“Mexican Drug Cartels Are Growing Marijuana in
U.S. National Parks and Forests,”
News Brief, PRFA, August 2007
Pres. Bush Executive Order for Cooperative Conservation
- August 26, 2004
Pres. George W. Bush directed the Departments
of Interior, Agriculture, Defense, and the Environmental Protection
Agency to promote cooperative conservative conservation, emphasizing
local participation. he directed agencies to take appropriate
account of and respect the interests of
persons with ownership or other legally recognized interests
in land and natural resources. His directive requires an annual
report on the implementation of the order by each agency to the
President’s Council on Environmental
Quality. It sets the stage for a White House Conference on Cooperative
Conservation in one year.
Letter from Fred Grau, State College, Penna. to The
Honorable Robert C. Jubelirer, Pennsylvania State Senate, May
31, 2003
Letter protesting possible confirmation of
Kathleen McGinty by default, without a Senate vote, and urging
that the McGinty confirmation be decided by a roll call vote
of the Senate.
“McGinty Nomination Withdrawn”
Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell withdrew, at least temporarily,
Katie McGinty’s name from consideration to head the Department
of Environmental Protection. (PRFA, April 24, 2003)
Pennsylvania - Urgent Action Alert!
Oppose the Appointment of Katie McGinty as Secretary of the Department
of Environmental Protection (PRFA, Jan. 31, 2003)
January 24, 2002 Action Alert:
OPPOSE CARA
IN THE HOUSE
“Son of CARA” Has Already Passed the Senate
September 2001
“CARA
Alert-Letters, Telephone Calls, and Faxes urgently Needed”
The $45 billion Conservation and Reinvestment
Act would automatically funnel $3.1 billion annually into an
untouchable trust fund to buy up private land and preserve natural
resources.
August 2001
“House
of Representatives to Consider CARA, The $44 Billion Anti-Private
Property Bill”
Defeated last year, the Conservation and Reinvestment
Act passed the House Resources Committee on July 25.
June 2001
“Pat
Callahan Stands Up for Private Property at CARA Hearing”
The president of the American Association
of Small Property Owners offered unflinching testimony at the
June 20 Congressional hearing on H.R. 701
June 24, 2001
“Property
Rights Battle Cry: Field Hearings for CARA”
American Land Rights Association’s campaign gathers steam.
Twenty-one Congressmen have signed on to a letter asking for
local hearings on CARA (HR 701).
See Also
Additional Helpful
Organizations
Alliance for America
(Alliance
of property rights and wise use groups)
website
American Association of Small Property Owners
(Expert in small urban property investor issues.
On-line newsletter.)
address
American Land Rights Association
(Leads fight against
congressional land grabs)
address
American Policy Center
(Incisive monthly reports about issues related
to government overzealousness, private property rights, internationalism,
education issues)
address
People for the USA
address
Wyoming Farm Bureau Federation
address
Essential Books
& Publications
Defending Illusions - Federal Protection
of Ecosystems
By Allan K. Fitzsimmons
3192 Rivanna Court
Woodbridge, VA 22192
(703) 491-5615
This book examines the science, philosophy, and law of ecosystems
management and shows how
efforts to make federal protection of ecosystems the centerpiece
of national environmental policy are driven by religious veneration
of Mother Earth wrapped in a veil of science.
www.rowmanlittlefield.com
Robert H. Nelson, A Burning Issue-A
Case for Abolishing the U.S. Forest Service (Rowman &
Littlefield, 2000)
Examines the history of government management of National Forests,
from the near-century of bureaucratic incompetence to the present-day
philosophy of “management” toward imagined pre-colonial
conditions, leading to catastrophic wildfires.
Additional information and latest on the Klamath Basin
www.snowcrest.net/
siskfarm/klamlinks.html
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In-Depth Information
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 “Farmers Fight
Back in the New Jersey Highlands” - By Devlen Mackey,
Owner, Mackey Orchards, Belvidere, New Jersey; Eleventh Annual
National Conference on Private Property Rights (PRFA, Albany,
N.Y., October 13, 2007)
Farmers, local government, and developers are opposing the
state regional zoning law, the New Jersey Highlands Regional
Planning and Water Protection Act, which imposes 88-acre zoning
and exploits endangered species rules in Hunterdon, Warren, and
other northwestern New Jersey counties to stop the use of land.
The law is said to be intended to protect the watershed for drinking
water, but sewers to keep flow from Lake Hopatcong are prohibited
by the Department of Environmental Protection.
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 “Update
from Congress” - By Jason Knox, Esq., Member of Legislative
Staff, Natural Resources Committee, Subcommittee on Forests and
Public Lands, U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, D.C.;
Eleventh Annual National Conference on Private Property Rights
(PRFA, Albany, N.Y., October 13, 2007)
Part of the legislation that Nancy Pelosi would like to ram
through Congress is H.R. 6 to take, Chavez-like, the contracts
of oil companies awarded to drill on the outer continental shelf
during the Clinton Administration. A National Heritage Area omnibus
bill (H.R. 1483) would accomplish the Journey through Hallowed
Ground and Niagara Falls National Heritage Areas, among others.
The Niagara Falls area would involve the National Park Service
in casinos. H.R. 2016 would do away with multiple use in BLM
lands, making billions of acres into defacto wilderness.
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 “Warriors
for Our Time” - Book review by
Nathaniel R. Dickinson, Property Rights Foundation of America,
March 2007
Review of Warriors for the West by William Perry Pendley
(Regnery Publishing, Inc. 2006)
Perry Pendley, president and chief legal officer of Mountain
States Legal Foundation, chronicles the heroic battles of westerners
for freedom and land rights in the face of bureaucrats, environmental
groups and judges who are destroying the rights to land, the
viability of local communities, and freedom itself.
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 “RICO Action-Rancher
Stops BLM Access Extortion” - By Karen Budd-Falen, Esq.,
Senior Attorney, Budd-Falen Law Office, Cheyenne, Wyoming, Tenth
Annual National Conference on Private Property Rights (PRFA,
Albany, N.Y., October 14, 2006)
When officials of the federal Bureau of Land Management used
repeated harassment to try to intimidate Frank Robbins into granting
an easement across his property, the owner of High Island Ranch
in Wyoming sued the individual officials under RICO, the Racketeer
Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. The Tenth Circuit Court
of Appeals ruled in favor of Robbins.
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 “The Endangered
Species Act—Can It Be Reformed?”-Robert J. Smith,
President, Center for Private Conservation & Adjunct Environmental
Scholar, Competitive Enterprise Institute, Tenth Annual National
Conference on Private Property Rights (PRFA, Albany, N.Y., October
14, 2006)
The Endangered Species Act was conceived to control people,
not to save species. It has never worked for its supposed purpose
to save species. The Endangered Species Act created incentive
to destroy red-cockaded woodpecker habitat in Boiling Springs,
North Carolina. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service was backed
down by bad publicity after trying to force tree farmer Ben Coon
of North Carolina to put his land under their extreme red-cockaded
woodpecker restrictions. Congress is unlikely to reform the ESA
soon.
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- “Yes, Our President
Has a Clear Mandate and the Will of the People Must Be Heeded”
- By Nate Dickinson (PRFA, November 10, 2004)
The election of 2004 gives President George W. Bush the opportunity
to correct the Administration’s neglect of so-called
environmental matters. Issues such as endangered species, wise
use of the National Forests, and oil drilling need to be tackled
with intelligence. The influence of radical environmental groups
must be challenged and diminished.
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- “Landownership
in America” - By Robert J. Smith, President, Center
for Private Conservation & Senior Adjunct Scholar Competitive
Enterprise Institute, Washington, D.C.; Speech to the Eighth
Annual Conference on Private Property Rights (PRFA, Albany,
N. Y. October 23, 2004)
The federal government owns about one third of the American
land. All government landownership is between 42 and 48 percent
of the land in the United States, the most socialized land system
in the world.
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- “New
Land Designation Threatens Northern New Jersey Communities”
- By Carol W. LaGrasse (PRFA, December 8, 2003)
The New Jersey delegation maneuvered the “Highlands
Stewardship Act,” with $110 million for land acquisition,
into the “Healthy Forest Restoration Act,”
the bill that Western states ardently sought to reduce the risk
of catastrophic forest fires, but the addition was stripped in
conference.
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- “Open Range
Warfare — The 2003 Version” - By Ron Zumbrun (Reprinted
by permission, from The Daily Recorder, City of Sacramento,
October 13, 2003)
Plumus County, California adopted an open range ordinance,
forcing property owners to allow cattle grazing. Jack and Millie
Herzberg are suing for trespass and illegal rent control. They
want full compensation and liability insurance.
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- “Bill
would create Highlands Stewardship Area - $25 million fund would
tie up land in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut”
- By Carol W. LaGrasse (PRFA, August 27, 2003)
Wealthy New York interests, non-profits, recreationists, and
preservationists have been working for over ten years on a grandiose
greenway from the Delaware River across northern New Jersey,
southern New York just north of the metropolitan region, and
western Connecticut. A new bill in Congress will direct money
from the Land and Water Conservation Fund to buy up land.
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 “The Corps of Engineers’ Columbia River
Estuary Fiasco” — By Jim Starr, Contributing Writer
(PRFA, March 2003)
Dredging, tern, and salmon smolt pose conflict. The Corps
of Engineers’ dredging has created islands from which
tern prey on juvenile salmon, but the Corps’ doomed
approach to reducing predation is heavy-handed and based on fallacy.
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- “Maine Is
Not Alone in Experiencing Rural Cleansing” - by Nate
Dickinson, Wildlife Biologist (PRFA, November 2002)
A review of Professor Jon Reisman’s speech “Rural
Cleansing in Maine,” which was delivered at the Sixth
Annual New York Conference on Private Property Rights.
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- Asst. Sec. of
U.S. Dept. of Interior responds to LaGrasse (DOI Letter,
June 18, 2002)
Commenting specifically on LaGrasse’s March 10,
2002 letter to DOI, Lynn Scarlet, Asst. Secretary, Policy, Management
and Budget, responded, “With respect to your recommendation
that endangered, threatened and rare species restoration should
be contracted out, the President’s Management Agenda
does call for a greater focus on competitive sourcing...We share
your desire for transparency and a wide range of partnerships
for conservation.”
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- “Congress
Holds Stacked Hearing on Conservation Tax Credits” -
By Carol W. LaGrasse (PRFA, May 4, 2002)
Fifty percent capital gains tax break would shift title to
private land and conservation easements to land trusts and government.
Land trusts, members of Congress, and big industry testify exclusively.
However, articles give visibility to property rights activists’
objections to Administration proposal.
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- “Supreme
Court Rejects ‘Categorical’ Compensation for Temporary
Taking” — By Carol W. LaGrasse (PRFA, April 27,
2002)
Justice Stevens writes that the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency
took only a “temporal slice” of the property
interest by imposing lengthy building moratoria. No compensation
to landowners is required. The troublesome ruling broadly affirmed
the justice of central planning, but left open room for “ad
hoc” appeals for compensation for temporary takings.
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- “Letter
to Kit Kimball, Director, Office of External and Intergovernmental
Affairs, U.S. Dept. of Interior” - From Carol W. LaGrasse
(PRFA, March 2002)
This letter gives ideas for reform to incorporate in DOI’s
five-year strategic plan. Wildlife restoration and land acquisition
should take place under transparent processes and be privatized,
eliminating corporatism between government and non-profit organizations.
Management of DOI land should promote private property rights,
while protecting human life, adjacent lands, rural communities,
wildlife and the environment, to produce raw materials, provide
recreation, and reduce eco-colonialism.
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- Don Fife’s Page (Updated
June 6, 2002)
An environmental geologist, Don Fife has served four secretaries
of the interior as an appointee/advisor for the 25-million-acre
California Desert Conservation Area. His incisive topics range
from “Greens Force Strategic Mine Out of Business—Communist
China now controls supply of rare minerals” to “Locoweed
Closes 48,000 Acres of Alogones Dunes Off-Highway Vehicle Park.”
(Updated February 11, 2002)
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- “Klamath
Basin farmers fall victim to the Endangered Species Act”-Reprinted
by permission from Wyoming Agriculture, June 2001, published
by the Wyoming Farm Bureau Federation.
Using the Endangered Species Act this year, the Fish and Wildlife
Service and the Bureau have turned off the water to protect the
shortnose and Lost River suckers, although they are neither endangered
nor harmed by the farmers’ water use.
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- “The Los Alamos
Fire” - Carol W. LaGrasse, reprinted from
Positions on Property, Vol. 5, No. 1 (PRFA, July 2000)
The danger of widespread wildfire caused by federal mismanagement
of government-owned land.
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- “Federal
Landownership and Control” - Robert J. Smith,
Senior Environmental Scholar, Competitive Enterprise Institute,
Washington, DC, from Proceedings of the Fourth Annual N.Y.
Conference on Private Property Rights (PRFA, 1999)
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- Letter to
Honorable Pat Roberts, Chairman, House Agriculture Committee,
from W. L. Harris, Holcomb, Mississippi, September 22, 1995.
This letter describes how rice farmer W. L. Harris, after
recovering from severe financial problems common during the 1980’s,
tried to exert his lease back - buyback rights, but the Farmer’s
Home Administration (now the Farm Services Agency) placed wetlands
easements on the 1004 best acres, prohibiting him from doing
anything but paying taxes on the land.
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- “The End
of the Long March-Environmentalism’s Iron Grip”
- Carol W. LaGrasse, excerpted from full article by
that title in Positions on Property, Vol. l, No. 2 (PRFA,
May 1994)
This penetrating article presaged the national concern about
the potential for the unlimited power of environmental regulation.
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