"Protecting" US Forests by Burning Them

In New Jersey, not exactly famous for its forests, a large fire broke out in the Pinelands in early June, threatening homes and other structures before it was brought under control. In California, Colorado, and other States, homeowners are not so lucky as the beginning of yet another spate of cataclysmic forest fires occurs again.

You protect forests by providing for their proper management and that means timber companies have to come in and thin the old and diseased trees. Overgrown brush has to be removed as well. The US timber industry has been systematically attacked by environmentalists for decades in the name of protecting our forests. Does anyone remember the "Spotted Owl" hoax that claimed they were "endangered" and, in the process, led to vast acres of Northwest forests being put off limits to any use?

They are still at it. The US Public Interest Research Group, a Ralph Nader organization, along with the Southern Appalachian Forest Coalition, and the Sierra Club are demanding that the Bush administration "keep its word to protect 58.8 million acres of national forest lands." They are pushing hard for legislation that codifies the "Roadless Area Conservation Rule" which they describe as "one of the most sweeping land conservation measures in decades."

It is a completely idiotic proposal. It is criminally stupid. You cannot fight forest fires if there are no roads with which to reach the areas going up in smoke. "Conservation", however, in Green-Talk means putting land aside so that no one can use it for any reason.

The Federal District Court in Idaho has placed an injunction on the implementation of this "roadless" rule that was developed in secret by the Clinton administration and the Heritage Forests Campaign to deny access to 58 million acres of forestland that is the property of all Americans. On June 5th, forty-four members of the House of Representatives wrote to President Bush urging him to resist any effort to enact the "roadless" rule.

Americans have been led to believe we are losing all our forests at a time when many forests are expanding. The United States is still home to 70% of the forestland that was here in 1600, fully 747 million acres! Of these, 247 million acres (33.5%) are reserved from harvest by law or represent slow-growing woodlands unsuitable for timber productions.

There are 490 million acres called timberlands, forests that can produce more than 20 cubic feet of wood per acre annually. The total amount of large-tree standing timber in the US has increased by 30% since 1950. US forestlands covered 732 million acres in 1920; today they cover 747 million acres.

The Greens, however, have set about finding ways to put these productive and incredibly valuable forestlands aside so that neither the timber industry, nor anyone else can use them. This explains why the cost of building a new home or making an addition to an existing one has risen by an average of a thousand dollars. It’s not that we don’t have the wood! It’s that the Greens will not let the timber industry access it. It is nuts that the US is actually importing wood from Canada!

"Preserving and protecting our national forests for future generations must remain apriority," said Tennessee Congressman Bob Clement," as he sought support for the "roadless" legislation. Give me a break. We’ve got tons of national forests. In fact, our national forests were set aside with language that specifically made it clear that they were for the benefit of Americans, including their full use for recreation and for timber. This is just another Green plot to deny Americans access to and use of their natural wonders and natural resources.

If this "roadless" idiocy doesn’t get the job done for the Greens, there’s always the "Heritage Areas Act", (H.R. 2388) an equally hideous piece of legislation that was just voted out of the House Resources Committee. It would simplify the process for establishing "Heritage Areas" which is the federal government’s way of grabbing more and more land while denying Americans access to it. The Greens would turn the whole nation into a picture postcard to look at, but a place where no one can use to fish, hunt, camp, hike, visit with a snowmobile or off-track vehicle of any kind.

What you are never told is that half the land of the twelve westernmost States is actually owned by the Federal government. Federal lands comprise 83% of Nevada, 68% of Alaska, 64% of Utah, and 44% of California. The big lie is that "urban sprawl" is destroying the wilderness, but the total amount of land of US cities, suburbs, highways, bridges and other structures adds up to a paltry 3% of the entire landmass.

Meanwhile, one day you will wake up and find that your home, farm or business is now in a newly declared "Heritage Area" nobody bothered to tell you about. Then the government takes it away from you because it’s ruining the view. You have only a few days to let your Representative know they should vote against this bill.

This nation, this America, is being stolen from us, acre by acre, as part of the Green agenda and because there are legislators who want to add to the 40% of the nation already owned by the Federal govenment. You want to visit a place where the government owns all the land? Visit Cuba, Vietnam or Red China.

It is ludicrous for anyone to believe that the companies and people that depend on this industry for their livelyhood, would not protect that interest.

When I was young I worked in the timber industry in Idaho and Northern California. In both locations we took the utmost care to prevent erosion, clean up any brush and limbs caused by the logging operation,and make sure any stream beds were free of debris that was a result of our activities. The season following logging on an area we were required to replant the area with like species of trees.

Timber harvesting is a renewable resource. The only thing the environmentalists are accomplishing by opposing it is to eliminate U.S. jobs and create a tinderbox in our national forests.

There is an easy solution to this problem. The Congresscritters we send to Capitol Hill need to enact a law which immediately puts ALL Federal lands which are not in use by the Military, or by other Administrative offices, up for sale. The bill would stipulate that the State in which the land resides has first dibs on the purchase of all Federal lands within their borders, and because most states have a very small budget (as Washington is currently robbing their treasuries via the IRS), an extended payment plan would have to be set up. Legislation could be passed which stipulated:

Federal Excess Land Sale Act of (year)
Introduced into the (House or Senate) of the United States of America, in Congress Assembled on the (date), with the Intent of the Disbursement of all Lands held by the Federal Government which are not actively Serving any lawful Purpose,
* WHEREAS there are wildfires on Federal Lands which threaten hundreds of acres of land, and thousands of people annually, and
* WHEREAS the wildfires are brought about by poor land management policies inherent in Socialist land management agencies such as 1 Billion Acres of American land are under today, and
* WHEREAS the lands which are currently under the Federal Government's control are dangerous to the public, and
* WHEREAS private parties are more apt to manage these lands properly, as the Federal Government will never have the budget to do so, and
* WHEREAS the lands inside of the Sovereign States which make up the United States of America are under the direct jurisdiction of the State in which the Land resides, and
* WHEREAS it would bring vast sums of money into the Treasury of the United States, which otherwise would have to be raised by Income Taxation, and
* WHEREAS any Lands held under the National Park Service's authority are excluded from this Act, be it
* RESOVLED that as of (date), the Lands held under title by the Federal Government of the United States of America,

(a) which are not actively in use for the purposes of Military Readiness or Military Station, and
(b) which are not actively in use by the Executive Branch of the Federal Government for office space, and
(c) which are not otherwise in use by the Federal Government of the United States of America, pursuant to the Businesses performed by the same,

* Will be put up as FOR SALE, under the conditions that:

(a) the State in which such Lands reside is able to select for itself any portion of the Lands listed under this Act, and
(b) the use and disbursement of such lands purchased by the State in question are to be executed at the sole discretion of the State Legislature, and
(c) the State in question should have the funds in its Treasury to pay the asking price for the Lands in question, and if the State in question does not have said Funds, it can pay a portion of the asking Price over the next 5 years, and
(d) any lands not wanted by the State Government are up for sale to the General Public, to be sold as demanded. Be it noted that said Land may be purchased by any Legal Entity, defined as:

i. Individual persons able to pay the full asking price for said Lands, or any declared subset therein, or
ii. Company, corporation, joint-stock enterprise, Trust Fund, Charitable Organization, Advocacy Group, or other Legal Entities, or
iii. Banks, Credit Unions, or other Entities wishing to purchase said Land for resale,
iv. under the Conditions that Entities which are American Citizens, or whose primary Residence is within the legal Borders of the United States of America have preference over Foreign Entities when more than one Entity wishes to purchase any part or parcel of Lands.

* Furthermore, be it noted that the Lands disbursed by this Act, once out of the Legal Possession of the Federal Government of the United States of America, are a private-property entity, whose Purpose and Direction is under the sole responsibility of the Landowner, pursuant to the Various Laws enacted related to private land ownership within the Federal Statutes and appropriate State Statutes which apply to the Lands in question.

(Of course, since I'm not a lawmaker, the preceeding was only me brainstorming, and shouldn't be taken as either a literal Act, or anything approaching something which is passable by Congress. Someone would have to draft an official Act for Congress which covers more bases than this, and is specific enough to be debated. I'm sure Ron Paul could do it...)

If Congress were to sell the 1 BILLION acres of land they currently hold, we could very easily put off the income tax for about 10 years.... Plus, these "Public Land Use" issues immediately become irrelevant, as there would be no more concept of "Public Land" [at least, on the Federal level]. Personally, I wish Congress would do something like this, but I think with the power that the various Environmental and other Liberal lobby groups hold over the spineless twits on Capitol Hill, the odds of ANYTHING this free-enterprise happening are incredibly slim. Too bad, imho.

:) ttt

The Constitution only allows the Feds to control land that they have purchased. The Feds obviously have no interest in what the Constitution says.

Actually, there was Legislation passed by the United States of America, in Congress Assembled under the jurisdiction of the Articles of Confederation which gives the Congress the power to manage any lands held under its title. Look up the Northwest Ordinances of 1787, 1981, and the Homestead Act of 1863 (the years might be wrong. If so, my apologies). Because the Constitution of our current Federal government declares that the Laws passed before it was ratified continue to be the Law of the Land, these Acts are still lawful, and Congress is free to continue holding any land it deems appropriate. The solution is still to convince the numbskulls on the Hill that it's too expensive for Congress to manage the lands in question, when they could make a HANDSOME sum of money off of the general sale of the Lands, and in the process eliminate most of the onerous taxes we have to pay today.

Food for thought, in any event. FReegards!

:) ttt

Here is a link to Dale Bosworth's recent testimony and his report to House Resources Forests and Forest Health Subcommittee.

Actually, Forests in the West are not governed by the Northwest or Southwest ordinance. Those applied only to Western wastelands east of the Mississippi ceded by the original colonies to settle mutual war debt. They were generally lands to which the original states had deed title to the "federal" corporation of all the states through deeds of session.

Lands west of the Mississippi were acquired by conquest/treaty. Under the equal footing doctrine, they were to be held and governed in a territorial state like a colony until the formal establishment of new states. At that time, all the lands should have passed to the people of the new states as their "sovereign lands." With the exception of lands specifically reserved from Alaska and lands under specific treaty provisions, unoccupied wastelands, (just like the bed and banks of navigable streams,) should have passed to the new states. To have done otherwise has created Western states "less equal" than the original colony-states, which had their territorial sovereignty in tact.

The reservation of unoccupied land from "public land" (defined by SCOTUS as land surveyed and available for private disposal,) and the claim of federal ownership over these lands under FLPMA was a breach of fiduciary responsiblity under the trust to the people of the new states.

To say that the feds should now be able to sell this property to the states adds insult to injury.

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