Pricks of the Week

The Idaho Senate voted 27-8 in favor of requiring anyone using the courts to challenge plans to haul oversized loads on Idaho roadways to post a bond equal to 5 percent of the load's insured value.The bill now heads to the Governor's desk.

LINK (Via Bloomberg)

The Alaska House has just passed a bill allowing judges set security bonds for parties seeking to halt mines or other development projects....like the Pebble Mine. That bill now moves on to the Alaska Senate. 

LINK (Via: Fairbanks Daily News)

The gillnet is recognized as one of the most selective methods of harvest in commercial fishing today

That was just one of the absurd arguments used by one of the gillnetters at a hearing for Oregon Senate bill 736 which would limit gillnet fishing to bays and estuaries in the lower Columbia region. Unfortunately it sounds like the pro gillnetters outnumbered the bill's supporters according to this one sided article in the Chinook Observer.

LINK

Why Elections Matter

Drill, baby, drill.

Republicans have appointed Washington's Doc Hastings as chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee. That will make Hastings a key voice shaping federal policies on oil and gas drilling on public lands and offshore waters, mining, wildlife, fisheries, national parks and Native American affairs.

In 2009 Hastings received a score of zero from the League of Conservation Voters and has a lifetime rating of 96 from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

LINK (Via:The Seattle Times)

Spill Baby Spill!

Meghan Clyne, who is a conservative journalist and former speechwriter for George W. and Laura Bush, tries to make the argument that Obama hasn't convinced Americans he truly understands the disaster in the Gulf because he's not a fisherman!

LINK (Via: The Wall St. Journal)

Only a true fisherman would make a statement like this.

The reason we're in this mess is because the Obama Administration kept in place the crooked environmental guidelines Ms. Clyne's former boss and his oil industry cronies implemented to favor the industry.

The inside story of how Obama failed to crack down on the corruption of the Bush years – and let the world's most dangerous oil company get away with murder

LINK (Via: Rolling Stone)

The WSJ has also been reporting on the lack of Bush era oversight.

The Wall Street Journal reported on May 3 that Bush MMS federal regulators learned in a 2004 study that a vital piece of oil-drilling safety equipment may not function in deep-water seas but did nothing to bolster industry requirements.

Wall Street Journal: In 2003, Bush MMS decided not to require last-resort shut-off device. "The industry argued against" mandating a remote-control shut-off switch that serves as "last-resort protection against underwater spills," and "by 2003, U.S. regulators decided remote-controlled safeguards needed more study.

Kagan and Carp

As President Barack Obama’s Solicitor General, Supreme Court Nominee Elena Kagan argued against closing the Chicago locks to prevent Asian carp from entering Lake Michigan. 

 LINK  (Via: The Great Lakes Echo)

Regrettably, we made several errors in the editing and presentation of this installment

ESPN has issued a correction on the story claiming, claiming Obama was going to ban fishing. Meanwhile, commenters open a can whup ass on the editor.

LINK

Other wingnuts are now pushing the story.