No it doesn’t. In one case in history, when an entire truckload of the concentrate drained into a stream after the truck drove off the road and over the embankment, a few fish were killed.

Never in history is there one single case of even a single fish being killed by aerially-applied fire retardant.

Never ever ever. It’s a total LIE that fire retardant kills fish.

What kills fish is fire (and firebombing).

Wait, you say, how can fire kill a fish under the water?

Because forest fires burn so hot they sometimes boil streams or at least raise the temperature of the water enough to kill fish.

That’s right, sports fans. Fires burn right to the water’s edge. This may shock you, but riparian vegetation isn’t fireproof!

The new rule prohibits fire retardant in so-called riparian zones 300 feet on either side of streams. So that vegetation will burn and the streams will boil.

Fire also creates ash, which when wet becomes lye, and gets into the water and raises the pH. Fire turns fresh water alkaline via the ash, and that kills fish.

Fire also burns the humus layer down to mineral soil, which then erodes into streams — killing fish by reducing the dissolved oxygen and coating fish gills so the fish strangulate.

The fishing is nil after a forest fire. Nobody goes into a burn zone to catch fish, because the fish are dead. The plaintiffs in the lawsuit claimed that fire retardant use ruined their fishing experience (no kidding, it’s in the plea) but the opposite is true — fire kills fish, fire retardant saves them.

Which is all well known to the USFS, but they are on a mission to incinerate America’s forests, and so they kowtowed to the fire retardant LIE.

There was nothing scientific about the fire retardant decision. It was pure politics — and arson politics at that. They are arsonists in a big way. Million-acre arsonists. Arsonists who are burning the Federal Estate with glee and abandon.

Which is why the USFS shuns fire retardant and embraces napalm as the their treatment of choice for our forests.

What ought to be banned in the US Forest Service. Keep them by law no nearer than 30 miles from any public forestland. Dump retardant on them if they get any closer.

A geomagnetic reversal is a change in the Earth’s magnetic field such that the positions of magnetic north and magnetic south are interchanged. The Earth’s field has alternated between periods of normal polarity, in which the direction of the field was the same as the present direction, and reverse polarity, in which the field was the opposite.

The geologic periods between polarity reversals are called chrons and subchrons [here].

Chrons are long periods during which the magnetic field remained oriented in one direction for most of the duration of the chron. The current chron, called the “Brunhes normal”, began 780,000 years ago. The immediate prior chron was the “Matuyama reverse”. … Most chrons are interrupted by shorter periods, called subchrons, during which the field flips to the opposite of the dominant orientation during the longer parent chron.

The Jaramillo Normal Subchron was a “normal” period of about 40,000 years from approximately 1.1 million years to 970,000 years ago [here].

Our mid-Pleistocene 40Ar/39Ar age recalibration of the geomagnetic polarity timescale is nearly in accord with the oxygen isotope, climate record calibration of the astronomical timescale proposed by Johnson (1982) and Shackleton et al. (1990). 40Ar/39Ar ages of a normally magnetized rhyolite dome in the Valles caldera, northern Mexico, yielded a weighted-mean age of 1.004 ± 0.019 Ma. A K-Ar age of 0.909 ± 0.019 Ma for this rock by Doell and Dalrymple (1966) was the linchpin for the recognition and calibration of the Jaramillo Normal Subchron (JNS). Other 40Ar/39Ar ages from the Valles caldera and 40Ar/39Ar ages of Ivory Coast tektites indicate that the JNS began at about 1.11 Ma and ended before 0.92 Ma, probably near 0.97 Ma.

Why is that important? Because depositions of iron-bearing sediments align with the Earth’s magnetic field and leave a permanent record of the polarity, known as post-depositional detrital remanent magnetization (pDRM) [here]. And those deposits can then be dated to within their particular chron or subchron.

In a recent paper [here]:

Francesco Berna, Paul Goldberg, Liora Kolska Horwitz, James Brink, Sharon Holt, Marion Bamford, and Michael Chazan (2012) Microstratigraphic evidence of in situ fire in the Acheulean strata of Wonderwerk Cave, Northern Cape province, South Africa.

researchers discovered burned bone fragments and ashed plant remains inside a cave, and dated the silty aggregates that enclosed them to the Jaramillo Subchron.

The ashed plant remains are situated in the middle of archaeological stratum 10, which shows a normal magnetic orientation and is bracketed between two cosmogenic burial ages of 1.27 ± 0.19 Ma and 0.98 ± 0.19 Ma. The Normal event can therefore be assigned to the Jaramillo subchron (1.07–0.99 Ma), a time range that fits with current understanding of the chronological position of the early Acheulean within the ESA [Earlier Stone Age] in Southern Africa.

The Acheulean is a cultural era or tradition typified by special types of worked tools [here].

[The Acheulean] was the dominant technology for the vast majority of human history starting more than one million years ago. Their distinctive oval and pear-shaped handaxes have been found over a wide area and some examples attained a very high level of sophistication suggesting that the roots of human art, economy and social organisation arose as a result of their development.

“They” being our ancestors, Homo erectus [here].

What does all this mean? It means that proto-humans were cooking with fire at least 1,000,000 years ago. The Abstract of the Berna et al paper:

The ability to control fire was a crucial turning point in human evolution, but the question when hominins first developed this ability still remains. Here we show that micromorphological and Fourier transform infrared microspectroscopy (mFTIR) analyses of intact sediments at the site of Wonderwerk Cave, Northern Cape province, South Africa, provide unambiguous evidence—in the form of burned bone and ashed plant remains—that burning took place in the cave during the early Acheulean occupation, approximately 1.0 Ma. To the best of our knowledge, this is the earliest secure evidence for burning in an archaeological context.

In Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human [here] primatologist Richard Wrangham theorizes that Homo erectus was physiologically adapted to eating cooked food, and that adaptation dates to 1.8 million years ago. If proto-people could cook, if indeed cooking was a biological imperative, then ipso facto proto-people were capable of controlling fire.

And it follows that if our ancestors could cook with fire, they were certainly capable of setting fire to their environs.

Anthropogenic burning is a technology at least as old as Acheulean handaxes. Strong evidence from Wonderwerk Cave dates control of fire to 1,000,000 years ago, during the Jaramillo Subchron.

Hominids have been burning their landscapes for at least that long.

By the time the First People arrived in North America (15,000+ years ago), they had a million years of burning technology experience and practice under their belts.

If someday some fool questions you as to whether the Indians burned Oregon with skill and adroitness (as happened to me recently, by a college professor no less) you can tell him (as I did) that a million years of practice makes perfect.

Using funny money printed by the Fed (because the U.S. Government is bankrupt) President Obomber plans to acquire 27 new tracts of private land of unspecified acres for napalming.

The press release is [here]. A quote:

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack today announced the U.S. Forest Service will dedicate $40.6 million for 27 exceptional land acquisition projects in 15 states that will help safeguard clean water, provide recreational access, preserve wildlife habitat, enhance scenic vistas and protect historic and wilderness areas.

Projects funded are in Alaska, California, Colorado, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Tennessee, Utah and Washington. Projects range from protecting nationally significant lands from threat of residential development in North Carolina to help pave the way to help purchase the largest single parcel of privately held land with the Kootznoowoo Wilderness on the Tongass National Forest in Alaska.

“In keeping with the Obama Administration’s America’s Great Outdoors conservation initiative, USDA is committed to conserving and restoring our forests and bringing jobs to rural America,” said Vilsack. “Through our partnerships with states, communities, tribes and others, it is vital that we step up our efforts to safeguard our country’s natural resources.”

Don’t be fooled by the “safeguard” talk. Most of the tracts selected have already been incinerated in massive Federal Let It Burn fires. The rest are slated for firebombing in the near future.

Obomber’s “Death To America” program is well underway.

So the screaming headline turned out to be another stinky cheese piece of yellow journalism, sensationalized nothing.

What the Ogreonian never reported, to this very day, is that last summer the US Forest Service firebombed 10,000 acres at Santiam Pass, and incinerated 100,000 birds (assuming there were 10 birds per acre when the firebombs hit).

It wasn’t avian cholera; it was a firestorm induced by Federal government functionaries in attack helicopters.

That’s a disaster the Ogreonian doesn’t want you to know about. Federal firebombing of green, old-growth spotted owl nesting stands does not comport with their movie, the illusional delusional worldview they are attempting to inculcate into their readers.

The truth conflicts with the propaganda, so let’s just pretend it never happened.

The dead-tree-press is guilty of killing a lot more than birds.

In response to a lawsuit brought by the Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics, and the subsequent ruling by Federal Judge Donald Molloy [here], Thomas Tidwell, Chief, USDA Forest Service decided last December to ban the use of fire retardant on 30 percent of USFS lands.

The Nationwide Aerial Application of Fire Retardant on National Forest System Land — Record of Decision is [here]. Some quotes:

Aerial retardant drops are not allowed in mapped avoidance areas for threatened, endangered, proposed, candidate or sensitive (TEPCS) species or in waterways. …

Some species and habitats require that only water be used to protect their habitat and populations; these habitats and populations have been mapped as avoidance areas. Incident commanders and pilots are required to avoid aerial application of fire retardant in avoidance areas for TEPCS species or within the 300-foot (or larger) buffers on either side of waterways. …

When approaching an avoidance area mapped for TEPCS species, waterway, or riparian vegetation visible to the pilot, the pilot will terminate the application of retardant approximately 300 feet before reaching the mapped avoidance area or waterway. …

[T]he Proposed Action prescribed a 300-foot buffer area between retardant application and surface waters on national forests, excluding about 30 percent of NFS lands from aerially delivered retardant use. …

In Western Oregon, a 300-foot buffer on either side of streams encompasses about 85 percent of the land base (because it’s wet here and we have lots of streams).

So the USFS has effectively banned the use of fire retardant on the most productive lands in the National Forest System.

What they didn’t ban was the use of aerially applied incendiaries, such as were used in Western Oregon last summer to catastrophically burn (100 percent mortality) green, old-growth, spotted owl habitat [here].

Fire retardant is a phosphorus-nitrogen-water based slurry that puts fires out. It has no effect on plants or animals, except to very slightly fertilize the soil. The effect is so slight it cannot be measured. Oh yes, another effect of fire retardant is to save the plants and animals from incineration and immolation.

Fire retardant was banned. In place of fire retardant the USFS now uses explosive chemicals encased in polyacrylate “Ping Pong balls” and ejected by AH-64 Apache, UH-60 Black Hawk, and other combat-ready attack helicopters [here].

The chemicals of choice are glycerin (1,2,3-propanetriol) oxidized by potassium permanganate [here].

14KMnO4 + 4C3H5(OH)3 –> 7K2CO3 + 7Mn2O3 + 5CO2 + 16H2O

Explosive chemicals shot from helicopters do not put the fire out; they expand fires by aerially igniting forest canopies and inducing fire storms. The effect is similar to napalm, killing plants, animals, and people [here].

It is unlikely that radical anti-forest, pro-holocaust groups like FSEEE will be suing to stop the use of potassium permanganate-glycerin Ping Pong balls dropped on forests by attack helicopters, because they think the best thing to do to America’s forests is to burn them to the ground.

The US Forest Service agrees. Their de facto mission is to commit total destruction to America’s forests.

Burn, baby, burn.

Jim writes: As I examine the relationships between various levels of government, I see a common thread: power arising to the highest or most powerful entity with a corresponding decrease in accountability and effectiveness due to what I will call a lack of ownership by those working at the higher levels of the government.

One of the biggest impediments to what I call “Devolution” is an desire by too many conservatives to go to Washington or Salem with a belief that that Washington or Salem can be made to work more efficiently. It is a political oxymoron. The question is not whether those places can be made to work more efficiently but rather should they even be doing the things they do?

Do we really need the State parks in Tillamook County to be managed by Salem? Do we need Rest Areas on Hwy 101 in Tillamook to be managed by ODOT. Do we need ODFW to run hatcheries to stock our rivers? Do really expect an administrator in Salem will ever have the knowledge of a State Forest that a local Forester who walks it every day has.

Until we can convince the public that the real issue is about what level of government should provide our necessary agreed upon services, I am afraid we will be forever hearing both parties say they can run Big Government better.

*****

A Devolutionary Idea: Give Oregon Counties Our Public Forests

by Jim Welsh, MooCountyNews, March 28, 2012 [here]

We keep hearing from our elected representatives how hard they are working to solve the problems with Oregon’s counties that rely on timber harvesting for their funding. But the real problem is they continue to try to fix the problem with solutions that are at least 100 years outdated. There are two giant landowners in Oregon, the Federal government and the State of Oregon. Let’s look at these landowners and think about whether they really need to continue to be landowners anymore or at least to the extent they are today.

Start with the all forest lands owned by various departments of the Federal government. For the most part these lands initially became Federal property by dint of sale or treaty or sometimes as a spoil of war. However they were gained, they became the responsibility of Washington, D.C. because these acquired lands were not yet states. They were Federal territories. Over time citizens were allowed to stake claims to parcels of land and eventually these territories were populated enough that they became states. If people worked hard and improved these land claims they would eventually gain ownership of the land. Much of the private property of the United States had its origin in this system. Of course, as we see today, not all of these lands were given away or sold to individual citizens. The Federal government retained much of these territorial lands or later ceded large tracts to a newly admitted state.

There are a variety of reasons the Federal government held onto many of these large tracts of land. Some were held because they had no present economic value, some because the land had strategic value (forts, landmarks, etc) and some because they had value for large future projects. (I do not speak of National Parks and most National Monuments which comprise a very small percentage of Federal land holdings).

When these lands were initially acquired by the Federal government, by fiat, it became the landowner. And since there were no other governmental entities to oversee or protect them it fell to the Federal Government to manage these lands.

During the late 19th century, the Federal government often gave large tracts of land to railroads in exchange for risking their capital to build railroads through these Federal lands. In Oregon and California there were huge tracts of land so deeded. They were to be used for the benefit of the citizens of these states. Due to a variety of reasons including corruption and mismanagement, at the beginning of the 20th century the Federal government took control of these lands again and began the practice of selling timber harvest permits to logging and lumber companies. The Federal government and the State of Oregon and its counties then shared the “profits” from the sale of the logging rights. It worked very well and Oregon prospered, especially rural Oregon where these large tracts of land restricted the collection of property taxes.

While the average wages of workers in rural counties did not equal those of metropolitan Oregon, the spread between the two was substantially closer than today as a result of the jobs create by these timber sales. Although working in the timber industry was hard work, the pay was rewarding and provided what we today call living wage jobs. As an example, in 1970 Tillamook County wages were 85% of the average national wage. Not bad considering the beautiful scenery that surrounded you and the lower cost of living that rural Oregon provided. Today, with the severe restrictions placed upon logging on public lands, the average wage in Tillamook County has fallen to 68% of the national average.

How did this happen? Enter environmental politics in the 1980’s. No longer were Federal forests looked at as a source of jobs for rural Oregonians. Flora and fauna became the trump card of environmentalists opposing the harvest of Oregon’s most sustainable renewable resource. And the biggest obstacle to the solution of this political problem has been to get 535 members of Congress to somehow give a damn how Oregon’s Federal forests are harvested. And the same goes for the 90 state legislators in Salem.

This problem is not unique to the timber industry. It is the same with anything that must be decided in Washington, D.C or Salem. So how do we get around this? The solution is always the same: Devolution of power and responsibility to an entity (problem solver) closest to the people who live with the problem. Move the management of a problem down to the lowest governmental entity (or private entity) that can solve or manage the problem.

Does anyone really think the present management of these lands by the Federal government or the State of Oregon is a model of responsibility? Just look at the horrible fires that occur on these lands. Look at the destructive insect infestations that are consuming up to 25% of the timber which then provides the fuel for those devastating fires. Why does this happen? Because the stewardship of these lands is determined, in far away places, by people who more often than not have no idea where these lands are even located. There is nothing in the Constitution that says the Federal government must own forests. Or for that matter that the State of Oregon must own forests. As I’ve said, the Federal government does so just because it was the first owner of these lands. Now if the Feds don’t really need to own these lands, then the solution is to devolve the management and eventually the ownership of these lands to entities closest to those who will benefit from these lands.

Just as an example, I live in the small Oregon town of Nehalem. Our town owns a nice tract of land which contains the watershed for our water system. Our small little city manages our little “forest” and every few years we harvest timber for the benefit of our city’s municipal needs.

I am on the city council. When I first became a councilor one of the things that really impressed me was the strong sense of ownership of this property that my fellow councilors demonstrated. When we discuss issues related to our watershed you can feel the sense of responsibility we share for the long term health and well-being of this tract of land. It is ours and we understand that we are its stewards and are responsible for handing it down to future generations of Nehalem residents for their future use. The old Boy Scout saying “Leave it better than when you found it” applies.

When we cut timber, we replant. When we harvest, slash is burned. When brush begins to obstruct our roads, we keep them clear so that, if a fire breaks out, fire vehicles can access our land. Does anyone really think if this land were owned by the Federal government or the State of Oregon it could be managed better?

While the history behind the ownership of our state forests is not exactly the same as the Federal lands and forests the same principle of Devolution applies.

A hundred and fifty years ago, or even a hundred years ago, there might have been an argument for Federal or State control of these forests. Oregon’s counties often did not have the means to manage large tracts of land. The development of modern transportation and technology have enabled even the smallest government entity to have access to the same information about forest management today as the Federal and State government has. Why then not devolve the management of Federal and State forests to the counties in which they are located?

Lets face it, smaller organizations can effect change much faster than large organizations. If there are disease problems, which governmental entity will recognize and act on the problems faster: the Federals, the Staters or your newly created county Forestry Department? (No, we wouldn’t be creating more bureaucracy. Simultaneously this devolvement would require the elimination of now unnecessary Federal and State bureaucracies). My money is on my local county government. When there are problems where do you think a solution is reached quicker: In Washington D.C. with 535 members of debating, in the Oregon Legislature in Salem with 90 participants or by a local county Board of Commissioners composed of 3,5 or 7 members. Even a five year old can figure out that answer.

Now this is not to say that the State of Oregon would have nothing to do with forest lands. It could continue to do research and assist in facilitating agreements between counties with disputes or common needs. The point is that the management of the previously Federal and State forests would become the province of Oregon’s counties. The incomes that the Feds and the State used to reap from timber sales could be continued in a reduced but fair level.

I have no reason to doubt that Tillamook County would have any more difficulty in managing the Tillamook State Forest or the Federal forests within its borders than the Feds or the State of Oregon. The bottom line is that the people of Tillamook County or Clatsop County or any other Oregon County can and should have the primary say-so in how the forests within their borders are managed and used. Top down micro-management is a poor business model especially when decisions are made to satisfy interests having no skin in the game. Most business owners know that most innovation and cost savings often spring from those closest to the problem. And managing forests, like it or not, is a business. There must be a profit (harvest) so that new equipment (seedlings) can be purchased to replace aging equipment (old and dying trees).

Our representatives at the State and Federal level have, for thirty years, been trying to solve these forest issues by looking for solutions to come out of the same entities that are creating the problems. Our Federal and State forest management problems will not be solved by the bureaucracies in Washington, D.C. or Salem. Those problems will be solved by allowing Tillamook citizens or Clatsop citizens, through accessible local government, the means and methods to improve and protect their (hopefully) locally owned forests. If the Federal government could give away land a hundred and fifty years ago it can do so now. Can you imagine how the economies of Tillamook and Clatsop counties would react to the news that the Federal and State forests within their boundaries would now be managed locally?

Yes, I will admit this is yet just a dream. But all things are but dreams until someone begins to work on turning a dream into reality.

Now here’s the challenge to the citizens of House District 32, Senate District 16, and Congressional District 5: Unless you vote to change your current representatives in Salem and Washington, D.C. you’ll never see any change. They only know how to work inside the box. And in fact the boxes are the problems.

The real solutions are outside the box. How many times would you call a plumber to fix a leak if that plumber could never fix the leak? My friends, we need some new plumbers in Washington, D.C. and Salem.

It’s a pile of ecobabble gibberish, a set of rules that the US Forest Service intends to violate immediately — a pack of lies really.

Allow me to deconstruct the document and reveal it’s bogosity and mendacity for you. First, some background:

In March, 2007, five years ago, Northern California U.S. District Court Judge Phyllis J. Hamilton enjoined the USDA and the Forest Service from implementing the 2005 Planning Rule [here]. The Planning Rule guides the creation, amending, and revision of National Forest Land and Resource Management Plans (LMRP’s) under the National Forest Management Act (NFMA).

In December 2009, more than two years ago and after a delay of three years, the USFS announced a process to create a new Planning Rule intended to get National Forest planning going again [here]. The USFS requested scoping comments to get them started on the process [here]. In December 2010, the USFS produced a draft rule and again requested public comments [here, here].

Last week the USFS released their finished product in the Federal Register [here].

Two years ago we respectfully requested [here] that the USFS include some items in their New Planning Rule, including:

* Define “restoration” as: Forest restoration means active management to bring back historical cultural landscapes, historical forest development pathways, and traditional ecological stewardship to achieve historical resiliency to fire and insects and to preclude and prevent a-historical catastrophic fires that decimate and destroy myriad resource values.

* All projects must be planned and implemented in accordance with existing laws and regulations, including NEPA. Abrogation of the NEPA process should not be the goal of the New Planning Rule. Wildfire use” has been adopted into many Land and Resource Management Plans (LRMPs) without appropriate NEPA processes. In no case has a single Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) been written for “wildfire use.” Public involvement in “wildfire use” planning has been eliminated by the avoidance of appropriate NEPA processes. Such illegality must be eliminated.

The USFS proceeded to ignore those comments entirely. They jumbled together a phony definition of restoration, and they called for more deliberate illegal burning without NEPA compliance.

The USFS has no intention of obeying NEPA. During the last 20 years, they have never prepared EIS’s or invited public testimony before they incinerated millions of acres in Let It Burn fires (aka wildfire use, fire use for resource benefit, prescribed natural fires, appropriate management response, natural fires used to achieve resource objectives, partial perimeter fires, and other bureaucratese bomfoggery).

The USFS did not in any manner “collaborate” with counties, tribes, and the public before they firebombed green, old-growth, spotted owl nesting forests in Oregon last summer.

The USFS create EIS’s for timber sales, but not for deliberate conflagrations that consume millions of acres. They give rationales for Let It Burn such as “create a visual mosaic” or “let nature take her course”. Those are treatment goals and the treatment, wildfire, has significant effect on the environment. But do they go through the NEPA process first, as required by law? In no way, shape, or form.

The New Planning Rule expresses the USFS’s wish to “re-introduce fire” into “fire-adapted ecosystems”. That’s pure ecobabble. Every acre with vegetation in America qualifies. There are no forests or grasslands that do not have charcoal in the soil. None. Congress never instructed them to do it, but the USFS goal is to burn every acre they own.

And all the acres they don’t own, too. The New Planning Rule requires National Forests to “…coordinate with neighboring landowners to link open spaces…” and to “Ensure planning takes place in the context of the larger landscape by taking an all-lands approach.”

That ecobabble stems from former Chief Gail Kimbell’s personal “Open Space Conservation Strategy” [here] and current Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack’s “All Lands Approach” [here]. In the former, the USFS plans to declare 200 million acres of private land “wilderness”, and in the latter they propose to burn down every home, business, and city within 30 miles of Federal land.

Congress never instructed them to do those things. Extending USFS suzerainty to all non-Federal (private) forest acres, and burning millions of acres of public and private forests to the ground are ideas the USFS came up with all by themselves. Congress’s contribution has been to remain deaf, dumb, and blind.

The New Planning Rule evinces a global warming agenda. Congress never instructed the USFS to do that. Global warming is a hoax. The USFS now manages by hoax.

All those ecobabble goals are in grovelling fealty to Agenda 21 [here].

It’s all too much by half. The states with appreciable Federal land (the Feds control 53% of Oregon’s land base) should demand that Congress cease and desist from waging war upon us, withdraw their Federal bureaucratic armies, and yield full sovereignty back to the States [here].

We don’t want the USFS anymore. They have proved to be a hazard, a public nuisance, and an impediment to stewardship. Thanks for the memories, but that was then, this is now.

GIVE US OUR LAND BACK

This year’s illustrious Nomex Ninny designee is none other than Oregon Senior Senator, the Honorable Ron Wyden.

Ron’s flare for ignorance regarding forests has been highlighted in these digital pages before [here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and more].

Now Ron has stepped into the fray once more, with predictable stupidity, or worse.

With wildfire season approaching, Wyden demands outside review of Forest Service aerial tanker fleet

By Charles Pope, The Oregonian , March 27, 2012 [here]

WASHINGTON — Angered by what he sees as the Forest Service’s indifference and alarmed by the potential for catastrophic wildfires this year, Sen. Ron Wyden formally asked Tuesday for an outside review of the government’s plan for modernizing its aging fleet of aircraft for fighting fires.

The Oregon Democrat said he decided to ask for the General Accountability Office study after being convinced the Forest Service and Interior Department were not moving fast enough to develop a plan for replacing the fleet. The aerial tankers, which are crucial in fighting big fires, average 50 years old. The government contracts with two private operators for the planes. … [more]

This story is as old as the hills. The tanker fleet problem dates back to at least 2002 [here]. Congress (with Ron firmly seated in his seat) has dropped the ball innumerable times since then.

More importantly, last year the USFS effectively banned the use of aerial fire retardant [here], thanks to lawsuits brought by Wydenites [here].

Now the emergency drops by air tankers on raging forest fires will be water-only and relatively ineffective.

Even more to the point, the USFS now uses aerial incendiary devices in place of retardant to fight fires [here, here, here].

Get it? Fire retardant bad, napalm good.

The new method of fire fighting is to firebomb. With helicopters, not aerial tankers. Tankers aren’t needed anymore, just military attack helicopters carrying IEDs.

All thanks to fearless leaders like Ron Wyden, who would rather firebomb old-growth than put the fires out.

So, for his duplicity, his arsonism, his complicity in and endorsement of firebombing Oregon’s priceless heritage forests, we are proud to name Oregon’s (actually he lives in New York City) Senator Ron Wyden 2012 Nomex Ninny of the Year. It’s the least we could do.

Woodsy Wyden surveys Oregon forest for future firebombing.

Far worse even than the Health Care Mandatory Penalty Act, which makes criminals out of every citizen, Executive Order 13547 circumvents Congress, the Courts, and the U.S. Constitution by dictatorially declaring all land and waters of this country to be chattel owned by the President in fulfillment of UN Agenda 21.

Executive Order 13547 — Stewardship of the Ocean, Our Coasts, and the Great Lakes
[here] enacts new law without consent of Congress, creates a new agency shielded from both Congress and the Federal Courts, appropriates monies, and gives the new agency broad control over every square inch of America.

Executive Order 13547 begins with the phrase:

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, …

and proceeds to overstep that authority, to declare new powers to the Presidency, and to violate the Constitution with impunity. Congress did not pass any law directing the President to establish this new agency. He did it on his own, in violation of the Constitution.

Executive Order 13547 creates something called the National Ocean Council [here], which is to develop “coastal and marine spatial plans” that will “ensure the protection, maintenance, and restoration of the health of ocean, coastal, and Great Lakes ecosystems and resources”.

Any trickle of water that eventually reaches the ocean, and any puff of air that drifts from land over the sea, is now subject to the whims and diktats of the National Ocean Council.

The National Ocean Council will be co-chaired by unelected political appointees not subject to confirmation by Congress. It will have the power to override existing laws and force the Secretaries of of State, Defense, the Interior, Agriculture, Health and Human Services, Commerce, Labor, Transportation, Energy, and Homeland Security, the Attorney General, the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (all subject to confirmation by Congress) to bend to the will of the Council.

Executive Order 13547 pledges to conform to “applicable international law, including customary international law,” but is itself in direct violation of U.S. law. Herr Dictator Obama has declared “international law” to be superior to national law, in direct contravention of our Constitution and in obeisance to UN Agenda 21.

Last week the House Subcommittee on Fisheries, Wildlife, Oceans and Insular Affairs held an oversight hearing on “Empty Hooks: The National Ocean Policy is the Latest Threat to Access for Recreational and Commercial Fishermen” [here].

Hello Congress, this issue is far bigger than just fisherman, for gosh sakes. Time to catch a clue!

At any rate, one testimony [here] was especially insightful, that by accomplished environmental attorney George J. Mannina, Jr. [here]. A quote:

Advocates of the National Ocean Policy will assert that the Executive Branch could promulgate regulations under its existing delegated authority to do some or all of these things. That may or may not be the case, but Executive Order 13547 does not take that approach. Instead, it creates, via the National Ocean Policy, a new set of requirements with which existing statutes are to be consistent, and then places these new standards beyond judicial review. This effectively constitutes the enactment of new legislation that violates the separation of powers set forth in the U.S. Constitution.

Moreover, when Congress has delegated legislative authority, it has done so to specific departments and agencies. Executive Order 13547, and its National Ocean Policy, effectively amend each of these statutes by changing the Congressional delegation of authority from an individual department or agency to a collective of at least 23 departments and agencies.

Barack Hussein Obama and his Radical Left minions want you to believe that environmental concerns trump your Constitutional rights. Don’t believe it. It isn’t true. We cannot and will not allow them to abort our Constitution no matter what excuse they offer.

The situation has deteriorated to the point that the Feds are now mad firebombers, waging a violent war against the western states, dropping bombs on Oregon forests like we were the Taliban. It’s an undeclared war, but it’s a real war nonetheless.

One state, Utah, has had the gumption to stand up and demand her land back.

Herbert signs bill demanding feds relinquish lands in Utah
Legislation seeks state takeover of millions of acres of public lands.

By Robert Gehrke, The Salt Lake Tribune, Mar 23 2012 [here]

Gov. Gary Herbert signed legislation Friday demanding that Congress turn over roughly 30 million acres of federal land within Utah’s borders — a move that proponents acknowledge could lead to a court battle.

“It’s a difficult fight. This is the first step,” said Herbert before signing the measure, “but it’s a fight worth having.”

Supporters of the effort contend the federal government made a promise to Utah and Western states to dispose of hundreds of millions of acres of federal land, just as it had done in states east of the Rockies. …

Rep. Rob Bishop said the federal government is paying $8.6 billion a year to manage federal lands, and isn’t doing a good job of it.

“The state of Utah is willing to stand up and say to the federal government, we’re willing to take responsibility for the state of Utah,” he said. “The West is ready. It needs it. It’s now time to change the way we’ve done things traditionally … because the way we’ve done things traditionally flat-out doesn’t work.” … [more]

HB511 is entitled EMINENT DOMAIN OF FEDERAL LAND, and it “authorizes a political subdivision to exercise eminent domain authority on property possessed by the federal government unless the property was acquired by the federal government with the consent of the Legislature and in accordance with the United States Constitution Article I, Section 8, Clause 17.”

Article I, Section 8, Clause 17 is the so-called “Enclave Clause”:

To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of Particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings;…

The Enclave Clause limits Federal ownership of land to military bases, navy docks, and Federal buildings, as well as Washington DC. It does not authorize the Federal Government to own half the state of Utah, or of Oregon for that matter.

Article IV, Section 3 Clause 2 of the US Constitution is the so-called “Property Clause”:

The Congress shall have Power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States; and nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed as to Prejudice any Claims of the United States, or of any particular State…

That clause has been interpreted to mean the Feds can own as much as they want of western states, and firebomb those lands with impunity. But western states have argued that the “equal footing doctrine” requires Congress to recognize western states’ sovereignty over public lands, because the Original Thirteen States don’t have Fed land claims and aren’t subject to vicious and stupid firebombing of their forests by Federal functionaries.

For more discussion of the legal technicalities, see the Family Guardian website [here].