PILT vs. Economic Self-Reliance and Education Equality

Wrongheaded to want to responsibly utilize abundant resources to adequately fund education and secure economic self-reliance of state and local communities?

That's what Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar seems to think about western states' efforts to secure local control of land access, land use and land ownership.

The federal government is $16 trillion in debt, with more than $60 trillion in accrued promises to pay Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security benefits (unfunded obligations) for which they have no money, and yet is still OVERSPENDING at the rate of $1.5 trillion per year ($5 trillion per year deficit if you include the obligations for these entitlements).  That's wrongheaded!

Salt Lake Tribune, June 21, 2012 - "Rural Utah communities this year will get a share of $36 million from the federal government in an attempt to offset the large swaths of public lands that eat up their tax base."


While pleased that the federal funds are still flowing, some Utah leaders say they’re gearing up for the years to come when that revenue source may dry up.

"We’re already starting to prepare for what would be a tough budget situation if that were to happen — restructure our budget and financing to try and weather that if that takes place," said Kane County Commission Chairman Jim Matson, who fears budget cuts in Washington will slash rural aid.

Matson, like fellow rural commissioners, backs a plan by state officials to force the federal government to hand over public lands to state control, allowing them to develop some areas and boost revenue.

Salazar, mentioning Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, disagreed with Beehive State officials’ argument that the federal government should hand over public lands, noting that the state benefits greatly from the tourism, recreation, and oil and gas industries.

"The fact is that the lands in Utah, whether it’s Zion National Park or Arches or all of the oil and natural-gas development or mineral developments that take place, contributes in huge ways to the economy of the state of Utah," Salazar said. "So I think they’re just wrongheaded in their criticism."

Bishop, who’s working with Western colleagues to sustain PILT, chided Salazar and said that with 65 percent of Utah’s land controlled or managed by the federal government, tax revenue is hard to come by.

"This could be solved if the federal government would relinquish control over some of its 660 million acres of land," Bishop said. "Apparently wanting to fund public education and give children greater educational opportunities is ‘wrongheaded’ as Secretary Salazar put it." 

"Green Drivel"

Time to rethink the environmental policies that are contracting local control of land access, land use and land ownership?  See this candid and stunning retraction from the godfather of global warming science.

Toronto Sun, June 23, 2012 - "Two months ago, James Lovelock, the godfather of global warming, gave a startling interview to msnbc.com in which he acknowledged he had been unduly “alarmist” about climate change.

The implications were extraordinary.

Lovelock is a world-renowned scientist and environmentalist whose Gaia theory — that the Earth operates as a single, living organism — has had a profound impact on the development of global warming theory.

Unlike many “environmentalists,” who have degrees in political science, Lovelock, until his recent retirement at age 92, was a much-honoured working scientist and academic.

Having observed that global temperatures since the turn of the millennium have not gone up in the way computer-based climate models predicted, Lovelock acknowledged, “the problem is we don’t know what the climate is doing. We thought we knew 20 years ago.” Now, Lovelock has given a follow-up interview to the UK’s Guardian newspaper in which he delivers more bombshells sure to anger the global green movement, which for years worshipped his Gaia theory and apocalyptic predictions that billions would die from man-made climate change by the end of this century.

Lovelock still believes anthropogenic global warming is occurring and that mankind must lower its greenhouse gas emissions, but says it’s now clear the doomsday predictions, including his own (and Al Gore’s) were incorrect.

He responds to attacks on his revised views by noting that, unlike many climate scientists who fear a loss of government funding if they admit error, as a freelance scientist, he’s never been afraid to revise his theories in the face of new evidence. Indeed, that’s how science advances.

Among his observations to the Guardian:

(1) A long-time supporter of nuclear power as a way to lower greenhouse gas emissions, which has made him unpopular with environmentalists, Lovelock has now come out in favour of natural gas fracking (which environmentalists also oppose), as a low-polluting alternative to coal.

As Lovelock observes, “Gas is almost a give-away in the U.S. at the moment. They’ve gone for fracking in a big way. This is what makes me very cross with the greens for trying to knock it … Let’s be pragmatic and sensible and get Britain to switch everything to methane. We should be going mad on it.” (Kandeh Yumkella, co-head of a major United Nations program on sustainable energy, made similar arguments last week at a UN environmental conference in Rio de Janeiro, advocating the development of conventional and unconventional natural gas resources as a way to reduce deforestation and save millions of lives in the Third World.)

(2) Lovelock blasted greens for treating global warming like a religion.

“It just so happens that the green religion is now taking over from the Christian religion,” Lovelock observed. “I don’t think people have noticed that, but it’s got all the sort of terms that religions use … The greens use guilt. That just shows how religious greens are. You can’t win people round by saying they are guilty for putting (carbon dioxide) in the air.”

(3) Lovelock mocks the idea modern economies can be powered by wind turbines.

As he puts it, “so-called ‘sustainable development’ … is meaningless drivel … We rushed into renewable energy without any thought. The schemes are largely hopelessly inefficient and unpleasant. I personally can’t stand windmills at any price.”

(4) Finally, about claims “the science is settled” on global warming: “One thing that being a scientist has taught me is that you can never be certain about anything. You never know the truth. You can only approach it and hope to get a bit nearer to it each time. You iterate towards the truth. You don’t know it.”

EPA At It Again - Destroyers in Ditches?

The EPA is at it again.  The agency is running roughshod over state and local jurisdiction.  It is declaring ditches to be "navigable waters" through regulatory "guidance."

(Human Events) -- “Never in the history of the CWA has federal regulation defined ditches and other upland features as ‘waters of the United States,’” said Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.), chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, Rep. Nick Rahall (D-W.Va.), the ranking committee member, and Rep. Bob Gibbs (R-Ohio), chairman of the Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment.

“This is without a doubt an expansion of federal jurisdiction,” the lawmakers said in a May 31 letter to House colleagues.

The unusual alliance of the powerful House Republicans and Democrat to jointly sponsor legislation to overturn the new guidelines signals a willingness on Capitol Hill to rein in the formidable agency.

“The Obama administration is doing everything in its power to increase costs and regulatory burdens for American businesses, farmers and individual property owners,” Mica said in a statement to Human Events. “This federal jurisdiction grab has been opposed by Congress for years, and now the administration and its agencies are ignoring law and rulemaking procedures in order to tighten their regulatory grip over every water body in the country.”

“But this administration needs to realize it is not above the law,” Mica said.

The House measure carries 64 Republican and Democratic cosponsors and was passed in committee last week. A companion piece of legislation is already gathering steam in the Senate and is cosponsored by 26 Republicans.

“President Obama’s EPA continues to act as if it is above the law. It is using this overreaching guidance to pre-empt state and local governments, farmers and ranchers, small business owners and homeowners from making local land and water use decisions,” Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) said in announcing their measure in March. “Our bill will stop this unprecedented Washington power grab and restore Americans’ property rights.”

“It’s time to get EPA lawyers out of Americans’ backyards,” Barrasso said.  (Read more . . .)

Maybe it's time for state and local governments to simply exercise their respective jurisdiction over such local matters . . .

USFS: Owls More Important Than Health and Safety of People

American Lands Council led the charge in rallying state and county officials, concerned citizens and leaders of various organizations to the Tombstone Shovel Brigade in support of Tombstone's right and obligation to protect the health, safety and welfare of its citizens in the face of arbitrary and irrational federal policy that is blocking Tombstone from restoring and securing access to the mountain springs and its access road they have been using continuously for 130-years until the USFS began shutting them out last summer.

(CNN) American Lands Council President, “Ken Ivory, a state representative from Utah, who won passage of legislation that seeks to turn over federal land to his state . . . says the conflict playing out in Tombstone is an example of the Forest Service dictating to, rather than working with, local government officials. He says the feds suddenly cut off Tombstone's access to springs and roads the city has maintained for 130 years under ‘an arbitrary and irrational federal policy.

As a result, Ivory said, Tombstone ‘is minutes away from going up in smoke’ because it is ‘a wooden town in the middle of the desert in the middle of a drought.’

At the center of the debate is the Mexican spotted owl.

‘What is more important, owls or the people of Tombstone?’ James Upchurch, a Forest Service supervisor who oversees the wilderness, was asked in court earlier this year.

Upchurch responded that there was no easy answer, which left jaws dropping on Tombstone's side of the courtroom.

Tombstone tells a compelling story, portraying the Forest Service as a rogue agency of obstructionist, tree-hugging bureaucrats. The Forest Service had offered little comment, and when it did say something, it sounded to the people of Tombstone, well, tree-hugging and bureaucratic.

And so, under an unforgiving desert sun, about 100 people -- including Old West cowboy types with monikers such as "Whiskers" and "Cowboy Doug" -- gathered at Tombstone's old high school football field Friday for the first day of an event that was billed as part protest and part work party."  (Read more . . .).


More stories:

http://www.kgun9.com/news/local/158323285.html

http://www.cnn.com/2012/06/09/us/tombstone-shovel-brigade/index.html

http://cnn.com/video/?/video/politics/2012/06/08/erin-dnt-savidge-tombstone-water-showdown.cnn

http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2012/06/08/tombstone-takes-water-fight-to-canyons-capitol-hill/

http://digg.com/newsbar/Politics/shovel_brigade_hikes_the_huachucas_to_protect_tombstone

http://www.svherald.com/content/news/2012/05/28/266496

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kp2nB_VfB4w

http://cronkitenewsonline.com/2012/06/tombstone-water-war-takes-a-break-for-shovel-brigade-to-fix-pipeline/

http://azstarnet.com/news/local/supreme-court-again-refuses-tombstone-s-plea/article_beb03c53-a2f3-5e6e-bc23-ad90ceefd557.html

USFS Forest Management Threatens Health, Safety & Welfare of Western States

(Fox News) "The mix of timber, dry grass and the steepness of the slopes were making the firefighting efforts more difficult. Windy conditions were also limiting what could be done from the air by helicopters and air tankers, Alborn said.

"Today all we see is smoke," he said. 'Last night, we saw the flames too and it was an awesome expression of power. It was red, red and we could see it going across the top.'"

U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce, R-N.M., was on his way to the area Saturday to meet with fire managers. He said decades of mismanagement, forests packed full of trees and persistent drought conditions have resulted in an explosive situation.

'We just can't keep managing our forests this way. It's not a question of if our forests in the West are going to burn, it's a matter of when. This is just one more demonstration of that,' he said."  (Read more . . .)

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/06/10/wildfires-in-colorado-and-new-mexico-forcing-evacuations-destroying-structures/#ixzz1xQlwHEsK


http://video.foxnews.com/v/1682219079001/

No. AZ Uranium Ban Based On Bogus "Science"

Human Events, Audrey Hudson, June 4, 2012
Obama administration officials banned mining across one million acres of the most uranium rich land in the United States for 20 years using questionable science to back up their claims that uranium production would adversely affect the environment.

(Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar)

The new documents released by the House Natural Resources Committee show findings by some National Park Service scientists back up the lawmakers’ concerns. One internal email written by a hydrologist said the environmental study “goes to great lengths in an attempt to establish impacts to water resources from uranium mining.”

“It fails to do so, but instead creates enough confusion and obfuscation of hydrologic principles to create the illusion that there could be adverse impacts if uranium mining occurred,” the hydrologist said.

Another park service official wrote that this is a case “where the hard science doesn’t strongly support a policy position.”

Congressman Rob Bishop (R-UT), who chairs the Natural Resources subcommittee on national parks, forests and public lands, says the initial documents they obtained show alarming new evidence that the administration lacked scientific justification to impose the ban.

“It is now increasingly apparent that the decision was motivated by politics rather than science as the administration would have us believe,” Bishop said. “These emails illustrate that Secretary Salazar blatantly ignored the scientific analysis in order to advance the administration’s narrow-minded political agenda. The administration is working hard to protect certain interests, but just not those of the American people,” Bishop said.  (Read more . . .).

Fringe "environmentalism" attacking the right to use our lands and abundant natural resources is an attack on energy.  Energy is the life-blood of society.  These attacks on energy, with which we are blessed in abundance, are attacks on light, and heat, and health, and safety, and jobs, and production, and the economy . . . and life.  

Sierra Club Picks Its Next Fossil Fuel Target

Wall Street Journal, May 30, 2012 -- "The media are finally catching up to America's shale natural gas boom, with even Fortune magazine waddling in with a cover story. But the bigger recent news is that one of the most powerful environmental lobbies, the Sierra Club, is mounting a major campaign to kill the industry.

Related Video

Editorial board member Steve Moore on the Sierra Club's attacks on natural gas.

The battle plan is called "Beyond Natural Gas," and Sierra Club executive director Michael Brune announced the goal in an interview with the National Journal this month: "We're going to be preventing new gas plants from being built wherever we can." The big green lobbying machine has rolled out a new website that says "The natural gas industry is dirty, dangerous and running amok" and that "The closer we look at natural gas, the dirtier it appears; and the less of it we burn, the better off we will be." So the goal is to shut the industry down, not merely to impose higher safety standards.

This is no idle threat. The Sierra Club has deep pockets funded by liberal foundations and knows how to work the media and politicians. The lobby helped to block new nuclear plants for more than 30 years, it has kept much of the U.S. off-limits to oil drilling, and its "Beyond Coal" campaign has all but shut down new coal plants. One of its priorities now will be to make shale gas drilling anathema within the Democratic Party."  (read more . . .)

The panacea of renewable energy produces something far less than 10% of American's energy needs (counting the 6% of more that comes from hydroelectric power generation, which many in the fringe "environmental" movement also want to destroy).   A 90% reduction in energy means essentially no energy for the overwhelming majority of Americans.  No energy means life as we know it dies.  Hospitals don't operate. No refrigeration.  No heat.  No light.  No production.  No jobs.  Virtually, no economy.  This war on energy logically means death for millions of Americans.  Will fringe "environmentalism" be allowed to "clean" our air to death?

EPA Conducts Aerial Surveillance of U.S. Farmers Use of Their Land

It has been recently revealed that the EPA has been conducting aerial surveillance of farmers and the use of their lands.  The EPA insists such unprecedented and invasive tactics are meant to monitor farmers' use of their lands in compliance with the Clean Water Act.  Warrantless, criminal surveillance of a farmer's use of his or her property in America?  What's next?  (read more . . .)