“Frankly, litigation may be the best way forward on this issue,” Ed Ryerson wrote in a letter last week to Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.), defending his ex-employer’s ability to regulate water on forest lands.

In his letter, Ryerson, who coordinated the Forest Service’s ski area program from 1992 until his retirement in 2005, excoriated “the ‘bad actors’ in the ski industry who welshed on their agreements with the United States, and obtained water rights, justly belonging to the American people, through fraud and deception. These are the ski areas on who’s behalf NSAA has been lobbying.”

Udall, along with Sens. Michael Bennet (D-Colo), John Barrasso, (R-Wyo.), James Risch, (R-Idaho), and Rep. Scott Tipton, (R-Colo.), recently asked the Forest Service to suspend a new clause in its permitting process that ski resorts contend is an illegal taking of valuable water rights.

The Forest Service did not act on the advice of the politicians. Federal officials say the National Forest Ski Area Permit Act of 1986 concedes water rights on federal forest lands to the U.S. government. They also cite statutory authority based on the Organic Administrative Act of 1897, and other laws.

But in 2004, high-level meetings between ski industry executives and Bush administration officials resulted in a new policy that awarded permit owners joint ownership of water rights on federal lands.

“The 2004 water rights clause was implemented during my tenure and accordingly, I experienced how the ski industry exploited the lax regulatory environment that characterized the Bush Administration to attempt to effectuate the transfer of valuable water rights, that justly belong to the American people, to private ski areas,” Ryerson wrote in his letter to Udall. “The 2004 water rights clause is the legacy of this effort and should be seen in the context of that administration’s regulatory failures that allowed greed to jeopardize our economy and environment.”

Before the 2004 clause, there was a particularly cantankerous meeting between Ryerson, accompanied by a Department of Agriculture’s Office of General Council (OGC) lawyer, and NSAA.

“They reacted to every concern we voiced with hostility and let us know that they had the support of the Under Secretary’s Office to make the  changes they wanted,” Ryerson wrote of the NSAA officials. “Following this unproductive meeting, all discussions on modifying the clause were conducted between NSAA representatives, the Director of Recreation in the Chief’s office, and the Under Secretary’s staff. Agency permit specialist and water rights experts with OGC were excluded from the meetings that resulted in the development of the 2004 water rights clause.”

When the Forest Service tried to convey water rights under the 2004 joint-ownership policy, officials say agency lawyers learned Colorado’s laws wouldn’t allow it. That led to the 2011 interim directive, which authorizes the Forest Service to begin to wholly reclaim water rights at ski areas through permit actions. The new directive is limited to new permit requests and it is only valid for 18 months.

Ryerson’s letter questions whether any ski areas have intentionally deceived the Forest Service.

“If, in fact, some ski area operators signed their permits under the pretense of agreeing to transfer these water rights to the Government, when their intent was not to do so, they knowingly and willfully deceived the Forest Service and defrauded the United States,” he wrote. “Accordingly, these ski area operators risked criminal penalties under 18 USC 1001, as well as termination of their permits. That they would resort to such reckless behavior clearly illustrates the power of greed.”

Asked for a response, Geraldine Link, the policy director for NSAA, emailed the Colorado Independent to say “the 2011 clause – is retroactive in nature. It resurrects old, invalid and replaced clauses that are no longer in effect. It resurrects them from the past even though at this time the ski area and the water rights could very well be owned by a different entity who was not a party to the permit from 3 decades ago. The 2011 clause also applies to water that originates on private land and other non-USFS lands. Talk about shifting political winds. The ski industry is frustrated with the pendulum swinging back and forth between administrations. It is not good for business.”

Ryerson has a much different perspective but he agrees with NSAA officials on at least one point when they say they are going to sue the Forest Service: Let the dispute play out in court.

“It will be advantageous to the public’s interest to get the Justice Department involved in this matter,” Ryerson wrote in his letter to Udall, on which Bennet was copied. “It will provide them an opportunity to become familiar with the facts of the matter to help them determine if criminal prosecutions should be pursued, and to expedite acquiring title to water rights that justly belong to the American people.”

Photo: Flickr/Nashoba Valley Ski Area

A recently published study (PDF), to be disseminated to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, reports that barriers built to keep out illegal immigrants are blocking black bears in Arizona from their relatives in Mexico. Border fences are choking off bear migration corridors that are already under stress from urban encroachment, according to the study authored by the Department of Agriculture’s Todd C. Atwood and Julie K. Young, and other biologists.

“While black bears are not a species of concern in [the] U.S., they are in Mexico, which represents the southern extent of their historic and current range,” the study reads, noting that border bears “may be particularly vulnerable to further loss of habitat due to urbanization and border security activities.”

The study focused on Arizona’s desert Sky Island mountain ranges, which are also home to mountain lions and jaguars and encompass one of the nation’s most biologically diverse regions.

Its findings come as the State of Arizona is soliciting private donations to build a wall in an attempt to secure the remaining 82 miles of the state’s 388-mile border with Mexico that isn’t fenced.

A mishmash of barriers currently cover about one-third of the 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border with nearly half of them in Arizona and the rest equally split between California, New Mexico and Texas.

The U.S. Border Patrol first began erecting barriers in 1990 to deter illegal entries and drug smuggling in San Diego and, in 1996, Congress passed the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, which bestowed what is now the Department of Homeland Security broad authority to construct fencing. Then in 2005, Congress passed the REAL ID Act, authorizing Homeland Security to waive all legal requirements to expedite the construction of border barriers. The Secure Fence Act of 2006 directed Homeland Security to build 850 more miles of border fencing, though that requirement was later modified to authorize fencing along not fewer than 700 miles.

Republican congressmen and women from Colorado have historically voted for federal fence-building while Democrats such as Mark Udall and Diana DeGette have opposed it and questioned the effectiveness of barriers, their cost, environmental impacts and diplomatic ramifications.

Border security doesn’t come cheap. The Government Accountability Office estimates (pdf) the federal government doled out between $400,000 to $4.8 million for every mile of border fencing it constructed and that another $6.5 billion is needed for its maintenance over the next 20 years.

Atwood, Young and the other biologists urge government officials and policymakers to identify opportunities to maintain and restore suitable wildlife habitat to protect borderland migrations.

“Currently, in the western U.S., there is opportunity to integrate connectivity conservation with land-planning. For example, land-use planners in the Tucson metropolitan area have developed a regional conservation plan with a specific focus on maintaining wildlife linkages and increasing the permeability of transportation corridors. The information we present here, if incorporated into land-use planning, may aid in ameliorating the adverse effects of inevitable urbanization and border security activities. If connectivity can be maintained, there is greater likelihood of the longterm persistence of species such as black bears, mountain lions, and jaguars along the U.S.-Mexico border.”

Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper (Flickr Creative Commons/Jeffrey Beall)

According to a poll released Thursday by Public Policy Polling, Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper is the second most popular governor in the country. Also, according to the poll, if an election were held today, Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Mark Udall would cruise to victory.

Hickenlooper trails only Mississippi’s Haley Barbour of those governors polled by PPP this year — 53 percent of voters approve of him, compared with 23 percent who disapprove.

Democrats are pretty much unanimous in their support for Hickenlooper’s work (73 percent/10 percent), and independents are very positive, as well (53 percent/20 percent), said PPP’s Tom Jensen in an email. What really sets Hickenlooper apart from most of his colleagues across the country is that even with Republicans he comes pretty close to breaking even, with 31 percent of them approving of him compared with 39 percent who disapprove. “It’s been a very successful first year for Hickenlooper in the court of public opinion,” Jensen said.

Udall also has solid approval numbers, with 41 percent of voters approving of him, compared with 31 percent who disapprove. Udall was first elected in 2008 and will be up for reelection in 2014.

With no Senate race on the ballot in Colorado next year,  PPP took a very early look at how Udall would fare at this point against a pair of potential 2014 opponents. He leads Congressman Mike Coffman by 14 points (48 percent/34 percent), and 2010 primary runner-up Jane Norton by 17 points (50 percent/33 percent).

Michael Bennet has a 38 percent approval rating, with 33 percent of voters disapproving. As with Udall, 29 percent have no opinion about Bennet’s job performance.

The letter (PDF) , signed by Texas A&M professor Douglass Shaw, urges the president to invest in the nation’s public lands infrastructure and establish new wilderness, parks and monuments that can create jobs and jump-start the businesses around them.

“The rivers, lakes, canyons, and mountains found on public lands serve as a unique and compelling backdrop that has helped to transform the western economy from a dependence on resource extractive industries to growth from in-migration, tourism, and modern economy sectors such as finance, engineering, software development, insurance, and health care,” the letter says. “Increasingly, entrepreneurs are basing their business location decisions on the quality of life in an area. Businesses are recruiting talented employees by promoting access to beautiful, nearby public lands.”

The economists’ message was also delivered to leaders in Congress, who are largely locked in partisan gridlock over issues dealing with the environment with few exceptions, such as the expansion of a wilderness area in San Diego County that shares bipartisan support led by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and the recent passage of the U.S. Ski Area Recreational Opportunity Enhancement Act, which Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.) championed for many years.

The Obama administration appears to have gotten the economists’ memo before it was even written, given that U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar issued a report three weeks earlier calling for the declaration of 18 new wilderness and conservation area in nine Western states. Salazar’s report says they all have “significant local support” and, in Colorado, they include expanded land protections in the McKenna Peak Wilderness Study Area of the San Juan Mountains, the Castle Peak Wilderness Study Area, the Browns Canyon Wilderness Study Area and the Bull Gulch Wilderness Study Area.

To get conservative members of Congress, such as U.S. Rep. Scott Tipton (R-Colo.), on board will take some convincing. Tipton so far hasn’t tipped his hand on whether he supports the San Juan Mountains Wilderness Act or drilling in Thompson Divide, but he has been enthusiastic in rolling back wilderness protections for other public lands, and previously blasted Salazar’s controversial Wild Lands policy.

The same can be said of Colorado’s other conservative congressmen — Doug Lamborn, Cory Gardner and Mike Coffman — who, like Tipton, have been rebuked for their environmental records.

Three Nobel Laureates and 10 residents of Colorado are among the scores of economists and academics who signed the public lands letter with the hope of getting U.S. policy-makers’ attention.

“Here in Colorado, our public lands fuel local economies,” said Zeke Hersh, owner of Blue River Anglers in Frisco. “It is only common sense that our elected officials in Congress and the White House protect these places with adequate investment and protections for the clean air, water, wildlife habitat, and open space that lures tourists and small business entrepreneurs to communities like Frisco.”

“Public lands are the identity for our community and thus our businesses,” added Roger Marolt, owner of Marolt LLP, in Aspen. “ They help define who we are and are what attracts vibrant employees, exciting new companies, visitors and consumers to the West. The preservation of federal lands is vital to our economic growth and ensuring existing businesses like mine thrive.”

A recent study commissioned by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (pdf) reports that outdoor recreation supports $289 billion in annual retail sales and services and more than 6.5 million jobs.

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With 60 votes needed to open debate, the measure received 50.

From The Hill:

Sen. Joe Lieberman (Conn.), an Independent who caucuses with Democrats, supported (Harry) Reid’s bid to begin debate on Obama’s jobs package but voiced misgivings over its substance.

“The bottom line here is that I don’t believe the potential in this act for creating jobs justifies adding another $500 billion to our almost $15 trillion national debt,” Lieberman said.

“In fact, I think the most important thing we can do to improve our economy, reduce unemployment [and] create jobs is to bring our national debt under control.”

Lieberman endorsed the deficit-reduction plan crafted by the fiscal commission headed by former Sen. Alan Simpson (R-Wyo.) and former White House Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles. He said he would vote against Obama’s jobs package as a whole if it came to a yes-or-no vote.

Senior White House officials said Tuesday they would work with Senate Democrats to divide the bill into pieces that would be more likely to pass.

Senator Mark Udall released this statement after the vote:

“President Obama’s proposal included reasonable ideas from both sides of the aisle to get Americans back to work and solidify our economic recovery. And it deserved to be taken seriously. I hoped that my colleagues in the Senate would listen to our constituents and come together to work out our differences. I’m disappointed they dismissed the proposal out of hand without even discussing its merits. We owed it to the American people to give the details in the proposal real reflection and open debate, not an ill-considered death by Senate rules.

“There were parts of the president’s proposal with which I didn’t personally agree, but I voted to consider the bill because our economy needs solutions, not partisan games. My office received an overwhelming number of telephone calls, emails and social media messages asking me to bridge the partisan divide for Coloradans who are struggling to find jobs. I’ll continue to work with my colleagues on any plan that creates jobs and gets our economy back on track.”

Before the vote, Colorado Democratic Party Chair Rick Palacio said this:

“Republicans campaigned on jobs last year, but we have yet to see any comprehensive plan from the GOP to put Americans back to work. Their inaction has gone on for too long, and today they can finally contribute to the effort to put Americans back to work. Coloradans looking for work can’t wait any longer.”

At the “Ally Awards” hosted by gay rights group OneColorado Saturday evening, Udall told activist Sunnyvie Brydum that the snowballing incremental approach moving across the nation is the right way to go to build consensus and change the law.

“I support marriage equality. We have work to do. Let’s go do it,” he said. “I think the way [marriage equality] is unfolding has lessons for all of us. Let’s work in our states. Let’s work on our neighbors. Let’s work wit our communities. Let’s work with our elected officials.

“I have no doubt we’ll reach marriage equality in the states and across the nation.”

The awards ceremony celebrated straight people who have worked to advance the civil rights of LGBT Coloradans. Award recipients included Veronica Barela at NEWSED, Bruce DeBoskey of the DeBoskey Group, Jean Hodges of PFLAG and former state Representative Wilma Webb.

In introducing Hodges, Udall related the story of the lesbian and gay service members who came to Washington last December to testify in the hearings that effectively ended the military’s Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy, which banned gay soldiers from serving openly. Udall spearheaded the move to lift the policy, calling it anachronistic, discriminatory and a waste of valuable human and financial resources.

Udall said that he felt the tide turned in favor of lifting the ban, when the Joint Chiefs asked the soldiers what they would do if the policy were lifted. They all said they would rejoin the military, a sign of dedication that sealed the deal, Udall said.

“Truly I could never forget that testimony. Opponents were chortling. The repeal was in doubt up until the last minute,” Udall said. “Their country had rejected them, but [those soldiers] said they would re-enlist, reapply for their officer commissions.”

The awards ceremony, held at the Botanic Gardens at the center of Denver, impressed in part for the crowd it drew. Udall was joined by U.S. Senator Michael Bennet, state Senate President Brandon Shaffer, state Representative Mark Ferrandino, Lt Governor Joe Garcia, State Senator Jean White, former state senator now head of state’s office of tourism Al White, former Colorado Springs Mayor Mary Lou Makepeace and former Denver Mayor Wellington Webb.

Stories told by speakers Saturday night underlined how far the movement for gay rights has come over the last decade, from a marginal movement led by very few, cutting edge civil rights leaders to the kind of movement that draws the support of major mainstream public figures.

OneColorado has only been fully operational in the state for 18 months.

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Tester will likely get his state’s Democratic votes while ceding most of the Republican votes to his opponent. As in Colorado and so many other places these days, the next election in Montana will come down to that mighty middle of unaffiliated voters, the majority of whom Tester is betting are fed up with Tea Party extremism.

From Friday’s New York Times:

A few election cycles ago, before the recession, the debt crisis and the Tea Party movement redefined American politics, a species called “the New Western Democrat” emerged in places like Montana.

Identified by their moderate politics, their plumage — typically a cowboy hat and boots — and by the ability to spit with authenticity, these centrists gave hope to Democrats nationally that a traditionally conservative corner of the country might be won over.

Now, Senator Jon Tester, a big-bellied farmer and self-described populist Democrat seeking a second term, is staking his career — and with it, perhaps his party’s control of the Senate — on a bet that the West’s middle way is still viable. Extremism, Mr. Tester said again and again in a round of campaign stops across the state last week, is a direr threat to Montana than tough times, national debt or recession.

“Working together is what built this place when the homesteaders came here,” Mr. Tester told a radio audience last week in Billings. “Working together is a Montana way of life, it’s a Montana value and we need to take that back to Washington, D.C. Start working for proactive solutions instead of trying to find excuses to vote against stuff.”

Talk like that is not aimed at Montana Democrats, who by and large seem happy with Mr. Tester, or at Republicans, who seem largely to have rallied already around his Republican challenger, Representative Denny Rehberg, but at unaffiliated and often downright alienated voters like Dixie and Jess Kibbee who define Montana’s quirky electorate and will most likely decide the 2012 election here.

Of course, treading the middle ground and taking Democrat votes for granted can also pose problems for a first-term senator seeking reelection, especially given that it is the party base that will pay for the campaign.

As notes The Daily Beast:

But Tester, who was elected with strong support from the netroots, is in a special bind. By doing what he says he was sent to Washington to do—represent his rural constituents—Montana’s junior senator is beginning to irk the activists and fundraisers who propelled him to victory in the first place. In December, Tester voted against the DREAM Act, which would’ve created a pathway to citizenship for the foreign-born children of illegal immigrants. His strategists insist that a yea vote would have sunk the senator in anti-“amnesty” Montana, but Markos Moulitsas of Daily Kos, whose followers filled Tester’s coffers with $343,000 in 2006, was furious anyway. “He is … the Democrat I will most be happy to see go down in defeat,” Moulitsas wrote. “And he will.” Tester was undeterred. As they hammered out April’s shutdown-averting budget, legislators stripped every environmental add-on from the package except one: a plan to end federal protections and allow hunting of the region’s gray wolves, which prey on livestock and game. The rider was Congress’s first-ever attempt to remove an animal from the endangered-species list, and it angered activists, with one, Michael Garrity, going so far as to compare “local control” of wolves to “turning over the civil rights problem in the ’60s to the governors of Mississippi and Alabama.” Turns out it was Tester’s handiwork. “I’m tired of the triangulation,” says Paul Edwards, a Montana environmentalist (and part-time Los Angeleno) who raised $50,000 for Tester in 2006. “You know, ‘He’s the best we’ve got. The others would be too terrible.’ Well, let ’em be terrible. Better the enemy I know than the enemy I thought was my friend.”

His statement:

Today, Mark Udall, a member of the Senate Armed Services and Intelligence committees, released the following statement after viewing the classified photos of Osama bin Laden. The photos were made available to certain members of the House and Senate after Udall called for the White House to allow Intelligence Committee members to see them.

“It was important for the administration to make the photos of bin Laden available to members of the legislative committees overseeing the intelligence agencies, and I want to thank the President for acting quickly on my request. This was not something I looked forward to. But I believe that by ensuring that two branches of the United States government have access to the photos, we have eliminated the potential that anyone could ever question – now or in the future – whether this terrorist has been brought to justice.

“After seeing the photos, I still agree with the President’s decision not to make them public. Bin Laden’s body is not a trophy, and such a move could inflame jihadists and put our nation and our allies at risk.”

Sen. Mark Udall

“Thousands of American men and women have fought and died to defeat the terrorists led by Osama bin Laden who attacked our nation on September 11, 2001. The death of bin Laden is a major milestone in U.S. efforts to eradicate terrorism and keep our homeland safe.

“I salute our brave service members, our intelligence community, and our commander in chief, on this important occasion. As a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and Intelligence Committee, I will continue to ensure that our government does all it can to keep Coloradans and every American safe from enemies who wish to do us harm.”

MacGuineas was in Denver Friday to participate in a budget forum sponsored by Udall and Bennet–but which they couldn’t actually attend because of negotiations then going on in the Capital.

She writes that everything needs to be put on the table, from taxes to defense spending to medicare and social security–and that the American people know this even if their elected politicians don’t.

From her column:

Congress has to pass a budget fix this year. If we wait until next year, the risk is too great that either markets run out of patience, or the election season turns into a terrible battle where promises over more tax cuts, and what programs never to cut, cement all the candidates into impossible positions.

President Obama is expected to make a big speech on the topic later this week. He should explain that this must be one of the top national priorities and create a forum where he and Congress come up with a plan. Frankly, they should not move on to other issues until it has passed.

Judging from Friday’s forum, the people of Colorado are ready. Are the nation’s politicians?