Thread: BUSH ADMINISTRATION PROPOSES MASSIVE LAND GRAB

BUSH ADMINISTRATION PROPOSES MASSIVE LAND GRAB

Days ago, in a proposal unnoticed by the media, the U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) announced the largest land
grab since President Clinton designated massive national
monuments across the West. When Clinton decreed 1.9 million
acres of federal land in Utah as the Grand
Staircase-Escalante National Monument to kill a vast
underground coal mine that would have employed 1,000 locals
in the most economically depressed region of southern Utah,
generated $20 million in annual revenue, and produced
environmentally-compliant coal for generating electricity,
there were protests across the West. When the Bush
Administration published its plans, there was barely a
ripple of protest.

There should have been a tidal wave of opposition! What
Bush officials propose would make Clinton and his Interior
Secretary, Bruce Babbitt, proud indeed. While Clinton's
national monument proclamations affected only federal land,
the Bush plan affects primarily state- and privately-owned
land. Moreover, while Clinton designated a total of 5.9
million acres to receive special federal protection as
national monuments, the Bush plan would impose a protective
federal overlay upon 11.5 million acres (18,000 square
miles) or an area the size of the states of Massachusetts
and Maryland combined.

Formally entitled "Revised Designation of Critical Habitat
for the Contiguous United States Distinct Population Segment
of the Canada Lynx" and published in the Federal Register on
November 9, 2005, the plan results from a March 2000 ruling
by a federal district court in the District of Columbia.
There, after ten years of litigation, a host of
environmental groups succeeded in efforts to require the FWS
to use the Endangered Species Act (ESA) to protect the
Canada lynx (Lynx canadensis) in the contiguous United
States.

That was only the beginning. After the FWS placed the lynx
on the ESA list in July 2003, Defenders of Wildlife urged
the federal court to order the FWS to designate critical
habitat in the lower 48, notwithstanding that the lynx's
natural habit is in Canada-hence its name. In January 2004,
the court issued that mandate with a November 1, 2006,
deadline. After issuing its plan a year ahead of
schedule-when was the last time that happened-in August
2006, the FWS released its "Economic Analysis of Critical
Habitat Designation for the Canada Lynx." A month later,
the FWS published its "Draft Environmental Assessment:
Designation of Critical Habitat for the Contiguous United
States Distinct Population Segment of the Canada Lynx," then
opened the matter up for public comments, which ended last
month. There is much that is worthy of comment, mostly of
the negative variety.

Under the plan, 8.4 million acres of private land would be
included, at a cost, over twenty years, of $889 million.
Although the plan includes Washington, Idaho, Montana,
Minnesota, and Maine, its greatest impact is on the latter
three with one million acres affected in both northwestern
Montana and northeastern Minnesota and six million included
in northern Maine. Thousands of landowners will find their
ability to use their private property greatly constrained,
if litigious environmental groups have anything to say about
it, and they will. Worst of all, the FWS admits that,
because the historic range of lynx only marginally includes
the lower 48, the designation of critical habitat will
achieve little, if anything.

For radical environmental groups, however, designation of
critical habitat for the Canada lynx will achieve one thing:
it will provide them with another tool to bar the use of
private property coveted by the groups. In one troubling
action, the federal court that ruled on the lynx has
retained jurisdiction, apparently to preside over the
implementation of the habitat rule. That is very bad news
for landowners, those who respect private property, and
those who love freedom. No wonder scores of Members of
Congress, in rare bi-partisan agreement, have introduced
bills to reform "critical habitat" authority.
Unfortunately, such reform will come too late for those
facing the Bush Administration's most audacious land grab.

OHFLY
have a link?

Nope received it in an email newsletter. I pmed you.