Another Obama stealth land grab: Salazar and the NLCS
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. The system contains many of our Nation’s most treasured landscapes, including scientific, historic and cultural resources, wilderness and wilderness study areas, wild and scenic rivers, national monuments, national conservation areas, and scenic and historic trails, among others.
Salazar’s disingenuous pro-jobs spin belies the anti-growth, anti-prosperity, anti-jobs agenda of the green groups who are over the moon about the new maneuver:
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar gave the National Landscape Conservation System a boost this week, elevating its status within the Interior Department and setting conservation as a top priority for the vast federal lands.
In a secretarial order issued Monday, Salazar granted the office that oversees the relatively new system the level of “directorate” within the Bureau of Land Management. He also called for the agency to manage the lands “to protect the values for which they were designated” and specified that science should be involved in all management decisions.
The NLCS is a collage of more than 27 million acres of wilderness, conservation areas, rivers and monuments managed and protected by BLM. It was established administratively by President Clinton nearly a decade ago and put into law in March when President Obama signed the public lands omnibus bill.
The system is intended to protect open spaces in the West that “are a unique part of America’s heritage,” according to the agency.
BLM manages the system for multiple uses, but the order gives more direction to its management. The agency can allow grazing, energy development and tourism, but the order specifies that biodiversity and “ecological connectivity” are supposed to be tantamount. The lands are also supposed to help create “resilience in the face of climate change,” according to the order.
Conservation groups, including the Wilderness Society and Conservation Lands Foundation, praised the “landmark order.”
The NCLS has been singled out by the federal Interior Department inspector general for illegal lobbying and coordination with environmental groups who oppose any human use of these public lands. Via J.P. Freire last October:
Looks like the Department of Interior has a problem with a section responsible for 26 million acres of federal lands. According to an investigation conducted by the Interior inspector general regarding the department’s National Landscape Conservation System (NCLS), employees and environmental advocacy organizations frequently violated federal anti-lobbying policies.
A redacted report from the investigation includes this zinger:
Our investigation determined that numerous activities and communication took place between NLCS officials and nongovernmental organizations (NGO), including discussions about the NLCS budget and BLM employees’ editing brochures and producing fact sheets for a specific NGO. Our investigative efforts revealed that communication between NLCS and certain NGOs in these circumstances gave the appearance of federal employees being less than objective and created the potential for conflicts of interest or violations of law. We also uncovered a general disregard for establishing and maintaining boundaries among the various entities.
In fact, in one instance, Jeff Jarvis, who is an employee of the Bureau of Land Management, requested that a representative of the National Wildlife Federation change legislation affecting NCLS. As the inspector reports, “this was potentially problematic because BLM employees were prohibited from influencing the legislation.”
…I just got off the phone with Congressman Bishop, who had this to say: “This shows an inappropriate and unhealthy relationship between some in the executive branch and some lobbyist groups. This illustrates a legitimacy to our request for more information. While others claimed that this request about the NLCS was a meaningless red herring, we saw smoke and now we see a fire.”
… “If transparency was supposed to be a part of the new administration, it hasn’t hit the Department of Interior yet. We feel like footdragging and obstruction are more appropriate words. We got the documents late, eventually, and they illustrated there was a problem. … It’s time for the Department of Interior to do some housecleaning.”
Remember: The federal government already owns roughly one of every three acres in the United States. This vast amount of property is now in the control of power-hungry bureaucrats who have lied to the public, distorted science, and abused their government positions to conspire with job-killing eco-extremist groups.
If only there were as much public outrage over the Obama enviro-grope-and-grab policies as there is over the Obama airport gropes and grabs…
***
The Dems’ lame-duck plans:
Congress may lose its best chance to pass a suite of public lands proposals that would protect more than 2 million acres of federal lands as wilderness if it fails to move an omnibus measure in the lame-duck session, conservation groups say.
But while a key Senate lawmaker last week said he was bundling several dozen public lands bills into a draft package, Democratic leadership is mum about whether such a measure could move amid a crowded Senate schedule of higher-profile issues including a continuing resolution, tax extensions and other measures.
“It is on a list of items that are possible for consideration during the lame duck,” Regan LaChapelle, a spokeswoman for Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said of a draft public lands proposal by New Mexico Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D). “We have a long list of items that are possible and not much time to do so.”
Reid is speaking with fellow Democrats and Republicans, House leaders and the Obama administration to decide what is possible over the coming weeks, LaChapelle said.
The proposal by Bingaman, who is chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, would include most of the 60-plus public lands bills his panel has passed in the 111th Congress, and none that have failed to pass, said spokesman Bill Wicker.
Bills that have passed the committee include a proposal to designate the Valles Caldera National Preserve in New Mexico as a unit of the National Park System, a proposal to turn the Devil’s Staircase in Oregon into federally protected wilderness where logging and road development would be banned, and a bill to expand the Alpine Lakes Wilderness in Washington and extend the Middle Fork Snoqualmie River and Pratt River wild and scenic rivers.
Other bills would create new national parks, monuments, wilderness areas and wildlife sanctuaries.
“We really don’t know what the prospects for a public lands bill are likely to be,” said Wicker, adding that Bingaman would be talking with leadership and committee Republicans before making a decision on how to move forward. A final decision on a package could come anytime before the end of the session, Wicker said.
“Certainly the chairman would like to see all of those bills succeed,” he said.
The good news: GOP Rep. Rob Bishop is ready to push back as likely chairman of the House Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands.
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Maybe someone should point out that this is being done by someone who IS NOT ELIGIBLE to be President.
If he is doing this under the Antiquities Act, then the new congress needs to modify the Act again. And not just for exceptions for specific states. For all states.
Either congress or a states elected officials, who will hopefully have that states interests in mind, should be required to approve land grabs like this.
Obama can’t be permitted to lock up access to our energy resources. Congress has to be make sure he is stopped. And they need to undo what he and others have done already.
The Antiquities Act has been abused to the hilt. It has to end.
That map is frightening. The people should be seeking charges against these thieves.
I expect the House and Senate will soon reveal a massive 5,000 – 10,000 page bill called the “All Encompassing Hope and Change Lame Duck Act of 2010. This bill will incorporate tax “cuts”, amnesty, dream act, land grab, election engineering, corruption hearings and anything else they can think to include in one giant lame duck session bill.
They’ll probably pass and sign it on Christmas Eve.
Merry Christmas America.
So let’s stay involved in Party and precinct. Do not sit on your laurels with this latest win–and make it known you are watching. Sadly even with YEARS of a Republican President and Congress we did not roll back the Clintonista land grabs in Utah-land grabs meant to punish Utah for sending quarrelsome Representatives and Senators to bother His WhiteTrashness.
Commissar/Reichsführer Interior Secretary Ken Salazar can do a lot of damage in the nest two years-stay alert.
Resistance is mandatory.
===
An Armed Society is a polite society.
This is what results from a press that works for ideology and against the public.
God help us as we try to stop this pillaging of our beloved country. If they own most of our land, they own the people! We MUST find a way to stop them…and soon! It is treason, there is no other way to describe it. If they aren’t stopped, we will one day be BEGGING for our energy needs. The corruptocrats will own all our natural resources. This say they believe in redistribution, but that doesn’t apply to their wealth, only ours.
Just exactly what is the tipping point? How much more of this evidence of what they are doing can we take before it all hits the fan and they are FINALLY dragged out of the WH???
Indeed. When I think of the wasted opportunities, and how they literally slept through their majority, I get very angry. They are just as much to blame for all of this as those in power today. To have the power and sit with your head up your arse for 8 years (well, actually 6), is indefensable. Were they even aware this was happening? Or did they just not think it was important? We need FORWARD THINKING Conservatives in DC, who understand the value of preserving our liberty, and our land, and who stay on top of the issues. That is their job!!!
I wouldn’t be surprised.
And if this did happen, they’d say we’d find out what was in it after they pass it.
See… they don’t believe any action they took in congress was bad for America. They just think American’s don’t yet understand all the good things they’ve done.
And in a way, that’s good news. There are still, for now, enough people here that reject that and will kick them out of office.
But time is short and the left is working on many, many fronts to permanently change all of that.
I can only pray that in 2012 we have a new president and he/she can undo all bho, team, and the d’s have done to our Republic. I just hope we have a Republic to save the way things have been going since bho was elected. Lets also hope to goodness the new elected can put somewhat of a slow down on the plans now under way from bho and team till the next election.
L
Perhaps the government should sale some of it’s assets (some of this land) to reduce the debt…
and will be posted at http://www.AllEncompassingHopeandchangeLameDuckActof2010.guvment for a period of three day–most transparent ever and such.
(no, the link does not work)
Resistance is mandatory.
===
Let your sidearm be like American Express:
Don’t Leave home without it.
Pity that none of these crooks will ever see any negative repercussions from this wire fraud conspiracy, much less any jail time. That’s why government, politics, and lobbying are growth industries. It’s virtually impossible to be prosecuted for anything.
Sweet.
It has gone on for a long, long time. I am still POed about Clinton taking of the Escalante Plateau in UTAH, but where were the Conservatives and where were the Republicans. Now the people who live in Escalante and Boulder can not use the area at all, but the Sierra Club elite in San Francisco can.
Then we have the BLM land here in Oregon. We have serious fire danger, but the government does not have the funds to clear the land of brittle-brush and fire ladders. The Feds are a bad neighbor, who does not have to pay local and state taxes.
It is not enough to stop Obama. We need to roll back the land grab that has gone on for decades.
Nah, its plan is to have US sell OUR assets to pay ITs debt. Well, actually, just spend more. Our current government has every intent to continue increasing its debt to the point where George Soros can work out a deal with the PRC and jointly buy the USA outright.
I suspect there is more too this.
The big Zero is upset because the firearms in national parks went through.
No firearms allowed at national monuments.
The Communists want to destroy capitalism.
The Communists want to make us weak and dependent, so that we are not in a position to stop the “New World Order” of global socialism/communism.
The world’s current #1 oil exporter is Saudi Arabia. The #2 oil exporter is Russia. They are both getting wealthy by exporting oil.
We have over 3 times as much oil in our proven rerves as Saudi Arabia does. There is absolutely no excuse for us to be importing even a single drop of oil! In fact, we could easily become an oil exporter if the Communists in our own government are thrown out and replaced with free market capitalists who understand the vital importance of “DRILL HERE! DRILL NOW!!!”
The combination of accessing our own energy reserves, and passing the Fair Tax, would go a long, long way towards restoring prosperity, independence, and freedom to the citizens of this country.
On November 22nd, 2010 at 10:38 am, cheapseat said:
+2!
When they make their final push for a Peoples’ Republic we can make our move for Peoples’ firing squads-in moderation for the squeamish.
Resistance is mandatory
===
God Bless America
Except for the blue states
They must be securing our debt with the land as collateral. It’s passed time for states to take out the 10th amendment and shove in the elites’ faces. The state govs got seduced by tax money and sold out the rights which belonged to them and the citizens of those states.
Whatever happened to State’s Rights and State’s Sovereignty??? The Federal Government is like some gigantic monster, gobbling up everything in its path. We MUST get the power-grabbing regressives out of our government and into the penal system. They are nothing but crooks. It is encouraging to see how many Republican Governors we now have, and so many are jumping on the “Repeal Obamacare” bandwagon, and also promising to work toward more power to the states, as it was intended by our Founders. It is also encouraging to see how much of this information is finally seeing the light of day. That is the first step in eradicating the infestation!
Question that needs to be asked is — Why aren’t way more Americans concerned/upset over this? Do they think it’s just science fiction?? That’s why OB gets over grinning!
James Greenidge
Queens NY
I LOVE this word: regressives. It says so much more about those people than “progressives.”
How are you going to question the authority of a guy in a bolo tie? You can’t.
“Mr. Salazar, you were recorded taking bribes from the New Black Panther Party to grant them the eastern half of Wyoming for flag burning exercises, after which you used the money you received from the Panthers to pay off the husband of the woman you brutally murdered after engaging in a decade-long affair in your Senate office. What do you have to say for yourself?”
(KS adjusts bolo tie.)
Check and mate.
As a budget saving measure, all of these federal lands should be returned to the states. Let each state decide how best to manage their lands. This will save billions and allow for the elimination of many federal land management departments up to, and possibly including, the Secretary of the interior!
No one in Washington knows better than the people of California how to manage land in California! Remote managers simply DO NOT CARE about the local people.
He likes to think of the outdoors as Man Country.
(Thank you RedPill for laughing…)
Bolo-boarding.
Smoke and mirrors are working once again. Everyone is focused on the groping and radiation at the airports, while they sneak another land grab in during lame duck. Will the new kids on the block be vigilant even before they are able to actually vote? If they pay attention, perhaps they can publicize this kind of treason and the PEOPLE can do something!! The days of midnight bill-passing are almost over.
So they’re 2/3 of the way toward their goal.
The ever so power grabbing gov is creating one tipping point after another.
***
The money statement is ….is an engine for jobs and economic growth in local communities….!!!!
***
Comrade Obama (PBUH), Commissar Ken Salazar, and their greenie weenie friends have the gall to make this statement! They just found Cheech and Chong’s stash and are still smoking / snorting up.
***
Just look at how their brilliant policies have provided such great job and economic growths for American workers in the Gulf of Mexico oil based economies. It’s not an “engine” of growth–it’s an anvil tied around the neck of our American Economy. The only jobs being created are in our country’s enemies homelands.
***
My natal state of Nevada is already 90 percent Gubmint owned. And like Communist tax policy–only 100 percent is good enough for these clueless clowns.
***
The 2012 elections can’t get here in time to save our economy from the continuous damage these evil clowns are doing to it. We may be “immigrating” to Mexico by then. It did happen during the Great Depression–my legal immigrant father-in-law and his family left California and went back to their Chihuahua ranch to grow enough food to stay fed.
***
John Bibb
***
Sweet deal, if you like fruit cake…
Cut away all the crapola and this about establishing more and more public lands that the public can’t use or visit or anything…
Makes about as much sense as anything the Obamacrats do…
I seem to recall a certain former country that was real big into directorates.
Agenda 21? More land for the drug cartels and illegals? Keeping potential oil deposits off limits to drilling? Answers please…inquiring minds want to know just why this is happening!!!
I work in the People’s Republic of Santa Cruz, where people are celebrating some absurd news from Brazil: The “environment” has been granted “personhood” status, permitting any individual who believes the environment is being injured to bring a lawsuit to protect the environment.
You know this is the next step here at home, with a bunch of hack lawyers running the country.
Off topic but…Former First Lady Barbara Bush says she hopes Sarah Palin stays in Alaska, and George H. W. Bush admits he’s confused by the tea party.
Really. Sigh.
Exactly! Is this land collection what we’ll be paying our debt to China with?
Well happy, all that is a very good sign. No Bushes, no ruling elite for us.
But she’s not ragging Palin, but more like dismayed. Palin’s in danger of being seduced by her own celebrityhood and climbing a high horse. She should really be more tactfully low key and just settled with book publicity instead of opting for TV shows and travelogs and nodding her daughter to go prancing skimpy in moronic amateur hour shows. NonPalin-passionate people aren’t going to take Palin seriously at this rate and she’s setting herself up for overexposure burn-out by the end of 2011. I’m willing to eat it when my fave pol screws up big time, like I did with Thompson, and I hope Palin’s followers tell her to shift down some gears before she and they fly off a cliff.
James Greenidge
Queens NY
What to do with all that land?
huh?
Let’s see if I thought that giving it to disenfranchised people who had historically been oppressed, who would stop me?
If I thought it had been illegally taken from indigenous people and wanted to give it back to them, who would stop me?
If I thought it actually belonged to neighboring countries, who would stop me?
huh?
Oh well, nothing to see here move along….
This is, theorhetically, a trick question – in a pure sense, “federal land” really means (or should) that it belongs to the PEOPLE
This state of affairs with the Western part of the USA being largely controlled by the Federal government came about because the USA was the party who acquired these lands via the Louisiana Purchase, the Guadalupe-Hidalgo Treaty and the British Cession (plus the purchase of Alaska from the Russians).
Unlike the original 13 states plus Vermont and Maine the other States started off as territories owned by the USA except for those lands sold or deeded via the Homestead Act.
The only remedy for this situation is a Constitutional amendment which would deed to the States all Federal lands within their borders except those being used for the “needful purposes” enumerated in the US Constitution.