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Tuesday
June 24, 2014
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Eating Goober Peas
This little familiar creature is enjoying a treat of peanuts. Amazing how quickly they can train us to provide such treats. Although peanuts are not a typical food that squirrels eat, an occasional peanut will not hurt a squirrel. Peanut, or groundnut, is a species in the legume or " bean" family. Peanuts are also know as Goober Peas.
Front Page Photo By MIMI EDDY ©2014
(Please respect the rights of photographers, never republish or copy
without permission and/or payment of required fees.)
Alaska: Supreme Court Ruling Prevents EPA from Adding Small Businesses into Greenhouse Gas Agenda - On Monday the Supreme Court delivered a stern lecture to the Environmental Protection Agency for claiming regulatory power that Congress did not give it.
In a two-part decision Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled both against and for the Environmental Protection Agency's regulation of stationary sources of greenhouse gas emissions in the case of Utility Air Regulatory Group v. EPA. In one decision, the Court ruled that the EPA cannot circumvent the legislative process by unilaterally extending its authority without any congressional action.
The court's 7-2 decision gave the EPA most of what it wanted. But in a separate 5-4 vote, the justices rejected the agency's broad assertion of regulatory power under one section of the Clean Air Act.
Alaska Attorney General Michael Geraghty today praised the U.S. Supreme Court’s reversal of the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) attempt to rewrite the Clean Air Act to claim regulatory authority over millions of small businesses. An attempt, said Geraghty, by the EPA to overstep its statutory authority in regulating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions without any congressional action.
“How we as a nation deal with the global threat posed by GHG is a matter for our elected representatives,” Attorney General Geraghty said. “This case reaffirms the important principle that regulatory agencies like the EPA are not authorized to rewrite laws like the Clean Air Act to suit their purposes.”
The State of Alaska had joined the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the American Farm Bureau Federation in filing one of the six petitions for review that were ultimately granted by the U.S. Supreme Court. The Court’s decision agrees with many of the points the State argued – in particular that the EPA cannot rewrite the statute through regulation.
The Supreme Court held that EPA acted unlawfully in rewriting the Clean Air Act to claim regulatory authority over millions of small entities based solely on GHG emissions. Under EPA’s so-called “Tailoring Rule,” “EPA asserts newfound authority to regulate millions of small sources - including retail stores, offices, apartment buildings, shopping centers, schools and churches - and to decide, on an ongoing basis and without regard for the thresholds prescribed by Congress, how many of those sources to regulate.” The decision, issued Monday in Utility Air Regulatory Group v. EPA, is a clear rebuke of EPA “laying claim to extravagant statutory power over the national economy.”
According to the Alaska Department of Law, in rejecting EPA’s interpretation of the law, the court said “it would be patently unreasonable – not to say outrageous - for EPA to insist on seizing expansive power that it admits the statute is not designed to grant.” The court also observed that it was not “willing to stand on the dock and wave goodbye as EPA embarks on this multiyear voyage of discovery.”
Another question the Court had to deal with in this case was how the EPA could deal with "anyway" sources—that is, entities that are the source of greenhouse gas emissions that are already required to obtain permits because of their emission of another pollutant. - More...
Tuesday - June 24, 2014
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Alaska Science: Through the Eyes of a Polar Bear - The first "point of view" video from a polar bear on Arctic sea ice has become available courtesy of the U.S. Geological Survey. Scientists applied video camera collars to four female polar bears on the sea ice north of Prudhoe Bay, Alaska this past April and are releasing the first clips of footage that provide unique insight into the daily lives of the bears.
Male polar bear approaches biologists. Beaufort Sea, Alaska, 2005
Photographer: Steven C. Amstrup, USGS
"We deployed two video cameras in 2013, but did not get any footage because the batteries weren’t able to handle the Arctic temperatures,” said Dr. Todd Atwood, research leader for the USGS Polar Bear Research Program. “We used different cameras this year, and we are thrilled to see that the new cameras worked."
The video collars were deployed as part of a new study to understand how polar bears are responding to sea ice loss from climate warming. The study, led by USGS research biologist and University of California Santa Cruz PhD student Anthony Pagano, is taking a close look at polar bear behaviors and energetics. - More...
Tuesday - June 24, 2014
Alaska - Nationwide: Unmanned Aircraft to be Prohibited in America’s National Parks - National Park Service Director Jonathan B. Jarvis on Friday signed a policy memorandum that directs superintendents nationwide to prohibit launching, landing, or operating unmanned aircraft on lands and waters administered by the National Park Service.
“We embrace many activities in national parks because they enhance visitor experiences with the iconic natural, historic and cultural landscapes in our care,” Jarvis said. “However, we have serious concerns about the negative impact that flying unmanned aircraft is having in parks, so we are prohibiting their use until we can determine the most appropriate policy that will protect park resources and provide all visitors with a rich experience.”
Unmanned aircraft have already been prohibited at several national parks. These parks initiated bans after noise and nuisance complaints from park visitors, an incident in which park wildlife were harassed, and park visitor safety concerns.
Last September, an unmanned aircraft flew above evening visitors seated in the Mount Rushmore National Memorial Amphitheater. Park rangers concerned for visitors’ safety confiscated the unmanned aircraft. - More...
Tuesday - June 24, 2014 |
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Alaska Science: Number of Alaska glaciers is everchanging By NED ROZELL - A glaciologist once wrote that the number of glaciers in Alaska “is estimated at (greater than) 100,000.” That fuzzy number, perhaps written in passive voice for a reason, might be correct. But it depends upon how you count.
The number of glaciers in Alaska is dependent upon how you define them.
Photo by Ned Rozell photo
Another glaciologist saw an example of the confusion when he visited Yakutat Glacier. Yakutat, near the Alaska town of the same name, is a withering glacier that calves into a deep lake of its own making. As it dies, Yakutat Glacier will increase the number of glaciers in Alaska. And it won’t take long, said Martin Truffer of the Geophysical Institute at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. The glacier is melting so fast it is fragmenting into smaller bodies of ice.
“You get into that paradoxical situation where a glacier is retreating and you get more glaciers,” Truffer said.
His colleague Regine Hock pointed out a similar situation when pondering a request from a magazine reporter on the number of Alaska glaciers.
“Because of climate warming, the number of glaciers in Germany has increased over the last decades by several hundred percent,” she wrote in an e-mail. “There were less than a handful of glaciers in the 1990s; now there are more because these two have fallen apart into mini glaciers.”
Another problem in counting Alaska’s glaciers arises from the varied names people have assigned to them over the years. - More...
Tuesday - June 24, 2014
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Science: Bird migration milestone: One million records show change over time By HANNAH HAMILTON & JESSICA ZELT
- Over a million records telling the tale of nearly a century of North American bird migrations have been rescued from obscurity and transcribed by an international network of more than 2,000 volunteers, making the records available for the first time online for use by researchers and the public.
North American Bird Phenology Program Coordinator Jessica Zelt working with old migration bird cards.
Photo courtesy
North American Bird Phenology Program - USGS
The records, which span from 1880 to 1970, provide information on what areas of the country birds were spotted in and when they have arrived or departed from areas during spring and fall. The information is of use identifying how birds’ ranges and migration patterns have changed over time.
The one-millionth transcription was that of a house wren seen in Tierra Amarilla, New Mexico, on September 11, 1904 and is now part of the USGS North American Bird Phenology Program database.
Phenology is the study of the seasonal timing of natural biological phenomena, such as leafing and flowering of plants, maturation of agricultural crops, emergence of insects, and migration of birds. Many of these events are sensitive to climatic variation and change, and are simple to observe and record.
This 90-year span of archival data provides baseline information about the first arrivals and last departures of North American migratory birds, according to Jessica Zelt, the USGS North American Bird Phenology Program Coordinator. When combined with contemporary data, researchers have the unique opportunity to look at changes in seasonal timing in relation to climate and climate change over a 130-year period, unprecedented in its length of time for recorded migratory data. - More...
Tuesday - June 24, 2014 |
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 Behind the scenes of City Government By Rodney Dial - I thought I would write a letter to inform the public of the latest machinations of the Ketchikan City Government and what is going on behind the scenes that you should be aware of. As you may remember, late last year City Manager Karl Amylon continued with his three year crusade to increase sales and property taxes, water and sewer rates. Amylon…pulling a page from the Obama world to end if Sequester is passed play book… told the City Council that without another tax increase, on top of two years of property tax increases; Ketchikan as we know it would end. Amylon claimed that nearly a dozen city employees would be laid off, there would be drastic cuts in city services, police officers would be demoted…and on, and on. It was mentioned repeatedly by Amylon that the previous years of tax increases were needed just to cover the City’s rising debt from the new Library and Fire station bonds. This was in December of 2013. - More...
Tuesday - June 24, 2014
Sealaska Board Desperation By Clarice Johnson - Sealaska shareholders have seen unprecedented financial losses and record level spending by Sealaska on a campaign to re-elect legacy board members. - More...
Monday - June 23, 2014
Vote YES on Ballot Measure 1 By Lisa Weissler - On August 19, Alaskans have the opportunity to make a difference in our state. By voting yes on Ballot Measure 1, voters have the power to repeal the oil production tax enacted in 2013. Senate Bill 21 changed how the state taxes the production of publicly owned oil, establishing a system that is not in Alaska’s best interest. - More...
Monday _ June 23, 2014
Questions remain unanswered. By Barbara McDaniel - Questions remain as to why Gov. Parnell waited almost four years to open an official investigation into 2010 Alaska National Guard (ANG) chaplains’ reports to him of sexual assaults of particular servicewomen in the ANG. - More...
Monday - June 23, 2014
Leveraging lessons from missile defense By Congressman Don Young - It's been said that failure should be our teacher, not our undertaker. This sage perspective is particularly apt as we work to perfect the United States’ missile defense. - More...
Monday - June 23, 2014
$2 Billion Giveaway Sound Bite is a Dangerous Distraction By Senator Bert Stedman - Over the years I’ve read many of the reports written for the Institute of Social and Economic Research (ISER). In May, ISER published the report funded by Northrim Bank and written by Dr. Scott Goldsmith entitled, “Alaska’s Oil Production Tax: Comparing the Old and the New” which has been placed in the center of the debate to repeal the new oil tax enacted by the passage of Senate Bill 21. His analysis is thoughtful, but the title is misleading and should be retitled, “Debunking the $2 Billion Giveaway Myth.” That’s what the report is being used for in the public relations arena and I believe that it’s also the reason behind the report’s creation. - More...
Monday - June 23, 2014
Significant weaknesses Goldsmith's report By Dr. Mark Myers - Following years of billion-dollar budget surpluses - the result of increased oil prices, price volatility, and an oil production tax system called ACES, Governor Parnell pushed through a new tax regime, called SB21. In the year following its passage, state surpluses have turned into forecasts of multibillion-dollar deficits, while ConocoPhillips reports that its profits in Alaska have risen substantially despite lower production. - More...
Monday - June 23, 2014
Disband the IRS By Beverly A. Martin - Americans, are you slaves? Do you realize you consent to politicians using the IRS as their weapon to silence you, control your spending, while legally taking your wealth? - More...
Monday - June 23, 2014
The Word Parnell Refuses to Say…"Deficit" By Bill Walker - Alaskans take pride knowing we are the largest state with the most lakes, tallest mountains and longest summer days. But there are other extreme facts we aren’t boasting about, nor is our governor willingly discussing. Under Parnell, we have blown through 35 percent of our savings and are saddled with the largest budget deficit in state history. Moreover, the U.S. Department of Census recently announced that Alaska is one of only two states with declining revenues in 2013. - More...
Saturday PM - June 14, 2014
Fate of the TLMP revision By Gretchen Goldstein - Doomed from the start. That’s the fate of the TLMP revision recently announced by the USDA. The revision faces controversy and legal challenges because, of the 15 revisers appointed to the Tongass Advisory Committee, not one represents subsistence. Yet California, Washington, and Oregon each have a voting representative; the timber industry, Native corporations and the government all have multiple representation. - More...
Saturday PM - June 14, 2014
UNITED AS ONE By Diane Gubatayao - Last November, outstanding Kayhi students Eimy Anzueto, Roselyn Cachero, Benz Guillermo, Mikala McKim and Omar Mendoza, attended the statewide LEAD ON! conference in Anchorage. They met students from all over Alaska and learned about issues facing young people. Each community chose a goal, and our Kayhi youth decided to sponsor an event to celebrate the wonderful diversity of Ketchikan. These wise young people recognize that many groups lead parallel lives in Ketchikan and rarely do their paths cross or come together. - More...
Saturday PM - June 14, 2014
The Declaration of Independence and The U.S. Constitution By Rex Barber - The Declaration of Independence is America's creed. The absolute belief that the only legitimate form of Government is Government by consent of the people.(Republican form of Government) That they (We the people) are endowed with certain unalienable rights. Rights that are sown in the very nature of man. Rights that exist in the wine dark deep recesses of our DNA. - More...
Saturday PM - June 14, 2014
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