U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy appeared to show his hand when he rejected the federal government’s motion Wednesday to delay a hearing on a suit to reverse wolf delisting.

The hearing is set for May 29 in Missoula and Molloy’s main argument for not delaying it was that the federal government knew as far back as February that environmentalists were going to challenge the decision in March to remove wolves from the endangered species list.

But since March 28 at least 39 of the more than 1,500 wolves have been killed, which environmentalists say bolsters their argument that wolves should remain federally protected. Molloy also expressed concern.

Sen. Larry Craig and Idaho water users’ opposition to a bill to protect 387 miles of the Snake River and its tributaries in Wyoming presents a new challenge to Sen. Mike Crapo’s Owyhee Canyonlands bill.

Craig has opposed the Craig Thomas Snake Headwaters Legacy Act from the start, saying it presented a threat to Idaho irrigation farmers downstream. Now the bill appears to be linked as a package to the Owyhees bill, which was sent to the floor Wednesday along with it.

Here’s the rub. Irrigation districts in the Twin Falls area own the rights to most of the water stored in Jackson Lake inside Grand Teton National Park. Craig and the Idaho Water Users Association say Wild and Scenic Rivers designation, especially the stretch of river below Jackson Lake, could alter the releases from the Jackson Lake Dam or provide a legal platform for environmentalists to sue to reduce Idaho’s control over Wyoming’s water.

Nuclear engineering leaders like Idaho Falls’ brilliant Chuck Till regularly predicted in the 1980s that if the United States didn’t increase its spending for nuclear research and education it would lose its leadership to France and other countries.

Jump forward to Tuesday. Areva Inc., the French-government-backed corporation was announcing its plans to build a $2 billion uranium enrichment plant near the Idaho National Laboratory in eastern Idaho. The plant is a part of the French company’s strategic effort to build the United States’ new generation of infrastructure for the nuclear industry.

President George Bush is having a hard time keeping the farm bill from busting the budget.

What makes Bush’s farm bill budget battle interesting is he is not just fighting farm state Democrats. He’s battling Republicans who want the federal government to keep giving farm subsidies to rich farmers.

So what is a rich farmer?

Under the Senate compromise bill the adjusted gross income cap for farmers would be $950,000. That means farmers making more than that still could still get what former House Speaker Bruce Newcomb, a farmer and subsidy beneficiary himself called, “welfare.”

The powerful irrigation districts who have been battling with farmers and others who pump water from the Eastern Snake Plain Aquifer in southern Idaho were declaring victory last week from a decision issued by a former Supreme Court Justice.

The Surface Water Coalition said Justice Gerald Schroeder’s ruling on their demand the state shut off the pumps of thousands of groundwater pumpers upheld their position that their right to flows from the aquifer, including those that are stored in reservoirs, come first ahead of groundwater users. In other words, first come, first served.

Lightning hit a tree on May 24, 1988 and started a fire in the Lamar Valley near Rose Creek.

Yellowstone National Park's first fire of the 1988 season was burning. A few hours later it ended as it had begun - naturally - when rain from the thunderstorm that spawned the fire snuffed it out.

Most of you know the rest.

This year you are going to see a lot of stories about Yellowstone and fire. This year is the 20th anniversary and already we in the media are beginning our 20-year retrospective. Montana television stations, including KBZK are in the middle of their sweeps week presentation and they have a great series on the internet. I’m biased. They tell my story.

Only in the highly charged, polarized world of wolf politics is the killing of a few animals major news. I’m not challenging the news judgment. Even if 12 environmental groups were not seeking to reverse the wolf delisting, the killing of 37 wolves in a month would capture our attention. A few years ago the killing of several dozen sheep by wolves made the front page. But I’ve said for years wolf recovery will be complete when the killing of a few wolves is not news and the killing of a few cattle is not news.

In the current world, the killing of a few elk by wolves is news even though hunters kill thousands annually. Think about this fall when, if a judge doesn’t stop the state, Idaho opens its first wolf hunting season. You can bet the networks will be on the scene and the talking heads may turn away from the campaign long enough to argue about the lunacy of the scene, depending on what side they choose to take.

There are a lot of great reasons to shift our diets toward organics but if the goal is to reduce greenhouse gases, eating local is more important.

We in Idaho and the Pacific Northwest are blessed with a wide array of foods grown in the Columbia River watershed. All of the major grains, fruits, beef, salmon, chicken, vegetables. Along with famous potatoes Idaho has some of the best sweet onions, great apples, wine, even the barley and hops for making beer.

But today we can get fresh asparagus in the winter from Mexico and Chile. Through remarkable shipping options we can eat all kinds of fresh foods out of season and even in season, some foods from thousands of miles away are easier to get on our tables than those grown right around the corner.

I can see the headline: “Scientists urge clearcutting to reduce carbon emissions.”

This shocker idea comes from the latest analysis of the effects of a huge mountain pine beetle infestation on the forests of British Columbia. The pine beetle, the bug that has killed so many trees in the Sawtooths, has killed thousands of acres of the northern forests as well.

The decomposing dead trees are creating carbon dioxide faster than the live trees are absorbing carbon dioxide a story in the Christian Science Monitor says. Canada’s forests are viewed as a key tool for capturing carbon dioxide, which scientists say is likely causing the current global warming trend.

I was pleased to see the peaceful, humane outcome of four months of negotiations that led Sandy Knox of the Marsing area to hand over a menagerie of wolves, bobcats, cats and dogs.

It’s a testament to the patience and professionalism of the federal state and local officials involved and Knox’s own concerns for her animals. 15 years ago I watched a different outcome at a place made famous by the movie Napoleon Dynamite, Ligertown.

There in a dilapidated would-be zoo near Soda Springs in 1995, several lions escaped and were running around eastern Idaho scaring the pants off people. Eventually authorities killed 19 lions, tigers and yes, ligers, a cross between the two animals. Twenty-four lions and three ligers were sent to other animal facilities.