THIS IS A RED ALERT FOR TEA PARTY MEMBERS
U.N. Climate Conference's Goal? One-World Gov't
The United Nations Climate Change Conference in Durban, South Africa, opening on Nov. 28, called COP-17, is one of a series of U.N. meetings working toward a specific goal. Advertising for this meeting features a long list of celebrities, including Angelina Jolie, U2's Bono, Ted Turner, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Al Gore and Michael Bloomberg.
The U.N. goal is to move the United States into a global government by environmental regulations and a vast network of taxes. These newly imposed taxes will give the U.N. a tremendous stream of money in addition to U.S. dues and congressional appropriations.
The plan for taxes was launched at the 1992 U.N. meeting in Rio de Janeiro, known as the Earth Summit, where Conference Secretary-General Maurice Strong produced a 300-page document with 40 proposals called Agenda 21.
The tax-seeking route then proceeded through U.N. meetings in Cancun in 2010, in Durban this November and will be finalized next year at what is called Rio+20 (i.e., Rio de Janeiro after 20 years).
Agenda 21 is a comprehensive master plan to reshape and control the U.S. while locking us into the clutches of the U.N. under the innocuous phrase "sustainable development." Along with 178 countries, President George H.W. Bush accepted Agenda 21 as "soft law." It was adopted by a new tactic called collaborative consensus building, instead of by treaty.
Bush popularized the term "new world order," but left it for others to define. Mikhail Gorbachev said the threat of an environmental crisis will be the international key to unlocking the new world order, and former President Bill Clinton issued an executive order in 1993 creating the President's Council on Sustainable Development.
Advocates of Agenda 21 talk about the three E's of sustainable development: economy, equity and environment. Equity means replacing our American constitutional system with central planning and social justice, which is a code word for redistribution of wealth, abolition of private property rights and giving favored corporations tax breaks, grants, and use of eminent domain.
Economy
means shifting from a private enterprise system to government,
private-corporation partnerships. That would be a giant step toward total government and U.N. control of our
economy, with the ability to
redistribute our goods and services to foreign countries. Environment means giving animals and plants more rights or
equal rights with humans. (Ala
in FL the sea turtles and the manatees) It also promotes worship of nature and mother Earth.
To talk about Agenda 21, you will have to get used to a new vocabulary: green jobs, green building codes, going green, regional planning, smart growth, biodiversity, sustainable farming, growth management, resilient cities, sustainable communities, redistribution, urban growth boundaries, redevelopment districts and consensus.
Agenda 21 wants to herd people into crowded communities with limited housing space and limited parking spaces. This will promote the green goal of reducing our use of automobiles, allowing only electric cars that can't go very fast or very far, so people will have to walk, use bicycles and mass transit.
Agenda 21 supports the Wildlands Project, which seeks to re-wild 50% of our nation and turn it into a pre-Columbian wilderness where animals roam freely and humans are crowded into limited spaces. Already, we find that rural roads are not being repaired or maintained.
Agenda 21 has started its attacks on rural and small-town property rights. Six hundred U.S. cities and counties have signed on to the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives putting themselves indirectly under supervision of U.N. regulations and restrictions.
Advocates of Agenda 21 believe the earth is overcrowded. They demand an 85% reduction in human population. It's a major goal of Agenda 21 to lower the U.S. standard of living by cutting our use of energy. (Clearly supported by Obama given his policies to stop the use of fossil energy sources) Agenda 21 plans to use smart meters, smart grids and smart growth so that our nation's use of electricity can be controlled, limited and redistributed.
Schools and universities are important to Agenda 21's goals. The plan is make them indoctrination institutions, where kids are taught "green" propaganda, as well as global education to make them citizens of the world.
When you get down to the nitty-gritty, what these U.N. climate conferences are all about is getting the U.N. to impose taxes that will give it an immense flow of money, so it doesn't have to worry about Congress cutting off appropriations. This means imposing U.N. taxes on currency transfers, fossil energy production including oil, natural gas and coal, the commercial use of oceans, international airplane tickets and all foreign exchange transactions.
Taxes of this magnitude would give the U.N. so much power that it would become a de facto world government. (How would the citizens of this country like to live under control of the totally dysfunction UN? We already have enough problems with dysfunctional government at all levels in this country) Tell your members of Congress to pledge that the day the U.N. adopts this nonsense will be the day we say goodbye to the U.N. (We think is should be sooner than implementation of this action)
AGENDA 21 IN ONE EASY LESSON
(FROM AMERICAN POLICY CENTER.COM)
Awareness of Agenda 21 and Sustainable Development is racing across the nation as citizens in community after community are learning what their city planners are actually up to. As awareness grows, I am receiving more and more calls for tools to help activists fight back. Many complain that elected officials just won’t read detailed reports or watch long videos. “Can you give us something that is quick, and easy to read that we can hand out,” I’m asked.
So here it is. A one page, quick description of Agenda 21 that fits on one page. I’ve also included for the back side of your hand out a list of quotes for the perpetrators of Agenda 21 that should back up my brief descriptions.
A word of caution, use this as a starter kit, but do not allow it to be your only knowledge of this very complex subject. To kill it you have to know the facts. Research, know your details; discover the NGO players in your community; identify who is victimized by the policies and recruit them to your fight; and then kill Agenda 21. That’s how it must be done. The information below is only your first step. Happy hunting.
What is Sustainable Development?
According to its authors, the objective of sustainable development is to integrate economic, social and environmental policies in order to achieve reduced consumption, social equity, and the preservation and restoration of biodiversity. Sustainablists insist that every societal decision be based on environmental impact, focusing on three components; global land use, global education, and global population control and reduction.
Social Equity (Social injustice)
Social justice is described as the right and opportunity of all people “to benefit equally from the resources afforded us by society and the environment.” Redistribution of wealth. Private property is a social injustice since not everyone can build wealth from it. National sovereignty is a social injustice. Universal health care is a social injustice. All part of Agenda 21 policy.
Economic Prosperity
Public Private Partnerships (PPP). Special dealings between government and certain, chosen corporations which get tax breaks, grants and the government’s power of Eminent Domain to implement sustainable policy. Government-sanctioned monopolies.
Local Sustainable Development policies
Smart Growth, Wildlands Project, Resilient Cities, Regional Visioning Projects, STAR Sustainable Communities, Green jobs, Green Building Codes, “Going Green,” Alternative Energy, Local Visioning, facilitators, regional planning, historic preservation, conservation easements, development rights, sustainable farming, comprehensive planning, growth management, consensus.
Who is behind it?
ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability (formally, International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives). Communities pay ICLEI dues to provide “local” community plans, software, training, etc. Addition groups include American Planning Council, The Renaissance Planning Group, International City/ County Management Group, aided by US Mayors Conference, National Governors Association, National League of Cities, National Association of County Administrators and many more private organizations and official government agencies. Foundation and government grants drive the process.
Where did it originate?
The term Sustainable Development was first introduced to the world in the pages a 1987 report (Our Common Future) produced by the United Nations World Commission on Environmental and Development, authored by Gro Harlem Brundtland, VP of the World Socialist Party. The term was first offered as official UN policy in 1992, in a document called UN Sustainable Development Agenda 21, issued at the UN’s Earth Summit, today referred to simply as Agenda 21.
What gives Agenda 21 Ruling Authority?
More than 178 nations adopted Agenda 21 as official policy during a signing ceremony at the Earth Summit. US president George H.W. Bush signed the document for the US. In signing, each nation pledge to adopt the goals of Agenda 21. In 1995, President Bill Clinton, in compliance with Agenda 21, signed Executive Order #12858 to create the President’s Council on Sustainable Development in order to “harmonize” US environmental policy with UN directives as outlined in Agenda 21. The EO directed all agencies of the Federal Government to work with state and local community governments in a joint effort “reinvent” government using the guidelines outlined in Agenda 21. As a result, with the assistance of groups like ICLEI, Sustainable Development is now emerging as government policy in every town, county and state in the nation.
Revealing Quotes From the Planners
“Agenda 21 proposes an array of actions which are intended to be implemented by EVERY person on Earth…it calls for specific changes in the activities of ALL people… Effective execution of Agenda 21 will REQUIRE a profound reorientation of ALL humans, unlike anything the world has ever experienced… ” Agenda 21: The Earth Summit Strategy to Save Our Planet (Earthpress, 1993). Emphases – DR
Urgent to implement – but we don’t know what it is!
“The realities of life on our planet dictate that continued economic development as we know it cannot be sustained…Sustainable development, therefore is a program of action for local and global economic reform – a program that has yet to be fully defined.” The Local Agenda 21 Planning Guide, published by ICLEI, 1996.
“No one fully understands how or even, if, sustainable development can be achieved; however, there is growing consensus that it must be accomplished at the local level if it is ever to be achieved on a global basis.” The Local Agenda 21 Planning Guide, published by ICLEI, 1996.
Agenda 21 and Private Property
“Land…cannot be treated as an ordinary asset, controlled by individuals and subject to the pressures and inefficiencies of the market. Private land ownership is also a principal instrument of accumulation and concentration of wealth, therefore contributes to social injustice.” From the report from the 1976 UN’s Habitat I Conference.
“Private land use decisions are often driven by strong economic incentives that result in several ecological and aesthetic consequences…The key to overcoming it is through public policy…” Report from the President’s Council on Sustainable Development, page 112.
“Current lifestyles and consumption patterns of the affluent middle class – involving high meat intake, use of fossil fuels, appliances, home and work air conditioning, and suburban housing are not sustainable.” Maurice Strong, Secretary General of the UN’s Earth Summit, 1992.
Reinvention of Government
“We need a new collaborative decision process that leads to better decisions, more rapid change, and more sensible use of human, natural and financial resources in achieving our goals.” Report from the President’s Council on Sustainable Development
“Individual rights will have to take a back seat to the collective.” Harvey Ruvin, Vice Chairman, ICLEI. The Wildlands Project
“We must make this place an insecure and inhospitable place for Capitalists and their projects – we must reclaim the roads and plowed lands, halt dam construction, tear down existing dams, free shackled rivers and return to wilderness millions of tens of millions of acres or presently settled land.” Dave Foreman, Earth First.
What is not sustainable?
Ski runs, grazing of livestock, plowing of soil, building fences, industry, single family homes, paves and tarred roads, logging activities, dams and reservoirs, power line construction, and economic systems that fail to set proper value on the environment.” UN’s Biodiversity Assessment Report.
Hide Agenda 21’s UN roots from the people
“Participating in a UN advocated planning process would very likely bring out many of the conspiracy- fixated groups and individuals in our society… This segment of our society who fear ‘one-world government’ and a UN invasion of the United States through which our individual freedom would be stripped away would actively work to defeat any elected official who joined ‘the conspiracy’ by undertaking LA21. So we call our process something else, such as comprehensive planning, growth management or smart growth.” J. Gary Lawrence, advisor to President Clinton’s Council on Sustainable Development.
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Posted on June 14, 2011 at 5:44am by Mike Opelka
What is Agenda 21? If you do not know about it, you should.
Agenda 21 is a two-decade old, grand plan for global ’Sustainable Development,’ brought to you from the United Nations. George H.W. Bush (and 177 other world leaders) agreed to it back in 1992, and in 1995, Bill Clinton signed Executive Order #12858, creating a Presidential Council on ‘Sustainable Development.’ This effectively pushed the UN plan into America’s large, churning government machine without the need for any review or discussion by Congress or the American people.
‘Sustainable Development’ sounds like a nice idea, right? It sounds nice, until you scratch the surface and find that Agenda 21 and Sustainable Development are really cloaked plans to impose the tenets of Social Justice/Socialism on the world.
At risk from Agenda 21;
Private Property ownership
Single-Family homes
Private car ownership and individual travel choices
Privately owned farms
The Agenda 21 plan openly targets private property. For over thirty-five years the UN has made their stance very clear on the issue of individuals owning land;
Land… cannot be treated as an ordinary asset, controlled by individuals and subject to the pressures and inefficiencies of the market. Private land ownership is also a principal instrument of accumulation and concentration of wealth and therefore contributes to social injustice; if unchecked, it may become a major obstacle in the planning and implementation of development schemes. The provision of decent dwellings and healthy conditions for the people can only be achieved if land is used in the interest of society as a whole.
Source: United Nations Conference on Human Settlements (Habitat I),Vancouver, BC, May 31 – June 11, 1976. Preamble to Agenda Item 10 of the Conference Report.
There are two more, very good reasons to be wary of Agenda 21 and the International Council of Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI) that supports it: George Soros and the United Nations. Soros money has been tracked to funding parts of ICLEI;
In 1997, George Soros’s Open Society gave ICLEI a $2,147,415 grant to support its Local Agenda 21 Project
As regards the UN, that organization‘s problems with America’s appreciation of freedom and self-determination is one that needs no explanation.
Currently in California, Agenda 21 is working to implement plans to create plans for sustainable management of ‘open spaces.‘ The definition of what is to be considered an ’open space’ has sparked some heated exchanges between those directing the planning meetings and citizens who want private property rights to be respected and protected. (The East Bay Tea Party video featuring a Liberal Democrat arguing against ICLEI can be seen at the end of this article.)
This type of global plan could not be implemented without a large and well-funded group pushing through its priorities. For that, Agenda 21 has the International Council of Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI). And ICLEI is deeply entrenched in America;
ICLEI USA was launched in 1995 and has grown from a handful of local governments participating in a pilot project to a solid network of more than 600 cities, towns and counties actively striving to achieve tangible reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and create more sustainable communities. ICLEI USA is the domestic leader on climate protection and adaptation, and sustainable development at the local government level.
Over six hundred cities,towns and counties in America are members of ICLEI? Do you support your local government agreeing to rules and regulations set up by a UN-based organization that wants private property transferred to government control? If you would like to see if your community is a member of ICLEI, you can visit their website.
Austin, Texas is one city that seems to have fallen for the ICLEI/Agenda 21 and was heavily consuming the ‘Communitariasm’ Kool-aid. A local group called Texans For Accountable Government saw what was happening and attempted to stop the Austin City Council from adopting some Agenda 21-friendly initiatives. One of TAG’s members, John Bush, delivered a succinct presentation on ICLEI and Agenda 21 that was virtually ignored. Watch his short argument against the proposed local law immediately followed by the lopsided vote adopting the plan.
In the world of business Agenda 21 is not a free market friend, preferring PPPs or Private Public Partnerships where the government decides which companies will receive tax breaks and are allowed to stay in business. In light of this realization, the cozy relationship between the current administration and GE (a company that paid no tax in 2010) should raise eyebrows. And the WH efforts to tell Boeing in which state they can operate seems to further bolster the belief that Agenda 21 ideals are already making headway in America.
The seeds for Agenda 21 were planted back in 1987 when the writings of Gro Harlem Brundtland (a woman who was first Vice-President of the Socialist International) caught the eye of the UN. Dr. Brundtland wrote a report for the UN called, ‘Our Common Future’ eventually got into the business of environmentalism as a tool to control all the people of the world and establish a global government. The growth of ICLEI and the framework being put in place by supporters of Agenda 21 appear to be bringing Dr. Brundtland’s ideas closer to reality
In recent months, citizen groups across the country have organized and become involved in the removal of towns and cities from membership in ICLEI. The Roanoke, VA Tea Party is holding a rally this week in an effort to have ICLEI removed from their local government.
For a better understanding of Agenda 21 and ICLEI we suggest: The American Policy Center offers a one-page primer on Agenda 21.
From the Bay Area Tea Party we offer a long-form video covering Agenda 21;
The featured speaker at the Tea Party meeting, Rosa Koire, is a liberal Democrat who understands that Agenda 21 will destroy America as we know it. Rosa’s website, DemocratsAgainstAgenda21.com is also worth a visit.
H/T to the tireless members of the SFBAY 9-12 organization for all of their information sharing on the topics of ICLEI and Agenda 21.
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Reports from Cathie Adams, Eagle Forum International Issues Chair
Report #1, April 28, 2011
The plan to design a new Green Climate Fund (GCF) was an outcome of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that met in Cancun, Mexico, last December. The design team, called the Transitional Committee (TC) for the new GCF, is holding its first two-day meeting on April 28 & 29 in Mexico City. The GCF goal is to amass a minimum of $100 billion each year by 2020.
Even though the UN held many behind-the-scenes meetings to decide who would make the cut of 192 member nations for the 40-member design team, they got off to a halting start in Mexico City because they could not agree on who would lead the meeting.
Mexico thought that since they were hosting the meeting, they would lead it, but that did not meet with approval from the other 39 nations’ representatives. Among those vying for leadership were from nations as geographically, politically and economically varied as Samoa, Philippines, Nicaragua, Bangladesh, Spain, Japan, Denmark, Pakistan, Australia, Germany, the U.S., the U.K., Belize, Singapore, Switzerland, Ethiopia, Brazil and Saudi Arabia; a total of 25 “developing” (poor) nations and 15 “developed” (rich) nations. Late in the first day, co-chairmen were finally chosen from Mexico, Norway and South Africa.
“Developing” countries claim that they are the “worst and first” impacted by climate change and insist that the “developed” countries pay for their mitigation of and adaptation to climate change, which they are convinced is caused by the burning of fossil fuels. They are demanding “climate justice” and some are even calling for reparations.
None of the “developed” countries disagreed with the premise that climate change is man made or caused by burning fossil fuels. Instead, they seemed more interested in creating the Green Climate Fund with global governance, to replace their many smaller agreements between nations that have been developed since the 1997 Kyoto Protocol’s legally-binding treaty based on the unproven “global warming” theory. The 40-member TC is advocating for “scaling-up” the funds with global governance.
Capping the first day was a testimony from a global “youth” who advocated for a complete transformation of the global economy to “0” fossil fuel emissions by 2050 with complete “equity” and “transparency.”
No one is expecting the TC to complete the design for the GCF in Mexico City. Many are planning to meet at least three more times this year, but even then it is questionable whether they will have a plan to submit to the upcoming December UNFCCC meeting in Durban, South Africa.
Report #2, May 5, 2011
The Green Climate Fund (GCF)
The Green Climate Fund (GCF) Transitional Committee (TC) concluded its two-day meeting in Mexico City on April 29.
Tasked with establishing a $100 billion annual fund by 2020, the 40-member committee decided only their organizational structure and a “workplan.”
Three co-chairmen from Mexico, Norway and South Africa are to work with the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres to define their roles and responsibilities, as well as those of the facilitators, committee members, the TC secretary and the Technical Support Unit.
TC members from Spain and Barbados will act as facilitators for the first of four “workstreams,” (subcommittees) which is to focus on “scope, guiding principles and cross-cutting issues.”
Workstream II is facilitated by Switzerland and the Democratic Republic of Congo and will focus on governance and institutional arrangements for the GCF which is a “designated operating entity of the financial mechanism of the Convention.”
Australia and Pakistan will facilitate Workstream III which is to provide general guidance on the operational modalities of the GCF. That includes “support projects, programs, policies and other activities in developing country Parties” through “a variety of financial instruments, funding windows and access modalities, including direct access, with the objective of achieving a balanced allocation between adaption and mitigation.”
The fourth and final Workstream, led by Bangladesh and Sweden, is to monitor and evaluate the GCF’s performance and mechanisms aimed at ensuring financial accountability and performance of activities supported by the GCF.
Nations that attended the Cancun meeting last December already decided that the GCF would be governed by a Board of 24 members with specific distribution among nations, “have an interim trustee with a clearly defined role, and be supported by an independent secretariat.” A standing committee on finance will be created.
The World Bank is to oversee the GCF for 3 years and many believe it will be tough to replace them at the end of that term.
Report #3, May 6, 2011
Green Climate Fund Fundamentally
Transforms the Global Economy
Americans, and particularly the U.S. Congress, need to be aware of this UN taxing scheme before it is submitted for approval to the UNFCCC meeting this December.
The design of a new $100 billion a year Green Climate Fund (GCF) to “enable developing [poor] countries to address climate change” is a facet of last December’s Cancun Agreement of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), a treaty signed by President George H.W. Bush and ratified by the U.S. Senate in 1992.
Following the annual 2009 UNFCCC meeting in Copenhagen, the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon assembled a 20-member High-level Advisory Group on Climate Change Financing to make recommendations to the design team for the GCF. Group members included George Soros, Chairman of the Soros Fund Management, a representative from the World Bank, and Lawrence Summers, the Director of the National Economic Council and Assistant to President Obama for Economic Policy.
The High-level Advisory Group proposals for the GCF would fulfill the Secretary-General’s 2010 call for nations “to fundamentally transform the global economy — based on low-carbon, clean energy resources.” And the U.S. would be the biggest loser in every funding scheme:
- a carbon tax,
a tax on international aviation and shipping,
a financial transaction tax, and
a wire tax for producing electricity.
They also proposed taking 100% of the fossil fuel subsidies and redirecting them to international climate action.
The first meeting of the GCF design team, called the Transitional Committee (TC), met in Mexico City on April 28 & 29. The 40-member TC’s charge is to prepare “operational specifications for the GCF in time for approval by the next UNFCCC meeting in Durban [South Africa] in December [2011].”
Granting taxing authority to the UN would undermine national sovereignty and effectually transform the UN from “governance” to “government.” The UN’s “governance” already consists of an executive branch of appointed bureaucrats, a legislative branch that convenes when nations meet at a myriad of global meetings, and a judicial branch in the International Criminal Court, which the U.S. Senate has not ratified.
The scheme began in earnest in 1997, in Kyoto, Japan, when nations from around the world met to discuss the “global warming” theory, a thesis that “climate change” is caused when greenhouse gases are emitted when fossil fuels are burned. The meeting’s outcome was the Kyoto Protocol, a treaty that sets legally binding limits on greenhouse gases based upon this scientifically inconclusive theory.
At the outset, the U.S. Senate understood the negative impact it would have on the U.S. economy and unanimously passed a resolution advising President Clinton and VP Gore NOT to sign a treaty that would negatively impact our economy or would be applied to some but not all nations. The Kyoto Protocol failed on both counts. It applies to only 37 rich nations, but not the remaining 155, and would severely damage our economy.
Even so, President Clinton signed the Kyoto Protocol, yet did not send it to the U.S. Senate for ratification. President George W. Bush later unsigned the treaty, but remained a party to the UNFCCC.
Climate facts have not deterred the global agenda. “Climate-gate” and “glacier-gate” have tremendously undermined the man made “global warming” theory pushed within the UN system by the International Panel on Climate Change and exposed it as more of a political statement, than a scientific conclusion.
Whether a natural disaster, a drought or flood, a record-setting heat or cold, man made “climate change” is blamed because the poor nations want the GCF to become a major funding source to their economies. Even though China has surpassed the U.S. in greenhouse gas emissions, it is not bound by the treaty. Some even blame the U.S. for China’s emissions because China is a major manufacturer of American products.
Observers must conclude that since “global warming” is an unproven scientific theory, and since the greatest greenhouse gas producer is exempt from legally binding emissions limits, then the primary purpose of the GCF is to redistribute wealth from the rich to the poor countries.
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WHO IS IN CONTROL OF YOUR STATE?
Submitted by Bill Owra
 by Henry Lamb Freedom 21 - February 19, 2011 Why should the federal government dictate how land is used in Florida, or in Utah, or any other state? In the first place, land should be managed by the owner. In a free society, property especially land is an extension of the person who owns it. In order to acquire the property, the owner had to invest his time and effort or receive the property as a gift from another. In any event, property is a part of the owner. Just as a person determines how he will use his time and effort, he should also be able to determine how he will use his property. Should a person use time and effort or his property to inflict damage upon another person, the damaged person can rely on government to hold the guilty party accountable . This is governments only legitimate role in property owned by others. |
Aside from the ten-miles-square set aside by the Constitution for the Capitol, and land purchased with the approval of state legislatures, the federal government should own no land within any state. The Constitution does authorize the federal government to make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other property belonging to the United States. The evolution of the equal footing doctrine aside; logic, reason, and common sense should demand that land within a state should belong to the state, or to the individual citizens of the state who have acquired it. Land in territories that are not states is subject to regulation by the federal government. There is zero justification for the federal government to own, or claim to own, or control by decree or regulation, the land within the borders of any state....But it do e s. |
Western states have been fighting to gain control of the land within their borders for years, but the feds have found ways to keep control of the land, even though they are no longer a territory, but a state, supposedly accepted into the union on an equal footing with all other states. The reality, of course, is that the federal government agencies control the use of land which they refuse to turn over to the state, and the states are tired of it.
Meeting in Salt Lake City recently, representatives from several Western state legislatures, Congressional delegations, state and local agencies began to develop a strategy to oppose Secretarial Order #3310. The federal bureaucrat issued a decree with no regard for the requirement in FLPMA and NEPA that the federal government must coordinate with state and local governments to protect local custom and culture. Federal agencies routinely ignore these laws unless local officials or organizations hold their feet to the fire. Montana legislator, Derek Skees, has introduced a bill titled, "Transfer management of certain federal public lands" (HB-506), that gives the federal government 90 days to prove that its claim to Montana land meets the Constitutional requirement of Article 1, Section 8, Clause 17, or the land will be claimed by the state.
The federal government is beginning to feel the heat, as more and more local organizations and state and local officials are getting educated and encouraged to stand and no longer be steam-rolled by an out-of-control bureaucracy. Still, the best way to put a collar around the neck of this run-away federal government is to repeal the 17th Amendment and return real governing power to a state-elected Senate in Washington.
