Solving Congress

Remember the days when our elected representatives to Congress would attempt to accomplish something by actually introducing a bill, debating it, and voting on it?

By Bill Schneider
New West

I confess to having an old-fashioned view of how our senators and representatives should serve us. It goes something like this: They listen to the concerns of their constituents, decide to introduce a bill to address those concerns, have hearings and debate the issue in a fair and open forum, and then vote on it.

Think now. When is the last time you’ve seen Congress do that? You probably can’t remember any such success in recent history because, well, they don’t do that any more.

Nowadays, all Congress does earmarks and riders that often end in massive compilations like the Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009 and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, both a hundred or more bills that should’ve been introduced, debated, and voted on individually in the light of day, all piled up as a thousand or more pages of head-scratching legalese that no member of Congress even reads before voting on it.

Is this the only way we can get anything done?

A lobbyist friend compared our current system to sausage making, but I’d almost rather let my grandkids watch sausages being made let their civics teachers tell them the bald truth about how laws are made.

If a senator or representative agrees with constituents that we need a new project or program, does he or she introduce a bill get it done? Hardly. Instead, our elected representatives instinctively and immediately start thinking earmark and how they can work the power structure of Congress to get their earmark tacked onto must-pass legislation.

Once passed, politicos rush to the media to brag about it, but they don’t boast about how they did it.

Instead, they say, “the omnibus bill contained funding for the museum or airport or water treatment plant.” We used to call that “bringing home the pork.” Now, we call it “earmarking,” which has insidiously become an incurable addiction.

President Obama promised repeatedly during his campaign to put an end to making law with earmarks and riders, but he praised and signed the public lands and stimulus bills, which were little more than colossal collections of riders and earmarks.

Most maddening, perhaps, is Congress tacking major legislation impacting millions of people onto must-pass bills as a rider and sneaking it into the law books with no debate or daylight, let alone a recordable vote. I’ve written extensively about my least favorite rider of them all, the Federal Lands Recreational Enhancement Act of 2004. Thanks to the Bush administration’s engrained goal of commercializing and privatizing public lands, Congress secretly gave us a runaway escalation of recreational fees to access and use the land we own.

Another excellent recent example is the so-called “wolf kill bill.” Both its sponsors, Senators John Barrasso (R-WY) and Jon Tester (D-MT), are out there beating their chests about getting it “passed,” but no talk of how it magically appeared in the public lands omnibus bill--no fanfare, no local hearings, no press releases about what our senators were doing, no chance for constituents to support or oppose it. Yet, suddenly, it’s the law of the land.

The wolf bill is probably a good idea that enjoys support from both sides of the issue. In addition to providing more reliable compensation for losses livestock producers suffer from wolf depredation, it encourages ranchers to take preventive actions to reduce future losses, both livestock and wolves. And the cost is barely enough to light five cigars back in the Beltway--a mere million bucks per year for five years.

Even with such a bill, one with strong support, we can’t do it right? I talked to one lobbyist who spent years working on the public lands legislation, and he didn’t even know the wolf compensation rider was in the bill. Ditto, I suspect, for many members of Congress who voted for it.

Riders aren’t insignificant add-ons; they’re real laws that affect a lot of people and require proper procedure and visibility. Earmarks should be part of the budget process or introduced as spending bills and given fair hearings, debates and votes.

I’ve heard the counterargument. There’s so much for Congress to do and it takes so long to do it that we need the earmarks and riders to accomplish anything, but I don’t buy it. Instead, it seems politicians prefer the new way because it helps keep all but political insiders in the dark.

Clearly, Congress loves earmarks and riders, and it’s easy to see why.

• Earmarks help incumbents get re-elected by pumping pork into their states and districts.


• Packing hundreds of earmarks and riders from many congressional districts into one omnibus bill gives more senators and reps something for their constituents. As the omnibus grows, the “yea” vote count grows. Otherwise a senator in Oregon has little incentive to vote for a wilderness in Virginia or vice versa. The omnibus approach locks up both votes by designating a new wilderness in both states. Consequently, the process greases the skids to the White House.


• Our elected officials and lobbyists can partake in the earmark/rider process in the twilight without hearings, unhappy constituents, and pesky reporters asking questions and writing their own articles instead of using releases from congressional press offices. (Just in case you haven’t noticed, politicians expertly orchestrate news on their activities.)

But at least it’s our best example of bipartisanship. Both parties are equally guilty and addicted, and both on the hook for the skyrocketing deficits they’re unloading on our children and grandchildren.

But alas, there has been progress. For decades, the whole earmarking process was nearly invisible, but no more. People are noticing. It’s a common campaign issue. Congress has even approved new policy that requires senators and representatives to publicly declare earmarks they request. For decades, they didn’t even make this information public!

Dennis Rehberg (R-MT) just did this, in fact, announcing a list of 335 requested earmarks with a price tag of more than $1 billion, down from $1.5 billion he wanted last year when he didn’t have to make it public. Will this public spotlight lesson our zeal for earmarks? Perhaps. More and more politicians now condemn earmarks as the cause of wasteful spending. Witness Walt Minnick’s (D-ID) recent declaration that he wouldn’t request any earmarks, even for pet Idaho projects.

(Guess this proves earmarking is not a partisan issue. Our local “conservative” Republican wants all this pork and “liberal spending” and our local Democrat comes out against all earmarks.)

Politicos could push back and say it’s a cop-out for writers to criticize them. After all, they automatically and voluntarily become targets, deserved or not, the minute they announce their candidacy. And they might have a point. Are we the real culprits? We love our pork, don’t we? We don’t care if it’s an earmark as long as we get our new road, bridge, building, right?

So, will it ever change? I hope so. But realistically, I suppose the mess we’ve created is so huge and entrenched and popular with the power-hungry people we elect that it has become too big of a problem to solve.

Public Land Mismanagement

Environmental, fiscal and economic irresponsibility in the name of protection.

Terry L. Anderson and Reed Watson
Forbes.com

Commentary

"This legislation guarantees that we will not take our forests, rivers, oceans, national parks, monuments and wilderness areas for granted, but rather we will set them aside and guard their sanctity for everyone to share. That's something all Americans can support."

Those were the words of President Barack Obama on March 30 when he signed the Omnibus Public Lands Management Act that placed an additional 2 million acres of public land under the federal government's most stringent use restrictions. To anyone who knows the record of public land management, however, these words of preservation and unanimous support ring hollow.

If we used a measure like our stock indexes as a public land management barometer, it would be lower than the Dow Jones. Consider three measures of public land stewardship.

Environmental Irresponsibility--Decades of fire suppression by the Forest Service have disrupted natural fire cycles and turned many western forests into tinderboxes waiting to burn. Dense stands of spindly deadfall and underbrush now occupy land once characterized by open savannahs and large, widely spaced trees. One result is larger, more intense fires that burn the publicly owned forests to the ground. Indeed, by the Forest Service's own estimates, 90 to 200 million acres of federal forests are at high risk of burning in catastrophic fire events. Bans on thinning and salvage harvesting have not only exacerbated the fire danger in public forests but it has also left them more susceptible to disease, insects and high winds. Not only do the fires put enormous amounts of carbon into the atmosphere, the fact that the forests are dead or dying means that they are not sequestering carbon, as healthy ones do.

Fiscal Irresponsibility--What makes the ecological mismanagement of federal lands even more difficult to swallow is the price tag that comes with it. Every year, U.S. taxpayers spend billions of dollars on public land management, but the way in which these funds are allocated--through the congressional budgeting process--ensures the Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management and National Park Service respond to the will of politicians.

The result is what has been called "park barrel politics," which persists while the National Park Service maintains an estimated $9 billion backlog of construction and maintenance projects. Lest you think financial mismanagement is confined to the Park Service, consider that between 2006 and 2008 the Forest Service lost on average $3.58 billion each year. Similarly, the Government Accountability Office testified in Congress that in 2004 the BLM earned approximately $12 million in grazing revenues but spent $58 million implementing its grazing program.

Economic Irresponsibility--Environmental and fiscal mismanagement of federal lands may be obvious, but the economic effects of federal land mismanagement are subtler. Consider the debate over drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Economist Matthew Kotchen, University of California, Santa Barbara, offers an interesting thought experiment: What if environmentalists owned ANWR's oil? Kotchen theorized a surprising result might occur if the environmentalists could use the estimated $1.08 trillion in revenues ($921 billion after subtracting estimated costs of finding, developing, producing and transporting the oil) to address climate change. But since environmentalists do not own the oil under ANWR, the asset will likely remain underground.

In her new book, Who is Minding the Federal Estate?, Holly Fretwell describes additional economic consequences of shifting from active to passive public lands management: "Local communities suffer from lost jobs and business activity as sawmills close down" while "the nation's taxpayers lose revenues from their natural assets."

Is this new law likely to make a difference in terms of the environmental, fiscal or economic performance of federal land managers? "No" is the simple answer because the law does not change the underlying structure of federal land management or the incentives land managers face. Putting another 2 million acres into wilderness, the strictest non-use designation only adds those to the more than 100 million wilderness acres in the "unmanaged" category and turns a potential asset into a liability.

Establishing the 26-million-acre National Landscape Conservation System will only add more red ink to the BLM's hemorrhaging budget. Fretwell notes that less money is available to maintain federal lands as the percentage of wilderness land increases. This is partly due to the fact that wilderness designation results in more litigation than productivity. For example, as wilderness and endangered species issues forced the Forest Service to reduce timber harvests in Washington and Oregon from more than 6 billion board feet in the late 1980s to one-tenth that amount in 2006, its cost of offering 1,000 board feet of lumber for sale increased to $182 from $53. Jack Ward Thomas, President Bill Clinton's chief of the forest service, says litigation has tied land management agencies in a giant "Gordian knot," one which the legislation just signed by the president is likely to pull tighter.

If Obama wants to craft land use policy that "all Americans can support" and afford, he should make land and water management less subject to politics and more to economics. Given that the federal estate is worth trillions of dollars, Obama should make land management agencies turn a profit. States do this with their school trust lands, earning $5.62 for every dollar spent compared to an average of $0.76 for every dollar spent on national forests. Similarly, a forthcoming study from the Property and Environment Research Center shows that forest management on the Flathead Indian Reservation in Montana earns $2.04 for every dollar spent compared to $1.11 on the Lolo National Forest, one of the few "profitable" ones. We should be better stewards of our land and water, and we can be without it adding to a burgeoning federal debt.

Terry Anderson is the John and Jean DeNault Senior Fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution and executive director of the Property and Environment Research Center, Bozeman, MT, where Reed Watson is director of applied programs.

We must stop collaborating with environmentalists

READER'S VIEW LANDS BILL

BY LENORE BARRETT
Idaho Statesman

Land ownership was the compelling force that brought people to America in the first place, and the first purpose of the founding fathers was to protect the "unalienable rights" of an individual to own and control the use of private property.

The 1873 Timber Culture Act and the 1877 Desert Land Law both provided for free transfer of government land to private ownership. For the first 150 years, the objective of American land policy clearly was to get government land into private ownership. However, the distribution of government land to private ownership ended with the 1934 Taylor Grazing Act. Subsequently, radical environmentalists were the driving force behind the 1964 Wilderness Act. In 1976, The Federal Land Policy and Management Act officially set "public domain" lands in concrete. Since the '70s, federal land policy has shifted 180 degrees, making free enterprise and private property rights an obstacle to be overcome rather than a value to be protected.

Enter the massive 2009 omnibus public lands bill just passed by Congress. The Owyhee Canyonlands portion designates a whopping 517,000 acres of new Idaho wilderness and releases a paltry 199,000 acres of wilderness study areas. It also places 316 miles of Idaho rivers under federal control in a state already 63 percent federally owned. Why not just give Idaho back to the federal government and get it over with?

Idaho is a natural resource state, not a tourist mecca or a federal preserve. Idaho's congressionals should concentrate their efforts on restoring Idaho's natural resource industries, and stop "collaborating" with the environmental pantheists who destroyed Idaho's rural economy.

While the Idaho delegation, the environmentalists and the media are exchanging high fives over their latest wilderness victory, attention needs to be drawn to federal legislation known as the Clean Water Restoration Act, which in all likelihood will resurface in the new congressional session.

It will give the United States "all water subject to the ebb and flow of the tide, the territorial seas, and all interstate and intrastate waters and their tributaries, including lakes, rivers, streams (including intermittent streams) mud flats, sand flats, wetlands, sloughs, prairie potholes, wet meadows, playa lakes, natural ponds ..." and the rainwater your grandma used to save in a wooden barrel.

Who knows? If this legislation moves forward, at least grandma's rain barrel might survive the takeover with a little collaboration, consensus and compromise!

Lenore Hardy Barrett, a Challis Republican, is an Idaho House member.

Lost In An Energy Wilderness

Energy Policy: The House approves a Senate-passed omnibus bill that puts 2 million more acres of energy-rich land off-limits. We need a government that leads us out of the energy wilderness and not into it.

Opinion
INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY

Last Wednesday, the House of Representatives passed on a 285-148 vote the Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009 (S.22), which confirms our theory that no good comes from legislation labeled "comprehensive" or "omnibus."

S.22 is a smorgasbord of 160 bills totaling more than 1,300 pages and, no, we're not sure how many who voted for it actually read it. A stimulus bill it is not, for it locks up an additional 2 million acres to the 107 million acres of federally owned wilderness areas. That total is more than the area of Montana and Wyoming combined.

Speaking of Wyoming, 1.1 million of these newly restricted acres are in that state. This bill, which also provides $1 billion for a water project designed to save 500 salmon in California, takes about 8.8 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 300 million barrels of oil out of production in that state, according to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM).

The energy resources walled off by this bill would nearly match the annual production levels of our two natural gas production states — Texas and Alaska. As Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., points out: "We are not suffering from a lack of wilderness areas in the United States. According to the Census Bureau, we have 106 million acres of developed land and 107 million acres of (officially declared) wilderness land."

Earlier this year, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar canceled 77 Utah oil and gas leases that had gone through seven years of studies, negotiations and land-use planning. They were rejected because temporary drilling operations might be "visible" from several national parks more than a mile away. We are not making this up.

Some of these parcels are in or near the Green River Formation, an oil-rich region in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming that's been called the "Persia of the West."

This formation has the largest known oil shale deposits in the world, holding from 1.5 trillion to 1.8 trillion barrels of crude. The Energy Department's Argonne National Laboratory indicates 800 billion of these barrels are recoverable with current technology.

In comparison with Saudi Arabia's oil resources, America's recoverable oil shale resources are nearly three times as large, according to a 2008 report by the Utah Mining Association. As the report notes, the West's oil shale provides America with the "potential to be completely energy self-sufficient with no demands on external sources."

According to the BLM, 16% of the 607 million acres of land owned by the federal government is designated as wilderness in the form of 708 National Wilderness Areas located in the U.S. This bill adds over 80 new wilderness designations or additions to federal lands.

Paul Spitler of the Wilderness Society told CNSNews this is just dandy. "There are some landscapes that are simply more important for their scenic, natural, recreational and ecological values than they are for oil and gas development," he said.

We beg to differ. You can see the sun setting on America's energy and economic future over these landscapes.

Most of the locked-up lands are in Western states where there's enough oil shale to satisfy America's needs for the next 200 years. Modern technology can extract these vast resources from the earth with a minimal footprint.

Technology for shale-oil extraction is certainly further along than getting energy from switch grass or producing cellulosic ethanol. If we're going to stimulate anything, let's stimulate shale-oil production.

It took Moses 40 years to lead his people out of their wilderness to the Promised Land. The green lobby and its friends in Congress are leading the American people in the opposite direction.

Obama to sign lands bill before 5 days of comment

Stephen Dinan
Washington Times

President Obama on Monday will sign the omnibus land conservation bill - yet again breaking his vow to allow five days for public comment before he affixes his signature to legislation.

The bill passed the House on Wednesday, but the White House didn't post the measure for comments until Friday, leaving just two weekend days and parts of Friday and Monday for the public to register comments - short of the president's five-day pledge. The bill was posted for only several hours before the White House announced that Mr. Obama would sign it, indicating the president had made up his mind well before many comments could have been submitted.

The White House said issues are still being worked out with the five-day policy and that the president's scheduled departure Tuesday to London for a meeting with world leaders makes it necessary to short-circuit things this time.

"In most cases, we have posted legislation with five days' notice. We are working to resolve a few issues with the congressional calendar, and in this instance, in light of the president's international trip, the bill will be signed before departure," said spokesman Ben LaBolt, who vowed that the administration intends to live up to the policy.

"We will continue to post legislation on our Web site for comment as it moves through Congress, and plan to have the full policy implemented in the coming weeks," he said.

The land bill has taken a convoluted path to the president's desk, and Republican critics said Mr. Obama's failure to wait is simply the latest procedurally dubious step in a Democratic effort to jam through a controversial bill.

"If there was ever a bill in need of more input and comment, it's this one - but it didn't get that in Congress and it doesn't appear the administration will allow time for that either. That's too bad, because there is a better way," said Rep. Rob Bishop, Utah Republican.

"The history of this bill in the House has been one of strained procedure, stifled debate, constitutional flaws, inclusion of measures without merit, and amendments to apparently non-amendable bills," he said. "The people and their representatives have been shut out, and we have a poor end product because of it - one that will trample rights, hurt the management of our lands and hinder the economy and energy independence."

During the campaign, Mr. Obama pledged that when there's "a bill that ends up on my desk as president, you, the public, will have five days to look online and find out what's in it before I sign it."

On his campaign Web site, he vowed that would mean he "will not sign any non-emergency bill without giving the American public an opportunity to review and comment on the White House website for five days."

Of the nine bills Mr. Obama has signed so far in his term, he has signed six of them less than five days after Congress sent them to him. Of the other three, only on one did he wait more than five days from the time the bill was officially presented to him, according to Thomas, the Web site of the Library of Congress that tracks legislation.

Some of those bills were emergency legislation, such as the stimulus-spending bill and a continuing resolution to keep the government funded while Congress hashed out 2009 spending. The administration said that for other bills, it sometimes posts a link to the measure and allows comments even before it is officially presented to the White House, so the tally can be misleading.

The lands bill combines dozens of parks, wilderness and conservation projects, some of which had passed individually but others that hadn't received scrutiny, into a single bill.

Republicans on Capitol Hill blocked the legislation for months as they tried to remove parts they said were wasteful or counterproductive, including items such as new national parks that the National Park Service says it doesn't even want.

Democrats were afraid of facing an open debate in the House and used parliamentary tactics, including combining the bill with another measure, to deny Republicans the ability to offer amendments on the House floor.

The bill did pass overwhelmingly, with bipartisan support, by a 285-140 vote in the House and a 77-20 vote in the Senate.

Emily Lawrimore, a spokeswoman for Rep. Doc Hastings of Washington, the top Republican on the Natural Resources Committee, said Democrats "jammed this $10 billion, 1,200-page bill" through Congress and that Mr. Obama is doing the same at the White House.

"It appears that the administration's 'sunset before signing' pledge should be renamed 'sign before sundown.' This is another unfortunate example of Democrats' inability to live up to their promises of a more open and transparent government," she said.

Rep. Rob Bishop, Utah Republican, says the omnibus bill that the president is slated to sign Monday is "in need of more input and comment."

Mr. Obama's pledge to have bills available for comment does put him apart from other presidents, but voters appear ready to hold him to the higher standard he set. On Thursday, when Mr. Obama hosted a virtual town hall, one of the submitted questions that Mr. Obama didn't get to answer was why he wasn't following through on his five-day rule.

Asked at the daily White House briefing about the pledge later that day, press secretary Robert Gibbs said he thought that all except for the stimulus bill had met the five-day comment period.

"I think, in fact, on at least a couple of occasions we've not signed bills when we normally planned so that some of them could be reviewed," he said.

Asked by ABC's Jake Tapper whether the five-day rule was "a commitment the president intends to uphold from now on," Mr. Gibbs was unequivocal: "Yes, sir."

To the victors

Letters to the editor
Los Angeles Times


Re “Major wilderness bill OKd,” March 26


The Times' photo and story are so misleading. You have a Republican aide in the picture touting the victory. Although it might be true that Republican Rep. Howard P. "Buck" McKeon of Santa Clarita supports the wilderness bill, most Republicans don't.

You got it so wrong. A Democrat should be quoted regarding the victory, or a staunch environmentalist.

Gerald Orcholski
Pasadena

Wilderness protection bill gets Congress' OK

The legislation gives maximum federal protection to more than 2 million acres in nine states, including more than 700,000 acres in California.

By Richard Simon and Bettina Boxall
Los Angeles Times

Reporting from Los Angeles and Washington Bettina Boxall -- Congress on Wednesday approved the largest expansion of the wilderness system in 15 years, bestowing the highest level of federal protection on 2 million acres in nine states and launching one of the most ambitious river restoration efforts in the West.

The bill, the first major conservation measure set to be signed by President Obama, would designate as wilderness almost as much land as was set aside during George W. Bush's entire presidency. It passed the House on Wednesday, 285 to 140, after clearing the Senate last week.

In California--which now has 14 million acres of wilderness (second only to Alaska, which has more than 57 million acres) -- the bill would protect about 700,000 additional acres from new roads and most commercial uses such as new mining, logging and energy development.

Included in the legislation is $88 million to help fund a project to return year-round flows and a prized salmon run to the San Joaquin River for the first time since the 1940s. The bill also would provide $61 million toward cleanup of polluted groundwater in the San Gabriel Valley.

The legislation passed Wednesday is an amalgam of about 160 bills, including measures to strengthen the protection of Oregon's Mt. Hood; designate President Clinton's boyhood home in Hope, Ark., a national historic site; create a commission to plan for the 450th anniversary of the founding of St. Augustine, Fla.; and designating the River Raisin battlefield in Monroe, Mich. -- site of a bloody battle in the War of 1812 -- as a unit of the national park system.

Rep. Nick J. Rahall II (D-W.Va.), chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, said at a news conference after the vote that the bill is the "most important piece of conservation legislation Congress has considered in many years."

California land to be designated as wilderness includes about 40,000 acres in the San Gabriel Mountains in Los Angeles County. The bill would create the Magic Mountain Wilderness -- named for a mountain northeast of Santa Clarita, not the Six Flags amusement park -- and the Pleasant View Ridge Wilderness, west of Angeles Crest Highway.

About 428,000 acres in the Eastern Sierra would be protected, as would about 147,000 acres in Riverside County (including parts of Joshua Tree National Park) and about 85,000 acres in Sequoia-Kings Canyon National Parks -- including the Mineral King Valley area that was the site of an environmental battle in the 1960s when the Disney company tried to build a ski resort there.

The legislation also would strengthen protections of scenic rivers, including eight in California that stretch from the upper Owens River in the eastern Sierra to Piru Creek in Los Angeles County.

In addition, the bill would add about 8,400 acres to the 272,000-acre Santa Rosa and San Jacinto Mountains National Monument near Palm Springs, and order a study on whether the World War II Japanese American internment camp at Tule Lake should be part of the national park system.

"We're ecstatic," said Sam Goldman, California wilderness coordinator at the Wilderness Society.

The bill brought together members of opposing parties who were eager to trumpet their conservation efforts and water projects.

Rep. Howard P. "Buck" McKeon of Santa Clarita, a conservative Republican who worked with liberal Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) to push for the wilderness designation in the Eastern Sierra and San Gabriel Mountains, alluded to his unusual situation.

"We have some people who used to be my friends who are not happy with me, and we have some people who used to hate me who now think I'm great," he said. Showing pictures of mountains and rivers in his district, he added: "Places like this are treasures that we should try to preserve."

But the measure drew opposition from a number of congressional Republicans and business and property-rights groups, who attacked it as a land grab that would close off public land to energy production.

"If Congress and the administration are serious about jump-starting our economy, they cannot limit responsible American energy production of any kind, including oil and natural gas," said Barry Russell, president and chief executive of the Independent Petroleum Assn. of America.

The $88 million for the San Joaquin River is aimed at ending one of California's legendary water fights.

So much of the river is diverted to irrigate farmland on the east side of the agriculture-rich San Joaquin Valley that about 60 miles of it has turned into a bed of dust. Its lower reach is so polluted with runoff and agricultural drainage that it is known as "the lower colon of California."

A chinook salmon run that once was one of the West Coast's most bountiful was wiped out after Friant Dam was built in the 1940s and most of the river's Sierra-fed flow was sent into two giant irrigation canals.

Environmentalists went to court two decades ago to get back some of the San Joaquin's water and won a court settlement in 2006. The legislation authorizes the federal government to carry out the settlement and spend $88 million on restoration efforts.

"It's going to initiate one of the largest river restoration projects in the nation. It's a great day," said Monty Schmitt of the Natural Resources Defense Council, which has been involved in the river fight since its inception.

Under the settlement, farmers will give up some of their irrigation supplies. Altogether, more than $400 million in state and federal funds and environmental fees will be spent on restoration and water management projects to help farmers offset their irrigation losses.

Schmitt said the goal was to have spring chinook salmon swimming up the San Joaquin within three years.

During Wednesday's debate, Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Tulare) contended that the settlement would hurt farmers. "If this Congress isn't capable of delivering water to people, perhaps we can ask the United Nations for help," he said. "Maybe they would be willing to deliver water, distribute humanitarian aid and rebuild the San Joaquin Valley."

But Rep. George Radanovich, a fellow Central Valley Republican, said that the settlement would resolve a years-long legal battle that threatened farmers' water supply, and that it "gives the agricultural community some control over their water future."

The new wilderness designations will be the latest additions to the 107-million acre National Wilderness Preservation System, created when President Johnson signed the Wilderness Act in 1964.

The measure's passage has emboldened environmentalists to push for even more wilderness designation.

Boxer is working to protect an additional 1.4 million acres of wilderness in California, including areas in the Angeles, Klamath, Lassen and Los Padres national forests.

All of California's Democratic representatives supported the bill. (As House speaker, Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco usually doesn't vote, but she said she backed the bill.)

All of the state's Republicans voted against it except for Rep. Mary Bono Mack of Palm Springs and McKeon, who also sponsored bills to create wilderness areas in their districts. Rep. Gary G. Miller of Diamond Bar did not vote.

Lands bill displays Senate egoism over common sense

Senate defeats five Coburn amendments, accepts one

Press Release
Senator Tom Coburn M.D. (R-OK)

(WASHINGTON, D.C.) – U.S. Senator Tom Coburn, M.D. (R-OK) released the following statement today after the Senate’s passage of the Public Lands Act.

“Parochialism and short-term political expediency have once again trumped common sense in the United States Senate. The public lands bill handicaps future generations with additional debt and new barriers to both renewable and traditional energy resources in our own country,” Dr. Coburn said.

“Today, we rejected transparency and the ability to know the size and cost of federal property so we can better manage our resources. We rejected transparency because we prefer darkness and a lack of accountability. We rejected eliminating earmarks because we want to look good back home even if we undermine our future. We rejected the ability to access energy both renewable and traditional. We rejected prioritizing the needs of our national parks, which are deteriorating in the face of at least a $10 billion maintenance backlog because we prefer new ribbon cutting ceremonies to the hard work of upkeep and oversight,” Dr. Coburn said.

“The American people also should be disappointed that in a time of economic turmoil the United States Senate has devoted seven weeks to a bill that could have been done in two weeks. Seventy of the bills in this package, which I supported, could have passed by voice vote. Had the majority agreed to a simple and open amendment process months ago we could have been focusing on more important issues. The fact that one-third of the Senate supported some of my amendments demonstrated that this bill was too complex and controversial to pass essentially in secret with no debate, no amendments and no recorded votes,” Dr. Coburn said.

Background on Coburn amendments:

• The Senate voted 79 to 19 to table, or kill, Coburn Amendment 680, which would have barred new construction projects for national parks until all current sites are fully operational and pose no health or safety threat to the public. The National Park Service is currently facing a $10 billion maintenance backlog.


• The Senate voted 65 to 33 to table, or kill, Coburn Amendment 679, which would have nullified the provisions within the lands bill prohibiting renewable energy development on public lands.


• The Senate voted 63 to 35 to table, or kill, Coburn Amendment 675, which would have prohibited the use of eminent domain for any provision authorized in the bill.


• The Senate voted 58 to 39 to table, or kill, Coburn amendment 677, which would have required annual report detailing total size and cost of federal property.


• By voice vote, the Senate accepted Coburn amendment 682, that will protect park visitors and scientists from criminal penalties for taking stones that may contain insignificant fossils.


• The Senate voted 70 to 27 to table, or kill, Coburn amendment 683, which would have eliminated frivolous waste in the bill, including federal funding for a birthday party for St. Augustine, Florida, botanical gardens in Hawaii and Florida, a salmon restoration project in California, a study of Alexander Hamilton’s boyhood estate in the Virgin Islands, and historic shipwreck exploration.

Senate poised to move quickly on Omnibus

Procedural maneuver designed to nullify House vote

By Noelle Straub and Eric Bontrager
Environment & Energy Daily

The Senate today will vote on six amendments to the public lands, water and natural resources omnibus bill and may vote on the final version as soon as tonight.

Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) yesterday reached an agreement to allow Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) votes on the amendments in return for dropping his objections to the bill. The deal allows for 60 minutes of debate on each of Coburn's amendments and requires 60 votes for final passage. The Senate first passed the omnibus bill in January, 74-21, and a cloture vote Monday was approved, 73-21.

During floor debate yesterday, Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) described Coburn's amendments as largely minor, noncontroversial measures intended as assurances against unintended consequences of the omnibus. He encouraged Republicans to vote for them, saying they "simply improve the bill."

"Why would we want to preserve the right to use eminent domain if we don't have any intention to use it?" - Jon Kyl (R-AZ)

He noted one of the Coburn amendments would prohibit the use of eminent domain to acquire any of the millions of acres that would be protected under the omnibus. Supporters of the package have repeatedly refuted Coburn's claims that eminent domain would be used for any of the lands in the omnibus. "If it is true ... that none of this land needs to be acquired by eminent domain, there is no harm in including the language" of the amendment, Kyl said. "Why would we want to preserve the right to use eminent domain if we don't have any intention to use it?"

Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), who has a measure in the omnibus that would designate more than 517,000 acres as wilderness in the Owyhee-Bruneau Canyonlands of southwestern Idaho, said he understood the concerns of Coburn and some other members have but does not share their fears that the package represent "a haphazard attempt to extend the reach of the federal government."

"This is a well thought through management approach," Crapo said. "I don't believe there is a single piece of legislation in this bill that does not have the support of the senator of the state those lands are in."

Crapo said he hopes the Senate will move "expeditiously" on the amendments so that it can pass the omnibus and send it over the House.

Two of Coburn's amendments would strike all provisions that could restrict renewable energy development on public lands and sections that Coburn deems frivolous, such as the $3.5 million to celebrate the 450th Anniversary of St. Augustine, Fla., in 2015. Noting the National Park Service's $9 billion maintenance backlog, one amendment would bar new construction until all current park sites are certified as fully operational, ensuring full access by the public, and posing no health or safety threat.

Other amendments would require an annual report detailing the total size and cost of federal property, prohibit the use of eminent domain for any provision authorized in the bill, and clarify the bill to protect park visitors and scientists from criminal penalties for taking stones that may contain fossils.

Last week, the House fell two votes shy of passing the bill under suspension of the rules, a maneuver that shields legislation from amendment or a motion to recommit but requires a two-thirds majority for passage. Senate leaders then devised a strategy to use a bill that had already passed the House -- H.R. 146, a proposal to protect Revolutionary War battlefields -- and strip its contents, replacing it with the omnibus lands bill. Because H.R. 146 has already passed the House, the House Rules Committee can approve a closed rule that would block a motion to recommit, eliminating the GOP's best procedural chance to stymie the bill.

House Natural Resources Chairman Nick Rahall (D-W.Va.) yesterday said he had not seen Coburn's amendments but doubted that any would jeopardize the omnibus's final passage in the House. He noted that because the House already passed H.R. 146, all it would need is a simple majority vote to concur with the Senate amendment.

Even if the Senate passes the omnibus this week, Rahall said the House would likely not take it up until next week.

Because the omnibus may only require a simple majority, Natural Resources Committee ranking member Doc Hastings (R-Wash.) admitted that the bill is all but assured to pass. While pleased that the Reid-Coburn agreement will allow some amendments on the Senate side, he reiterated that House Republicans have never had the same opportunity.

The omnibus would designate more than 2 million acres of wilderness in nine states and would establish three new national park units, a new national monument, three new national conservation areas, more than 1,000 miles of national wild and scenic rivers and four new national trails. It would enlarge the boundaries of more than a dozen existing national park units and establish 10 new national heritage areas.

It would also authorize numerous land exchanges and conveyances to help local Western communities address water resource and supply issues and includes provisions to improve land management.

The revised omnibus bill will also include language from Rep. Jason Altmire (D-Pa.) meant to ensure that the omnibus would not close off lands that are already open to hunting and fishing.

Wilderness preservation bill narrowly defeated

Washington Post
March 12, 2009

Washington -- A bill to designate 2 million acres in nine states as protected wilderness was narrowly defeated in the House on Wednesday when it failed to garner the necessary two-thirds vote.

The measure -- which has passed the Senate -- received 282 yes and 144 no votes, leaving it two votes short. It came to a vote under special rules requiring the super-majority.

Conservation groups and many lawmakers said the package, which combined more than 170 separate bills, would preserve some of the nation's remaining pristine landscapes, but several Republicans argued that it would cost too much and would stand in the way of energy development.

Despite the defeat, Mike Matz, executive director of the advocacy group Campaign for America's Wilderness, said the proposal had significant support and would move forward. "It's a question of timing; that's the big issue," Matz said.

The bipartisan bill would apply to areas including Oregon's Mt. Hood and part of Virginia's Jefferson National Forest. Other affected states are California, Colorado, Idaho, Michigan, New Mexico, Utah and West Virginia.

Public Lands Bill Defeated in House

By Kate Phillips
New York Times

For now, the mega-public lands bill that would have greatly expanded public wilderness areas, parks and miles and miles of public trails, is stalled. House Republicans managed to maintain enough opposition to the omnibus measure to defeat it earlier today in a vote requiring two-thirds of the House members, by 282-144.

House Democratic leaders had brought the bill to the floor under suspension of the rules, as a way to keep the opposition from altering the legislation through amendments. But getting two-thirds remained dicey. Democrats tried to persuade Republicans (and conservative Democrats) that the bills were gun-friendly by the insertion of an amendment that would have prohibited any effort to close lands in the omnibus to hunting and fishing, but many Republicans still believed the legislation did not include enough gun rights protections.

Three Democrats voted no; 34 Republicans voted with Democrats; and six did not vote. It fell two votes short of passage.

Beyond guns, the House Republican leadership had complained all along that the total size of the bill was extraordinary, and would cost billions of dollars. It also opposed the legislation on the grounds that many pieces of the omnibus, totaling more than 150 bills that would have created new national parks, expanded the boundaries of existing ones, created monuments or “heritage areas” and nationalized trails, had never been thoroughly examined in the House.

The Senate had already passed the bill, S. 22, after Senator Harry Reid, the majority leader, scheduled votes on a Sunday in early January for consideration of the omnibus bill.

Republicans also objected to the Democrats’ decision to pursue the vote through a suspension of the rules, contending that the procedure should be used mainly for renaming post offices or ceremonial items as opposed to something as massive as this bill. In addition, private land rights came into play as well as concerns that closing off so much land would affect energy resources.

Representative John Boehner, the minority leader in the House, said today: “The legislation Democrats attempted to force through the House today would have made matters even worse by blocking environmentally safe energy production, increasing gasoline and other energy costs, and costing American jobs we cannot afford to lose.”

A senior Democratic aide in the House said the best option under consideration would be to have the Senate shoehorn it onto another bill and ship it back. House Democratic leaders have not definitively ruled out a floor vote using a simpler rule, needing only a majority for passage, but that move would leave the measure wide open for amendments.

As for the ever-present gun lobby, an amendment by Democrat Jason Altmire, Democrat of Pennsylvania, was meant to assuage those concerned about hunting and fishing rights. And Democrats’ pointed to the N.R.A.’s satisfaction with that amendment. But Gun Owners of America sent out a letter this week objecting to the overall omnibus on many grounds, and urged House members to vote against it.

Extensive lands protection bill could thwart new energy development

By SCOTT STREATER
New York Times

The 111th Congress is poised to usher in the largest expansion of the nation's wilderness in a generation, with 2.1 million acres of public land in line for the strictest environmental protections allowed under federal law.

An omnibus lands bill that could receive final congressional approval this month would create new wilderness areas in nine states -- from the San Gabriel Mountains of California to Michigan's Lake Superior shoreline to a portion of the Appalachian Trail in Virginia -- covering almost as much land as the 2.4 million acres designated during the entire eight years of the Bush presidency.

Meanwhile, Reps. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.), and Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.) last month introduced the Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act, which would designate 24 million acres of mostly Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service land in five states as wilderness area.

The wilderness proposals carry significant implications, particularly for BLM and the Forest Service, which must manage public lands for multiple uses, including oil and gas drilling, minerals mining, timber harvesting and a variety of recreational uses.

By contrast, wilderness areas are by their very definition sanctuaries of quiet solitude, or as the 1964 law states, areas "where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain." In practical terms, that means wilderness is off limits to all human activities except hiking, canoeing and some hunting and fishing.

The surge in congressional interest in wilderness designations, particularly by Democrats but also some Republicans, is a tonic to many conservation groups who are still angered by Bush administration policies that they say favored natural resource extraction priorities like mining and drilling over land preservation.

"If you've ever gone out and taken a look at areas intensively drilled for oil and gas, you're talking about lands that look like a moonscape. They're ecologically devastated," said Paul Spitler, national wilderness campaigns associate director for the Wilderness Society. "These designations are significant because people don't realize that public lands are open to a wide variety of uses that can be just as damaging as putting up a bunch of condos."

There are, however, potential drawbacks to expanding wilderness designations, especially when it comes to energy production.

Roughly a third of the country's domestic energy is produced on lands managed by the Interior Department, officials say, and those numbers are expected to grow as more wind and solar energy projects are approved on public lands.

But wind farms, solar arrays and geothermal plants are forbidden in wilderness areas, said Mike Olsen, a former Interior senior administrator now with the environmental strategies group at the law firm Bracewell & Giuliani.

That is a huge concern, Olsen said, because the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act includes billions of dollars in incentives and tax breaks to encourage the development of renewable energy.

"You are in effect closing these lands off to domestic energy development," Olsen said. "In this world, where domestic energy production is so important, what does this mean to have additional public land taken off the table for energy development? I'm not placing value on one over the other. But we need to consider these impacts."

Spitler acknowledged the wilderness designations could affect some alternative energy development. He also is sensitive to the concerns of those who worry the wilderness designations could lessen their enjoyment of public land. Motorized vehicles such as snowmobiles are forbidden in wilderness areas.

But he and other conservationists say the increased protections are necessary.

"Between energy production and off-road vehicles we're losing land at a rapid pace," Spitler said. "We need these areas to receive permanent protection before they're lost."

A new vision

At issue is the National Wilderness Preservation System and attempts to add to the 107 million acres of public land already designated as wilderness.

The centerpiece of the latest effort to expand wilderness designations is the "Omnibus Public Land Management Act," which the Senate approved in January. The bill consolidates dozens of individual wilderness bills, from designating 37,000 acres within the Monongahela National Forest in West Virginia to 700,000 acres and 105 miles of rivers and streams in California.

If Congress approves the measure, it will be the single largest wilderness designation since the 1994 California Desert Protection Act, which extended the highest federal protection to 3.5 million acres of BLM lands in the Mojave Desert.

The new push for wilderness represents a stark change from the Bush administration and 12 years of the Republican-controlled Congresses, which tended to view public lands as resources that should be tapped for their abundant fossil fuels, timber and minerals, said Myke Bybee, a public lands representative for the Sierra Club.

"The wilderness designations in the omnibus bill will add a level of protection that's far more extensive than what they are now, and I think it's necessary," said Bill Wade, executive council chairman of the Coalition of National Park Service Retirees, which was critical of the Bush administration's conservation policies.

Some of the wilderness designations in the bill, such as expanding the 14,000-acre Little River Canyon National Preserve in northeast Alabama, would have tremendous environmental value. Little River, atop Lookout Mountain, is one of the nation's longest mountaintop rivers and proponents want to ensure it stays pristine.

Other designations, like the expansion of the Fort Davis National Historic Site in west Texas, are vulnerable but have cultural significance as well. The fort, built in 1854, housed the Army's all-black regiments known as the Buffalo Soldiers.

Most of the proposed wilderness areas in the bill are the result of lengthy negotiations between interest groups, and in some cases the new designations involve trade-offs between preservation and development interests.

For example, Zion National Park in southwest Utah is in the fastest-growing county in the state, and large developments have been proposed to the east and north of the park that could hamper the quality of the natural resource, said David Nimkin, director of the southwest region for the National Parks Conservation Association.

The omnibus lands bill would designate 123,743 acres -- more than 90 percent of the park -- as wilderness. In exchange, lawmakers agreed to sell 9,300 acres of public land to developers and use the money to purchase private parcels within the park boundaries, Nimkin said.

"Getting this thing done is a big deal," he said. "It codifies the protections for the national park into law. There are different administrations, different land managers, and various degrees of local pressure. This takes the administrative decisionmaking and discretion out of the hands of the public land manager."

Planning for global warming

One reason environmentalists are pushing to expand wilderness areas is to protect plants and animals from the damaging effects of climate change.

Scientists have calculated that for every increase in temperature of 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit, the vegetation belt shifts 60 miles north or 550 feet higher in elevation. As vegetation shifts, so too will thousands of species of mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians. Those species whose habitat is not obstructed by highways, subdivisions and other development should be able to migrate to more hospitable climates; those that cannot will die.

The Interior Department and Forest Service have worked the past several years with a conservation effort know as the Wildlands Network to develop and maintain carefully plotted corridors connecting already preserved lands to one another. The network's goal is to create a 5,000-mile-long wildlife corridor stretching from Mexico to Alaska -- an effort that would take decades.

To succeed, the program must connect protected parcels that would allow for northward migration of at-risk species, said John Kostyack, executive director of wildlife conservation and global warming for the National Wildlife Federation.

"Global warming is leading to a complete transformation of how we look at conservation," Kostyack said.

Congress acknowledged that fact last year in the failed Climate Security Act of 2008 sponsored by Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), and John Warner (R-Va.). The bill, which would have been the first to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, included a provision to allocate as much as $7.2 billion a year to BLM, the Park Service, Forest Service and other agencies to purchase conservation easements and restore degraded habitats.

President Obama pledged support for the creation of such a fund during the 2008 campaign. And House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has listed the creation of such a fund as a priority in any future greenhouse gas legislation.

"All the science tells us that we'll need to have connected landscapes for animals and plants to move as the climate warms, and we've already seen in some cases massive shifts of vegetative communities northward," Kostyack said. "It's certainly a key rationale for expanded wildlife designations."

OHV destruction

Another reason cited by environmental groups for expanding U.S. wilderness areas is to protect wildlife and habitat from damage caused by off-highway vehicles like dirt bikes, snowmobiles and all-terrain vehicles, which have surged in popularity in recent years.

Snowmobiles in Yosemite National Park, for example, have sparked controversy and court battles, with park managers ultimately setting a daily cap on the number of snowmobiles allowed in the park because their engines scare away wildlife. And in Southern California's Mojave Desert, use of off-highway vehicles on BLM land have crushed hundreds of endangered desert tortoises.

"On the fragile ecosystem in the deserts in the West, where we don't get a lot of rain, the vegetation is already making a living in a very harsh environment," said Ileene Anderson, staff biologist for the Center for Biological Diversity in Los Angeles. "So having somebody come riding their motorcycle or [all-terrain vehicle] through a pristine desert and running over everything, it has a cascading effect on the plants, insects and animals. These fragile lands can't take this continuous assault."

While acknowledging "there are a few knuckleheads" who cause damage to natural resources, Bill Dart, director of land use for the Bakersfield, Calif.-based Off-Road Business Association, a national trade group, said such incidents do not justify a federal prohibition on OHV use by law-abiding citizens on public lands.

"The impacts of off-road vehicles on wildlife have been overblown," Dart said.

Still, Dart said he is encouraged by the fact that federal officials and some advocacy groups have been willing to work with his group when developing wilderness area proposals.

For example, Rep. Buck McKeon (R-Calif.) consulted the Off-Road Business Association when developing a proposed 27,000-acre wilderness designation in the San Gabriel Mountains in Northern California. The proposed Pleasant View Ridge Wilderness Area is one of the projects in the omnibus lands bill.

"They were willing to take out all the [off-road trails] that were of interest to us," Dart said. "Wildlife designations are appropriate as long as they don't get carried away. There is a way to do this that's a win-win situation for everyone."

A sign of things to come

While larger than anything proposed under the last several Congresses, the 2009 wilderness proposals are just a glimpse of things to come, congressional watchdogs and conservation leaders say.

Once the omnibus lands bill is approved, the floodgates will open and lawmakers will introduce dozens of wilderness proposals covering potentially millions of acres, experts say.

"There's a whole suite of bills ready to go," said Spitler of the Wilderness Society.

Many of the proposals will come as reintroduced bills from the past six years "that just never got their day in their sun," said Bybee, the Sierra Club official.

Many of the proposals will be modest and noncontroversial, such as a bill by Rep. Dave Reichert (R-Wash.) to add about 22,000 acres to the Alpine Lakes Wilderness Area in Washington.

Others are huge proposals covering vast expanses of public land. They include:

• California Wild Heritage: Sponsored by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), the bill seeks to designate 2.5 million acres of wilderness, and an additional 400 miles of national wild and scenic rivers across the state. Originally introduced in 2002, Boxer is expected to revive the bill this spring.


• America's Red Rock Wilderness: By far the largest proposal, this bill would designate 9 million acres across Utah as wilderness. The proposal has been introduced in every Congress since 1989 but has never won support from a majority of of Utah's congressional delegation. Nevertheless, plans are under way to reintroduce the bill this session.


• Boulder-White Clouds Wilderness: Proposed by Rep. Mike Simpson, (R-Idaho), the bill would extend wilderness protection to roughly 315,000 acres in the Sawtooth and Salmon-Challis national forests in east-central Idaho.

"Up until recently you had a Congress that wasn't very receptive to wilderness designations, particularly on the House side," Spitler said. "We're finally starting to unclog the pipeline on wilderness designations."

Public Lands Bill Threatens Energy, Economy

Written by William F. Jasper
New American

With our economy already staggering under an avalanche of debt, taxes, regulations, and the high costs of energy, Democrats in the Senate have decided to pile on a real economy killer: the Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009 (S. 22). Incredibly, nearly 20 Republicans in the Senate joined with them in support of this destructive bill.

S. 22 is a mammoth piece of legislation combining over 160 bills and running to more than 1,300 pages. It is loaded with pork-barrel spending and harmful provisions, but the most objectionable features of the bill are those that would lock up millions of acres of our most promising areas for badly needed oil, natural gas, and mineral production.

Sponsored by Senators Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) and Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and originally introduced in the 110th Congress, the Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009 passed the Senate on January 15 and is now awaiting action in the House of Representatives. The lopsided 73-21 vote (with four not voting) saw 19 Republicans join with the liberal-left Reid-Boxer-Schumer Democrats in favor of the lock-up. Those Republican senators are: Alexander (Tenn.), Barrasso (Wyo.), Bennett (Utah), Bond (Mo.), Cochran (Miss.), Collins (Maine), Corker (Tenn.), Crapo (Idaho), Enzi (Wy.), Gregg (N.H.), Hatch (Utah), Lugar (Ind.), Martinez (Fla.), Murkowski (Alaska), Risch (Idaho), Snow (Maine), Specter (Pa.), Voinovich (Ohio), and Wicker (Miss.).

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), one of the principal opponents of the legislation, outlined some of the many egregious features of the legislation in a press release on his Senate website.

• A provision that takes about 8.8 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 300 million barrels of oil out of production in Wyoming, according to the Bureau of Land Management. The energy resources walled off by this bill would nearly match the annual production levels of our two largest natural gas production states — Alaska and Texas.


• $3 million for a “road to nowhere” through a wildlife refuge in Alaska.


• $1 billion for a water project designed to save 500 salmon in California. At this price, each salmon would be worth far more than its weight in gold.


• $3.5 million to help celebrate the 450th birthday of St. Augustine Florida, in 2015....


• $5 million on botanical gardens in Hawaii and Florida.

“If the Senate wants to debate lands legislation once we’ve helped stabilize the economy we should begin by better managing the land we already oversee,” says Dr. Coburn. “We have a $9 billion maintenance back log within the national park service because Congress prefers to create new pet projects rather than responsibly oversee the parks we’ve already created. Moreover, we are not suffering from a lack of wilderness areas in the United States. According to the Census Bureau, we have 106 million acres of developed land and 107 million acres of wilderness land. What we are suffering from, however, is a lack of common sense in Washington.”

Other critical analyses of the bill by the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) and the Republican Study Committee (RSC) point out many ways S. 22 threatens our nation’s economic viability. Those provisions include:

• Blocking millions of acres from new oil and gas leasing, logging, mining, and all other business activity in these areas.


• Eliminating 1.2 million acres from mineral leasing and energy exploration in Wyoming alone — withdrawing 331 million barrels of recoverable oil and 8.8 trillion cubic feet of natural gas from domestic energy supply.


• Designating more than two million acres of land as wilderness areas and permanently eliminating human access to these areas for energy exploration or recreational opportunities.


• Eliminating a proposed terminal site for importing liquefied natural gas (LNG) in Massachusetts by designating a river that runs through a city as “wild and scenic."


• Authorizing $5.5 billion of new discretionary spending and $915 million of direct spending.


• Codifying the National Landscape Conservation System (NLCS) within the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), creating a duplicative agency that will tend to greatly restrict or eliminate ranching, mining, logging, hunting, fishing, and recreation on BLM’s massive land holdings.


• Adding over 80 new wilderness designations or additions to federal lands.

The Republican Study Committee's critique of S. 22 notes:

The federal government already owns nearly 650 million acres of land, which amounts to 30 percent of the total land area of the United States. The District of Columbia, established by the Constitution as the federal city, has only 24.7% of its total acreage owned by the federal government. Twelve states rank above DC in federal land ownership. 85% of Nevada is federally owned and the federal government occupies more than 45% of the land in California.

Pew and other public opinion polls have shown repeatedly that Americans favor more offshore drilling for gas and oil and favor opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to drilling, along with other public lands that have been put off limits. With the likelihood that gasoline prices could again shoot up into the $4 range (or higher), it not only makes good economic sense, but also makes good national security sense, since greater domestic production would mean less dependence on foreign suppliers and less transfer of our wealth to regimes that may mean us ill. Instead of yielding to these common sense proposals supported by the public, Senate Democrats and some Senate Republicans have joined hands to tighten the energy stranglehold on America’s energy jugular. Now the fight has moved to the House, and it will take an outpouring of public outrage to stop this legislation and the harm that it would do.

Future of long-sought Utah lands bills in question

By Lee Davidson
Deseret News


When the Senate convened this year, it quickly passed a much-ballyhooed package of hundreds of public lands bills — including several affecting Utah. Quick House passage for that omnibus bill was expected, but something funny happened on the way to that forum.

Upon closer inspection, members of both parties there found much in it that gave them heartburn. It has forced Democratic leaders to keep delaying consideration, because they are not sure they have enough votes to pass it.

That is putting into doubt several long-sought Utah bills in the package, including a major one worked out over many years to determine which areas of Washington County should be maintained as pristine, and which should allow development. Others bills affect Park City open space, a Bountiful gun range, a Utah Boy Scout Camp and trails used by Mormon pioneers.

"As good as the Utah bills are, there is so much else that is so outrageously bad that it kind of hurts your heart," says Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah.

He has two bills in the package himself (affecting Park City and Bountiful). But as the ranking Republican on the House Natural Resources Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands, he is helping formulate GOP opposition to the bill as now written.

He says the question for Republicans, and many Democrats, is whether they will put up with a lot of bad to pass small, good home-state bills they personally seek.

Bishop said, "Somebody described the whole thing to me like this: You purchase a book that is full of erotic violence because you like a paragraph on page 242. The overall package is still bad."

Among the controversial bills in the package are: increasing penalties for those who take fossils from public lands (which some worry might make amateur fossil hunters criminals); granting wild and scenic status to the Taunton River in Massachusetts, even though it includes some heavy industrial areas; allowing a road through an internationally recognized wetland in Alaska; and codifying a National Landscape Conservation System set up by the Clinton administration but opposed by many Republicans.

"If they could cull out maybe 50 of the real stinkers (in the package), they might have a bill that's not bad enough to get people upset," Bishop said.

Also, he says many House Democrats have heartburn because the Senate stripped from its version all amendments that the House had earlier added to individual bills when it had debated and passed many separately, before they were all bundled together.

"So some of those (stripped) amendments that are bringing them grief now are protection of hunting and fishing rights, gun rights … (and) private property rights," Bishop said.

With the problems, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., last week would not say exactly when the bill may reach the floor, but said he hoped it would be before the House's spring recess.

House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Nick Rahall II, D-W.V., explained the delay to Congressional Quarterly, saying, "We want to make sure we have the votes."

So again hanging in limbo is the Washington County land bill that had been negotiated for more than a decade.

It would create two new national conservation areas to provide permanent protection for the endangered desert tortoise and other at-risk species near St. George, allowing development in other areas. It would also do such things as create more than 250,000 acres of wilderness areas in the county and enlarge Zion National Park to include some of them.

That bill also would designate 165.5 miles of the Virgin River as a wild and scenic river, sort of a wet wilderness area. It also authorizes the U.S. Bureau of Land Management to sell excess BLM lands in the county not considered to be environmentally sensitive, and to use the proceeds to buy lands that are considered biologically significant.

The other Utah bills hanging in limbo include a trade to give a Boy Scout camp near Brian Head more usable land; one to give Park City some federal tracts within its boundaries to protect as open space; a trade to bring federal land to Bountiful including a gun range operated by the Lion's Club; and a bill to correct a surveying error that put part of the Turnabout Ranch for troubled youth into the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.

Another bill would study the possibility of giving federal protection to some alternate routes used by early travelers on the Mormon Pioneer, Pony Express, California and Oregon trails.

Collect a rock, lose your car

YOUR GOVERNMENT AT WORK

Ominous forfeiture provisions in new bill restrict use of federal land

WorldNetDaily

This souvenir could land you in hot water under the provisions of pending legislation. (DanielCD)

WASHINGTON – A land management bill that swept through the U.S. Senate last month and is headed for a House vote this week punishes rock collectors and paleontologists with arrest and expropriation of their cars and other equipment for even unknowingly disturbing fossils on public land, say critics.

In the Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009, a "forfeiture" provision would let the government confiscate "all vehicles and equipment of any person" who digs up or removes a rock or a bone from federal land that meets the bill's broad definition of "paleontological resource," says a report by Jon Berlau of the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

"The seizures could take place even before a person and even if the person didn't know they were taking or digging up a 'paleontological resource," writes Berlau. "And the bill specifically allows the 'transfer of seized resources' to 'federal or non-federal' institutions, giving the government and some private actors great incentive to egg on the takings."

Tracie Bennitt, president of the Association of Applied Paleontological Sciences, is protesting the bill's vague language and severe penalties.

"We can visualize now a group of students unknowingly crossing over an invisible line and ending up handcuffed and prosecuted," she wrote to members of Congress.

Subtitle D of the bill called the "Paleontological Resources Preservation Act" would make it illegal to "excavate, remove, damage, or otherwise alter or deface or attempt to excavate, remove, damage, or otherwise alter or deface any paleontological resources located on Federal land" without special permission from the government.

"Paleontological resource" is defined in the bill as "any fossilized remains, traces, or imprints of organisms, preserved in or on the earth's crust, that are of paleontological interest and that provide information about the history of life on earth." Penalties for violations include up to five years in jail.

Berlau believes picking up rocks could be interpreted as a violation of the law since most would fit the broad definition under the law.

The forfeiture provision is effective before a trial and conviction, making the defendant guilty until proven innocent, Berlau suggests.

Berlau believes the House will take up a vote on the bill this week. He is urging Americans to contact representatives before the bill, known both as S. 22 and the "Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009" is approved, as expected, and heads to the White House for President Obama's signature.

Touch a rock and get mugged by the feds

by J.D. Tuccille
Examiner.com

A few years ago, I was backpacking in an Arizona canyon where the sun didn't reach our camp until well after we'd rolled out of our sleeping bags. Desperate to get warm, a friend and I decided to scale the canyon wall to find a patch of warm sunlight and see the view. We soon discovered that the rocks were speckled with fossils -- mementos of long-gone life. Somewhere, I have a souvenir from that climb -- a keepsake that, under new legislation, could could get my truck and camping gear confiscated even without a trial, and my friend and I imprisoned for five years with one.

The new legislation is the Paleontological Resources Preservation Act, passed in the Senate as Subtitle D of S.22, the Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009, and pending in the House. Under the new law, "A person may not excavate, remove, damage, or otherwise alter or deface or attempt to excavate, remove, damage, or otherwise alter or deface any paleontological resources located on Federal land" without jumping through hoops created by the federal government. Do so, and you could face up to five years in federal prison.

Strictly speaking, that souvenir of mine might not be illegal under the new bill. The act does allow for "the collecting of a reasonable amount of common invertebrate and plant paleontological resources for non-commercial personal use." But that reasonable amount "shall be determined by the Secretary." Just hope the current officeholder's hemorrhoids aren't acting up the day he or she decides what you can tuck in your pocket during the course of a hike without facing the wrath of the federal government.

"Our government does not need to put scientists in jail and confiscate University vans. We can visualize now a group of students unknowingly crossing over an invisible line and ending up handcuffed and prosecuted."

And do hope for leniency. Because that five years in prison may not be the worst of it. At least a criminal conviction requires a trial before a jury that's occasionally unimpressed by arbitrary and intrusive federal laws. If the feds don't want to bother proving their case in court, they can just steal your car, truck, camping eqipment and any other gear you may have.

Really.

Section 6308 says:

(b) Forfeiture- All paleontological resources with respect to which a violation under section 6306 or 6307 occurred and which are in the possession of any person, and all vehicles and equipment of any person that were used in connection with the violation, shall be subject to civil forfeiture, or upon conviction, to criminal forfeiture.

You noticed that "subject to civil forfeiture, or upon conviction, to criminal forfeiture" didn't you? That's a example of a notorious practice called "civil asset forfeiture," which means the government gets to steal your stuff without proving a case against you, and you have to sue to get it back. Oh, and the law also says the government gets to keep or dispose of the stolen goods as it wishes, so there's an incentive to steal as much and as often as possible.

Civil asset forfeiture has a disturbing history of abuse for the benefit of government agencies, including actual highway robbery. Some law-enforcement agencies have become notorious for stopping cars, seizing cash and goods without ever even pretending to bring criminal charges, and returning the loot only if the folks passing through bring suit and win a court order. The situation got so bad a decade ago that it culminated in a bipartisan piece of legislation, the Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act of 2000 (PDF). Compromise that it was, the bill softened some of the worst abuses of forfeiture, but left the practice in place.

Obviously.

Tracie Bennitt, president of the Association of Applied Paleontological Sciences, points out that the bill also threatens prison time for any person who might "make or submit any false record, account, or label for, or any false identification of, any paleontological resource excavated or removed from Federal land."

That's a problem, says Bennitt, because "[w]hat you find and label in the field may not be what you find as preparation is undertaken in the lab. Penalties for misidentification of fossils will place every museum in jeopardy. There is not one museum that is free from labeling errors on specimens on exhibit or in collections."

Ultimately, says Bennitt, "Our government does not need to put scientists in jail and confiscate University vans. We can visualize now a group of students unknowingly crossing over an invisible line and ending up handcuffed and prosecuted. An honest mistake is just that and should be treated accordingly."

Yes, "honest mistakes" should be treated as such, but so should simple rock gathering and poking in the dirt. If the feds want to target real pirates who are going after fossils on public lands with front-end loaders, they need to do so with weapons that don't threaten hikers, scientists and hobbyists.

And they need to entirely abandon the monstrous practice of civil asset forfeiture.

Oh, and if the feds want that souvenir back, they should feel free to send somebody around to collect it. Just have him stand back about 90 feet. That's the distance from home plate to first base. I can throw that far.

A win for wilderness

EDITORIAL

The Senate has passed a public lands bill that will benefit California, among other states. Although the legislation contains a few troublesome projects, it deserves House passage too.

Opinion
Los Angeles Times

An omnibus public lands bill that would, among other things, designate more than 700,000 acres of California land as wilderness has finally received approval from the Senate and will now go to the House for a vote. Though it contains a few questionable proposals, the legislation would protect badly needed wildlife habitat and recreational space, and the House should pass it.

The bill, S. 22, a holdover from last year, consists of about 160 separate proposals and would grant the highest level of federal protection to more than 2 million acres across nine states from California to West Virginia. Among the California land designated as wilderness would be about 190,000 acres in Riverside County, about 450,000 acres in the Eastern Sierra and the San Gabriel Mountains, and about 90,000 acres in Sequoia-Kings Canyon national parks. The overall packagecarries a $4-billion price tag over five years.

Perhaps the most important bonus for California, though, is $88 million for the long-overdue revival of the 330-mile-long San Joaquin River, after decades of being drained to supply Central Valley farms. The legislation would restore water flows next year below Friant Dam -- located on the uppermost part of the river, northeast of Fresno -- and attempt to restore salmon runs to their historic levels by 2014.

For all its good intentions, the bill funds or allows a few troublesome projects, most notably a road through the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska for use by residents of a nearby village in case of medical emergencies, even though the government has already bought them a $9-million hovercraft for that purpose. But a revised version of the bill at least grants the Interior secretary the authority to veto the road's construction. Then there's the downright silly allocation of $3.5 million to celebrate the 450th birthday of St. Augustine, Fla., in 2015. St. Augustine is ancient by U.S. standards, the oldest European-established city in the nation, but the expenditure for a minor anniversary of a town of 12,000 is excessive by any measure.

Despite such concerns, on balance the bill is heavy on benefit and light on waste. Wilderness areas enjoy a higher level of protection than any other public lands, shielding them from drilling, logging and residential development. Rather than piling on more pork, or even killing it outright, the House should swiftly approve the bill.

Senate passes sweeping public lands package

Sally Schuff
Feedstuffs

In one of its first votes of the new Congress, the Senate passed a major public land omnibus bill 73-21 on Jan. 15. The bill, which included delineated new wilderness areas and scenic rivers in several states, passed with bipartisan approval despite a filibuster attempt by Oklahoma's Sen. Tom Coburn, a Republican.

The bill was applauded by environmental groups and coalitions within states that had worked out compromises on some of the controversial land issues. However, in December it was opposed as a "land grab" by the unlikely combination of the conservative Competitive Enterprise Institute and by R-CALF USA.

The bill will now go to the House for action. Eventually it must be signed by the President, however the Bush Administration did not issue a Statement of Administration Policy, presumably since the final legislation would go to the desk of President Obama.

The Senate bill includes a sweeping package of more than 150 previous bills. Congressional sources report the new bill authorizes programs and activities in both the Interior and Agriculture departments. Interestingly, the Obama nominee to be the new Interior Secretary, Sen. Ken Salazar (D., Colo.), voted for the bill; while former Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns, who is now the junior U.S. Senator from Nebraska, voted against it.

Congressional sources reported the bill authorizes a host of actions, including: national wilderness preservation, boundary adjustments, national rivers, the national landscape conservation system, national conservation areas, land conveyances and exchanges, watershed management, watershed restoration and enhancement, wildland firefighter safety, forest landscape restoration, national trails, paleontological resources preservation, wolf livestock loss, national parks, studies, infrastructure, advisory commissions, national heritage areas, national heritage corridors, water projects, tribal water rights, ocean exploration, NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) undersea research, ocean and coastal mapping integration, the integrated coastal and ocean observation system, federal ocean acidification research and monitoring, and coastal and estuarine land conservation.

Pork-filled 'wilderness' bill gets Senate approval

EDITORIAL
Las Vegas Review-Journal

Calling a rare Sunday procedural vote, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., moved the U.S. Senate closer to passing a 1,300-page lands bill that would allocate $5 million in federal tax dollars on botanical gardens in Hawaii and Florida and $3.5 million to celebrate the 450th anniversary of the founding of St. Augustine in 2015 -- and place an additional 2 million acres in nine states off limits for any productive economic use by labeling them "wilderness" and/or declaring new and additional rivers to be wild and scenic.

The legislation -- which would allow the state of Alaska to build an airport access road through the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge -- pulls together 150 public lands, parks and water bills in one package. It passed 66-12, well above the 59 votes needed to allow it to proceed to a formal vote later this week.

"Everybody holds their nose" and votes for it
- Sen. Tom Coburn

The bill advanced over the objections of Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., who objected to what he described as questionable priorities and wasteful earmark spending in the package. The measure is also opposed by Nevada Republican John Ensign, though he was in Nevada and did not return to Washington for the procedural vote.

"Everybody holds their nose" and votes for it, Sen. Coburn said, because so many senators have individual projects they want to see passed in their states.

Despite the purportedly unprecedented provision to allow an access road through a wildlife refuge, many conservation groups supported the package as a whole because it had so many provisions to "protect" rivers and designate wilderness.

"It will be a most welcome action by many Americans who face so much uncertainty in their lives," explained Mike Matz, executive director of the Campaign for America's Wilderness. "It will be nice for them to know they can visit their most treasured spots and see them just as they are. They will be able to continue to hike, hunt, fish, camp or canoe amid this natural splendor, and that is no small consolation in these difficult times."

And there you have it.

Yes, Americans who live so far away they will likely never see the "wilderness" areas in question -- all in the Western states, you understand, none throwing anyone out of work in Georgia, Illinois, Connecticut or Massachusetts -- may sleep more cozily now, believing that, far away in the distant West, something nice has been done for the birds and the bunnies.

But those who actually live in the affected regions may not find it much of a "consolation" to be deprived of gainful employment in any number of resource industries -- mining, ranching, lumber -- that will now be barred from making any productive use of yet an additional 2 million acres.

Such legislation is "necessary for the day-to-day functioning of the Western economy," intoned Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, the top-ranking Republican on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources committee, and among the Senate's largest, second-generation pork wranglers.

Oh, hogwash. To the Americans actually attempting to make their livings on or near the lands in question, "wilderness" is not just about cozier dreams of happy squirrels. It's about loss of livelihood as a full- or part-time miner, rancher, sawmill worker, or even mushroom picker -- having to go on the government dole rather than feed their families with honest, productive work.

Federal wilderness protection for California land moves forward

The Senate clears the way for passage of legislation that would expand wilderness protection to more than 2 million acres of public land nationwide, mostly in California and the West.


By Richard Simon
Los Angeles Times


Reporting from Washington -- Large swaths of California wild lands would gain federal wilderness protection under legislation that took a step toward approval in the U.S. Senate during a rare Sunday session.

The measure, which would expand the protection to more than 2 million acres of public land nationwide, may be the most significant conservation legislation in a decade, said Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee and the bill's manager.

It would designate as wilderness -- the government's highest protection -- about 190,000 acres in Riverside County, including parts of Joshua Tree National Park; about 450,000 acres in the Eastern Sierra and San Gabriel Mountains north of Los Angeles; and about 90,000 acres in Sequoia-Kings Canyon National Parks, including John Krebs Wilderness.

The measure also would authorize $88 million in funding to launch an ambitious effort to restore the San Joaquin River, which has been drained for decades to supply Central Valley farms. More water would be left in the river, and populations of spring-run chinook salmon would be returned under terms of a legal settlement in a long-running environmental battle over the river.

The proposal is expected to win final Senate approval by the end of the week and then go to the House, where it is also expected to be approved.

"We're very excited that these slices of wild California are so close to being permanently protected," said Ryan Henson, policy director of the California Wilderness Coalition.

As part of its wilderness protections, the measure would authorize a study on whether the Tule Lake Segregation Center, a World War II internment camp for Japanese Americans, should be included in the national park system.

"This is a great moment -- for me personally and for California -- to see three important parts of it move closer to becoming law," said Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.).

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) called the Sunday session -- and the Senate's first roll call of the year -- out of anger over what he regarded as stalling tactics by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), a critic of the bill.

Democrats increased their majority in the November election and were prepared to flex their muscle to prevent a filibuster. But it wasn't necessary. Because the bill includes projects eagerly sought by senators from both parties for their states, it easily cleared the procedural hurdle with a 66-12 vote.

Besides California, wilderness designations would be made in Oregon, Idaho, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, Michigan, West Virginia and Virginia. The package of about 160 bills also would designate former President Clinton's childhood home in Hope, Ark., as a national historic site.

The measure also includes initiatives intended to reduce wildfire risk and increase water supplies.

The legislation drew opposition from conservatives and property rights groups, which assailed it as a land grab that would close areas to energy production. Critics also questioned whether Congress, facing massive budget deficits and a backlog of park maintenance, should be taking up legislation now that would authorize, among other things, a commission to plan a 450th anniversary celebration in 2015 for the founding of St. Augustine, Fla.

"We can't continue to pass bills by putting together a little bit of what everybody wants and forgetting what's good for our country," said Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.).

Mike Matz, executive director of the Campaign for America's Wilderness, said the legislation would be a "most welcome action by many Americans who face so much uncertainty in their lives. It will be nice for them to know they can visit their most treasured spots and see them just as they are. They will be able to continue to hike, hunt, fish, camp or canoe amid this natural splendor, and that is no small consolation in these difficult times."