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(AP)

BOISE, Idaho – When lightning ignited a wildfire near Idaho’s Sun Valley in 2007, environmental regulators used monitoring gear to gauge the health effects for those breathing in the Sawtooth Mountains’ smoky, mile-high air.

That equipment sits idle today after the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality was hit by $4 million in spending cuts, a quarter of its budget, since the recession began. Water testing on selenium-laced streams in Idaho’s phosphate mining country also has been cut back, as have mercury monitoring and hazardous waste inspections.

The cuts to environmental programs in Idaho provide a snapshot of a national trend. Conservation programs and environmental regulations have been pared back significantly in many states that have grappled with budget deficits in recent years.

Because environmental programs are just a sliver of most state budgets, the cuts often go without much public notice. More attention is focused on larger reductions in Medicaid, public education or prisons.

A 24-state survey by the Environmental Council of States, the national association of state environmental agency leaders, showed agency budgets decreasing by an average of $12 million in 2011. The Washington, D.C.-based group also says federal grants to help states administer new federal Environmental Protection Agency rules regarding air and water quality also have waned, falling by 5.1 percent since 2004.

Regulators in many states say they are trying to maintain fundamental environmental protections required by the Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act and other federal laws.

“Hopefully, even with all the cuts in place, we’re still doing a good job of protecting that,” said Martin Bauer, Idaho’s air quality administrator.

Yet environmentalists and some state regulators are concerned that the budget cuts imperil programs designed to safeguard public health and safety.

In Texas, Gov. Rick Perry, a Republican presidential candidate, signed a budget that cut funding for the Texas Commission for Environmental Quality more than 30 percent, from $833 million to $565 million. That included reducing air quality inspections and assessments.

Colin Meehan, of the Environmental Defense Fund in Austin, worries that Texas will struggle to meet Clean Air Act obligations.

“We see this as not just a problem from a regulatory standpoint,” he said. “It’s a public health issue.”

While the Texas agency reduced state incentive programs to cut pollutants, those were not required by federal law, agency spokeswoman Andrea Morrow said. The reductions “are only one part of the state’s overall approach” to paring emissions, she said.

In some states where conservatives control the Legislature and the governor’s office, environmentalists have been critical of deep cutbacks to the programs they had fought to implement. Some suggest the severity of the cuts is due as much to a political agenda to reduce government regulations as it is to cope with state budget deficits.

Florida Gov. Rick Scott’s first budget included his veto of a $500,000 water quality study on Lake Okeechobee and some $20 million in cuts to Everglades’ restoration. Scott, a Republican, said the steps were necessary to balance a state budget hard hit by home foreclosures and real estate losses.

But the Republican-dominated Florida Legislature also cut $210 million from property tax revenue intended for local water-management districts that protect Florida’s swamplands. Environmentalists blasted those cuts, complaining they were meant to help Scott fulfill pledge to cut taxes.

“It would have been appropriate for there to have been some level of budget reductions,” Audubon of Florida advocacy director Charles Lee said. “But it’s clear what happened in Tallahassee in 2011 was targeted, ideologically driven, and I would add, mean-spirited.”

Scott insists his administration uncovered overly generous pension payments and questionable purchases by the local water districts. He said water resources deserve protecting, but the agencies that oversee them also must be fiscally responsible.

Budget cuts have affected high-profile programs in several other states, as well.

In South Carolina, they mean health officials will not perform a statewide study of how mercury-tainted fish affect those who eat them. Contaminated fish have been found in some 1,700 miles of the state’s rivers. That state’s Department of Natural Resources’ budget was cut more than 50 percent, dropping to $14 million from $32 million.

The state Department of Environmental Protection in Pennsylvania has seen general fund support slip from $217 million in 2009 to $140 million, levels last seen in 1994.

“This is a silent train wreck that’s happening,” said David Hess, the former secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection. “What these cuts do is cut the capacity and the ability of environmental agencies to do their jobs.”

At best, states will know less about how their air and water quality are faring. At worst, they could become dirtier and more dangerous places to live, Hess said.

Oregon, for example, reduced air pollution monitoring, as the Department of Environmental Quality faces budget cuts through 2013. In North Carolina, lawmakers eliminated a $480,000 mapping program created after a landslide killed five people in 2004, jettisoning the jobs of six geologists who said more maps were needed to help protect Appalachian mountain residents by helping them decide where it is safe to build.

“It’s very shortsighted,” said DJ Gerken, senior attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center in Ashville, N.C. “We’ve had 48 landslide deaths since 1916. What’s changed is the appetite for building in these areas where risks are most abundant.”

In some cases, it’s difficult to know what effect the spending cuts will have over the long term because environmental problems often evolve over time.

When Washington’s Legislature trimmed $30 million, or 27 percent, from the state Department of Fish and Wildlife’s budget, three employees who had been diving in the Puget Sound to hunt down invasive sea squirts lost their jobs.

The gelatinous invaders, known as tunicates, form a goopy mat on the sea floor, raising fears that they will hurt the shellfish industry, as they have in eastern Canada.

“We are basically addressing tunicates on an emergency basis only,” said Allen Pleus, Washington state’s aquatic invasive species coordinator.

While the state’s oyster growers will not rule out the potential for future problems caused by the sea squirts, they say they do not see an immediate threat to their livelihoods.

“There isn’t any place I’m aware of that the tunicates are causing harm on the shellfish farms,” said Bill Dewey, of Taylor Shellfish Farms in Shelton, Wash.

Elsewhere, budget cuts to invasive species programs have caused more alarm.

The Hawaii Invasive Species Council, a main player in that state’s fight against non-native plants and animals, saw its budget cut by more than half to $1.8 million.

Fearing “a collapse of our inspection capacity,” spokeswoman Deborah Ward said her agency redirected 40 percent of its remaining money to preserve inspections that help keep invasive pests such as brown tree snakes from hitchhiking their way into the islands from Guam. Hawaii has no native snakes, so experts fears their arrival could decimate native bird species.

As the money was shifted, however, the state cut back on field crews who targeted invasive species already on the islands. Those include pigs, wild goats and sheep that can decimate an ecosystem full of plants that evolved without natural protections, like thorns.

“They’re like bonbons for pigs,” Christy Martin, a spokeswoman for the Coordinating Group on Alien Pest Species in Honolulu, said of the state’s native plants. “If there’s nobody out there actually doing the work, you get astronomical reproduction. We have a year-round breeding season here, so everything goes crazy, and you lose ground.”

TIMELINE: By Oregonian

1991/92: Federal government lists Snake River sockeye as an endangered species, others as threatened.

1992: NOAA’s first biological opinion says dams will not jeopardize endangered or threatened fish; plan immediately challenged in court.

1994: U.S. District Judge Malcolm Marsh strikes down plan.

1995: New biological opinion says dams jeopardize salmon and steelhead; standards proposed for spill, flow, reservoir levels and barging juvenile fish downstream.

1996: Environmental, fishing groups and Oregon sue, saying jeopardy standard isn’t enough; Oregon argues for greater river flows.

1997: Marsh OKs 1995 plan; ruling appealed.

1998: Upper Columbia steelhead listed as endangered; Snake River and lower Columbia steelhead listed as threatened.

1999: Appeals court upholds Marsh’s ruling and 1995 plan; six more Columbia basin salmon and steelhead listed as endangered or threatened.

2000: With a nine-agency federal caucus, NOAA releases plan focused on hydropower, habitat, hatcheries and harvests for 10 years.

2001: National Wildlife Federation, fishing and conservation groups challenge 2000 plan; Oregon and four Native tribes join.

2003: Judge James A. Redden takes case, rejects NOAA’s plan, saying it doesn’t protect salmon harmed by dams.

2004: New NOAA plan adjusts spill, says dams do not threaten salmon survival.

2005: Redden throws out plan for violating the Endangered Species Act and overlooking dams’ risk, orders summer spill at three Snake dams and one Columbia dam.

2008: NOAA issues another biological opinion; Redden insists it falls short and says time may be running out before dams are found to violate law and courts assume their operation; he orders consideration of removing four dams on the lower Snake.

2008: Federal agencies, five tribes and two states sign 10-year outline of fish and habitat projects — the fish accords — funded by the Bonneville Power Administration. NOAA releases three biological opinions; another appeal says latest plans are similar to 2000-04 plans.

2010: NOAA’s supplemental opinion incorporates 2008 plan; supporters and plaintiffs file briefs through February 2011.

2011: May 9 hearing

IN THE COURTROOM
The long-running lawsuit over federal dams’ effect on fish in the Columbia and Snake rivers might not have a cast of thousands. But it’s close:

James A. Redden: Federal judge since 1980 after serving as a Democrat in the Oregon Legislature and as state attorney general and treasurer.

NOAA Fisheries Service: Headed by former Oregon State professor Jane Lubchenco. Has seen its Columbia basin “biological opinions” steadily challenged in court. The latest includes “the most sophisticated salmon recovery program we have on the books,” says Will Stelle, Northwest regional director.

Bonneville Power Administration: Sells electricity from the dams and holds the purse strings for much research and habitat restoration. The latest 10-year plan boosts habitat work and fish survival, Administrator Steve Wright says, “even if it takes a dramatic increase in spending to get there.”

Army Corps of Engineers: Built and operates most federal dams. The plan’s performance standards “take us way beyond the ‘trust me’ stage,” says Brig. Gen. John McMahon, commander of the Northwestern Division. “There is accountability.”
Native American Nations: The Colville, Umatilla, Warm Springs and Yakama dropped opposition to the plan after 2008 accords with the government locked in $900 million for tribal fish programs for 10 years. The Nez Perce, whose traditional fishing grounds are behind the dams, rejected the deal.

Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana: Oregon is the last state standing against the plan. Ed Bowles, fish division director for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, says it “steps backward” on spill to benefit fish. The three other states say Oregon is second-guessing NOAA and downplaying wild fish gains in the past decade.

Fishing groups: Seven oppose the plan, including the Northwest Sport Fishing Industry Association. Liz Hamilton, executive director, says the new plan differs little from rejected ones: “We’re hoping the judge is as impatient as we are.”

Conservation groups: The National Wildlife Federation joins a half-dozen others opposing the plan. Steve Mashuda, an Earthjustice attorney, says it “maintains species at a population level that is so low that any random or not so random event — poor ocean conditions, a two-year drought, forest fires — could cause them to wink out.”

Farmers, utilities, ports: Businesses that rely on the dams for water, power and barging say the plan goes far enough. The government, tribes and businesses are cooperating as never before, says Terry Flores, executive director of Northwest River Partners. The alternative: “Default to another 20 years of litigation.”

The beautiful earth view from the International Space Station.

(WASHINGTON, D.C.)-Congressman Raúl Labrador (ID-01) announced today at a press conference in front of the U.S. Capitol that he has co-sponsored the “Energy Freedom and Economic Prosperity Act,” legislation that if enacted would permanently end all taxpayer subsidies for the energy industry.

The bill, sponsored by Congressman Mike Pompeo (KS-04), would fully repeal the following subsidies:

·         Plug-in electric and fuel cell vehicles.

·         Alternative fuel and alternative fuel mixtures.

·         Cellulosic Biofuel Producer Credit.

·         Alternative fuel infrastructure.

·         Production Tax Credit for electricity produced from renewable sources, including wind, biomass and hydropower.

·         Investment Tax Credit for equipment powered by solar, fuel cells, geothermal or other specified renewable resources.

·         Enhanced oil recovery credit, and the credit for producing oil and gas from marginal wells.

In addition to saving taxpayers $90 billion in energy tax subsidies over the next 10 years, this legislation is revenue neutral, as it provides for a comparable reduction in the corporate tax rate for every dollar generated from the tax credit repeals.

“Instead of America’s hardworking taxpayers footing the bill for billions of dollars in government subsidies, our legislation would empower the free market to determine which forms of energy our families and businesses use each and every day,” Congressman Labrador said. “The ‘Energy Freedom and Prosperity Act’ is good for families. It’s good for businesses. It’s good for taxpayers. And it’s a step in the right direction to scale back the size and scope of government in hopes of beginning to phase out its influence in our markets and our lives.”

“Energy Freedom and Economic Prosperity Act,” or EFEPA, is supported by Americans for Prosperity, Americans for Tax Reform, Citizens Against Government Waste, Club for Growth, Freedom Action of the Competitive Enterprise Institute and Heritage Action.

“I’m gratified that Mr. Hill and his family weren’t hurt, that he’s been cleared of criminal charges, and that they will avoid the ordeal of a federal trial.  But the fact remains that this is another unfortunate and unnecessary example of how badly the Endangered Species Act is flawed and needs to be fixed. The people of Idaho and our own congressional delegation members get that. It’s time for Congress to join us in recognizing that protecting property as well as lives needs to be a much bigger part of the equation if efforts to recover species are going to work in the West.”

Click to view slideshow.By mid-August, the evening and morning temperatures at Stanley, Idaho hover around 31 degrees.  At least that’s what the built in temperature gauge on the green Idaho Public Television Tahoe told us.  The air temperature was colder than the water in the nearby Salmon River and Redfish Lake causing an early morning mist on the water surface.

Two photographers with Idaho Public Television and I are here to photograph the beautiful and often elusive Idaho Sockeye Salmon for a future Outdoor Idaho set to air in 2012.  We brought two HD underwater video cameras and two standard HD video cameras to cover all angles during the two days we were scheduled to shoot.

Sockeye Salmon were on the brink of extinction just twenty years ago when just one returned to the natural spawning grounds.  On this day there are 8 bright red Sockeye swimming just a quarter mile from Redfish Lake inside the Sawtooth National Recreation area.  Overnight they would swim into a trap set by Idaho Fish and Game so they can track, monitor, and continue an effort to preserve the genetics of this federally protected species.

Mike Peterson with Idaho Fish and Game said most people believe his agency is working to recover Sockeye but says so far they have only been working on preserving the genetics.  He hopes in a few years they can transition to a recovery mission and ultimately build a hatchery here at 6,547 feet elevation.

In order to capture video of the Sockeye, we planted one of the two underwater cameras on the bottom of the stream to catch the salmon as they passed over the camera on their way upstream.  The second underwater camera was attached to a long painter’s pole so photographer Pat Metzler could follow their movements from the side and above.  The water here is amazingly clear; we could easily see the streambed that’s only about 2 feet deep.

Photographer Jay Krajic and I shot from above the water using polarized lenses to make the pictures just as clear as one can get.  This is an all High Definition shoot using both tapes and newer memory cards to store the footage.  At night we would back up the memory cards on a laptop computer to store and view the footage.  One difficulty with shooting with these underwater cameras is not being able to see what we are shooting.  You hope it’s getting the job done but we wouldn’t know until the end of the shoot.  We did miss a few shots because salmon kept running into the camera or the camera would run out of battery.

Mike Peterson called the Idaho Sockeye Salmon the superman of fish because it swims to higher elevation, longer distance and the furthest south of any migrating fish in the Northwest.  Despite the long days and getting cold and wet, this is an important story to tell.  By the end we have more than 7 hours of footage to sort through.   What a day!

The study, published Aug. 15 in the peer-reviewed science journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, predicts native cutthroat throughout the West could decline by as much as 58 percent, while introduced brook trout could decline by as much as 77 percent. Rainbow and brown trout populations, according to the study, would also decline by an estimated 35 percent and 48 percent respectively.

The study notes that the decline of cutthroat trout is “of particular significance,” because cutthroats are the only trout native to much of the West and a keystone species in the Rocky Mountain ecosystem.

“The study advances our understanding of climate change impacts by looking beyond temperature increases to the role of flooding and interactions between species,” said TU’s Dr. Seth Wenger, the paper’s lead author. “The study also is notable in scope, using data from nearly 10,000 sites throughout the western United States.”

Wenger was quick to point out that, while the predictions are indeed dire, there is hope. By restoring and reconnecting coldwater drainages and by protecting existing healthy habitat largely located on public lands in the West, some of the decline in trout populations can likely be avoided.

“Essentially, Trout Unlimited is already protecting remaining strongholds and restoring degraded habitat – exactly the kind of things that need to be done to reduce the impact of a changing climate on coldwater fisheries in the West,” Wenger said.

“This report is a wake-up call,” said Chris Wood, the president and CEO of Trout Unlimited. “The good news is that we’re already working to protect high-quality trout habitat, such as backcountry roadless areas on national forests. We’re reconnecting tributaries to mainstem rivers, and we’re restoring degraded habitat. It is imperative that we accelerate the scope and the pace of that work if we are to have healthy trout populations and the irreplaceable fishing opportunities they provide through this century.”

Wenger and his fellow researchers used an “ensemble” of climate models to arrive at the study’s findings. Some models predicted more warming than others, but under even the most “optimistic” model, cutthroat trout populations in the West could decline by 33 percent. Scientists note that cutthroat trout populations are already in trouble—some subspecies have been removed from 90 percent of their historic native range and are listed under the Endangered Species Act. Declines from a changing climate would impact native cutthroat trout beyond the impacts they’ve already suffered.

“This study validates the work TU is doing in the West and all across the country to protect, reconnect, restore, and sustain trout habitat,” Wood continued. It also reinforces the danger in congressional proposals that would remove protection from backcountry roadless areas and cut funding for state and federal natural resource agencies.”

The study can be read in its entirety online at the TU homepage, or at Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences website when it publishes Aug. 15.

The research was funded by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, the U.S. Geological Survey and the U.S. Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station.

Download the report here.

Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress.

BOISE, Idaho — The Atlanta based 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Friday that the individual mandate of the Obama Health Care Act is unconstitutional.  The decision sides with the argument raised by 26 states including Idaho that the individual mandate that requires people to enter into contracts with private insurance companies.  The three justices on the panel lead by Chief Judge Joel Dubina said that provision “exceeds Congress enumerated commerce power”.

The Judges said in the 304-page ruling that the plaintiffs claim all of the health care act is unconstitutional while the defendant’s or federal government claims the entire act is constitutional.  They explain they broke their decision into the 5-parts of the health care act including:

• The Insurance Industry Reforms
• The new state-run exchanges
• The individual mandate
• The employer Penalties
• Medicaid Expansion

After looking at the individual parts of the bill, they have concluded that portions of the bill are constitutional including the Medicaid Expansion portion.  But they have determined the Individual Mandate is not.  By this, the panel explains that any federal law that forces states to enact laws that uphold a federal law is in violation of the 10th Amendment.

“The Federal Government may
neither issue directives requiring the States to address particular problems, nor
command the States’ officers, or those of their political subdivisions, to administer or
enforce a federal regulatory program.”

Instead of following Judge Roger Vinson’s ruling in the Florida District Court that found the entire act as unconstitutional.  The panel found only the Individual Mandate unconstitutional and thus sever-able.  But they also say in the opinion that there lacks any real precedent that would give them a clear path to follow in this case “it may be that in time the law will come to breathe practical life into the Tenth Amendment’s reservation of power to the people, but that day has not yet arrived.”

“it may be that in time the law will come to breathe practical life into the Tenth Amendment’s reservation of power to the people, but that day has not yet arrived.”

So what does this mean?  This is the highest court that has addressed the constitutionality of the health care act so far.  The federal defendants have the ability to appeal now to the highest court in the land which is the U.S. Supreme Court.  It’s also possible the defendants could re-tool the individual mandate portion to patch the problems raised by the court or even abandon that portion.

Read the Findings here.

The 26 state plaintiffs are Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho,
Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, North
Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Washington,
Wisconsin, and Wyoming.