Liberty Matters News Service

February 22, 1999

Babbitt and Rubin face Contempt Charges

In a case involving billions of dollars of Native American trust funds, Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt and Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin are facing contempt charges for failure to turn records over to U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth. Judge Lamberth presides over a case which charges that the federal government has mismanaged the funds in 500,000 trust accounts held by individuals to pay for oil, gas and timber royalties. Some of the excuses for failing to turn the records over range from inability to reach records in high stack areas to fears that records covered with rodent droppings would unleash a new outbreak of the Hantavirus. Faxback Doc. 390

Young is For the Birds

Hot on the heels of his H.R. 701, the Land and Water Conservation Fund bill, Don Young (R-AK) has co-sponsored H.R. 39 with Jim Saxton (R-NJ) and George Miller (D-CA) that would create the Neotropical Migratory Bird Conservation Account and would receive up to $8 million per year in federal funds. Young said the bill and the fund would be used to create a "strategic international plan for bird conservation and money for on-the-ground projects…" The bill was heard last week with both the Clinton administration and several environmental organizations testifying in support. Concerned about birds, Young said many migratory bird species have declined to "dangerously low levels" due in part to pesticide use and loss of essential habitat. It’s hard to determine who is trying to leave the bigger land and environmental legacy – the president or Don Young. Faxback Doc. 391

Big City Democrats Push for Northwest Wildlands

For a glimpse at what life would be like living under the environmentalist’s Wildlands Project, take a close look at the bill Eastern Big City Democrats have re-filed in the House that will lock up most of the Northwest in Wildland Preserves and Biological Corridors. H.R. 488, the Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act of 1999, has 21 co-sponsors and all but two are from the East. Two Republicans also signed on, Chris Shays (CT) and Chris Smith (NJ). Impacting the states of Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington and Wyoming, the bill would result in 13,538,538 acres of Wilderness, 4,860,497 acres of biological connecting corridors, 1,724,522 acres of National Parks and Preserves, 324.6 miles of new Wild and Scenic Rivers, and 1,022,729 acres of National Wildlands Recovery Areas. Of course, there would be no mining, logging, grazing, road building or any other ‘unwild’ activity in these areas. Fortunately for landowners, the bill has been referred to the House Resource Subcommittee on Forests and Forest Health, chaired by Congressman Helen Chenoweth (R-ID). Faxback Doc. 392

Home Builders File Suit to Limit Wetlands Regs

The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) and the Peninsula Housing and Building Association has filed a suit to strike down regulatory authority over waters with no hydrologic connection to interstate waters. The case was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. NAHB has denounced the Army Corps of Engineers and EPA’s creeping authority over isolated wetlands. According to NAHB lawyers: "By using the migratory bird test to claim jurisdiction, the federal government has interjected itself into all of these small, isolated areas and has displaced the traditional authority of states and localities over land use."

Report Touts Stewardship of the Administration

A report entitled "Protecting our National Treasures, A New Era in America’s Conservation Legacy" brags that the Clinton administration added 141,906,882 acres of land to the nation’s collection of parks and protected areas. The report, dated March 6, 1998, came from Bruce Babbitt, Secretary of Interior and Dan Glickman, Secretary of Agriculture. Some of their more notable conquests include 1.7 million acres in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, 410,000 acres for the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Ecosystem Restoration, 150,000 miles for the Conservation Buffer Initiative and 85,900,000 acres for what they call Land Improvement Cooperative Agreements with Private Landowners. With this aggressive type of land control and acquisition why do we need the president’s or the Republican’s billion dollar, off budget, land grab scheme? Faxback Doc. 393 (only available on faxback)