry whose waste products are fish and wildlife. You and I are a major source of revenue for that industry. The Interior Department must respond within 90 days to petitions to list species under the Endangered Species Act. Otherwise, petitioners like the Center for Biological Diversity get to sue and collect attorney fees from the Justice Department.

And this:

Amos Eno runs the hugely successful Yarmouth, Maine-based Resources First Foundation, an outfit that, among other things, assists ranchers who want to restore native ecosystems. Earlier, he worked at Interior’s Endangered Species Office, crafting amendments to strengthen the law, then went on to direct the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. Eno figures the feds could “recover and delist three dozen species” with the resources they spend responding to the Center for Biological Diversity’s litigation.

“The amount of money [Center for Biological Diversity] makes suing is just obscene,” he told me. “They’re one of the reasons the Endangered Species Act has become so dysfunctional. They deserve the designation of eco-criminals.”

A bureaucratic fight stalls oil drilling in Alaska

Government in action: A bureaucratic fight stalls an oil drill project in Alaska.

The project has put two federal agencies at odds. The Environmental Protection Agency has maintained that a roadless alternative, which would route the pipeline under the Nigliq Channel and use an airstrip instead of a road and bridge, would be less damaging to the reserve’s environment. The Interior Department backs Conoco’s proposal as environmentally preferable.

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