Shine the light on energy development pushing out native wild horses in Wyoming

We invite you to post more information in the comments section below because the public has a right to know the real reasons why America’s wild horses are being terrorized, pushed off public land, to end up at risk of going to slaughter for human consumption abroad. Sadly the news in Wyoming doesn’t know what fair reporting means and is not covering the crisis as they should.

It’s shameful the energy industry, government employees and our elected officials refuse to find the win-win for wildlife and industry to coexist. Instead they are wiping out America’s wild horses to cash in on their land. Recently in the Wyoming Checkerboard roundup, the BLM zeroed out most of the wild horses despite public outcry. The BLM also tried to blame horse advocates for taking more than 400 additional wild horses when the truth is they were allegedly pushed by Governor Mead to take as many as they could find.

Wyoming’s Governor Matt Mead joined the fight against wild horses in the Checkerboard allegedly because he is pushing for maximum industrialization of public land and especially liquified natural gas (LNG) to replace diesel and for export to Asia’s growing market for fuel, electricity, etc.). The most important document for you to read to understand why Wyoming is getting rid of their wild horses is Wyoming LNG Roadmap (April 2014) Below is some news from last May:

Cheyenne, WY (May 12, 2014) – Governor Mead unveiled a report today showing Wyoming is well positioned to be a leader in developing a liquefied natural gas (LNG) industry for high horsepower uses.

Since Governor Matt Mead took office in January of 2011, he’s made it a point to maximize the use of Wyoming’s natural resources. “One of the things I really wanted to accomplish was an energy strategy. An energy strategy is energy, economy and environment,” Mead said.

Mead went out and partnered with Gladstein, Neandross & Associates (GNA), to provide an “LNG road map” about the feasibility, potential, costs and benefits of using liquefied natural gas.

“Liquefied natural gas gives our customers who are currently use diesel to power their engines the ability to reduce costs of ownership. Abundantly domestically produced natural gas offers lower fuel costs and reduced emissions,” said Richard Wheeler, President & CEO of Wyoming Machinery Co.

Wyoming is the third leading producer of natural gas and the use of LNG as a supplement to diesel fuel in Wyoming’s high horsepower sectors such as mining, drilling and over-the-road trucking.

“It’s a 300 to 400 million dollar investment as best we can tell to really get this going here in the state, but that will create about 5,000 really good, high paying, high tech jobs,” said Erik Neandross, CEO of GNA

According to GNA, the investment could return 160 to 170 million dollars in fuel cost savings for Wyoming based businesses.

“It’s an opportunity for coal companies to lower their fuel costs and also use a product that we have in abundance in Wyoming,” Mead said.

Posted for educational purposes from: http://bit.ly/1r3DvV1

 

This isn’t the first time a public affairs firm is pushing energy driven missions through at the expense of wildlife and especially native wild horses. Just follow the money . . .

Kearns and West: Corporate Criminals
by David Gurney
Sunday Jun 10th, 2012 9:42 AM

According to a June 2010 press release, “Kearns and West has been known to gather scientific experts and build a movement of common interest “stakeholders” to crush public outcry and true environmentalism.”
see: http://noyonews.net/?p=6231

Kearns and West Inc., the same “Collaboration and Strategic Communications” company that ran public meetings for the corrupt Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) “Initiative” [and who illegally barred public recording and comment at their public meetings] has also been accused of running manipulative “public workshops” for the BLM – in the controversial roundup of wild horses in northern Nevada, and other Western States.

According to a June 2010 press release, “Kearns and West has been known to gather scientific experts and build a movement of common interest “stakeholders” to crush public outcry and true environmentalism.”

Although Kearns and West, Inc. claims to represent the public and the environment, and impartially facilitate public meetings, in reality they represent energy interests. They function to facilitate government approval for private projects, and shift policy in favor of private “stakeholder” interests. They specialize in marginalizing and excluding public involvement – with contrived and manipulative “stakeholder collaboration” processes.

Interestingly, in the Brave New World of modern day environmental policy, private interests, not tax dollars, are financing public policy processes and decisions. These processes were once taxpayer supported, and deemed to be fair and impartial. But now, with governments going broke, governmental processes and the agencies entrusted to design, control and regulate corporate industrial interests, have been bought and paid for by the same corporate interests they are supposed to regulate.

Corporate crooks such as Kearns and West have stepped in the void, to conduct what are ostensibly public meetings, but in reality are paid for by private corporations and individuals. The MLPA “Initiative” was a classic example of corruption easing it’s way into a bankrupt democracy.

Kearns and West contracts out what are essential out public policy endeavors. But they serve the private corportations and individuals who pay for their services – to create favorable governmental outcomes for proposed “projects.”

Kearns and West’s clients are a laundry-list of energy and natural gas interests. They are cashing in on what once would have been unacceptable, criminal conflict of interest in determining public policy.

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In the case mentioned below, Kearns and West was allegedly involved in helping to exterminate wild horses from Northern Nevada, so that the Ruby Pipeline could go through. The Ruby Pipeline is a 42 inch diameter natural gas pipeline, that as of last year, runs from 680 miles from Wyoming to Oregon, and passes right through the heart of the wild horse country in Northern Nevada.

According to many in the west, the wild horses were an obstacle to the pipeline project that the BLM (Bureau of Land Management) did not want to deal with. So in comes Kearns and West – to hold “public workshops.” But why is a company with direct ties to natural gas and energy interests – running public meetings and workshops, supposedly on behalf of the public – on an issue between wild horses, public land, and a natural gas pipeline project?

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There is nothing more heartbreaking than seeing helicopters terrorizing the beautiful wild mustangs, a living icon of the American West. The 2010 press release below is part of a tragedy that is continuing to this very day.

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From a June, 2010 press release by the Cloud Foundation:

Spin Doctors Hired for the Destruction of America’s Wild Horse and Burro Herds

Denver, CO (June 14, 2010)—The Cloud Foundation has learned that the San Francisco based public relations and public affairs firm, Kearns and West, with ties to big energy and offices across the country, has been hired to push the Salazar Plan for Wild Horses and Burros through Congress in Fall 2010—despite public outrage. Kearns and West has expertise in crisis management as well as accomplishing policy and regulatory goals. Their clients range from Mineral Management Services (MMS) and PG&E to Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). The Department of Interior (DOI) has enlisted the firm using the Institute for Environmental Conflict Resolution (ECR) as the go between. Senior mediator of Kearns and West, J. Michael Harty will facilitate an unprecedented public workshop in Denver, Colorado at the Magnolia Hotel, 818 17th Street, on June 14th followed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Public Advisory Board Meeting on June 15th. Both days will be live-streamed and viewing available on http://www.thecloudfoundation.org. The public and members of Congress are encouraged to watch. The public will protest on June 15th from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. with a press conference at noon.

BLM’s recently announced and highly polished but unsubstantial, “Strategy Plan” as well as their association with PR firm Kearns and West, appears designed to manipulate the public and marginalize the opposition to the Salazar Plan for wild horses and burros. The plan calls for the purchase of Eastern and Midwestern “preserves” populated by sterilized wild horses, captured from their Western ranges.

“This is ALL about manipulating public opinion. And ramming ONE thing – Salazar’s Plan – through” states author R.T. Fitch.

The Kearns and West Salazar Plan Executive Summary states, ‘The U.S. Institute for Environmental Conflict Resolution (‘Institute’) is assisting BLM in assessing stakeholder interests and developing an effective stakeholder engagement plan for the Strategy.’ Disturbingly, BLM often does not include the public as a stakeholder in their planning documents regarding the management of wild horses and burros.

“Who is the biggest stakeholder in the discussion of the public’s land and its wild horses if not the public?” asks Terri Farley, author of the Phantom Stallion series, adding “A public agency must represent the public and utilize taxpayer dollars responsibly—not spend excessively on another private contractor.”

According to their website, Kearns and West offers their clients (in this case the BLM) ‘A compelling credible, resonant case. True, high-impact support for your position.’ Advocates support a new direction that abandons the endless, expensive cycle of roundup, removal, and warehousing. BLM must adopt a far less expensive path that is kinder to the land and the wild horses legally living there, one that contains truly transparent solutions, not a slick, taxpayer-funded PR campaign.

“By hiring a high powered PR and Public Affairs firm, it seems that BLM is aiming to extinguish the opposition rather than solve the controversy over their management of our wild herds,” explains Ginger Kathrens, Volunteer Executive Director of the Cloud Foundation. “The public by the thousands has shared their opposition to the Salazar Plan. I hope we can sit down at this public forum and seriously talk about a moratorium on roundups while we work to reinstate protections that are consistent with the intent of the 1971 Wild Horse and Burro Act.”

According to The Holmes Report, “Kearns & West recognizes the important value of collaborating both with our clients and their stakeholders. For more than 20 years, the firm has employed its unique brand of stakeholder-centric strategic communications and collaboration processes to design innovative, but pragmatic programs, achieving superior results for clients in the federal, state and local government, private and nonprofit sectors. Kearns & West works with tough issues and big ideas.”

Besides specializing in ‘accomplishing policy and regulatory goals’ Kearns and West also represents PG&E—a primary customer in the Ruby Pipeline natural gas project threatening public lands and five public herds with environmental devastation from Wyoming to Oregon. Kearns and West also represents Duke Energy, the Association of Western Governors and the US Fish and Wildlife Service, among others.

While Secretary Salazar vowed to restore the Interior Department’s ‘respect for scientific integrity’ he has failed to consider science, reason, or even the law when it comes to managing our wild herds. Kearns and West has been known to gather scientific experts and build a movement of common interest “stakeholders” to crush public outcry and true environmentalism. Wild horse advocates feel the Kearns and West prepared Salazar report for Congress will be biased in favor of big energy ties with DOI at the expense of federally protected wild horses who somehow are in the way of ‘The New Energy Frontier’.

“We hope Monday’s workshop will be a productive one rather than a demonstration of BLM’s inability to change,” concludes Kathrens.

# # #

 

Who is really dictating wild horse roundups and removals and why are they zeroing them out? Protect Mustangs invites you to research the subject and post what you find in the comments below. This is also a welcome forum for you to politely voice your outrage at wild horse removals.

Protect Mustangs is a 100% volunteer non-profit organization where the wild horses come first! We are not paying big bucks on marketing campaigns. The majority of our donations go towards feeding and caring for rescued wild horses.

Links of interest™:

Legislators join wild horse conversation: http://bit.ly/1p9D2kq

Wyoming LNG Roadmap (April 2014): http://www.gladstein.org/pdfs/GNA_Wyoming_LNG_Roadmap.pdf

Gladstein, Neandross & Associates: http://www.gladstein.org
Leading environmental consulting firm for emission reduction, energy and transportation policy, and market development for alternative fuel vehicles.

The Pickens Plan: http://www.pickensplan.com

BLM tried to blame wild horse advocates for taking 1/3 more wild horses during contested roundup: https://www.facebook.com/BLMWyoming

United States Extractive Industries Transparency Initiatives Multi-Stakeholder Group  Advisory Committee Meeting Draft Summary of Proceedings (2014): http://on.doi.gov/1w5aaOj Kearns & West

Indybay report, Kearns and West: Corporate Criminals: https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2012/06/10/18715106.php

Western Governors’ Association Transportation Fuels for the Future A Roadmap for the West: http://bit.ly/1o9hqtn

Western Governors Association and the Right of Way agenda: http://bit.ly/1EUj1IK

Western Renewable Energy Zones-Phase 1 Report: http://energy.gov/sites/prod/files/oeprod/DocumentsandMedia/WREZ_Report.pdf

List of Registrants – Americans for a Clean Energy Grid (2013): http://bit.ly/1z7Vofh

Data removed:  http://www.recovery.gov/arra/News/featured/Pages/Some-Recipient-Data-Being-Removed.aspx “​​​​​The Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board will sunset on September 30, 2015 and has decided for its last year not to renew the licensing agreement that allows for the display of certain recipient-related data. As of October 1, 2014, maps, charts, and graphs on the site will no longer reflect this information. This change will also include the removal of the recipient profiles as well as the cumulative national download file.

Kearns & West

Kearns & West is a woman-owned collaboration and strategic communications firm founded in 1984. Our high-stakes projects include work at local, state, regional, and national levels and cover a variety of sectors including energy, water, marine resources, land use and natural resources, government, business and academia, and technology and Internet.

Kearns & West understands the special requirements of working with stakeholders to achieve an organization’s goals. We have a proven record of success thanks to our stakeholder-centric approach of providing robust collaboration and strategic communications services. Our commitment to positive, mutually beneficial results has helped us maintain long-term relationships with the people and organizations we assist.

Oscar nominated GASLAND 1 and GASLAND 2: www.GASLANDmovie.com

The WY14, National Treasures Saved from Slaughterhouse: http://horsebackmagazine.com/hb/archives/28702

10 year Moratorium Petition: https://www.change.org/p/sally-jewell-urgent-grant-a-10-year-moratorium-on-wild-horse-roundups-for-recovery-and-studies

Don’t Frack Wild Horse Land Petition: https://www.change.org/p/sen-dianne-feinstein-don-t-frack-wild-horse-land

Petition to Defund and Stop the Roundups http://www.change.org/p/defund-and-stop-the-wild-horse-burro-roundups

12 thoughts on “Shine the light on energy development pushing out native wild horses in Wyoming

  1. Since when is it. That the wild horses and other wild animals. Can’t live on the range. Even with a pipeline. wild animals in Alaska. Live right along with the pipeline and drilling that is going on.

  2. Hi,
    My name is Meghan Dixon, I have Autism. Horses helped save my life so now my mission in life is to save them! The American Wild Mustang is America’s greatest Icons. They are the heart of America! The horse is what built America, and all honesty they were here before we were. They have the right to be free! Horses are angels and heroes. Horses helped me overcome a lot of things including, Autism, Depression, Anxiety, Bullying, Suicide, Self Harm, Fear, Panic Disorder, Learning disability and a whole lot more. I would not be alive today if it was not for the horse! Even my parents will tell you that I would be dead if it was not for the horse! I been through a lot of unimaginable things in my life that only the horse was able to help me through. The horse was even the answer to my prayers! Every night as a child before I went to sleep I would pray for a friend, Then God sent me my true friend and it was a beautiful quarter horse named The King Elvis. Here is a tribute I wrote to The King Elvis. This horse was a rescue horse from slaughter and abuse I saved his life and he saved my life,
    The King Elvis – The horse who saved my life.
    When my mind was filled with darkness,
    My life was merely a plight,
    But then you showed me a light
    you helped me fight my fights.
    You were the only one who could see
    all the pain that I would hide.
    When there seemed to be no more days
    but a continuous night, You gave me a happy life,
    with all this grief and strife.
    You killed the darkness with your light
    when there wasn’t glimpse of it in sight.
    But since you went away, All I can do today
    is keep walking on my way. No matter what it takes
    or how impossible they assume, I will not give up
    on you, I will do all I can to save others like you!
    – Meghan Dixon.
    These horses provide hope for others like me! Seeing these wild horses run free gives up hope for life! They are our strong motivation for life. These horses earned their freedom! Here is another poem I wrote just for these Mustangs,
    “The American Wild Mustang- I was loved in the hearts of the beautiful people. I was their symbol of hope, And freedom. I was also a symbol of Power, Grace, Beauty, Nobility, Strength, But most of all when people seen me running free, It gave them a strong motivation for life. Some say that we earned our freedom, We even fought with our soldiers as we carried them to war, I even helped build America. As I am a big part of history…. I am the American Wild Mustang!” – Meghan Dixon.
    The poem says it all! I got to meet the wild horse herd of Cold Creek Nevada last year! I looked in to their eyes and It was like looking into the window of God’s love. When I look in to the eyes of a horse I can see and feel the healing hands of God! I felt a strong bond and connection just from those wild horses. These horses are angels. You can feel the love of God from the horse. Killing these horses are just the same as killing someone with a disability because that’s how it makes me feel. PLEASE, Let these wild horses run free! They earned their freedom!

  3. As usual, our out of control government no longer iaccountable to the laws established to protect our wild animals, or to the people, only concerned with bottom line… Greed. If there were no money to be made concerning these wild horses and burros, they would be living free and wild as they have here in the USA for over 500 years. It’s all about Greed.

  4. Anyone who has any power of any kind and allows these acts to continue can never again call themselves a human being. Animals are being removed in the name of greed and money exchanging hands to allow it to be done under the noses of the people. Wild horses are amazing and caring creatures and they deserve to be protected. The lives of the innocent should always come first not how much money you can get for turning a blind eye. It’s time we stood up as one from the smallest to the biggest and said NO, Leave Our Wild Horses Alone… Respect & Protect not just now but always. With respect, J. Howie.

  5. BASTARDS!!! These criminals murder these horses by sending them to slaughter houses, making money from it and then stealing our land for their own greedy profits to use for oil extraction!

    THIS SHOULD BE ILLEGAL!

  6. Political candidates who put this type of land maximization ahead of any other concern should be voted out of office. And these PR firms are doing the equivalent of any smear campaign run by Rick Berman. When the horse is removed as through helicopter roundups, or killed off by man, it leaves a big gap that upsets the equilibrated life-support systemin recent time.

    As a major climax species, or member of the more stable, long term, and biodiverse life community that establishes itself over time, the horse has helped to characterize and to assist so many of the earth’s ecosystems including by its:

    1) Grazing of grass, extensive pruning of vegetation (including forbs, shrubs, and even trees) and consequent bolstering of annual plant productivity. Wild equids eliminate dry flammable vegetation and their consequent prevention of damaging fires

    2) Successful intact seed dispersal of hundreds, even thousands of plant species through its feces, that also greatly build the moisture-retaining and nutrient releasing humus content of the soils

    3) Major role as a prey or scavenged species for lions, puma, wolves, bears, foxes, raptors, vultures, and smaller animals.

    4) A role as a trail breaker through dense vegetation and as a breaker of frozen snow and ice, and also as an opener of tiny seeps to create ponds thus made accessible for other smaller species during dry seasons and by its creation of natural water catchments through its wallowing habit, particularly important in desert areas and especially during the dry seasons when cloudbursts occur.

    While factors such as drought, fire, invasion by non-native plants, and sprawl are important, livestock grazing is identified by BLM experts as the primary cause (nearly 80%) of BLM lands not meeting health standards. Cattle grazing has a profoundly negative effect on other fauna such as desert tortoises.

  7. This is a shame and a disgrace! Sacrificing what matters most: the wild horses for what is only a further nail in the coffin of life on Earth to support the squandering life style of modern man!

  8. ok where do i start . i have have been saying for awhile now ,that these people are not going to change because obozo will not let them look what he has gotten by with ! 1 deserter for 5 taliban leaders and he is still prez. in title only . read the headlines . he orchastrated the newtown slaughter of those childern for gun control . the u.n. has been behind him in all of this don’t you remember the voluntary surrender at different locations . the congress has now made easier for them to lease these same public lands for oil and gas an other words public destruction .
    just like he wants to rule us by fear . opened borders , islamists , mercinairies , now ebola , race , do nothing congress , ect…ect….. . i have been warning everyone for months nows ,nobody would listen by now we should have at least been talking of ways freeing those horses ourselves gone to jail. but the one posing as our prez. should be arrested and put under the jail. and what about our do nothing congress , can anyone say that they have gotten a positive respondants back from anyone of those damned people who represent us, i can’t ! does anyone remember when i was telling you , obozo was going to make us the richest nation in the world , well i heard the exact words on world news last night . i wish there was more we could do. but until the people in power get some balls we are looking at same ole same ole

  9. Most of this liquified natural gas will go over seas. That is where it must be sold. It is our natural gas, not some corporation’s. It is being taken against the will of the public who will not get any reduced costs anywhere. Do not believe the agencies or feds. This is a also about the lack of common sense and use of our public lands by corporations. They do not have the right to take what belongs to all of us and to do it in a messy, polluting and deadly manner to our pristine waters and our wild life, both flora and fauna. I love Wyoming. I lived there once. It has been gouged and injected and sucked until beautiful lands are now unrecognizable. The wildlife gone or struggling to use their migratory routes. How can we allow this to continue?

    Please save our wild horses by helping Protect Mustangs fight this wrong doing!

  10. On November 19, 2013, Representative Mark Amodei (R-NV) introduced H.R. 3533, the Endangered Species Management Self-Determination Act. This bill provides state governors with the authority to regulate intrastate endangered species and intrastate threatened species. This bill takes power away from the federal government and returns it to the states. If this bill is pasted into law, it will be the worse thing that can happen to our wild animals. I don’t like BIG government and detest the BLM’s action of rounding up wild horses and burros, with helicopters, and sending them to holding pens to be sold for most likely slaughter. If the state takes over, then most all endangered species will be destroyed because of corporations wanting access to the land for energy projects. States will grant these projects full steam ahead!! The only people to gain by this action are HUGH money interests corporations and political crooks!

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