Editor's Note: The problems with Headwaters News' web host's server prevented the posting of Wednesday's news until early Thursday morning.
In the Rockies today, the Senate confirms a Utah man as the new head of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and credit-card legislation is also approved in the Senate, along with a rider that allows visitors in national parks to carry loaded guns.
Larry EchoHawk, a Brigham Young University professor and a former state Attorney General in Idaho, was confirmed Wednesday morning as the new head of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
And on Tuesday, the U.S. Senate approved legislation on a 90-5 vote to rein in credit-card companies, putting that legislation on track to reach President Obama's desk by the weekend.
The version passed by the Senate, however, contained a rider that would change gun policies in national parks to mirror those of the state in which those parks are located, and some lawmakers feared that that provision would hang up negotiations between the House and the Senate as they try to reach an accord on the credit-card legislation.
Rockies today
U.S. Senate approves EchoHawk for BIA post
On Wednesday, the U.S. Senate confirmed Larry EchoHawk, a law professor at Utah's Brigham Young University who served as Idaho's Attorney General between 1990 and 1994, as the new head of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
Salt Lake Tribune; May 20
Senate passes credit-card bill with guns-in-parks rider attached
On a 90-5 vote Tuesday, the U.S. Senate passed legislation to stop credit card companies from arbitrarily raising interest rates and to curtail exorbitant fees levied by the companies, along with a rider that would change federal policy on guns in national parks, a provision that some fear may impede joint House-Senate negotiations on the credit-card legislation.
Denver Post; May 21
AP 'recession map' says Idaho's Adams County hit hardest
The Associated Press Economic Stress Map provides a county-by-county look at the national recession, and Adams County in Idaho was ranked first in that state for its economic woes.
Idaho Statesman; May 20
Travel plan for Utah national forest ends off-trail access for ATVs
The proposed travel plan released Tuesday for the Dixie National Forest in Utah designates 2,700 miles of the nearly 5,200 miles of roads and trails for motorized use.
St. George Spectrum; May 21
Montana PSC approves natural-gas fired power plant near Anaconda
NorthWestern Energy's plan to build a 200-megawatt, $206 million natural gas-fired power plant near its Mill Creek substation south of Anaconda was approved Tuesday by the Montana Public Service Commission.
Montana Standard; May 20
USFS asks hikers to pack their poop out of Colorado site
Nearly 2,000 backpackers make the 8-mile trek into campsites near the Conundrum Hot Springs in Colorado each summer, and this year the U.S. Forest Service is making bags available at the trailhead for hikers to carry out their waste.
Aspen Times; May 20
Ammunition stockpiling keeps Montana ammo maker busy
Darren Newsom has been in the ammunition-manufacturing business for more than 20 years and the owner of Bitterroot Valley Ammunition in Montana said he's never seen demand for ammunition as high as it's been the past six months, with three facilities churning out 300,000 rounds each day and the backlog of orders growing daily.
Ravalli Republic; May 20
Opinion
Congress needs to act now on bill banning importation of foreign nuclear waste
A federal court has ruled that the Northwest Interstate Compact on Low-Level Radioactive Waste Management doesn't have the authority to block EnergySolutions' plan to import nuclear waste from Italy, a decision Utah should immediately appeal to buy time for Congress to pass the Radioactive Import Deterrence Act, which would ban importing such waste.
Salt Lake Tribune; May 20
Compromise a better path on energy, fuels-reduction work
The hard line taken by conservation groups on the coal-fired Navajo generating Station in Arizona, on President Obama's proposed cap-and-trade system on carbon emissions, and on salvage logging projects in Arizona may end up crippling the process for change to the point that the status quo will remain.
Arizona Daily Sun; May 20
Beyond the Region
Obama follows immigration path set by Bush administration
The Obama administration has done much over the past four months to distance its policies from that of the preceding administration except on the issue of immigration, where President Obama has continued programs to check the status of virtually every person checked into local jails over the next four years; the zero-tolerance rule that calls for every illegal border crosser on the U.S.-Mexico border be charged and jailed; and the construction of a virtual fence on the nation's southern border.
Washington Post; May 20
Debate on House's bill to limit greenhouse-gas emissions grinds forward
House Republicans have promised to submit 400 or so amendments to a bill to create a cap-and-trade system on greenhouse gas emissions, putting Rep. Henry A. Waxman's goal of getting his bill out of the Energy and Commerce Committee by week's end in jeopardy.
Washington Post; May 20
Climate-change concerns put garbage in a new light
Recent research that indicated burning trash emits less greenhouse gas than burying it in landfills, as well as landfills using the heat generated during the incineration process to produce energy, may restart incinerators shut down over concerns of pollution.
Wall Street Journal; May 19
Golden eagle killed by wind turbine in SW Washington
The Columbian newspaper in Vancouver, Wash., reported that a golden eagle was killed by a wind turbine at a wind farm in southwest Washington state, the first known eagle fatality caused by a wind turbine in that state.
Idaho Statesman (AP); May 19
Washington county commissioners lay groundwork for off-road rules
At a study session Tuesday on new rules for off-road vehicle use in Yakima County, the commissioners of the Washington county agreed that private property owners that wanted to build off-road vehicle use areas on their land could do so without a full administrative hearing but would not back off on their stance that such facilities could not be built on parcels smaller than 5 acres in size.
Yakima Herald; May 20
USDA gives Washington community OK to lease farm-worker housing
The Richland Housing Authority's Cherry Hills Villas built to house farmworkers in Benton City has not been fully occupied yet due to the lack of farmworkers who are in the country legally, so the Washington state housing authority sought and received approval from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to lease units to low-income residents.
Tri-City Herald; May 20
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