Outcasts in Our Own Land

In ten years, the federal government could very easily be the majority landowner in America if Congress has its way.

As it stands today, over forty percent of the land in America is owned either by the federal government, approximately thirty percent, or by state, county and local governments, which own another 10 percent. This doesn’t even include the millions of acres that the Land Trusts like The Nature Conservancy have locked up and will eventually sell to the federal government.

So, when some of the staunchest private property rights defenders introduced legislation to provide billions of dollars to buy land in the name of conservation, absolute horror was felt everywhere. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that just a few more million acres will put the government in the position of owning over 50 percent of our nation’s soil. America will no longer be in private ownership, but public domain.

John Adams said: "Property must be secured or liberty cannot exist." How prophetic. It only took a little over two hundred years, but our liberty and security are more vulnerable and tenuous today because of our loss of private ownership in this country.

Rep. Don Young (R-AK) is the author of H.R. 701, The Conservation and Reinvestment Act of 1999 and Frank Murkowski (R-AK) has authored S. 25 as the companion to Young’s bill. These bills will provide up to $1.5 billion every year to purchase land for wildlife preserves, parks and recreation. This is to be a dedicated fund with no congressional appropriation oversight.

Sharing Outer Continental Shelf revenues has been the hook. Almost everyone will receive a portion of the billions of dollars that come from off-shore oil and gas production. After all, the bottom line in Washington is to see who can get a bigger slice of the pie.

The amounts are staggering. Don Young’s Alaska will receive $149,966,000; Arkansas $11,641,000; Louisiana $361,876,373; Michigan $45,442,767; Mississippi $84,732,964 and Texas $204,617,393, to name just a few. In the world of politics where money is king, there is little surprise why there is so much bi-partisan support in Congress for this bill.

In the past, Congress has not appropriated much over $500,000 for land and water conservation, but that could all change.

R. J. Smith, Senior Environmental Scholar with the Competitive Enterprise Institute said: "The public lands of the United States exceed the combined areas of Germany, France, Italy, Belgium, Holland, Switzerland, Denmark and Albania. When socialized ownership of land is concerned only the USSR and China can claim company with the United States." Now that the Soviet Union is history and the collective farms of China are no more, the United States is in the number one spot for the most socialistic land ownership system in the world.

There are about two dozen major federal, state and non-governmental protected area programs in America. Each has its own legislative, regulatory and policy framework and each represents a unique challenge to rural landowners.

Two areas where the United Nations has its fingers in our territory include World Biosphere Reserves and World Heritage Areas. There are over 80 UN protected areas covering some 50 million acres.

The federal government has over 3,000 federally protected areas designated in seven major categories. National parks have 376 sites with over 80 million acres; National Wildlife Refuges have 509 sites with over 92 million acres; National Forests and Grasslands have 175 sites with 191 million acres; Wilderness Areas number 497 and cover 90 million acres; National Natural Landmarks include 587 sites and 90 million acres; National Wild and Scenic Rivers have 159 rivers with over 100,000 linear miles; and National Trails, of which there are 820 plus, cover 29,000 miles. This doesn’t even include the new American Heritage Rivers scam of which there are thousands of more river miles to include.

But yet, Congress wants to add even more. Landowners face the greatest challenge ever today with this much government intrusion into their lives. Adjacent landowners to these national treasures are directly affected by spread of endangered species and habitat, loss of property value and the risk of being targeted for acquisition because of proximity.

Every piece of property falls into the watershed of a river, stream or lake. They then become areas of concern so that runoff doesn’t affect a protected waterway. Viewsheds become a particularly egregious detriment to landowners if you happen to fall next to a wild and scenic river or a national trail. People have had to tear down their barns and windmills because they ruined the aesthetic value of the scenic river. Secretary of Interior, Bruce Babbitt wants vast areas of this nation to look like it did when Lewis and Clark explored it for the first time.

The president and the vice president have both weighed in with their Lands Legacy Initiative and Livability Agenda both wanting more land left as wilderness with less urban sprawl. Perhaps that is why this Republican Congress has introduced these awful bills. They want to out green the other party and the environmentalists.

They are all advocating socialism pure and simple, they just call it conservation. Even George W. Bush couldn’t stay out of the fray. They now have a "Reinvest in Texas" program that supports the concept of money for more parks. They just want the state of Texas to be able to buy the land and not the federal government.

We face a unique challenge in protecting and restoring the fundamental philosophy and principles upon which this great nation was established.

If we do not defeat H.R. 701, S 25 and the Administration’s proposals, this country is in great peril. We must be guardians of freedom if we the people don’t want to become the minority shareholders of this country. If we do, then government answers to no one. No bureaucrat will worry if he tramples the civil rights of an American citizen. We will be outvoted, out-gunned and outcasts in our own country.

To keep this the Land of Liberty, we must keep this land in private ownership.