Conservation Dollars Not Worth the Price

By RAY KREIG

The Young-Murkowski Conservation and Reinvestment Act is supposed to bring lots of money to Alaska.

Are there any negative consequences? Yes!

This bill is going to hurt real people, hurt real communities. Too many CARA proponents don't care about people--all they talk about is money for their agencies, for their pet projects.

Do Alaskans really want a massive increase in government land buying? Already 90 percent government-owned, only 1/3 of 1 percent of Alaska is non-Native corporation private land. CARA increases spending for federal land acquisition 15 times.

* Private inholdings will be wiped out over most areas of national forests, parks, preserves, and wildlife refuges. The only landlord will be the federal government. There will be no choices in accommodations or visitor services except possibly federal concessionaires.

* Communities will be boxed in and extinguished. The cultural and land heritage represented by thousands of individual homesteads, cabins, mining claims, Native allotments and some village corporation lands will be gone forever as the lands are acquired over time by the federal government.

We need to have a statewide discussion and make darn sure we have the right answer to the question: Why should even one more acre of private land be transferred to government in Alaska?

CARA gives lip service to the idea of states defining their own priorities, but this is negated by giving Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt final approval over use of 85 percent of the CARA money.

Look at the sorry history of ANILCA "guarantees" of access and the promised right of communities, land owners and residents to continue their economic livelihood. It is obvious that Congress has been unable to control abuse by the administrative agencies.

The first of many takings cases caused by National Park Service's abridgement of these ANILCA "guarantees" was recently concluded in Federal District Court. And the NPS imposed final regulations further cutting off access to private lands at Kantishna and declaring an intent to explore restriction of snowmachine use in NPS units throughout Alaska.

The recent blizzard of executive orders decreeing roadless areas, extreme environmental regulations and national monument declarations constitutes an intensified war on the West. Is it wise to grant more authority to the Interior Secretary at the same time he is handed a fire hose torrent of new CARA money? Under CARA he even gets to decide how the required state and local matching funds are spent.

Advocates claim CARA provides "private property protections" that do not exist today.

These so-called "protections" affect only 15 percent of CARA money. Even then, they are of little use.

CARA is written so a fast scanner of the bill will notice catchy property rights protection phrases like, "just compensation," "willing seller requirement," and "nothing...shall authorize...property be taken" etc.

But close reading of the bill reveals these phrases are without operative effect or value, suggesting that their inclusion amounts to a willful attempt at deceiving the public.

Even beyond the federal subsistence takeover, CARA provides the means for increased federal control over remaining fish and game matters in Alaska. And it authorizes funding to environmentalist organizations which have fought for decades to extinguish private property rights and deny federal land access and multiple use.

Worst of all is the assault on responsible management of the public's tax dollars. CARA walls off seven new entitlements that will enshrine $45 billion in guaranteed new spending for: Government land acquisition, pork-laden coastal area "impact" assistance, environmental groups, professional sports stadiums, wildlife and endangered species, Civil War battlefields, urban parks, etc...

All at a protected higher priority than:

Medical research, education, health care, national defense, veterans benefits, violent crime victim compensation, law enforcement, consumer protection, child welfare, and other services people need. These programs still will have to scramble to compete every year for every dollar.

This bill contains so much in conflict with the values shared by most Alaskans--Limited government, individual freedom, reducing the government land estate and encouragement of free enterprise--that concerned delegates at the recent state Republican Party convention overwhelmingly passed a resolution against CARA, even though CARA's prime architects are Republican Rep. Don Young and Sen. Frank Murkowski.

Alaskans need to pay attention and carefully scrutinize this claimed CARA largess. Decades of CARA land buying and increasing federal control in our land use decisions will transform huge areas of Alaska. The price we'll pay for it--as Alaskans and as Americans--is too high.

On the Net: Supporting documents: www.landrights.org/ak

Ray Kreig, an Anchorage engineering consultant, is chairman of the Keep Private LANDS in Private HANDS Coalition Alaska.