House Republicans push new oil drilling to fund road projects

A measure that would allow new oil drilling off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and open Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to energy exploration is headed for a vote in the Republican-controlled House -- but faces a gusher of opposition in the Senate.

The energy legislation, which includes a measure designed to clear the way for the controversial Keystone XL pipeline project, is being considered in connection with the GOP-written $260-billion, five-year House transportation bill. The House, which began considering the energy legislation Wednesday, could complete action on it Thursday.

Republicans say increased domestic energy production would generate jobs and revenue to help pay for traffic-easing projects at a time when gas tax funds have fallen. (Drivers are now motoring around in more fuel-efficient cars.)

But the drilling measures face opposition in the Democratic-controlled Senate, especially from Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), chairwoman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, who hails from a state where offshore drilling has been a hot issue since a devastating a 1969 spill off Santa Barbara.

The White House also has objected to the measures, saying they would take away the Interior secretary’s discretion to determine "which areas are appropriate and safe'' for exploration. The administration also said that the provision to advance the Canada-to-Gulf Coast Keystone XL pipeline would "circumvent a long-standing process for determining whether cross-border pipelines are in the national interest."

Though the legislation faces uncertain prospects, House Republicans, at the very least, hope to use Democratic opposition to expand drilling to highlight differences between the parties -- especially as high gas prices promise to become an election-year issue.

"Prices will only climb higher if we don’t take action now to increase our energy independence and develop our own American energy resources," said Rep. Doc Hastings (R-Wash.), chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee.

The bill would open up, within five years, areas off Southern California, the Eastern Seaboard and Alaska "considered to have the largest undiscovered, technically recoverable oil and gas resources."

It also would permit new energy exploration off Santa Barbara and Ventura counties from existing offshore platforms, expand energy production in the Gulf of Mexico and promote oil shale development in the West.

"Californians have spoken loud and clear. We do not want more drilling off our shores," Rep. Lois Capps (D-Santa Barbara) told her colleagues.

Citing the 1969 spill off Santa Barbara, she added: "We were outraged by the damage to the environment ... to our economy."

Rep. John Garamendi (D-Walnut Creek), noting the bill would exempt new drilling leases from state review, needled "my good friends on the Republican side" for "always talking about states’ rights" but writing a bill that "strips away the right of California to take care of its own coastline."

But a Capps effort to strike the provision to allow new drilling off Santa Barbara and Ventura counties was rejected.

Hastings, in opposing Capps’ effort, said it would "lock away significant resources that belong to the American people."

Critics of the controversial energy measures say they could jeopardize the transportation bill, which faces opposition from the right and the left -- and a White House veto threat -- over a variety of issues.

A coalition of groups, including Taxpayers for Common Sense and the pro-market Competitive Enterprise Institute, sent a letter to lawmakers contending that using drilling revenue to fund transportation projects runs counter to the "user pays" principle for transportation spending. Under that principle, drivers pay for highway construction and maintenance. Critics of the idea also say it relies on speculative revenue to fund transportation projects.

The Senate is considering a $109-billion, two-year measure. Once the chambers act, House-Senate negotiators will attempt to reconcile differences to produce a final bill.

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Photo: A bicyclist looks at an oil-drilling platform off Southern California. Credit: Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times

Keystone XL: State Department cleared of conflict, not ineptness

An internal audit released Thursday cleared the State Department of major missteps and conflicts of interest in its three-year environmental review of the Keystone XL pipeline.

But the report faulted the agency for its lack of expertise in conducting environmental assessments and for not doing enough to consider alternate routes for the Alberta-to-Texas pipeline, issues at the heart of criticisms of the State Department’s review.

Last month, the State Department denied the Canadian company TransCanada its application to build Keystone XL, after determining that a 60-day deadline imposed recently by Congress on the permitting process would not let it complete a thorough review.

The Keystone issue has dragged on since 2008 in part because of criticisms of the State Department’s  environmental impact statement, which the Environmental Protection Agency found severely inadequate in early versions. The project underwent further delay after the State Department ascertained that it needed to consider alternate routes to the pipeline, a point the project’s critics had made for years.

The new report on the environmental review process was issued by the State Department Inspector General’s office, and conducted at the request of several members of Congress, including Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn). The Inspector General’s report punctured arguments by long-time critics that the State Department’s review was tilted in favor of TransCanada, and that its staff built cozy relationships with TransCanada lobbyists.

The report said: “OIG [Office of Inspector General] determined that the department did not violate its role as an unbiased oversight agency.”

But it made several observations and recommendations that support critics’ claims that aspects of the review were problematic.  In response to the congressional request, the Inspector General’s office looked into the relationship between TransCanada and Cardno Entrix, the outside contractor hired by the State Department to conduct the environmental impact statement. Last July, it emerged that Cardno Entrix considered TransCanada a significant client.

In its report, the Inspector General determined that there was no conflict of interest between Cardno Entrix and TransCanada. But it criticized the State Department for not performing “any independent inquiry to verify Cardno Entrix’s organizational conflict of interest statements.”

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Photo: The Keystone XL pipeline would have crossed the Nebraska Sandhills, which overlay the Ogallala aquifer. The aquifer provides water to eight states and is one of the nation's most important agricultural water supplies. Credit: Kim Murphy / Los Angeles Times

Adrenaline junkie plans extreme leap -- from space

You've heard of skydiving, right? How about space-diving?

Felix Baumgartner is an Austrian skydiver, BASE jumper and adrenaline junkie who hopes to set the record this summer for the highest skydive ever.

If all goes well, Baumgartner will use a pressurized capsule attached to a high-altitude helium balloon for a "stratospheric flight" to more than 120,000 feet. "He will then exit the capsule and jump -- protected only by a pressurized 'space' suit and helmet supplied with oxygen -- in an attempt to become the first person to break the speed of sound and reach supersonic speeds in free-fall before parachuting to the ground," according to jump plans.

The only thing not surprising about this endeavor? Extreme sports elixir Red Bull is sponsoring the whole thing.

The jump is slated for later this summer, above Roswell, N.M. Given the complexities of the effort, no exact date is scheduled. Experts will start by looking for a perfect three-day weather window -- clear skies, perfect temperatures, no winds -- and then choose a jump time.

Clear skies are a must, spokeswoman Trish Medalen told The Times, explaining that Baumgartner will need all the visibility he can get to reorient himself on the way down.

Followers of Baumgartner's career know he has a passion for doing the unthinkable. (He flew across the English channel in 2003 using a carbon wing, hitting 220 miles per hour. You can watch that jaw-dropping video here.)

The upcoming mission, called Red Bull Stratos, is being documented online. The mission is also being chronicled by both the BBC and the National Geographic Channel for a feature-length TV film. The project has been underway for quite some time, but has been gaining momentum in recent days with its formal announcement.

If successful -- and really, what could go wrong? -- the jump aims to set several world records. Baumgartner hopes to become the first person to break the speed of sound and achieve Mach 1 in free-fall, estimated at 690 mph; to set the record for a free-fall from highest altitude (120,000 feet); to set the record for longest free-fall time (five minutes 35 seconds or more) and to set the record for highest manned balloon flight.

The Red Bull Stratos team includes international experts in medicine, science, engineering, aviation, and design, as well as a former NASA crew surgeon. But there are two centerpieces.

One is ice-water-in-his-veins Baumgartner. The other is a man who is little-known to the masses, but is a legend in the aviation community: Joe Kittinger.

Kittinger, who might be the reason the word "daredevil" was invented, holds a variety of aviation records, including longest, highest and fastest skydive, from about 19 miles up. A fighter pilot in Vietnam, he was shot down and spent nearly a year in the notorious "Hanoi Hilton"; he was later inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame.

Kittinger's experience is crucial to the success of the jump, folks associated with the effort say, and he's helping to train Baumgartner every step of the way. He is also slated to be the primary point of contact with Baumgartner during his ascent.

The jump's mission statement takes great pains to point out the jump's contributions to the scientific community, including aiding in the development of protocols for exposure to high altitude and high acceleration.

Of all that and more, we have no doubt. But the real reason we're interested and why all the world's eyes will be trained on Baumgartner's planned jump? It's just stinkin' cool.

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Photo: Felix Baumgartner trying out his space suit, specially designed for the jump. Credit: Christian Pondella / Red Bull Content Pool

Alaska snow woes hit weary, starving moose

Alaskans can add one more woe to the problems that come with a long, cold winter full of heavy snow: weary moose.

It's actually gone beyond weary, wildlife advocates say, because moose are starving, perishing on railroad tracks and slamming through automobile windshields along highways where they go to escape the deep snow.

"It's belly deep, shoulder deep for these moose," Gary Olson, head of the Alaska Moose Federation, said in an interview. "The calves are the worst off. We've gotten reports of calves that have just given up, and the ravens are already picking at them, and they're still alive."

The state Department of Fish and Game this week announced approval of a permit for the federation to begin a diversionary feeding program for snow-stranded moose, allowing the clearing of plowed trails and the placing of bags of healthy feed as a respite until spring.

"We are authorizing this extraordinary step due to public safety concerns. We hope the diversionary feeding stations will lure moose away from roads and will reduce moose-vehicle collisions and other dangerous encounters," Tony Kavalok, assistant director of the state Division of Wildlife Conservation, said in a statement.

Snow is now 5 to 6 feet deep in many parts of south central Alaska. Anchorage has received 103 inches of snow so far this year, and parts of the state, notably Prince William Sound, have seen even more.

While moose with their long legs normally can navigate relatively heavy snow, plowing through 5 feet for any length of time is exhausting. Many make their way to highways or railroad tracks, where the snow is cleared, but dangers abound. 

In the Matanuska-Susitna borough north of Anchorage, the average number of vehicle-moose collisions is 270 annually. That number was reached near the end of December, and officials are predicting it could double by the end of winter.

There have been more than 600 moose collisions so far across the entire region down to the Kenai Peninsula, state officials say.

"The problem with your typical moose is the body mass of the animal is far above most cars, so when a moose is struck it has an unfortunate tendency to come in the windshield, and sometimes not to trigger the airbags," Olson said.

"With the increased fuel standards coming out of our capitol in D.C., the cars are getting smaller, and the moose aren't. So it's bad."

Alaska State Troopers spokeswoman Megan Peters said the agency has no records of how many people have been injured in moose collisions this year, but Alaska's history is replete with horror stories.

"I remember a wreck a few years back where all four people in the vehicle were killed after a moose was struck," Peters said in an email.

State authorities also get calls about defiant moose straddling plowed sidewalks at rest stops, defying those who hope to reach the restrooms.

Kavalok told the Los Angeles Times that the diversionary feeding authorized this week is different from the controversial feeding supplements sometimes offered wildlife whose winter ranges have been reduced, such as those put out for elk in Wyoming.

"This is not a supplemental feeding program. This is about getting moose attracted off the [road] corridors where they're concentrating so they're not subject to collision with motor vehicles," he said. "The whole issue is getting them a place to move to, and providing a way for them to get there."

The moose federation is using heavy track vehicles to clear snow pathways for the animals. Next, workers will put lay out feed bags to lure moose into the safety zones.

The organization has also resumed its road-kill salvage program, under which it sends trucks out to pick up carcasses and deliver them to charity groups where they can be safely butchered, avoiding the need, as is normally the case, to set up butcher stations right next to the roads.

Olson said workers are also conducting aerial surveys away from the highways, finding places where moose are stuck in deep snow near trees whose branches they can reach for food.

"What a moose does when it gets in really deep snow is they in essence plow a big circle out with their body, and they're going from tree to tree. Each time they take more of the limbs, and as they reach further up, they keep getting more wood and less bark -- and remember, the nutrients are in the bark. So they can literally perish with a stomach full of wood," Olson said.

"These herded moose are quickly exhausting any food where they are now."

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Photo: A moose forages on a branch in a neighborhood of west Anchorage. Credit: Erik Hill / Anchorage Daily News / Associated Press

Great ball of fire: Fiery meteor wows Oklahoma and Texas

This post has been corrected. Please see note at bottom for details.

Great balls of fire indeed.

Folks from Oklahoma City to Houston reported having seen a fireball shoot across the sky at about 8 p.m. Wednesday, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. Astronomers said the fiery display was likely caused by a meteor or some other space matter hurtling through the atmosphere.

Texas observers blogged about the show and described it as a blue-green object trailing sparks.

In central Texas, Little River-Academy Police Chief Troy Hess said he had just pulled over a driver when he managed to capture video of the fireball from his cruiser.

"It kept getting bigger, and the color kept changing," he told the Austin American-Statesman.

No damage was reported from the fireball.

It was not clear whether any of the remnants fell to earth. Meteor sightings are common, with most burning up in the atmosphere and leaving scant debris, according to astronomers.

Anita Cochran, assistant director of the McDonald Observatory at the University of Texas, told the American-Statesman that Wednesday's fireball was most likely small space debris. 

"The rare case is when it is something big," she said.

"It looked like a sparkler, almost," Lisa Coleman, who lives outside College Station, Texas, told local TV station KBTX.

"There was just this huge meteor-like rock falling across the sky and I thought, 'Wow, that's really huge to be a shooting star,' but it lasted about 12 to 15 seconds and it had a sparkling, flaring tail," Coleman said.

Texas A&M astronomy professor Nicholas Suntzeff told KBTX the meteor was not as huge as it appeared -- probably only about the size of a fist. He attempted to dispel some other meteor myths.

"If they do hit the earth, they are not hot, they are cold. ... There is the fire around them, but ... the meteor itself remains cold," Suntzeff said. "It almost never produces a fire when it hits the earth."

Suntzeff said the type of meteor that residents spotted, likely a bolide meteor, is both bright and rare -- most people will probably never see one again in their lifetime.

"Usually it's just a fraction of a second; here it was like five seconds or so. Again, I've only seen a few of those in my life. I wish I'd seen it," he said.

Another odd fact about this week's fireball: The sighting occurred on the ninth anniversary of the space shuttle Columbia falling to earth over east Texas.

[For the Record, 1:05 p.m., Feb.3: An earlier version of this post -- and its headline -- referred to the meteor as a meteorite. A meteorite is a portion of a meteor that reaches the Earth intact.]

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Video: A Texas police officer's dashboard video camera caught a fiery meteorite streaking across the sky this week. Credit: YouTube

Drought ends for Dallas-Fort Worth area; rest of Texas suffers

The Dallas area has officially moved out of drought, unlike much of the rest of Texas, but long-term projections show that the region could still face problems after one of the driest years on record.

In its posting on Thursday, the U.S. Drought Monitor said the Dallas-Fort Worth area was no longer in an official drought -- for the first time since July. The improvement was caused by recent heavy storms.

“Locally heavy rain across central and eastern drought areas contrasted with unfavorably dry, warm weather elsewhere,” the monitor noted in its commentary. “A soaking rain (2-4 inches, locally more) fell from San Angelo northeastward across Dallas-Fort Worth into southeastern Oklahoma and northwestern Arkansas. A second, smaller but locally heavier band of rain (1-6 inches) was observed from San Antonio and Austin eastward across Houston into Beaumont-Port Arthur. Consequently, widespread reductions in drought were made -- in some case up to 2 categories -- as a result of the heavy rain.”

The Drought Monitor is a map, including animated versions that give perspective over time, compiled by the University of Nebraska's National Drought Mitigation Center in cooperation with the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and other agencies.

Texas and parts of Arkansas, Oklahoma, Louisiana and New Mexico have sustained drought conditions for a year as rainfall sharply fell. Ranchers have had to destroy cattle and prices for hay have jumped -- both signals of possible rising prices for meat-eaters at some point.

While the latest map was good news for the Dallas area, most of Texas still faces drought conditions.

Even in Dallas, reservoirs were below needed levels, and some degree of water conservation was expected to stay in effect for months.

Long term, weather experts predict, precipitation will likely be down and temperatures relatively up -- meaning that spring and summer could bring additional drought-related problems.

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Photo: Cowboy Stony Jones herds cattle outside Dallas in October. The cattle were to be sorted and shipped north until the drought abates. Credit: Molly Hennessy-Fiske / Los Angeles Times

 

Burmese pythons turn Everglades into a buffet

 

The growing number of Burmese pythons in Florida's Everglades has turned the subtropical wilderness area into the reptilian equivalent of a buffet, with important native mammals as the featured dish.

In a study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, researchers report that the giant snakes have put a serious dent in the Everglades’ usual ecosystem, devouring the wide array of animals that live there.

The pythons don’t seem to be especially fussy eaters, chowing down on anything that moves --  raccoons, opossums, deer, birds, even alligators. All have turned up in the stomachs of captured pythons.

The python problem has been growing for decades, scientists believe. A collector probably released some specimens into the wild perhaps 15 to 30 years ago; since then, the snakes, which measure as long as 16 feet, have proliferated.

The latest report is based on nocturnal field surveys. Before 2000, mammals were frequently encountered, but in the newer surveys, covering 2003 to 2011, the number of observed mammals  dropped significantly. There was a 99.3% decrease in raccoon observations; opossum observations were down 98.9%; and bobcat observations were off by 87.5%. Scientists said they failed to detect rabbits at all.

Federal officials recently announced a ban on the import and interstate transport of Burmese pythons and three other nonnative species of snakes, calling them a threat to the environment, especially in Florida.

The impact of the ban was unclear, however, since the number of pythons has grown to the tens of thousands over the years, almost all having being born in southern Florida.

The scientists write in the new report: "Whether mammal populations will remain suppressed
or will rebound remains to be seen. The magnitude of these declines underscores the apparent incredible density of pythons in [Everglades National Park] and justifies intensive investigation into how the addition of novel apex predators affects overall ecosystem processes."

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Photo: In this 2009 photo provided by the National Park Service, a Burmese python is wrapped around an American alligator in Everglades National Park, Fla. Credit:  Lori Oberhofer/National Park Service/Associated Press

 

Obama administration unveils new plan for national forests

New guidelines to manage some 193 million acres of national forest lands will focus on protecting watersheds and wildlife and will require a tougher scientific standard in balancing the competing demands of industry and conservation groups, the Obama administration announced on Thursday.

The guidelines, known as a forest planning rule, were unveiled during a telephone news conference by Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell. The planning rule will replace the old framework, which has been the center of legal battles for years.

Both officials stressed that the new planning rule, which comes almost a year after the draft plan was released, is based on greater collaboration between the often conflicting interests of industry and environmental groups. The proposal is scheduled to be published in the Federal Register on Feb. 3 and could go into effect later this year.

Vilsack and Tidwell said they hope the new rule will face less litigation.

“I think it's a solid rule and done in a collaborative, open and transparent way,” Vilsack said. More than 300,000 comments on the draft proposal were received and evaluated, he said.

The secretary began his presentation by noting that the Obama administration is trying to balance competing interests in how groups want to use the nation’s 155 national forests and associated areas such as grasslands, which the Forest Service administers in more than 40 states.

There must be an emphasis on jobs, as the president outlined this week in his State of the Union message, but the need for timber industry jobs has to be balanced by the recreation use in the rule, officials said.

“The changes use the best available science, along with our expertise, to strengthen the requirement when it comes to recreation,” Tidwell said. “People wanted recreation to be a key part of multiple use.”

The existing rule goes back to 1982 and is long out of date, Vilsack said. Attempts to modernize the rule, however, have been bogged down in the courts as competing interests have fought. At least three revisions of the rules have been struck down since 2000. In 2009, a Bush administration plan was thrown out after environmentalists argued that it ended some previous protections.

The Obama administration did not appeal that ruling, choosing instead to develop a new forest planning rule.

Tidwell stressed that the rule announced Thursday will speed up the time in which individual forest plans can be developed.

The new plans can be done within three or four years rather the seven years typical under the old rule. That faster rate should save money, but will also allow local managers to react faster to conditions such as the need to thin forests to reduce the risk of wildfires.

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Army destroying last chemical weapons in Utah cache

At 2:11 p.m. Wednesday, a tray carrying 23 projectiles packed with mustard agent was removed from a 1,500-degree furnace at a U.S. Army facility in Utah. The two-hour process stripped the mustard agent of its toxicity -- its ability to blister the skin and attack the respiratory system.

And with that, officials celebrated the destruction of the last hard weapons at the Deseret Chemical Depot, which once housed the Army’s largest cache of chemical agents.

By the end of the week, when officials burn the last of the depot’s skin and lung irritant, the Army will have destroyed about 90% of its chemical weapons, the Associated Press reported. It could take until 2021 to rid depots in Colorado and Kentucky of the final 10%.

Although the U.S. will miss an April 29 deadline to dispose of all its chemical weapons, as it vowed to do under an international treaty, it’s further along than other nations that have signed on. Russia, for example, has destroyed about half of its stockpile, the AP said.

Disposing of chemical weapons is a delicate task. For decades, the depot near Tooele, Utah, burned toxins in the open air, the Salt Lake Tribune reported. In the 1970s, chemical incineration was halted while researchers figured out more environmentally sound methods.

Since weapons destruction resumed in 1996, the remote depot has rid itself of 1.1 million munitions and 13,600 tons of chemical agents.

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Photo: Becky Webster positions a container filled with 170 gallons of nerve gas onto a pallet at the Deseret Chemical Depot in Tooele, Utah, in 2001. This week, the depot is destroying the last of its toxins. Credit: Douglas C. Pizac/Associated Press

Tucson zoo fight involves elephants, Bob Barker

Connie is an Asian elephant, Shaba an African one. Nonetheless, they formed a bond, paling around together for three decades at Tucson’s Reid Park Zoo.

So when zoo officials announced plans last year to move Connie to the San Diego Zoo –- without her buddy Shaba -– animal activists were enraged.

The Tucson zoo was planning to bring in a herd of African elephants from San Diego, the Arizona Daily Star reported. Because zoo accreditation standards demand that new herds not mix African and Asian elephants, "due to multiple species differences and possible disease transmission issues," Connie would join other Asian elephants in San Diego.

But local activists Tracy Toland and Jessica Shuman considered the separation cruel. It “defies everything we know about elephants: their intelligence, profoundly deep social bonds (females remain with their mothers for life) and the capacity for deep emotion,” they wrote in the Daily Star.

The women launched a campaign to keep Connie, 44, and Shaba, 31, together and added some celebrity sizzle to the debate. At their behest, former “Price Is Right” host and well-known animal advocate Bob Barker recently offered to contribute $500,000 to send the elephants to a California sanctuary if others could raise matching funds.

This week, Tucson zoo officials reversed course, announcing that Connie and Shaba could both move to San Diego, the Daily Star said. Turns out, San Diego’s Asian elephant herd already has an African member, so Connie and Shaba’s cross-species kinship will fit right in.

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Photo: Some African elephants at San Diego Zoo's Safari Park, shown here in a July photo, are destined for Tucson's Reid Park Zoo. Credit: Irfan Khan/Los Angeles Times