Drug Cartel Activity Threatens Texas Water Supplies, Lawmaker Says
June 21, 2010
FOXNews.com
Joshua Rhett Miller
Drug cartel activity along the Mexican border presents serious security threats to the area's water supply system, particularly on federally-owned lands in southern Texas, a U.S. lawmaker says.
Members of the House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Water and Power held a… Read more »
Border Patrol Charged Millions for Habitat Damage, Republicans Say Enough 'Extortion'
June 21, 2010
FOXNews.com
Judson Berger
Republican lawmakers are calling on the Interior Department to stop charging what they describe as "extortion" money from the Border Patrol -- millions of under-the-radar dollars meant to cover environmental damage stemming from their everyday duties along the… Read more »
Border Patrol Navigating Reams of Regulation to Secure Federal Land
June 18, 2010
FOXNews.com
Border Patrol agents must navigate a patchwork of environmental regulations dating back decades in order to police for drug cartels, smugglers and illegal immigrants -- often on foot-and-horseback in some of the most vulnerable areas of the southwest border.
Border Patrol agents must… Read more »
House Natural Resources Committee Ranking Member Doc Hastings (WA-04) today sent a letter to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar regarding the recent, abrupt and unexplained Department of Interior (DOI) notice that the distribution of Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILT) funds would be delayed until “late July.” Nearly 2000 counties in 49 states that are due to be paid their PILT funds in June of… Read more »
Today the House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Water and Power held a hearing on H.R. 4719, a bill to establish a Southwest Border Region Water Task Force to assess the water supply needs of the region. As part of the hearing, the Subcommittee heard that drug cartel activity along the U.S./Mexican border presents major threats to water infrastructure, including the federally owned… Read more »
Federal Regs on Environment May Be Hindering Border Security, Lawmakers Say
FOXNews.com
June 16, 2010
Federal environmental regulations that prevent border agents from expanded patrols of national wildlife parks appear to have had a hand in the government's decision to declare an 80-mile stretch of Arizona-Mexico border a virtual no-man's land.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has… Read more »
The Roughneck's Lament
New York Times
Rob Harris & Tom Zeller Jr.
June 11, 2010
Click here to watch
If President Obama's drilling moratorium lasts six months, many oil rigs will leave the Gulf of Mexico, probably for years, leaving workers in the local oil industry scared and frustrated.
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Print version of this document Read more »
The House Natural Resource Committee today approved, with favorable recommendation, a Resolution of Inquiry (H. Res. 1406) introduced by Ranking Member Doc Hastings and National Parks, Forest and Public Lands Subcommittee Ranking Member Rob Bishop to direct the Department of Interior to turn over to Congress the missing pages and related documents of an “internal memo” detailing plans to… Read more »
House Natural Resources Committee Ranking Member Doc Hastings released the following statement regarding President Obama’s address to the nation on the Deepwater Horizon oil spill:
“There is an on-going crisis in the Gulf and the priorities of the Administration should be simple: stop the leak and cleanup the oil. Such a devastating crisis shouldn’t be used as leverage to push a… Read more »
