We can’t afford to house wild horses

To the editor:

I agree with two points that Theresa Davis made in her Tuesday letter.

First, wild horses are beautiful animals. I once saw the awesome sight of a small herd galloping across a small valley in Northern Nevada. Unfortunately, I have also seen two mares and a colt, all skin and bones, drinking from a muddy water hole. A dead, half-eaten stallion was laying in the edge of the water. Nature will manage the number of animals in a given area. And nature is cruel.

Second, I agree that wild horse protection is about the money. Our government is not a business, but it should be run in a business-like manner. There are 15 trillion reasons why we shouldn't be warehousing wild horses in the Midwest. Collectively, they are called our national debt.

Many years ago, my father helped me understand how much $1 million is. If someone gave you a dollar a day from the day Jesus Christ was born, you would only have three quarters of a million dollars. A trillion dollars is one million, million. It would take about $17 million a day to reach $15 trillion (and growing).

My father also taught me that if I watched my pennies, the dollars would take care of themselves. Congress doesn't like to worry about either. Paying $475 apiece per year for the care of thousands of relocated wild horses is unaffordable. The BLM must balance wildlife, including wild horses, grazing, mining, forestry, water conservation, recreation, land sales and probably many more interests. Excess (humanely) captured horses that are not adopted should be sold by the BLM to the slaughterhouses.

I would encourage Ms. Davis to adopt as many as she can.

Richard Gates

North Las Vegas

Sweetheart deal

To the editor:

I read with much amusement Wednesday's Review-Journal article regarding the Henderson City Council ratifying a three-year contract with Josh Reid. Apparently there were some significant contract changes regarding leave time, PERS expenses and termination provisions. The younger Reid bemoaned he was somewhat uncomfortable signing the agreement to become city attorney.

Let me state unequivocally that if my father had negotiated a sweetheart deal worth $190,000 annually for me, I would have come forward hat in hand and pen at the ready for signing. But when the Reids expect a little more than the rest of us, so much more is the quandary, eh?

George Pucine

Las Vegas

Rate hike

To the editor:

This proposed rate hike from NV Energy is too much for us to bear (Thursday Review-Journal). We, the people, have been struggling to pay our power bills for some time now.

What are they doing? Seniors are on fixed incomes, people are unemployed. Rate hike? It seems to me every couple of months NV Energy is back at the table asking for more money. Where do we go for more money?

I hope we can raise some interest in this issue and that our representatives will check into this.

Carol Rose

Henderson

In the pipeline

To the editor:

The Obama administration has blocked the Keystone XL pipeline project, apparently on the basis that oil sands mining in Canada will create more carbon dioxide and hence contribute to global warming. But the real reason for holding up the decision until after the 2012 elections is political -- the White House has caved to pressure from environmental extremists who favor costly and inefficient "green energy."

This is wrong for many reasons.

Even if we assume CO2 adds to climate warming, it will happen anyway, because the Canadians will mine their oil sands and ship it overseas. Also, more and more climate scientists are realizing our climate changes are natural cycles we cannot change.

Fighting CO2 emissions is an expensive and losing game when we consider the amount of carbon volcanoes toss into the air. When Mount Pinatubo erupted in 1991, it produced more greenhouse gases than mankind has in its entire history. The volcano in Iceland easily wiped out in four days all the efforts well-meaning people have ever made to curb emissions. Fighting carbon emissions is futile when hundreds of active volcanoes around the world keep expelling enormous emissions.

Environmentalists also have objected to the pipeline as a hazard to the Ogallala Aquifer. That argument does not hold water -- pun intended. The Ogallala is deep and has not been impacted in the 50 or more years that pipelines have crossed it. There are about 25,000 miles of pipeline already crossing the aquifer. That is a great safety history. Even the Obama administration's State Department environmental impact study agreed the pipeline would pose few environmental risks, and I believe they gave the project a green light.

President Obama has caved in to environmentalist pressure. He should back up and let this project proceed. It is a win for us and the Canadians by creating thousands of jobs right now and creating billions of dollars in future property tax revenue for the five host states -- and it will be done with private money. Let's do the pipeline; it's a win-win.

Richard N. Fulton

Henderson

Poll results

To the editor:

As I read about Thursday's Review-Journal/8NewsNow poll showing that President Barack Obama is ahead of every GOP challenger in Nevada, I question the validity of the findings.

Given the unemployment rate and number of underwater homes here, voting for Mr. Obama is rewarding failure.

The Democrats' Community Reinvestment Act forced banks to make home loans to unqualified buyers, thereby causing the housing bust and the devastation to the construction industry. ObamaCare is causing cost increases in health care and threatens the best system in the world. Mr. Obama's personal comments on Las Vegas have not helped our struggling economy.

This poll is inaccurate.

The poll in November 2012 will tell.

Bob Wong

Las Vegas