NTF issue paper: president72.doc. 3-21.
NEBRASKA TAXPAYERS FOR FREEDOM ISSUE PAPER:
BIDEN REGIME CLIMATE CHANGE LAND GRAB.
BACKGROUND. Soon after the Biden Regime assumed power following the 2020 stolen election, leftwing extremists persuaded the president to advance their program to restrict and control a huge amount of private property to supposedly stop and reverse global warming. This outrageous plan would restrict how farmers, ranchers, and other private landowners use and tend their properties. The Biden Regime in some instances could confiscate NE property by eminent domain. The Regime has labeled its proposal 30 x 30.
BIDEN DICTATORIAL ORDER. Biden Executive Order (EO 14008) created several organizational structures and positions dedicated to implementing the Regime aggressive climate goals and related goals in environmental policy. The Biden Regime formally adopted this plan on Jan. 27, 2021. Biden created 2 new positions to directly address climate change: Special Presidential Envoy for Climate and a National Climate Advisor. EO 14008 also created a National Climate Task Force, which includes every cabinet post and a number of additional non-cabinet agencies with authority over environmental or scientific matters, headed by the National Climate Advisor. John Kerry serves as Special Presidential Envoy for Climate. Gina McCarthy, a former EPA Administrator, will serve as the National Climate Advisor as part of the task force and represent the White House Office of Domestic Climate Policy. She will advise the President on domestic climate policy and ensure that policies meet Regime stated climate goals. EO 14008 also outlines the important roles that different heads of agencies will play in the Regime efforts to implement 30 x 30. The Secretary of the Treasury and Secretary of State will coordinate with the Special Presidential Envoy for Climate to develop a climate finance plan. The regime is proceeding apace, masquerading the plan as an effort to conserve wildlands and stop oil and gas leasing on federal lands. This effort is in tandem with the UN Convention on Biological Diversity.
THE INSIDIOUS PROGRAM. The 30 x 30 proposal is a nefarious plan promoted by radical environmental leftists to permanently set aside 30% of U.S. land and 30% of U.S. ocean territory by 2030. Radicals preposterously argue that humans cause climate crises, that we must preserve a huge amount of land and sea immediately to save our ecosystem and wildlife. A team of 16 leftwing scientists authored a paper in 2019, which proposed this plan to save Earth by reserving 30% of our land and oceans by 2030. In 2020, then Congresswoman Deb Haaland (N.M.), now Sec. of Interior, introduced a 30 x 30 resolution in the House. In the Biden Cabinet, she now advances this plan. It includes color-coded maps, denoting which areas of the U.S. must offer alternative land use in land now owned by private citizens and companies. Under this plan, the federal government would confiscate 400 million acres, greater than the land size of the 23 smallest states, or 36 million acres larger than Alaska. The Antiquities Act gives a president the authority to set aside land without congressional approval. As interior secretary, Haaland urges Biden to seize hundreds of millions of parcels of land. He plans to make all public lands carbon neutral by 2030.
30 x 30 ADVOCATES. Leading the pack is VP Kamala Harris, Sec. of the Interior Debra Haaland, leftist billionaire Michael Bloomberg, and Georgia radical Stacey Abrams. The leftist Center for American Progress (CAP) authored a thesis supporting the plan, followed by bills introduced in both House and Senate. Former Clinton and Obama Regine official John Podesta is CAP chairman. The George Soros Foundation funds the CAP. A CAP report actually establishes a long-term goal of permanently setting aside 50% of our land and oceans by 2050. This plot set forth as Principle # 8 in the report. Other supporters include the League of Conservation Voters, Sierra Club, and Center for Biological Diversity. The Land & Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) has persuaded individual elected officials across the nation to sign a letter in support of the 30 x 30 plan.
THE PROCESS. Trump Sec. of Interior David Bernhardt had issued an order that allowed local governments and states to veto a land acquisition project proposed through the LWCF. However, on February 11, 2021, the Acting Secretary appointed by Biden revoked that order. Now, the Regime aggressively can pursue land acquisitions and restrictions without interference from state or local communities directly impacted. Many states hold predominantly private land and have some of the most productive, ecologically diverse areas in the nation, which proponents of 30 x 30 would like to grab. Proponents prioritize projects and acquisitions near or adjacent to existing protected areas, which means those areas that already have large protected federal land holdings or private lands with conservation easements are primary target areas. Radicals state willingness to work with private landowners to restrict land use, but now that states and local governments forbidden to oppose land acquisitions, regulatory pressures will force landowners to comply. Leftists seek to implement their plan through several pieces of legislation, including farm bills, appropriations measures, and stimulus bills like Recovering America’s Wildlife Act. The USDA has orders to begin a process to identify methods to encourage “voluntary adoption” of climate-friendly agricultural practices and within 90 days submit a report to the Climate Task Force setting forth an agriculture climate strategy, working with a Civilian Climate Corps to further those efforts. The USDA must identify and impose sustainable, less carbon-intensive agricultural practices. It also must identify potential programs, funding and financing capacities, and sympathetic authorities, and how to encourage the voluntary adoption of radical climate agricultural and forestry practices. Similarly, the National Oceanographic & Atmospheric Agency (NOAA) received orders to undertake a process to identify methods for improving the climate resiliency of our fisheries (Biden Administration Rapidly Advances Climate Change Agenda, Feb. 16, 2021). No public review and input or coordination with county governments. Biden and his minions are taking aggressive steps to remove barriers that might stop them from successfully fulfilling their agenda (American Stewards of Liberty, Feb. 2021). Their plan would constitute the largest theft of private property in U.S. history. It involves imposing massive new regulations on targeted private property. It is a means to further CONTROL the population. House Democrats are circulating a letter promoting votes on 30 x 30 related regulations and bills that would grant authorization for the federal government to start snatching land.
SOUNDS FISHY. EO 14008 directly assaults fisheries in 2 important respects. First, NOAA must begin efforts to obtain input from diverse perspectives on how to make fisheries and protected resources more resilient to climate change, including changes in management and conservation measures and improvements in science, monitoring, and cooperative research. The plan, when first unveiled in the Ocean-Based Climate Solutions Act, drew opposition from over 800 members of the seafood industry, organized by the At-sea Processors Association, National Fisheries Institute, Saving Seafood, and the Seafood Harvesters of America, who oppose a blanket ban of all fishing activity in 30% of U.S. territorial waters. If enacted, this action would undermine our world-class system of fisheries management, harming fishermen and the coastal communities they sustain. Biden seeks to establish Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) over 30% of U.S. ocean territory, an action that his Regime plans to take even without passage of the Ocean-Based Climate Solutions Act. The industry also disputes the claim that restricting fishing would benefit the seafood industry by increasing yields. The implied claim that closing 30% of the U.S. fishing zones will result in higher long-term yields from U.S. fisheries is a false promise, lacking a scientific basis. In addition to the conservation portion of the executive order, it directs the Secretary of the Interior to identify steps to double renewable energy production from offshore wind by 2030. Offshore wind projects have interfered with the fishing industry for the past few years, and industry members met with former Interior Secretary David Bernhardt to discuss objections to the proposed layouts of offshore wind farms (SEAFOODSOURCE. Biden’s “30 by 30” order could close-off 30 percent of US ocean to fishing. by Chris Chase, Jan. 27, 2021).
IN NEBRASKA. NE agricultural organizations have not shown support for this plan. Biden rules, using USDA muscle, would restrict use of fertilizer by farmers, force them to set aside land for wildlife habitat, and take expensive measures to improve water quality. 30 x 30 envisions much land use change, forcing farmers to plant only specific crops. What 30% of the land our state and private landowners forced to hand over or change use remains unknown. In Nebraska, where 97% of the state is privately-owned property, that number is especially alarming. Nebraska farmers and ranchers are our original conservationists, Gov. Ricketts said, “They work day in and day out to cultivate the land and manage water they’ve known for generations in a way that helps grow our state.” With the Biden Regime in charge, Nebraskans should be wary in their communities for attempts by federal agencies and their partners to regulate land and water use. Payments in Lieu of Taxes (PILs) are federal payments to local governments that help offset losses in property taxes because of the existence of nontaxable federal lands within their boundaries. For 520,851 NE acres of federal land, the feds paid about $1.3 million. However, because of the wildly differing valuation variances, the scenarios for how those payments calculated, and which types of federal land acquisitions considered exempt from PILs, the 30 x 30 plan potential to shift real estate from private to government ownership could cripple the budget for local NE governments, exacerbating the property tax burden for property owners during a time when urban incomes and farm profits are down. By barring state and local governments from the decision- making process, the Biden Regime ignores many of the existing federal laws that govern land acquisition and protection. Designating NE lands as wilderness would make them highly susceptible to wilderness wildfires, insect infestation, and disease, all of which degrades the natural and human environment. Also adversely impacted are horticulture, hunting and other outdoor recreational activities, and livestock grazing.
ENFORCEMENT MEASURES. The EO directs the Attorney General to rename the Environment and Natural Resources Division of the Dept. of Justice (DOJ) the Environmental Justice and Natural Resources Division, develop a comprehensive enforcement strategy in coordination with the EPA, and consider creating a new Office of Environmental Justice within DOJ to coordinate activities with other DOJ components and U.S. Att-Gen. offices nationwide. To achieve quick climate gains, Biden also may try to achieve pollution reductions through the enforcement of existing laws and regulations. Unlike policies, regs offer quick, measurable reductions in pollutants that Biden may seek to demonstrate as progress as his policies encroach. For example, the provisions of judicial consent decrees issued under the Clean Air Act already estimate achieved reduction of pollutants, in addition to criteria pollutants and hazardous air pollutants. The Biden Regime has a number of tools under existing environmental statutes. Industry will suffer enforcement initiatives that focus on chemicals with high CO2 measurements, such as HFCs and methane, along with parallel regulatory efforts to tighten those rules. EPA also will expand its aggressive utilization of statutory and regulatory levers such as the General Duty Clause under Section 112 of the Clean Air Act and the enforcement of risk management programs. Such could include an increased focus on existing programs, such as Clean Air Act Risk Management Plans, contingency planning requirements under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, and Spill Prevention, Control, and Countermeasure (SPCC) plans under the Clean Water Act. Increased scrutiny on climate change under these laws could result in enforcement actions in which federal agencies perceive a gap between current planning and risk-mitigation efforts and seek to lessen an increased risk of adverse events supposedly driven by climate change.
CONSERVATIVE BACKLASH. 30 x 30 is unconstitutional, transforming our nation founded on private property principles into a fascist administrative state. There is no constitutional or statutory authority for the Biden Regime, Dept. of Interior, Dept. of Agriculture, Dept. of Commerce, or federal agency to confiscate and permanently reserve all this land and water. Scientific studies do not support this radical hypothesis. There exists no scientific reasoning or evidence or noted scientific data or papers cited in the executive order. This proposal is not advancing from scientific purposes but instead begins a fundamental policy shift that erodes constitutional protections by placing vast areas, both private and federal, permanently off limits to commercial use and development. Governors from 16 states, including NE, sent a joint letter to the Biden Regime complaining about a lack of consultation and disregard for citizens and businesses, asking him to reverse his decision. Under a conservation easement, a landowner forfeits control for perpetuity. Under 30 x 30, the mentality seems to think that private landowners do not know how and are not responsible enough to manage and safeguard their own land. The order insinuates that rural landowners are incapable of properly maintaining their land. Proponents operate under the assumption that the administrative state or federal land managers can make better decisions about the quality of the land and its management than private landowners. Private landowners are invested personally and professionally, oftentimes through multiple generations. A federal bureaucrat in Washington, D.C. cannot match that institutional knowledge and love for the land. However, the leftist mindset is that one cannot trust a farmer or rancher, that federal bureaucrats are the only ones qualified to make decisions for them, including what one can and cannot do with private land.
TAKE ACTION NOW. NE farmers, ranchers, and other landowners face harsh restrictions or confiscation of their properties by eminent domain in order for the Biden Regime to advance its climate mitigation program. Both private property rights and state lands are under assault by radical environmentalists in the Regime. First, inform your state and local officials of this land grab and land use restraints and urge them to send petitions and letters to the Biden Regime and rally local opposition. Next, using the content above, lobby your representative and Sen. Deb Fischer to mount legislation to nullify this executive order. Email netaxpayers@gmail.com for congressional contact information and to join our NTF President Watch Project.
Research, documentation, and analysis for this issue paper done by Nebraska Taxpayers for Freedom. This material copyrighted by Nebraska Taxpayers for Freedom, with express prior permission granted for its use by other groups in the NE Conservative Coalition Network. 3-21. C