By Bob Marshall

Any sportsman who has followed habitat fights over the years knows this: Fish and wildlife always pay a price for fossil fuel extraction -- and if sportsmen are not involved in setting policies at the front end, disaster will almost surely follow for fishing and hunting.

The latest example is the current rush to riches unleashed across the nation by the revolution in shale gas extraction. The general population sees this as a godsend in supplying a fuel source that is domestic and friendlier to the atmosphere than oil -- and is creating jobs and millionaires in the process.

But the Philadelphia Enquirer recently reported sportsmen in Pennsylvania are finding out that, like most gold rushes, this one can trample their woods and waters. Construction of a trench for a 50-mile gas pipeline in Lycoming County left open to the elements "sent mud sliding down hillsides, fouling a stream." Now, "environmentalists and sportsmen have been raising alarms about the effects on the landscape. They worry about construction mud clogging waters and disrupting fish spawning, and about pipeline rights-of-way cutting swaths through forests, destroying treetop canopies."

By Bob Marshall

Put 'em To Work -- on Conservation

State and federal fish and wildlife agencies facing steep budget cuts will be happy to hear about a new grant initiative from the Obama Administration that seeks to put youth to work on conservation jobs across the nation. “America’s Great Outdoors: Developing the Next Generation of Conservationists,” has a two-fold goal: Getting important conservation work done, and exposing more of America's youth to the outdoors.

The initial phase of the grant program, to be administered by the National Fish & Wildlife Foundation, will leverage $1 million in existing funding from the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service, with at least $1 million in matching funds from corporations, foundations and other non-Federal partners to provide critical financial support for conservation jobs and job training programs.

Over the past two years, Federal agencies and partners have provided more than 50,000 young people with paid work and service learning opportunities on public lands and waters.

By Bob Marshall

Restore Act Needs Sportsmen’s Voices—Now

Some $20 billion in fines from the Deepwater Horizon spill that should go to restoring fish and wildlife habitat in the Gulf could disappear into the nation's general treasury unless sportsmen get involved in the next few weeks.

BP is expected to be hit with the bill within the next six months for violating the Clean Water Act with the estimated 200 million gallons of crude oil pumped into the Gulf from its accident. Current law sends those fines into the general treasury, where it can be used for anything from bank bailouts to congressional medical insurance.

By Chad Love

Powerful ag interests are pushing Congress to drastically limit the number of acres that can be enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Program.

From this story on argusleader.com:

Soaring crop prices are coaxing landowners across the Midwest and Great Plains to put Conservation Reserve Program acreage back under the plow, and Congress is considering reducing the program even further. A farm bill that leaders of the congressional agriculture committees drafted this fall would cap the $2 billion-a-year Conservation Reserve Program at 25 million acres nationwide, down from the current limit of 32 million acres. When the program was created in 1985, the government was allowed to enroll as many as 45 million acres.