Surviving the Omnivomit Land Bill
‘Making Utah Safe for Californians’ or ‘To the Victor goes the Spoils’ or ‘Bipartisanship? What Bipartisanship? We don’t need no stinking Bipartisanship!’By Christian Probasco, 4-04-09
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When a monster like the omnibus lands bill gets shoved through Congress, the first question we outsiders ask is: ‘does it affect us?’ i.e. our state, our county, our city, etc. In this case it’s no, and yes. No rivers in Sanpete County were federalized and no actual wilderness was converted into official “wilderness.” However, Utah’s punishment for not helping elect Barack Obama, in terms of the lands bill, was the closure of several tens of thousands of acres of land down in Dixie to motorized traffic and economic development.
This Salt Lake Tribune editorial pretty much says it all but since the Tribune is about as far left as Rush Limbaugh is right, you have to translate the text. “Utah is a big winner in the Omnibus Public Lands Management Act just passed by Congress” (and now signed into law by Obama) actually means, “The OPLMA advances the interests of urban progressives while sticking it to rural Utahans.” Somehow the fact that “local governments no longer will get the proceeds of any public-land sale” is a glorious victory for the whole state. Huzzah!
Now as to how the bill does affect us Sanpeters and everybody else in the West: if you so much as accidentally kick a rock that a paleontologist might theoretically be interested in, on public lands, your “vehicles and equipment” can be confiscated and you can be thrown in prison for up to 10 years. The new bill makes it illegal to “excavate, remove, damage or otherwise alter or deface or attempt to excavate, remove damage, or otherwise alter or deface any paleontological resources located on Federal land.” (emphasis mine, of course). If you kick the wrong rock, the feds can seize your car/truck/Jeep/bike and transfer it to a “federal or non-federal” institution, i.e. the Forest Service, or the Sierra Club or the local police benevolent association and then throw you in the clink for a long time.
I used to feel that dinosaur fossils deserved greater protection from looters. But this is ludicrous. The new law implicates anybody who unknowingly steps on a rock that has a fossil in it. If you travel on federal lands, you’re probably guilty.
Maybe you’re one of those souls who believe the feds will enforce the new law judiciously. That’s possible. It’s never happened before in the history of this nation or any other, but I will grant you, it’s possible. But isn’t it more likely that we’ve just given law enforcement another incentive to seize property without due process?
Prior to the bill’s passage, the federal agencies which oversee ‘our’ national parks and forests, and wilderness areas were hurtin’ for cash. There was a supposed ‘backlog’ of maintenance work to be done. Now, their territory has been expanded. Huh? Shouldn’t we have reduced the forest service’s/park service’s/BLM’s jurisdiction instead of increasing it?
Outside the leviathan lands bill, Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar has already channeled the Obama administration’s displeasure with our “Pretty Great State” into the fiat cancellation of oil and gas leases. His excuse was that “he was concerned the Bush administration had rushed the (seven-year) review process.” I’m not positive but I think that line of B.S. was lifted straight out of a press release fired off from “Earthjustice’s” Ministry of Propaganda.
I want to make it clear when the inevitably beefed-up and militarized U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service gets a report of Deseret milk-vetch (Astragalus desereticus-- a endangered, perennial, herbaceous, subacaulescent legune) sprouting in my backyard, and considers confiscating Mt. Pleasant that I am not your typical Utahan and should not be treated as such. No! I believe in the theory of evolution, for example. And I don’t think any version of “intelligent design” should be taught in our, or anybody else’s, public schools. I’m starting to warm up to the idea that current global warming is at least partly human-caused. I dunno, maybe mostly human-caused. I’m fixing up a Volvo to use as my daily commuter car. I listen to NPR (it’s one of the few programs that comes through). I’m trying to figure out a way to run my house with solar power. And I’ve lived in the West long enough to know there is no God. Or at least, that he has forsaken us here! So I’m not particularly religious. You might even call me secular. Go right ahead!
Naw, just kidding. I mean, I’m kidding about getting special treatment. I like all my neighbors except the police, judges, lawyers and politicians. I mean the other 99 percent who work for a living. The Old Westerners. Even the overly religious. So I’ll take my chances with them. Go ahead Washington DC, do your worst! As if you weren’t already.
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Comments
Remember the old saying, "A republican is a liberal who's been mugged?
Welcome to reality.
I guess if fake, anonymous real Mike hates it, you got it about right.
The bill was a catch all to pay back the faithful before anyone could mount a defense. Pelosi Power Play 101...and it will come back to bite her geriatric ass sooner than later---and not from Republicans but from her party faithful. "Shovel Ready Wilderness." It's a done deal. And so is all the stuffing alongside the protections. Wilderness does not come cheap. Concessions were made. Only nobody is talking about them.
I'm sorry you couldn't find useful in the article. Why don't you go prospecting for fossils in a National Park?
"Why don't you go prospecting for fossils in a National Park?"
Why would I want to do that? It's a Nat'l Park - that means enjoy it and leave it as you found it. That isn't anything new. Is that really what you're meandering point is - that you're whining because you can't collect fossils in a Nat'l Park?
Your point about "anyone who accidentally kicks a rock is committing a federal offense" is ludicrous. You've taken the most extreme (and unrealistic) interpretation of the law to serve your point (and I'm still not sure exactly what that point is, anyway).
Regardless, of course the OPLA isn't perfect - nothing of that size and scope could be. And nothing happens in D.C. without some compromise. But I believe that there are many, many good things that will come of it and that's what needs to be looked at in the big picture. Sorry, if your personal fossil collection suffers.
As I have more than one job and I need to get involved w/ the other, let me be brief. Smithhammer you are reiterating the point I made in paragraph four but not as concisely. Also you are missing what I thought was a pretty obvious point; asking you to go prospecting in a national park was like asking you to take a long walk off a short pier. I was not encouraging anybody to go prospecting for fossils in national parks. Except you. Also, if you believe I've "taken the most extreme (and unrealistic) interpretation of the law to serve your point," you should take it up w/ the Association of Applied Paleontological Sciences, which believes the bill may give the government the authority to seize homes. My point is that legislators should, at the very least read the entirety of the bills they are passing before they inflict them on the public. Better yet, they should pass fewer bills. I'd be satisfied w/ none at all.
If you still can't figure out where I'm coming from, check out some of my earlier posts. I'm the sort of person who would like government to go away more and come back less.
Nelson Muntz, aka Ha-ha;
I believe you are describing the logic and spirit in which the bill was passed.
"I'm the sort of person who would like government to go away more and come back less."
A fine sentiment, but would you really want this? Would you really rather see our public lands administered by private industry? Would many of our current public lands even exist if it wasn't for the vision of those in government who saw the need for protection before it was gone?
This issue is primarily about further public land protection, which I support. And while I'm certainly not a fan of everything about our government, our legacy of public land is something I'm eternally grateful for, and one of the things that makes the U.S. unique in many ways. Try going hunting or fishing in Europe - there's a reason they are viewed as "rich man's sports" in many European countries - because everything has been privatized, and you have to pay, often exorbitantly, to pursue those activities in any decent sort of habitat, if you can even find such a thing.
I spend a lot of my time, both working and playing, on public lands, and I don't want to see the European lack of wilderness happen here.
I make a portion of my living on the upper Snake river, in the area that will be receiving Wild and Scenic designation, and I couldn't be happier about it. It means that the reasons why people travel to the upper Snake to fish will continue to be there - without threat of further damming, powerboats, unchecked development, etc. And if that's seen as "restrictive government," then take your whining elsewhere. It is preserving something of intrinsic value by saying that it is an appropriate place for some activities, and not for others. We sometimes have to do that, before we develop this entire amazing place all to hell. It's called restraint and sacrifice for a greater good and future generations.
I also strongly believe the Wyoming Range should be protected from further oil and gas development, and many hunters and anglers agree with me. Again - I'm all for it.
Those are two of the specific bills in the OPLA that hit particularly close to home for me. As I already said, there are some things about the OPLA that aren't perfect. But much of it - most of it, by far, is a really good thing. And yeah, I see "where you're coming from," but I still don't see you offering a preferable alternative, one that would continue to guarantee us, and our offspring, wild places to recreate as I grew up doing. Until you do, I'll continue to support our government doing so.
I do agree that ALL legislators should be forced to read every bill they vote on, and I think there has been a movement afoot to pass legislation saying that (you could probably look it up through downsizedc.org, bearbait probably will…he’s good at rooting things out) and personally, I feel that if they pass one law, they have to pick two old ones to be removed from the books…maybe we would get smaller government.
But someone somewhere needs to keep an eye on just what is being done with our public lands, and how we ensure that they are not degraded for future generations. Private industry has certainly not shown they are capable stewards and state governments have not stepped up, so we leave it to the bloated, lumbering federal bureaucracy, and we get what we get.
I’m not buying the conversation that we must utilize every natural resource at whatever cost to our public lands. Hunting, fishing, tourism, are infinite resources if managed, and can't be pushed to the last most remote places just because those happen to be too difficult to mine/log etc. Resource extraction by definition is finite. We could put a man on the moon in about 8 years using slide rules and a room full of computers with the same capacity as your TI hand held calculator (probably less)…we certainly should be able to solve the clean energy nut without creating even more environmental harm.
A healthy debate on the issue can be useful and healthy, and I'm sure there are going to be some not so happy surprises in this bill, but this commentary was just vile ranting. Puts you in the same tent as the ranting on the other far side...most of us live somewhere in the middle.