(Photo: drhstars01 / Photobucket)

News headlines last week prominently featured both music (the Grammy Awards rolled out their red carpet) and the environment (the GOP’s proposed spending legislation steamrolled through the House, nearly crushed under the weight of riders and amendments seeking to rollback many environmental and public health gains of the past several years).

What readers may not be aware of is that in two smaller stories, the environment weighed in on music:

EXHIBIT A: Wolves give Creed a chance. (And then leave.)

A few weeks ago in southern Norway, 13-year-old Walter Eikrem was on his way home from school, listening to Creed (“heavy-metal music,” according to Spiegel International), when he (distressingly) crossed paths with four wolves. His mother had given him strict instructions on what to do in just such a circumstance: Don’t Run. (Walter’s Mom: "You can even get a little poodle to run after you if you run away.”)

Forty years of environmental progress is under attack today by a vote in the House of Representative on a stop-gap funding measure to keep the federal government running.

Unfortunately, that measure—called a continuing resolution—is loaded with amendments and provisions that would slash the Environmental Protection Agency’s budget, and seeks to override the rule of law at every turn.

These so-called  “riders” could not pass on their own merits, so their sponsors hope they will ride the coat-tails of this must-pass budget bill. Like fleas, they come with the dog, only these are far more than irritants. They would overturn court decisions that we have obtained to stop illegal behavior and force federal agencies to comply with the law.

Since Earthjustice attorneys won a court decision in August ordering the federal government to once again extend Endangered Species Act protections to wolves in the northern Rockies, state governments have been busy trying to come up with ways to kill wolves anyway.

The court ruling meant that Idaho and Montana had to call off plans for wolf hunts this year. Montana tried changing the names of its hunt to "conservation hunt" in a bid to get federal blessing to kill endangered wolves. Idaho submitted its own wolf-killing proposal, which would remove all but a handful of wolves from Idaho's upper Clearwater basin.

While the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service rejected Montana's unlawful ploy, it is still pondering Idaho's plan. In another ominous development, Idaho recently announced it won't lift a finger to monitor or enforce existing protections for wolves, including anti-poaching laws. At the same time, a handful of Congressmen have announced plans to introduce legislation that would categorically eliminate federal protections for wolves—a species whose near-extinction in the lower-48 states provided one of Congress's motivations for adopting the Endangered Species Act in 1973.

Federal District Court Judge Donald Molloy heard arguments yesterday on whether the federal government's decision to delist wolves in the northern Rockies was illegal. On the line is the ability of Montana and Idaho to allow wolf hunting, which is not permitted when a species is listed as endangered.

Both states allowed hunting of wolves last year. Montana's hunt killed 72 wolves. In Idaho, 188 wolves were killed. Both states intend to set higher wolf hunting quotas this fall in an effort to reduce the size of the wolf population.

In 1974, gray wolves were listed as endangered species. Federal protections for wolves were removed in Montana and Idaho in May 2009, but federal protections were kept in place in Wyoming, a state with laws hostile to wolves.

Earthjustice attorney Doug Honnold argued that the entire northern Rockies wolf population—including Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming—must remain protected under the Endangered Species Act.