Back to Basics

The tension between the states and the federal government is built into the U.S. Constitution and the Tenth Amendment stipulates that “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.”

The Constitution was written in an era of monarchies by men who were determined to preserve the rights of individual citizens and of the sovereign republics, the states, who were coming together for their common protection and welfare without ceding any powers to the federal government that would deprive them of the governance of their states.

The Founding Fathers were well aware that it is the nature of all governments to seek to accrue more and more power at the expense of citizens and states or provinces within their borders. The rise of the so-called environmental movement has given ample proof that their concerns were well-grounded. I yearn for the day when we stop calling them “environmentalists” and simply the communists that they are.

The latest in the long war between a rapacious federal government, filled with departments and agencies seeking to control every square inch of the nation’s land mass has been an audacious power grab by the Environmental Protection Agency in league with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. There are specific steps any agency must take before it can assert federal control of any kind.

Using the original Clean Water Act which permits the EPA to only regulate “navigable waters”, i.e., rivers and lakes, this rogue agency and the Corps is seeking to ignore the restriction and assert control over every body of water in the U.S. including a puddle of rain water or a pond in your backyard. If it weren’t so absurd and so outrageous, it would sound like science fiction, but the science the EPA uses is usually invented out of thin air.

Specifically, the EPA has issued “a guidance document” saying they want to eliminate or just ignore the word “navigable” so they could control “all waters of the United States and all activities affecting all waters of the United States.”

Senator John Barasso (R-WY) has introduced the “Preserve The Waters of the US Act” (S-2245) to ensure that the EPA and Corps are held in check and required to obey the Clean Waters Act’s previsions and intent.

In March the co-chairs of the National Conference of State Legislatures wrote Sen. Barasso, noting its opposition to the way the EPA and Corps are trying to circumvent “the formal rulemaking process, inclusive of a federalism consultation process with state and local governments” noting that their unilateral declaration of expanded powers “would effectively preempt existing state authority and are too significant to be addressed in a guidance document.”

The Land Rights Network of the American Land Rights Association is calling on Americans to write, call, email and fax their senators to support S-2245. The reason is simple and at the same time chilling. Unless S-2245 is enacted, the EPA and Corps would have unprecedented powers to seize the water or land from families, farmers, small businesses and all others, devastating economic and recreational activity, as well as many small communities throughout the nation that depend on such waters.

PHOTOS.COM

Pay close attention to the race for your county sheriff.

Much attention these days is focused on the Republican Presidential beauty contest, especially now that primaries have begun. But a far more important election is much closer to home: the race for your county sheriff.

The sheriff is the top law enforcement officer in his county. Some Constitutionally minded sheriffs are standing up to Federal officers and bureaucrats, and the Feds are backing down. Larry Pratt of Gun Owners of America recently told you about some New Mexico sheriffs threatening to arrest Federal agents. Now he has learned of some others who need to be applauded.

In Elkhart County, Ind., Sheriff Brad Rogers told Food and Drug Administration agents they would be arrested if they go on Amish farmer David Hochstetler’s land. Hochstetler is a raw milk criminal, and the FDA didn’t like that he was distributing it to people who buy into his herd of dairy cows. So the FDA issued a subpoena and declared it wanted to perform an inspection.

Rogers told the agents if they tried to inspect Hochstetler’s farm without a warrant they would be arrested for trespassing. The Department of Justice responded by threatening to arrest Rogers, but Rogers didn’t blink. The DOJ and FDA did, however. The subpoena was withdrawn, and the Feds slunk away into the night.

Rogers isn’t alone. Sheriff Joe Baca in Sierra County, Calif., told his county commission he would not enforce road closures on Bureau of Land Management and Gila National Forest Lands. Sheriff Gil Gilbertson of Josephine County, Ore., has told the Forest Service it has no authority in any county and he would protect those citizens using the forest.

Sheriff Johnny Brown of Ellis County, Texas, has said that he would resist any effort by the Federal government to confiscate firearms in his county.

Sheriff Billy McGee of Forrest County, Miss., stood up to the Feds in the days after Hurricane Katrina. With power out and food and medicine about to spoil, McGee learned that a Federal shipment of six ice trucks bound for Hattiesburg turned out to be only four. He went searching for the other two and found them at a staging area being guarded by reservists paralyzed with bureaucracy. When he tried to get the ice, he was told he was not authorized to take the vehicles. He handcuffed a recalcitrant reservist and delivered the ice. The Feds are now suing him.

Agents of the Federal government are under the mistaken impression that the 9^th and 10^th Amendments no longer apply. But some brave, Constitutionally minded sheriffs are standing tall. It’s important that each of you vet your sitting sheriff and the candidates challenging them and find out which ones are prepared to enforce the Constitution.

Standing Alone - Jason Whitman

Ever since President Obama was sworn in, the Administration has been silently waging war on the American West and our way of life. In case there was any doubt whether or not this would persist, the Department of the Interior released draft rules to restrict the use of firearms on public lands.

The news hit Washington Whispers, featured in U.S. News and World Report since 1933, in a piece published yesterday.

Gun owners who have historically been able to use public lands for target practice would be barred from potentially millions of acres under new rules drafted by the Interior Department, the first major move by the Obama administration to impose limits on firearms.

The anti-gun position of the Obama administration is certainly not a big secret. Indeed, in testimony Attorney General Eric Holder provided to Congress concerning Operation Fast and Furious, he advocated for tighter gun-control. That is ironic considering the ATF wasn’t even able to control the guns they sold to Mexican drug cartels resulting in the deaths of at least 200 including Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.

These rules are a clear attempt by this administration to limit multiple use of public lands. It won’t just be people in the west who are affected; these rules will prevent use of public land by sportsmen across the Nation.  The BLM controls access and use on nearly 245 million acres of public land.

If the draft policy is finally approved, some public access to Bureau lands to hunters would also be limited, potentially reducing areas deer, elk, and bear hunters can use in the West.

The American west is disproportionately affected by rules like this because of the vast expanse of Federally-owned land in this region. Westerners depend on access for their livelihoods from ranching to oil and gas exploration, from mineral extraction to hunting and fishing. Fair multiple use is mandatory.

Fortunately for all Americans, when these big government policies are shoved down the throats of westerners, they don’t just take it, they fight back. The public outcry and backlash has already begun.

The Obama Administration’s war on the west is really a war on the ability of all Americans to enjoy access to and outdoor recreation on public land.

From land-grabs to multiple use, big government encroachment by the liberals who wish to control every facet of American life must be brought to a screeching halt. When egregious policies such as this are exposed to the light of day, they must be utterly defeated.

Despite what US News notes, this is not the Obama administration’s “first major move” to impose limits on firearms. Here are a few cases where the Obama administration has made major moves.

Gun owners who have historically been able to use public lands for target practice would be barred from potentially millions of acres under new rules drafted by the Interior Department, the first major move by the Obama administration to impose limits on firearms.

Officials say the administration is concerned about the potential clash between gun owners and encroaching urban populations who like to use same land for hiking and dog walking.

“It’s not so much a safety issue. It’s a social conflict issue,” said Frank Jenks, a natural resource specialist with Interior’s Bureau of Land Management, which oversees 245 million acres. He adds that urbanites “freak out” when they hear shooting on public lands. [Read about the subpoena issued as a result of Operation Fast and Furious.]

If the draft policy is finally approved, some public access to Bureau lands to hunters would also be limited, potentially reducing areas deer, elk, and bear hunters can use in the West.

Conservationists and hunting groups, however, are mounting a fight. One elite group of conservationists that advises Interior and Agriculture is already pushing BLM to junk the regulations, claiming that shooters are being held to a much higher safety standard than other users of public lands, such as ATV riders. . . .

Montana Republican Congressman Denny Rehberg lent his support for ceding more power and authority to the federal government’s emerging police state by supporting HR 1505, the “National Security and Federal Lands Protection Act.” This monstrous bill empowers the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to confiscate to itself tens of thousands of acres of land across the US northern border. This is for “national security” reasons, of course. Gag!

My friend, Dr. Ed Berry, has written a very astute summary and analysis of HR 1505 on his web site, PolyMontana.com. I am going to be borrowing heavily from his research in this column.

Dr. Berry rightly notes that the DHS is the giant head of no less than seven federal agencies: Transportation Security Administration (TSA), US Customs & Border Protection (CBP), US Citizenship & Immigration Services (CIS), US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), US Secret Service (SS), Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and US Coast Guard (USCG).

Dr. Berry says pointedly, “FEMA is the one with the small cages to put you in if you do not behave. TSA is the one that gives you a useless body scan before you get on an airplane, bus, etc. DHS is the one adding its sensors to streetlights around America and the promoter of E-Verify and Real ID as a cradle-to-grave biometric tracking system for every American.” And it is CBP that the DHS is using to seize property along the US northern border.

According to Denny Rehberg, the reasons the DHS needs to seize all this property are: 1) to stop the “turf war” between federal agencies, 2) Drug growers are hiding in our forests, 3) to catch criminals hiding in our forests, 4) to stop illegal aliens from coming in America.

Let’s first acknowledge that the federal government has absolutely no natural right or constitutional jurisdiction to claim (much less seize) land and territory outside of the District of Columbia. In many of the western states of the US, for example, the vast majority of land in any given State is now regarded as “federal” land. Ask yourself, where is the constitutional authorization for this federal land grab? When did the various State legislatures vote to give these properties to the federal government? When did the various State governors sign the State laws giving these properties to the federal government? When did the citizens of the various states vote to give these properties to the federal government? The answer is, nowhere, and they didn’t!

How is it, then, that we have elected representatives such as Denny Rehberg–people who took an oath to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States–who are either so ignorant of the Constitution that they took an oath to uphold, or who are so flippant and careless about that oath, that they so quickly and routinely trample, not only the federal Constitution, but the natural laws and principles of God, and the sovereign rights and authority of the several states?

Now, let’s look at Rep. Rehberg’s reasons why he supports HR 1505 one at a time:

*To stop the “turf war” between federal agencies

This is a very specious argument, to say the least! No federal agency has any claim to State land! The land doesn’t belong to those miscreants inside the Beltway!

Map via Frank Jacobs, Strange Maps blog/Big Think

Yes, dear readers, corruptocrat Interior Secretary Ken Salazar can be stopped.

Since day one of the Obama administration, I’ve chronicled Loathsome Cowboy Ken Salazar’s War on the West, War on Jobs, and War on Science/Rule of Law. The last straw was his attempted Wild Lands grab. GOP leaders rose up with farmers, ranchers, and Western governors to stop the scheme in its tracks. Utah and Alaska have filed suit. Wyoming joined the litigation this week.

And now, Salazar has officially announced the backpedal:

Understanding how wilderness is designated and how wilderness-quality lands are managed in the U.S. just got murkier. On Wednesday, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar issued a memo that promised to abide by a congressional mandate that essentially made it impossible to identify wild public lands that merit protection.

Salazar’s memo noted there was broad interest in managing public lands in a “sensible manner” and promised to work collaboratively with members of Congress. He directed Interior officials to draft a report on how best to manage wilderness-quality lands. But the days of holding land in a kind of hands-off limbo while officials decide whether it needs more protection effectively are coming to a halt, again:

“On December 22, 2010, I issued Secretarial Order 3310 to address the BLM’s management of wilderness resources on lands under its jurisdiction. Under Secretarial Order 3310, I ordered the BLM to use the public resource management planning process to designate certain lands with wilderness characteristics as “Wild Lands.”

On April 14, 20II, the United States Congress passed the Department of Defense and Full-Year Continuing Appropriations Act, 2011 (Pub. L. 112-10)(2011 CR), which includes a provision (Section 1769) that prohibits the use of appropriated funds to implement, administer, or enforce Secretarial Order 3310 in Fiscal Year 2011.

I am confirming today that, pursuant to the 2011 CR, the BLM will not designate any lands as ‘Wild Lands.’ “

GOP Rep. Doc Hastings of the House Natural Resources Committee said yesterday that he will make sure the administration doesn’t get away with any underhanded moves:

“It’s welcome news that the Interior Department will follow the law. After this positive initial step of halting the ‘Wild Lands’ order, we’ll be taking a close look at how the Administration proceeds. Congressional oversight has served a vital role in this entire process and the Committee’s active oversight on this matter will continue. Attempts to prohibit forms of public access, block job-creating activities and manage land as wilderness, even though they haven’t been designated as such by Congress, will be met with a strong reaction by this Committee. It’s important that BLM maintains this new promise of an open process, through conversations with interested parties, states, and Congress.”

Where there’s a will against Team Obama’s culture of contempt and corruption, there’s a way.

Fight on.

Map via Frank Jacobs, Strange Maps blog/Big Think

It happened with immigration.

It happened with health care.

And now, thank goodness, it is happening with the Obama land grabs.

States are rising up to challenge federal abuses. More power to them.

I’ve been reporting on the stealth Obama land and ocean grabs for the past year now. Quick review: Last August, I told you about the “Great Outdoors Initiative” to lock up more open spaces through executive order. This came on top on top of a separate, property-usurping initiative exposed by GOP Rep. Robert Bishop and Sen. Jim DeMint earlier this spring. According to an internal, 21-page Obama administration memo, 17 energy-rich areas in 11 states have been targeted as potential federal “monuments.” The Obama War on the West is a War on Jobs that extends from land to sea based on politicized junk science by executive fiat and czar evasion. In November, I noted the expansive Interior Secretary Ken Salazar/NLCS designation. And in February, I mentioned the federal wild lands grab slipped through by Salazar during the Christmas season lame duck session.

Late last week, the state of Utah filed a lawsuit to stop the wild lands gambit:

The lawsuit challenges Salazar’s Secretarial Order 3310, which gives broad latitude to the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management to re-inventory the public lands within its purview for potential wild land characteristics.

Herbert said this upends an ongoing and successful process to designate wilderness land already in place in the state.

“This order puts in jeopardy all that work, all that effort,” he said. “It says, essentially, let’s have a do-over.”

Herbert said it would also hinder economic development in the areas in question — which could amount to “tens of millions of acres,” according to Chief Deputy Attorney General John Swallow.

Currently, 1.6 million acres in Utah have been designated as wilderness.

Herbert was joined at the news conference by Swallow, county commissioners from Uintah and Washington counties, state public lands policy coordinator John Harja and environmental adviser Ted Wilson.

There are currently wilderness designation policies and programs in place in Washington and Uintah counties and others, with other counties planning to follow. Now, Herbert said the federal government seeks to use the order to start from scratch and to do so without going through the proper channels.

“This secretarial order was created out of thin air,” Herbert said. “There was no statutory order to it. It’s counterproductive to efforts we made in good faith. This is not good for Utah, not good for America.”

Alaska is joining the challenge:

Gov. Sean Parnell is going to court against the federal government again, this time in a Utah case that challenges the Bureau of Land Management’s “Wild Lands” policy…Parnell’s office put out a press release late Friday saying Alaska would join Utah in challenging the legality of the program.

In the press release, Parnell contends the new policy would create potential costs and delays in permits for development on BLM lands and would override existing land use plans.

In today's Washington, DC, environmentalism trumps national security on politicians' list of priorities. Photo: Police Times

For the third time in only a few months, a federal report on Friday exposed how the U.S. government prioritizes environmental preservation over national security by keeping Border Patrol agents out of wildlife refuges that are heavily transited by Mexican drug and human smugglers.

“For years, Border Patrol agents have been prohibited by the Interior Department and the U.S. Forest Service from actively patrolling such areas because it threatens natural resources,” Tom Fitton, president of the public-interest watchdog Judicial Watch, following the release of the GAO report on Friday.

“Motorized vehicles, road construction and the installation of surveillance structures required to adequately secure the vast areas are forbidden because it could endanger the environment and its wildlife. In the meantime, Mexican drug cartels and human smugglers regularly use the sprawling, unmanned and federally protected land to enter the U.S. The areas have become the path of choice for illicit operations that endanger American lives and, ironically, cause severe environmental damage,” said Fitton.

The Law Enforcement Examiner obtained copies of the original reports — GAO-11-38 and GAO-11-117 — and discovered that environmental concerns took precedence over law enforcement and public safety concerns.

According to the GAO report released Friday, 40 percent of Southwest border lands are managed by the Departments of the Interior and Agriculture, and coordination and cooperation between Border Patrol and land management agencies is critical to ensure national security.

The Government Accountability office summarized its findings from two previous reports regarding the U.S.-Mexico border in the fall of 2010. The first report, GAO-11-38, focused on the key land management laws that Border Patrol must comply with and how these laws affect the agency’s operations. The second report, GAO-11-177, focused on the extent to which Border Patrol and land management agencies’ law enforcement units share threat information and communications.

When operating on federal lands, Border Patrol must comply with the requirements of several federal land management laws, including the National Environmental Policy Act, Wilderness Act, and Endangered Species Act. Border Patrol agents must obtain permission or a permit from federal land management agencies before agents can undertake operations, such as maintaining roads and installing surveillance equipment, on federal lands.

To fulfill these requirements, Border Patrol generally coordinates with land management agencies through national and local interagency agreements. The most comprehensive agreement is a 2006 memorandum of understanding between the Departments of Homeland Security, Agriculture, and the Interior that is intended to guide Border Patrol activities on federal lands. Border Patrol’s access to some federal lands along the southwestern border has been limited because of certain land management laws, according to 17 of 26 patrol agents-in-charge that GAO analysts interviewed.

For example, these patrol agents-in-charge reported that implementation of these laws had resulted in delays and restrictions in their patrolling and monitoring operations.

Courtesy Jason Whitman Photography

If you want to know the fastest way to piss off a Wyomingite, or most people in the intermountain west, suggest closing off even more of our lands to multiple use.

In Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming we have already seen the devastation of a nearly a century of proper game management with the reintriduction of the wolf. The wolves were shoved down our throats even though we knew what would happen to our game herds if they were not managed properly. We fought the good fight to prevent their reintroduction, but we failed.

Just as we expected would happen, the Federal government has prevented each of the individual states from managing the wolves for the benefit of the entire ecosystem. They have constantly moved the recovery targets and used the Endangered Species Act as a bludgeoning tool to prevent proper management. When each of the states involved finally devised management plans endorsed by the USFW allowing for de-listment of the wolves, they were struck down by U.S. District Judge Molloy (a liberal appointed by the Clinton Administration).

I say all of that to say that Federal management of our natural resources in the west has been decidedly awful. In fact, everything the Federal government touches turns out to be a disaster. This is likely to be no exception.

DENVER – The Obama administration plans to reverse a Bush-era policy and make millions of undeveloped acres of land once again eligible for federal wilderness protection, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said Thursday.

The agency will replace the 2003 policy adopted under former Interior Secretary Gale Norton, Salazar said. That policy — derided by some as the “No More Wilderness” policy — stated that new areas could not be recommended for wilderness protection by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and opened millions of acres in the Rocky Mountain region to potential commercial development.

Apparently the Obama Administration is blissfully unaware of a concept we like to call “multiple use”. Lets all say that together… “multiple” “use”. Multiple use is the apparently antiquated notion (if you are a liberal) that Federal lands should be available for a variety of legal and responsible uses, including… gasp, commercial use. Secretary Salazar felt it was necessary to clarify their position:

That policy “frankly never should have happened and was wrong in the first place,” Salazar said Thursday.

Yes, it is wrong for the American people and American business to be able to use our own lands. The “wizards of smart” in the environmental movement don’t seem capable of understanding that multiple use is best use. We need to be able to responsibly log our national forests without having jobs, economies, and ecosystems destroyed because of chicken little paranoia about spotted owls. Much of the west has been devastated by the pine beetle, and guess who stood in the way of logging and managing the forest?

Map via Frank Jacobs, Strange Maps blog/Big Think

The TSA isn’t the only one with grabby hands.

I’ve been reporting on the stealth Obama land and ocean grabs for the past several months now — and there is another new, under-the-radar-screen development that deserves your attention.

Quick review: In August, I told you about the “Great Outdoors Initiative” to lock up more open spaces through executive order. This came on top on top of a separate, property-usurping initiative exposed by GOP Rep. Robert Bishop and Sen. Jim DeMint earlier this spring. According to an internal, 21-page Obama administration memo, 17 energy-rich areas in 11 states have been targeted as potential federal “monuments.” The Obama War on the West is a War on Jobs that extends from land to sea based on politicized junk science by executive fiat and czar evasion.

The latest power grab comes via Interior Secretary Ken Salazar — the unchecked, unaccountable data doctor and loathsome cowboy — who has just unilaterally elevated a government landscape conservation system to “directorate” status with no congressional debate, no witnesses, no testimony, no public input.

The full secretarial order is here (PDF).

From the announcement:

LAS VEGAS, NV – Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar today issued a Secretarial Order elevating the Office of the National Landscape Conservation System and Community Partnerships in the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to the level of a directorate within BLM.

“This action reflects the growing importance of the 27-million acre National Landscape Conservation System to local economies, to the health of communities, and to the conservation of some of America’s greatest landscapes,” Salazar said at the National Landscape Conservation System Summit in Las Vegas. “The BLM plays a special role in protecting America’s great outdoors for the benefit of all Americans – for it is the national conservation lands that contain the forests and canyons that families love to explore, the
backcountry where children learn to hunt and fish, and the places that tell the story of our history and our cultures. Each of these places within the National Landscape Conservation System holds special meaning to the American people and is an engine for jobs and economic growth in local communities.”

This National Landscape Conservation System was established as an integral part of the Bureau of Land Management by the Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009, a bipartisan initiative that responded to the critical need, as the population of the West increases, to conserve open spaces that are a unique part of America’s heritage. As an integral part of the BLM’s multiple-use mission, conservation is a long-term investment that provides quality of life and economic benefits for current and future generations.