- Literally minutes before adjourning for the year, the
House of Representatives without debate unanimously approved a $261 million-a-year
legislative grab bag of goodies for environmentalists and their allies
in government.
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- Co-authored by Sens. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Bob Smith,
R-N.H., <http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?c107:1:./temp/~c107fE3jif::>The
American Wildlife Enhancement Act -- S 990 -- provides the wherewithal
for massive land acquisition by state government agencies and non-profit
groups, boosts the powers and status of the environmental organizations,
and enacts a major amendment to the 1973 <http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/16/ch35.html>Endangered
Species Act by adding a new designation "species at risk" --
to the familiar "threatened" and "endangered" categories.
The establishment and expansion of several national wildlife refuges and
a five-year rodent control program are thrown in for good measure.
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- The congressman responsible for its passage by the House
Friday was <http://www.house.gov/hansen>Rep. James Hansen, R-Utah.
Although Hansen headed the House Resources Committee, to which the bill
was assigned after it passed the Senate in December, he held no hearings
on it. Instead, he kept it on a back shelf until 2:22 a.m. Friday, when
he asked that the Resources Committee be discharged from further consideration
of the bill and that it be placed on the calendar for a vote. Three minutes
later -- with major sections stripped from it -- S 990 was on its way to
the Senate for final approval.
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- The same tactic was used for 14 other bills submitted
for last-minute approval. Each was labeled non-controversial, placed on
the consent calendar, voted upon, and sent to the Senate.
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- This was essentially a rerun of the bill's passage by
the Senate. On the evening of Dec. 22, at the end of one of the longest
legislative years in decades, and with a mere handful of senators still
present, Reid called for "unanimous consent" to pass S 990. The
bill passed.
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- "Who voted for and against the bill? No one will
ever know. Was there even a quorum present? No one will ever know,"
wrote Henry Lamb, in an <>article in WorldNetDaily.
-
- Lamb suggested that the bill would be better named the
"Screw-the-Landowner Act of 2001," and observed: "It is
one of several proposals to provide tax dollars and authorization to convert
even more of the rapidly diminishing private property in America to government
inventories. The bill provides $600 million per year for five years for
the 'acquisition of an area of land or water that is suitable or capable
of being made suitable for feeding, resting or breeding by wildlife.' With
this broad purpose, no land anywhere is safe from condemnation and acquisition
by an agency of government."
-
- " Apparently, the U.S. Senate will use our tax dollars
to buy pigswill if it is sold in a green bucket," Lamb added.
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- And, apparently, so will the House of Representatives.
-
- Hansen's move in the dead of night caught S 990's opponents
off-guard, but they moved quickly to try and derail it in the Upper House.
Faxes and e-mails have been flying through the phone lines and across the
Internet, urging property-rights activists and the public to contact their
senators and demand that a hold be placed on the bill.
-
- Under the Senate's unanimous consent rules, if one member
objects to a bill it must be removed from the consent calendar, and cannot
be considered until next year. A vote could come as early as today. The
Senate is scheduled to adjourn Thursday.
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- The American Farm Bureau Federation, the National Cattlemen's
Beef Association and the National Water Resources Association (the Western
irrigators) have weighed in opposition, joining the American Land Rights
Association, a grassroots group based in Battle Ground, Wash., which has
been actively fighting the bill from its inception, along with its earlier
variants.
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- Lobbyist Mike Hardiman, who represents ALRA on Capitol
Hill, views S 990 as "the most dangerous property rights bill this
session" -- and not only because of its land-acquisition provisions.
In fact, as approved by the House, the sections that would have allocated
some $350 million a year for the Pittman-Robinson Fund were eliminated.
The Pittman-Robertson Fund is a long-established, dedicated fund, supported
with a tax on purchases for sporting equipment: guns, ammunition, archery
equipment and other outdoor supplies.
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- This was to be augmented by the $350 million per year,
the largest allocation in the bill. It was inexplicably removed by Hansen,
who requested and was given permission to amend the bill that had been
voted upon by the Senate. Hansen not only removed the funding provision,
the entire section dealing with amendments to Pittman-Robertson was deleted,
and several new sections were added.
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- The cost of the bill went from $3 billion over five years,
to $1.3 billion -- a cut of over half -- in 30 seconds.
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- But $1.3 billion over five years is a great deal of money,
and Hardiman has dubbed S 990 "Son of CARA," as it is a scaled-down
version of the Conservation and Reinvestment Act, the mega-land bill that
environmentalists and land-trust advocates have been trying to get through
Congress for several years, with only partial success.
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- "The reason I call it 'Son of CARA' is that it is
just a fraction of what they [environmentalists] want," Hardiman explained.
"We've really beaten them up on the CARA bill so badly that now they're
just taking little pieces of it and trying to slip these through."
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- But there are differences, he added. "CARA was a
15-year authorization for guaranteed money. It is a trust fund: guaranteed
money for 15 years. A total disaster. CARA-Lite, which did pass last year,
is a five-year program with several hundred million for land acquisition
each year. S 990 is a Son of CARA, which is several hundred million more
for up to five years, but it is not a trust fund. It is not guaranteed
money. They will have to go back and ask Congress for it every year, and
there's no guarantee they're going to get it."
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- But money matters aside, in Hardiman's view the most
egregious section in S 990 is the one amending the Endangered Species Act.
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- "This is the most dangerous part of the bill, as
well as the most overlooked," Hardiman told WorldNetDaily. "If
it passes, people will have to worry not only about endangered and threatened
species on their property, but 'at risk' species, too."
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- Species at risk
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- Specifically, S 990 creates a category called "species
at risk," defined as any species identified by the secretaries of
Interior and Commerce to be a "candidate species" for listing
as endangered or threatened. Some $150 million a year would be allocated
to enforce this new provision, with the grant money going to environmental
groups, sportsmen's groups, land trusts and selected individuals for land
acquisitions and programs.
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- "That's money handed out mostly to environmental
groups to go tell people that they have a species at risk on their property,"
said Hardiman. "It expands the reach of environmental groups into
people's lives, their property, their livelihood. The burden of evidence
the environmental groups will have to provide is virtually nothing, it's
vapor. This is not about endangered species. It is not about even threatened
species. It's a new invention called 'species at risk,' and it can apply
to potential habitat for a species at risk, as well."
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- "We've come a long way from the actual Endangered
Species Act," he said.
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- The $150 million per year allocation is the largest single
financial component of the bill and will come to $750 million over the
next five years, but there are other allocations and costs. These include:
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- $50 million-a-year for a competitive matching-grant program
for "cooperative conservation" plans that include "property
acquisition." The federal government will make grants to states and
groups of states "to pay the federal share of the costs of conservation
of non-federal land or water of regional or national significance."
The federal share will be no more than 50 percent to 75 percent of the
cost, depending on the kind of project it is. Much of this "conservation"
is essentially land acquisition, and there are no prohibitions on condemnation
power.
- $50 million-a-year will go for "shrubland and grassland"
conservation (that is, acquisition), "with environmental organizations
again eligible to feed at the taxpayer trough," as Hardiman puts it
in an e-mail alert. "Even worse," he adds, "grass and shrubs
are defined as, well, grass and shrubs -- and -- areas 'historically dominated'
by grass and shrubs -- and -- areas that 'if restored to natural grassland
or shrubland, would have the potential to serve as habitat for endangered
species, threatened species, or species at risk.'"
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- "In other words," he quips, "Just about
every inch of America outside the Mojave Desert."
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- $6 million-a-year goes for nutria eradication in Maryland
and Louisiana. Nutria are furry rodents native to South America, that are
causing considerable damage to marshlands.
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- $5 million-a-year to begin implementing a new completely
new statute: The Marine Turtle Conservation Act.
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- That's $261 million-a-year for the five-year programs:
a total of $1.3 billion.
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- And it does not include additional one-time expenditures
scattered through the bill, such as the purchase of 198-acre Garrett Island,
Md., to expand the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge -- for which no
cost figures are given.
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- Nor does it include the $9 million that outgoing Sen.
Bob Smith wants to give the <http://www.tpl.org>Trust for Public
Land for property that will cost the trust $7 million. Smith lost in the
primary to New Hampshire Rep. John Sununu, a fellow Republican, who went
on to win the Nov. 5 election.
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- And it does not include $15 million to the state of Utah
for a quitclaim deed for state-owned properties in the Bear River Migratory
Bird Refuge in Bear River Bay of the Great Salt Lake.
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- Of that, $5 million must go for trail development, including
$2 million for the "development, improvement, and expansion of the
James V. Hansen Shoshone Trail."
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- In addition, $11 million is to be spent on the construction
of an education and administration center at the Bear River refuge. Reportedly,
the center is to be named after the Utah congressman, but that is not specified
in the current version of the bill.
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- Hardiman attributes Hansen's maneuverings to secure approval
for S 990 to his pending retirement after 20 years in the House.
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- Hansen's 'legacy mode'
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- "Hansen is completely in legacy mode," Hardiman
said. "He wants to be able to name something for himself, like a trail
or building, so he put all that green stuff in so the environmentalists
will let the bill go through. He's saying, in effect, "Here's a whole
bill with several hundred million in it for you guys, and I'm just going
to tack a couple of things of mine on it.'
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- "Then he can go to the Republicans and say, 'Hey,
I'm a fellow Republican, so leave my bill alone.'"
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- If Hardiman is correct, it would help explain Hansen's
action earlier this month when he introduced legislation to reform the
Endangered Species Act. In what has been termed "a parting shot to
detractors in the environmental community," Hansen proposed exempting
private property, military land and plant life from the federal ESA.
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- Hansen conceded that the bill would not move this year,
but said he hopes others would take up the cause next year.
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- "Right now, in this country, the rights of an endangered
fly or a species of seaweed take precedence over national security, commerce
and many people's right to the enjoyment of property and the pursuit of
happiness," Hansen said in a statement. "Our founding fathers
would be appalled."
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- Debbie Sease, national legislative director for the Sierra
Club, an environmental organization, told The Spectrum, a southern Utah
newspaper, that she "wondered" about his motives in proposing
such a controversial bill at the end of the term.
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- Maybe it's for his legacy," she said. "I think
it's pretty outrageous. Limiting biological diversity will come back and
harm man in the long run."
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- Which legacy?
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- While the retiring congressman was apparently sticking
it to the environmentalists by threatening to push an unlikely amendment
to the Endangered Species Act, his action whatever his motive -- served
to distract property-rights watchdogs from his moves in Congress.
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- Contacted for comment, Hansen's office did not return
phone calls.
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- © 2002
- <mailto:sarahfoster@mindspring.com>Sarah Foster
is a staff reporter for WorldNetDaily.
- http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=29707
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