The Obama Administration Land Grab

Rebekah Rast has written an interesting 10 June 2010 article for the Americans for Limited Government blog on the Obama administration's plans to steal more land from the American People.  She notes that the federal government owns about 30% of all the land in the U.S., including land for national parks, national forests, wildlife refuges, military bases, and myriad other purposes.  I have written about this problem earlier.  Particularly in many heavily federal government owned western states, the federal government has more control over the economy of a state than does the Governor and the the state legislature combined.

A memo of the Department of the Interior on its plans to use the Antiquities Act of 1906 to grab several tracts of land from among 14 listed as desirable was leaked to a Utah congressman, whose state is more than 60% owned by the federal government.  The 1906 law gave the President the right to designate any area of land that presents historic or scientific significance as federal land.  This is eminent domain gone wild!  Some of the planned acquisitions are as big in area as Rhode Island and Delaware combined!  It is thought likely that about 2 or 3 of these desired tracts of land will be taken and designated as national monuments.  Which tracts of land will be taken will be decided by political cronyism.

The Utah governor is so upset with federal restrictions on land use and the subsequent negative impact on the state economy that he authorized the use of eminent domain to take land back from the federal government.  He hopes other states will do the same.  I wrote about this earlier.

Rast notes that Harry Reid, despite 13.7% unemployment in Nevada, a state more than 80% owned by the federal government, blocked a pit mining operation on federal land in Sloan Hills which was to have provided sand and rock for 20 years to be used by companies for cement making and other purposes.  A great deal of money invested in the project was lost, along with many jobs.

She also notes that many logging jobs have been lost in Washington state.  Many small towns have lost the industry that was their lifeblood due to protected forestry laws.  Federal control of timber leases and roads for access to the timber has been used to create many ghost towns.