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CALIFORNIA WILDERNESS COALITION CONTROVERSY GROWS
4x4wire.com ^ | May 31, 2002 | by: John Stewart

Posted on 07/06/2002 7:08:07 AM PDT by madfly

May 31, 2002

by: John Stewart

An independent group recreation advocates has been investigating the California Wilderness Coalition (CWC) and their involvement with the California Wild Heritage Act of 2002 proposed by Senator Boxer, D-CA.

Initially exposed was conflict of interest on the part of U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) employees and CWC that involves the misuse of the USGS logo and official titles of employees on a lobbying letter to California Governor Gray Davis. In that letter, dated 30 April 2001, a group of individuals claiming to be “scientists” signed a letter to Governor Davis advocating support for habitat areas and linking corridors for wildlife in the state of California. This letter was based on conclusions from a 79 page report entitled ‘Missing Linkages’ detailing the primary wildlife migration routes in the state of California. As reported in the San Francisco Chronicle on 7 August 2001, the report was the product of an ad hoc committee supported by the California Wilderness Coalition, the U.S. Geological Survey, the Nature Conservancy, the Center for the Reproduction of Endangered Species, and the California Department of Parks and Recreation that met in November of 2000. The report and letter were prominently displayed on CWC web site for a number of months.

The letter to Governor Davis featured the logos of the USGS and the California Department of Parks and Recreation along with the logos of the CWC and the Nature Conservancy in an effort to lobby the governor’s support of their agenda of linkage of wildlife habitat areas identified in the Missing Linkages report. In addition to numerous signatures of individuals representing environmental organizations, the letter contained the names and official titles of federal employees from USGS, U.S .Forest Service (USFS), and Bureau of Land Management (BLM), and signatures and official titles of California State Parks and California Department of Parks and Recreation employees.

In response to an inquiry to the USGS, Director Grout reported that the CWC did not have authority to use the USGS logo and the USGS employees were “junior level employees” that signed a blank piece of paper. These signatures, along with their official titles and the USGS logo, were improperly placed on the letter by the CWC without the knowledge or approval of the employees or the USGS. When CWC became aware of the inquiry into the improper use of the official logo of the USGS, they modified the letter posted to their web site. The modifications consisted of the removal of the USGS logo and the signatures of the “junior level employees” of the USGS that had signed the letter as “concerned scientists”. On 27 February 2002, an addendum posted to the CWC web site “regretted the error” in improperly using the logo and names of the USGS employees.

Federal statues (5 CFR 2635-702(c)) are explicit. Federal employees are allowed to participate in political activities as PRIVATE citizens. They may not use their public office to influence legislation or lobby political agendas. According to federal statue, the federal employees would be in violation of federal law if they signed the letter in their official capacity and authorized the use of their names in their official capacity. The CWC used the signatures of the USGS employees without their permission and misrepresented the USGS sponsorship of the Missing Linkages report. The USFS and BLM employees are in apparent violation of federal statute as their signatures and official titles appear on the letter.

Research of the California statutes covering conflict of interest and ethical conduct by state employees indicates that the logo for the California Department of Parks and Recreation and the use of official titles by state employees is a conflict of interest when used for other than official state business. The California Department of Parks and Recreation logo appears on this letter along with the signatures and OFFICIAL TITLES of some state employees. The state employees are in positions that could influence the decision affecting state lands and access to the public and achieve a “personal gain”. Like the federal statutes, California statutes prohibit state employees from using their official position for personal gain. The letter to Governor Davis is a directed lobbying effort and the state employees signing is in apparent violation of state statutes of using their official office for personal gain; i.e. they are using their official title to lobby the state for a personal belief. The use of the official logo is also an apparent misrepresentation of “official” state support for the letter subject.

California state records list the CWC as a 501(c)(3) organization. With that organization charter, CWC is allowed to engage in certain activities, including limited lobbying. They are not allowed to engage in “substantial” lobbying or other effort to develop or influence legislation without claiming such activities as a “substantial” function when filing their income tax forms. IRS regulations state “if a substantial part of the activities of the organization consist of carrying on propaganda or otherwise ‘attempting to influence legislation’, the organization’s exemption from federal income tax will be denied”. CWC tax records for the year 2000 do not reflect their filing for that special status. However, within that tax year, they sponsored the “conference” that lead to the Missing Linkages report, a directed lobbying effort, and, within that time frame, they were actively engaged in developing the legislation presented by California Senator Boxer as the California Wild Heritage Act of 2002. To further compound the issue, CWC is not a registered lobbyist organization with the State of California or federal government.

The evidence to date indicates that federal employees for the USFS and BLM violated federal statutes covering ethics and conflict of interest and employees of the State of California violated state statutes covering ethics and conflict of interest.

CWC engaged in an effort to submit a directed lobbying letter to California Governor Davis which includes improper use of official logos of the USGS and California Department of Parks and Recreation and signatures of federal and state employees in violation of federal and state statutes. The signatures and official titles of the USGS employees were placed on the letter without their approval.

CWC violated their tax exempt charter by engaging in substantial directed lobbying efforts through organizing the conference, submitting the letter to Governor Davis, and participating in the development of legislation not permitted from a 501(c)(3) organization.

We believe these facts contributed to Paul Spitler's resignation from his position as Executive Director of the California Wilderness Coalition.

In response to an inquiry to Vice President Cheney, this information has been referred to the Justice Department for review.

Senator Boxer’s office was provided with this information detailing allegations of violation of state and federal statutes, fraud, and tax violations along with a request for an investigation. A certified letter receipt acknowledged her office received the information. When asked for a comment, Tom Bohigian, Chief of Staff for Senator Boxer, replied, “We’re not interested.”

Supporting validation of the truth behind these allegations, the California Wilderness Coalition has started to remove information from their web site. One page removed from their web site states:

"The California Wilderness Coalition (CWC) is implementing The Wildlands Project vision in the Golden State.

The first stage of this effort are the mapping meetings we will hold throughout the state. The purpose of these mapping meetings is to gather conservation activists, scientists, and other folks who care about wild California together to map areas critical for the reservation and restoration of biological diversity and wilderness. These maps are not meant to be scientifically valid, peer-reviewed documents. Rather, the maps are meant to assist the conservation community in identifying priority areas for preservation and restoration.

The second stage is the establishment of regional workgroups to implement The Wildlands Project's vision. We intend to help create such workgroups in the northern Sierra, southern Sierra, desert, south coast, north coast, and central coast. These workgroups will identify over the years to come ways to make The Wildlands Project Vision a reality in their local areas."

The result of these “mapping meetings” was the legislation, “California Wild Heritage Act of 2002” (S2535) introduced by Senator Boxer on 21 May 2002.

While information is being removed from their web site, archive copies of the CWC web site dated September 7, 2001, April 17, 2002 and May 10, 2002 have been collected.


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Extended News; Front Page News; Government; News/Current Events; US: California
KEYWORDS: biofraud; california; enviralists; envirals; esa; forests; forgery; landgrab; natureconservancy; senboxer; wilderness
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To: madfly
Light is a great antiseptic...thanks!
21 posted on 07/06/2002 10:24:34 AM PDT by EternalVigilance
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To: madfly
" The first stage of this effort are the mapping meetings we will hold throughout the state. The purpose of these mapping meetings is to gather conservation activists, scientists, and other folks who care about wild California together to map areas critical for the reservation and restoration of biological diversity and wilderness. These maps are not meant to be scientifically valid, peer-reviewed documents. Rather, the maps are meant to assist the conservation community in identifying priority areas for preservation and restoration.

The second stage is the establishment of regional workgroups to implement The Wildlands Project's vision. ... From which immediately followed Boxer's LAW implementing their "findings" ....

And, of course, the whole thing was hidden under the veil of these meetings .... for the enviro's, by the enviro's, with the enviro's ... and the public be damed.

22 posted on 07/06/2002 10:25:04 AM PDT by Robert A Cook PE
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To: tonyinv
"/Liberal Excuses (for now)"

Yep...more like the liberal mantra (only when caught) "it was an honest mistake."

23 posted on 07/06/2002 10:27:59 AM PDT by cake_crumb
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To: MissAmericanPie
Liberals are sicko's. For all their high flying retoric, they think nothing of lying, cheating, misrepresenting, falsely accusing, and manipulating. When is someone in the press going to tell it like it really is? If you have to lie, cheat, and spin for a cause your cause isn't worth defending.

Little do you know how true this is. There is a dirty little secret behind all this "anti-cattle" rhetoric and it's all about money, coercion, and your food security.

Who is the biggest investor in Argentinian cattle?

George Soros, and he's not alone.

Would he fund enviro-groups to run around wailing about the "harm" cattle do to shut down domestic production?

In a heartbeat.

Would Georgie poo threaten you with starvation if you don't cave to global governance and pay his price for meat?

That's the plan.

Are there any unintended consequences?

You will note that in all this wailing about the forest fires that there is no talk of grazing. Yet grazing can do a great deal to keep down the underbrush and maintain meadowlands. Without it, meadows are overgrown with brush and trees, the forest stands connect, and the fire rips through unabated. The meadows then repropagate in trees (becuase of the seed) and the meadows are gone for good, and with them their ability to provide cover to protect soils after fire is lost. It leaves an open medium for weeds. The result? Permanent conversion of natural habitat into something incpapble of producing food and fiber.

Is that an environmental impact?

What? Do they think this is justifiable? People, especially the press needs to stand up and call them what they are, bald faced liars and cheats.

Yes they do. The problem is that they are so obsessed with their own guilt for living that they can't see. They are worse than merely liars, they are the tools of the progeny of the very destructive monsters who raped the land from the East Coast in the first place.

Slave Party investors have put BILLIONS into foreign food production. They move food consumers onto the land that once produced making money on the real estate conversions. They control those conversions (in the name of controlling sprawl) so that only their friends can profit. They squeeze on the remaining developable land so that the bank reserves marked to market will rise. They will hold you hostage in slavery spending your every minute paying for your urban hell-holes and when they are done with you, or should you protest, might well watch you starve or die of disease.

That's what the Agenda21 really means.

24 posted on 07/06/2002 10:37:03 AM PDT by Carry_Okie
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To: Grampa Dave; Robert A. Cook, PE; cake_crumb; Excuse_My_Bellicosity; madfly; Free the USA; ...
Please, see #24.
25 posted on 07/06/2002 10:43:30 AM PDT by Carry_Okie
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To: Carry_Okie
I wonder how much hemp and a certain other green crop, Soros will plant in these new Druid Cathedrals if his group ever wins.

Can conservatives say Soylent Green, recycled food, crammed into Goron inner cities and loss of freedom?

Let the enviral nazis get their way, and these words will become the daily nightmare of our children and grandchildren.
26 posted on 07/06/2002 11:04:34 AM PDT by Grampa Dave
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To: Grampa Dave
Yup. It's the same game as the power crisis: artificial shortages in the hands of a global oligopoly.
27 posted on 07/06/2002 11:07:00 AM PDT by Carry_Okie
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To: Carry_Okie
That's what the Agenda21 really means.

Indeed.

28 posted on 07/06/2002 11:08:03 AM PDT by EternalVigilance
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To: Carry_Okie
There is no shortage of oil/natural gas. There is an overage of Opec, Opecker Princes, and other dark side forces which create these artificial shortages.
29 posted on 07/06/2002 11:10:23 AM PDT by Grampa Dave
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To: Grampa Dave
Sorry, I still don't think you get it. The enemy is us.

The UN Habitat Conference report concludes:

"Public ownership of land is justified in favor of the common good, rather than to protect the interests of the already privileged."

Isn't it the privileged who are behind all this? No, it's the VERY privileged.

Maurice Strong is a Canadian billionaire, a Board member of Petro-Canada and Dome Petroleum, and President of Ontario Hydro. He is Director of the IUCN, Chairman of the Earth Council, Trustee of the Aspen Institute, Director of the World Future Society, Director of Finance for the Lindisfarne Association, founder of Planetary Citizens, member of the Club of Rome, Chairman of the World Resources Institute, and Co-Chairman and founder of the Council of the World Economic Forum and Senior Adviser to the President of the World Bank. He is President of the World Federation of United Nations Associations, Senior Advisor to the UN Secretary General and for the Rockefeller and Rothschild Trusts.

In addition, Mr. Strong's credentials include membership in the UN-funded Commission on Global Governance. It's 1995 report entitled Our Global Neighborhood contained a number of ominous proposals including:

* UN control over global commons: air, oceans, space, the electromagnetic spectrum...

* The establishment of a global tax system on all currency transfers,

* Expansion of the powers of the World Bank,

* Removal of the veto power in the Security Council,

* Creation of an Economic Security Council to rule the world's economy,

* Expansion of the International Criminal Court to adjudicate it, AND

* A standing UN Army to enforce it.

Maurice Strong is the chief architect of Global Governance, and co-authored the Earth Charter with Mikhail Gorbachev (not exactly what you would call the equivalent of a Constitutional Convention, is it?). Gorby must have acquired his environmental credentials during his career in the KGB because he now has his very own "accredited" environmental NGO, the International Green Cross. He says, "Nature is my God." Perhaps he found religion after the job he did on the environment of the former Soviet Union.

Mr. Strong was Secretary General of the 1972 Earth Summit in Stockholm and the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. Mr. Gorbachev addressed the assembly to cheers. What do these guys know about taking care of dirt?

All rights conferred to "Citizens of the World" under UN Treaty are granted by the UN. What if they change their minds? The UN Charter states that all rights are subject to the purposes of the UN, whatever they may be.

Let's see... The UN foists rules driving production overseas. Imported oil and imported food means lots of currency transfers and the UN then taxes those, but this isn't about money; this is about the environment, right?

No. It's about money. Environmental set-asides are capable of manipulating supplies of critical commodities. They increase the value of producing lands and substitute goods in the hands of multinational oligopolies. Regulations depress the price of acquisition by forcing competitors into a distressed sale.

One wouldn't think that titans of altruism were interested exclusively in charity. Oil company foundations fund a coterie of environmentalists to end nuclear power, breach hydroelectric dams, tie up access to reserves of oil, gas, geothermal, coal, solar, wind power, and rely entirely upon a constrained supply of which fossil fuels to supply our high-technology economy? There are so many of such manipulations that no one strategy can describe them all. The scale is breathtaking.

The same corrupt political and legal control system, advocated by so many environmentalists as some kind of solution to "the problem," is the same system we were using in the days of unfettered rape of the land. It's STILL the rich guys in charge. The only difference is that they have tamed an army of NGO lawyers and bureaucrats to do their bidding.

Most of the people doing the dirty work for these financiers call themselves "Citizens of the World." They don't care what it takes to save The Environment as long as it is under their direction. They have egos to feed, mortgages to pay, and a weak understanding of the history of their benefactors. A paycheck makes it easier for them to explain away the ecological damage that betrays the actual priorities of Global Governance: money and power.

Bureaucrats and NGO functionaries have absolved themselves of accountability for the results of their actions with the urgency of their individual and cultural rhetoric, choosing instead to focus upon a final solution. They have already decided that the world will be better off without 80% of its people. They call it "carrying capacity."

The Global Biodiversity Assessment, concludes that:

"...an agricultural world, in which most human beings are peasants, should be able to support 5 to 7 billion people...a reasonable estimate for an industrialized world society at the present North American material standard of living would be one billion. At the more frugal European standard of living, 2-3 billion would be possible."

The current global population is approximately 6 billion. The trend of growth rate is declining and may turn negative this century. Estimates of carrying capacity range from 1 to 40 billion people, depending upon whom you ask, but perhaps the statement is more revealing than it would at first seem.

That's how many people it will support, the way they intend to run it.

Most activists are ignorant of where a process like this leads, and have no clue that their supposedly altruistic benefactors may be more interested in sequestering or accessing mineral wealth than in healthy habitat. Once the Constitution is gone, they are easily replaced.

When the United Nations adopts the Earth Charter, they will legally consider everyone a "Citizen of the World," superceding national citizenship. Your rights would then be "harmonized" to those conferred by the UN and just as easily taken. The International Criminal Court can then prosecute anyone, anywhere, with no jury, under multiple jeopardy, and with no habeas corpus.

At the opening session of the Rio Conference (Earth Summit II) in 1992, Mr. Strong said that industrialized countries have:

"developed and benefited from the unsustainable patterns of production and consumption which have produced our present dilemma. It is clear that current lifestyles and consumption patterns of the affluent middle class -- involving high meat intake, consumption of large amounts of frozen and convenience foods, use of fossil fuels, appliances, home and work-place air-conditioning, and suburban housing -- are not sustainable. A shift is necessary toward lifestyles less geared to environmentally damaging consumption patterns."

A shift is necessary for the middle class, the very group capable of making the technologies Mr. Strong can't envision, that might well prevent the environmental crises he supposedly stresses about from ever developing. This from a guy who came up through an oil company and ran an electricity monopoly and was caught trying to drain and sell the Ogalala Aquifer?

Source
30 posted on 07/06/2002 11:46:23 AM PDT by Carry_Okie
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To: Carry_Okie
You are totally wrong! I do get it, and it ain't all blue helmeted UN Devils causing our enviral problems. We have a ton of local non UN enviral devils here. They are home grown and in for the $'s and the power that they get. Most of them couldn't spell U N!

Focusing on the UN will drive people away from your work! Focus on the enviral bastards here or you will lose your opportunity!

Later if there are tie ins wrap them up together.

Do I love the UN. No, the day it ceases to exist, I will be very happy. They will be basically a non entity in 7 years. I refuse to spend my remaining days worried about an organization that is terminal. The UN is about as healthy as Fidel and Communist Cuba is.
31 posted on 07/06/2002 11:58:15 AM PDT by Grampa Dave
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To: Carry_Okie
I think one of the most literally enormous problems that face the UN today is the availability of the Internet to Americans.

Your book is moving into the right places and the true education is spreading amongst previously ignorant individual.

Of course another problem is the number of firearms held in Canada in the US by individuals who are not willing to lay down and be trampled by corrupt socialism promoters.

"The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it." ~ Albert Einstein

32 posted on 07/06/2002 12:14:56 PM PDT by B4Ranch
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To: Grampa Dave
Focusing on the UN will drive people away from your work! Focus on the enviral bastards here or you will lose your opportunity!

I am, and you STILL don't get it. The UN isn't a cause, it is merely a TOOL to use international law to get around the Constitution. It is a creation of international investors who USE the UN and the envirals, the NEA, the gay lobby, whoever to do their bidding. It always has been. Those investors are, in large part, American citizens belonging to the Slave Party, the limousine liberals. Others, primarily Europeans are adherents to the old Fabian socialist Popular Front. They simply organized the UN to be the most corruptable government on earth. It is simply organized crime on a grand scale.

They (the UN) will be basically a non entity in 7 years. I refuse to spend my remaining days worried about an organization that is terminal.

Oh really? Is that why we are doing Kyoto no matter what Bush says? Is that why the ICC is still there and we are only talking about protecting US soldiers? Is that why we are building gas pipelines into Afghanistan before it is secure while we stifle ANWR? Is that why Simon can't get a nickel out of the GOP and Rove's people are taking pot shots at him? Don't look at what the RINOGOP Screw Party is saying, Dave, look at what it DOES. There is a reason the Slave Party has been as successful as it has at raising corporate donations. Look at how the politicians are talking about organizing "stakeholder meetings" to reach a "consensus" on what to do after these Western fires. Look at how private, non-corporate agriculture is dying and how the farm bill is organized to accelerate that process. What will become of the red zone then? Look at Siskiyou, where government is now the number one employer, farmers are selling out to developers, and urban voters are moving in. It's a demographic war. To the Eastern RINOGOPs it's play along or die.

33 posted on 07/06/2002 12:30:54 PM PDT by Carry_Okie
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To: Carry_Okie
Stop Rural Cleansing

Oh yeah, and 'Heads on Pikes'...the b*stards!

Horsewhipping would be a good start; we could save the 'piking' for a public holiday.

34 posted on 07/06/2002 2:04:21 PM PDT by headsonpikes
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To: madfly
Stop the attacks by the wacko, extreme left-wing, enviro-nazis terrorist's on our Freedoms !!

Freedom Is Worth Fighting For !!

Molon Labe !!

35 posted on 07/06/2002 2:24:23 PM PDT by blackie
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To: Grampa Dave
Right-on Dave !!

Stop the attacks by the wacko, extreme left-wing, enviro-nazis terrorist's on our Freedoms !!

Freedom Is Worth Fighting For !!

Molon Labe !!

36 posted on 07/06/2002 2:27:07 PM PDT by blackie
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To: Grampa Dave
Focusing on the UN will drive people away from your work! Focus on the enviral bastards here or you will lose your opportunity!

His work could not offer a true solution without the truth about the origins of the problem. He has first hand knowledge of Agenda 21 and is trying to educate the rest of us. I cannot convince a very good friend of mine that the UN is not for world good.

On Thursday, Koffi Annan held a rare press conference, regarding the NTY leak about war in Iraq. After an opening statement and maybe 2 or 3 questions, ALL the news stations cut away to a car on a freeway near Menlo Park, surrounded my swat teams. Now why would the media deprive of us a live Q&A with last year's Nobel Peace Prize winner? I'm still wondering how he answered questions from the press. Problem is, there are reporters from the international press, whose questions might enlighten us to what the rest of the world is being told, while our news is sanitized.

37 posted on 07/06/2002 2:45:27 PM PDT by madfly
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To: madfly
thanks for the ping
38 posted on 07/06/2002 3:43:44 PM PDT by Libertarianize the GOP
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To: Libertarianize the GOP
your welcome !
39 posted on 07/06/2002 4:17:15 PM PDT by madfly
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To: madfly
"On Thursday, Koffi Annan held a rare press conference, regarding the NTY leak about war in Iraq."

Q: I understand that you've been alerted to the report in the New York times on military plans by the US to invade Iraq, was it mentioned in the talks and did it impact them?

40 posted on 07/06/2002 4:42:05 PM PDT by hammerdown
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