The Clinton/GOP Assault On
Property Rights
In separate proposals, the
Clinton Administration and the Republican Congress are moving
rapidly to increase Federal acquisition of private property across
the nation.
Most disturbing about the
Congressional effort is the list of co-sponsors. Congressman Don
Young, Chairman of the House Resources Committee, and a hero to
many in the property rights movement, has taken the lead in
building Congressional support for the scheme. In the Senate,
Republican Frank Murkowski has already introduced the Senate
version entitled S.25 - "The Conservation and Re-investment
Act."
In short, the bill would put
almost a billion dollars annually into the Land and Water
Conservation Fund. The money would be used by federal agencies,
without Congressional oversight, to buy more property from private
land owners. Those familiar with government tactics for purchasing
land know that the feds will surely use their power to force
private owners to give way - whether they want to sell their land
or not.
And for what reason? With more
than 30% of U.S. land now in the hands of the federal government,
and with the federal government unable to take care of the park
land already in its possession because of lack of funds - why such
a massive effort to buy more?
Meanwhile, The White House,
through Vice President Al Gore, has announced a new
"Livability Agenda" that also calls for a massive
federal land acquisition program. The White House program is taken
straight from the pages of the United Nation's Agenda 21 program
that came from the 1992 Earth Summit. This massive international
program literally dictates complete government control and
management of land, industry and development.
For Republicans to help in this
effort, especially those trusted property rights advocates like
Don Young, has sent alarm bells sounding across grassroots
America. But a little research shows there is basis of support for
such initiatives because the Congressional and White House actions
bring massive amounts of money with them - money that will fall
into the pockets of a number of private and non-profit
organizations who are now lobbying for the programs.
The following two reports, by
Henry Lamb and Joanna Waugh, clearly show the dangers of this
massive new federal land grab and it's connection to previous land
grabs like the American Heritage Rivers Initiative and to UN
initiatives like Agenda 21. Johanna Waugh's report shows who will
benefit financially, despite the loss of private homes and
liberties caused by this next phase of a seemingly never ending
federal land grab.
Tom DeWeese
The Great Federal Land Rush
by Henry Lamb
Suddenly, there is an all out,
visible effort to buy-out America. There is nothing
"sudden" about the bye-out; heretofore, however, it has
not been widely publicized, nor promoted from the President's
bully-pulpit. On January 11, Vice President, Al Gore, announced a
new "Livability Agenda." The next day, both the
President and Vice President announced a new "Lands Legacy
Initiative." The White House issued two press statements the
same day, and Secretary of Interior Bruce Babbitt and George
Frampton, Acting Chair of the Council on Environmental Quality,
staged a press briefing. All this to announce publicly that the
administration is launching a campaign to set up a permanent
billion-dollar-per-year fund, dedicated exclusively to the
purchase of private property.
Ironically, two powerful
Republicans are introducing legislation in both Houses of Congress
to implement the Administration's buy-out of America: Senator
Murkowski of Alaska, and Congressman Don Young, also of Alaska,
and Chair of the House Committee on Natural Resources. The titles
chosen to describe the two new initiatives, "Livability
Agenda" and "Lands Legacy Initiative" are
euphemisms for Agenda 21 and the Convention on Biological
Diversity. Gore's Livability Agenda, to be funded at $1 billion,
is the implementation of the "Sustainable Communities"
recommendations of Agenda 21. The Lands Legacy Initiative is
designed to achieve precisely the objectives set forth in Article
8 of the Convention on Biological Diversity.
There is, of course, no reference
at all by the Administration, that these programs are designed to
bring America into conformity with the global management
principles set forth by the United Nations Conference on
Environment and Development in 1992. Quite to the contrary, the
programs are being presented to preserve "irreplaceable
pieces of our natural legacy within easy reach of every
citizen." And, as Gore described his Livability Agenda,
"In too many places, the beauty of local vistas has been
degraded by decades of ill-planned and ill-coordinated
development."
In other words, free people who
elect county commissions and city councils, to plan communities,
regulate through zoning, and promote economic development -- have
degraded the beauty of local vistas. Gore went on to condemn free
people for "burning a gallon of gas to go buy a gallon of
milk," and for having to call their children by cell phone to
explain that they can't get home to read a bedtime story because
they are tied up in traffic.
Gore's Livability Agenda will
cure all those ills. The Agenda was described fully in a report
prepared by Andrew Euston for the U.S. Department of Housing and
Urban Development (HUD) at the request of the United Nations
Conference of Human Settlement (HABITAT II) which met in Istanbul
in 1996. The report spelled out the Administration's plans to
implement programs which would have the effect of achieving the
recommendations in Agenda 21. Virtually every element of Gore's
Livability Agenda is set forth in Chapter 7 of Agenda 21.
Limiting "urban sprawl"
is a major objective of the Livability Agenda (Chapter 7.18 of
Agenda 21). What that means is that, most often, unelected
government administrators, working in "partnership" with
NGOs (non-government organizations), quite often funded by grants
from the federal government, draw an arbitrary line around a
municipality. That line represents the limit, beyond which,
economic development can not take place.
A caller to a radio program
recently, who lives in Oregon, described how the "sustainable
communities" program in his town forced his family farm into
bankruptcy. When the "public/private" partnership drew a
line on a map around the city and declared that in order to limit
urban sprawl, no development could occur beyond the line, the
value of the caller's land plummeted below the level of debt for
which the land was pledged as collateral. The farm was lost, but
sprawl was limited.
The Livability Agenda will
transform communities to conform to what Agenda 21 has declared
all "Human Settlements" should be: a place for humans to
live when they can no longer live where they choose to live. Those
who have chosen to live in rural areas, and earn their livelihood
from the natural resources are the people who are, or soon will
be, looking for a new place to live.
The Lands Legacy Initiative is a
program to accelerate the take over of the private property of
those who have chosen to live in rural areas. The Administration
claims that property will be bought only from "willing"
sellers. People who are caught in situations similar to the Oregon
farmer, for example. He would surely be a willing seller. Champion
International is another example of a willing seller. Some 300,000
acres of privately owned forests are being sold to the
Conservation Fund, for $76.2 million. Since cutting a tree has
become a mortal sin, and punishable by jail and fines, should it
be in what the government has declared to be a "critical
habitat," or a "wetland," there's little reason to
own the land just to continue paying taxes on it. The President's
program would create a $1 billion-per-year fund, forever, to be
used to acquire private property from "willing" sellers.
Sooner or later, there will be no more private property and
America will be, in fact, a socialist state. Nearly 40% of the
total land area is already owned by government.
The President's program will also
add another five million acres to "wilderness"
designation in order to, as the President says: "preserve
irreplaceable pieces of our natural legacy within easy reach of
every citizen." While the President was making his statement
at the National Arboretum, Secretary Babbitt was answering press
questions at the Department of Interior. Babbitt was asked:
"What is the wilderness protection for the national park
areas? Does that mean no roads, no commercial development,
nothing?"
Babbitt replied: "Yeah, the
essential add-on, from a wilderness designation in a national
park, is precisely that. No more roads; no motorized intrusions.
No snowmobiles, jet-skis, ORVs." America has become
accustomed to hearing the President say one thing, while knowing
full well that what he is saying bears little resemblance to the
facts.
The facts of the wilderness
expansion agenda are detailed extensively in Section 11 of the
Global Biodiversity Assessment, published by the United Nations
Environment Program for people who are involved with the
implementation of the Convention on Biological Diversity. The
management policy adopted by the United Nations Education,
Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), and implemented
through its Man and the Biosphere (MAB) program, calls for
continual expansion of wilderness areas, pushing ever-outward
adjacent "buffer zones" which are stringently managed
for conservation objectives, and to connect the wilderness areas
with "corridors" of wilderness. Nowhere did the
President give credit to the Wildlands Project, which he is
implementing under the name of Lands Legacy Initiative, and
Ecosystem Management.
The Wilderness Act of 1964 set
aside 9 million acres of wilderness so, as Hubert Humphrey put it,
future generations could see what their forefathers had to
conquer. The Executive Director of the Wilderness Society, Howard
Zahniser, worked for five years to get the original Wilderness Act
into law. The founder of the Wilderness Society advocated the
nationalization of all forests back in the 1930s. The Wilderness
Society was a leader in the Spotted Owl listing that devastated
the Northwest. The Wilderness Society has been trying to reclaim
all the forest in the Northeast for more than a decade. George
Frampton was the President of the Wilderness Society until Bill
Clinton appointed him to head the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
He is now Acting Chairman of the Council on Environmental Quality.
Bruce Babbitt was head of the League of Conservation Voters when
Bill Clinton appointed him Secretary of the Interior. These, and
many other radical environmental organizations, helped to develop
Agenda 21, and the Convention on Biological Diversity during the
process leading up the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. Now,
these very same people stand beside the President of the United
States to announce they intend to implement the very plans they
made years ago.
Henry Lamb is one of the
foremost experts on United Nations environmental programs
including Agenda 21. He is the Executive Vice President of the
Environmental Conservation Organization (ECO). For more
information about the entire UN's international environmental
agenda visit ECO's web site at www.freedom.org
or contact ECO at P.O. Box 191, Hollow Rock, TN 38342
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