States rising up to fight Obama land grab: Alaska, Utah file suit
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 Alaska, according to the motion filed by the state seeking to join Utah’s lawsuit, BLM manages more than 72 million acres — more than in any other state. Perhaps the biggest bone of contention is over the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska which falls under BLM management. But the agency also oversees mining districts and other resource development areas.
Here’s to more states rising up and unifying (unity!) against the enviro-zealots’ War on the West.
***
Via Gabriel Malor, here’s the PDF of Utah’s complaint.
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Much more important than the photo of Bin Laden. The only thing important is that Bin Laden is dead.
This, however, is something that is an issue for now and the future. Thanks for shedding light on this MM.
Interesting article and excellent news coming from the states.
By the time these states get to court dealing with this and all other issues, the election will probably be over and a NEW president can un-do all this cr@p bho and team have done! Lets just pray to goodness one is elected to do this. With bho and team gone, please God let it be so, maybe they can be hauled to court to answer questions they refuse to answer now on all the unconstitutional things they have done.
L
.
For the leftists using the envirowhacos its:
We wants it, we needs it. Must have the precious.
They must have all resources under their control. Until they come into absolute power, if they can at all do anything within the power they now have, our land and its resources must not be profitably exploited by any others.
Envirowhacos and the EPA are quite useful tools in that regard.
Just like every policy coming from this administration. These guys are a disgrace.
I still have that gnawing feeling that they don’t plan on going. Ever.
We need to fight this land-grab hard! It will soon be a matter of the Federal Government owning the water, oil, and all of our other natural resources. These resources belong TO THE PEOPLE, not the government!! I know why they are doing it, but they MUST NOT be allowed to get away with it! Can you imagine the power they would have over us if they could take away our water? I know they are already doing that in some places!
When the Conservatives re-take the senate and WH, they must give this land back to the people.
Has anyone here ever had a run in with BLM? Go accross a fence one day onto BLM land and see what happens if they catch you, makes what happens on the US/Mex border a complete joke.
Now if we could unite the states to take back the federal government, we would have gone full circle.
Just try getting into Area 51. You might very well get shot.
Try
Our progressives are putting in place social ownership of all nonhuman factors of production—capital and natural resources. So, of course, the progressives intend to prevent the exploitation of our resources until they, themselves, have complete control of it all.
Once they have it all, they can kick the annoying twerps in the environmental movement aside, if they don’t get with the socialist program.
I personally am in favor of more protected/preserved lands. America is beautiful, and I want future generations to be able to enjoy that beauty. Also, it will suck for hunters and fishers if they don’t have enough places to hunt and fish. Public lands do create some jobs because people need to oversee them.
I know I’m the only one who thinks this way, however. I don’t want to debate; I’m just explaining my own POV. I’m not going to change my mind, so there’s no sense in yelling at me.
Um…what???
You think government-owned lands will have hunting and fishing on them? WTF? Wake up little girl.
You want to pay off the national debt, then sell it ALL to private individuals and corporations. The federal government should own DC and the naval and military reservations and bases and that is all. DC should be a working area not a residential one. Live outside, come to work, and go home at night. The prez and vice prez can live there and everyone else gets out at the end of the shift. Does anyone think that the founding fathers envisioned a central government that owned over 33% of all the land in this country? What a crock!
The states themselves could do that. I think you are confusing national parks for government land grabs. Most of Nevada is off limits to the public.
I think that’s the wrong map posted. It looks like the map of the amount of land needed to be covered by solar and wind farms to provide our energy needs.
Many public lands, such as national forests and preserves, are open to hunting, trapping, and fishing.
A lot of people don’t realize this, though. I only know because I’m a part of some environmental groups whose ranks are fortified by hunting and fishing organizations.
It’s kind of odd being called a little girl, as I am 43.
Preach it, Phil!
Ah, to be 43 again….
So designate the strip of land just inside the border as official BLM land, and the BLM can do to the border-jumpers what they currently do to BLM fence-jumpers.
I was wondering when this was going to rear it’s head. I was reading something about this a couple of weeks ago. I just knew you had this on the back burner Michelle. Now, will all 57 sovereign United States stand and deliver?!
Open at the pleasure of the Department of the Interior. What happens when they decide that people are burning too many fossil fuels in their ATVs? Shut the lands down to ATV traffic. Or maybe that if people couldn’t hunt on federal land, they wouldn’t have an excuse to own guns. One thing this administration has shown us is that they will use every regulatory tool at their disposal to further their agenda.
Hell, I got hemorrhoids older’n that!
Maybe. I’m not an expert. I know something like 20% of Sierra Club members are hunters/fishers, and Ducks Unlimited is pretty involved in land preservation, so I figured they knew what was best for their sport.
hahahahahaha!
Y’all just made me feel young. But it’s mostly a state of mind, anyway, no?
I need to go walk my dogs. One of whom is very pro-hunting
Stacey,
I’m with you 100% regarding conservation and Ducks Unlimited is completely different than Sierra Club. They went off the rails years ago. My point is that the federal government doesn’t need the land, that should be up to the states because the feds can and will use it to further their needs, not necessarily ours.
Is the federal government paying their property taxes on this land? /s
And then, here in Maine we have rich libidiot, Roxanne Quimby, former owner of Burt’s Bees buying up hundreds of thousands of acres of land with the intention of handing it over to the feds. Oh, did I mention Sir Golfsalot put her on the National Parks board?
According to Ms. Quimby, the downfall of the USA began with private property ownership rights.
We used to go camping in the Escalante desert all the time before Clinton punished Utah’s vote (3rd place–lol) by making it nat’l monument. Do you know how much land costs in Utah now?! Farmland is $100,000 an acre. Because the feds own almost ALL of it. They send eastern city slickers out here and tell us how to run it. BLM is the enemy out here.
Bereans43 thank you for reminding me. We get no property taxes because the feds own it all too. These nutjobs think Utah and Alaska are their playgrounds and that nobody should live here except maybe the menial servants who cater to them when they come to play.
You are 43? I am 68. So to me, you are a “little girl”. Actually, I thought your original post sounded like a little girl. Your mind was made up, so don’t confuse you with any facts. That is not how we do it here. State owned land is handled differently than Federally owned land. The Fed. Govm’t. needs to keep its grubby hands off!! What part of BIG GOVERNMENT RUN AMOK don’t you understand?
Errah, Don’t Mess With Texas!
Errah, So if the Feds own so much land along the boarder/states, you’d think they’d protect it better. Take all those guys guarding Area 51 and spread them across our souther border. The real aliens can protect themselves till their ship is fixed.
Respectfully, I think many commenters have already made up their minds on many issues, which is why I see no point in arguing. I kind of hate arguing anyway.
I thought you liked me ok, happyscrapper, but I guess not. Ah well. I still think it’s cool you’re an author and win scrapbook awards.
!
The Kennedys on Cape Cod would be perfectly happy if the entire state of Wyoming were covered with wind turbines,
but heaven forbid one being built within site of their compound.
Next winter should be fun in the east cost liberal lands with heating oil prices skyrocketing. Meanwhile, out west, plenty of firewood for gathering on national forest lands.
I do like you, Stacey! But when I think you are sounding like a little girl, I say so. I think you know by now that we don’t all agree on here all the time. And we argue, sometimes vigorously. Look and me and Phil!! That doesn’t mean I don’t like them. We just disagree on something. And I disagreed with you on that post. Friends again?
P.S. Stacey…you do need to toughen up. I have had a LOT worse things said to me on these threads over the years.
Errah, They’ll have to clear cut Sequoia National Forest so we have more room for foreign made wind turbines. I have a hard time now just keepin it between the navigational beacons.
Eh, I’m a greeting card writer. We don’t tend to be all that tough.
But I will try not to take things personally!
Confiscating land from local and state control effectively takes it out of production, takes if off the tax roles, leaving the local and state govn’ts to make up the difference by having to hike taxes even higher to support the services those states must fund. Land that was previously used to grow food, is now designated ‘wilderness’; it’s to be left pristine without human footprints. Ranchers have had their roads cut off, to drive many miles around to get in and out of there properties. These will not be National Parks with camp sites and really pretty things to look at, but wilderness. It’s happening in all western states and must be stopped.
Frankly, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t want a tough greeting card writer.
Greeting card writer? Wow! I write sappy poetry too! See, we do have something in common.
Spring earth is waiting
Garden gloves, spade and hoe
Like an artist with a canvas
I plant the picture and watch it grow.
Sorry about that!
There’s more, but I have forgotten!
Hey, that’s pretty good!
That would be a very different kind of Hallmark.
“It’s your birthday! / You think that makes you special? Well, you’re not.”
“Sorry for your loss. / Though it seems like you should be over it by now.”
“Happy 25th Anniversary! / I’m surprised you two could stand each other for that long.”
***
HI STACEYOFLIBERTY–#13. A young whippersnapper like you (compared to 70 year old me) doesn’t remember the really bad environmental problems that existed in the past. Before EPA, better mining, logging, and land management changes were made. There has been real improvement in my lifetime.
***
Oil drilling, mining, logging, etc. can be done in sane ways that rebuild / reforest the areas we need to use. Our natural resources can be and are usually managed properly now. When the environmental “greenies” who are Luddites who want no resource use as all can be moved out of the way of progress.
***
$5 to $10 buck a gallon gas prices will wake people up soon. As are climbing food prices. And one of the big housing cost drivers is the “greenie” agenda shutting down the use of our own timber resources. Boards cost 3 times as much now as they did 20 years ago. And lumbering is even shut down on private land when an “endangered species” bird, toad, fish, or fly is found.
***
We would still be living on farms and ranches trying to scrape out a living in the dirt if these policies had been in place over the last 200 years. No cars, no electricity, no computers, no planes, no medicines, no phones, no gas, no oil. Just hard work and poverty forever.
***
John Bibb
***
Thank God Texas had it written into the agreement making us a state that the federal government (spit) couldn’t grab land here. Notice how little has been taken over by them.
On May 4th, 2011 at 3:17 pm, stillontheroad said:
Perhaps the BLM should guard our southern border?
On May 4th, 2011 at 3:31 pm, StaceyOfLiberty said:
Wonder if you will still feel that way when you are confined to your 4×4 foot human coop.
On May 4th, 2011 at 3:42 pm, Hannibal said:
I don’t trust the socialists to sell it and then not seize it all again ala H. Chavez.
Every day I become more in love with Texas!!
On May 4th, 2011 at 6:06 pm, 24Klady said:
Huh? If it was previously used for food production, how can it now be pristine without human footprints?
Off topic…Dennis Miller just said they should make Bin Laden’s picture into a mouse pad and sell it at the Factor Store!
Just walked in the house from mowing, the top of hour 3 on Mark Levin is mentioning this article tonight. Good for you Michelle!!!
Can be heard here when it’s posted in about 1 hour.
Dennis Miller is who got me listening to Levin. Miller has some good common sense on most issues and his mix of humor, politics, sports, literature, movies, etc. keeps me in the light. Glad to see you’re a fan gurl !
I don’t agree that this will actually happen. Although I kind of feel like that’s how they live in Manhattan…
Mark Levin…The Great One! Yeah, there are a lot of fantastic, conservative voices out there, thank God!
@rocketman / John:
Yeah, you make a good point about how logging, drilling, and mining techniques have evolved, and I hadn’t thought about that. I’m okay with responsible logging (with reforestation). A lot of clients demand it now, anyway…all of my company’s paper comes from suppliers who do a good job of reforestation.
I don’t know as much about mining and drilling. And I do know there is mining, logging, and drilling on some public lands, but I don’t know how much.
Agreed, barry thinks he was elected KING…as do all the lefties.
I still feel it’s going to get really ugly before it gets better.
what is it AZ says about an armed society?
On May 04, 2011 at 07:30 pm, happyscrapper said:
So do I, happyscrapper… I’m glad I live here. Come on down. You and your skillet are welcome anytime.
On May 04, 2011 at 07:30 pm, happyscrapper said:
So do I, happyscrapper… I’m glad I live here. Come on down. You and your skillet are welcome anytime.
Yet more proof leftists use the government to hurt people.
land. health care. taxes. spending. Doesn’t matter.
This needs to be emphasized:
Leftists. hurt. people. with. the. government.
I don’t know. It could open up a whole new market with divorce cards
Stacey…I don’t want you to take this the wrong way, but I want you to re-read the above previous posts and see if there is anything about them that strikes you as “odd”. In one post, you say your mind is made up and you don’t want to discuss it. You say you only want to give your opinion, but don’t want to listen to anyone else’s on the subject.
Then in the next post, you admit you don’t know everything about the subject and that yes, we do have some valid points. See what I mean? It is alright to change your mind on these issues, but you can’t develop good, clear opinions unless you listen to others and maybe get some solid information that you didn’t know before.
Don’t get me wrong…there is a huge difference between opinions and beliefs. Opinions can be changed with more solid information. Beliefs, on the other hand, are pretty basic to our core being and shouldn’t be flip-flopped…as in our religious faith, or our abhorance to abortion, etc.
Does that make sense?
Guess Obambo is looking for where to place his “monument” to himself. As a muslim, he wants a monument to be buried in.
FWIW, I would TOTALLY buy greeting cards that said these things. My family and friends would expect nothing less
One of my favorite cards was one I got for my (very liberal) brother. It said, “You are my brother, and nothing can change that”. Inside it said, “Believe me, I’ve checked!” It got a lot of laughs! Our cards usually have something to do with how very very old we are!!
@happyscrapper: Honestly, the main thing is I don’t like to be yelled at/insulted, so I was just trying to head that off. The truth is, I do sometimes change my mind on things (though like most people, if someone’s mean I sort of stop listening to what they’re saying.)
I don’t like people saying “libtard,” “idiot,” “ignoramus,” etc., so I wanted to say there was no point in ranting at me. Does that make sense?
Stacey…yes, I do understand what you are saying. I guess all I can tell you is, if you come to this site, you will hear those terms. The folks on here are, for the most part, very very right-wing. And we do consider the far left to be nuts. So….you can like it or not, but that is what you get here. I enjoy hearing your opinion, but you need to realize that if you give it, you are subject to debate and even criticism. Hopefully, no one will call you those names. They are reserved for the trolls and the regressives who are trying to destroy our Country!
If you can handle that, I’m sure you will enjoy all the bantering back and forth. Just remember, we express ourselves quite freely and take out our frustrations, which are many. This is a great outlet and we use it at such.
Have a good evening.
And to think when I was a kid, every piece of Bazooka bubble gum had an ad inside selling gubmint land out west for like 2 cents per acre. Seems like Indian givers to me, sell it to people then confiscate it back under the EPA or FWA departments.
No they will never give up until they win or are crushed.
Back door, windows – Keep vigilant everywhere and always.
Hah! To the Obummer admin…. another mere and insignifant lawsuit to ignore.
Really, all these lawsuits won’t stop this admin, but it does lay the groundwork for possible seccesion or impeachment as the most extreme measures against a lawless federal government and White House.
There, no doubt, was very fine print in the deal that the govt could revoke and reclaim when it wanted the land back.