The Land Grab Deemed a Backroom Deal
The Land Grab Deemed a Backroom Deal
Protecting all that wild America — it seems like such a nice idea. But there’s trouble lurking with a federal lands package that was recently attached as tight as a deer tick to the National Defense Authorization Act. Even the horse and burro people are perturbed. The provision essentially cordons off hundreds of thousands of acres of federal land for parks and restricts natural resource production. This does not sit well with those who know the land and know the politics.
A coalition of 50 interest groups and public officials is now asking Congress to remove the public lands provision from the act, advising in an open letter, “This kitchen-sink approach to legislation, lacking in deliberation and shaped solely by political calculus, belies the very serious consequences of the provisions. The price our public lands at large must pay in exchange for a few modest wildernesses designations is simply too high.”
The diverse coalition includes Greenpeace, the WildWest Institute, the Idaho Sporting Congress and the American Wild Horse Conservation (formerly American Wild Horse Preservation), which says the land grab “would exact a steep price from our public lands and the wildlife — including wild horses and burros — that inhabit them.” Yeah. How about those horses and burros? But there are other concerns.
Beware the land grab, adds Myron Ebell, energy and environment director at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
“This is a backroom deal locking up federal land so it cannot be used to produce natural resources, such as energy, minerals, livestock and timber — a devastating economic effect on people in the rural West,” he says. “This move also comes at a time when the National Park Service cannot adequately take care of many of the national parks, including Yellowstone, Yosemite and Grand Canyon. The system has multibillion-dollar maintenance backlogs.”
Mr. Ebell notes that the provision creates eight new parks in 10 states, expands seven existing parks, designates 245,000 acres as wilderness areas and withdraws another 289,000 acres from natural resource production. “This is what happens when secret deals are made in backrooms during lame-duck sessions,” the analyst concludes.
Originally Posted By The Washington Times