Montana Speed Limit/ Bitterroot Timber Sale/ Protecting Water

Missoulian: Montana to increase speed limits on some highways to 80 mph
Chapter 395: Revise certain highway speed limits
“on a federal-aid interstate highway outside an urbanized area of 50,000 population or more is 75 80 miles an hour at all times and the speed limit for vehicles traveling on federal-aid interstate highways within an urbanized area of 50,000 population or more is 65 miles an hour at all times”

Missoulian: Pyramid Mountain Lumber awarded Bitterroot timber sale
Timber Sale Area Open for Firewood Cutting
“Hamilton, Montana  – The Stevensville Ranger District has announced that beginning this Friday, September 18, it will allow the public to access the Three Saddle timber sale area to gather firewood.  The Three Saddle project which began last year is located east of Stevensville on Ambrose Road #428 in the Sapphire Mountains.

Pyramid Mountain Lumber of Seeley Lake is the contractor.  They are thinning overstocked areas of the forest through commercial and non-commercial timber harvests, which has resulted in large landing/slash piles along the road.”

Missoulian:  Nation's water challenges are many, but so are the solutions
Final Rulemaking to Update the National Water Quality Standards Regulation
“The following key program areas are addressed in the final rule: (1) the EPA Administrator's determinations that new or revised water quality standards are necessary, (2) designated uses for water bodies, (3) triennial reviews of state and tribal WQS, (4) antidegradation requirements, (5) WQS variances, and (6) provisions authorizing the use of schedules of compliance for water quality-based effluent limits (WQBELs) in NPDES permits.  The docket for this rulemaking is available at Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OW-2010-0606.” 

Montana Hunting/ Papal Speech Before Congress

Missoulian: Montana big-game season: Hunters brace for dry opener
FWP: Hunting

Missoulian: Pope calls for abolition of death penalty in address to Congress
Speaker of the House, Papal visit page
Video of the Pope’s visit can be found on this site. The Pope’s appearance starts at 30:40.

Pope Fancis/ Government Hack

Image from Preparing for the Pope: FBI Part of Well-Rehearsed Security Effort

Missoulian: The Latest: The pope meets the people
The White House Welcomes His Holiness Pope Francis
Papal Visit Cities are No Drone Zones

Missoulian: Agency: Millions more government fingerprints deemed stolen
Statement by OPM Press Secretary Sam Schumach on Background Investigations Incident

“As part of the government’s ongoing work to notify individuals affected by the theft of background investigation records, the Office of Personnel Management and the Department of Defense have been analyzing impacted data to verify its quality and completeness.  During that process, OPM and DoD identified archived records containing additional fingerprint data not previously analyzed.  Of the 21.5 million individuals whose Social Security Numbers and other sensitive information were impacted by the breach, the subset of individuals whose fingerprints have been stolen has increased from a total of approximately 1.1 million to approximately 5.6 million. ”

Sage Grouse/ Abortion Bill/ Volkswagen Emission

Missoulian: Feds reject protections for sage grouse across West
2015 Endangered Species Act Finding
“We, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service), announce a 12-month finding on petitions to list the greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus), both rangewide and the Columbia Basin population, as an endangered or threatened species under the Endangered Species Act of 1973, as amended (Act). After review of the best available scientific and commercial information, we find that the Columbia Basin population does not qualify as a distinct population segment.”

Missoulian: Senate Dems block GOP bill that would curb late abortions
HR. 36: Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act

Missoulian: Questions about Volkswagen's emissions crisis
Notices of Violations
“In September 2015, EPA issued a Notice of Violation of the Clean Air Act to Volkswagen for producing and selling four-cylinder diesel cars that include a sophisticated software device that circumvents EPA emissions standards for certain air pollutants. EPA and the California Air Resources Board (CARB) have collaborated on testing these cars and have determined that vehicles on the road emit up to 40 times more pollution than emission standards allow.”