Badlands Journal

That's what environmentalists are saying. But, at last, Julie MacDonald, corrupt political appointee to the US Fish and Wildlife Service, is gone. She will long be remembered for her energetic assistance to the ESA-gutting Pomboza, composed of former Rep. Richard Pombo, Buffalo Slayer-Tracy, and the still seated Rep. Dennis Cardoza, Shrimp Slayer-Merced.

The damning report of MacDonald's behavior included complaints by career Fish & Wildlife staff that she yelled and cursed at them. My! My! Could that be the reason career Fish & Wildlife staff occasionally yell and curse at the public?
-------------

5-1-07
Endangered Species and Wetlands Report
MacDonald resigns as deputy asst. secretary for Fish, Wildlife and Parks

Julie MacDonald, the DOI deputy assistant secretary who shared internal Fish
and Wildlife Service documents with the California Farm Bureau Federation,
the Pacific Legal Foundation, and an online gaming friend, has resigned,
Endangered Species & Wetlands Report has learned.

MacDonald submitted her resignation last night, sources told ESWR. The
department has not responded to a request made today for a copy of the
letter.

MacDonald also cursed and yelled at FWS career employees, the report said.
One FWS assistant director said MacDonald had been "abusive to her and had
become a liability to FWS," according to the IG report.

MacDonald was the subject of a recent Inspector General report that found
she broke federal regulations by sharing non-public information outside the
agency, and also by appearing to show preferential treatment. The report
also provided details on a number of instances where MacDonald, an engineer
by trade, overruled Fish and Wildlife Service scientists.

The Interior Department said it would respond to the IG report by April 30.
ESWR has not been able to obtain the reply.

Copyright Poplar Publishing/Endangered Species & Wetlands Report 2007
Steve Davies, editor (stevedavies@eswr.com)
http://www.eswr.com/aaeswr.htm

The ethanol bubble reveals the pathological side of the political economic system as well as the housing bubble did, and no doubt the same few people involved in ethanol were involved in housing speculation not long ago. The housing bubble pushed our air quality over the edge: the San Joaquin Valley now has as bad or worse air than the Los Angeles basin. Ethanol is shaping up to be nothing but a huge water grab. The ethanol bubble will end about the time a new housing bubble begins.

There is a reason why corn is primarily a Midwest crop. The reason is called rain, as in what Central California doesn't have, being a desert.

As the GMO boys and girls get busy on engineering just the perfect corn for ethanol, gene drift will occur, as it has occurred wherever corn is grown. The ethanol-making genes will drift into corn grown for dairy sillage and get into the milk supply, here in the land free of GMO regulation, perhaps causing gases of another sort. Then UC can study the contribution milk-drinking San Joaquin Valley citizens make to air pollution, along with the bovine flatulence (adding insult to the injury of doubled corn prices and continuing low milk prices to dairymen in the largest dairy state in the nation).

But, that's OK because the honey bees are dying, so the almond growers can convert to ethanol corn and make a real killing before selling for real estate. We know nothing is going to be done about the honey bee collapse because the House subcommittee in charge is chaired by Rep. Dennis Cardoza, a man who doesn't like any non-human species that shows signs of weakening. Dairies could follow behind the almonds and everybody could grow ethanol corn with the latest chemical fertilizers and diesel farm equipment.

Federal and state government doesn't solve ag insect problems anymore,it funds them:

Medfly: $150 million since 1980, now proposal for permanent program at $16 million/year; the government cannot control its entry through ports like Long Beach;

Pierce's Disease, Glassy-winged sharpshooter: now spread to 28 counties, control programs in 51 counties, population of GWSS growing, two new infestations last year, 80 research projects, $20 million a year.

No wonder UC Merced wants to start a medical school. It's following a hallowed tradition of colonization of diseases as each generation of government/corporate/university technologists goes to work on the plagues caused by the last generation of the great win-win, public-private funded technologists, and government/corporate/university propagandists keep promising us that famous Black Box. The latest is a UC/Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory biowarfare lab on a site where it also tests depleted uranium bombs near Tracy. So, the UC Board of Regents, under the guidance of Chairman Richard Blum, Sen. Feinstein's husband, dangle the promise of a medical school for the Valley (first conceived for Fresno in the mid-60s) and give you depleted uranium dust and a lab full of the most dangerous pathogens to local agriculture in existence, and hope nothing bad happens because Pentagon biowarfare pork it prime.

Actually, there is a black box. It is called Boomdoggle. It's not a solution for you and me, but it works for people speculating on the next Valley bubble, and who can afford to live outside the worst air pollution area in the nation. But they are the same speculators from finance, insurance and real estate special interests that control the dumbest, most corrupt air quality board in the nation.

Corporate domination of political institutions has meant economy-by-bubble, and each step of the way, working people get poorer, our common environment gets worse, and fewer people get richer. While corn growers yawp about their high prices, the subsidies are going to investors in the ethanol plants. We're a long way from biomass tax breaks now. We've entered the era of high finance in Green Pork.

Way back in 1981, Grass Valley-based folk singer, Utah Phillips, defined the problem in a song called "All Used Up."

I spent my whole life making somebody rich;
I busted my ass for that son-of-a-bitch.
And he left me to die like a dog in a ditch
And told me I'm all used up ...

They use up the oil and they use up the trees,
They use up the air and they use up the sea;
Well, how about you, friend, and how about me?
What's left when we're all used up?" -- Utah Phillips, (c) 1981, On Strike Music.

1 acre foot = 325,851 gallons = 130 gallons ethanol/acre foot (if, as Sacramento Bee editorialists wonder, the USDA figures are right).

Badlands editorial board
-----------------

4-29-07
Sacramento Bee
Can't drink ethanol...Editorial
http://www.sacbee.com/110/story/162586.html
Businesses in California are racing to build plants to make ethanol...But it will take the state's most fought-over resource -- water -- to grow the crops used to produce ethanol. Many crops can be used for that purpose, but at the moment ethanol plants are picking corn -- the most water-intensive ethanol crop there is. How much water? How much corn? The answer is startling. According to a study of California agriculture by the respected Water Education Foundation, it takes about 118 gallons of water to grow a pound of corn. And how many pounds of corn does it take to produce a gallon of ethanol? About 21 pounds of corn, according to one publication from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. If these numbers are accurate, the answer is about 2,500 gallons of water. For one gallon of ethanol. There is a goal to produce about a billion gallons of ethanol in California a year. That's about 2.5 trillion gallons of water for 1 billion gallons of ethanol. Take all the water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta that now goes to Southern California and Valley farms, use it to grow corn -- and it still wouldn't be enough water. First, a water-intensive crop such as corn in the Central Valley is a bad choice. Second, since there is only so much water for agriculture in California, some other existing crops won't be grown. Third, it behooves the state to grow ethanol crops in the most water-efficient manner possible and set up laws and policies that guide industry in that direction. It is downright scary to see such a rush to ethanol without a better look at the consequences.

4-28-07
Modesto Bee
Flat land
Prices stagnant despite demand for dairy acreage
By JOHN HOLLAND
Farmland in the Northern San Joaquin Valley is pretty flat — at least as property appraisers saw it last year.
Land prices leveled off despite the continuing strength of the almond industry and the demand for dairy acreage and rural homesites, said an annual report from the state chapter of the American Society of Farm Managers and Rural Appraisers.

"It was a pretty dull year following a huge increase that took place between 2003 and 2005," chapter president Randy Edwards, an appraiser based in Hilmar, said Friday.

The report, released Wednesday in Sacramento, tracked land values around the state for dairy farms, orchards, vineyards, rangeland and other acreage that produces California's bounty.

The per-acre values ranged from $150 for dry rangeland in the state's northeast corner to $600,000 for dairy land in the path of Los Angeles-area growth.

The values varied even for a single crop in a single region, depending on soil quality, water supply and other factors.

An acre of Stanislaus County almond trees, for example, could cost as little as $10,000 if watered from a well or as much as $25,000 if supplied by the Modesto or Turlock irrigation districts.

Dairy, the top farm sector by gross value in the northern valley and statewide, continued to be a major force in land values. These farmers have been adding land for feed crops and for disposing of manure under increasingly strict rules.

The dairy industry has struggled recently, however, with low milk prices, high costs for feed and other factors, as well as the lingering effects of last summer's severe heat wave.

"It appears the market is poised for a downward correction, unless a recovery in milk prices and reduction in feed costs (primarily corn) ensues in the near future," the report said.

Almonds, the region's No. 2 farm product, continue to thrive because of efforts to market the increasing harvests. Nut growers are even moving onto less-than-ideal soil, thanks to advances in tree breeding and irrigation, the report said.

Walnut orchard values continued to be strong. The report noted that this crop has not been as vulnerable as almonds to periods of low commodity prices.

Peach orchards ticked up in value. The report said it was too early to tell whether this was because of an ongoing industry effort to trim the acreage to deal with an oversupply of the fruit.

The report said farmland prices continued to be pushed up by the demand for rural homesites — parcels much larger than city lots but often too small for commercial agriculture. This trend includes grazing land on the west and east sides of the valley, up into Tuolumne and Mariposa counties.

Edwards said the report overall shows that agriculture remains a key part of the valley economy.

"It's not the 800-pound gorilla, but it's stable, with the low spot being the dairy industry and the high spot being the almonds," he said.

The report, "2007 Trends in Agricultural Land and Lease Values," is available for $15 from the American Society of Farm Managers and Rural Appraisers. For more information, call 368-3672 or e-mail secretary@calasfmra.com.

4-30-07
Inside Bay Area
Tracy should ponder benefits from Site 300...Tim Hunt, former editor and associate publisher of the Tri-Valley Herald. He is the principal with Hunt Enterprises, a communications and government affairs consulting firm. (In other words, one more journalist who has become a flak and a lobbyist -- Badlands)
http://www.insidebayarea.com/search/ci_5779417
LETTERS of support abound as the University of California and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory seek to bring the nations premier agriculture and animal research facility to the labs Site 300 facility near Tracy. The missing letter, unfortunately, is from the nearest municipality to Site 300, the city of Tracy. The University of California is seeking what the Department of Homeland Security calls the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility. There are 18 sites across the nation being considered with selection of three to five finalists scheduled in June...new site is scheduled to open in 2013 or 2014 and replace the governments current site at Plum Island off the coast of New York...homeland security department plans to build the lab to research human, zoonotic (animal to human) and animal diseases to counteract the potential terrorist threat of a weapons-grade animal diseases that have both human health effects as well as huge potential to disrupt the food supply. To conduct the research, the facility would contain secure biosafety labs at the level 3 and level 4 (most secure) levels. Forty University of California sites have BSL-3 labs, while there are seven BSL-4 labs operational in the United States. The UC effort has received a strong letter of support from Gov. Schwarznegger, as well as support from Livermore Mayor Marshall Kamena, Supervisor Scott Haggerty, Congresswoman Ellen Tauscher and former Assemblywoman Barbara Matthews from the Tracy area, as well as a number of agriculture and animal trade groups, such as the Farm Bureau. The San Joaquin Board of Supervisors is on record favoring the facility. The sticking point is Tracy... The lab and Site 300 management have a good safety record and have significantly upgraded security since the terrorist attacks of 9/11... Theres no BSL-4 further west than Montana despite the Bay Areas growing focus on the biosciences. Agriculture and ranching are huge economic engines in California, and there also are the potential dangers that come with being the container gateway to Asia through ports in Long Beach/Los Angeles and Oakland. The only question should be whether the facility can operate safety at Site 300, because once thats determined, the lab has nothing but upside for the region and the state.

Come all you WalMart workers,
Good news to you we'll tell,
Of how Human Rights Watch
Has described your living Hell.

Which side are you on?
Which side are you on?

Don't scab for the Waltons,
Don't listen to their lies,
The working poor have got no chance
Unless we organize.

They say in Walton's WalMart
There is no neutral tent,
You'll either be for a union
Or a thug for management.

Which side are you on?
Which side are you on?

-- Adapted from Florence Reece, "Which side are you on?" Harlan County KY Coal Miner Strike, 1931

5-1-07
Washington Post
Wal-Mart's union stance attacked...Ylan Q. Mue and Amy Joyce
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/30/AR2007043001679.html
Human Rights Watch, an advocacy group based in New York, released a report yesterday detailing what it called excessively aggressive tactics by Wal-Mart Stores to stop union organization in its stores...report is the first comprehensive look at the retailer's anti-union operations...said, though much information had previously been reported. Most of Wal-Mart's actions were legal but heavy-handed, the report says, including a rapid-response team to prevent organization, a hotline for store managers and tips on staying "union free." In addition, the report cites more than a dozen rulings against Wal-Mart by the National Labor Relations Board that found that Wal-Mart illegally confiscated union literature, prohibited discussions of unions and retaliated against union supporters. Wal-Mart criticized the report as relying on "incomplete interviews and unsubstantiated allegations." It accused the group of using the findings to bolster support for the Employee Free Choice Act, a bill that would make it easier for workers to organize unions and would represent one of the most significant revisions of federal labor law in 60 years. One of the most-cited examples came in 2000, when 11 meat cutters at a Texas store won union recognition, the first in the company's history. Soon after, Wal-Mart eliminated the positions at 180 stores in six states. It has said the two events were not related. In 2005, Wal-Mart shuttered a store in Canada after workers voted to unionize. At the time, the company said the employees' demands would have made it impossible for the store to sustain its business. But last year, Wal-Mart said it would allow the All-China Federation of Trade Unions to set up outlets in its stores in China. The report says there were 15 rulings against Wal-Mart by the National Labor Relations Board between January 2000 and July 2005 that still stand... In one case in Pennsylvania, the report says, the NLRB found that Wal-Mart illegally transferred union supporters out of a store and brought in union opponents to dilute efforts to organize. Harley Shaiken, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley who specializes in labor issues, called the report "a devastating critique of Wal-Mart's labor practices."

4-28-07
Merced Sun-Star
Wal-Mart foes seek documents...Leslie Albrecht
http://www.mercedsunstar.com/local/story/13530939p-14134877c.html
Wal-Mart Alliance for Reform Now, a Florida-based anti-Wal-Mart group, filed a public records request with the city Wednesday asking for all Wal-Mart-related documents -- including e-mails between city staff and Wal-Mart officials -- from 20 city departments. WARN organizer Nick Robinson said the request is designed to bring more public scrutiny to the planned distribution center... Opponents say trucks servicing the center will damage Merced's already poor air quality; supporters say it will eventually create 900 jobs. The City Council will vote on the distribution center later this year. Such requests are standard practice for WARN, which has stopped new Wal-Mart supercenter stores from being built in 24 Florida counties, said Robinson...Wal-Mart isn't going to give us records." The fight against the Merced distribution center is the first campaign WARN has waged outside of Florida...
Quick facts: Wal-Mart Distribution Center
WHAT: The 1.2-million-square-foot distribution center would operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week sorting merchandise for Wal-Mart stores. There are currently nine Wal-Mart distribution centers in California.
WHERE: The site is a 275-acre parcel between Childs and Gerard avenues west of Tower Road in southeast Merced. The site is about three-quarters of a mile from the new Mission Avenue interchange.
WHAT PEOPLE SAY: Proponents say the center will bring an economic boost, eventually creating 900 jobs that pay $13 to $14 hourly. Opponents say the estimated 450 trucks that will drive in and out of the center every day will worsen Merced's already poor air quality.
WHAT'S NEXT: Consultants are writing the environmental impact report about the distribution center. The report will likely be released in the fall. After public hearings, the City Council must vote to approve the distribution center if it is to move forward.

Today, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez announced that there will be no more cultivation of genetically modified crops in his country. Although full details are not out, Chavez terminated a 500,000-acre Monsanto project to grow GMO soybeans.

Brazil and Argentina are still involved in GMO soybean production.

Chavez said that a policy of food sovereignty and security established by the Venezuelan constitution was the basis of his decision.

He also announced the establishment of a "large seed bank facility to maintain
indigenous seeds for peasants' movements around the world."

Rafael Alegria, secretary of the international peasants' organisation Via Campesina, which brough the problem to the attention of Chavez, said, "The people of the United States, of Latin America, and of the world need to follow the example of a Venezuela free of transgenics", he said.

"If we want to achieve food sovereignty, we cannot rely on
transnationals like Monsanto", said Maximilien Arvelaiz, an adviser to
Chavez. "We need to strengthen local production, respecting our heritage
and diversity."

Meanwhile, last month in the US, a federal judge in Kansas City temporarily banned a genetically engineered variety of alfalfa and ruled that the US Department of Agriculture must complete an environmental impact study before releasing GMO alfalfa. He said that government and corporate lawyers presented no credible evidence that gene drift from the GMO crop would not contaminate other crops. This is the first time a GMO crop has been successfully challenged in the US. On May 4, US District Court Judge Charles Breyer permanently banned the genetically engineered alfalfa.

Yet, the University of California, Berkeley, recently signed a $500,000 deal with BP, an oil company, for biotechnology research into biofuels.

Chavez has been nationalizing Venezuelan oil reserves (seventh largest in the world) by edging BP and other transnational oil companies out of its oil fields, while at the same time providing cheap petroleum products to poor communities in the US through its subsidiary, Citgo.

Bill Hatch
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Notes

VENEZUELA: Chavez dumps Monsanto
From: owner-GE_NEWS@eco-farm.org
Sent: Thu 5/03/07 7:37 PM
To: GE_NEWS@eco-farm.org
Sunday, April 29, 2007 1:34 PM

The next genetic revolution?
We didn't want GM on our table, but the crucial question now is, will we allow it in our tanks? Robin Maynard and Pat Thomas report
GM WATCH daily list
http://www.gmwatch.org
The Ecologist, 29 March 2007
http://www.theecologist.org/archive_detail.asp?content_id=831

Court Halt on GMO Alfalfa Shows USDA Failure
By Carey Gillam
Reuters
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/031507O.shtml
Thursday 15 March 2007

5-4-07
Inside Bay Area
Court ruling bans genetically altered alfalfa...Paul Elias, AP
http://www.insidebayarea.com/search/ci_5816665
SAN FRANCISCO — A federal judge on Thursday barred the planting of genetically engineered alfalfa nationwide, ruling that the government didn't adequately study the biotechnology crop's potential to mix with organic and conventional varieties. U.S. District Court Judge Charles Breyer made permanent a temporary ban he ordered in March on alfalfa with genetic material from bacteria that makes the crop resistant to a popular weed killer. The ruling is a major victory for anti-biotech crusaders, who have been fighting the proliferation of genetically engineered crops. It is the first ban placed on such crops since the first variety — the Flavr Savr tomato — was approved in 1994. Breyer said the U.S. Department of Agriculture must conduct a detailed scientific study of the crop's effect on the environment and other alfalfa varieties before deciding whether to approve it. Alfalfa is grown on about 21 million acres nationwide. California is the nation's largest alfalfa producer, growing the crop on about 1 million acres, primarily in the San Joaquin Valley. Breyer sided with organic farmers and conventional growers who fear lost sales if their crops are contaminated by genetically engineered plants. "The harm to these farmers and consumers who do not want to purchase genetically engineered alfalfa or animals fed with such alfalfa outweighs the economic harm to Monsanto, Forage Genetics and those farmers who desire to switch to Roundup Ready alfalfa," Breyer wrote Thursday. About 136.5 million acres of the nation's 445 million acres of farmland were used to grow biotech crops last year, an increase of 10 percent over 2005 plantings, according to the industry-backed nonprofit International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications.

The worst cultural and economic damage UC Merced has done to the north San Joaquin Valley is reflected in this article, by Barbara Ehrenreich, about an incident at MIT. The enormous amount of UC propaganda for this land boondoggle --from UC, politicians, finance, insurance and real estate special interests -- endlessly dinned into the minds of our communities, has accelerated the destruction of one of the best Valley traditions: honest, hard-working people working their way up on a farm, in a company or local government without educational credentials. People's employment possibilities are being maimed by lack of a college degree for jobs that don't need a college education to do them.

The great promise of "universal higher education" corresponded with a prolonged attack on American workers in the early 1970s including mergers and acquisitions, downsizing, plant closings and off-shoring -- deliberate, conscious policies committed by American government, corporations and investment interests to role back gains made by American workers since World War II. Today's American labor policy, if one can speak of it with a straight face, is corrupt, exploitive, and reactionary, an open corporate declaration of class war against labor. Universal higher education has become a sad, savage arena of competition for a shrinking lot of workplaces subject to sudden disappearance. It has also become a place of cultivation of class pretention. Beneath the level of the university credentialed community, chaos is growing. Above it, the whispering of money moving here and there.

Whenever I hear the blather about "making the working force more competitive," it reminds me of a electrical engineer in management telling me how he would always hire an engineer from Bombay over one from UC Berkeley because the Indian would be a better engineer. Both came with high debt. He would not admit that the import was willing to work cheaper.

Bill Hatch
--------------

04.30.2007
Huffington Post
The Higher Education Scam
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Barbara Ehrenreich
Can you be fired for doing a great job, year after year, and in fact becoming nationally known for your insight and performance? Yes, as in the case of Marilee Jones, who was the dean of admissions at MIT until her dismissal last week, when it was discovered that she had lied about her academic credentials 28 years ago.

She had claimed three degrees, although she had none. If she had done a miserable job as dean, MIT might have been more forgiving, but her very success has to be threatening to an institution of higher learning: What good are educational credentials anyway?

Jones is hardly the only academic fraud. The outplacement firm Challenger, Gray and Christmas estimates that 10-30 percent of resumes include distortions if not outright lies. In the last couple of weeks, for example, "Dr. Denis Waitley Ph.D." -- as he is redundantly listed in the bestselling self-help book The Secret, where he appears as a spiritual teacher -- has confessed to not having his claimed master's degree, and the multi-level vitamin marketing firm he worked for admits that it can't confirm the Ph.D. either.

All right, lying is a grievous sin, as everyone outside of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue knows. And we wouldn't want a lot of fake MIT engineering graduates designing our bridges. But there are ways in which the higher education industry is becoming a racket: Buy our product or be condemned to life of penury, and our product can easily cost well over $100,000.

The pundits keep chanting that we need a more highly skilled workforce, by which they mean more college graduates, although the connection between college and skills is not always crystal clear. Jones, for example, was performing a complex job requiring considerable judgment, experience and sensitivity without the benefit of any college degree. And how about all those business majors -- business being the most popular undergraduate major in America? It seems to me that a two-year course in math and writing skills should be more than sufficient to prepare someone for a career in banking, marketing, or management. Most of what you need to know you're going to learn on the job anyway.

But in the last three decades the percentage of jobs requiring at least some college has doubled, which means that employers are going along with the college racket. A resume without a college degree is never going to get past the computer programs that screen applications. Why? Certainly it's not because most corporate employers possess a deep affinity for the life of the mind. In fact in his book Executive Blues G. J. Meyers warned of the "academic stench" that can sink a career: That master's degree in English? Better not mention it.

My theory is that employers prefer college grads because they see a college degree chiefly as mark of one's ability to obey and conform. Whatever else you learn in college, you learn to sit still for long periods while appearing to be awake. And whatever else you do in a white collar job, most of the time you'll be sitting and feigning attention. Sitting still for hours on end -- whether in library carrels or office cubicles -- does not come naturally to humans. It must be learned -- although no college has yet been honest enough to offer a degree in seat-warming.

Or maybe what attracts employers to college grads is the scent of desperation. Unless your parents are rich and doting, you will walk away from commencement with a debt averaging $20,000 and no health insurance. Employers can safely bet that you will not be a trouble-maker, a whistle-blower or any other form of non-"team-player." You will do anything. You will grovel.

College can be the most amazingly enlightening experience of a lifetime. I loved almost every minute of it, from St. Augustine to organic chemistry, from Chaucer to electricity and magnetism. But we need a distinguished blue ribbon commission to investigate its role as a toll booth on the road to employment, and the obvious person to head up this commission is Marilee Jones.

May 5 / 6, 2007
A Political Cast of Hacks, Bums, Liars and Non-Stop Self-Aggrandizers
The American Moral Meltdown Accelerates
By LAWRENCE R. VELVEL
Counterpunch.com

...Moral meltdown also has been displayed at one of our great academic institutions, MIT, though here there definitely were sad aspects to it, aspects that speak poorly for America. MIT had to fire the head of its admissions staff, Merilee Jones, because, nearly thirty years ago, she lied on her resume in order to get a job at the university -- a job for which she did not need a college degree. She falsely said she had degrees she most certainly did not have. At first it was reported that she had then said she had three such degrees. Later it was reported that she had only claimed two, but later added a third, apparently in connection with seeking a higher job at MIT. At first it was not reported that, but later it was reported that, in fact, when she applied for her first job at MIT, she had a degree from a small college in Albany, NY named Saint Rose. At the time, Saint Rose was little known, to put it mildly. Today it is a better known school of 5,000 which graduates a large proportion of New York state's teachers.

During her decades at MIT, Jones apparently had performed very well in a number of jobs -- including ones for which a college degree was required by MIT, which did not, however, check her credentials since she already was a high performing employee. Being highly regarded, she rose to the top of her professional field. For some unknown reason, though, a few weeks ago someone who knew the truth dropped a dime on her -- ah, the pleasures of making enemies for one reason or another. MIT investigated and fired her despite her years of excellent service.

MIT did what it should have done when it fired her -- we simply will continue to have a morally lousy country if people can lie their ways into jobs, get away with it, and later plead that the original lie should be ignored because of one reason or another, e.g., because of years of excellent service. Culprits must be punished -- this is the only way we will ever put a stop to misconduct, and it is for that reason that war criminals like Kissinger and McNamara should be put in the dock now, even thirty and forty years after their horrid misconduct and despite their age. (It has been done to German Nazis you know, and the same principle should apply to our homegrown Nazis or, in one case, at least home schooled Nazi.) It is for the same reason that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wofowitz and a few others of our highest ranking Iraq war criminals should also be put in the dock. As I say, MIT was right to fire the woman for lying on her resume.

There is also a sadder side to the story, however. It is not primarily that she performed so well for so many years yet had to come to no good professional end, although that is a part of it. But the even sadder part is that the American mania for a college degree -- and for a degree from a prestigious elite school, not a no name school however fine its quality -- is so pronounced that Jones felt it desirable or necessary to invent false degrees when applying for her first job at MIT, and to hide the degree she did have, and felt as she did even though a degree was not a requisite for the job. This is symptomatic of the credentials mania that has infested American society, and that is now often more important than competence, even previously demonstrated competence. This mania, particularly because it substitutes credentials for competence, stifles good people lacking the credential, and makes a joke of the claim of social mobility that has always been so much a part of purported America. It is itself a form of moral meltdown...

The cities and counties of the San Joaquin Valley have been promoting rampant growth at the expense of the common air quality and asthma for children and elders for 30 years. Part of the reason they get away with it is because their officials control the regional air pollution control district. Within a week of his virtual sponsorship of a proposed 1,200-acre auto-racing facility, including eight tracks designed to draw visitors from a 100-mile radius of central Merced County, former Chairman of the Merced County Board of Supervisors Mike Nelson was appointed to the regional air board.

Last night, before a city council that will shortly decide on a WalMart distribution center that will draw at least 1,000 diesel truck trips a day, the air district executive director had the gall to describe Merced air as "virtually clean." While even the council members would have had trouble choking that down, his real argument was that he estimated that $2 billion in federal highway funds were at stake if the air district did not accept the worst air quality standard the Environmental Protection Agency until 2023 bestows rather than rush to clean up the air quality by 2013.

When it was suggested that, via the politicians on the board, Valley air quality policy was really controlled by business interests (finance, insurance and real estate [FIRE]), the executive director righteously defended business, saying it stood to lose $20 billion under new air pollution laws.

We just love to hear those rhetorical billions thrown all around City Hall.

A representative for Moms Clean Air Network led the attack against FIRE propaganda, quoting the American Lung Association's 2007 report, ranking Merced the sixth highest city in the nation for ozone. By chance, this is about the ranking Merced has for mortgage foreclosures and sub-prime loans in jeopardy.

This fight is going to take more than testimony before bought-and-sold local politicians, or even apple-pie tossing parents of asthmatic children. The Moms are going to have to learn that if you can't break bread with the politicians and sue them the next morning, asthma rates for their children and for their parents will just keep rising. The Mother's Milk in this game is the same-old, same-old cash, courtesy of finance, insurance and real estate interests.

We can understand the desire nice people have to believe nice visions. We want to believe that our Valley towns and cities still hold out some care for the common good and that we can still bury our differences and speak with One Voice to the real enemies (according to our leaders) in state and federal government, enemies who plot 24/7 to steal from the Valley, impoverish our people, lower our quality of life, deny our children opportunity, etc. Of course, THEY have always been after our water.

The problem is that nice is not always the same thing as true.

Top finger pointer of the City Hall event was Councilman Bill Spriggs, chairman of the unsuccessful Measure G campaign to hike sales taxes to develop funds to match federal highway funds to build more highways and expressways in Merced, to encourage more growth as well as service the growth Merced city and county permitted on the come, hoping for those highway funds despite air quality that is a national scandal. Spriggs blamed our dangerous air quality on the Bay Area's failure to build affordable housing, thus causing massive commuter traffic, for our air pollution problem. Last year the National Association of Homebuilders and Wells Fargo Bank ranked Merced and Modesto the fourth and fifth least affordable housing markets in the nation. There were no Bay Area cities in the top 10 least affordable US housing markets. Salinas ranked third. This pathetic apologist for local development interests with national and international ties is peddling a line of the well known substance. This line is intended to make the local citizen feel better -- maybe even nice -- about our poor, overwhelmed but nice city council that so valiantly looks out for our interests. Neither city council members more county supervisors can be held responsible for permitting all the growth. It is a nice belief. It is nice to believe that we can come together and reason with our elected officials and their staff about issues that threaten our common health and safety.

It's not true, but it's real nice.

But, lest the ordinary citizen become dismayed, that nice new UC Merced campus is planning a nice medical school to do some real nice research on respiratory disease. And that's why so many people want to move to Merced to live. And, if that isn't nice enough, UC/Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory wants to put a real nice biosafety-4 biowarfare lab in the hills behind Tracy to do nice studies on the most deadly disease known to man and beast. Real nice.

Badlands editorial staff
-------------------

5-8-07
Merced Sun-Star
Some want polluted Valley air cleaned up sooner...Leslie Albrecht
http://www.mercedsunstar.com/local/story/13562018p-14163799c.html
Valley's polluted air drew sharp criticism at Monday night's City Council meeting...Air District Executive Director Seyed Sadredin presented the new cleanup timeline to the council as part of a 58-city tour he's making to promote the plan...told the council that Merced's air is "virtually clean," and that a child born today breathes air that is 50 percent cleaner than 15 years ago. But the region is still plagued by dirty air...conditions that we have no control over," such as the Valley's bowl-like geography. Lisa Kayser Grant, a member of the Moms Clean Air Network, noted that the American Lung Association's 2007 State of the Air Report ranked Merced as the sixth most ozone-polluted city in the nation.

What should be noted by the public living in the north San Joaquin Valley is that this region has been the focal point of one of the strongest drives to destroy the Endangered Species Act in the nation. This destruction was led by:

Julia McDonald, a Bush political appointee to the Fish and Wildlife Service who, among other things, concocted an "economic" study on the vernal pool critical habitat designation that was thrown out of court;

and the Pomboza: Former Rep. Richard Pombo, Buffalo Slayer-Tracy, former chairman of the Resources Committee and Rep. Dennis Cardoza, Shrimp Slayer-Merced;

Sacramento-based Pacific Legal Foundation;

and a handful of regional developers led by a co-chairman of the San Joaquin Valley Blueprint for Progress, the latest veil of confusion cast over the public planning process in the region.

The Pomboza failed in three attempts legislatively to gut sections of the ESA that did not appeal to their developer contributors, so now the Bush administration is rewriting the Act behind closed doors. Democrats control Congress and Pombo was defeated for reelection because of his ties to Jack "The Singing Lobbyist" Abramoff and his assaults on the ESA. Another outstanding hater of the environment, Rep. John Doolittle, R-Roseville, and his wife are under investigation for ties to Abramoff.

Meanwhile, the area that the Pomboza and its paymasters wanted to strip of all environmental protection remains somewhat intact while nearby real estate development drowns in seas subprime mortgages, foreclosures and empty homes in the fourth least affordable housing market in the nation. The anchor tenant for Merced growth, UC Merced, cannot fill its seats, has been demoted to the status of a UC junior college (in a region already served by several community colleges and state universities) and has not yet received its Clean Water Act permit to build on vernal pool critical habitat land. Probably no single factor solidified hostility to local, state and federal environmental law in the north San Joaquin Valley more than the arrival of the University of California, its wealth, its prestige, its powerful propaganda machine and its army of lobbyists at all levels of government. UC crawled in bed with some of the most reactionary, anti-environmental politicians in the nation to build what former President of the state Senate John Burton called "nothing but a boondoggle."

As a member of the Badlands editorial board remarked the other day, the word to describe the speculative housing boom, bust and credit disaster befalling the region, coupled with the all out political assault of local, state and federal environmental regulation and law and laws of public process that have characterized the regional politics and economy since the late 1990s, is BOOMDOGGLE.

Badlands editorial staff
--------------------------------------

TESTIMONY OF JAMIE RAPPAPORT CLARK
EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT
DEFENDERS OF WILDLIFE
HOUSE COMMITTEE ON NATURAL RESOURCES
MAY 9, 2007

Mister Chairman and members of the Committee, I am Jamie Rappaport Clark, Executive Vice President of Defenders of Wildlife. Founded in 1947, Defenders of Wildlife has over 500,000 supporters across the nation and is dedicated to the protection and restoration of wild animals and plants in their natural communities.

As you know, prior to coming to Defenders of Wildlife, I worked for the federal government for almost 20 years, for both the Department of Defense and the Department of the Interior. I served as Director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service from 1997 to 2001. Thus, I have seen the Endangered Species Act from different perspectives: that of an agency working to comply with the law; working for and then leading the agency charged, along with other federal agencies, states, and private landowners, with implementing the law; and now leading a conservation organization working to ensure that the law is fully implemented to conserve threatened and endangered plants and wildlife.

The common lesson I have drawn from all of these experiences is that the Endangered Species Act is one of our most farsighted and important conservation laws. For more than 30 years, the Endangered Species Act has helped rescue hundreds of species from the catastrophic permanence of extinction. But the even greater achievement of the Endangered Species Act has been the efforts it has prompted to recover species to the point at which they no longer need its protections.

Recovery is what the Endangered Species Act is all about. It is because of the act that we have wolves in Yellowstone, manatees in Florida, and sea otters in California. We can marvel at the sight of bald eagles in the lower 48 states and other magnificent creatures like the peregrine falcon, the American alligator, and California condors largely because of the act.

Recovery Efforts Hamstrung by Lack of Support and Political Interference

Mister Chairman, because I know the difficulties faced by the dedicated professionals in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Marine Fisheries Service, and other federal agencies implementing this law, I am reluctant to criticize those who are currently administering the Endangered Species Act. However, because I know how successful the act can be in recovering species and because of the deep regard I have for those dedicated professionals administering the act, I cannot ignore the damage that has been done to endangered species conservation under the current administration. Rather than enhancing recovery efforts to expand on existing successes, I firmly believe that this administration is actually hamstringing species recovery. It has undermined the scientific integrity of its Endangered Species Act programs with political interference and slowly starved the program of needed resources.

Those are serious charges, but look at the facts:

The top career professional position in charge of federal endangered species efforts has been vacant for more than a year, and the position has yet even to be advertised for filling.

The Fish and Wildlife Service programs involved in implementing the Endangered Species Act have lost at least 30 percent of the staff they once contained. In some areas, that rate may be close to 50 percent.

There has been a consistent and continuing failure by the administration to request adequate resources for endangered and threatened species conservation in the budgets presented to Congress. The fiscal year 2008 request is at least 20 percent ($40 million) below the minimum level needed.

Fewer listings of endangered and threatened species have occurred in this administration than in any previous one and 277 species remaining on the candidate species list still await initiation of the listing process. The 57 species brought under the protection of the Endangered Species Act in the last six years is just one quarter the number protected in the four years of the administration of President George Herbert Walker Bush. Listing is the crucial first step in catalyzing public and private recovery efforts.

The Interior Department’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) has confirmed that former Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Fish and Wildlife and Parks Julie MacDonald was “ heavily involved with editing, commenting on, and reshaping the Endangered Species Program’s scientific reports from the field.” The scope and magnitude of political interference revealed by OIG interviews is unprecedented in my experience. In one example cited by the OIG, a listing decision required by law to be rooted in science was instead ruled by the personal views of Deputy Assistant Secretary MacDonald, only later to be overturned by a court that refused to ignore the science. This and numerous other examples of political interference detailed in the OIG report have seriously compromised the integrity and credibility of the endangered species program.

More recently, as Dr. DellaSala details in his testimony, the administration has interjected political considerations heavily into recovery planning for the northern spotted owl. A so-called “Washington oversight committee,” which initially consisted of Deputy Assistant Secretary MacDonald and other senior-level administration political appointees, instructed the spotted owl recovery team of scientists and other experts to stop work on development of their conservation approach and develop a second approach that would offer greater “flexibility.” The increased flexibility option would result in weakening owl habitat protections by (1) delegating authority to the Forest Service and BLM to decide where to place blocks of owl habitat without creating lines on a map, (2) providing no information on total habitat acreages to be managed for owls, and (3) no longer anchoring spotted owl recovery to the Late Successional Reserves established under the Northwest Forest Plan. Frankly, the extent of this political interference in recovery planning so far exceeds anything I have ever encountered that it is astonishing for its sheer audacity.

An Administrative Rewrite of the Endangered Species Act Behind Closed Doors

Finally, the issues raised by the potential revisions to the administrative rules that guide implementation of the Endangered Species Act, some of which are dated as recently as March, are a source of great concern.

We appreciate the opportunities afforded some of us to discuss the very broad outlines of Endangered Species Act regulatory revisions with Deputy Secretary Scarlett, Director Hall, and Fish and Wildlife Service and NOAA-Fisheries career staff. However, we have found neither our discussions nor the widely circulated, two-page fact sheet particularly illuminating.

In fact, the discussions and fact sheet have raised more questions and concerns than they have answered or allayed. Moreover, in addition to the very general descriptions provided by the administration, we have draft regulations dated as recently as two months ago that propose changes of such significance that they would seriously undermine the ability of the Endangered Species Act to protect and recover imperiled species.

Although the administration maintains that the leaked documents do not reflect its current intentions, the information they have provided so far contains scant information on which of these regulatory changes or portions of them remain on the table. Regardless, there are no guarantees that revisions off the table now will not find their way back to the table in any proposed or final rulemaking.

As we noted in our meetings with Deputy Secretary Scarlett and Director Hall, we believe that the interests of endangered and threatened species recovery would best be served by working together openly on matters for which there is support among a wide variety of interests. In the absence of any inclusive process like this, however, it is only prudent that the Congress and organizations like Defenders of Wildlife focus on existing examples of specific administrative rule changes because we already have seen several iterations of them and we may see still more. These changes are of deep concern for at least four reasons.

First, although early intervention to halt the decline of species is clearly advisable, the proposed changes would almost certainly have the effect of only allowing listing – and the conservation measures prompted by a listing – once species are in extreme peril. The effect of postponing corrective action will be to make recovery and eventual delisting of species even harder and more expensive than it already is and more unlikely to occur in any reasonable time frame.

Second, over the years, the Section 7 consultation process between the Service and other federal agencies has been one of the act’s most successful provisions in reconciling species conservation needs with other objectives. For example, progress towards the conservation of species such as the grizzly bear and piping plover would have been virtually inconceivable without the beneficial influence of Section 7. Yet, the proposed changes and fact sheet descriptions appear to reduce the scope of Section 7, reduce the role of the Fish and Wildlife Service in its implementation, and weaken the substantive standards that apply to federal agency actions. The net effect of these changes, like those described above with respect to listing, will almost certainly be to make species recovery less likely rather than more likely.

Third, the draft regulations would re-define the term “conservation” so that it no longer would be synonymous with recovery and remove the term “recovery” from many places in the regulations. Proposed rule changes, for example, would re-word the statutory language on recovery plan contents to remove statements that the goal of plan requirements is the conservation and survival of species and remove the term “recovery” and the language describing it as a goal from the reasons to delist a species. We find it difficult to reconcile these proposed changes with improving recovery of species under the Endangered Species Act.

Fourth, the proposed regulatory revisions of March 2007 construe the Endangered Species Act mandate for federal-state cooperation to mean delegation of current federal responsibilities to the states. The proposed changes would give the Secretaries of the Interior and Commerce very broad discretion to grant states authority to assume responsibility for carrying out much of the endangered species program. The proposal would allow states to “request and be given the lead role in many aspects of the Act, including, but not limited to, Section 4, Section 7, and Section 10 of the Act.” The administration’s fact sheet on the regulation changes appears to describe a similar delegation of responsibility to the states, a fact acknowledged in meetings with the administration.

As stewards of the plants and animals within their borders, states are important partners in the conservation of threatened and endangered species. The Endangered Species Act gives states wide opportunities to create their own programs for protection and recovery, and to contribute to federal efforts as well. By increasing the legal protections given to imperiled plants and animals within their borders, state endangered species laws can complement the federal law, supplementing protection of species already listed so that recovery can be achieved. Strong state laws and state Wildlife Action Plans also can protect species not listed under the federal act, thereby lessening the need for federal listing.

As of 2005, however, most of the existing 45 state endangered species acts merely provide a mechanism for listing and prohibit the direct killing of listed species. The scope of state prohibitions on take generally is narrower than the ESA’s take prohibition. For instance, only nine states make it illegal to harm listed species. Massachusetts is the lone state to bar the “disruption of nesting, breeding, feeding or migratory activity.” Georgia is the only state to explicitly include destruction of habitat in its take prohibitions, and it doesn’t apply to private lands. No mechanisms exist in 32 state endangered species laws for recovery, consultation, or critical habitat designation. Just five states require recovery plans. And five states have no endangered species law at all, simply relying on the federal act or nongame programs.

In response to a nationwide survey conducted by Defenders of Wildlife and the Center for Wildlife Law on state endangered species protection in 1998, state agency staff identified a number of constraints to assumption of a greater role in conservation of endangered species. These included a general lack of funding and staff and a reluctance or lack of preparation to take on more responsibilities under the federal law.

Most significantly, however, state agency staff pointed to the difficulties created by a patchwork of inconsistent and sometimes ineffective state laws in protecting and recovering species that occur in multiple states. This situation remains unchanged in 2007. The administration’s draft regulations propose to resolve this dilemma by requiring that a state “provide for coordination with all other States within the current range of the species affected by such granted authority or delegated activities.” But this approach fails to address the concerns identified by state fish and wildlife agency staff. It also appears to place little value on the broad, interstate view and coordination that can be provided by the Fish and Wildlife Service or NOAA-Fisheries for species having multi-state distributions.

The administration’s proposed delegation of Endangered Species Act authority to the states is a change to the law of such significance that it should be brought to Congress for its consideration, not put in place by means of administrative fiat. There is no evidence in three decades of Endangered Species Act legislative history that Members of Congress or administration officials were sufficiently unhappy with the relative federal and state roles to even raise it as an issue on the six occasions in which Endangered Species Act amendments were discussed and adopted between 1976 and 1988.

A More Constructive Approach to Improving Conservation of Imperiled Species

The general theme of all the administrative rule changes we have seen from, or discussed with, the administration is a withdrawal of the Fish and Wildlife Service and NOAA-Fisheries from implementation of the Endangered Species Act. Having hamstrung the endangered species program by starving it of resources and injecting political considerations into its science, the administration’s rewrite of the ESA rules now would have the Fish and Wildlife Service and NOAA-Fisheries shed the responsibility entrusted to them by Congress on the basis that the agencies lack sufficient resources and expertise.

Defenders of Wildlife is committed to improving protection and recovery of endangered and threatened species under the Endangered Species Act, and we have worked with you, Mr. Chairman, and others toward that end. But all indications ranging from leaked documents to discussions with administration officials are that the administration is considering policy changes of such scope and magnitude that they should be brought to Congress for its consideration as amendments to the Endangered Species Act.

Major changes to the Endangered Species Act are on a fast track behind closed doors. A spokesperson for the Interior Department was quoted in an April 26 Washington Times article as saying, "When we put out proposed regulations, we will hold a press conference and tell everyone what we are doing."

We have asked the administration to adopt a different, more constructive approach. We have asked that they work with a broad array of stakeholders to find common ground on ways to improve conservation of imperiled species prior to going forward with any proposal. The success of the common endeavor we seek hinges on openness and transparency. A key first step in that direction is for the administration to share the text of any changes in the Endangered Species Act regulations currently are under consideration in a collaborative manner, not by holding a press conference and publishing proposed regulations.

Mister Chairman, the absence of meaningful congressional oversight of the Administration’s implementation of the Endangered Species Act for the past six years has contributed to each of the problems I have described today. As you are well aware, under previous leadership of this Committee, hearings were devoted more to undermining the Endangered Species Act, rather than making sure that those charged with implementing the law were doing so in a manner that would achieve successful conservation of endangered species. I am pleased that, under your leadership Mister Chairman, and as today’s hearing demonstrates, Congress is reasserting its rightful place in conducting oversight.

I urge you to continue to make full use of this Committee’s oversight authority in the weeks and months ahead to insist that the administration work cooperatively with Congress and stakeholders rather than hurriedly pursuing unilateral amendments to the Endangered Species Act via administrative rulemaking. Preventing the extinction of important plants and wildlife is of such critical importance that close oversight is essential to assure the appropriate protection of our natural resources and responsible stewardship by this administration.

Thank you for considering my testimony. I’ll be happy to answer questions.

Under the new contract, the team, which includes Bechtel National Inc., BWX Technologies Inc. and Washington Group International Inc., would receive $297.5 million over the seven-year contract. The consortium also includes Battelle Memorial Institute, Texas A&M University and several small businesses...consortium is nearly identical to the group that took over Los Alamos, though the relative shares that each member has in the corporation is different. At Livermore, the University of California controls half of the six-member board, said Gerald L. Parsky, chairman of the consortium's board. -- Los Angeles Times, May 9, 2007

Yesterday, it was widely reported that Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, which received this year the contract to design a new generation of nuclear weapons, has new management:

BWX Technologies Inc. is in charge of cleanup at the Rocky Flats CO nuclear dump site;

Washington Group International Inc. is the new, reorganized name for Morrison-Knudsen, the Boise-based dam-building (Boulder) and war contractors since WWII:

Battelle Memorial Institute, as of 2005, has management contracts with four other national laboratories;

Texas A & M is a university based in President Bush's home state.

Bechtel is an SF-based defense contractor, charged in the Iraq War with repairing and rebuilding public utilities in Baghdad destroyed by the US invasion. This, by all accounts except its own, Bechtel failed to do and pulled out, despite being paid around $3 billion and losing a number of employees to the Iraqi resistance. The Bush administration has a appointed a number of Bechtel managers to prominent positions in the regime. For example, Riley Bechtel is one of Bush's top trade advisors.

...family-owned Bechtel Corporation is one of the world's largest
engineering-construction firms whose projects range from the first major oil pipelines in Alaska and Saudi Arabia to nuclear reactors in Qinshan, China and refineries in Zambia. Founded in 1898, the company has worked on 20,000 projects in 140 nations on all seven continents. In 2002 Bechtel earned $11.6 billion in revenue...The company and its workers contributed at least $277,050 to federal candidates and party committees in the last election cycle, about 57 percent to Democrats and 43 percent to Republicans, the center found. Bechtel gave at least $166,000 to national Republican Party committees, center figures show. -- Corpwatch.com, April 24th, 2003

Bechtel's privatization of the Cochabamba, Bolivia water system, which radically raised water rates and caused massive demonstrations in 1999-2000 helped inspire the mass movement that elected Evo Morales president of Bolivia.

The lineup of major defense contractors and a university from Bush's home state behind the University of California is impressive. We predict that the new team will easily push LLNL onto the short list for a level-4 biowarfare laboratory on Site 300, near Tracy, already radioactively contaminated. Furthermore, we imagine this new team, sophisticated hunter/gatherers of defense pork, will probably prevail and LLNL will get its biowarfare lab -- unless there is serious citizen opposition.

Why Valley poultry, dairy and livestock producers would want live Avian Flu and Foot-and-Mouth Disease nearby is beyond us, but they collective mind of Valley agriculture remains as mysterious as ever except for its attraction to a deal, any deal.

In any event, with the new management team, LLNL will claim the plutonium at Livermore, the depleted uranium used in bomb testing at Site 300 and the proposed biowarfare lab will all be perfectly safe.

The LLNL biowarfare lab is touted by the government to replace USDA-managed Plum Island Animal Disease Center, widely suspected of letting loose several animal and human diseases on American citizens, kept in ignorance "for reasons of national security." How much more closed mouthed LLNL will be under corporate domination remains to be seen. The combination of "national security" and "private property" is a lethal combination America is learning all about since the Florida "recount" in 2000.

"Let's face it," Plum Island scientist Dr. Douglas Gregg once said to a reporter, "there can be no absolute guarantee of securing the island." -- Michael Carroll, Lab 257, p. 20.

Badlands editorial staff
---------------------

5-9-07
Sacramento Bee
UC will remain major player at lab...Michael Doyle, Bee Washington Bureau
http://www.sacbee.com/111/story/172548.html
The University of California on Tuesday survived recurring controversy to retain a hand in running the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory...renowned nuclear weapons lab, located in the shadow of Altamont Pass, will now be managed by a new partnership of corporate and university collaborators. The Energy Department calls the seven-year contract a fresh start for a lab that's sometimes squirmed under the spotlight. Called Lawrence Livermore National Security, the winning lab contractor includes as partners Texas A&M University and the engineering giant Bechtel. The University of California, which has managed Lawrence Livermore since the lab's founding in 1952, created the new corporation and remains a major player in it. With its $1.6 billion budget, Lawrence Livermore has long put its stamp on both national security and the northern San Joaquin Valley. Nearly one-quarter of the lab's 8,600 employees live in the Valley, and the lab's contaminated Site 300 test area west of Tracy typically stores an average of 10,000 pounds of high explosives. The Lawrence Livermore partnership also includes Battelle Memorial Institute, Washington Group International and several smaller firms. Battelle runs nuclear facilities including the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Tracy Press
Almost new management...AP
http://tracypress.com/content/view/9125/2/
A team led by the University of California and Bechtel National Inc. was awarded the management contract Tuesday for Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, despite past problems at the UC-managed lab. “The University of California knows how to do research and development,” Tyler Przybylek, senior adviser at the National Nuclear Security Administration, said in announcing the decision. “It’s the largest research institution at least in the country if not in the world.”...UC’s partnership with Bechtel will provide the management structure which has at times been lacking at the lab...decision follows a series of financial and security gaffes at the nation’s premier nuclear weapons labs — Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. For years, Los Alamos has struggled with security lapses, credit card abuses, theft of equipment and other mismanagement that subjected it to withering criticism from Congress. Problems at Livermore were never so dramatic, but it had its own issues, including the disappearance of an electronic key card and the loss of keys to perimeter gates and office doors. In March, the Bush administration selected Lawrence Livermore for a controversial new weapons program that could lead to a new generation of nuclear warheads. The new contract is for seven years with a maximum payment of $45.5 million per year, depending on performance. It allows for extensions for 13 additional years. A UC team also has the contract to manage Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, which doesn’t deal with nuclear weapons.

San Francisco Chronicle
UC-lead team picked to run nuclear lab...Zachary Coile, Keay Davidson
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/05/09/BAGTTPNKCU1.DTL&hw=uc&sn=0
02&sc=1000
The University of California kept its $1.7 billion contract to manage Lawrence
Livermore National Laboratory for at least the next seven years by creating a
partnership with private companies and underbidding its chief competition, defense giant Northrop Grumman. university has now won both competitions to run the nation's premier nuclear weapons labs -- Livermore and Los Alamos National Lab in New Mexico -- despite a checkered history that has included safety incidents, lost and mishandled classified data and, at Los Alamos, theft and fraud by employees. Energy Department officials announced the decision Tuesday, saying the bidding team led by UC and San Francisco engineering firm Bechtel appeared stronger on science and technology, making it the clear choice... "Livermore National Laboratory is a critical part of our nuclear weapons complex and has been for the last 55 years," Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said...

Los Angeles Times
Consortium wins contract to run Livermore lab...Ralph Vartabedian
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-livermore9may09,1,6950677.story
The Energy Department on Tuesday awarded a seven-year contract to operate Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to an industry consortium that includes the University of California, which has run the lab since it opened in 1952. This year the lab was selected by the Energy Department to design and develop a new generation of nuclear bombs, known as the reliable replacement warhead. A report by an independent group of scientists warned that the project faced serious technical challenges. Under the new contract, the team, which includes Bechtel National Inc., BWX Technologies Inc. and Washington Group International Inc., would receive $297.5 million over the seven-year contract. The consortium also includes Battelle Memorial Institute, Texas A&M University and several small businesses...consortium is nearly identical to the group that took over Los Alamos, though the relative shares that each member has in the corporation is different. At Livermore, the University of California controls half of the six-member board, said Gerald L. Parsky, chairman of the consortium's board. ..consortium is nearly identical to the group that took over Los Alamos, though the relative shares that each member has in the corporation is different. At Livermore, the University of California controls half of the six-member board, said Gerald L. Parsky, chairman of the consortium's board. Meanwhile, three students and alumni at UC campuses in Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz and Berkeley went on hunger strikes this week to protest the involvement of the university system in designing nuclear weapons.

"The region has come alive. It's awakened," said Carol Whiteside, the Modesto-based center's founder and outgoing president. "We are no longer isolated and invisible." ...Other speakers said the valley still faces an uphill climb in many troubling areas. Laurie Primavera of CSU Fresno noted that rates of teen pregnancy, uninsured people and substance abuse continue to outpace those elsewhere. "We have a lot to do in health care," Primavera said. "We rank as badly as third-world countries." Swearingen said the number of valley workers denied jobs because they can't pass drug tests is appallingly high. "The vast preponderance of evidence suggests that jobs are available; we don't have people to fill them," she said. "Our challenges are not economic development — they are people development." -- Modesto Bee, May 10, 2007

Let us endeavor to interpret Whitesidespeak for the wider audience, or even for the audience of citizens of the Valley who weren't designated "leaders" by the Great Valley Center.

There was a speculative housing boom. That's what she means by "alive." Having retired and turned over GVC to UC Merced, she won't be around for the consequences of predatory mortgage lending practices that created the Great Valley Boomdoggle. In fact, since we live in a purely speculative economy, 8-to-5 will get you a bet Whiteside doesn't stay in the Valley any longer than she has to.

But nothing -- absolutely nothing -- happened in the Valley before Carol Whiteside arrived. That must be understood. And, presumably, now that she's leaving, nothing will happen again.

The Valley has been connected to national and international agricultural markets for more decades than the founder of UC/GVC could count on both hands. The Valley has been connect by canal water to San Francisco, Santa Clara Valley and Southern California. And, lest we forget, the Valley is now connected to a lot of off-shore bank accounts through Valley finance, insurance and real estate lending practices. Then, there's the $236 million in farm subsidies between 1995-2005.

There is nothing outstanding about this year's grants to the Valley. In many cases, these are entitlements going with the poverty of the region. Valley politicians remain out of step with the larger trend in both Congress and the state Legislature because our elected officials slavishly represent a handful of special economic interests whose wealth proves the point that, however dysfunctional a situation may be, it always benefits somebody. If those somebodies are rich enough, they can politically perpetuate the situation that harms the rest of the society for quite awhile.

We haven't heard the phrase, "vast preponderance of evidence" in several decades, but it's good to see it back, doing yeoman service on the side of fallacy, as usual. We think of those 550 Hershey workers in Oakdale recently laid off. The firm was clearly so appalled by drug use that they decided to relocate on the other side of the Mexican border to escape the pernicious influence of drug cartels.

"It gets brighter each day in the valley," beamed UC Merced Chancellor Steve Kang. He has been at the helm less than three months; UC Merced absorbed the Great Valley Center in October 2005.

Actually, Stevo, the days are getting every so slightly dimmer in the Valley, thanks to growth induced by your blue-and-gilded junior college. But, as another member of the Badlands editorial staff pointed out, it is getting warmer.

"Water, wealth, contentment, health — who could ask for more?" Channing, 86, crooned a cappella. "Modesto is my hometown!"

It's not the asking, Ms. Channing, it's the doing. For at least 14 years, some Modesto residents have wished to hang a sign under the arch and its blithering 19th-century slogan, saying, "NOT!"

Now that UC has absorbed the Great Valley Center, Valley residents will endure periodic "reports" from the McClatchy Chain about the progress of Dementia Bobcatflax. The mere reality of the Valley was never the least bit attractive to UC or GVC. In their collective overreaching, they failed to grasp it.

The idea, which will be endlessly repeated by UC/GVC, that the Valley will only be "alive" in the act of destroying its natural resources for the benefit of a few plutocratic special interests, is a pathetic excuse for political, economic, social and educational "leadership."

Badlands editorial staff
------------------

5-10-07
Modesto Bee
Valley 'no longer isolated'...Garth Stapley
http://www.modbee.com/local/story/13569344p-14170499c.html
Conference touts the turnabouts in education, transportation, planning...The Great Valley Center's 10th annual two-day conference took on an upbeat tone Wednesday, with dignitaries and entertainers insisting the valley has a bright place in California's future. "The region has come alive. It's awakened," said Carol Whiteside, the Modesto-based center's founder and outgoing president. "We are no longer isolated and invisible." Wednesday, presenters had much to crow about as they pointed to recent turnabouts in the 19-county valley's fortune: Eight counties, including Stanislaus, San Joaquin and Merced, are exploring combined planning efforts in the San Joaquin Valley Blueprint process, and six counties to the north have formed a similar partnership.

This document, signed by George Bush, president of the United States in 1990, appears to be out of date. Nevertheless, a web search for "federal employees code of ethics" recycled it. We were intrigued to note that, prior to the end of history, Rapture Time and the little tyrant, federal employees were not apparently required or permitted to cave to pressure brought by members of Congress on behalf of special interests, particularly in this region, finance, insurance and real estate special interests anymore than they were required or permitted to cave to special interests directly. In fact, it would not seem to have been, back in historical times, an excuse for failure to enforce regulations and for corporate favoritism. What an antiquated code. It mentions the Constitution. Imagine.

Executive Order 12674 of April 12, 1989
(as modified by E.O. 12731)

"PRINCIPLES OF ETHICAL CONDUCT FOR
GOVERNMENT OFFICERS AND EMPLOYEES"

"By virtue of the authority vested in me as President by the
Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, and in
order to establish fair and exacting standards of ethical conduct
for all executive branch employees, it is hereby ordered as follows:

"Part I Principles of Ethical Conduct

"Section 101. Principles of Ethical Conduct. To ensure that
every citizen can have complete confidence in the integrity of the
Federal Government, each Federal employee shall respect and adhere to
the fundamental principles of ethical service as implemented in
regulations promulgated under sections 201 and 301 of this order:

"(a) Public service is a public trust. requiring employees to
place loyalty to the Constitution, the laws, and ethical principles
above private gain.

"(b) Employees shall not hold financial interests that conflict
with the conscientious performance of duty.

"(c) Employees shall not engage in financial transactions using
nonpublic Government information or allow the improper use of such
information to futher any private interest.

"(d) An employee shall not, except pursuant to such reasonable
exceptions as are provided by regulation, solicit or accept any gift
or other item of monetary value from any person or entity seeking
official action from. doing business with, or conducting activities
regulated by the employee's agency, or whose interests may be
substantially affected by the performance or nonperformance of the
employee's duties.

"(e) Employees shall put forth honest effort in the performance of
their duties.

"(f) Employees shall make no unauthorized commitments or promises
of any kind purporting to bind the Government.

"(g) Employees shall not use public office for private gain.

"(h) Employees shall act impartially and not give preferential
treatment to any private organization or individual.

"(i) Employees shall protect and conserve Federal property and
shall not use it for other than authorized activities.

"(j) Employees shall not engage in outside employment or
activities, including seeking or negotiating for employment, that
confiict with official Government duties and responsibIlities.

"(k) Employees shall disclose waste, fraud, abuse, and corruption
to appropriate authorities.

"(l) Employees shall satisfy In good faith their obligations as
citizens, including all just financial obligations, especially
those such as Federal, State, or local taxes-that are imposed by law.

"(m) Employees shall adhere to all laws and regulations that
provide equal opportunity for all Arnericaas reger:lless of race,
color, religion, sex, national origin. age, or handicap.

"(n) Employees shall endeavnor to avoid any actions creating the
appearance that they are violating the law or the ethical standards
promulgated pursuant to this order.

"Sec. 102. Limitations on Outside Earned Income.

"(a) No employee who is appointed by the President to a full-time
noncar reer position in the executive branch (including full-time
noncareer employees in the White House Office, the Office of Policy
Development, and the Office of Cabinet Affairs), shall receive any
earned income for any outside employment or activity performed during
that Presidential appointment.

"(b) The prohibition set forth in subsection (a) shall not apply
to any full-time noncareer employees employed pursuant to 3 U.S.C.
105 and 3 U.S.C. 107(a) at salaries below the minimum rate of basic
pay then paid for GS-9 of the General Schedule. Any outside
employment must comply with relevant agency standards of conduct,
including any requirements for approval of outside employment.
"Part II Office of Government Ethics Authority

"Sec. 201. The Office of Government Ethics. The Office of
Government Ethics shall be responsible for administering this order
by:

"(a) Promulgating, in consultation with the Attorney General and
the Office of Personnel Management, regulations that establish a
single, comprehensive, and clear set of executive-branch standards
of conduct that shall be objective, reasonable, and enforceable.

"(b) Developing, disseminating, and periodically updating an
ethics manual for employees of the executive branch describing the
applicable statutes, rules, decisions, and policies.

"(c) Promulgating, with the concurrence of the Attorney General,
regulations interpreting the provisions of the post-employment
statute, section 207 of title 18, United States Code; the general
conflict-of-interest statute, section 208 of title 18, United States
Code; and the statute prohibiting supplementation of salaries,
section 209 of title 18, United States Code.

"(d) Promulgating, in consultation with the Attorney General and
the Office of Personnel Management, regulations establishing a system
of non-public (confidential) financial disclosure by executive branch
employees to complement the system of public disclosure under the
Ethics in Government Act of 1978. Such regulations shall include
criteria to guide agencies in determining which employees shall submit
these reports.

"(e) Ensuring that any implementing regulations issued by agencies
under this order are consistent with and promulgated in accordance
with this order.

"Sec. 202. Executive Office of the President. In that the
agencies within the Executive Office of the President (EOP) currently
exercise functions that are not distinct and separate from each other
within the meaning and for the purposes of section 207(e) of title 18,
United States Code, those agencies shall be treated as one agency
under section 207(c) of title 18, United States Code.

"Part III Agency Responsibilities

"Sec. 301. Agency Responsibilities. Each agency head is
directed to:

"(a) Supplement, as necessary and appropriate the comprehensive
executive branch-wide regulations of the Office of Government
Ethics, with regulations of special applicability to the particular
functions and activities of that agency. Any supplementary agency
regulations shall be prepared as addenda to the branch-wide
regulations and promulgated jointly with the Office of Government
Ethics, at the agency's expense, for inclusion in Title 5 of the Code
of Federal Regulations.

"(b) Ensure the review by all employees of this order and
regulations promulgated pursuant to the order.

"(c) Coordinate with the Office of Government Ethics in developing
annual agency ethics training plans. Such training shall include
mandatory annual briefings on ethics and standards of conduct for all
employees appointed by the President, all employees in the Executive
Office of the President, all officials required to file public or
nonpublic financial disclosure reports, all employees who are
contracting officers and procurement officials, and any other
employees designated by the agency head.

"(d) Where practicable, consult formally or informally with the
Office of Government Ethics prior to granting any exemption under
section 208 of title 18, United States Code, and provide the Director
of the Office of Government Ethics a copy of any exemption granted.

"(e) Ensure that the rank, responsibilities, authority, staffing,
and resources of the Designated Agency Ethics Official are sufficient
to ensure the effectiveness of the agency ethics program. Support
should include the provision of a separate budget line item for ethics
activities, where practicable.

"Part IV Delegations of Authority

"Sec. 4O1. Delegations to Agency Heads. Except in the case of
the head of an agency, the authority of the President under sections
203(d), 205(e), and 208(b) of title l8, United States Code, to grant
exemptions or approvals to individuals is delegated to the head of the
agency in which an individual requiring an exemption or approval is
employed or to which the individual (or the committee, commission
board, or similar group employing the individual) is attached for
purposes of administration.

"Sec. 402. Delegations to the Counsel to the President.

"(a) Except as provided in section 401, the authority of the Presi-
dent under sections 205(d), 205(e), end 208(b) of title 18, United States
Code, to grant exemptions or approvals for Presidential appointees to
committees, commissions, boards, or similar groups establIshed by the
President is delegated to the Counsel to the President.

"(b) The authority of the President under sections 208(d), 205(e), and
208(b) of title 18, United States Code, to grant exemptions or approvals
for individuals appointed pursuant to 3 U.S.C. 105 and 3 U.S.C. 107(a),
is delegated to the Counsel to the President.

"Sec. 4O3. Delegation Reguarding Civil Service. The Office of
Personnel Management and the Office of Government Ethics, as appropriate,
are delegated the authority vested in the President by 5 U.S.C. 7301 to
establish general regulations for the implementation of this Executive
order.

Part V General Provisions

"Sec. 501. Revocations. The following Executive orders are hereby
revoked:

"(a) Executive Order No. 11222 of May 8, 1965.

"(b) Executive Order No. 12565 of September 25, 1986.

"Sec. 502. Savings Provision.

"(a) All actions already taken by the President or by his
delegates concerning matters affected by this order and in force
when this order is issued, including any regulations issued under
Executive Order 11222, Executive Order 12565, or statutory
authority, shall, except as they are irreconcilable with the
provisions of this order or terminate by operation of law or by
Presidential action, remain in effect until properly amended,
modified, or revoked pursuant to the authority conferred by this order
or any regulations promulgated under this order. Notwithstanding
anything in section 102 of this order, employees may carry out
preexisting contractual obligations entered into before April 12, 1989.

"(b) Financial reports filed in confidence (pursuant to the
authority of Executive Order No. 11222, 5 C.F.R. part 735, and
individual agency regulations) shall continue to be held in
confidence.

"Sec 503. Definitions. For purposes of this order, the term:

"(a) Contracting officers and procurement officials' means all
such officers end officials as defined in the Office of Federal
Procurement Policy Act Amendments of 1988.

"(b)Employee' means any officer or employee of an agency,
including a special Government employee.

"(c) `Agency' means any executive agency as defined in 5 U.S.C.
105, including any executive department as defined in 5 U.S.C. 101,
Government corporation as defined in 5 U.S.C. 103, or an independent
establishment in the executive branch as defined in 5 U.S.C. 104
(other then the General Accounting Office), and the United States
Postal Service end Postal Rate Commission.

"(d) `Head of en agency' means, in the case of as agency headed by
more then one person, the chair or comparable member of such agency.

"(e) `Special Government employee' means a special Government em-
ployee as defined in 18 U.S.C. 202(a).

"Sec. 504. Judicial Review. This order is intended only to
improve the internal management of the executive brench end is not
intended to create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural,
enforceable at law by a party against the United States, its agencies,
its officers, or any person.".

GEORGE BUSH

THE WHITE HOUSE,
October 17, 1990.